PART THREE

Moseby's hands still shook as he tried to hold Carey's coffee cup. Bracing his wrist, Carey poured her employer another cup to calm his frazzled nerves. Sitting down across from him still clad in her evening dress, she had finished her act downstairs about twenty minutes prior and now found herself trying to dissuade the fears of her own boss. Something had rattled him. He had been sitting in the fetal position outside the door of her suite when she came up.

"This is ridiculous!" Carey found she had to be the voice of reason after his tale. "Everyone knows there's no such thing as ghosts."

"I used to think the same thing…" Moseby agreed with her. "But I checked out Mr. Collins's website, and I learned that there are currently over seven hundred ghost hunting agencies in the United States. Millions of dollars a year goes into paranormal research, and even with the majority of most cases coming down to being explainable, there are still countless cases that can't be explained. Now, there is no certifiable proof that ghosts exist, but the evidence is staggering to suggest that the human spirit somehow still exists after death."

"What's this all got to do with Maddie?" Carey rose to her kitchenette to place her empty glass coffeepot into her sink.

"I don't know." Moseby looked around the Martin's toy strewn suite. "I am full aware that Suite 613 has been haunted for quite sometime. Mr. Collins' experts have scrutinized it three times and insist they can't explain the stories, but I also know that Maddie leaving the hotel without telling me is so unlike her. Somehow, someway, I know she is somewhere in the hotel."

"Have you talked to her parents?" Carey removed her earrings.

"Her parents…" Moseby scoffed at the sound of the word. It cast illusions of a group of people related to each other who cared about each other. "Her mother seemed a little concerned, but her father made some crack about it being time she moved out, and her brother, her brother was even worse. The little monster was quickly tossing Maddie's things out of her room so he could have it." Moseby calmed as he sipped his coffee once more. "I'm starting to understand why Madeline never wants to go home. It's so depressing there and I'm sure she feels under appreciated."

"How far did you and Esteban get in checking the… hey!" Carey noticed two heads eavesdropping from the doorway of her sons' bedroom. "Aren't you guys supposed to be asleep?" Moseby also turned to look at the boys.

"We were concerned about Maddie." Cody confessed as he walked out in the t-shirt and pajama pants he slept in.

"Yeah," Zack answered crestfallen and worried. "We care about her. Didn't the police find anything?" He recalled seeing the patrol car out front of the Tipton.

"Not much, boys." Moseby forced down the last of Carey's coffee. "They took her description, walked the hotel and talked to as many people as they could, but they didn't find Maddie." He exhaled a minute. "They think she might have left work a bit depressed to meet someone."

"But we're the only people she knows." Cody reported.

"Except for those crazy nuns at her school." Zack made the noise of getting swatted by a yardstick. "And we know she doesn't like it there either."

"They did say that people who vanish usually return within twenty-four hours." Moseby continued trying to reassure himself. "But they can't do much more unless there's some sort of sign of foul play."

"Okay, boys," Carey corralled her twins back to their bedroom. "Go back to bed; you've got school in the…."

"Today's Friday…" Zack was quick to point out. "Tomorrow's Saturday."

"Then you got to get up early for Saturday morning cartoons." Carey continued pressing them further. A kiss for her problem child known as Zack and a kiss for her gifted child known as Cody and she was switching out the lights on them and closing the door. In the darkened room, Cody's shadow was outlined by moonlight behind the curtain. Zack's bed obscured by the shadowy other side of the room sighed with the sound of his voice.

"You think she got lost in the vents?" Zack asked his brother.

"I don't think she's the type to go vent exploring." Cody answered logically. "We know almost every foot of the hotel. I bet we could find her."

"Or what's left of her." Zack replied distastefully. "I saw this movie once where this guy…"

"Oh brother!" Cody sat up straight. "You're supposed to be the one who wants to marry her and you got the worst possible scenario."

"I'm just saying…" Zack continued. "I was watching Court TV and this guy once…"

"Go to sleep." Cody snapped as the sounds of Zack grumbling from his bed reached his ears. Eventually, his twin brother drew silent and Cody could close his eyes and replay the day's events. They weren't in the lobby when Maddie came up the elevator, but they had passed Mr. Collins and his crew from the Collinsport Ghost Society in Maine. Collins was also married to that skinny lady lawyer who worked here in Boston and they had those two little girls. Little girls? They were terrorists in disguise! Little Lainey had a crush on him, but little Georgia was a force ten hurricane on two tiny little legs. On her first trip to the Tipton, she had vanished into the duct works to escape Maddie laughing and giggling and it was he and Zack who had to go after her.

Maddie's likeness and memory remained in Cody's mind as he drifted to sleep. As she remained at the top of Cody's concerns, she also drifted into his dreams. In the darkness and environs of his dreaming mind, he found an aspect of her back at work at the candy counter. She beamed to him once more and waved him to follow her to the elevators. Maybe she was showing him where to find her, but instead of the elevators, Cody found himself floating up a high stairway reaching up into the hotel. It was like a secret passage he didn't know existed. At the top, she was far from him in a room of billowing smoke and darkness. The perspective and environs altered with the rules of existence in this reality. Sometimes, he felt he was flying and at times he thought Maddie towered over him as if she were fifty feet tall.

"Cody." Her voice whispered to him and he ran into a deserted version of the lobby. It was trashed, furniture askew and devastated. Turning round, Cody somehow found himself in the dining room. The tables and chairs here were overturned and tossed around.

"Cody." Maddie whispered again and he ran into the kitchen, but in this restructured dream-state, Cody realized in was in his suite. Neither his brother or mom answered his calls, but his attention was diverted to a figure falling outside the window from London's penthouse. He turned to see what he had seen, but was instead pulled back from the window. Maddie was spinning him around to see her. Her hair was longer than he had thought, and he didn't recognize her dress. It was black and shapeless as if it was molded out of shadow. She guided him around as if they were dancing.

"I always liked you best, Cody." She said to him. "You're so much smarter than Zack. You know where to find me." She tilted up his head toward hers and leaned to press her lips to his.

Carey Martin tore from her sleep as one of her sons screamed in his sleep. Pulling her sleeping visor down to her neck, she stumbled over her foldout bed, set one foot to the floor and rushed to her boys' room. The digital clock on Cody's nightstand read 1:33 AM before the lights went on.

"What is it? What is it?" She tried to untangle her pajama top from her left arm out of her sleeve.

"Mom," Zack screamed. "I saw Maddie! I woke up and saw her sitting on top Cody's bed."

"You saw her what?" Cody reacted slowly still asleep. "I had a dream she was kissing me."

"What are you doing kissing Maddie?" Zack reacted.

"Maybe she's ticked off because you think she's chopped up in the basement."

"Hold on here…" Carey was getting tired of turning her head left and right between her sons. "It sounds like you both were dreaming."

"But mom…" Zack was sure it was not a dream. "I woke up and saw her."

"Honey," His mom sat down motherly by his side. "You two are both concerned about your friend, but I'm sure she'll show up. It's not your responsibility to worry about her. Maddie's a big girl and she'll show up again safe."

"Are you sure?"

"Positive." Carey kissed him. "Now try to have dreams that won't scare you." She kissed Cody again on the way out. The light stayed on this time as Cody looked to his brother.

"You saw Maddie on my bed?" He asked.

"Weird, huh?" Zack answered.

"Not really…" Cody lifted aloft an object he had found in his bed.

"What's that?"

"An earring." Cody revealed. "She was wearing it in my dream."

Up in the top story penthouse, London Tipton woke from a cold sleep and opened her eyes. Sitting up in bed, she noticed Ivana at alert in her little bed on the floor. The dog's tiny ears were perched high on its head for every little noise; its eyes widened and staring forward to the dark penthouse hallway. She whimpered a bit at something she could only see then dived on to London's bed and buried herself in the many fine-scented satin sheets.

"Hey," She called to her. "Get out there and defend me!" Ivana just whimpered fearfully.

"Fine!" London jumped out of her bed barefoot in her silk lavender pajamas. "But you get no Crème Brule with your cheese omelet in the morning!" London's hand grabbed the silver baton hanging off her wall next and carefully stepped lightly to peek out into the hall. The soft blue light in the outside penthouse came through the windows looking over the city. With her dainty steps lightly hopping across her white carpet, she stood at the twin doors of her bedroom. The high ceiling cast long shadows, and the décor took on the shapes of unidentified beings. Her eyes peeked hesitantly down the hall to her north closet and then the other way to her French bathroom.

"I don't know who's there..." London called out to the night-filled hall and realized how spooky it really was here at night. "But I have a… baton, and I know how to use it!" Behind her, Ivana was whimpering in fear.

"Don't worry, honey." She turned to her dog. "There's nothing there, and I didn't mean it about the Crème Brule either." She tossed up her dark hair over her shoulder and turned to check out her reflection in the mirror. Instead of her own perfect self, Maddie's reflection in a long white gown stared back at her from the dark mirror. London's voice now screamed through the penthouse.