Page 22 of Spark
The ghost is targeting members of the Ornelas clan!
The realization hit Sophie as she sat in the town’s small library, skimming through old newspaper articles in an attempt to find an actual date and details about the murder.
After her encounter with Eddy Ornelas yesterday afternoon, Sophie had interviewed several other resort employees who’d had unsettling and unexplainable experiences while working at the hotel late at night or early in the morning.
She hadn’t realized it at the time, but among all of the housekeeping, kitchen, and guest services staff she'd spoken with, none of the Ordinary employees had reported seeing or hearing anything strange.
Everyone who worked at the hotel had all heard stories about the haunting, and specifically, they had all been warned to avoid going into Room 444 alone.
But all the people she’d spoken with so far who had reported that they'd personally experienced some kind of frightening encounter or unexplainable prank at the hotel, were also related in some way to Eddy Ornelas.
Sophie had been sitting in front of the library’s microfiche reader for two hours now, scrolling backwards through old issues of theBearpaw Ridge Heraldnewspaper. She knew for certain that there hadn’t been any murders at the hotel since her arrival in Bearpaw Ridge fourteen years ago, so she used her arrival date as the starting point in her search.
At first, she was amused to see articles chronicling events she’d heard about for years from various people at the Grizzly Creek Ranch. She stopped frequently to read those old articles, comparing them to the versions of the stories that the Swansons told.
The most interesting set of articles were those printed after Chris's dad was arrested for trying to attack and murder Caitlyn. Those stories had been carefully sanitized of any mention of shifters, but the events still made for chilling reading. Sophie knew that a lot of people in town still resented Pete Langlais, and now she knew why.
He was definitely a different—and much better—person now, but she now also had a better understanding about why Chris had always been closer to his uncle than his dad, even after Pete saved a bunch of people and was pardoned for his crimes.
Being a small-town paper, there were also countless articles about fund-raisers for good causes, occasional celebrity sightings, visits from state and national politicians, fires, vehicle and farm accidents, and the occasional crime or drunk-driving incident.
More sobering, as Sophie's continued her journey through the area’s history, she found mentions of the death of Aunt Margaret’s first husband, Ryan Swanson, while deployed in Iraq, and a few years further back, an article about a horrific head-on collision that had claimed the life of Grandma Elle’s first husband, Ashton Swanson, while she was still pregnant with his namesake Ash.
As the stream of scanned newspaper pages flowed by, Sophie found fewer and fewer references to people she knew, so she stopped to read less often.
Then, when she had gone back in time fifty years, and was beginning to think that maybe the murder was just some kind of local legend, she found what she had been looking for.
Wedding murder suspects acquitted of all charges
Local men Luis Ornelas, 20, and Alejandro Ornelas, 40, were acquitted yesterday of all charges stemming from the murder of local woman Laura Tringstad. A third suspect, the victim’s newlywed husband, Silvio Ornelas, 25, committed suicide before he could be brought to trial.
Excited by her find, she read the rest of the article, and discovered that the killing had taken place at the Bearpaw Springs Resort.
Bingo!This was probably the story that she’d been searching for.
Apparently, the suspects had both been able to produce a convincing alibi for the time of the murder, and they had testified that the dead man, their cousin Silvio Ornelas, had also been elsewhere at the time of Laura Tringstad’s murder.
The victim’s bridesmaids had accompanied her up to the honeymoon suite and helped her out of her wedding dress, but then claimed that Laura had sent them away, telling them that she wanted to take a shower and change into something special before Silvio joined her for a glass of wedding-night champagne.
Sophie sent a copy of the article to her cloud storage, and kept reading. She snagged another article, this one about the trial itself, then continued going backwards until she hit the period of time immediately following the murder.
Wedding murder suspect found dead
Bearpaw Ridge - Local man Silvio Ornelas, 25, was found dead in his police station cell early this morning. Bearpaw Ridge Police Chief Kenneth Jacobsen said that the cause of death is currently unknown. Deputies arrested Ornelas three days ago on suspicion of murder, following the murder of his bride at the Bearpaw Springs Resort on their wedding night.
She grabbed that article, too, and resumed her scan through the paper’s archives. She was so close now!
She found the article about the arrests of Silvio, Alejandro, and Luis, then hit pay dirt with a lengthy front-page article about the murder, published the day after it occurred.
Local Bride murdered at Bearpaw Springs Resort
Bearpaw Ridge resident Laura Tringstad, 24, was found dead in her hotel room yesterday evening, immediately following her wedding to Silvio Ornelas, 25, also a Bearpaw Ridge resident.
Found it!Sophie thought.And not a moment too soon. The library was closing in fifteen minutes, and it wasn't open on Mondays, so she would have to wait until Tuesday to return if she didn’t get what she needed now.
She skimmed the article eagerly and discovered that the murdered woman had been found in the bathroom with a canvas bag over her head, multiple stab wounds, and the room reeking of a stink bomb.
Stink bomb? It sounds like Laura's killers knew that they were dealing with a shifter, and didn't want her to smell them…
