Page 32 of Room Serviced
“—and bury it under the northernmost paving stone in the library courtyard.”
He paused, and they both turned their heads to look out the window at the far end of the book stacks, where birds of paradise and palm trees surrounded a stone-paved courtyard.
“If you do that, your love will never leave you until the stone blows away…or until you remove the note and burn it.”
“You think there’re bloody papers under there?” Sloane asked.
“Maybe. I’m definitely putting a camera out there tonight, though.”
“I can’t wait for your incredible footage of palm trees in the wind,” she teased.
“I could get a ghost desperately trying to dig up a paving stone. You never know.”
Sloane made another noncommittal noise, and after a few more minutes she sighed, sat up, and turned toward Max, putting her laptop to one side.
“Okay,” she said, pulling her feet onto the chaise to sit cross-legged and arranging her skirt to cover both knees. The slit fell open over one immediately, the fabric settling into her lap and leaving her thigh bare. Sloane either didn’t notice or pretended not to. “I’m pretty sure the glow-in-black-light writing is just scribbles on the wall that are supposed to look spooky. Or it’s a cipher or something. I’m not a code-cracker.”
“So it’s demons, then,” Max said reasonably.
“I will drive back to Los Angeles right now,” Sloane threatened, and he laughed.
“But you’re having so much fun proving me wrong,” he said. “Among other things.”
“Whose idea was it for you to come here?” she asked, ignoring that last bit, though Max could’ve sworn she was blushing. “Who contacted who? Almost all your other videos are in Northern California.”
“So you do watch my videos.”
“Yes. Obviously,” she said. “I wanted to know what I was getting into. I wasn’t going to come on one of your wild-goose chases unprepared.”
“You know, I’ve never actually chased a goose,” Max said thoughtfully. “There are some animal ghosts, but I don’t know about geese.”
“Probably because they’re all in hell,” Sloane said, straight-faced, and Max snorted.
“Which one’s your favorite?”
“Goose?”
“Video,” Max said, very patiently.
“I don’t know,” she said, and blushed. It caught Max off-guard for a second. “I mean, I liked the one you did about vengeful tree spirits in the Redwoods?”
“That was a fun one,” Max agreed. “I always love going to— Wait, is that the one where it’s pouring rain the whole time and I’m in a white T-shirt?”
“Maybe?” Sloane said. She blushed harder. Max closed the book around his finger and grinned at her. “I don’t remember your outfits.”
“I guess you haven’t watched the one about the interdimensional swimming hole east of Crescent City. I take my shirt all the way off in that one.”
“I’ve got better sources of eye candy than grainy night-vision videos,” Sloane said, which was downright insulting. Max’s videos weren’t grainy. “Anyway, whose idea was the Hotel Bellwether?”
Max sighed. “Theirs,” he admitted. “Originally we were going to going to explore an old ranch outside Fresno, but then Bellwether contacted me and asked if I wanted to come shoot here.”
“I think you got played,” Sloane said. She said it gently, for her, and Max laughed.
“Are you kidding? Even if it’s fake, it’s still a great story. There’s fake demon writing and a pentagram, and it’s all getting explained by my hot, feisty assistant. Are you making that face at hot or feisty?”
“I’m making this face at you.”
“I’m just saying: If you want to help grow the channel, go put on a swimsuit?—”
