The Ninth Floor

  THE NINTH FLOOR

  By Liz Schulte

  THE NINTH FLOOR

  Copyright © 2013 by Liz Schulte

  All rights reserved. Except as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, no part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without prior written permission of the author.

  This book is a work of fiction. Any names, places, characters, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination and are purely fictitious. Any resemblances to any persons, living or dead, are completely coincidental.

  This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  CONTENTS

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Epilogue

  Praise for Liz Schulte’s Mysteries

  A sample of DARK CORNERS

  Ella Reynolds Series Book 1

  Books by Liz Schulte

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  The blank white door loomed in front of me. I reached for the handle but clenched my fingers into a fist instead of touching it. I wasn’t giving in. Sagging against the wall, I knocked my ex-boyfriend’s jacket off the hook. The garment puddled on the floor, bringing tears to my eyes. When did everything fall apart?

  “Open the door, Ryan,” Briggs yelled from the other side of the door.

  I shook my head, though he couldn’t see me.

  “You can’t keep my things hostage.”

  I squeezed my useless fists until my knuckles turned white. “You want your crap, give me back my dogs.” Briggs Burke had been my boyfriend for the better part of a decade. We met at eighteen and were pretty much inseparable since then—until he left me. Sid and Nancy were gorgeous black and tan German Shepherds we bought when they were puppies, and when he left he took them with him, leaving me with nothing but the material items in our apartment. I closed my eyes and softly banged the back of my head against the wall.

  “Damn it. Be reasonable.” He sounded so close that my heart cracked and bled.

  “You should’ve taken your things when you left the first time, Briggs.” My voice was quiet and lacked the malice I wished I felt.

  “Ryan …” His tone immediately matched mine. He was always so good at pacifying me.

  “Are you going to tell me why you left?” I waited. Silence—the root of all breakups. If we could talk or even argue about whatever had set him off, we might have a chance, but the silence between us left me empty. My jaw clenched. There was no way in hell he was getting in here tonight. “You can have your stuff when you return the dogs. Until then, do what you’re good at. Leave.”

  I walked away from the door as his hand pounded into it. I flopped down on our—make that my—couch and put on my headphones. If Briggs didn’t want to talk, then neither did I. If he was okay with throwing away seven years without a word about why, what could I do?

  I picked up my nearly empty carton of ice cream and spooned another heaping bite into my mouth. I used the cuff of his sleeve to wipe the stray tears from my eyes. My music paused as my phone rang. I glanced at the caller ID before answering.

  “Hey, Audra. How’s Paris?”

  Audra was my best friend. Maybe my only friend that wasn’t a friend Briggs and I made as a couple. We also met in college, but she’d worked in Paris since graduation, so our friendship was mostly over the phone and Internet these days. “Magnifique,” she said. “How have you been?”

  “Fine,” I mumbled.

  She paused and then sighed. “You’re still moping, aren’t you?” She tsked at me. “Get off your couch, go out, find a rebound. Briggs wasn’t all that great—and you’re young, beautiful… You have a ton to offer. He’s an idiot.”

  I pressed my lips together, fighting off a fresh urge to cry.

  “You’re wearing his shirt and eating frozen yogurt, aren’t you?”

  “Ice cream.”

  “It’s worse than I thought. Think of the empty calories.”

  I rolled my eyes.

  “You can’t live like this,” she continued. “Come to Paris before your ass gets any fatter. You’ll be all, ‘Briggs who?’ I promise.”

  “I can’t just go to Paris. I have a job.” It wasn’t an important job. I wrote obituaries and wedding announcements. I could be replaced in a matter of hours, but to me it symbolized something larger. Independence.

  “Fuck your job. You’re an heiress living in a shitty apartment. How does that make any sense? You don’t need it.”

  I rubbed my forehead. I didn’t want my family’s money. Audra never understood that. “It’s not that easy—”

  “Yes. Yes, it is. Call your dad. Get him to write you a big, fat check, and come hang out with me. It’ll be like old times.” She waited a moment. “And it’ll get you out of this funk. If you want, you can find another menial job here—or you could—gasp—use your trust fund.”

  “Yeah, right. Not going to happen.” It was a point of pride that I’d never touched the trust fund that came available to me on my twenty-first birthday, and Audra knew it. However …I did have some savings. Maybe enough saved up to last a couple months in Paris if I crashed with Audra. With a job there, who knows how long I could stay…

  “You’re considering it. Don’t think too much about moving or you’ll talk yourself out of it. Just do it, Ryan. For once, be impulsive.”

  I nodded. “Let me check how much plane tickets cost.”

  Audra squealed and I visualized her jumping up and down, which made me smile. I opened my laptop and began researching ticket costs. Paris was probably the last place on earth I should go, but then again, what better city was there to get over a break up in?

  My phone beeped, signaling that I had another call. “Hold on a sec.” I flipped over the other call without looking at it. “Hello?”

  “Ryan. It’s your mother.”

  My newly born excitement vanished. Mom had that way about her that just sucked the fun out of everything. “Hello, Mother.” I had successfully avoided talking to the woman for the better part of two years. She never called me. No one in my family did. So why now of all times? It figured the one time I let my guard down, she’d sneak in. I refocused my effort on finding the best deal possible. “What can I do for you?”

  “Augusta is in the hospital.”

  She was the only person I knew who called Bee by her given name and it sent chills down my spine. I sat back against the couch. Aunt Bee was more like a mother to me than the woman on the phone. “Is she okay?”

  “She doesn’t appear to be.” Only my mother could say that in the same tone she’d use when dropping off her dry cleaning. Ah, who was
I kidding? Like my mother ever dropped off dry cleaning.

  “How bad?” I tugged on my ear and leaned my elbows against my knees.

  “Nothing to worry yourself about. Your father will take care of everything. I only called because Augusta insisted. You know how dramatic she can be. Something about you being her executor, which is ridiculous. How’s Briggs doing?”

  Everything in me settled, and I knew beyond a doubt what I had to do. “I have to go, Mother. Take care.” I hung up without waiting for her goodbye. If Aunt Bee was in the hospital, I sure as hell wasn’t leaving her at the mercy of the Sterlings.

  “Hello,” a voice called out from my abandoned phone. “Ryan, are you there?”

  I scooped it up. “Audra, I’m so sorry. That was my mother. Bee’s in the hospital. I can’t come to Paris. I have to go home.”

  Chapter 2

  “The ninth floor is haunted. No one is allowed up there. If you cross the threshold, evil seeps under your skin and rots your guts from the inside out. Not quick neither—a slow painful death.”

  I looked away from the wild-eyed gaze of the emaciated woman in the bed next to Aunt Bee. A thin smile stretched across my face as I tried to pretend everything was going to be okay for Bee, who was massaging her temples.

  “Evil.” The determined loony wouldn’t let it go. “The dead live there and they hate the living. Want to kill us all. They’re doin’ the devil’s work. They are—”

  “Good morning, Mrs. Scott,” a wide-hipped, bubbly nurse said from the doorway. Bee straightened, and I stood up, glad for the distraction. “Dr. Sadler should be in soon. I’m just here to get your vitals.” The nurse closed the blue curtain between the beds, but the ranting carried on.

  “Death. Death will find us all. Only accepting Jesus can save you. The devil lives in Goodson Hollow.”

  “Now, Miss Simpson, you quiet down. Let this poor soul get some rest.” The nurse smiled sympathetically at my aunt.

  “Can we get a private room?” I asked, tapping my foot as if the clicking of my shoe could drown out the woman who believed in ghosts.

  The nurse shook her head. “All the private rooms are taken, but Mrs. Scott is on the list. When one comes available, it’ll be hers.” She spoke with a slow drawl like sap running down a tree. I’d forgotten the meandering pace and laid back attitude of Goodson Hollow.

  “Great,” I said under my breath. I couldn’t believe I was back here of all places.

  I was wrong. Paris wasn’t the last place in the world I should be—Goodson Hollow was. I hadn’t returned for longer than a summer vacation since my parents had carted me off to boarding school. Unlike Bee, I felt no connection to the town. It wasn’t home to me. During college, I found jobs over the summers and visited rarely. In the group of backstabbing snobs, who were my relations—the Sterlings—my mother’s sister was the only one I considered family. Bee wrote me every week—had since I was sent away. And she came to visit regularly—much more than I could say for my so-called parents.

  “I should go check on the store,” I said when the nurse left. I hadn’t been in the room long, but already it felt suffocating. I needed an occupation. Something to keep me focused and not thinking. Bee’s diagnosis hit me like a train. Liver failure. My mind had been stuttering ever since.

  “You’ll miss Dr. Sadler,” she said, a muted twinkle in her increasingly yellow eyes. “I really want you to meet him.”

  Bee was the first person I told when Briggs left me. She was of the same mindset as Audra, so I had little doubt as to why she wanted me to meet her doctor. I kissed her forehead. “There will be other times to meet your doctor. I’m here to take care of you. Starting with getting your store open again.”

  “The store can wait.”

  “How long have you been in here? A week? And no one’s looked in on it, have they? If the store isn’t open, you aren’t making money. I need to see what we’re dealing with. Then I’ll hire someone to work there when I can’t.”

  “But you just got here.” She took my hand. “Stay and talk to me for a while.”

  “I’ll be back, promise. I just want to get an idea of what needs to be done. I’ll take care of everything. Don’t worry about a thing.”

  I made it out as fast as I could. No matter what anyone thought, the last thing I needed was a cute, single doctor. As I waited for the elevator, my foot tapping again with excess coffee energy, a man walked up and stood too close, also waiting. I pointedly moved away from him, focusing my stare elsewhere.

  I’d run my stuff by Bee’s house and then head back into town to check out her clothing store. I could be back at the hospital by lunch.

  I hated seeing Aunt Bee like this. She was always so strong, such a force to be reckoned with. Then out of the blue, liver failure. No one saw it coming. She was no more than a social drinker, she didn’t have hepatitis, and she exercised and ate healthily practically every day of her life. But two weeks ago, she had an allergic reaction, and the next thing she knew she was being told she needed a transplant. It was impossible to comprehend.

  I let out a slow breath and scrolled through the emails on my phone. My boss had responded to my resignation letter. He wondered if I was making a rash decision—and I supposed I was. I still hadn’t wrapped my mind around being unemployed. However, I knew from the research I’d done that once I had Bee well again, life would never be the same. She needed me. Everything else had to wait.

  *

  Long before I was alive, my mother and Aunt Bee inherited their parents’ home and property. My parents bought out Aunt Bee for a hefty sum and merged the two neighboring properties while giving her the lifetime right to live in the small house. I hadn’t seen any of this for years, but as I traveled along the tree-lined drive in my 2002 Acura, memories lurked everywhere. A rope swing I used to play on with my brother, Ashley, and the cousins. The path I used to run around the lake to Bee’s house. The tree Bee planted when I was born. I shook my head. I wasn’t going to get sucked back into this world.

  The cottage came into view and I laughed. Calling it a cottage seemed ridiculous. It would have been a perfectly nice house for most families, but in the shadow of the garish mansion it did seem sort of cottage-esque. It had thick stone walls and a cedar shake roof. Six narrow brick chimneys jutted up toward the sky, three on each side of the house. It was an old home and had fireplaces in most of the rooms. Pretty curtains in the windows and cheerful window baskets bursting with flowers welcomed visitors. Everywhere I looked I found traces of Bee. My eyes filled with tears, but I pushed them down. I couldn’t cry every time I saw the house. I was living here now.

  I parked near the door, flipped off the ignition, and sat listening to the silence for a moment. I hefted my duffle bag out of the trunk and carried it inside, dropping it in the entrance as I took a deep breath, inhaling the vanilla and rose scent.

  Sunlight poured through the windows of the living room, and the wood plank walls were painted bright white. Two white-and kelly green striped loveseats faced each other, and miscellaneous bits of antique furniture decorated the rest of the room. Some of Bee’s plants looked droopy so I hunted down her watering tin and gave them each a drink at lightning speed—I wanted to make it back to the hospital on time. I was nearly finished when a picture on the dresser caught my eye: me, Briggs, and our two dogs. We looked so happy. I allowed myself a wistful moment, which was interrupted by the screen door swinging open.

  “Hello,” my brother’s voice called out.

  “Just a sec,” I shouted back.

  My parents were either cruel or they thought it would show superior breeding to give the boys in our family feminine names and stick me with a masculine one. I came out of the kitchen to find Ashley lingering in the doorway. He looked so much older than when I last saw him. His hair was thinning, his eyes were wrinkled and his skin was weathered. When did Ashley turn into Gollum? “What’s up, Ash?”

  He cleared his throat and gave me and the house a disapprovin
g once-over. “I thought Mother told you not to come back.”

  “It’s nice to see you too.”

  He ignored me. “I haven’t been in here since we were kids. Remember how Bee let us use the attic as a clubhouse?”

  I smoothed my hand over my purposefully torn jeans and tugged the edges of my white tank top down under the black blazer. “Uh, no. I was probably away at school.” I shook away the ancient resentment that my parents saw fit to send me to boarding school but not either of my brothers. “I’m just watering Bee’s plants.” I shifted my weight to the other foot.

  “When did you get into town?”

  “Today.”

  “Do Mom and Dad know?”

  “Better question, do you think they care?”

  Ashley shook his head. “You’re hardly a victim, Ryan.”

  “Says the golden child.” I smiled sweetly and wiped my hands on his suit jacket as I walked past. “Well, it was great seeing you. I should be going. Lots to do.” I slipped on my sunglasses and charged to my car. I had almost made a clean getaway before he strolled behind my car with his arms tucked into his pockets.

  “This is yours?” he asked with a face like the words tasted bad.

  “Bought and paid for.” I patted her on the roof.

  “While you’re here, you are welcome to drive one of my cars.”

  “No thanks.”

  “Really, Ryan, we do have a reputation to maintain. I’m the mayor now, if you haven’t heard. The youngest mayor in Goodson Hollow’s history.” He puffed out his chest proudly.

  “Congratulations. The stoplight is out at Second and Walnut.” I climbed into my car and started the engine, but Ashley didn’t take the hint, so I rolled down the window by hand and looked back at him. “I really have to go. So unless the mayor wants to get run over, I suggest he moves.”