A Desolate Hour. Mae Clair
stuff Suzanne gave me. He sounded like he couldn’t care less, but I don’t want to hang onto anything that belongs to him. He said he was going to be at the River, so I thought I could leave it for him to pick up.” The River Café was part of the hotel, a regular hangout for locals, and a casual pub/eatery to accommodate the hotel’s guests.
“Sure, no problem.”
“Great. It’ll save me a trip driving out to his place. I want to wash my hands of it.” Her gaze strayed to the flat oblong case perched on the end of her desk. She wondered if Suzanne even knew it had been buried in the carton.
“I thought you liked snooping around old documents and building genealogy charts?” Eve’s voice brought Sarah back to the present.
“I do.” She glanced at the case again. The wood was dark and weathered, infused with the lingering scent of oak. An elaborate faceplate with an old-fashioned lock held the lid secure, but she’d been unable to locate a key in the carton. Part of her was grateful to never know what the box contained, the other part curious. Squiggles and lines resembling hieroglyphs had been carved along the top, offset with the crude etching of a spider. Sometimes when she looked at the case her stomach turned over, a feeling that grew worse when she touched it.
“I just don’t want Shawn coming back and saying I have his property.” She tried to explain her reluctance. Thunder grumbled, closer this time.
“Is it because of Obadiah? You told me you’d discovered something disturbing about him.”
“Not him.” Obadiah Preech was the first of Shawn’s line to settle in Point Pleasant. Sarah had confirmed he’d taken part in Lord Dunmore’s War of 1774 and had been present at Fort Randolph when Chief Cornstalk was killed. But that wasn’t what bothered her.
“It wasn’t so much about Obadiah, as others. There are references about him in a letter I found. I made a copy to show you. I’ll bring it tomorrow, but right now I want to get off the phone.” A trickle of sweat broke out on the back of her neck. The rain had stopped but an oppressive weight hung in the air, warning of a brewing squall.
“Okay.” Eve understood her fear. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow.”
Sarah breathed a sigh of relief when she returned the phone to its cradle. Lightning severed the sky in a white flash and zigzagged to the ground. She counted the seconds until thunder rattled the windows. Storms always seemed worse in a mobile home, but the rent was reasonable and the timing had been right when she’d taken it over.
Her attention shifted to a framed photo on her desk. Her grandparents, arms around each other, smiling back at her. They’d raised her after the death of her parents, but each had suffered fatal illnesses within the last five years, leaving her on her own. A bittersweet smile curved her lips as she touched her fingertips to her mouth, then the photograph. “Miss you guys.”
Time to finish packing the items for Shawn. She put the remaining documents in the carton, most newspapers and items that had been saved from the 1920s and ’30s. There were a few tin-type photographs dating back to the Civil War era, letters exchanged between family members during World War II, and the snippet of the letter she’d told Eve about.
A letter that mentioned Obadiah and something that still induced a chill when she thought of it—a towering winged demon with glowing red eyes.
* * * *
Quentin stepped into the lobby of the hotel and shook rain from his hair. The place was open and inviting, with thick braided rugs over a hardwood floor. A large fireplace dominated the far right wall, the left taken up by a row of towering windows with deep sills and built-in seats. Woodwork, floorboards, even the turned staircase with its thick landing newels and deep risers reflected the construction of a bygone era.
A woman with shoulder-length brown hair stood behind the reception counter. She looked to be close to his age, somewhere in her mid- to late twenties.
“Hi.” She smiled a friendly greeting.
“Hi.” Quentin approached the desk and set his duffel bag on the floor. Despite booking his stay open-ended, he’d packed fairly light, hoping to wrap his business within a week. “Checking in. I’m Quentin Marsh.”
The woman gave him a quick once-over while trying to be unobtrusive. He knew he looked bedraggled, his wavy brown hair plastered to his neck with rain, his jeans faded and worn at the knees. He’d grabbed his most comfortable pair for the drive, knowing he’d be stuck in the car for hours.
“I see you beat the storm. At least the worst of it.” The woman’s smile stayed in place as she flipped a ledger around for him to sign. “It looks like you’re planning on being with us for a while, Mr. Marsh.”
“Quentin.” He scribbled his signature where she indicated.
“Oh my.” Her breath hitched at the sight of deep purple scars road-mapped across the back of his hand.
He should have been prepared. The accident was over two years old, but the reaction of others still caught him off guard. “It’s all right.” His mouth stretched in a jaded grin. “It’s a normal response.”
“I’m sorry.” She flushed, clearly embarrassed. “I didn’t mean…”
“No problem.” He came to her rescue by shoving the offending hand into the pocket of his jeans. “Unfortunate accident. Looks worse than it is.” There was nothing like ending your career with a single careless blunder.
She fumbled to locate his room key, spots of color bright on her cheeks. “I’m glad you chose the Parrish Hotel for your stay, Mr. Marsh—uh, Quentin.”
“No problem.” If he’d wanted lodging in Point Pleasant, there wasn’t a choice. The only other hotels were located across the river in Gallipolis, Ohio. “Any thoughts on where I can grab something to eat?” He sought to deflect the awkwardness they were both currently feeling.
“That’s an easy one.” The question seemed to help her relax. She pointed across the lobby to a hallway tucked beneath the staircase. “If you follow that hall it connects to the River Café here in the hotel.”
Quentin nodded, following her direction. Wide and imposing, the staircase sheltered a short hallway beneath it. “Looks like this place has been here for a while.”
“Since the early 1900s.”
“Amazing. Did you by chance grow up here?” She might know something about the curse of Cornstalk.
The woman hedged. “I left Point Pleasant after the Silver Bridge fell and only returned last year.”
He’d been a kid at the time of the catastrophe, but it had made national news—forty-six lives lost when the bridge connecting Point Pleasant and Gallipolis plunged into the Ohio River a few weeks before Christmas in 1967. “Bad memories?” He had more than a few of his own.
Her gaze dropped to the registration book where he’d scrawled his name with a flourish on the Q. “My father died in the bridge collapse.”
“I’m sorry.” Idiot. Now it was his turn to feel stupid. “That was thoughtless of me. Of course, I’ve heard of the tragedy.”
She managed a wan smile. “I guess we both bungled a few things.”
“Maybe we should start over.” He held out his hand. “I’m Quentin Marsh.”
She grinned and accepted. “Eve Flynn. And I believe I owe you a key. You’re in room twenty-eight. Second floor, facing front at the end of the hall.”
Quentin looked at the ornate skeleton key she passed him. “This is an old place.”
“Part of the charm.”
He hoisted his duffel bag. “I’m sure I’ll find that’s the case. Right now, I just want to unpack, then grab something to eat.” The drive had been long, and even with a few stops interspersed along the way, he was overly tired and hungry.