Roses Manor, Weston Chapter 12
Jessamyn’s source hadn’t gotten back to Madelyn by the next morning. Madelyn didn’t seem too concerned about it, even as she resurfaced from her class midway through the shift to check in on Gabriella. Gabriella had just begun her search again, fruitlessly scrolling through social media for a few minutes, then going back into the game for any other hints she might have missed during the first round.
“Anything?” Madelyn asked just as Gabriella’s avatar passed the same broken window for the third time.
“Not really,” she said, just as she noticed a candelabra she hadn’t seen before. “Shoot, hang on, give me just a second.”
She jumped at it, almost hearing her dad’s good-natured groan as she went right through it. “I think this is something,” she said as Madelyn sat down on the bed beside her.
Six tries later, Gabriella had to accept defeat, at least for a few minutes. “Want to see if Bradley wants a video game to play while he’s recovering?” she muttered.
“Amelia asked if we minded taking the afternoon to do a case over in Townsend,” Madelyn said. “It’s pretty straightforward.”
“Most of them are lately, aren’t they?” Gabriella said, then motioned toward the computer. “Except this, of course. Is there a reason behind it?”
“No idea,” Madelyn replied. “I’ve stopped wondering if there’s a pattern to what they’re sending, or to what’s happening. There’s just so many cases that I’ll gladly take some that give us a few quick wins, you know?”
She had a point. Especially considering all the pressure they’d been under lately. Even if finishing a task wouldn’t solve everything. It wasn’t going to make James less stressed, and it wouldn’t make them all less overworked. But it did give them some wins, and some things cleared off the plate quickly enough that the new stuff didn’t pile up on top of them.
Of course, these simple cases could all become complicated messes very quickly. Just like this one. Gabriella gave one last, listless jump at the candelabra and her avatar clung to it. The screen gradually melted away. “Are you fucking kidding me?” she muttered. “Is it timed?”
Her heart was speeding up as the screen faded back in, putting her back at the blackboard. But it wasn’t the same blackboard this time, she was somewhere different. And as her pulse thudded in her ears, she glanced over at the sensor, which was still normal. But Ezekiel’s cause of death was all too present in her mind.
“I need to take a minute,” she said.
“Are you alright?”
Gabriella wasn’t sure why she didn’t say anything outright just then, but she nodded, reluctantly moving away from the computer. “I think I just need some fresh air.”
It was freezing outside and Gabriella hadn’t brought her jacket, so her teeth chattered as she stood at the bottom of the stairs just outside the front door, looking out at the quiet neighborhood. But the shock of the cold did get her heart beating at a regular rate again, which was exactly what she’d been hoping it would do.
The first ending had to be the fake one. But she still didn’t have the code she needed. And more than anything, this reminded her of the guy who got locked out forever for using the obvious code. What if she’d tried to put a code into that first blackboard? Would the case be over?
Hopefully Jessamyn’s connection had some answers for them, because Gabriella was in over her head.
She heard James laugh from partway up the street and looked over to see him on his phone, hunched slightly against the cold with his other hand buried in his coat pocket as he walked toward work. “No, that’s exactly what I mean,” he said with another laugh. “But I’ll let you go, okay? Yeah, I’m getting to work right now. I should have some time later on, I can give you a call?”
He smiled at Gabriella as he walked up, then narrowed his eyes as he took in her thin sweater. “What?” he said. “I don’t know what time. But if you’re studying then, we can always talk tomorrow. I’ll drop off some coffee.”
She heard Meredith’s voice on the other end, too quiet to understand. “Great,” James said. “I’ll see you then. Alright, don’t study too hard.”
He laughed at whatever she said in response, then hung up.
“Gabs, where’s your coat?” he asked as he slid his phone in his pocket.
“I just got out here,” she protested as he looked at her, unimpressed.
“Sure,” he said as his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, answered the message, and put it back. “I’m fucking freezing,” he muttered. “Let’s go in. Update me on your case while I make some coffee.”
There wasn’t much to update him on, but she did finally voice her increased concerns about cardiac issues as she sat on one of the stools in their little kitchen. And as she did, the image of her dad laughing with her over video games evaporated to be replaced by the image she’d never seen but always envisioned: him clutching his heart at his office desk. Doctors working over his still body in a hospital bed, yelling all that medical terminology she only knew from TV. Then the part she actually knew. Mom picking her up at school, pulling over halfway up the road, and telling Gabriella her dad was dead.
“Gabs?” James prompted. “Hey, hon?”
She jerked herself out of her thoughts. “Sorry,” she said. “His heart. That’s what I’m worrying about with these later levels.”
“Would you feel comfortable wearing a heart rate monitor when you’re working on the game?” James asked.
“Yes,” she said immediately.
“Great,” he said. “I’ll look around and see if we have one. Thank you for coming to me with this.”
They’d be fine. She’d just keep being careful and everything would be fine.
***
About fifteen minutes later, Gabriella saw James take out his phone and sigh as he read the message he’d just received. “Everything alright?” she asked.
“Fine,” he replied, typing a response.
Was something going on with Meredith? He’d seemed happy enough when he was on the phone with her outside. But maybe that was the problem. They only had a few weeks until she left, so maybe now they were reconsidering everything. Meredith obviously wouldn’t quit her program, but maybe James would give moving a shot if it meant staying with her. And now he was trying to convince her to try it. Maybe that was the wild thought Amelia had started to mention the other day before saying it wasn’t her business.
James would probably do well in Australia. He wouldn’t wither away at being uprooted from Leominster and if he left the Foundation, there were opportunities out there for him. He was smart and had years of job experience already. And there were ghosts in Australia too, so he’d be fine if he decided to keep doing this kind of work. Maybe there was a Foundation there too, but, like, their Foundation’s Queensland cousin.
“Jesus Christ,” James muttered.
She looked up from her work again as he dialed, put his phone to his ear, and waited. “Do you want me to…” Gabriella started, motioning vaguely toward the door.
“No, you’re good. Just- Hi. Could you please wait three fucking hours?”
Ah, not Meredith. No, why would she ever assume he was texting so passionately with his girlfriend? She couldn’t hear what Bradley said on the other end, but James rolled his eyes and let his head fall back against the couch. “No, please just don’t shower without anyone else home, okay? I’ll be back on my lunch break in three hours.”
He listened. “I’m not telling you where it is,” he said. “What’s your plan, to stand on one leg like a lawn flamingo?”
Another pause. “Okay, listen, here’s the only other option. Go in the back hallway, I think under that big empty box there’s a shower bench. If you really want to use that, then go for it.” A pause. “I don’t know, man, it came with the apartment.”
“Ew, what the fuck, James?” Gabriella demanded, making a face at him.
He shrugged. “I’m not using it,” he said to Gabriella. “Yeah, Brad, you’re right, he probably did die on it. But it’s yours if you want it. Just give it a wipe.”
James took a leisurely sip of his coffee, listening. “Listen, you’re fine. You don’t smell. Can you wait three hours so that there’s someone in the apartment in case you fall?” He stopped, then looked over at Gabriella with long-suffering eyes. “Yeah, you got me. I sniffed you when you were sleeping.”
She couldn’t hear Bradley’s response, but could guess it easily enough from the way James laughed. “So you’ll wait?” he said. “Great, thank you. The shower bench is probably broken anyway, we should get you another one. I can stop and grab one before I come home.”
Gabriella went into the kitchen to top off her coffee as James continued arguing on the phone. “Though, for real, last time didn’t go so well,” he said. “Would you like me to help you? We can-”
She walked back in to see him looking at his phone. “I think he hung up on me.”
“Did you really just offer to help him shower?”
“Yeah. I mean, not in a weird way, though. I’d do it for anyone.”
The weird thing was, he absolutely would.
***
Gabriella spent the rest of the morning working on other tasks, including a trip to a local church and an interview with a family over in Townsend. By the time she got back, she was actually ready to have a cup of tea and consider her options with Sixteen Roses.
“Before you start,” James said, then handed her a heart rate monitor bracelet.
It was actually a relief to slide it on her wrist and get it started. The steady blinking light was distracting, but it only took a second to find the setting to turn it off unless there was a major change.
“Great,” James said, then picked up the thick stack of papers sitting beside him. “I’ll be back in an hour, alright? I have some forms to fill out while I’m there, so I can-”
“Eat lunch, please,” Gabriella said.
“I’m good, Gabs. I’ll grab something quick while I’m at the store.”
“No, James, I mean it.” She turned and looked up at him. “Eat something solid and take a break.”
Something in her voice must have given her away, because he set the papers down. “Gabs?”
“I’m fine,” she said, waving him off. “You should just take a break, that’s all.”
He came over and took her hand. “My heart’s healthy,” he said.
“I know,” she said, trying to smile through her embarrassment. “Just keep it that way? You’ve been dealing with a lot lately.”
He laughed. “I’m fine, I swear,” he said, as though she’d ever fully believe him. “But yeah, I’ll take a break.”
She noticed a moment later that he did get his lunch out of the fridge to bring home with him. He also left the paperwork behind when he walked out, and she immediately recognized the information forms he and Bradley had nearly killed each other over.
James was fine, he had even just had his physical with the Foundation. It was all fine. She was just blending old and new fears together with this case.
Gabriella went to the back bedroom, where the game was blinking on the computer. She’d saved her progress earlier and been both relieved and slightly surprised it let her. She had been at it for about ten minutes when Madelyn came in.
“I heard back from Teddy, Jessamyn’s contact,” she said. “We’re going to talk in about twenty minutes, want to join?”
Considering she’d been uselessly scouring the game for more hints about this level’s code, this invitation was more than welcome. “I’ll be out in a few minutes,” she said. “Wait, do you need this computer? I can move the laptop and rearrange it back the way it was.”
“No, James said we could use his while he’s gone. This one and the ones out in the living room aren’t going to be able to handle it.”
Twenty useless minutes later, Gabriella was in James’s office with Madelyn, pulling over a kitchen chair she recognized from James’s parents’ kitchen at least ten years ago. As they waited for the call to connect, she spotted a to-do list on his desk. She knew it wasn’t appropriate, but she picked it up and scanned its contents.
It was a mess. Even outside of James’s casually messy handwriting, nearly every inch of this yellow legal pad was taken up with tasks that had to get done. At least a dozen tasks were already crossed out, many of them administrative, but that was just a small fraction of the total. And judging by the date at the top, this was just today’s list.
She almost felt guilty that she’d prevented him from getting anything done while he was gone, but at the same time he apparently badly needed a lunch break.
Madelyn got the call connected with minimal problems and soon they were all visible on the screen. Teddy was older than Gabriella expected, probably about fifty years old. He was handsome, with long, neatly tied black hair and sharp eyes. She could see the surprise on his face as they connected, but he smoothed it down and smiled politely at them as they all adjusted their sound settings and made sure they could hear each other.
“Thank you so much for meeting with us,” Madelyn said.
“Not at all,” Teddy said with another polite smile. “Jessamyn told me you’re tracking down Sixteen Roses. I’ve been following that one for a while, but never got very far myself.”
Gabriella’s hopes fell, and she glanced at Madelyn. Apparently it was a little too obvious, because Madelyn gave her a light kick under the desk. “We’re still early in the investigation,” Madelyn said. “So anything you have would help, whether it seems useful or not.”
“What I have is the newsletter,” Teddy said, as Gabriella’s hopes flew back into place. “That’s what you’re looking for, right? I had a feeling about it. And I spend so much time chasing ghosts around my hometown that I rarely get to any international conspiracies. But something about that one called to me. When I came across that case being talked about online, I stashed it away and I pull it out from time to time. I signed up for their newsletter because the message board users were discussing the little hints that came with it.”
“Were there a lot of users?” Madelyn asked as Gabriella hurried to take notes.
“There were,” Teddy said. “But they’d drop off as the game became more challenging. Or they’d claim illness and stop for a while. Which, looking back, is chilling. None tried to claim it was paranormal in nature, but if a video game is causing you to become sick, there’s likely something there. And based on some of the older posts, all wiped now, people heard music, voices, things like that. And not in a modern special effects kind of way. So there’s no doubt in my mind that it’s a paranormal problem, especially when you consider the deaths of each of these poor people.”
Gabriella thought back to the music she’d heard and nodded slowly. “Like I said, those posts are long gone,” Teddy said. “And the new tone to the social media is monotonous to the point I wonder about the game’s influence on what players can and can’t say. But I saved those newsletters to an external hard drive. I can send them your way.”
“That would be incredibly helpful,” Madelyn said. “Thank you.”
“Of course. How far have you gotten into the game?”
“The third classroom,” Gabriella said.
“Ah, you’ve got a ways to go then, at least if the message boards were correct.”
Gabriella willed herself not to look at Madelyn, who was clearly trying to look as professional as possible. Which was fair, she realized. They were two women in their mid-twenties. It was less likely they’d be taken seriously no matter what they were doing.
“I don’t suppose you girls figured out how to access the message boards now?” Teddy asked. “The company locked them down about a year ago. Their social media pages are still active though.”
“Do you think maybe they switched entirely over to social media?” Madelyn asked.
“Why would they do that?”
“It’s free?”
Teddy studied her for a long moment, then laughed. “You’re good,” he said, pointing at her through the screen. “You know your stuff.”
“So I’ve been told,” Madelyn said dryly.
Gabriella waited for Teddy to get offended, but he just laughed again. “You very well might have solved the question that pops into my head at three AM,” he said. “Money. Oh, to be young and fresh again.”
“They put out a free game, with no in-game purchases or paid versions. It makes me think they’re putting on an air of money, but don’t actually have much,” Madelyn said.
Teddy’s light tsk and head shake obviously wasn’t meant to be insulting, maybe just benevolently patronizing. “I will say, it is nice to have an organization with money and power going after this case,” Teddy said. “I’ve wanted to, but getting to something international like this when the local ghosts are paying the mortgage – well, not that it’s international for you. Is it nearby?”
“The LLC is based near here, but who knows for sure.”
“Does the Foundation for Paranormal Studies have a tech team focusing on this? I reckon it could be broken in a day with enough manpower.”
“No, the tech team is us.”
Teddy blinked at them. “Pardon?”
Madelyn pointed to herself and Gabriella. “We’re a suburban branch. They dropped the case on us because the initial request for help came from our region. So it’s just the two of us and whoever can help out when they’re not doing their own work.”
“I see. And you ladies have made it to the third classroom?”
Madelyn nodded toward Gabriella, who blushed. “Well done,” Teddy said, his impressed tone still patronizing. But it could be worse, so she also ignored it. “Well, I’ll send you those newsletters. If I think of anything else that might be useful, I’ll be sure to send that along as well. I should have thought to take screenshots of the message boards, but they probably purged those regularly, anyway. And you’re right. Why spend the money when your fans will do the same thing for free on social media?”
He laughed again, shaking his head. They spent another minute exchanging information, then ended the call. As soon as it was over, Madelyn seemed to deflate, hissing in pain as she reached over to rub the small of her back.
“You okay?” Gabriella asked.
“Fine.”
She slowly stood up while Gabriella resisted the urge to offer help. “I’ll watch for those emails,” Madelyn said. “And I’ll let you know when they arrive.”
Madelyn left the room as Gabriella got up too. She considered whether James would get offended or uncomfortable if she emptied the overflowing recycling bin for him. Or maybe brought the small trash bag of paper coffee cups out to the bins outside for trash pickup.
When she truly could not decide, she left everything as it was.
