Page 15 of Can't Stop
“Used to?” Dalton asks.
But the woman has already stumbled off the platform and wandered back to her chair. It appears she’s finished talking to us. She plucks up her fox, then sits and strokes its fur as she mumbles something to it.
“Well, this was fun,” I say. We gather ourselves as the spinning feeling recedes, and once we can see straight, we head toward the woman. “Could you at least tell us where we can find the inn?”
She doesn’t answer me with words. No, that would be too normal. Instead, she raises a gnarled finger and points to a road running through shadows. Oak trees guard both sides of the pavement like sentries.
“Should have figured it would be that road,” Dalton mutters.
I grab his hand and head for the car. Maybe we should make a little detour and destress before heading to our next objective.
Once we’re finally back in the safety of our vehicle, with locked doors and windows rolled up, I pull out our activity list and start looking through it. Dalton does a double take when he notices.
“You can’t be serious. Now isn’t the time for fun and games, bones. We are the creepiest people I know, so if we are getting creeped out, I think it’s time to leave. I’ll spend the rest of my life making this up to you, but we have got to get out of this town.”
He’s right. But I can’t leave Van Gogh.
“Forty-eight hours, Dalton. After that, I promise we’ll leave.”
He sighs and starts the car, and off to the inn we go.
Chapter Eight
Dalton
Despite the inauspicious path we took to get here, the inn is the most cheerful looking building I’ve seen in this town. The oak trees eventually opened up, allowing some fall sunshine to peek through the clouds and shine on the antiquated Victorian-style house. The gingerbread eaves give the building a fairytale quality that is very at odds with literally everything else we’ve seen in Oak Hollow.
I put the car in park, and our feet crunch through fresh gravel as we make our way to the front porch. A wind chime sings from above the railing, but this one isn’t made of bone. It’s your typical metal-tube contraption. The sound is much less unsettling.
A tiny bell trills as we open the front door and step inside. An older woman seated at a large wooden desk pops her head up and smiles as we enter. After pushing her glasses up her thin nose, she plucks up a pen and pulls a ledger from a drawer. Her gray ponytail barely wiggles as she sits back in her seat.
“How many guests should we set the table for?” she asks with a giggle.
Rayna looks to me for an answer. Great.
“Just the two of us, but we were looking for a room, not lunch.”
The woman nods, then replaces the ledger in the drawer before pulling out a different one. When she speaks again, her voice has changed. Instead of light and airy, she sounds tired, as if every one of her years has finally caught up to her at this very moment.
“Are the two of you married? If not, you can’t have a room with only one bed. You have to sleep in separate beds.” She says this without looking at either of us. Her entire focus remains on the ledger as she flips pages and exudes condescension. “I have one room with two beds. For two nights, your total will be?—”
“Total? Oh, our friend said the room would be comped,” Rayna blurts, and my stomach twists when she calls Samuel our friend.
The woman clears her throat. “Yes, well, that’s why it’s best to let people finish speaking, hmm? Your total will be nothing, as your room has been covered by the town’s mayor.”
“Rude,” Rayna mutters under her breath.
I step forward before she launches herself over the desk. “We appreciate the hospitality, but could we see the room first? We won’t be staying in a basement, will we?”
“Basement?” The woman screws up her nose as she rounds the desk and grabs a key from the holder on the wall. “Why on earth would we put you in the basement? That’s where we house the bodies.”
“Excuse me, did you just say bodies?” My legs keep following her, even though my brain says to run for the door.
She starts up the stairs, and Rayna has to push me to keep me moving. “Yes, the bodies of our dead. The inn is also the funeral home and morgue, you see. And the most popular restaurant in town, thanks to our chef.”
“You have a personal chef?” Rayna asks.
The woman stops at the top of the stairs and turns to face us with a smile. When she speaks, she uses a French accent this time. “You are, how do you say, looking at her, no?” With a laugh, she turns and leads us to a door.
