Shiver / Private Sessions: Shiver / Private Sessions

Elton smiled. “It was more of a poltergeist than a spirit.”

“They throw things around a lot, yes?”

“I’ll say. My parents still don’t believe me when I tell them, but I swear it’s true. The poltergeist knocked over a couple of vases, broke a chair and kept tilting all the pictures in the hallway. It happened for almost a whole year. I kept getting in trouble, and they sent me to the school counselor, but even Frodo, my dog, he used to bark all the time at like, nothing. It wasn’t nothing, it was the poltergeist, but even when I showed my dad, he just said the dog was as crazy as—”

A crash of breaking glass and thuds had Carrie spinning around to face the left corner of the ballroom. A big cleanup tray had fallen from a portable stand, leaving a mess of broken dishes. Only, no one was standing near that corner. Not a soul. The closest person was a tall woman with long dark hair who seemed as surprised as everyone else in the room. She couldn’t have knocked over the tray and gotten so far away in the time that had lapsed.

Someone must have put one too many plates on the far edge of the unsteady tray. Bummer for the cleanup crew.

Carrie turned back to Erin and Elton, but they were both staring wide-eyed and mystified at each other, then at the spilled tray and back again.

A crackle, a piercing screech of feedback, then a voice from the stage. A low voice, filled with intensity and just a little bit of fear. “Ladies and gentleman,” the man on stage said, his gaze sweeping over the crowd. “The party has just gotten started.”

5

TDHE EVENING HAD GONE WELL. Sam slumped into the brown chair in his room. It wasn’t the room he’d grown up in, just a room in the hotel, the one that was always rented out last because of the noise from the ice maker and the elevator. He’d been staying in it since he’d come back, having moved Aunt Grace to his dad’s apartment.

He could have stayed in what had been his childhood bedroom, but he didn’t want to change his aunt’s routine. He didn’t mind this place. So used to Brooklyn noises, the small sounds in here were like raindrops on a window. Sometimes, though, like tonight, he wished he could sit in his dad’s old recliner and lean all the way back. The fire would be going and maybe he’d listen to some Dave Grusin or Brubeck. Sip a little brandy.

Instead, he just closed his eyes in the serviceable chair, too tired to get ready for bed, despite the hour. He checked his watch. It was even later than he’d thought. Just after one. The buyers must be exhausted, although neither one of them let it show.

As he’d planned, the dinner had gone off spectacularly. Jody had outdone herself with a tasting menu for the three of them, and he’d never enjoyed food more. Heartly had tried to hire her as his personal chef, which she’d politely turned down.

The three men talked about the ghost-hunters conference, the legends, everything but the brass tacks of the property. This was only a viewing; the final piece in a six-month-long process.

Just because they’d laughed, shared wine, broken bread, it didn’t mean a thing.

He should really get into bed. There was a lot to do tomorrow, and he didn’t relish the idea of the buyers traipsing about unsupervised. He wouldn’t necessarily have to go with them personally, but he sure as hell wanted to know what they were doing and when.

He stood, rolled his shoulders, undid his top button. Stopped as it occurred to him that most of the conference attendees would still be in the ballroom, as only a few had been selected to sit in the mind-numbing cold of the Old Hotel. Those inside would also be waiting breathlessly for a spectral vision to float across the monitor screens. Or to hear a disembodied voice whisper something that could vaguely be interpreted as a word instead of the wind meeting wood.

The night staff would make sure there was coffee for the intrepid, tea for the weary, and he was quite sure there was still food to be had. No reason at all for Sam to give them another moment’s thought. Except for that one thing.

He still had no reason to go to the ballroom. Even if Carrie were there, he wasn’t exactly going to ask her to come back to his room. They’d met less than twelve hours ago, and just because his mind had gone straight to the getting-naked part, he couldn’t admit it so soon. Even if she did feel the same way. Which she might not.

But then again …

No. Going down there was ludicrous. Stupid in every way. After a heartfelt sigh at what a classic idiot he was, he turned off the light and headed for the elevator.

CARRIE STARED AT THE blank page of her spiral bound notebook. It had been blank for far too long, and she was tired, dammit, so why couldn’t she get it done already? It’s not as if she didn’t have material to pick from. She had too much. That was it. Too many goofy things, from the shuttle ride to the programs, to the ghost-hunting equipment for sale—good god, the equipment—to the introductions and qualifications of the speakers, there was simply too much to mock.

Not that it was all mocking, all the time. It wasn’t as if Carrie didn’t have a heart. She did, and Erin knew it. It was just that her job was all about mocking and snark and being insufferable. That’s why her peeps came to her Web site, why they bought the art and the T-shirts and the mouse pads and the graphic novels. She’d been bitchy since childhood, and lucky her, she’d been able to make a career of it. A win-win situation all the way around. She wore, as her friend Jeffrey often said, scorn-colored glasses. But she did try her best to be a compassionate human. It didn’t always work, but it happened. Carrie had actually sat quietly and listened for two solid hours before she’d bailed. Now, she put her pen down and went back to her laptop. She’d stopped herself from doing this when she’d first gotten back in the room, but since she wasn’t doing squat anyway … she clicked on Google and typed in Sam’s name.

There were a lot of Sams. Once she’d found the right one, there were still a lot of links, mostly to do with his documentary films. Undocumented workers, restorative justice, the American prison system. He sure didn’t fool around. She read reviews. Lots of them. All of them with the same general message: his films were intense, specific and illuminating. They were moving and startling. He got down to the heart of things and didn’t shy away.

Impressed, she went to find his biography on his Web site. No picture on page one, not of him, anyway. The focus was on his latest film and where people could get their hands on it. But there was a hyperlink to his bio, and she leaned forward to read that.

He was older than her by four years. Went to NYU. Worked with some heavy hitters in the documentary field before directing his own. No mention of Crider, Colorado. No mention of his childhood at all. Also no mention of a significant other, but that didn’t mean anything.

What she did know for sure was that she wouldn’t be averse to spending some time in his company, quite possibly in the bedroom. She wondered if he had an apartment or if he stayed in one of the hotel rooms. That could be weird. But then, maybe he slept with guests all the time.

Shit, she needed to put this away, stop thinking about the hot guy and get some work done. At the very least, she had to get the story concept down. Nothing happened without the concept being clear. She had to narrow her point of attack. Was it the conference as a whole? The “professional ghost hunters?” How hungry people were to have explanations and stories to quell their collective zeitgeist? Until she decided the arc of the series, there would be no series.

Maybe she should have stayed downstairs in the ballroom and watched the monitors with Erin. There was bound to be a ton of great stuff all around her. On the other hand, she was tired from traveling, her sugar rush had ended and so had the buzz from her drink. The smart thing to do would be to climb under that big old comforter and get a good night’s rest. Tackle the work again tomorrow.

On the other, other hand, Erin was going to be up all night, and therefore she wouldn’t even be around in the morning. No one would. In order for this to work, Carrie needed to be with the natives in their natural habitat. The goal was to blend in. To appear to be one of the loyal believers. They’d all catch on if she went to bed early every night.

But sitting on the floor or on one of those stackable chairs till dawn? No way. No way in hell. Unless … She looked at the comforter, at the big fluffy pillows on the bed. No reason she couldn’t observe and be comfortable at the same time, right?

She gathered her notebook and pen and put them in her purse, then she folded up the bedding enough to carry it with her, and she set out for night number one of her new and temporary schedule that began at 4:00 p.m. and would last till 4:00 a.m. Ghosts, it turned out, were night owls.

The whole way down she wondered not about the spooks or the speakers, but if Sam would still be awake. She’d caught a glimpse of him earlier, but he hadn’t come back. Funny how disappointed that had made her. Even funnier was how much she hoped he was in the ballroom now.

CARRIE WASN’T IN THE ROOM, which had changed significantly since Sam’s last visit. The chairs were gone, or at least shoved to the sidewalls and stacked, at least most of them. The center of the room was now dominated by people on their own fold-up chairs, sleeping bags, cushions, or just pillows. All of them facing the monitors on the stage, which had been moved to give the most folks the best view.

The podium had vanished, the lights were dimmed, the bars emptied of everything but bottled water and pitchers of juice. There was still food on the back tables, but not much, and the big coffee urns would be full 24/7.

It wasn’t easy staying up all night, especially when practically every spoken word that was louder than a whisper was immediately followed by a barrage of shushes. Although few of the attendees expected to see anything, except perhaps a vague mist, all of them expected to hear something. Anything.

The Old Hotel was wired, baby. Infrared cameras viewed the rooms well, but three of the high-end cameras were focused not on the hotel itself, but on the meters placed randomly around the lower floor. Digital and analog audio recorders that picked up electronic voice phenomena were stacked next to a whole hell of a lot of stuff no one needed but everyone in this room wanted. He wasn’t complaining. While the gift shop didn’t stock top-of-the-line equipment, they did a pretty decent business in various midrange meters and cameras which occupied one whole wall of the moderately large shop, across from the candy bars, magazines and sundries.

Sometimes, Sam wished ghost hunting hadn’t become so mainstream. He would have liked to have filmed this, to document the phenomena of the search for the paranormal. This night right here would have been full of opportunities. As they did in gatherings of any kind, the people had formed smaller, more informal groups. Some consisted of only two people, but there were clusters of five or six. Five would be about right, if you had to whisper.

For a documentary, he would have hit up the couples first. Asked them why they were here, what they hoped to see. What had happened in their lives to convince them this wasn’t a fool’s errand.

Then he’d seek out the family units. Husband, wife and the kids come for a week in the woods to find spooks? Halloween wasn’t a legal holiday, so maybe they home-schooled. He’d met a lot of those kinds of folks in the past, dedicated to the pursuit of their passion to the exclusion of almost everything else, including traditional educations for their offspring.

What was happening in those young minds when they stayed up all night waiting? Did the children believe wholeheartedly? When they reached their teens, did they rebel and disavow their parents, insisting that nothing was real that couldn’t be proven and tested by science?

His attention was broken not by a word, but by a sensation. The hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and he felt the smallest of shivers. He turned and there was Carrie.

“You’re here,” she said.

A chorus of “Shhhhhs” followed.

“You’re here,” she said again, this time in a whisper. “I was pretty sure you’d be sound asleep by now.”

She was almost swallowed by the comforter and pillows in her arms, which he managed to take after a fumble. And then it was just Carrie in the same green sweater and jeans from earlier this evening, but she looked even better than she had before. “I should be sleeping,” he said, also sotto voce, “but I came down to make sure everything was moving along. Coffee, water, no loud music, that kind of thing.”

She smiled, which caused a different kind of shiver altogether. “As long as there’s no karaoke, I’m good.”

“Oh, there is. In the bar. Every weekend.”

“Thanks for the heads-up.”

He grinned right back at her, fully aware that he was acting less than the perfect hotelier. “Where do you want these?”

She looked past him, stopping with a nod. “There’s Erin. Follow me.”

He did so, gladly. Stepping around legs and arms and sometimes whole people as they made their way to what looked like a quiet spot on the left side of the room, not too close to the stage. Erin was sitting with three … no, four young men. The only surprise was that it was only four. Just as he’d suspected, the boys were buzzing around her like bees after honey. He doubted even one of them expected to score, but they would all have plenty of fantasy material for the next time they were alone. He remembered exactly what that was like, and it worried him that it was a little too close to what he was feeling about Carrie as he dropped her comforter on the carpet.

“What are you doing here?” Erin said.

“Shhh.” That from about six different people.

Carrie bent to spread her comforter and Sam stepped right in to help. He wasn’t feeling tired any longer, even though he knew he was being a fool.

“I’m here to find ghosts,” Carrie whispered. “What are you doing here? Hi, Elton.”

Sam found Elton via his name tag and his little wave. He was one of the throng surrounding Erin and he fit the bill. Young, thin, ghost T-shirt, long hair. Besotted, but not just with Erin. Sam saw the way Elton looked at Carrie. He stepped in between the two of them, reminding himself that it wouldn’t do to threaten a guest.

The other boys were excited about the new female, and damn, he wished he had his camera. They were like a pack of beta wolves, preening and scuffling, even as they sat on the floor with their power drinks, candy wrappers and electronic devices, which were primed for texting. They were all probably trying to figure out how to announce Carrie’s arrival in one hundred and forty characters or less.

“So, anything happen?” Carrie asked.

“A temperature anomaly, but nothing significant,” Erin said.

It was odd hearing their whispered voices, along with all the other whispers. It made him think of a room full of moths.

“Well, it’s early yet,” Carrie said, then she turned to him. “Are you going to hang out for a while?”

He nodded. “For a while.”

“Great. I’m going to get coffee. I have the feeling it will be necessary.”

“I’ll go with you.”

She led him back across the patchwork quilt of bodies. No one seemed to think it was odd that he was here, and a few even smiled in recognition. Why should they care? Most of them probably thought he was just another guy who worked here. Which was good.

Being with Carrie was better. She poured them each a hot coffee. She put stuff in her cup, then eyed the remaining food.

“Never let this chef go,” she said, her low voice causing her to step close to him. “She’s unbelievable. I’ve eaten so much I should be shot for even thinking about taking more.”

“It’s good to indulge yourself once in a while. You’re on vacation. You’re supposed to be bad.”

The way she looked at him let him know he’d been about as subtle as an eighteen-wheeler. “Even vacations have consequences,” she said. But she chose two pink petits fours, both on one plate. “How bad can these be, right?” she asked. “These little things barely count.”

He grabbed a big old éclair, more to keep himself busy than because he was hungry. “I have no self-control when it comes to Jody’s food. She knows it, too. Once, when she was visiting from Paris, she forced me to eat an entire Bûche de Noël.”

“At gunpoint, I assume?”

“No, dammit. Worse. She left it on the counter.”

Her laugh wasn’t as quiet as it should have been, and she was reprimanded immediately. She glared at the crowd, unsure who’d done the deed. “I mean, come on. If we can’t laugh, what’s the point?”

He almost laughed, too, but he didn’t dare give off even a hint of disrespect.

She handed him a fork and a small napkin. “You say she’s going to be here all week?”

“Jody? Yep. All week.”

“That is just great. Although I’ll pay for it with exercise when I get back home.”

“That’s what hiking’s for. I could show you the prime sights.”

“Wow. If I were a person who hiked, I’d jump all over that offer. But with these hours, I intend to sleep through most of the day. I still have to work, too.” She closed her mouth quickly, pressing her lips together, as if she’d said something she hadn’t meant to.

Of course he wanted to ask her about it, but again, discretion won out. “Then you can take advantage of the sunsets. You can see those from your room. Also, don’t worry about having to get up and eat dinner. We’re serving late for the rest of the conference, from noon to midnight, breakfast until six p.m.”

“Everyone in the hotel is with the con?”

He had just taken a bite of his éclair so he nodded. After he swallowed, he said, “We’ve only got thirty-six rooms.”

“Ah. Lot’s of doubles and triples. Been there, done that.”

“Really?”

“Sure. I went to college in Kentucky, and we used to go to Daytona Beach for spring break. I mean a whole flock of us. I’ve slept on couches and floors. A bathtub once. That sucked.”

“I know the feeling. I have a very small apartment in Brooklyn. Ever been to New York?”

“So you probably sleep in the bathtub every night.”

“Couch. Not a fold-out couch. A short couch. With lumps.”

“You must really love Brooklyn.”

He ate a bit, as did she, then sipped his coffee before answering. “It’s either New York or L.A. Although the options are changing as more of the film business spreads across the country. I use a lot of students for my crew, and it’s always last-minute stuff.”

“I searched you on Google,” she whispered.

“You did?” Dammit, why hadn’t he thought of doing that? “And you’re still speaking to me?”

“I must not have looked hard enough. Everything I read sang your praises.”

He rolled his eyes, but he wasn’t feeling quite so blasé. She’d looked him up. He tried to remember everything on his Web site, what pictures she’d seen, but he couldn’t think. That happened a lot when he was near her. “Hype,” he said. “But I am proud of my films. Some more than others.”

“Doesn’t it just depress the shit out of you?”

Now he laughed, loudly enough to get his own rebuke. “Not doing something would depress me more. Not that I’m some massive humanitarian. I just find the real issues to be the most vital. I thought about going into the movie side, but my heart wouldn’t be in it. I want to tell stories that matter.”

Carrie frowned up at him, although he didn’t think she disapproved. More that she was thinking about what he’d said. “How does that work out with you running this place?”

He put his empty plate down, but kept his coffee. “It doesn’t.”

“There needs to be more of that sentence.”

“Right. As much as I’m fond of the inn, it’s not my life.” He lowered his voice further. “I’m selling it.”

“Really?”

“Shhh.” He leaned closer. “Uh, that’s supposed to be a secret.”

“I’ll keep it under my hat.” She put both her plate and her cup down. “Hasn’t the hotel been in your family for generations? “

“Yeah.”

“And you don’t mind?”

“I’m not very sentimental.”

“I imagine not.”

“You’re appalled.”

“No. Not at all. You need to do what you need to do. I’m not a sentimental person, either. Not really. There are only a few things in my life I couldn’t live without. One of them, sadly, is my best friend.” She looked over at Erin, sitting among her fan boys. “I’m better with her around.”

“How so?”

“I live most of my life on the Internet. It’s pathetic. Erin helps me participate in life, as she calls it. Without her I’d go out even less frequently than I do now.” Carrie shrugged, took a step away from him. “We should get back to watching the monitors. There could be ghosts.”

“Right. Ghosts.” He wasn’t sure if it was the talk of sentiment or the talk of Erin that had changed the tenor of the conversation. Her body language had changed, even her whisper was different.

Would it be smarter to leave things be for the night and hope for a better tomorrow? Or should he wade back in and try for a recovery?

She took his plate and hers to one of the washing bins, then came back and refilled her coffee. All without meeting his gaze.

“I think it’s time for me to say good-night,” he said, as much as it pained him.

She looked up then. “Giving up the ghost so early?”

He grimaced at the pun, then smiled. “Big day tomorrow. I can’t sleep till noon.”

“It was nice running in to you again. I enjoyed it.”

“Me, too. Maybe we’ll meet again tomorrow.”

Her dark eyes were wide and beautiful, and they studied him closely. “Yeah. That would be good. I’d like that.”

He believed her. All was not lost. At least, he didn’t think so.

6

CARRIE CLOSED HER EYES. Again. For the billionth time. It was four-thirty in the morning, and a half an hour ago, she’d been so dead on her feet that she’d strongly considered paying Erin to put the comforter back on her bed.

She’d managed alone, and to brush her own teeth and get into her pj’s, but the moment she’d actually put her head down on the pillow, she’d been alert, awake and, no matter how sternly she’d spoken to her inner monologue, it would … not … stop … yammering.

“Shut up,” she said, hoping the aloud version would be more effective than the silent one.

Evidently not, because the next millisecond she was thinking about him. Again. The fact that she’d told him she had to work while she was here wasn’t so bad. It was nothing, in fact. They were going to be here for nearly a week. Of course people had to work.

No. What had been bad was that she’d said one hell of a lot more. She’d told him flat out that she was a complete loser who had exactly one real friend, and that the rest of her life was spent playing World of Warcraft and trolling Web sites. Awesome.

Reciprocity. That son of a bitch.

He’d told her his secret about selling the place, which was whoa. Major. So then she’d felt the need to reciprocate with a secret of her own.

If she hadn’t wanted to sleep with him, it wouldn’t be an issue. But, she’d realized the moment he’d taken the comforter and pillows that she did want to sleep with him. She liked him. Nothing earth-shattering, but she was ostensibly on vacation, and Vacation Rules stated that one could sleep with a very attractive hotel owner if one wanted to on the basis of like, which was quite different from Regular Life Rules. She was also allowed to eat at least one dessert a day, she didn’t have to work out and she could speak with a British accent if the mood struck.

But Sam had a life. He made important films about important issues. He lived in New York and traveled the country, not at comic book conventions, but living with the real people. He was friends with a world-class chef. She was friends with [e-mail]. It was the first damn night and she’d already blown it. Hence, staring at the ceiling in the wee hours of the morning.