“I will. And some inside the hotel, showing some of the old features and how the lobby looks now.”

“Have you looked at all that stuff?” CJ motioned with his bottle of beer to the envelopes.

“Yeah. Interesting place. What do you think of staying there?”

“Works for me. I just hope we don’t have any real trouble with the ghost busters.”

“You’re a deputy sheriff. Throw them in jail if they do anything illegal.”

“I will. Believe me.”

“So…” Brett finished his beer, sat back on the chair, and raised his brows. “How’s it going with Laurel?”

CJ smiled. “Is it that obvious that she’s the one I’m interested in?”

“Hell, yeah. Since you’ll be over there tomorrow, her sisters will be gone, and no guests will be there yet, you’ll have her all to yourself. Is she warming up to you? She seemed to have fun running with the pack tonight, but she still stuck close to her sisters. It was fun watching them tussle in the snow. They’ve been so subdued that I didn’t think they even knew how to play as wolves or otherwise.”

“Maybe they’re just getting used to the rest of us. We’ve been so thrilled they’ve joined us that I’m sure it’s been a little much. Then, too, they’ve been under a lot of stress in getting the hotel ready for the grand opening.”

“Agreed. When do you think the backyard will be decorated so that I can take pictures?”

“Tomorrow morning. I’m going to repaint a wall, and then I’ll help Laurel hang the lights or whatever she plans to do there. I’ll tell her that you want to get some pictures of the place with all the lights on.”

“Good deal.” Brett finished the last slice of pizza. “Anything going on over there? Anything…paranormal?”

“Yeah, but I’m sure there’s an explanation for it.” CJ explained about the C on the wall.

“You’re kidding.” Brett sounded like he knew something about it.

“What?”

Brett began emptying the folders on the table. “Here’s a note that Darien’s dad kept from a pack member who was concerned because a letter C appeared after the hotel’s lobby was repainted thirty years ago.”

“Thirty years ago. Huh. Well, apparently it disappeared after that. So here’s hoping when I paint over it again, it’ll disappear.”

“That’s what you’ve been painting?”

“Yep. And it’s not going away.”

“Did you try that stain-killer paint?”

“Yep.”

“No blood dripping from it, right?”

CJ chuckled and shook his head.

Brett helped clean up and pulled out his keys. “Okay, I’m out of here. I’ll see you later tomorrow.”

CJ said good night to him, then started reading through all the documents and examining the pictures of the old hotel, which were mostly of the lobby and front of the hotel, some with the owners standing on the covered veranda. He recognized one of the Silvers’ friends from the old days, Jonathon Bowling, who built the hotel in 1871, plus his wife and two daughters. All of them had long ago died, though the lupus garous until fairly recently had extended longevity. That had changed drastically though, according to a lupus garou geneticist, Dr. Aidan Denali. He had come into town and taken blood samples from all the wolves, looking for the reason that their longevity had morphed into a time span more similar to humans.

As to Jonathon Bowling, after he and his family died, the hotel was sold off to three more owners. The last owner before the MacTires was Warren Wernicke, who bought the hotel in 1953. He was a bachelor who never married. At least as far as anyone could tell. He might have lost a mate earlier and never found another, which often occurred among lupus garous.

Owning a hotel as a single entrepreneur was a little unusual. Wernicke’s sister lived in the house with him and managed the hotel for a brief while, according to Darien’s dad’s notes. Then as far as reports could tell, twelve years after he bought the place, Warren Wernicke left one night and never come back. His sister, Charity Wernicke, vanished shortly after that.

A police report filed by Sheridan Silver, CJ’s father, as acting sheriff, said Warren seemed to have run off with a maid. His sister then left because the hotel was in financial ruins.

CJ had to let the sisters see all this, but he really didn’t want to. As unafraid as they seemed, he worried that this might disturb them more, particularly since his father had never located the Wernickes to verify that his suspicions were correct. Still, the sisters had every right to see the information about the hotel. Besides, they could obtain the information themselves anyway.

Looking at everything Brett had gathered about the hotel, CJ realized his brother was the perfect match for his job. He was really good at research, and he’d included old deeds, an auction listing of furniture and other incidentals, and pictures of some of the lovely carved pieces of furniture that were sold off when the hotel closed down after Charity Wernicke disappeared.

After that, no one had the funds or the know-how to run the hotel. Or the desire. He remembered how kids would dare each other to spend a night in the old place, swearing ghosts floated about the hotel, moaning and crying and wreaking all sorts of havoc on anyone dumb enough to stay there.

He noticed a photograph of a hand-pieced quilt with a stenciled letter C right in the center. The letter was the approximate size of the one on the wall. CJ stared at the picture, wondering why Charity had disappeared. And her brother too.

Chapter 5

The next morning, Ellie and Meghan took off before CJ arrived, both warning Laurel not to get too involved with him. And yet, she thought they really didn’t mean it. Not when they gave each other secret smiles. They probably hoped he could convince her to stay.

They had to know her better than that. She was totally focused on getting their hotel up and running. No time to play with a male wolf.

Laurel had to admit she’d thoroughly enjoyed playing in the snow with her sisters last night and taking a long moonlit run across the snowfields with the rest of the pack. She wasn’t ready for any other pack activities, but she would remember last night fondly.

This morning, she hadn’t wanted to check the wall in the hotel’s lobby, afraid of what she’d find. She carried the painting over there, just in case, and sure enough, the C was still as big as day.

She leaned the painting against one of the perpendicular walls so that CJ could paint over the C again.

When she heard knocking at the door, she felt a little thrill of excitement at seeing him again and immediately scolded herself for feeling any such thing. She hurried for the door, paused, put on her more professional face, then unlocked and opened the door. But it wasn’t CJ. Instantly, she became wary. Three men stood on the hotel’s porch, and she suspected they were the ghost busters.

“We’re not open yet,” she said, trying not to growl like she wanted to. She had to remember that she was in the business of welcoming guests, and they would be her guests tomorrow.

“I’m Stanton Wernicke,” the darkest-haired man said, his blue eyes hard. “These are my brothers, Yolan and Vernon. We’re your guests tomorrow, but you might have heard that we have a TV show—”

“Ghost Busters Extraordinaire, yes,” she said. “But we’re not open today.”

“We thought maybe we could look around before everyone arrives. That way we won’t be in everyone’s hair.”

Already Laurel didn’t like Stanton Wernicke. He was pushy and acting as if his business was more important than hers. And that she should welcome the great TV personalities. That would be the day.

“I’m sorry, no. You’d be in my hair, and I’m busy.”

She heard a vehicle park out front, and though she couldn’t see around the three hulking men, she hoped CJ had arrived. If these men wouldn’t take no for an answer, they’d change their mind when they learned CJ was a deputy sheriff.