Page 16 of Gumbo, Ghosts, and Deadly Deception
I tapped to stop it, heart thudding.
“It’s been recording since she left this room,” I murmured.
I moved it to the middle of the recording and played about a minute.
At first, only silence. Then the rustle of fabric. Footsteps. The sound of the window creaking open. Wind. Whispering—so faint I couldn’t tell if it was real or electronic feedback. Then, suddenly, a voice. Clear. Urgent.
Delia’s.
“No.”
There was a pause. A faint noise, like a door opening.
“They’re here. I—I didn’t think they’d find me this fast?—”
Static. Then nothing.
FIVE
“What’s going on?” Pete from Houston asked me when I reentered the parlor. He was loaded down with shopping bags and wearing multiple strands of purple, green, and gold plastic beads around his neck.
Jan was sprawled out on a sofa. For a split second I thought she was also dead but then she shifted and mumbled a little.
“Is Jan okay?” I asked.
“She’s drunk,” Pete said. “The girls texted me that they’re locked in their room because someone died and they’re freaking out.”
I had informed the honeymooners and the paranormal enthusiast about Delia’s passing and offered to move them to another hotel. The honeymooners had taken me up on the offer and had already packed up and left. Arthur had chosen to stay. He mentioned he had met Delia at several previous events and wanted to hear what the outcome was.
The high school girls and Pete and Jan had been out for the evening but at some point the girls must have returned without me knowing.
I tried to downplay the death. “We’ve had an unfortunate incident, yes.”
Drunk or not, Pete wasn’t buying it. “Is someone dead or not?”
I nodded. “The authorities are upstairs.”
With incredibly unfortunate timing the coroner’s office chose that exact moment to bring Delia down the grand staircase in a body bag.
“Jesus,” Pete murmured. “What the hell happened?”
“It’s probably a natural death.” That was my theory and I was sticking with it.
In spite of a recording that claimed, “They’re here.” She might have just meant in general someone was in the house that she wasn’t expecting to arrive yet. Or something like that.
Jan heard the commotion and turned on the sofa to peer into the hallway. Her eyes widened and then she promptly vomited all over my antique rug.
Out of all my difficult days since I had taken over Midnight House, this was by far the worst so far.
The next morning came with the kind of brutal sunshine that New Orleans loved to deliver. Bright enough to make you squint and completely inappropriate given that someone had died in a bathtub twelve hours earlier.
I sat in the kitchen nursing my third cup of coffee and staring at Delia's letter, which I had read approximately forty-seven times since finding it on my back step. Each reading made it sound more ominous and less helpful.
The truth about Francine Darrow is hidden in your house. Odette made sure of that. Look for the room that doesn't exist on any blueprint. The key is in the recipe for her famous jambalaya.
"Famous jambalaya," I muttered to Teddy, who was sprawled across my feet as a reminder that at least someone in this house was capable of sleeping soundly.
Pete and Jan had decided they weren’t up to relocating to another hotel last night but they had bunked with the girls after I had dragged their mattress into the room and dropped it on the floor. I had been exhausted but even then I had to admit that it popped into my head I was losing a ton of money because of this, which had made me feel instantly guilty.
