Page 30 of A Haunting at Keystone Manor

As soon as I’m cuddled on the bed with Jake again, I say nonchalantly, “The police will be here tomorrow to arrest Kayla for murder.”

Jake sits up. “What?! Alex, what did you do?” he asks me, looking nervous.

I sit up and face him. “It’s simple. I told the police I overheard Kayla bragging about killing Andrei and burying his body next to the shed. They’ll come in the morning, arrest her, dig up Andrei’s body, and all our problems will be solved! I’ll officially take over the hotel, Brandon will handle the guests, and you’ll take over gardening.”

“You think my father is going to allow that? The only reason this place exists is to clean his dirty money. You know that! Is a phone call even enough to have someone arrested? What if they do nothing, or arrest Brandon instead, or—” he’s starting to look a little hysterical, so I squeeze his hand.

“Calm down, Jake. We’re going to blackmail your father into walking away from this place. Quietly. You know all of his dirty laundry, and he can’t exactly do anything to you, being a ghost and all. He will walk away, I promise you. And this place will be free from all that. We’ll be a legitimate hotel.”

“This place will be a crime scene again soon. Who’ll want to stay here?”

“Jake, there is a whole community of true crime weirdos out there that would kill to stay here, knowing there were bodies buried on the grounds. Not to mention the paranormal investigators. We’ll cater to those guys. And gals. They will come, guaranteed. We just need to market it. Did you see the one-star review Derek left on google due to being terrorized by evil spirits all night? It’s perfect, that kind of thing is what will give us legitimacy, help us build our brand.”

He looks extremely dubious. “Do you trust me?” I ask.

“Always,” he replies.

***

The next morning I’m broken out of my nightly trance by loud shrieks. Kayla. I hop out of bed. “Get up Jake, the police are here! I want to watch this.” I run out the door and Jake follows behind.

In the lobby, the state police have Kayla thrown on the ground, trying to get her hands cuffed behind her back. They are reading her Miranda rights as she struggles and shouts about how innocent she is.

“Please, you’ve got the wrong person! I’m being framed! Ouch, you’re hurting my arm.”

“Stop resisting,” the officer says and clicks the cuffs into place before hauling her to her feet.

“I’m gonna sue you for police brutality. My civil rights were violated! I didn’t kill all those people, I swear. It was the gardener! He smokes meth all day, he’s probably a serial killer!”

“Give it up, girl. We all know that’s not true. We don't even have a gardener,” I say to her.

The officer, not buying her bullshit, says, “Can it. One of your guests overheard you talking all about it. How do you think we found the body of the lady you killed? Getting a warrant was easy, due to the fact that another body was found on this property recently. Jacob Covington, ring a bell? Looks like you’ve been busy. You’re a sick fuck, ma’am. Let’s go.”

He leads her to the door with a hand on her cuffs. Fuck, look at those tattoos. I shudder, wondering if these are real cops. I guess as long as they take Kayla with them, it doesn’t really matter. Another cop comes up to take her to the car, and cop one says, “We’ll need to check records of guests who’ve stayed here, and cross reference to the call we received. I want to take their statement, see if they know anything else. In the meantime, I’m taking my lunch break. Let me know if you need anything.”

The other cop looks confused. “Lunch? It’s nine in the morning!”

Cop one waves him off. “Don’t fucking argue with me Perez, you have a suspect to book.”

Oh, shit. “A lady?!” I screech when I realize what he said. “No, no, no! You guys dug up the wrong corpse! What the fuck?” I put my face in my hands. “Kayla, you psychopath.” After a minute I shake myself off and straighten. “This is okay, we can still work with this. It’ll be good for business. A serial killer used this hotel as a dumping ground. That’s marketable.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I see Brandon walk up. I want to say hi but he ignores me and heads to the cop. Right, people are around that can’t see me. It would be weird if he started talking to empty space. He heads over to the officer.

“What’s going on here, officer? Is there a problem?” Brandon asks.

The cop looks him over before saying, “Detective Mitchells, who are you?”

“My name is Brandon, sir,” he says and tries to subtly remove the blunt from behind his ear and stick it in his pocket. “I’m the assistant manager here. Where’s Kayla?” He looks around.

“Ms. Danver is being taken in for questioning about the murders of at least two people on this property. We dug one up earlier this morning, out on the edge of the property near a warehouse. Got a tip from one of your guests. It didn’t take long to find; she didn’t cover her tracks very well.”

Brandon looks confused, knowing there currently are no guests. “Murder, gnarly,” he says, distracted.

“Anyway, here’s my card. We’ll be in touch. Don’t leave town, kid. Just in case we need to uh, talk to you.” Detective Mitchells hands him a business card before walking out.

Brandon looks over at us once the cop is gone. “Guys! What the fuck is going on?”

“It’s a long story; I’ll fill you in.”