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“Can I ask you something?”
Jake paused, a cinnamon bran muffin halfway to his mouth. “Please don’t ask for the muffin,” he said, his face filling with mock horror. “It’s my favorite.”
“No, silly, I’m not asking for the muffin.”
“I’ll share,” he offered.
“Eat your muffin. I want to ask you a serious question.”
“It’s a little early in the day for serious questions, but I’ll make an exception. Go.”
“Your apartment is on the third floor. Well, all except the planet of dreams.” She pointed to the bedroom suite above them.
“Planet of dreams, huh?” he grinned. “I like that.”
“Yeah, I thought you might. But seriously. You live on the same floor I’ve been staying on. Have you ever heard ‘the babies’ crying at night?”
“No, of course not. It’s all in people’s imaginations. Power of suggestion, and all that.” He scooped the last of the scrambled eggs onto his plate. “Want any more?”
“I can’t believe you’re still eating. We had a ton of food, and it’s almost all gone.”
“Growing boy,” he said with a wink. “Storing up energy, in case my Gera battery gets weak.”
“I heard them, Jake.”
“Heard who?”
“The babies.”
He looked at her oddly for a long moment. Saw that she was serious. He pushed away his plate and reached out to take her hand. “It’s getting to you, isn’t it?” he said softly. “I can see how it would. Total immersion in a new place, where people are throwing ghosts at you at every turn. The mind is a powerful thing, but it can be tricked at times—”
“I’m not being brainwashed, Jake,” she snapped. “I know what I heard.”
“I didn’t mean—”
She shook off his apology and started over. “I should start at the beginning. I have a theory about what’s been happening in town. I think that someone has manipulated the townspeople into believing that Mac is responsible for the recent crime spree, so that they will also blame him for Abe’s death. I’ve been studying reports of the Mac sightings. Most of them are in relatively the same location. Which led me to another theory, one concerning the hotel.”
“Is that why you were looking through the ghost journals, the ones where guests record their own sightings and experiences here at the hotel?”
“Yes, and I discovered a pattern here, too.” Gera took a deep breath and plunged in, head on. “What if it’s rigged, Jake?”
“What do you mean?”
“Think about it. They have the perfect setup, the perfect opportunity. Leo and Lucy have the run of the hotel. Keys to every room. A reason to go inside when guests aren’t present. What if they’re the ones rigging the hotel, to have babies crying in the night and children’s toys appearing out of nowhere? What if they’re the ones taking the soap and the toilet paper and extra washcloths?”
“What—What are you accusing them of? You think they killed Abe?” His voice was sharp.
“No, no, no,” she was quick to assure him. “This has nothing to do with Abe or Mac or any of the things happening in town. This is about The Dove. I know what I heard and what I saw, but since there are no such things as ghosts, then there has to be a logical explanation for all the odd things that happen here.”
His Adam’s apple bobbed. “But what you’re suggesting is dishonest. Borderline fraud.”
She grabbed his hand in both of hers, pressing warmth into fingers turned cold. “I don’t think they see it that way, Jake. And I don’t think they’ve done it to be dishonest. I think they were trying to save the hotel, and at the time, it seemed the logical solution to a very real problem.”
“I—I don’t know...”
“When did these supernatural sightings begin to take place?”
“After MiniMa died.”
“When did Leo take charge of the hotel?”
“After MiniMa died. But that doesn’t mean...” He pulled his hand free and got up to pace the room. He shoved his hands through his hair and left it spiky and unkempt, and oh, so sexy. “Oh, God, what if I’ve been defrauding the public all this time?”
“You haven’t defrauded them, Jake.”
“I’m the majority owner. I’m the one responsible for everything my staff does. Leo and Lucy have a share in the company, but I’m the president and CEO. I’m the one who is ultimately responsible.”
“I could be wrong, Jake,” she offered softly.
“It makes sense. Now that I think about it, it seems so obvious.” He brushed a hand over his face. “How could I have been so blind?”
“You said it yourself. You love them. They’ve been like grandparents to you. And no matter what means they used, they kept this hotel afloat after your grandmother died.” Gera got up to stand in front of him, effectively putting an end to his pacing. She wound her arms around his waist and lay her head against his bare chest, listening to the steady pump of his heart. Such a good heart, she thought with a smile. Such a good man.
“I looked into the financial records of the hotel.” When he stiffened, she assured him, “Public records, nothing more. Before the internet went on the blink again, I checked out some of what I’ve learned the last few days. I remembered you told me about Grant Young, trying a similar tactic with you to get title to the hotel. I remembered it yesterday, when he dropped me off here. When he looked at the hotel, I swear he had a look of... almost lust... upon his face. Definitely greed. Envy.”
“Maybe he was thinking about you, imagining you in my bed,” Jake murmured, his voice a rumble in his chest. “Definitely envy worthy.”
“Not to sound full of myself, but I thought of that,” she admitted. “But no, this was something different. It wasn’t about me, it was about the house.”
“What does this have to do with Leo and Lucy?”
“When your grandmother died, she owed quite a bit of money.”
“Yeah, she mortgaged the hotel to make improvements. You have no idea how much money it takes, keeping a hotel up to the expected standards of its guests. People want to stay in a historical property, but only if it comes with granite countertops and flat screen TVs and high-speed internet.”
“Let me guess. She took out the loan, shortly after Grant Young took over the bank.”
“I don’t know, maybe.” He ran the timeline through his head. “Probably.”
Gera nodded. “When Grant took over at First Yavapai, he did wonders for their bottom line. Business tripled, mostly because he convinced half the town to refinance their loans or take out new ones. I’m guessing your grandmother was among that half.”
“So when Leo took over, he took over a property deep in debt.”
“I think he came up with a brilliant solution. That was about the time all those ghost shows popped up all over television. And let’s face it, people here in Jerome were easily convinced. It probably didn’t take much to get the legend started.”
“Then why did he resort to trickery?” Jake’s voice was clearly distraught.
“Granite countertops,” Gera murmured. “The public always wants more.”
They stood for a long time, arms locked, and Gera could’ve sworn she heard the sound of his heart breaking, there inside his chest. Her own heart ached for him.
“I can’t let them continue,” he whispered, his voice rough. “I’ve got to stop them.”
“There is an upside to this,” she told him.
“Yeah,” he quipped. “A gorgeous reporter came to town, blew my mind, then blew my whole world apart. Left me broken hearted, in more ways than one.” He sounded mournful. “At least we had last night.”
She dropped her arms and stepped back. “So, what? You’re going to blow me off, just like that?”
“You’re leaving in a few days, Gera. We both know that.” He sounded miserable.
“Can we please just tackle one problem at a time?” She sighed, taking her turn at torturing her own hair. “The whole time I’ve been here in this very strange town, I’ve been hit with sensory overload. Ghosts, murder, sexy hotel owner, an Old West sheriff and a charming banker, an old woman who keeps disappearing on me, a snake-loving bartender who drugs me, someone else who’s trying to scare me, imaginary children who play in my room... I could go on, but you get the drift. I literally feel as if I’m caught in the Twilight Zone. The only way I can take all this in is to dissect it, one piece at a time. So, please, help me out here.”
His tone was less than helpful, more like skeptical, when he asked, “I think you mentioned an upside?”
“Yes, there is. One, your loan is paid in full. No matter what happens in the future, you don’t have to worry about losing the hotel your grandparents started so long ago. The legacy can remain in your family.”
“So, the upside is that when we start losing all our guests, the only thing we have left to lose is electricity, and running water, and food to serve in the dining room. Which won’t really matter anymore, because we won’t have any customers. Sweet.”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you, SuperClark. No, the upside is that your hotel will be solvent, and you can rely on things like your reputation, not your trickery, to keep guests coming.”
For the first time, he looked hopeful.
“You can still do the ghosts tours. You can even play the lullaby in the hallway, with the whole spiel about comforting the babies. The legends can stay. But the trickery needs to stop.”
“No more recordings of babies crying and pranks on the guests.”
“Exactly. I wasn’t at all fond of the sticky sucker or the blaring television set. Believe me, people can fill in the blanks with their own imaginations. Let them hear what they think they hear, see what they think they see.”
He caught her by the waist, puffing her hair in disarray when he blew out a warm sigh. “Thank you,” he said softly. “It wasn’t something I wanted to hear, wanted to know, but it could save my family’s legacy. All we need is a lawsuit and I could lose everything my grandparents worked so hard to build. And thank you for making me see that this isn’t the end, but an opportunity to be new and improved. And that’s always what guests want, isn’t it?”
“Please don’t look so sad. I feel like I just broke your heart.”
“And now I have to go break the hearts of two people I adore. They’ll think I’m disappointed in them.”
“Then tell them how much you appreciate what they did. That they saved your hotel financially, and now you have to save it legally.” She reached up to touch his face, caressing the strong curve of his jaw. “You’re a very persuasive man, SuperClark. I should know. I was all set to say no last night, but I’m so glad that I didn’t.” She pressed a chaste kiss onto his lips. “And you’re a good man. You can do this.”
“Come here, Lois Lane. I need some of your amazing energy source right about now.”
But instead of making love to her, he merely held her, gathering the strength he needed to face Leo and Lucy.
