Page 140

Sure, she wouldn’t have to stay there long. Sure, it would solve so many of our problems. But if anything happened to her, I would never forgive myself. We’d put her through enough by leaving her at Heirs of Promise once. There had to be a way to fix this without putting her through that again.

Still, she was right. She was ready to throw herself up on the altar as a sacrifice. And until I could come up with a different plan, there was no talking her out of that conviction.

“The panel should be about eye level,” Blade muttered, brushing cobwebs from an oversized wooden doorway. “But who fucking knows. The building codes were a fucking joke back then, and the asshats who built this place liked to get real creative about the safety standards.”

“No kidding…” Tess murmured, running a finger over the sharp edge of a prop candelabra that sat near the edge of the track.

The manor had been designed to look haunted, and the passage of time had only heightened the effect. Peeling wallpaper, cracked stained glass, and rusted-up picture frames on the gallery wall were enough to send a shiver down my spine.

But that didn’t stop Blade from trying to salvage the place.

As we moved around the Victorian themed tunnels, I was a bit surprised that Tess had never hidden here before. The place was huge and littered with debris. There were plenty of dark corners to work with, and clearly, she wasn’t the type to be scared off by the spookiness of it all.

Lucky her. I’ve got the creeps just walking through the place.

“What color is it?” Tess murmured, peeking behind a tall oak bookcase.

“Gray probably?” Blade replied. “Maybe with a high-vis label, if we’re lucky?”

While Tess and Blade showed no fear about poking around the place, the last thing I wanted to do was to snoop around this creepy ass ride. But the sooner we found the electric panel, the faster we could get out of here.

Taking a deep breath, I eyed the gallery wall. There were dozens of paintings — aristocrats, landscapes, and even a few pets. Almost all of which shifted at an angle to reveal some ghastly, haunted shadow self.

I knew that it was a trick of angles: lenticular printing. Two images were interlaced on a printer, and a special, ridged piece of plastic sat on top of them. It was like a lens that only revealed certain parts of the image from certain angles.

Viewed from the left, a painting might display a normal Victorian noblewoman. From the right, she might sprout horns and a forked tongue.

But my fear wasn’t a logical thing. Knowing the science didn’t make me any more eager to touch the paintings.

If I were trying to hide a clunky electric panel from riders, though…

I stepped up to the gallery, trying not to make eye contact with the haunted ass paintings as I reached for one of the ornate frames. When it didn’t move, I let out a deep breath.

They’re bolted in place. Thank fuck.

Instead of pulling down dozens of picture frames, I just had to make sure that none of them came loose. Easy.

My confidence grew with each frame I nudged: no jump scares, no hidden death traps, no ghosts. Just a bit of dust on the edge of the frames. Maybe this wasn’t so bad after all.

So when a heavy wooden frame on the far right of the gallery nudged, my heart soared. “I think I found it!”

The frame had a secret pivot point built in at the top. With a light push, the bottom slid along a track that swept upward at an arc, revealing a hidden cubby behind the cat portrait.

Blade and Tess’ footsteps thundered closer as I reached into the cubby, brushing spiderwebs away from a folded brown board.

“False alarm. Not the electric panel…” I frowned, taking the board into my hands. But I’d hardly opened it before I flung it across the tracks, nearly knocking over a rococo parlor chair. “Fuck no!”

“What the fuck?” Tess whipped her head between me and the board, looking at me like I was possessed.

“No,” I shook my head, wiping my hands against my work jacket. “No, not fucking with that.”

My stomach clenched as Blade crossed the tracks to pick up the wooden panel. Dangling it between two fingers, a wicked grin painted her lips. “No way! A ouija board?”

The word alone chilled my blood, but Tess lit up like a fucking Christmas tree. “That’s so cool!”

“Not cool. What the fuck was it doing in there?” I gestured to the cubby, which only drew Tess’ eye to the planchette still sitting there.

“We have to try it,” she grinned, eyeing the cubby.