I glanced at Henry. “I can see why the two of you got along so well.”
I searched every surface but didn’t see a computer. Still, I’d deemed Henry completely unreliable other than the door-unlocking thing, so I searched the other rooms on that floor just to make sure Xavier hadn’t left his computer in one of them.
“No luck,” I said. “Take me to the gadget room.”
Back downstairs, off the main hall sat Xavier’s office. A large, elaborately engraved mahogany desk sat in the center, while pictures of houses lined the walls. I immediately recognized them as famous haunted homes. One thing you could say about Xavier, he was certainly serious about his work.
But still there wasn’t a computer on the desk. Or anywhere else that I could see.
“Is this the gadget room?”
“Oh no.” Henry chuckled. “That’s through this door.”
He snapped his fingers, and what had been a panel on the wall swung open with a hideouscreak.
“Wow. That’s like, totally Freddie Kruger scary,” Susan said.
I rolled my eyes. Like these two were in any danger. If a serial killer jumped from the shadows, it would be me getting killed while they looked on and commented.
Boy, she sure was pretty,Susan would say.
It’s too bad about that violet hair, though.Henry, obviously. He’d probably be trying to get a hand up my shirt.
Gag me with a spoon, he just gutted her.
See how that would go? I had very little confidence that my partners in crime were actually partners. They were more like spectators. Or specters. Heh, heh.
I crept forward. “I need more light.”
Susan came over and burned brighter. A staircase spiraled down to the basement. The room must’ve been used a lot by Xavier because there weren’t any cobwebs hanging in the way and the air smelled nice, like cinnamon.
“He did like his essential oils,” Henry said.
Right.
I ambled down the stairs until I reached the bottom. “Holy smokes.”
The room looked like central headquarters for an intelligence mission. There were working television screens everywhere. Most of them were running surveillance feed from the cameras that Xavier apparently had sprinkled throughout the house and grounds.
There was also a table housing what looked to be his ghost-hunting equipment. I picked up one of the pieces. It was rectangular, like an EMF reader. It smelled of oil and sweat.
“Xavier must’ve been tinkering with equipment,” I said. “Trying to make his ghost-hunting stuff better, more apt to catch spirits or detect their activity.”
I kept searching the room. No computer. Nothing that was his personal one at least. The only computers in the room were those working on surveillance.
“Crap. I should’ve stolen his cell phone. The e-mail probably would’ve been on it. Too late now.”
I raked my fingers through my hair. I was swimming in Haunted Hollow without any leads, any help and had no idea where to go next or even what to do.
“Would Xavier have put the computer in his car?” I said more to myself than anyone else.
I didn’t remember seeing a computer in the equipment van. No, it didn’t make sense that Xavier would’ve done that. I tapped my cheek, trying to figure it out.
Finally it hit me.
“The cameras.” I glanced over at Susan and Henry. “Maybe one of the cameras caught the laptop.”
I tapped away on the keyboard, trying to roll the video back. “Aha! I got it.”
