Donn's Legacy, page 2
The smile lines around his eyes crinkled as he jerked his chin toward Elizabeth’s shop. “Only one. Not that I blame her.”
That was generous of him. The Enclave was a small neighborhood with a lot of open secrets, like Stephen’s now-ended affair with a married woman. Elizabeth hadn’t approved. And honestly, when I first learned about it, I had thought less of him. But the woman he was sleeping with was a master manipulator, and I couldn’t fault him for falling for her tricks.
I had fallen for them too.
His former paramour had been a tarot card reader named Daphne Martin. Unlike Stephen and me, her psychic abilities had been a sham, and her need to perpetuate that hoax drove her to murder. Her shop now sat empty beneath Elizabeth’s more respectable day spa.
“Yuri said he’ll call you to get your interview scheduled,” I told Stephen. “You’ll get your fifteen minutes of fame after I get back from vacation, I promise.”
He grinned. “I’d better. I saw the fan mail Elizabeth’s been getting, and it is stee-ee-eamy.”
“Liar.” Graham laughed beside me. “There’s no way she would show you something like that.”
“Fair enough,” Stephen admitted. “But can’t you just see it? The old girl’s face would be so red!”
His cackles followed us across the street to Elizabeth’s building. A simple wooden sign above the door read Massage - Reiki - Furrapy, and the glass door at the top of the stairs was etched with silhouettes of humans and animals in a variety of active poses. Inside, Elizabeth stood behind the check-in desk. Her lean face was covered in a dense network of fine lines, and a loose white braid flowed over the shoulder of her long-sleeved dress. Her serious mien was somewhat undercut by the friendly crinkle at the corners of her eyes as she glanced down at my cat.
Striker lay next to Elizabeth’s keyboard, her yellow eyes watching tendrils of frankincense-scented steam rise from the oil diffuser toward the ceiling. She rolled over to show me her multicolored belly when I walked in the door, trilling, “Brrrllll.”
Her sleepy expression was normal after a furrapy appointment with Elizabeth. The brief sessions were a fraction of what I paid for my monthly visits and specifically designed to relieve Striker’s arthritis symptoms. Along with talking to ghosts and working on the crew of a paranormal TV show, paying someone else to massage my cat was one of many things I never thought I would do before coming to Donn’s Hill.
“Hey, sneaky girl,” I told Striker as I pulled out my wallet. “Took matters into your own paws, huh?”
“Should’a heard the racket she was makin’,” Elizabeth said with fondness in her voice. “Miracle she didn’t wake the whole street.”
Graham gathered the cat into his arms. “I hope she didn’t wake you.”
“Never get much sleep, and less now than I ever have. Don’t know if it’s age or a restless mind.” Elizabeth eyed me. “Suspect you’ll be the same when you’re as old as me.”
“If I get to be half as tough as you are, it’ll be worth a few sleepless nights. Any news about what might move in downstairs?”
Elizabeth shook her head. “Won’t be long yet. Some new pretender’ll be down there soon.”
“What this place needs,” I decided, “is an occult-themed bakery. Ouija board cakes, sugar cookies with runes on the frosting, tasty little muffins…” My mouth stopped moving, but my mind ran wild with the delicious possibilities. An after-massage pastry sounded like the perfect self-care day.
“We heard you’ve been getting a little fan mail,” Graham said.
Elizabeth huffed out through her nose. “Never should’a let Yuri talk me into doin’ that. Phone’s ringin’ all day and night, people wantin’ me to come teach classes on the craft.”
I wasn’t surprised so many people had connected with her through our promotional video. Her unique treatment strategy and her skills as an Empath made her a top priority for the tourism commission, but it had taken both Yuri and I wheedling and cajoling her before she agreed to go on camera. We filmed right in her day spa, where she demonstrated her furrapy practice on a certain volunteer tortoiseshell cat and discussed the differences between being an Empath and having empathy.
Now she held out her hand, and the dozens of tiny stones around her wrist tinkled. “Let’s get you out that door before your energy knocks me off my feet. Never seen you so wound up.”
Her bracelets, one on each wrist, were made of the same black tourmaline she had given me to wear around my neck. She wore them to protect herself from absorbing any negative energy during reiki or massage, but no crystal could muffle her natural ability to read someone’s emotions, and apparently it didn’t do much to block out the waves of anxious excitement rolling off me now.
“Sorry.” I winced. “I’m just antsy to get going.”
“Go on and get movin’. I’ll phone my cousin, let him know you’re on the way.”
“Thanks again for recommending his place to us. I’m excited to see it.”
Striker was still limp as a noodle when we packed her into the truck, and I crossed my fingers that her state of quiet relaxation would last a few hundred miles. After our ridiculous morning, I fully expected at least two or three more distractions to delay our departure, but none came. We were two hours late but finally on the road.
Traffic was easy at this early hour on a Sunday, but cars still streamed onto Main Street from the highway. The tireless tourism efforts the deputy mayor had been driving for the last several months had not only increased weekend traffic but grown the permanent population of Donn’s Hill as well. Everyone from private residences to the Ace of Cups was renting out spare rooms, and the large modern apartment complex behind the gas station on Main had a full parking lot, including two moving vans like the one Reggie had brought to Primrose House.
A sudden wave of nausea slammed into me as we passed the apartments. I jolted forward and gripped the dashboard for support.
“You okay?” Graham asked in alarm. “Are you carsick?”
I shook my head. The iron grip on my insides didn’t feel like motion sickness. The nausea pressed down on me, trying to flatten me from all sides. Buzzing filled my ears, and I had a sudden flashback to coming down this road from the other direction, cringing in pain as we unknowingly carried a haunted jewelry box in the trunk. Bile crept up my throat at the memory. I scrambled to open the glove box, praying there was an old grocery bag or something inside that would spare me the embarrassment of explaining to Graham’s father that I’d vomited all over the inside of his truck before we even left the city’s limits.
The feeling passed. It disappeared as suddenly as it had come, and I slumped against the cold window glass beside me, panting slightly.
I felt the truck’s wheels slowing, and I shook my head. “I’m fine,” I told Graham.
“Are you sure? We can head back to the station, get you some ice or something.”
“Really, I’m okay.” And I was. The nausea had lifted, leaving no trace behind. “I’m just tired. And hungry. Do you have any of those granola bars?”
I tried to put the weird bout of sickness out of my mind as I chewed. If it had lasted much longer than that brief flash, I would have asked Graham to turn around and take us home.
And maybe that would have been for the best.
CHAPTER TWO
Thirteen hours and sixty-eight million cat howls later, my navigation app instructed us to turn off the interstate. The sun had set long before we crossed into New Mexico, but I could see the glint of water in our headlights as the Rio Grande snaked back and forth beside the two-lane highway.
It was a vaguely familiar journey, one I had taken with my mother the first eight springs of my life. Driving from Albuquerque to Donn’s Hill for the Afterlife Festival was our one big vacation every year, and it was weird to be making the trip the wrong way around. Several of the gas stations felt like places we had stopped at on our way home, but I couldn’t say for sure. Was that the same rest stop where I puked after ignoring my mom’s warnings about doing puzzle books in the back seat? Or did they all just have that same green paint and white powdered soap?
My clearest memory of our time on the road was listening to her favorite Oingo Boingo cassette over and over, singing along to “Dead Man’s Party” as loudly as we could. Graham had the same album on his iPod, and we mixed it in along with the R.E.M. and Oasis playlists he needed to stay focused on the road. During my turns as copilot, I texted pictures of the scenery to Kit, who replied with helpful tips from her own recent journey west: Don’t forget to pick up those gummy twin snakes next time you stop. They’re road-trip fuel!
Striker did better than I expected, mostly napping in her carrier. Graham pulled over frequently to let her stretch her legs on the truck’s seats, drink some water from her travel dish, and nibble a small pile of crunchy treats from his hand. But that level of first-class travel still left plenty of room for complaints. Any time we sped up to pass another vehicle or went around the gentlest of curves, she let out a guttural yowl that zinged straight into my heart.
“What’s this place called?” Graham asked.
“Yurt in Luck.” I checked my phone. “Two more miles.”
He chuckled. “Oh man, we have to tell Penny about that one. She hates punny stuff like that. I think it physically pained her when Tom named their motel E-Z Sleep.”
When I pictured our accommodations, I imagined something similar to that now-demolished motel outside Donn’s Hill: one long row of connected rooms strung together in a single building. The name of the place, plus the fact that Elizabeth had recommended it to us, should have warned me that Yurt in Luck would be a little different.
Rows of twinkling lights marked the entrance to a parking lot flanked by eleven small round structures. They were arranged in a wide V, with the end units closest to the road. The large center building beside the river had the word Office etched into the front window. An enormous sandstone slab welcomed us to Yurt in Luck Riverside Resort, and a pair of rustic wooden signs pointed toward Curios on one side and Critters on the other.
I left Graham in the truck with Striker and paused outside the office for a few moments, inhaling the sweet scent of the desert. I’d forgotten how good piñon pine smelled, and I let the freshness of the night air clear out my lungs and chase away the last of the day’s stress. After a few more greedy breaths, I left the soft gurgle of the river behind and stepped into the office.
Inside, a reedy man with a wild, gray beard munched on hummus and pretzel sticks at a messy desk. His weather-beaten face suggested he was in his seventies or eighties, but he leapt to his feet with the spry energy of a younger man and rushed forward to hold the door open for me.
“Come in, come in!” He patted my shoulders as I passed, then let the door fall closed and hurried back around to the business side of his desk. “How can I help you?”
“We have a reservation under Mackenzie Clair.” I handed over my driver’s license and my credit card.
He took them and sat down, frowning at the name printed on the cards. It wasn’t the facial expression I usually expected to see when checking in somewhere, and my unease mounted as he typed something into his computer and gave a slow shake of his head. “Hmm. I’m sorry, miss, but I don’t have anything under that name. Are you sure this is where you booked your stay? We are a little… uh… niche.”
“Shoot. Maybe it’s under Mac? I’m not sure which name my friend used when she booked it.”
“Nothing under Mac…. What’s your friend’s name? We might have put it under that.”
“Elizabeth Monk?”
The man’s cheeks split like baked sand as he grinned. “Cousin Lizzie! How do know you her?”
“She’s my massage therapist.”
“Lucky you! She’s famous now, did you know that?”
“So I’ve heard.” I was glad people outside Donn’s Hill had seen the video; that meant Yuri and Penelope’s strategy was working, and our work hadn’t been wasted.
“Well, let’s get you checked in. I’ll just update your name, Miss…”
“Clair,” I repeated, holding out my hand. “Call me Mac.”
“Fred Hawkes. Pleasure to meet you.” He pecked at his keyboard with two long, slow fingers. “Traveling alone?”
“No, my boyfriend is outside with our cat.”
“Cat?”
“Yeah. That’s okay, right?”
“Hmm.” A deep divot formed between his eyebrows. “We had you in one of our pet-free units. We can’t allow a cat in there. Allergies, you know.”
My earlier tension returned to my chest, squeezing tightly, as I imagined how expensive it would be to find a room somewhere else for tonight. “Is there another room available?”
“Not on the Critter side.” He frowned and glanced at the keys on the wall. Five hung beneath gold labels that matched the signs outside: four beneath Curios and one beneath Critters. “Well, maybe. I’ll have to check something.”
He picked up the phone and turned his back to me, murmuring into the mouthpiece at a volume too low for me to effectively eavesdrop. Meanwhile, I tried to remember if we had passed any other lodging within the last hour. Would they have a vacancy? Would they allow cats?
Just as I was pulling out my phone to see if it would be too cold to sleep in the truck tonight, Fred swiveled back around in his chair to squint at something on his computer screen.
“Well, can’t we just swap them in the system? … And what about her bags?” He glanced up at me and turned away again, but his volume wasn’t quite low enough to keep me from hearing him ask, “What did the police say?”
My eyebrows and my curiosity both shot into the stratosphere. What did the police have to do with our reservation?
When he hung up the phone, his mouth was pulled into a grim expression. “Okay, we’re all set.”
“Really?”
He leaned back in his chair, snatched the lone Critter key off the row of hooks, and hopped to his feet once more. “Let’s get you settled.”
Fred led me down the row of yurts on the right. Pools of yellow light from the bulb above each porch illuminated placards with words like White Elephant, Ladybug, and Scarab instead of numbers. Our unit was on the southernmost end, closest to the wooden round-rail fence that marked the edge of the property. It was a strange little structure; it looked as though someone had taken an enormous maroon sock and stretched it over a soup can large enough to live in, then punched in windows and a door as an afterthought. Whatever the material was made of, it was taut enough that it didn’t so much as flutter in the night breeze.
“Here you are: Tortoiseshell.” Fred slid the key into the door, jiggling the handle up and down as he turned it. “You have to give it a bit of a shake sometimes.” When the door still refused to budge, he gritted his teeth and glared at the handle for a second before giving the door a little kick. It popped open. “Ah, there we go! After you.”
The yurt felt larger inside than it looked from the outside, and the interior was pleasantly bright and clean. The walls—or wall, really, since it was a single rounded surface that stretched all the way around with no corners—were made from floor-to-ceiling cedar boards that had been polished to a high sheen. The linoleum bore a few deep scratches and scuffs, hinting at the structure’s age, but the familiar scent of Pine-Sol assured me the floor was cleaner than the average motel carpet.
The night sky was visible through a circular window at the peak of the ceiling from which the canvas roof cascaded gently down to the yurt’s sides. Most of the space was taken up by a queen-sized bed, above which hung a portrait of a tortoiseshell cat. The cat looked like she had two faces combined into one, creamy tan on one side and dusty black on the other.
“This is so weird,” I told Fred. “We have a tortie.”
“Lucky you!” he said for the second time. “Literally. All our units are named after good-luck charms, and I can’t think of a cuddlier one than a tortoiseshell cat.”
A wooden dresser, a small kitchenette, and a pine table with two chairs stood around the curved wall. I was relieved to see that none of the furniture was fabric or wicker. Everything was catproof.
“The bathroom and laundry are through here.” Fred disappeared through a door that had been cut into the yurt beside the kitchenette. When he reappeared a moment later, he was pulling a large piece of rolling luggage behind him.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Oh, just something the last guest left behind. Nothing to worry about.” He leaned the luggage against the main doorframe and turned back to me. “Now let’s see. Pots and pans are in the dresser’s bottom drawer, and spare toilet paper is in the cupboard above the washing machine. Any questions?”
I had several, but they were all about the silver suitcase, so I shook my head and smiled politely. “Nope. Thanks for doing whatever you had to do to make room for us. I think we’ll be really comfortable here.”
“Good.” He dropped the key onto the little dining table and pulled the left-behind luggage out the door, calling over his shoulder, “Don’t hesitate to call if you need anything, anything at all.”
Graham pulled the truck around to our side of the little triangular parking lot. As we ferried our luggage and Striker’s accessories into the yurt, I snuck a glance at our nimble host. Rather than taking the suitcase into the office, he put it in the farthest unit on the Curio side of the complex.
There was no time to wonder what he was doing. Striker’s sharp, high-pitched yowls set my priorities, and I found a place for her litter box between the sink and the tub. Not willing to take any chances, I locked her in the bathroom so she could acclimate to her surroundings and take care of business.
Graham was grinning at the photo above the bed when I closed the bathroom door. “This has to be a good sign, right?”
“I think so.” I gave him a quick kiss. “This is already a great trip.”
We took our time settling into our temporary home, tucking a week’s worth of cat food into the dresser drawers and unpacking our clothes. After such a long car ride, it felt good to stretch out on the large bed for a few minutes before releasing Striker from the bathroom.
