Page 3 of Purrfectly Haunted

Wonderful.

I clear my throat. “Can you go into details? We need to know what we’re walking into.”

Lana sighs, tapping her cheek with a manicured pink nail. “Well it started with the fire in the kitchen last year. The curtains went up in flames during the night. The fire didn’t spread, thankfully, or we might have all joined the ghosts by now.” She snorts. “But an entire wall was blackened and we had to rebuild it. I’ll let you imagine how inconvenient it was with all the guests. And during winter, too! Quite drafty. We first thought it might have been someone staying at the hostel, but then the incidents kept happening for months. There was the water damage in the ladies showers—that one cost me an arm and a leg. Ah! And then there was a quake near the foundation.”

I blink. “A quake?”

“Two weeks ago, the ground shook during the night. It was subtle, but my cats warned me.” She extends a hand to caress the white cat on her desk. The thing is still staring at me, unblinking. “They’re my little helpers, you know? Nothing goes on in this house without them knowing.”

Ewan opens his mouth for the first time since we sat down. “How many cats do you have? We saw the other two on the way up.”

“Seven.” She giggles. “I’m a crazy cat lady, and happy to be one. When I inherited the house ten years ago, I brought my three cats with me from the United States, obviously. They took to the life in a giant house like a fish to water. It’s their kingdom now, and the guests love them. And since the place is quite frankly enormous, I adopted more over time.”

I try not to react. Who cares about the damn cats?

My teammate, apparently.

“The quake?” I repeat.

“Oh, right,” Lana says. “I followed Misty,” she pets her white cat, “and the others to the basement. And the closer I got, the more I could feel the ground shaking, as if the entire house was shivering. It was weird, to say the least. The next day, I checked online for seismic activity, but it was just us. I’m certain it was the ghosts. They’re trying to bring the house down on us, and I’m not having it.” She glares at the walls and the ceiling. “You hear me, you incorporeal pests? I won’t have it!”

Okay...

“Very well, thank you,” I say. “We’ll start the ghost hunt at night, as requested. Any idea where we should start?”

Lana pulls out a little notebook from one of the drawers of her desk. “I made a list of the ghosts in the house and their different haunts.” She snorts as her wording. “You’re the experts, I’ll let you decide where you’d like to start.”

I accept her offering and quickly look at the scribbles inside before handing it to Ewan. Our fingers touch, and I look at him for a moment. He looks a little unsure, and his cheeks have a rosy tint. I have a feeling I’ll have to wing it on this job.

“I expect it’ll take some time to hunt down my ghosts,” Lana says. “So we prepared a room for you—not in the dorms, of course. You can stay as long as necessary. Shirley will take you to your room. Misty will go fetch her.”

I frown, looking at the animal, wondering how a cat would—

Misty jumps from the desk. I tense as she runs by my chair—my grandmother’s awful cat used to bury her claws in my legs any chance she got—before leaving the office.

Not long after gathering our bags and saying our thanks, the cat is back, followed closely by the purple-haired receptionist.

What the hell?

“Yes?” Shirley asks from the open door.

“Will you take these gentlemen to their room, please?” Lana says.

“Of course.”

Before we can make our exit, Lana adds, “By the way. Respect my cats, please. If I hear you even pulled one of their whiskers, you’ll learn how crazy of a cat lady I can really be.” She’s smiling, but there’s no mistaking the dormant fury in her eyes.

I nod, suddenly feeling a little awed by her.

Ewan looks appalled by the idea of anyone hurting the felines. As for me, I don’t like cats, but it doesn’t mean I wish them harm. I’m not that big of an asshole. Even my grandmother’s hell-spawned creature didn’t need to watch its back around me. Growing up, I just avoided the fucker like the plague.

We follow the receptionist through the hostel again, up a few more stairs and to the last level of the house. We meet two other cats on the way. A black one and a ginger one. They seem to be accessing us. Ewan, of course, has to pet both.

Shirley stops in front of a door at the end of a long hallway. She makes a face before pushing it open. “Sooooo, I might have thought it was just one of you, so I only booked you one room. Sorry! We’re at full capacity, so you’ll have to share.”

We both lean through the doorframe, shoulders touching. The room is small, with only one double bed, a chair, and a narrow window offering a view over Edinburgh Castle.

“You’ve got to be kidding me...” I whisper.