CHAPTER FOUR
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“BOSS, WE’VE GOT a problem.”
Raj jerked at the voice out of the darkness.
The tool in his hand shook, nearly slicing apart both the red and blue wires.
Taking a breath, he patted the wall freshly decorated with stained wallpaper.
Peering over his shoulder, he caught a hint of a man lingering in the darkness.
In the bleak hotel, where light barely peeked through the rotten wood boarding up the windows, it was easy for his brain to leap right to ghost.
That’s silly. Ghosts aren’t real.
“What is it?”
“Upstairs, in the rooms.” He pointed above them, and Raj tried to not groan. There was always something up there.
Taking a deep breath, Raj patted the exposed innards of his zombie butler.
“Another day, Jeeves,” he said and closed up the panel.
The animatronic twisted, and the pneumatic arm dropped like it was going to slap Raj.
With care, he eased around the fragile prop and joined the construction worker on the other side of the main desk. “You might as well show me.”
The Heartbreak Hotel was exactly what one pictured when told to imagine a haunted hotel.
Chandeliers dusted with cobwebs hung above a grand foyer.
The gold faded, and the marble grayed with age.
Strange stains formed from water not only above but across the floor as well.
One in particular almost looked like a body that’d fallen from the upper floors.
He’d made sure to add a little paint to emphasize the illusion.
It screamed of grand opulence from a time when self-appointed nobility ran the country and no one thought the dance would end.
Raj loved it the second he saw the grotesques on the turrets in the website pictures.
But the years had not been kind, requiring a lot of upkeep that’d taken unexpected months.
He’d been putting in double overtime back in California, doing his best to finish up the last touches on his final movie and had had to trust Logan to handle all of this.
Raj should have known that one—he’d be working on CGI knife glint until the week before the movie released, and two—the hotel would be a mess.
Taking the staircase, Raj inspected the fake candles flickering in tree branch sconces gnarled to mimic human hands.
Two of them were out. “I’ll have to fix that,” he said.
At least the busts in the wall worked—their faces following him as he climbed.
It was the old inverted illusion that worked better than anything mechanized.
Up above, he was able to stare down and see his Pepper’s ghost effect.
To those daring enough to ascend, if they glanced back at the chandelier, they’d find a ghost gleefully swinging back and forth on top of the fragile glass.
Hidden in an alcove in the ceiling was a smaller animatronic with a light and a mirror.
He’d nicknamed the ghost Happy Harry. They were still working on the backstory, though the idea of a man getting drunk and celebrating New Year’s on a rickety chandelier was his favorite.
Maybe they could put a hat on his head and champagne glass in his hand.
Raj patted his breast pocket before he pulled out his notebook to jot the idea down.
By the time he’d gotten to changing out Harry’s hats for the holidays, the contractor paused in front of their best and most haunted suite.
Instead of the bed being made up and ready for guests, the mattress sat by the window that projected a spooky graveyard outside.
Two men sat in the slats of the frame, both fighting with the metal bars on their special mechanism.
“We fixed this. Tested it for up to four hundred pounds.”
“Yeah. It works great for a mess of people,” the contractor said, then he nodded to the two men. They rose from their work and slid the mattress into place. “Problem is if you only have one person in this room…” He hefted up their test skeleton and tossed it onto the bed, then nodded to a man.
The switch flipped. At first, a haunting blue light glowed under the bed. Then the bottom right corner kicked up. The skeleton fell a bit forward, just for the top left corner to leap up.
Oh. It hit Raj as the skeleton started to bounce like a popcorn kernel on a hot pan.
The mechanism entered its final haunting stage, and the bed began to buck wildly.
In their tests with two burly men pretending to be a married couple, they’d get a good shake to mimic a haunting.
But with just the five-foot plastic skeleton, the bed went from curious ghost to full-on exorcism.
The skeleton flailed so wildly that one of its legs tore off. The limb flew back, striking the painting behind the bed. Then the rest of the poor remains jiggled to the edge until they landed against the headboard. Which was when the entire top half of the bed leaped up.
“Ah!” Raj ducked as twenty pounds of skeleton hit the wall across from them.
“Kill it,” the contractor said.
“So we lower the pressure. Or make it so only couples can stay in the suite.”
“And hope they ain’t fighting or else one of ‘em’s not walking out of here,” the man by the switch said with a laugh.
“There’s also the concern of children,” his contractor said.
“Oh, no kids. It’s not safe.” While invisible children laughing in the walls was creepy, actual ones banging on the ceiling and floors was not.
The contractor hefted the skeleton off the floor. As he grabbed onto its spine, the head tumbled back, then fell off. Raj grimaced and rubbed his face. “Cut the pneumatics down to two hundred PSI.”
“Okay, but then the bed won’t do the bucking thing at the end.”
God, that was his epic finale. No. Better to keep things safe and avoid potential broken noses than get that final oomph for people. “It’s fine. And don’t forget…”
“Yeah. We’ll lock it all up so no one can mess with it,” the contractor said.
As Raj watched them work, the back of his neck started to burn. “Are you going to have to do this for all the beds?”
“Yup.”
He had to ask the question he dreaded most in the world. “How long will that take?”
“Well…”
“There you are, partner!” Their answer was covered over by the enthusiastic shout of Logan. He swung back into the bedroom, then slapped Raj on the back before staring down at the men. “Doing a bang-up job. The place looks incredible.”
Literal wires were hanging from the ceiling for both the hidden words that’d appear in the wallpaper and the overhead lights. It was uninhabitable, and they had clients arriving in less than a week. Exasperated, Raj turned to glare at Logan. “Is it?”
“Sure. Well, good enough. I mean, we’re getting there, man. Don’t worry so much. You’ll get an ulcer.”
An ulcer was better than going three hundred thousand dollars into debt. Why did I think this was a good idea? I’m going to lose it all, and the only thing I’ll have to show for it is a butler that slaps me.
“Hey, it’s Tuesday.” Logan managed to grip onto Raj’s shoulders and pull him out of the room.
“Yes, I know. And we’re soft opening on Saturday, remember?”
“Yeah, yeah. But shouldn’t you be going?”
Going where? He had the bedrooms to finish.
The animatronics to test. There was a mysterious drip in the basement that no one could figure out.
Oh, and all the scare actors to teach how to do their makeup.
Raj accepted he wouldn’t get a day off for ten years the moment his plane landed to a thousand new text messages.
“To the committee meeting,” Logan said.
Raj shook his head. “I don’t have time.” He tried to walk toward the other bedrooms and give the bad news, but Logan steered him around to face the staircase.
“Of course you do. We’ve got a few days, and things are more or less ready to go.
A few details here and there, but…” Logan slapped his hands together in a prayer that did nothing to calm Raj’s nerves.
“Look, if we want to make it, you’ve got to cozy up with the committee.
Get them to include us in their Anoka haunt itinerary. If you don’t, well…”
“Well, what?” Raj gulped. His body started down the stairs while his brain whirled through a dozen disaster scenarios. One of them ended with him burning at the stake.
Logan crinkled his nose, then he laughed. “Just give it your best. I’m sure they’ll love you.”
“Or what, Logan?” Raj asked at the bottom of the stairs. “Is this about the permits? Did you get them?”
“It’s fine. It’s all fine. Go and win them over with your charm.
” Logan kept shooing Raj on toward the front door.
All of his excuses bounced off that golden retriever wall.
He had no choice but to reach for the handle.
Raising a hand to his mouth, Logan called out, “I’ll be here holding down the fort. ”
“Look out!”
The expensive, antique chandelier plunged toward the floor. At the last second, it caught and jerked up. A handful of crystals and candles fell off, shattering on the marble below. As workmen streamed from every doorway to fix it, Logan gave a jolly wave. “Have fun at the meeting.”
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“Yes, I’ve already handled the food trucks. Fall-afels will be there, in spite of its terrible name.”
Adam perched on his chair like a grand vizier about to pour arsenic into the sultan’s tea.
He’d had a good night’s sleep with only the occasional nightmare involving a sheep with a chainsaw.
The store was well stocked, his mask reveal went off without a hitch, and—best of all—the challenger to his crown was a no-show.
Maybe Mr. Choudhary wasn’t as invested in this as he’d pretended to be.
“I just love their crunch patties,” the mayor said.