Gabriella spent the next few hours pulling up information about the Wildwood’s history in local papers while she waited on a response from the archives. If Sarah Morgan had any kind of secret double life, she’d done an excellent job of hiding it. There was nothing but praise for her and Herbert’s work at the hotel. It was a staple of Fitchburg society in those days, hosting events and providing rooms for honored guests from out of town. The pictures looked similar to the Wildwood Hotel where she and Amelia had spent the previous night. Even the grainy black and white ones from before Sarah’s time were recognizable, though Sarah had clearly done a lot to make the space more welcoming and beautiful when she took over in the fifties.

Gabriella had a few documents from the filing cabinet too, notes taken from the original case. There wasn’t much they didn’t already know, but there were some specs on the building tucked into a worn manila folder. They were all the originals, no records about updates within the past sixty years. Things must have changed over the decades, but considering everything Amelia had said about recent updates to the dingy hotel, she was going to need to find something more modern when they got to the Wildwood tonight.

She wasn’t about to go wake Bradley up to see if there might be anything else from that case in their records on-site, this was plenty to go on right now. But she would be curious to know when the hotel’s electricity in particular had been updated over the years and how. If there were electrical issues and the wiring was new, then that might be a significant clue.

But what about Sarah and Herbert’s marriage? Obviously there wasn’t going to be anything in the papers about Herbert’s behavior, but that had to play a role in what was happening now. Gabriella had her headphones on, listening back on the conversation with Lorraine yesterday while she refreshed her email for the eighteenth time. This time, there was actually a new message from the Foundation’s records department.

Hi Gabriella,

Here’s what I have. From the records, it looks like the Foundation was only on that property the one time about three years ago. Here are the full records, including an MP3 recording of the cleanup team from North Worcester’s initial interview.

Regards,

Valerie

Gabriella pulled out her laptop, which was still sitting on the coffee table, and set the sound recording to download there. That was going to take six or seven business days, so while her laptop began to chug away at the download, she settled in to read the old file. It was all the same information she and Amelia had gotten this time, no real differences in the family story. It all lined up. Good, that meant it was unlikely that Lorraine was making anything up or hiding any important facts.

“How’s it going, Gabs?”

She looked up to see James standing beside her, two cups of coffee in his hands. He handed her one and she took it gratefully. “Decent,” she replied. “But there doesn’t seem to be any difference between the last trip to the Wildwood and this one.”

He sat down at the computer beside her and turned it back on, the computer tower whirring alarmingly as it came to life. “I was talking to Amelia about it earlier,” he said. “The idea that Sarah Morgan is the poltergeist works, but I’m not sure it’s the same situation as the Jarvis School. That was the result of the spirit’s energy degrading as she was trapped. But the Wildwood has never been sealed, at least by the Foundation.”

“Could someone else have done it?”

“Doubtful.”

“Wait,” said Gabriella, glancing back at the page. “The owner said they had a blessing done.”

“A blessing wouldn’t have sealed the place though,” James said.

“No, but maybe there was something else behind it,” she said. “If things were loud, but not violent, why would they want a priest to come in? Do you think this was Father McEnerney? There’s nothing about it in the file, but Lorraine seemed to think the blessing was the Foundation too.”

“I’ll give him a call and see,” said James.

As he dialed, she glanced over at the pile of paperwork stacked beside James’s computer. “Why are you doing this out here?” she asked.

“I’m apparently a super loud typer,” he replied. “Hi, Father? You got a sec?”

He put his phone on speaker and set it down between them. “What can I do for you?” Father McEnerney asked. “The Foundation revoked my vacation time, and I just lost out on my Vegas trip, so you can imagine how I’m feeling toward them right now.”

“Wow, they’re vicious lately,” James said, ignoring his computer as the login screen finally appeared.

“Meet me for a drink someday whenever you’re actually not at work and I’ll tell you all about it. But I’m on my way to a possible demon in Ayer, so what can I do for you?”

“Do you remember doing a blessing over at a hotel in Fitchburg?” Gabriella asked. “It’s called the Wildwood Hotel and this would have been sometime in the past five years. The Foundation was there officially three years ago. It would have been for a spirit named Sarah Morgan.”

“Gabriella, hi! Yeah, that was me. I remember that place somewhat,” Father McEnerney said. “The family was very devoutly Catholic, especially the spirit in question. I did a straightforward blessing, it wasn’t an exorcism or anything.”

“Was it for the spirit?”

“Essentially. She was a Catholic in life.”

“Did you…”

“Gabriella, were you about to ask me if I knew Sarah Morgan? How old do you think I am?”

Her face went hot and beside her, James laughed. “No, of course not,” she lied. “It’s just that the idea of a Catholic ghost is kind of…”

There was no way to reclaim her dignity here, but Father McEnerney was laughing, so at least he wasn’t mad at her.

“Did they tell you about her?” James asked.

“Sure,” Father McEnerney said, as someone honked somewhere near him. “I’ll be honest, I don’t really remember because I do so many of these. But everyone had only good things to say about her. That’s what made it memorable, because the haunting was so violent.”

“That’s exactly what we’re dealing with right now,” Gabriella said. “The Foundation has us back there and me and Amelia stayed overnight last night. It was intense.”

“Tell you what, Gabriella,” Father McEnerney said. “Let me call you back tonight, alright? I have my own notes from that case at home, so once I’m done here, I’ll head back and dig them out.”

“Thank you!” Gabriella said. “That will be incredibly helpful.”

“I doubt it,” Father McEnerney said with a laugh. “But it can’t hurt. I’ll call tonight.”

They hung up to the sound of more honking on Father McEnerney’s end. “Alright, Graham’s going to be heading out on his case shortly, so we’re going to do a quick check in meeting before we scatter,” James said, draining his coffee.

She followed him into the kitchen and pulled out the leftover chili she’d brought for her lunch as he set up the coffeemaker. He put an obscene amount of coffee grounds into the chamber in a way that was a combination of touching and gross. “I’ll go grab the others,” he said. “You and Amelia are back at the Wildwood for most of tonight and into tomorrow morning, you’re good with that?”

“Yeah,” she said. “It’s just a case. A weird one, but not completely different from everything else.”

“That’s the spirit,” James said with a laugh. “Go grab Amelia and Graham. We’ll do this quick, then you and Amelia can get going.”

A few minutes later, they were all sitting in the living room again. Bradley was back, sipping coffee and not looking at anyone. “So we’re going to push back the cryptid case a little,” James started as Fang began clawing the presentation screen behind him. He gently eased her away from it. “That doesn’t need to get done tonight.”

“Did McGovern call?” Amelia asked.

“No,” James replied. “It just doesn’t need to get done. No one’s been eaten. No one’s even mentioned it in the past three months. Graham looked into it a little while ago and this information is so old that if they really wanted us to investigate, they should have sent it over weeks ago. So that can go on the back burner while we do the other two, which actually are fairly urgent. They’ve been messing with us and I fell for it, I’m really sorry. I should have told them to fuck off rather than try to get all these cases done on a normal timeframe.”

He glanced around at all of them. “I’ll also take a look at the broken comm tonight. If I can’t figure it out, I’ll see if Madelyn can when she gets back. Which, if I get my way, will be in at least three weeks. Though I’m sure that’ll be a fun fight, one I’m bringing Bradley to.”

Bradley nodded into his coffee, but said nothing as James nudged him with his knee. “So tonight. Graham will be at the shop for interviews and setting up cameras. Gabriella and Amelia will be at the Wildwood. Amelia, split the work up as you will. Bradley will be on comms here for both cases. I’ll be here too, drowning in paperwork and fending off calls I don’t feel like dealing with. Does anyone have any questions? Concerns?”

Gabriella shook her head. “Alright, be gone.”

James and Graham went toward the dining room table to get Graham set up while Amelia came to Gabriella, scooping Fang into her arms as she did so. “Let’s go in about twenty minutes,” she said as Fang purred against her shoulder. “I’ve got to get the initial report from yesterday filed so I’ll be in the back bedroom til we leave.”

She walked away with Fang and suddenly Gabriella was alone in the living room with Bradley, who still hadn’t spoken. Maybe she was about to get her head bitten off, but she screwed up her nerve and sat down on the couch beside him, leaving a lot of space between them. “Thank you,” she said, knowing this wasn’t going to end well. “For telling James that I left with Robin.”

She waited for the explosion, but it didn’t come. Instead, he nodded, looking down into his coffee. “Robin was like McManus,” he said. “He always followed protocol until suddenly he didn’t anymore.”

“I’m sorry about everything that happened.”

He shrugged. “It was stupid.”

“It was.”

“It’s been a year. James forgave you.”

Again, she wasn’t sure what to say. Bradley set down his mug and scrubbed a hand over his face. “I didn’t plan to fall asleep,” he murmured. “We were talking about…he wants a fish tank in there? I don’t know. I think I fell asleep at some point while he was telling me about every fish he’s ever seen.”

“Before that, did he tell you that if you didn’t want to go to bed, you could just lay down for fifteen minutes, and then get up?” Gabriella asked. “And then did he flip the light off while he was rambling about the fish?”

Bradley lowered his hand and looked at her suspiciously. “How did you-”

“I’m one of his twenty-four younger cousins,” Gabriella explained, doing her best not to laugh as he glared at her. “He babysat all of us for years, and still does sometimes for our nieces and nephews. It’s one of his oldest tricks for getting kids to sleep.”

“That fucking…”

He trailed off, hand back on his eyes. She tried to hide her laugh, but clearly he could tell. “Could be worse. On the real bad nights, he pulls out the most random lullabies for our cousins’ kids. You should see him pacing with a croupy baby, there’s this one radio jingle for a car lot in Salem he always sings. But it works.”

She thought he might get up and go yell at James. But he just went back to his coffee, glaring daggers over at James, who sensed their gaze and waved cheerfully from the dining room table.

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CONTINUE TO CHAPTER 9