A Grizzly Discovery

7

“Well obviously we have to get into his hotel room and look for clues,” Sophie told me in a hushed voice as we got ready for the afternoon—preparing a vaccine for a dog coming in for his yearly booster, and then getting ready to look at the sample we took from a lump in the cat from this morning. I was fairly certain the lump was just going to end up being fat-filled, rather than anything dangerous, but it was always a good idea to know for sure. Karen was in the reception area, and probably couldn’t hear us, but I agreed with Sophie that it was better to be safe than sorry.

“Good, that’s exactly what I was thinking.”

“We should go after work. Right at five is when hotels are at their busiest, since that’s when people check in. Since it’s slow season, any other time will probably result in at least somebody in there noticing us.”

“I like your thinking. Plus, Charlotte won’t be home by then, so we don’t have to tell her what we’re doing until after it’s done.”

“That’s an even better reason. Awesome. We leave from here and we go straight to the inn.”

The afternoon seemed to fly by, and at exactly a quarter to five I sent Karen home for the day as Sophie and I took turns changing in the bathroom in the back of the store. When we came out, no longer wearing our scrubs, we put them in the car and walked the two blocks down to the Willow Bay Inn.

The Inn, as it was known locally, was a three-story high building toward the end of Main Street. One of three hotels in town, it was easily the most recognizable. Built entirely of red brick, with white wooden balconies leading out of the half-moon windows that faced the street, it had that rustic, old-world charm that Willow Bay was so known for.

Sophie and I quickly made our way inside and found ourselves in a warm lobby with hardwood floors covered in a number of rugs, and an old oak reception desk against the far wall. Luckily for us, the one person at the desk was busy with a client, and Sophie and I quickly made our way to the door that led to the stairs on the left side of the room.

“How are we going to figure out which room was his?” Sophie hissed at me as we reached the second floor.

“The cops will have sealed it off, right?” I said confidently. I hoped that was right, at least.

We walked down the hallway on the second floor, but there were no indications anywhere that the police had sealed off any rooms. Hoping I wasn’t wrong—if I had to turn myself invisible to get a look at the room register downstairs, who knew how long that was going to take—Sophie and I continued up to the third floor using the stairs at the other end of the hall. Luckily, when we got there, we struck gold.

“Bingo,” Sophie said, pointing to the first door on our right. Across the front of it was a police seal and a strip of police tape warning people not to enter. “How are we going to get in without breaking the seal?” she asked, looking around. Luckily, the whole hallway was empty. It was slow season, after all.

“Nonvideroa,” I said, pointing at Sophie, and instantly she disappeared. I repeated the spell, this time pointing at myself, and I quickly disappeared from view as well.

“You know, it’s not that I don’t trust your critical thinking skills, but this just means no one can see us, not that we can get past a police seal.”

“Gee, really?” I asked sarcastically. “I hadn’t thought of that. Give me a second, at least.”

“Pondoroa,” I said, pointing at Sophie, feeling another burst of energy exuding from the tip of my finger. “There. Now you should be weightless, you can travel through the wall. Just walk straight into it, and I’ll meet you in the room,” I said.

“Ok, here I go,” Sophie said. I couldn’t see her, but a moment later I heard a loud thud, followed by a string of swear words. That wasn’t good.

“I’m going to kill you when I can see you again,” Sophie finally said when she felt like stringing a sentence together, her voice sounding incredibly stuffed up, like she had a cold.

“Shhh, keep your voice down,” I admonished. Just because nobody could see us didn’t mean nobody could hear us. I looked over at the door to the room and saw a dark red blotch that wasn’t there a minute before. “Are you bleeding?”

“How on earth should I know? I can’t see anything. But I do know I went straight into that door and I definitely didn’t go through it. You can’t tell me to keep my voice down when your stupid magic is the reason my face feels like it just got bashed by a baseball bat.”

Suddenly, it came to me. “Oh my God, I did the wrong spell!”

“Yeah, I kind of figured that.”

“I’m so sorry, Sophie,” I told her. “I honestly didn’t mean to. Ponderoa,” I tried again. “Ok, that one should work.”

“Nuh-uh. There’s absolutely no way I’m walking back into that door first. I’m pretty sure my nose is broken, by the way. If you’ve permanently scarred me for life I know who the next person to show up murdered in Willow Bay is going to be.”

“Ok, I guess that’s fair,” I said, pointing to myself and repeating the spell. I didn’t feel any different. “I’m going in now. If it works, then follow me in.”

“I hope you bash your nose straight into the door,” Sophie replied. Just in case, I put my arms out in front of me, but it wasn’t necessary. I slipped straight through the wood like it wasn’t even there.

“The spell worked, you can come through,” I told Sophie as I pointed at myself and said “Videroa.” I suddenly re-appeared, then felt a worrying sensation in the pit of my stomach. I couldn’t see Sophie anymore, but she could definitely see me. “Please don’t kill me,” I begged, putting my arms up in front of my face. I’d seen Sophie punch someone in the face before; she had a good arm on her. But a minute passed, and there was still no sign of her.

“Sophie?” I said, looking around the room.

“I’ve decided I’m going to stay like this,” Sophie said. “I’m going to haunt you now. I’m basically a ghost, since you can’t see me and I can walk through walls.”

“Ok, stop it,” I said, trying to tell where the voice came from. “Let me make you visible again.”

“Fine, but only because I think I might bleed to death soon,” Sophie said. “I’m in front of the door.”

I pointed to the door and cast the reversing spell at Sophie. She suddenly appeared in front of me, and I gasped when I saw her. The bridge of her nose was black, but more noticeable was the steady stream of blood pouring from her nose.

“Oh my God, Sophie, get into the bathroom!” I ordered. She made her way in there and I grabbed one of the white towels off the rack and held it to her nose. “How on earth did this get so bad?” I asked.

“I walked into a door because someone who’s supposed to be my best friend told me to and I trusted her.”

“I honestly thought I had the right spell,” I said. “I just accidentally said ‘o’ instead of ‘e’.”

“Yeah, well, you’re not the one who has to suffer for your forgetfulness. I take it back; we should have invited Charlotte to come with us. At least she remembers her spells properly.” Charlotte was a way better witch than me. And I wasn’t just saying that because thanks to me Sophie’s face was bruised and bloodied. Charlotte studied witchcraft like everything else, and with that amazing brain of hers, she had mastered spells I didn’t even know existed.

“Hey, I haven’t had to use that spell in like, at least five years. You can’t blame me for screwing up one syllable.”

“Seeing as I’ve lost at least half my total blood volume, I think I can blame you for whatever I want.”

“You haven’t lost half your blood, just, like, probably one-tenth or so.”

“Great, now you sound like your sister, but without the actual ability to do magic correctly the first time around.”

A few minutes later we managed to staunch most of the bleeding, although we’d completely ruined one of the hotel’s towels. I threw it into the bathtub, making a mental note to grab it before we left.

“Ok, let’s get into things,” I said, ignoring the scowl Sophie shot in my direction. We went back into the main part of the hotel room; Jeremy Wallace had evidently just paid for a studio. There was a double bed at one end, a small desk next to a cabinet that held a mini-fridge and a few amenities, with a TV on top. His suitcase lay open on the floor, clothes scattered haphazardly around it. Jeremy Wallace was obviously not the kind of guy to use the closet.

“Shouldn’t we like, not be touching things in here?” Sophie asked as I made my way toward the suitcase.

“Why not? It’s not like it’s really a crime scene anymore, the police already announced that they don’t think it’s a murder. I wouldn’t even be surprised if that seal comes off the door before tomorrow.”

“So what you’re saying is if we’d waited twenty-four hours I wouldn’t have an upcoming trip to the hospital to get my face X-rayed?”

“You can’t get an X-ray for a broken nose,” I replied. “Since technically it’s cartilage and not bone.”

“I’m going to pay you back for this. One day. I promise.”

“I said I was sorry!”

Sophie gave me a dark look as I began to look through the pile of clothes. There was nothing interesting there, mainly athletic gear—it seemed Jeremy Wallace spent almost all of his disposable income at Under Armour—and I started to feel like maybe we weren’t going to find any clues about where Wallace had gone at three in the morning the night before he was killed. After all, it wasn’t like Willow Bay had any twenty-four hour gyms for him to frequent.

Sophie was looking through the closets, under the bed, in the fridge, anywhere else that might give us some kind of clue. After less than five minutes, she let out a sigh.

“If I have to look like someone punched me in the face for a few weeks and we don’t even get anything out of this search, I’m going to be pissed,” she said.

“Yeah, this guy was basically the definition of a light traveler,” I said, getting a bit exasperated myself. I sat back on my haunches and looked around the room. Apart from the small suitcase, it seemed practically empty. Then, suddenly, I saw with the last of the sunlight streaming in through the window that one of the floorboards near Sophie was a bit separated from the others.

“Hey, what’s that?” I asked, motioning for her to move over as I got up.

“What?” Sophie asked, peering over to where I mentioned. “Oooh,” she continued as she noticed the floorboard as well. I pressed on it a few times and quickly found that it was actually a bit loose. With a bit of help from Sophie we managed to pry it up. I reached in and grabbed a cell phone, one of those cheap ones you can buy anywhere for around $20.

“Weird,” Sophie said. “Wasn’t there a phone found with him when he was killed?”

“Yeah,” I replied. “That one was a nice phone though, one of those new Samsungs and not the ones that spontaneously explode, either. This one’s a burner.”

“You watch way too many bad cop shows on TV,” Sophie replied.

“I do not!”

“We don’t even know if it belongs to Wallace. Maybe it was some other person who stayed here who hid it here, and they just forgot it when they left.”

“Fine,” I replied, flipping the phone open to have a look. Suddenly, something began to scrape against the door lock. Someone was coming into the hotel room. This was not good.