Page 45 of Girl, Haunted

Her posture stiffened, unconsciously putting an extra inch of space between herself and her partner. Luca looked down and caught it.

‘You putting distance between me and you now?’

A sour taste flooded Ella’s mouth. Nothing about this case made a lick of sense. What the hell connected the vics? And what was the deal behind this creep professional hauntsfake? At this point Ella half-expected to find Casper the unfriendly ghost waiting in the parking lot.

‘Sorry. It’s just… you know.’

‘I know? You want me to make a feminine hygiene joke?’

‘No. But you know what we have to do now.’

Luca scanned the room then drew a breath through clenched teeth. ‘Yup. Something we should have done yesterday.’

‘Let these people go. Then we’ll go outside and give the bad news to the sheriff.’

They had no choice. It was time to pull the plug on this circus. If the killer wantedreal,Ella would give him a real ghost town to play in.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Outside the Crypt of Despair, the afternoon chill gnawed through Ella's jacket like a thousand icy needles, and yet her insides felt like they were being slow-roasted over hot coals. The joys of being a woman, she figured. Could the menopause really hit at 30? Weirder things had happened. Mother Nature was a real bitch sometimes.

Luca was inside speaking with the owner of the establishment, and Sheriff Redmond was watching two assistants from the Yamhill Country Coroners play tug-of-war with the body of Benjamin Clarke as they loaded him into a van. Poor guyhad probably thought the scariest thing waiting for him in this place was an electric shock from a faulty wire, or maybe an eager actor in a clown mask.

The joke was on him. He'd found out the hard way that real monsters didn't need makeup.

Ella made a beeline for Redmond. He removed his hat, scooped the sweat off his head and flicked it to the ground.

‘Anything from the interviewees?’

‘It’s the same guy. Leather jacket and gloves, same as we saw on the Screamatorium footage. Just a different mask this time.’

‘It’s not much, but it’s something,’ Redmond said. ‘Guess Roland Pierce is off the hook now.’

‘Depends exactly when Benjamin Clarke was killed. It’s what, forty minutes between here and Nocturne House? It’s possible Roland did this then rushed to his gig, but…’ she trailed off.

‘But probably not,’ Redmond finished.

‘Yeah. Probably not.’ She jammed her fists into her pockets, trying to coax some feeling back into her frozen fingers. ‘We'll check his alibi, but chances are it’ll check out.’

‘Well, the owner of this is getting everything he can for me. CCTV, customer lists, names of the two actors he had working this afternoon.’

‘Great. Ask him to differentiate between guests who paid in cash and card. Our guy is smart, so he wouldn’t have left an electronic trail.’

On the other side of the lot, the morgue van shut its doors and rolled off into the afternoon. Ella watched it go, and told herself that as soon as the van was out of sight, she’d give Redmond the bad news.

He must have sensed it, because he asked her, ‘Any other good news you wanna share, Agent? My ulcer could use a laugh.’

‘Sorry, fresh out of good news, but I’ve got a steaming pile of bad news if you’re interested.’

‘The job says I gotta be. What is it?’

She gestured to the building. ‘Our unsub’s getting bolder. Striking in broad daylight now. He knows these haunted houses better than the rats in the walls, and he's got the balls to pull this off with a crowd just rooms away.’

Redmond’s face went the color of oatmeal. ‘Why do I get the feeling you’re about to ruin my week? Even more so?’

‘Because we need to go nuclear. Need to shut every haunted house down until we catch this guy. Take away his playground.’

Redmond’s Adam’s apple dipped like it was trying to escape his throat. ‘We’re gonna make a few enemies. You know Halloween season is prime trade for these kinds of places.’

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