The hotel’s main staircase folded into the wall to the right of the front door. At the other end of the lofty main hall, however, behind the check-in counter, another set of stairs rose to a balcony. This staircase had an open balustrade with carved spindles and a polished railing. The gallery above it encircled the hall, with several doors opening off it.
Those were rooms in the original house, the woman who introduced herself as the innkeeper explained, and dated from 1840. The rest of the mansion had been added starting in the 1870s, with renovations continuing into the first decade of the twentieth century. The man who was now the ghost had lived here in the 1860s, adopted by the family when he was in his teens. He now returned to check on the place, it was said, to make sure the house his adopted family had left him was doing well.
Sure he does. Kenzie trained her glare on the balcony.
The older couple from the bar had been joined by two younger ones, and even the honeymoon couple emerged. All turned eagerly toward the staircase and gallery.
They waited. The large case clock in the hall struck half past one, then ticked on toward two.
One of the men behind her let out a long sigh. “He’s not going to show. I’m going to bed.”
He started to move, then his wife gasped, and Pierce said, “Whoa.”
Gil was there, on the balcony at the far end of the hall. He hadn’t been a second ago, but Kenzie blinked and then saw him in the shadows.
He was dressed in the old clothes he’d worn in the photo, including the rather battered hat, and stood so that the indirect light made his outline a little fuzzy. His smooth face was blank, his eyes strangely still as he gazed straight ahead, not looking down into the hotel. For a ghost reputed to be checking on his adopted family’s home, he seemed not to notice it.
“He’s really here,” a woman whispered. The click of a phone’s camera went off. “He’s so lifelike.”
Kenzie hid a snort and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Hey, Gil,” she called.
He was good. Gil never looked at her, never moved his ghostly hand from where it rested on the railing, but Kenzie saw him start, saw his eyes flicker.
With a suddenness that had the rest of the guests jumping, she launched herself down the length of the hall, past the polished check-in counter, and up the gallery stairs.
“Shit,” Pierce said, and banged out the front door.
The innkeeper trotted futilely after Kenzie. “Wait—you can’t go up there.”
Gil performed to the end. He slowly lifted his hand and took a step back . . . and vanished.
Gone. Just like that. Kenzie blinked. Was he really a . . . ?
No. Ghosts didn’t exist, just as zombies didn’t. There’s no such thing as the walking dead, Bowman had growled.
Gil had to be using magic. Some kind of shaman magic that confused the eye, maybe, or a glam, as Ryan had speculated. Kenzie’s skepticism helped her see a flutter of movement at one of the doors, and hear a click as a latch caught.
Kenzie ran down the gallery to the door. It was locked. The manager came behind her, her voice distressed. “You can’t go in there!”
Kenzie could go anywhere she wanted. The door was solid, but Kenzie was strong. A few well-placed kicks, and she was through. The manager shrieked and headed back to the stairs, no doubt to call the police.
The room Kenzie found herself in was old, dusty, and used for storage. The only light came from behind her—the yellow glow of the downstairs chandelier, dimmed for the night—but her Shifter sight let her see well enough. French doors on the other side of the room were closed, but a cold draft told Kenzie they’d been open moments before.
She dodged haphazardly placed furniture and boxes and flung open one of the doors. Modern ones, she saw, with shiny brass fittings. Someone would need a new key to get in from the outside.
The French doors led out onto a balcony. The night was so quiet she easily heard a thump below as someone landed on dirt, then the sound of feet running away.
“Ghost, my ass!” Kenzie shouted after him. “When I catch you, Gil, you will be a ghost.”
She leapt to the balcony’s railing, balanced on it a moment, and sprang off into darkness.
CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE
Cade watched Bowman, a worried look in his bear-brown eyes. Bowman growled in irritation and continued to shove Turner’s books to the floor.
They’d reached the trailer house in the woods to find no one home. The front door had been locked—Bowman remembered the keypad on the inside—but the doorframe was weak enough for a Shifter to pull off. Cristian had done that, in fact. Bowman also remembered Turner boasting about electrifying the windows, but Jamie found the junction box and made short work of the wiring.