The Red Hotel by Graham Masterton

Author:Graham Masterton [Masterton, Graham]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Horror
Publisher: Severn House
Published: 2012-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Mirror Image

When she stepped out of the elevator, Sissy found that the lobby was already packed. A jazz quartet in Derby hats and candy-striped silk vests were tootling away beside the reception desk, although they were finding it hard to make themselves heard over the chatter and laughter of more than three hundred people crowded around the fountain – local dignitaries and their wives, restaurant and hotel critics, newspaper and TV and radio reporters, as well as the entire LSU Tigers team, along with their managers and their cheerleaders in their purple-and-gold uniforms. The noise was deafening.

She weaved her way across the lobby to Everett’s office. Everett was there with T-Yon and Luther and a big-bellied man with a beard who was wearing a white jacket and checkered pants, whom Sissy took to be The Red Hotel’s head chef.

Everett was running through the last-minute details of the buffet they were going to be serving after the formal opening speeches.

‘We’re serving all of our specialties, right? Crawfish and cornbread cake, charbroiled oysters, shrimp Vacherie. How about the cedar-roasted redfish?’

T-Yon had pinned up her hair and was wearing a low-cut tube dress in startling red, with a large red silk flower pinned to the front.

‘Well, look at you,’ smiled Sissy.

‘How did it go?’ mouthed T-Yon, very quietly. Everett gave them a sharp glance but continued with his list of buffet dishes. ‘Did you find anything?’

‘I’m not quite sure what to tell you,’ said Sissy. ‘I saw a strange woman who seemed to vanish into thin air; and I heard some voices that seemed to be coming from out of the walls.’

‘My God. So there is something here.’

‘My witch compass seems pretty certain of it, and so am I. I can feel it in my bones. But I don’t have any evidence that’s going to convince your brother. It certainly didn’t convince that Detective What’s-his-face.’

‘Garrity?’

‘No, the other one, in that terrible green suit. I was up on the fifth floor and the witch compass was giving me such a strong indication that there was a spirit in one of the rooms there that I called him up to take a look. Which he did – very grudgingly, I may add – and then he left me without so much as saying that he didn’t believe me.’

T-Yon said, ‘I guess it is pretty hard for people to believe. I can hardly believe it myself. If I hadn’t seen those two people in my room . . .’

‘I’m trying to think what to do next,’ Sissy told her. ‘The trouble is, I don’t really know what Vanessa Slider wants – assuming it is her – or if she’s just causing mischief. You know, like a poltergeist. But I’m very worried that somebody else is going to get hurt, or maybe killed, even.’

‘I’ve been trying to talk to Ev about it,’ said T-Yon. ‘But he has so much invested in this hotel, so much money, so much hard work.’

‘I know. But maybe that’s one of the reasons why Mrs Slider is so resentful.

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