Black Raven Inn: A Paranormal Mystery (Taryn's Camera Book 6) (24 page)

“
M
att,” Taryn’s voice flew out in a rush
as she ran down the stairs. “I figured it out. It’s in the room! It makes total sense now! I’ve got to get back to the motel room. Call me!”

It was unusual for Matt’s phone to go to voicemail but she knew he’d get the message soon and call her right back.

Taryn was as excited as Parker had been in her dream. She’d been wrong. She’d been wrong about a lot. It had all been
right
there in front of her and she’d ignored the signs, ignored what he was trying to tell her.

The ghost wasn’t trying to hurt her, he was trying to
show
her. And she’d been blind.

At 1:00 am the roads were clear. She considered calling Matt again to tell him what was going on but decided against it. She didn’t want to wake him. She could wait until she found what she was looking for and had proof.

As she neared the motel, though, she changed her mind. She should let him know.

Taryn pulled over to a deserted gas station and quickly tapped out a text message to Matt, telling him where she was and what was going on. Then she laid her phone on her seat and headed back out to the main road. Now at least she could say she tried.

The motel looked much different in the dark night. The gate was locked and Aker had the key with him. Taryn already knew how to get in, though, and after pulling her car into a nearby fast food lot she slipped back over to the Black Raven Inn and walked around the perimeter until she found the loose opening in the gate. It only took her a few seconds to get inside.

Her little backpack was slung over her shoulder, Miss Dixie fitted snugly inside.

Taryn was across the parking lot and all the way to Room #5 before she remembered her phone.

“Well, damn,” she muttered.

For a moment she paused, wondering if she should go back for it. She’d left it on her car seat, forgetting that she’d removed it from her backpack to send a text message to Ruby.

In the end, however, she decided she didn’t need it. She wasn’t going to be there long and she had her mace. Nobody would bother her. It had already been vandalized the night before. They didn’t usually come back if they were unable to find something the first time.

She didn’t need a key to Parker’s room; the door had been kicked open by the vandal and now it couldn’t shut all the way to. Taryn gave it a little push and was soon inside.

She was shocked and saddened at the shape of the room. The bed had been sliced down the middle, stuffing and springs popping out everywhere. The bedspread was in tatters, slimy streamers that had been tossed all over the room. All of Parker’s pictures had been torn from the walls, destroyed. It appeared one had been defecated and urinated on.

It didn’t look animal.

The chair was overturned and someone had taken a knife to the fabric, ripping it to shreds.

Her easel was broken in half, her paints opened and the contents smeared over the walls and ceiling. Blood-red paint dripped from the ceiling and ran down the walls.

The whole thing looked like a murder scene. This hadn’t been the work of some teenagers looking for a good time; this had been done by someone full of anger.

The one thing Taryn needed hadn’t been touched.

Not bothering to close the door behind her, she kneeled down at the radiator and, using the screwdriver she’d brought from home, began working on the screws. It was old and the metal was sticking in place, but the top came off soon enough.

Taryn now wished she had her phone with her. At least, if she did, she could’ve used the flashlight on it. It was pitch black inside it now and she couldn’t see what she was sticking her hand into. She just hoped it wasn’t a rat’s nest or spider nest. She didn’t do spiders.

She was about to give up when her fingers hit the round metal object.

Murmuring with glee, Taryn brought her hand back out, the ring clutched between her fingers. It glowed in the moonlight with a preternatural radiance.

The year after Parker died, the heating system had been updated. The old radiator had never been removed. It was her luck the ring was still there.

Taryn knew she needed to get out of there. It was still an unsafe part of town, especially at night. As she turned to go, however, something tugged at her. It might have been Parker, or it might have been her own subconscious. Either way, she took a few moments to fish Miss Dixie out of her backpack and turn her on. Taryn aimed her at the room in general and then at the bed. When she brought the camera back and gazed at the LCD screen, she was happy with what she saw.

She was in the process of slinging the camera around her neck when she was pushed from behind, a force so great that she slammed into the floor and immediately saw stars. She heard, rather than felt, the crack of her neck. She landed on Miss Dixie as she fell and a rib dislocated from her position. Taryn screamed from the pain then felt a kick in the lower back for her efforts.

When she was flipped over and the pillow was thrown over her face, she began to fight.

T
he world was growing black around her
. Taryn had never seen such darkness.

The panic at being unable to breathe consumed her, had her kicking and thrashing and screaming a pitiful sound that was muffled against the fabric.

But then something else happened.

She was in the room, but she wasn’t. Taryn could feel herself being lifted in the air, floating to the ceiling, where she tucked herself into a little ball in the corner. The feeling of weightlessness, of flying, was exhilarating. Her body had never felt so alive, or so pain free. She experimented by doing a little somersault, feeling the world spinning around her. Her face broke out into a wide smile as she laughed and laughed.

The scene before her caught her attention, however, and she stopped.

It was Parker and he was alone. Back and forth he paced across the room, hands running through his hair and tugging, pulling out strands by the clumps. His face pale, his body dripping with sweat, he looked fluish. Taryn’s heart went out to the man who was obviously sick, clearly unwell.

She watched with sympathy as he stopped walking, bent over at the waist, and gagged. Then she watched when he fell onto the bed and clutched his stomach, moaning in agony. He was back up again soon after, again pacing back and forth, alternating between crying and cursing.

A knock on the door came then and someone she couldn’t see handed something to Parker. When he reentered the room he had a bottle in his hands. He placed the bottle on the nightstand then returned to his pacing, shaking his head back and forth, as though fighting something inside.

Finally, he rushed to the small table, opened the bottle, and removed first one pill and then another. He swallowed them dry then turned to face the wall. She watched as he beat his hands on it and cried out, defeated and repulsed. Minutes later when he turned around, however, the agony on his face had been replaced with something akin to peace. He didn’t appear to be high, not in the way Taryn knew. He looked clear, put together. His movements were more fluid, the desperation no longer as obvious.

When he sat back down on the edge of the bed, she thought he even looked normal.

But she’d never seen someone more miserable.

Miss
Dixie
was crushing into her; she was aware of her camera more than anything else.

For a moment she’d wanted to somersault into the air again. An opening had appeared in the motel’s ceiling and roof and she could see the black, starry night above her. Something tugged at her, called her upwards. Taryn had thought about extending her body and just flying up and out, soaring into the cool sky and feeling the weightlessness forever.

It was so much better.

But then she felt Miss Dixie.

She was back on the floor again, the camera digging into her stomach. She could no longer breathe, no longer move.

She could feel her camera, though, and with the last bit of strength she had, she grabbed ahold of the body, tugged it free of its strap (a movement that would leave her neck bruised and scarred for months), and grasped it. Then, with a primal cry, she flailed blindly and struck the figure atop of her with all her might.

The pressure on her face lessened and she could move.

Taryn used the opportunity to roll out from under the pillow. When she saw the outline of the person kneeling before her, clutching their head, she stood and brought Miss Dixie down with all her might. Then she did it again and again, driving her camera into whatever surface on them she could hit.

Satisfied they were still on the floor, Taryn turned to run from the room but was stopped when a hand reached out and grabbed her ankle, dragging her back to the floor. Thinking of Matt, and of Parker, she kicked and fought and screamed a primal sound that rang throughout the motel’s complex.

Then her scream was replaced with something else, a blast that sent a spark of fire through the darkness.

The grip on her leg was loosened. Taryn could stand again. The figure was slumped over in front of her, an acrid scene of blood and gunpowder filling the room.

Looking up in surprise, Taryn saw the tall, thin outline of a woman standing in the doorway. Next to her, in a faint silhouette, was Parker Brown. His face, turned to the woman beside him, was as radiant and peaceful as it had been in any photo. Ruby held the gun before her, still and unmoving.

“And this one’s for Parker, Lenny,” she said softly. And fired again.

“
A
re you sad it’s coming down
? Just a little?”

Ruby turned and smiled at Taryn. The two women stood side by side as the construction workers milled around the motel’s parking lot, shouting and following orders.

“Maybe a little,” she replied. “But Parker would want it. He wouldn’t want this to be his tomb.”

“Well, at least you’re making this side of town happy,” Taryn teased her and laughed.

The pain rippled through her stomach and chest, a reminder of the events that had occurred a month earlier.

“I don’t know whether to be amused or disappointed that the tabloids didn’t take a greater interest in what happened,” Ruby mused thoughtfully. “I guess nobody’s interested in an old woman like me.”

“Want me to leak a story or something?” Matt asked, throwing his arm around Taryn. “I could say you were having an affair with Garth Brooks or something.”

“Good job, Matt, you know who Garth is.”

“Yeah, well, I’m learning,” he shrugged.

“Make it Rodney Crowell and you’re on,” Ruby teased him.

Although he might not have known who Ruby was initially, anyone who would shoot somebody to save Taryn was okay in his book. While she recovered in the hospital, he’d formed an odd sort of friendship with Ruby, even being invited to stay with her until Taryn was released.

Taryn again thought of the night’s events. Remembered seeing Ruby in the doorway with the gun, feeling Lenny’s hands holding the pillow over her head.

She guessed if you were going to be murdered, there were worse ways you could go than death-by-superstar.

“So the ‘girlfriend’ who was with Parker earlier that night was Aker’s ex wife?” Matt had trouble putting the story together when he’d visited Taryn in the hospital.

“Apparently everyone was sleeping with her, even Lenny,” Taryn had laughed wryly, although laughing hurt so she’d quickly nipped that one in the bud.

“And the night he died?”

“Lenny had found out she was sleeping with Parker, too. She knew he was angry. She’d gone there to warn him but it was too late.” Taryn sighed, feeling the weight of the world on her shoulders. “Gloria was just a replacement for Ruby, someone Lenny couldn’t have. Every time he fell for a woman, she wanted Parker.”

She was grateful Matt had called Ruby that night. Even more grateful she’d forwarded that first email to him, the one with Ruby’s phone number. If he hadn’t called her and told her where Taryn had gone…

Of course, how could she have known that Lenny was stalking her? That’s he’d been looking to destroy her paintings and pictures.

That someone that famous had been so crazy?

“Okay ladies,” Aker called, marching towards them. “Enough standing around here. Let’s get some food.”

Taryn smiled as the bulky man threaded his arm through Ruby’s and led her to the car. She wasn’t sure when that had happened, but it was nice.

In the hospital, Ruby had visited Taryn and asked her what she really wanted to know.

“He didn’t overdose, did he?”

Taryn, feeling the effects of the pain medicine, had told her the truth.

“In a way, he did. It wasn’t that he’d taken too much, it was that he’d been clean up until that point and had re-dosed at his old dosage. His body just couldn’t handle it. If he hadn’t been trying to get clean, it might have been okay.”

“But he didn’t do it.”

“No,” Taryn said sadly, “he didn’t. It was Lenny. Lenny gave him the sedative then shot him up. Parker never knew.”

She had the pictures to prove it, too. Miss Dixie had come through in more ways than one.

The ring, which Taryn had clutched until the paramedics had rushed her off, had fallen into the radiator when Lenny entered the room and grasped Parker in a hug. He’d done his best to find it, but couldn’t. When he’d heard about Taryn’s paintings, he knew she’d figure it out.

“Why was the ring so important?” Matt had asked.

“Because Parker had bought it for him the day before. And he’d told everyone that he hadn’t seen Parker since, hadn’t been in the motel room. That put him on the scene,” she told him.

Then it was Taryn’s turn to ask Ruby.

“You and Parker never, you know, did you?”

Ruby shook her head sadly. “No. Just a kiss, one night in Arizona. It was going that way. It would have gone that way. I was going to tell him. I was going to go there and tell him I loved him. But I chickened out. I thought there was so much time. We had that tour coming up, we were talking about a new album. I didn’t want to do it over the phone and I didn’t feel well that night. I waited.”

“So he never knew.”

“He never knew,” she agreed.

But Taryn thought he had. She thought the idea of Ruby was what held him together.

Later, while talking to Matt, she told him of the things she’d learned. “Parker wasn’t an addict in the sense we think of,” she said. “He wasn’t taking stuff to get high, he was taking things to feel normal, to maintain. There was something in him that just wouldn’t give him any peace.”

“I hope he has it now,” Matt said.

“Me too.”

“Listen, do you think all of that was just Parker? The hauntings, the stuff going on in the room?”

Taryn had wondered that herself. “I don’t know,” she replied at last. “I want to say no. I think there was something else going on. Sometimes darkness follows grief, desperation, lost people. I think at one time it might have just been a normal motel but then over the years it became something else. I know I feel better now that I’m out of it.”

“I’m glad it’s coming down,” Matt had shuddered.

“So am I.”

“And maybe now Ruby can find some peace as well. Never underestimate the power of unrequited love. Or guilt. Ruby had both. I hope she can move on now.”

Matt laughed as he ruffled Taryn’s hair.

“What?”

“Did you hear yourself? ‘Move on’,” he grinned. “Are you moving to the dark side?”

Taryn bit her lip and tried to hide a smile. “I hope not,” she replied.

I hope not.