Page 63 of All You Want
“I’m sure he’s dragged her back to his lair and they’re having wild cave bear sex all winter.” Rosalie presses her hands across her breastplate and makes a swoony sound.
“She hit the jackpot with that fox costume.” Suzette pouts and plops on her bed. “What a little tart, swinging that bushy tail under his nose.”
Rosalie yawns and starts unlacing her costume. “I’m bushed. Maybe I’ll have a ghostly visitor. A berserker Viking warrior would do the trick.”
“Since Larissa’s not coming back, why don’t you spend the night here with us?” Suzette suggests.
“I might just do that,” I agree. “I was going to sleep in the office, but this will be like old times. We can tell ghost stories.”
“I’d rather tell sex stories,” Rosalie says. “Would you like a cuppa tea?”
“No tea, but I have to go get my overnight bag. I left it in my car because I wasn’t sure if we’d have any room for me.”
After leaving Ma Belle’s Tearoom, I go by the control panels and set the timers for the haunt effects. Since Larissa is not in the room anymore, I change the audio from her name to mine for the goodnight wishes and morning wakeup greeting.
This is going to be so much fun, and I should take some time to celebrate. Considering all things, this is the perfect ending to a perfect night.
My hotel is booked to capacity, and we haven’t had any incidents requiring the police. I’m sure Todd must have been hot and bored inside that furry costume. Maybe Larissa caught up with him after I gave him the riot act.
That hurts, but don’t I deserve some respect?
Maybe not. No one’s ever looked at me the way Grady looks at Linx or the way my dad cherishes my mom. Actually, there was one boy, who was the son of a maid I used to have, but he was older than me.
He used to watch me when I played piano, and his eyes followed me around whenever I had a tea party with my dolls. I asked him to join me once, and he ran off, embarrassed.
After that, I kept asking him to have tea with me, but he always ran, so his mother, who we called Mooma, played with me.
She read to me, and she brushed my hair. She bathed me, and she dressed me. We played gin rummy, and she always let me win.
One Halloween, she dressed as a giant spider and had a tea party at our haunted barn party. Somehow, the tea was poisoned, and she drank it and died.
Which is why I have an aversion to tea and never want another cuppa ever.
I finish up with the haunt effects and lock up the office, bumping into Neil on the way out.
“Good night, Miss King,” the concierge says. “I’m heading home, unless you need me.”
“You deserve to go home. What a night, right?” I give him a high five. “Can you walk me to my car so I can get my overnight bag? It’s a little spooky out there.”
“Especially with that Bigfoot guy missing.” He tips his head back and laughs. “Think he’s lurking out there in the forest?”
“I doubt it.” I press my lips together and walk with him to the employee parking area where I get my overnighter.
“Looks pretty quiet out here,” he observes. “Shall I walk you back inside?”
“No, it’s fine.” I bid him goodbye and watch his car drive away.
On the way back in, I take some time to look at my hotel from the outside. Some of the windows are still lit, but most of the guests are asleep. The campers in the parking lot are gone, and a dog barks intermittently from the vicinity of the Sixty Miners Saloon.
An owl hoots, and I feel, rather than hear, the air movement of his wings as he glides between the trees. The smoky scent of fireworks hangs around, and mist descends along with the temperature.
The air is nippy. A wicked wind howls through the treetops, and clouds partially block the full moon. I hope the forecasts are wrong, and it won’t rain or snow on Halloween and ruin our special trick or treat adventure.
Trickvenger Hunt is taking trick or treating to a new level. Guests will be given a map to several haunted venues on our property where they figure out puzzles and lockboxes while getting their brains scared out of them by ghouls and scary denizens of the night. Tricks and treats will pop up or drop down on the unsuspecting trick or treater, and since this activity is outdoors, it would be ruined if it rains.
I take a deep breath, telling myself to stop borrowing trouble, and cross over the loading dock toward the employee entrance. My feet are sore from the vintage tie-up shoes I’m wearing, and my hair’s a sweaty mess underneath the Victorian hat I pinned to the braids I tied around my crown. I need to get to bed and be up at the crack of dawn to supervise the breakfast from the crypt activity where the buffet table will be stacked with bone-shaped buns, pancakes dripping with strawberry sauce, and eggs with ketchup zigzags on the whites to look like bloodshot eyes.
A sliver of light gleams from a door that’s been propped open. I’ll have to have a talk with the staff about locking up. I get that they need their smoking break, but I can’t have kids sneaking into the storeroom to steal alcohol or rummaging through my linens and supplies.
