“No.”
“We’ll save it for morning. Let’s just get some sleep.”
They didn’t even bother to shower. Jenny checked the bandages on his shoulder; then they finished undressing and fell into bed. The queen-size was too small for Cain’s big frame, but when he curled her against him, there was plenty of room, and it felt perfect having him hold her that way. Both of them were asleep in seconds.
It was four o’clock in the morning when a noise in the room had her eyes cracking open.
“What the hell is that?” Cain asked groggily.
Jenny recognized the sounds from before. “It’s like a bunch of chains clanking together.”
“Chains,” Cain repeated, sitting up and swinging his long legs to the side of the bed.
The sound came again. “Like heavy iron being dragged over a wooden floor,” she whispered. It was followed by the creak of a metal gate swinging open, then heavy footsteps.
Both of them listened hard. “Like a criminal being dragged into an old iron jail cell,” Cain said when the noise came again.
“Yes . . .”
The grating noise of a rusty key turning in the lock cut through the silence. A man’s deep voice groaned.
Jenny’s heart was racing, her mouth bone-dry. It was getting worse. She had to do something. Close this part of the hotel—at the very least.
Cain shot to his feet. “This is bullshit. I don’t believe this crap for a minute.” He strode into the tiny living room, pulled open the door, and glanced into the corridor. He closed the door and returned to bed.
“Not a damned thing out there.” He raked his fingers through his thick dark hair. “Snakes and broken dishes. Demons and murder. Now this. God knows what’s next.”
“While we were gone, room eight reported seeing a transparent man in the hallway.”
Cain swore beneath his breath. When the room fell silent, he climbed back into bed and pulled her against him, planted a soft kiss on the side of her neck. “Don’t think about it tonight. We both need sleep. We’ll figure this out in the morning.”
Jenny closed her eyes. She could feel his hard body slowly relax around her, and then he was sleeping. It took a while, but eventually, she fell asleep, too. It was late the next morning when she awakened.
Cain was already gone.
* * *
Cain had phoned Will Price before he left the Copper Star. Jenny would find him in the hallway outside her door when she left her room for work.
After the broken dishes and the noises in her room last night, protection for Jenny was more important than ever. Someone was purposely causing her trouble, and it wasn’t a bunch of ghosts.
He refused to think about what had happened to him in room 10. There had to be an explanation, and Cain intended to find it.
To start with, Jenny was going to sit down and write an enemies list—just as he had done. She had told him about her cousin Eddie’s appearance last night and the man’s belief she owed him money.
Eddie Spencer held the number-one spot on her list, along with Ryder Vance. Cain picked up the phone and called Nick Faraday. It was Wednesday, but Nick wasn’t picking up.
He left a message asking Nick to call. Maybe by the time Nick phoned back, Cain would have a few more enemies to add to Jenny’s list.
* * *
Sitting at a table in the bar, Jenny went over the receipts from last night. It looked as if the evening had been extremely profitable, not unusual for Halloween night in a ghost town. She smiled.
Barb and some of the staff had arrived early to clean the place up, though they’d done most of it last night.
Will accompanied her down to the basement, then stood by while she sifted through her mother’s pretty dishes and tried not to cry. She managed to salvage a gold-rimmed, flowered porcelain tea pot and four matching cups and saucers. Most of the plates and serving dishes were cracked or broken. She saved as much as she could, wrapped it all in newspaper and boxed it up, then carried the box to a different part of the basement and hid it behind some cartons on the floor.
Thinking of her mother and swallowing past the lump in her throat, she returned upstairs with Will.
