Ghost Fire Read online

  Why was Lucas acting like something strange had happened that night, something he couldn’t speak of? Could he actually think the inn was haunted? He seemed like a smart, sensible man. Why would he believe in such hokum like the spirit world? (Laney really couldn’t think of that phrase without wanting to make “ooh-hoo-hoo” sounds and wiggling her fingers.)

  Of course, Adele Lyons was intelligent too, and yet she believed the inn was haunted, all right. Though Laney could chalk that up to something else: desperation. Adele’s husband had been the one to die in the fire that night, and the woman was eager to assign a supernatural cause to her husband’s odd disappearance. Rationally, Laney knew Adele’s husband had likely been burnt to dust in the inferno somehow or—as Laney thought in her more jaded moments—had used the fire as a distraction to sneak out and skip town with another woman.

  Still, Adele’s beliefs and dedication to discovering the inn’s spirits were going to make Laney’s article into serious clickbait.

  Along with her reunion with the firefighter who’d been just a boy that night.

  Laney gurgled up the rest of the sweet tea with her straw and slammed the cup in the trash as she reached the front of Cattleman’s Crossing.

  The inn wasn’t one of the large, elegant hotels that graced downtown Dallas, nor the sort of cozy bed and breakfast that boasted of ghosts of kindly old women who tucked little children in at night. In terms of size and mood, it was in the middle—or maybe something else altogether. It was too small to be stately, and too strange to be quaint. Painted in pale yellow, it was a simple three-story building, the ground floor shaded by the orange canopy of ash trees and seven windows each on the second and third floors. A steer’s horn stretched above the entrance, a nod to its Texas roots, and potted cactus stood sentinel on either side. Inside, though, it looked like a New England transplant: narrow hallways and cramped rooms, odd spaces and old-fashioned sinks.

  Laney crossed underneath the horn and pushed the door open.

  A series of framed pictures on the staircase showed the progression of the inn the hundred years it’d stood in Dallas, but none of them had people.

  A teenage boy hunched over the front desk, fiddling on his phone. At the sound of her approach, he startled and dropped his cell.

  “Oh, hey,” he said, fumbling under the desk for his toy. He reappeared, his shoulder-length, mouse-brown hair flopping in his face. “You must be…”

  “Laney Stonewater.” She walked up to the desk, pulling her hair off her neck and fanning her face. “Is it always this hot?”

  “Right. Laney Stonewater. Yeah, it’s always this hot. I mean, not usually this late in the year, though.” The kid gave her a sheepish grin and put out his hand. “I’m Tucker. We spoke on the phone.”

  “Hi, Tucker.” As she learned when they’d spoken a few weeks ago, Tucker was the son of the Dixons, a local wealthy family who’d bought the inn five years ago. Though he was barely seventeen, Tucker manned the desk at Cattleman’s Crossing. It would’ve been a mind-numbingly boring job for most teenagers, but Tucker had an interest other boys his age didn’t.

  Ghosts.

  “Everything’s the way you wanted,” Tucker said. “I’ve been telling everyone who’s called to reserve a room that the place is undergoing fumigation.” He smirked. “Spiders.”

  “Clever.” She had offered Tucker a chunk of money to keep the inn empty for this particular reunion, but she hadn’t needed to. The boy had a trust fund, and what’s more, he was eager to witness the so-called spirit that graced the building his parents owned. Barely a twinkle in his mother’s eye when the fire had ravaged the inn, Tucker had grown up on the lore and was hungry to experience it with his own eyes. Laney hadn’t had to do any arm-twisting when she’d called and explained her article idea to him. That is, as long as she let him in on their little reunion party.

  Laney dropped her hair and asked, “Has Adele Lyons called to confirm her reservation?”

  “Yeah, she’s showing up tomorrow afternoon. Said she’s bringing a friend too?”

  “Of sorts.”

  Tucker leaned over the counter and lowered his voice. “So did you get him to say yes?”

  Laney sighed. “Not yet. But I think I will.” It might take showing back up at Dallas Fire and Rescue in her shortest dress, offering Lucas Moore money, and giving him a mother of a guilt trip, but Laney would get him to come to Cattleman’s Crossing tomorrow night come hell or high water. Her article and future depended on it.

  “Good.” Tucker nodded, shuffling around some papers on the desk. “Is it okay if I set up some equipment here tomorrow night?”

  “Hmm.” She bit the inside of her cheek, considering. She wanted the inn quiet enough to capture some quotes from Adele and Lucas as they reminisced about what happened that night, without a teenager running around with bullshit monitors and recorders to detect bullshit paranormal activity. Then again, if Tucker managed to capture some random temperature fluctuation that could seem like it was the work of ghosts, that would be a real boon to her piece. “Okay,” she finally said. “But nothing too fancy, okay?”

  “Right. Thanks.”

  She tilted her head at him. “You actually think this place is haunted, don’t you?”

  “Oh, I’m sure it’s haunted,” Tucker said. “I’m just not 100 percent sure which kind of ghost.”

  Lifting her eyebrows, Laney repeated, “Kind?”

  “Yeah.” Tucker pulled his brown hair behind his ears. “I mean, you got like a bunch of different types of apparitions. There are your poltergeists, which generally just like to screw with your shit. The ghost here could be that, because a lot of people have mentioned things being moved, especially wallets and loose change left around. Then there are residual haunts, which happen when something big and traumatic happens in a place, and the energy just sort of echoes—like footsteps or a scream, you know?”

  “Uh-huh.” This was probably the sort of thing that Laney should be paying more attention to, but she didn’t believe in ghosts, let alone ghost taxonomy. But she nodded and pulled out her phone, jotting down a few notes.

  “But what I think,” Tucker said, “is that it’s the saloon guy.”

  Laney stopped typing and glanced up. “Silas Bolton?”

  He grinned. “You got it.” Reaching under some papers on the hotel desk, he pulled out an old, yellowed newspaper. It was dated 1892, and on it was a picture of a young man scowling and leaning against a bar, his eyes dark and gleaming. Laney had seen the image before. It always got her how these black and white photos from the Old West made you feel like you were right there in the saloon. She could almost smell the cigars, hear the horses whinnying and stomping outside, and see the men sitting around tables with cards and bottles of whiskey.

  Pointing at Silas, Tucker asked, “Doesn’t he look like a guy that would haunt you?”

  “That’s for sure.” Silly as it was, Laney had done her homework. Silas “Pocket” Bolton was one of the most infamous suspects rumored to be haunting Cattleman’s Crossing.

  Pocket had frequented the saloon that was once located where the inn now stood. Back then, he’d had a reputation. A bad one. Young as he was, he was greedy, and he had a dishonest streak a mile long. He spent his time in the saloon, drinking and gambling and parting other men from their hard-earned money. He got the nickname “Pocket” because of the way he carried himself: one hand out, the other in his left pocket where he kept all the coins he’d won.

  It must’ve been a lot of coins. His obituary claimed he’d never lost a hand.

  “There are old stories that say Pocket Bolton got some help from the devil.” Tucker’s eyes lit with excitement.

  Laney shrugged. “He was probably just really good at cheating.”

  “Yeah, but one day he disappeared into an upstairs room of the saloon,” Tucker said, “and when they went looking for him, all they found was a pile of ash and his gold coins on top. Like the devil had come to take his side of t
he bargain.”

  Laney wrinkled her nose at the picture of the dour-faced man. “He should’ve asked the devil for a facelift. Or maybe some Zoloft.” She tapped the newspaper. “So if our ghost here is supposedly Pocket Bolton, what kind would he be, a poltergeist?”

  “Nope.” The boy squinted at the grainy image of the gambler. “Probably an intelligent apparition, and judging by this dude’s expression, maybe a malevolent one. Those are the real baddies, the ones that don’t just want your attention.”

  “What could ol’ Pocket Bolton want?”

  Tucker’s voice grew quiet. “Well, if he sold himself to the devil, maybe there’s something else he collects now besides coins. Like souls.” He shook himself. “I mean, that’s what the Dallas tourist guide I read says.”

  Laney jotted that down, briefly shuddering as a drop of cool sweat slid down her spine.

  Tucker scooped up the old paper and stowed it under the hotel desk. “Well, if there’s an intelligent apparition here, I’ll be sure to capture it on my equipment.”

  Spirits, demons, Bigfoot, little green aliens, non-corrupt politicians, the Loch Ness monster—it was all the same to Laney. But these days, publications that gave over a dollar a word were as hard to spot as ghosts. She was going to use every bit she could. With a wry smile, she thought of it as one last con before she could put her past—and her parents—behind her.

  When their lies had caught up with the Stonewaters—when sympathetic bank employees wanted a loan back or neighbors realized nobody was dying of any incurable disease—the family left town. Again and again. She’d been raised faking broken legs and absent relatives and failing to make any friendships that lasted beyond six months. Karl and Sandy had been kind to her, and fun in their own way, but they never stopped playing pretend. Sometimes she wondered if she even knew their real names. When Laney had graduated college, she’d finally severed ties and left them to their retirement beach house in New Jersey. They’d at least given her a bank account in her own name, but the money there was slowly dwindling, and it was never hers—never theirs—to begin with.

  She wanted to make it on her own, without lies or guise. This article would be one last half-truth to help her stand on her own two feet and launch her career as a freelance writer. Sure, she didn’t believe in spirits, but there were a lot of things she pretended to believe in, like democracy in 21st century America.

  Shitty parents or not, she had her mother’s curves and her father’s big promises, and she would use whatever she could to nail this.

  She scrolled through her phone. “Well, I’m going to take some photos, and then…” Laney tapped her lips with a forefinger.

  Tucker raised an eyebrow. “Then?”

  “I’m going to go back to the fire station and get Lucas Moore to agree to spend tomorrow night here.”

  Chapter Four

  Lucas

  Lucas was putting away his helmet that evening at the station when a flash of red caught his eye. He turned his head, but it was almost half a minute before his brain caught up to what his eyes absorbed.

  A knockout in a red dress stood in the door to Station 58. She wore a bright cherry-colored scrap of fabric that fell barely to mid-thigh. It made the waves trailing over her shoulder and down her back look even more tempting. The dress was a thin fabric that clung to her curves. And what curves they were. The fabric cinched in the middle, emphasizing the swell of hips below, and in front it draped, dipping to expose a hint of cleavage.

  His helmet hit the floor.

  “Hello,” the woman said softly, smiling at his fluster.

  His brain kicked into gear. He should’ve been a betting man. Laney Stonewater was back, alright. Though he hadn’t had her pegged 100 percent. He guessed she’d return, but he didn’t suspect her of such cruelty. She could kill a man in that dress before he even saw it coming.

  Despite the lack of blood in his brain, Lucas managed to mumble, “You’re back.”

  “I’m back.”

  “Not the kind of woman to take no for an answer?”

  “Was it that obvious?”

  “Painfully.” Like how he was feeling in his pants just then. He bent down, picked up the helmet, and stowed it. He walked towards her, shoving his hands in his pockets. He could lie to himself and think that it was because he needed to get close to really emphasize how much he wasn’t going to answer her questions, but really he wanted a closer look.

  Thank God most of the other firefighters were in the back eating dinner. He’d never live this down.

  He stopped two feet away from her and crossed his arms. “How come a woman who doesn’t believe in ghosts is so interested in digging up one at some old inn?”

  She crossed her own arms, mirroring him. “Answer my questions, and I’ll answer yours.”

  “Is that how it’s going to be?”

  She raised an eyebrow in response—a perfectly-shaped brown eyebrow above a beautiful light green eye.

  “You shouldn’t go to that inn,” he said. “It’s old, it’s derelict, it’s…”

  “Haunted?” she offered.

  He swallowed. “Just trust me. It’s not somewhere you want to be. Especially not at night.”

  “Well, Lucas Moore, I’m not sure I believe you, given that you’ve told me zero reasons why I shouldn’t stay there. Or shown me why I shouldn’t.”

  He shook his head. Knockout or not, Cattleman’s Crossing was not someplace he wanted to return. Not in his head, and definitely not in person.

  He exhaled a shaky breath, and when his voice came, it was more rough than he intended. “What if I say no again? What if I say that I want you to stop asking questions, leave, and never come back?”

  She uncrossed her arms, her lips parting. She hadn’t expected him to toss her out so quickly or firmly, had probably thought she’d dazzle him with her outfit—she had—and he’d be unable to refuse.

  Well, no.

  Lucas knew he was approaching the line, and was maybe already there, when he’d say no too frequently or sternly enough that she really would leave and not come back. Maybe she had other sources who would be there tomorrow night. Maybe she’d talked to Adele Lyons; Mrs. Lyons would certainly talk to her.

  As much as he resented Laney’s intrusion into his memories, he had to admit that not seeing this woman again felt wrong in a way he couldn’t shake. And she’d still be going to the inn the following night for her stupid article. Who knew what would happen.

  Lucas swallowed, not wanting to think what could happen. He couldn’t let her go to Cattleman’s Crossing tomorrow night. Maybe he could persuade her against it.

  Laney shifted her weight. “Listen, I just—”

  “Have dinner with me.”

  She stopped speaking, her mouth open in surprise. “What?”

  “Have dinner with me. Tonight.”

  She closed her mouth. “Does this mean you’re going to stay at the inn with me?”

  “It means I want to have dinner with you.”

  If he had his way, neither of them would be at Cattleman’s Crossing tomorrow night. He’d take another inn with her, though. Any place with a king-sized bed, where he could lay her out in that dress and run his hands up her legs and—

  “Okay,” Laney said. “Now?”

  “Let me get cleaned up first,” he said. “My shift’s about to end. I need to grab a shower and then I can meet you.” He rattled off the name and address of a nearby restaurant that served the best empanadas in town, and she nodded a curt agreement, a smile playing on her lips.

  He knew he’d been had. But Laney didn’t realize the danger that was in front of her. Still, as she walked away from him, that dress swishing against the backs of her thighs, he leaned his back against the brick wall of the station and rubbed his hands over his face.

  “Shit.”

  Chapter Five

  Laney

  Lucas Moore cleaned up well.

  She was already seated at the restaurant, her body
cooling in the air conditioning and a tiny flame flickering in the white vase on the table, when the firefighter walked into the restaurant and spotted her. He’d changed from the nondescript gray shirt and pants he’d been wearing at the station into a pale blue button-down over dark jeans. His hair was freshly washed.

  “Hey, there,” he said as he slid into the booth across from her.

  “Hey, yourself.” She smiled. He was wearing date clothes and she was pleased he’d made the effort, which probably meant she had very few professional ethics. Though using her red dress on Lucas Moore should’ve been her first clue.

  A waitress came by to take their drink orders, and she ordered a beer while Lucas grabbed a soda and ice water. He doesn’t trust himself around me, Laney thought as she quickly perused her menu. He doesn’t want his guard down.

  Laney knew that if she wanted him to open up, she’d have to give him something. She hadn’t even known him four hours, but she could tell he was an honorable guy. Of course, most of the time Laney believed in those even less than little green men.

  After the waitress had taken their empanada orders, she began talking. “I don’t believe in ghosts,” she admitted. “You’re right about that.”

  “Thought so,” Lucas said, studying her carefully.

  “I read this article about Cattleman’s Crossing and realized the 20th anniversary was coming up,” she continued. “On a lark, I pitched a piece to a publication that pays well, and they said yes. But they wanted me to find the people from the original tragedy and do interviews. I thought of having some of those people stay at the inn, and of course they agreed.”

  “So even though you don’t believe in ghosts, you’ll do it for the money.”

  Laney shook her head. “It’s not quite like that. I don’t need money, I need my own money, the kind you earn from hard work. Honest work.”

  He studied her. “You think this article is the ticket?”