Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8) (18 page)

She pushed past me and walked
over to the beds where a shirtless Dex was sitting up, his crazy
bed hair pointing every which way, and Rebecca pulling her covers
up to her collarbone.

“
I don’t want
to say this more than once, but it’s too late for that,” she
said.

“
And good
morning to you too,” Dex said with a groan. “Are you sure we can’t
have coffee before the lecture?”

She put her hands together. I
noted she was wearing another brown suit that made her look like a
giant Hershey’s Kiss. “So then you know what I’m about to talk to
you about. This morning as I was getting ready for work, I got an
alert to my email saying that the motion detector on the camera had
been tripped. Imagine my surprise when I saw footage of the two of
you,” she looked from Dex to me as I rubbed my bruised tailbone,
“careening down the staircase like you were on fire.”

I gulped. “We’re sorry, we—“
Rebecca started.

She raised her nose in the air
and went on as if Rebecca hadn’t said anything. “I don’t even know
how you two managed to get up there without tripping the recording
the first time. I never got an email about that.” I shot Dex a look
to keep quiet. We didn’t want to tell her we’d been in the body
chute. “What on earth were you guys doing up there without my
permission?”

“
We are so
sorry,” I said, coming forward with my arms across my chest. “We
were only on the second floor, We just thought we heard something,
like someone was here. We just wanted to look around.”

She cocked her ugly eyebrow.
“And? Did you find anything?”

“
Sorta,” I
said, though now I could see Dex was giving me a look to keep my
mouth shut. I guess he didn’t want us sharing our footage with her
just yet. “We thought we saw a dog.”

“
A dog?” she
repeated. She seemed to mull that over. “I don’t know anything
about any dogs. But this building does house raccoons on occasion.
I’m sorry if it gave you a fright.”

That was no
damn raccoon
, I thought, trying to convey
my thoughts to Dex.
We
knew raccoons.

“
Still,” she
said, clearing all the sympathy out of her throat, “you know I
don’t want anyone up there without a staff member present. This
could be a large liability for us. Do I make myself clear? Those
floors are off limits unless I give you permission
otherwise.”

Dex raised his hand straight up
into the air like an eager school kid.

She narrowed her eyes. “What is
it?”

“
Can we have
permission?”

She sighed like her patience
was near depletion. “You have your tour with the historian in two
hours. I suggest you film what you can. If you want to do more
after that, then we’ll talk.” She marched across the room toward
the door then looked over her shoulder at us. “Coffee is in the
teacher’s lounge.”

She left the room just as I
remembered something. “Dex,” I hissed. “Did you remember to get all
the beers out of the staff fridge?”

“
Fuck!” he
exclaimed and popped out of bed. He ran out the door and down the
hall in just his boxer briefs. His hard, beautiful body got a cry
of surprise and look of admiration from an early-bird teacher who
had just walked in the main doors. I could only hope he wasn’t
sporting his usual morning wood, though I’m sure our encounter with
Davenport had officially frozen his balls.

I looked over at Rebecca. “How
did you sleep?”

“
Why, do I
look tired?” she asked almost defensively.

“
No,” I said,
coming around to sit on the edge of her bed. She did have dark
circles under eyes and this sense of weariness to her, but I was no
better off. “I just barely slept at all. Doesn’t help that these
beds aren’t made for two.” I observed her, pondering over her words
from last night, that she wasn’t in her right frame of mind. It had
been at least two months since she and her ex-girlfriend broke up
and I wondered if she was still deeply affected by it.

Before I had a chance to ask
her though, a breathless Dex appeared in the doorway, a six-pack of
beer cradled in his arms like he’d just stolen the holy grail, and
quickly shut the door. “That was close,” he said, opening the
cupboards under the nurse’s sink and sliding it in there. “Let’s
hope Kelly doesn’t like beer.”

“
Did anyone
see you?” I asked.

He grinned. “With the beer, no.
In my underwear? Let’s just say I gave a few teachers something to
dream about tonight.”

I snorted while Rebecca’s eyes
sought the ceiling.

With the school slowly
coming alive, it became easier to go about the morning without that
ever-present cloud of dread hanging over me, enough that I was able
to use the showers by myself and not freak out that someone was
going to trap me in the stall or pull a
Psycho
. The events of last
night seemed far away, and even though I was a bit nervous about
the tour, I was excited to hear some of the truths about the place
from a trusted source and not “Dikipedia.”

Just before nine o’clock, as
bleary-eyed students were shuffling into their classrooms and
occasionally looking at our motley crew with curiosity, the three
of us waited outside Davenport’s office for Brenna and the
guide.

“
Hey guys,”
Brenna said, waving at us as she came down the hall. She looked
bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and I had no idea how she was able to
work at this place day in and day out without going absolutely
crazy, especially given the things she had seen.

Dex smiled, adjusting the
camera in his hand. “Does your boyfriend ever sing ‘Hot for
Teacher’?” He glanced at me. “Man, if you were a teacher, I’d be
singing that to you every night. Maybe pull your hair back into a
bun, put on some sex kitten glasses, and carry a large ruler…”

“
Dex!” I
admonished him, jerking my head at Brenna.

She only laughed. “It’s no
bother. And yes, he sings ‘Hot for Teacher’ all the time. Makes a
nice change from Raffi.”

Rebecca leaned in closer to her
and lowered her voice. “So what can you tell us about the man who
will be giving us the tour?”

“
Patrick?” she
asked. “He’s legit. Lived in Gary his whole life. His mother or
grandmother used to work here.”

“
But does he
know about what you’ve seen?” I asked. “Will he think we’re nuts if
we start talking about what we saw last night?”

Her attention sharpened. “What
did you see last night?”

Dex patted the camera. “We have
footage. We haven’t looked at it yet, but I think it picked up most
of the anomalies. When do you have a break today?”

“
Just at
lunch,” she said. “Noon.”

“
We’ll come by
your room then, if that’s okay,” I said. “I personally have a few
questions for you myself.”

She nodded with trepidation.
“Okay.”

The doors to the school opened
and in walked a man in his mid-forties with thick brown hair and
glasses. He was hunched over a bit from bad posture and wearing a
khaki jacket that looked too warm for the sunny day we were
having.

“
That’s
Patrick,” she said, gesturing to him. “I’ll see you at
noon.”

While she walked off, Rebecca
managed to catch Patrick’s eye.

“
You’re Mr.
Rothburn?” she asked.

He gave her a shy smile and
walked over to us. “I am, but please call me Patrick. Are you…?” He
had quite the low, raspy voice.

We all introduced ourselves,
which went well until Dex added “Ghost hunters” to the end of his
introduction.

Patrick brought a toothpick out
of his front pocket and stuck it in his mouth. “Oh, I don’t care
much for ghost hunters.” He eyed Dex’s camera warily.

“
Weren’t you
told why we’re here?” Rebecca asked.

He nodded slightly. “I was. But
I thought you were from a paranormal society, not for an actual
show.”

“
We don’t have
to film you,” Dex told him. “And if we accidently do, we can blur
you out.”

“
I’d like
that,” he said appreciatively. His eyes softened beneath his
glasses. ”Sorry, I work at the museum and don’t want to be
associated with any sort of show or entertainment. I’ll gladly show
you around though. It’s much better this way than it has been in
the past.”

“
What happened
then?”Dex asked.

“
Ghost hunters
or paranormal researchers have broken in on their own, trying to
film. So, I guess we can all appreciate you taking the official
route and respecting the history.”

I exchanged a loaded glance
with Dex. It was probably a good idea if we left last night’s
rule-breaking shenanigans out of it.

“
No problem,”
Rebecca filled in quickly. “Shall we get started? Do you want a
spot of tea or coffee from the break room?”

He raised his palm. “No. Thank
you though.”

“
Are you still
offering, Rebecca?” Dex asked. “Because you know I’d love one.” He
batted his eyes at her.

“
Get stuffed,”
she told him. She and Patrick turned and headed for the
stairs.

Dex looked so stunned at her
comment, as if he was genuinely let down, that I had to kiss him on
the cheek. “Nice try,” I teased.

“
The nerve,”
he said. “She does it for this Gary Oldman impersonator but not for
good ol’ Dex.”

I put my arm around his waist,
loving the feel of his abs beneath his thin t-shirt. “Tell you
what, I’m not going to get you a coffee either but when we get back
to Seattle, you can put on Van Halen and I’ll dress up like the
bad, bad teacher that I am.”

“
Fucking
hell,” he groaned, turning so his body was pressed up against mine,
his eyes becoming seductive. “Don’t tease me because I’ll seriously
pull you into Davenport’s office right now and bend you over her
desk.”

I grinned, sticking the
tip of my tongue out through my teeth. “I told you, I’m not having
sex in this place even if
—
“

“
I had two
dicks,” he supplied. “Yeah, so you say.”

“
Ahem,”
Rebecca said, clearing her throat. We looked over to see her and
Patrick (who
did
look freakishly like Gary Oldman) standing at
the middle of the staircase and waiting for us.

“
Sorry,” I
apologized. I looked back at Dex, covering him from their unamused
eyes while he adjusted the erection in his jeans.

We caught up to them just as
the morning bell rung and I nearly flew out of my skin in
surprise.

“
Got the
creeps already?” Rebecca asked.

“
I guess in
some way I know what things might lie ahead,” I said
carefully.

“
Actually,”
Gary Oldman said as we climbed the stairs, “Sea Crest was a hopeful
place. My grandmother was a nurse here, just at the end of the
administration when the cure for TB had been found, and she said
that most of the children were happy. Sick, yes, but not all of
them died. Many of them went home, and until then, they had their
friends here to play with. Have you seen the playground out
back?”

We stopped on the landing and
he nodded out the large bay window that faced the back of the
property as he fished another toothpick out of his pocket and
placed it in his mouth. I had no idea where the other toothpick
went.

Outside there was a large play
area—a small grassy field lined with flower beds, a baseball
diamond, a woodchip flecked jungle gym complete with swings and
slides. Everything looked brand new, if not unremarkable.

“
That’s where
the playground used to be back when Sea Crest was operating,” he
said. “See that grassy area there just before the trees? The
students often go there to paint nature scenes. The forest, the
flowers, the clouds. In the old days, that grass stretched along
the length of the building. The nurses would wheel the patients out
there for fresh air and leave them there for hours. If they were
well enough, they’d play on the old swing set which is where the
new swing set is located now.” He let out a sad sigh. ”Being
outside was important for these kids—they believed fresh salty air
was the cure. On the fourth floor, where they had the deathly ill,
they had the windows open all the time, even in the dead of winter.
Sometimes the nurses would come in the morning and find them dead
of hypothermia.”

“
My god,” I
said, putting my hand to my mouth. “That’s horrible. You said this
was a happy place.”

He gave me a wry look. “Happier
than you’d think, yes. But like any hospital back in the day, there
were horror stories. It didn’t mean it was the norm for these kids,
though.”

We started back up the stairs
to the second floor. Dex was already filming. “And these horror
stories would be…” He trailed off.

“
You want to
hear some of them?” Oldman asked.

“
A floor by
floor rundown would be great,” Dex said. He looked over the camera
to see Oldman wincing, toothpick in mouth. “Don’t worry, I’m not
filming you, just past you.”

He nodded and stopped in the
middle of the hall, the same place where Dex and I had been when we
saw the thing. “The second floor,” he announced without flourish.
“This floor housed the majority of the children. To our right here,
down this wing, they kept the lower-class children. Over to our
left is where they housed the upper class.”