PART TWO
"Yes, sir," Moseby communicated long distance with the manager of singer Hannah Montana. "I have your reservations set for one of our best suites."
"And security as well?" Bobby Joe Cyrus spoke for the young tween queen. "Hannah loves her fans, but lets face the facts. She wants her privacy."
"She'll have so much privacy she'll think she's the only one here."
"Well," Cyrus recalled an incident in Nashville where a fan nearly pulled Hannah's wig off. "Let's not go overboard here. She's not exactly a diva."
"I have Hannah booked for the twenty-fifth." Moseby looked up from the desk and noticed London Tipton coming toward him dressed extravagantly conspicuous and carrying her tiny Pomeranian like an accessory over her arm. "We'll see you then."
"Moseby," London looked up earnestly. "Hannah Montana is still going to be staying here. I can't wait to meet her."
"What makes you think you're meeting her?" Moseby hung up the phone then pulled out and dropped the conventional anti-celebrity waivers that London's father had created to prevent his crazy daughter from intervening with actors and singers. Each proviso covered each threat that London was known to make when it came to meeting actors and actresses that stayed at the Tipton.
"You have just GOT to be kidding." London balked at the sight of those waivers again. "Those things only keep me from Orlando Bloom and Jesse McCartney; Hannah loves me. We're both celebrities twice removed." She beamed with the lobby lights sparking in her overzealous brown eyes.
"You two have never met."
"You don't know that!" London was adamant.
"London…" Moseby sighed a bit and carried messages over to the concierge. "You father says that if you pull another stunt, that he's sending you off to…"
"Parochial school?" London knew that threat. "Too late! He already did! Speaking of which, what happened to Maddie? She never came up with Ivana's treats. My little precious got so hungry I had to share her some of my caviar tar-tar." Ivana cooed with her master's voice.
"What?" Moseby turned around interested. "But I saw her head up the elevator myself carrying the dog…"
Ivana started growling at that reference.
"Special treats." He rolled his eyes to the over-pampered pooch. "When she didn't come down, I just figured you had taken her off again. After all, this is not the first time you've taken Maddie to carry your shopping bags for you, and I've always been lenient with Maddie where you were concerned."
"Moseby, I haven't been shopping since…. Wait, what time is it?" London lost track of the time again. "Anyway, I ordered those treats all the way from Germany. Where are they?"
"These things are really good." Zack and Cody came wandering by as they ate treats from a recognizable red and yellow box with gold print. Moseby and London turned to face them, acknowledged what they were eating and stood in silent witness to the improbable and unlikely sequence of events should they reveal the truth to the twins.
"How did you guys get Ivana's treats?" London snatched the nearly empty package back.
"Ivana's?" Zack stopped chewing.
"They're dog…" Moseby heard Ivana growling again. "Special treats."
Zack and Cody dived on the closest potted plant and began choking and coughing up the crumbs and remnants from their throats. Zack started wiping his tongue on his sleeve and Cody snatched a bottle of water from the guest buffet in the lobby and used it to gargle the taste from his mouth.
"Where did you guys find the treats?" Moseby used his managerial voice now. "Have you see Maddie upstairs anywhere?"
"Maddie, no…" Cody replied as Zack snatched his bottle and gargled with it. "The box was laying in the elevator when we came down and we…"
"Dude, we've been eating dog snacks!" Zack sipped and gargled more water.
"Haven't seen Maddie since we were down earlier." Cody continued.
"That's almost five hours." Moseby slipped partial from his role as an angry employer. "This is so not like Madeline. She's always so responsible and diligent to her job. Even if she came down, I know I would have seen her. " He snapped his fingers toward the bell boys. "Esteban?"
"Yes, Mr. Moseby…" The honest and hard-working Mexican-American turned round eager to help from the front landing after loading luggage for an arriving guest.
"We are going to check the empty rooms for Madeline." Moseby quickly slipped behind the admissions desk to print a list of the unoccupied rooms in the hotel. "Zack, Cody, check around and see if anyone has seen her recently."
"Did something happen to Mrs. Maddie?" Esteban asked as Zack and Cody took off the check the kitchen.
"She's been away from her post for five hours." Moseby filled him in. "She had better hope she's hurt or injured because if I suddenly discover she's taken up gold-bricking, she's fired."
"What about me?" London wanted to help as she pulled Ivana closer to her. "Oh, I know! I'll offer Maddie a twenty-five thousand dollar award to give herself up. If that doesn't work, I'll up it to fifty." She grinned ear-to-ear thinking she was finally being brilliant.
"Yes," Moseby looked over to Esteban sadly. "Why don't you do that?" He and Esteban meanwhile rolled their eyes embarrassed for the slow heiress.
Five flights above, Suite 613 remained dark and unattended by anything in the corporeal sense. The Victorian furniture that adorned it had been specially ordered from England by the woman who had thought the suite would be home to her and her husband, but now, it rested unseen and covered by white sheets. The dusty carpeting showed vague signs of being disturbed a few times in the past, but no definite footprints appeared in the scant sunlight streaming in from the balcony overlooking the street out front of the hotel. The stone gargoyle out front cast a stretched and arching shadow through the glass doors and over the covered furniture. As the sun passed over the city, its beams entering the room passed even more closer to the portrait of Irene DeMontoya. The visage of the lovelorn and long-gone beauty stared from the portrait seemingly lifelike as if ready to reach out and touch the living. Her story was a tragic drama of a heart-broken young bride and the loving husband who never returned from war. Combined with the shadows and cobwebs of the room, it was no wonder that Room 613 was believed to be haunted.
One person did not seem to be affected by the alleged ghost. Standing before the mirror, Madeline Genevieve Fitzpatrick stood with access to Irene's elegant wardrobe left behind in the closets. Her hands reached up fitting a silver and diamond tiara to her blonde tresses and then smoothing and parting her long blonde dresses. Her movements and gestures belonged to a person borne from a regal and strict social life instead of from that a young girl who came from low-middle-class persons. Instead of her hotel uniform, she was now clothed in a long white and gold ball gown with baroque and exquisite tailoring for a woman born to high society. Her fingers and palms caressed out the wrinkles to her dress and her eyes carefully narrowed upon her reflection. Extending her arm to the vanity in the dark corner of the room, she caught the gold brush, which had flung itself into the air. Nothing had tossed it; it had just thrown itself to the air in accordance to her mental command. Brushing her long hair, Maddie lightly grinned to herself for a minute then turned her head out to the outer room annoyed by the people out in the hall outside the suite.
"Everyone's favorite hide-out." Moseby stood ready to unlock the suite with his key. "Madeline, you had better not be in here."
"Mr. Moseby," Esteban cringed from the sight of the numbers on the door as it opened up with a slow creak. "I think we can skip this one."
"Esteban," Moseby turned to him. "Do I have to remind you that one Halloween that you and the others were in here having a séance in order to scare Zack. You can't possibly still be scared of this room."
"Scared?" Esteban stood in the doorway and perused the room from the hall. "I don't see Mrs. Maddie; let's go check Suite 714." He started to leave but something was holding him back. It was Moseby holding him by the cuff of his trousers. Moseby had a look of determined authority that he do what he said.
"If this was a movie…" Esteban stepped lightly into the room once his belt was released. "I'd be saying don't go in here."
"If you want to work for me, you will go in."
"Okay," Esteban bemoaned silently. "But if I get killed, I'm never speaking to you again." With another roll of the eyes from his boss, Esteban took a series of small steps past the bare liquor cabinet by the door and toward the covered table and chairs in the middle of the room. Moseby strode a bit more unwavering straight through the middle of the room breaking a path of disturbed dust and broken cobwebs. Before the bedroom doors, he stopped, hesitated and looked to Esteban looking out through the front balcony doors.
"By the way, how did Arwin sneak past Zack during the séance?" Moseby lifted his foot up on a chair to tighten his shoelace.
"He didn't." Esteban was reluctantly peeking under a piano. "He pulled himself through the air duct into the bedroom."
"Why would he do that?"
"Mrs. London paid him $500."
"Ask a stupid question…" Moseby now turned into the direction of the bedroom then stopped. He was suddenly getting the most tactile feeling of dread. For some reason, he felt like a young boy again, and he was being overwhelmed by the most over-coming stress attack. He didn't want to go any further, but he knew he had to. It was as if it had suddenly dawned on him he was somewhere he shouldn't be. Something did not want him here. He couldn't see it, but the sensation was waking every childhood fear he had ever suppressed of unseen monsters hiding from him. Unable to go no further, he looked to his trusting bellboy.
"Esteban, check the closets and under the bed." He ordered. Esteban took one step into the bedroom suite and stepped back.
"I don't think so." He was overwhelmed as well by the presence of energy in the room. It was darker than the rest of suite even with the limited beams of sunlight reaching into the room. The darkened canopy bed resembled an old-fashioned funeral wagon while the covered furniture around it resembled attending ghosts. One closet door on the far wall was partially askew while the other was bound up tight.
"I am your boss, and I say go look in that closet for Maddie." Moseby ordered.
"If I was Maddie, I wouldn't be in a haunted closet." Esteban thought that out a bit further. "In fact, I wouldn't be anywhere near a haunted closet." He heard a light voice giggling over his head.
"Madeline." Moseby heard her too and lifted his head as well as her voice seemed to waft from beyond time and space. It sounded as if she was over their heads, but the ceiling was dark and covered in spider webs. As clouds obscured the sunlight entering the room, the suite became even darker and with the distant teasing laughter came other indistinct voices. He heard the tinkling of fine glasses being clinked together and the even fainter remnants of old Big Band music. Turning toward Esteban frozen still, Moseby noticed the chair he had tied his shoe on had moved from where it was. It was now dragged to the middle of the room and facing them as if someone was watching them.
"Wasn't that chair over there a second ago?" Esteban asked his employer, but they now erupted into two loud shrill screams followed by the sound of their feet racing out of the room. Esteban had briefly collided with the table and bounced out of the room as Moseby fumbled trying to close the door. Fumbling to lock it once more, he gave up and entered the elevator before Esteban.
Back in Suite 613, Madeline Fitzpatrick stood in the bedroom doors in her regal French dress. Resembling a divine blonde goddess of the underworld, her head was slightly low and her facial features angry and possessed. She lightly stepped back from the doorway and gestured toward them to close at her demand. Behind the slamming doors, her violated guise snarled with a glimmer of light glowing from within her bright blue eyes.