Page 78 of The Haunted Hotel
“Oh, jolly good show,” Bertie cheers. “This deserves a celebration.”
“I wish I hadn’t used those confetti cannons on Ellis and Morgan now,” Roger pouts.
“That was you!” I exclaim loudly. He just grins.
“There will, of course, be rules!” Stanley interjects.
“Of course.” Bertie rolls her eyes again.
“You are not completely in the clear. You have been placed on probation.” He tears off a piece of paper from his clipboard and hands it to Bertie to read. I’m not exactly sure what’s going on, but she looks at Roger, who shrugs.
“Probation’s okay,” he says, and then he and Bertie high-five each other.
“I will also be remaining in the house under a supervisory capacity to ensure you are adhering to the rules,” Stanley says pompously.
Skid snorts. “Good luck with that.”
“What exactly is going on, Bertie?” Ellis asks.
“Well, we got into a spot of hot water with the Bureau of Domestic Hauntings after the old murder mystery weekend shenanigans.”
“Oh my god,” Stanley says in exasperation. “You’re not supposed to tell the living about the Bureau. It contravenes rule number six thousand five hundred and forty-two, paragraph E subsection–”
“Yes, yes.” Bertie waves him off again, and I didn’t think it would be possible for a ghost to turn that shade of red. “Anyway, we’re now on probation, so we’ll have to go easy on the whole haunted hotel aspect.”
“I hate to tell you, Bertie, but there won’t be a hotel anymore,” Ellis says quietly. “They’re sending someone to value the house and contents for auction.”
“No!” Roger gasps loudly.
Leona raises her hand to her forehead and faints rather dramatically into the arms of the admiral, who seems to betrying to cop a feel until Leona stands up sharply and slaps his face.
“Are they always like this?” I mutter to Ellis.
“Pretty much. You kind of get used to it.”
“Well, if I could break up this little—whatever it is,” I say as I turn to Ellis and my grandad, “I may have a temporary fix. I’ll hire a new lawyer and see if we can go back to court to argue our case.”
“Our case?” Ellis smiles at me, and that’s the smile right there that nails me square in the chest, as opposed to the sad, fake smile he did when I was leaving.
“Yes, our case. I told you I’m staying and more than that, I’m investing my money in the hotel.”
“Morgan, you can’t do that,” Ellis objects. “What if we lose and this place still closes? You’ll lose everything.”
“Not everything.” I take his hand and pull him against me. I smooth that one errant curl of his that’s hanging forward into his eyes and brush my thumb over his chin. “Like I said before, my money’s not enough to save it, but it’s enough to buy us some time to come up with a viable plan, one that’s not stuff it in a drawer and hope it goes away.” My gaze flicks to my grandfather, who has the good grace to look slightly ashamed.
“I’ll invest!” A familiar voice yells above the chatter of the ghosts.
“Who’s that?” Grandad frowns and turns to look.
I glance over to the front desk to see Rosie holding up her phone, and on the screen is my brothers face.
“What the hell, Warren?” I sigh.
“What?” he says. “Did you really think I was going to miss this? It’s like watching my own private Hallmark movie, only with pirates and tennis twinks.” He squints into his screen. “Are you guys having a costume party?”
“No,” I snort. “How much of that did you hear?”
“Well, I called the hotel while you were on your way back and got the lovely Rosie to put me on video call on her phone so I wouldn’t miss you declaring your love to Ellis. Is that him?” He shifts his face on the screen. “Morgan, move over and let me see him, he’s much prettier than you.”