A ghostly love-triangle comes to an explosive ending.
*
The bus squealed to a stop at the curb and sent dried leaves skittering across the sidewalk. Nick looked up from his phone to see a young woman step out of the bus and wave to the driver. She glanced at Nick then pulled the hood of her cape over her head.
The day started as one of those beautiful fall days. It was crisp in the morning then calm and bright, and not too cool. Now dark clouds in the west hid the sunset. A chill breeze caught the leaves that the bus kicked up and sent them swirling around the woman's high-heeled shoes.
Nick watched and guessed that she was waiting for a connecting bus, and then he nodded over his phone again. He leaned in the doorway of the old hotel and studied what little information he'd already gathered about it. A prospective investor wanted an engineer to look at the building. The project had a small budget, so it fell to the junior staff member. That was Nick.
"Are you waiting for the east-side bus, too?" she asked, and jolted Nick out of his thoughts. She had closed about half the distance between them and stood cautiously eying him. From his blue canvas shoes, up his long frame to his dark, neatly trimmed and parted hair—now a little mussed by the breeze—Nick was the image of a young professional.
"No, I'm waiting for someone to show me around in there," Nick answered, and gestured toward the hotel doors. He guessed that she was a little younger than he was, but not a lot. Her features were refined and perfectly symmetrical, and her eyes were bright. Nick straightened his posture—unconsciously signaling that he found her attractive—and asked, "Do you take this route often?"
"Five days a week, morning and evening," she said. "I clerk at an attorney's office downtown." She glanced down at the sidewalk, suddenly self-conscious. "I'm sorry I bothered you, but I've found that it's good to greet strangers here instead of waiting for them to sneak up on me. This isn't a very good neighborhood."
"No problem," he said. "I'm Nick Benedict. I have a client who wants to put this place back in business as an all-suites hotel. Maybe that would improve the neighborhood."
"What a great idea!" she said. "This is the crumbling fringe and it's been this way as long as I can remember." She stepped past Nick and pulled her hood back while she peered through a large window into what was once a diner. She turned back to Nick, extended her hand, and said, "I'm Emily. Emily Wright."
Nick's hand was wide and strong compared to Emily's, and her touch was warm and feminine. She drew back and went on. "I've looked at this place every work day for a couple years now and I'd love to see it change. There is something charming about the building. The old stone and the arched windows are pretty cool."
Emily intrigued Nick, but then the sound of footsteps reminded him why he was there. A voice from behind them asked, "Are you from Sayer and Sutton?" The voice belonged to a white-haired man, shorter than Nick. He wore a gray business suit that stretched to cover his round belly, and he twirled a key ring on his finger.
"I'm Nick Benedict, from Sayer and Sutton," Nick said. He produced a business card from inside his jacket.
"I'm George Mills," the older man said. He traded cards with Nick and shook his hand. "I'm the owner's representative."
George turned to Emily with an expectant expression, and she laughed. "Oh gosh," she said. "I have no business here. I'm just a bus rider." She looked at George and extended her hand again, "I'm Emily." She pointed at the hotel's big double doors and said, "If you're going in there, then I'd love to tag along and look around."
"You can come along," George said, as he squeezed her hand. "You'll do more to improve the scenery in there than all the work we've done so far."
Nick glanced at Emily to catch her response. George's reply was the kind of shallow flattery that some women might not like. Emily's eyes flashed when she returned Nick's glance. She was annoyed.
George led them into a lobby lit only by skylight that filtered down through the atrium. He hurried straight ahead to the hotel desk while Nick and Emily followed more slowly. Both of them gawked up at the second floor where it opened to the lobby over the front desk, and at the wide stairways that curved up on both sides. There were signs everywhere of lost splendor: marble, mahogany, and brass—now scarred with use and neglect.
"We disconnect the power when the workers knock off," George explained. He said, "I'll turn the power on, so we can see where we're going," then he disappeared around the desk.
Emily dragged her fingertips through the dust on the desk. Nick noticed how her honey-colored hair gathered in a barrette at the back of her neck and disappeared under her cape, and he reminded himself again that he was there for work.
Nick jogged to catch up with George, and left Emily alone. She occupied herself while they were gone by circling the lobby. She found the open doors to the diner and the elevator that did not work. When Nick and George came back they found her tugging at a pair of locked doors across from the diner. The sign over the door said "Tony's Tavern."
Emily gave up on the door when the men came back and heard George say, "There are lots of updates that haven't been made. We're suspicious of the wiring—that's why we shut the power off at night—but all the utilities work. We're remodeling upstairs, so the gas and water are on for the guys."
George stepped behind the desk and opened a cabinet that hid rows of switches. He threw one switch and lights over the desk came on, then another and light poured down from where the second story opened over the lobby. He threw two more, then turned to Nick and said,"We have hallway lights on all four floors. That should do."
Nick and George talked about the roof and the basement and the crawl spaces that extended under the tavern and diner, so Emily climbed the worn marble stairway. She leaned over the rail from the second floor, and her voice resonated in the empty space when she asked, "This looks like it was a nice place once. What happened?"
George talked a little louder to make sure she could hear. "The hotel has a history, and at least the early part of it is interesting. It was built in 1917, and when it was new it was one of the nicest places in town. Then came Prohibition, and then the depression. It was a double whammy for the business."
He motioned to the tavern door and said, "The bar was shut down in 1920, but then they used a door off the side street to operate as a speakeasy. It reopened legally after Prohibition but by then it had a bad reputation. Their business didn't come back the way it was before.
"Girls from the speakeasy probably took their clients upstairs, but I've never found a record of that. The depression changed things; regular business dropped off and the top floor was used as a brothel. The brothel was shut down after the war but the whole neighborhood was going down by then. After that the hotel was closed more often than not, and it was never more than a flophouse."
Nick listened from behind the desk until sawdust settled on his shoulder, and a small scrap of wood landed on the floor next to him. "Hey!" he said, and stepped back to look up at Emily. "Watch what you're kicking off the edge up there."
"Oopsy!" Emily said. She stepped back to look at the construction litter around her feet, then smiled down at Nick. "I didn't mean to do that."
George laughed then motioned up and said, "Let me show you upstairs." Nick climbed the stairs behind George, and then Emily stopped him on the landing to brush at the sawdust on his shoulders. "I'm sorry about that," she said. "I was just shuffling around I guess."
"Don't worry about it." Nick said. He was watching the expression on Emily's face when she looked up at him.
Emily blushed and jerked her hand back from his shoulder. "I'm totally not flirting with you," she said. She backed away and ran up the stairs. Nick was confused, but he laughed and trailed after her.
They started their tour on the partially renovated top floor where the old, stained plaster seemed to testify to its past. Emily pulled her cape tight around her shoulders and peered into the rooms while George explained, "The guys don't like working up here. That's why it isn't done yet—they think it's haunted. They hear giggling girls and sometimes they're touched when there's no one there."
Nick watched Emily shudder and step back from a doorway. He asked, "Did you see a ghost?" and laughed as if it were a joke.
"No, I just felt chilled." Emily answered. The frown she gave Nick made him regret his question.
George took them down through the construction zones on the lower floors, and then to the diner and the banquet halls on the first floor. Emily had little to say until they returned to the lobby, and then she pointed to the tavern door and asked, "Can we see in there?"
"We haven't started work on the tavern," George said, and bent to unlock the door. "This place has the guys even more spooked than the top floor. They say that after sundown there's sometimes light around the door and sounds from inside."
The door opened onto a dark space. A mirror behind the bar far across the room reflected their silhouettes. The tables carried a thick coat of dust, and cobwebs festooned the corners.
"I don't need to go in there," Emily said, shaking her head. She stepped back from the door then jumped and squealed when she bumped into Nick. He reacted by touching her arms to steady her, and Emily spun around with a wide-eyed expression on her face.
"I'm sorry!" Nick said, and held his hands up. "I didn't mean to startle you."
George's phone rang, and he turned his back to take the call. He was clearly in a hurry when he finished his call. "That was my wife," he said. "Dinner's almost ready, and she's wondering where I am." He closed the tavern door then turned off the lights over the desk and in the hallways. George followed Emily and Nick across the darkened lobby and through the front doors. He locked up and left them at the front of the hotel.
The night was black and the street lights did little to help. The clouds that earlier hid the sunset loomed low over the city. Emily stepped to the bus stop sign and pulled her cape close around her while she read the schedule by the light of cars on the street.
"I missed my connection. The next bus won't be here for another half hour," she said, and as she spoke a cold rain began to fall. Nick tugged on Emily's elbow and pulled her to shelter by the hotel doorway. Traffic on the street splashed through growing puddles, and the light from passing cars reflected off the wet asphalt—bright red and white against the inky black.
"I'll give you a ride," Nick said. "My car's in the garage behind the hotel. You can wait here and I'll bring it around to pick you up, or you can walk with me."
