All Hallows Eve: A Krewe of Hunters Novella (1001 Dark Nights) by Heather Graham Page A

his success, and he could barely see his own children.”
    Which made the ex a definite suspect.
    “Is the wife still around?” Jenna asked.
    “No. That was the first thing the police asked. But she was nowhere near here. Home with the kids and she hadn’t seen John since their last court date, months ago. She went on TV. Blamed his past, his drug problems, everything on him.”
    Tears welled in Naomi’s eyes, which she brushed aside before asking, “What are you doing here at the mortuary?”
    “Tying up the loose ends.”
    Naomi shrugged, as if uninterested. “If you’ll excuse me, we’re reopening tonight and now it’s all on me. Micah, I’ll be down at the ticket booth if you need me. Jenna, a pleasure to meet you, even under these circumstances.”
    She and Micah walked upstairs. Without darkness and actors, all of the haunting paraphernalia seemed worn and sad. Micah pointed out what was usually the tarot card reading and séance room. Another bedroom was used for psychic testing. She was interested in the entire layout, but really wanted to get to the basement to see if she could sense or feel anything. Elyssa wasn’t lying. John Bradbury had appeared to her. But it would be helpful if that ghost would speak with her or Sam.
    “Is there only one entrance to the basement?” she asked.
    Micah nodded. “From the house, yes. The stairs are in the back of the kitchen. There’s also an entrance from the back driveway that slopes down to a door. I guess it made for easy deliveries when the place was used as a funeral home.”
    Micah seemed fine about going down to the basement, but then again, he’d been alone here when she arrived. If the place was haunted in any way, Micah certainly didn’t care.
    She followed him to the ground floor landing and around the grand staircase to a door and more stairs that led down.
    “It’s a mess,” Micah told her. “The police moved just about everything. Naomi will be taking over as manager and she’ll see to it that everything is in order before tonight.”
    “Reopening already?” Jenna asked.
    He shrugged. “I’m truly sorry. I liked John. He was a great guy. But life goes on and we have to pay the bills.”
    “Yes, I guess so,” she murmured.
    “The stairs are fairly narrow,” Micah said. “In the old days, the dead came in through the back entry, and the coffins went back out that same way. Hauntings and Hallucinations carries some major liability insurance and we have strict rules about how many people can come through at one time. We’re not the responsible party here, just the lessor, but we don’t want anything bad to happen to anyone. Well, dead is bad, but the poor guy did himself in. You know, I saw John every day for the last couple of months and I had no idea he was so depressed.”
    Jenna didn’t reply or correct him. Better to stay silent.
    They’d reached the basement. The long stone embalming tables remained, each piled high with Halloween decorations. The police had indeed made a mess.
    Micah pointed. “In the nooks and cubicle areas we have motion-activated creatures and characters. You can see the giant alien there, the werewolf over here, the vampire and mummy. That crazed killer over there scares the bejesus out of most visitors. Over there is where it happened.”
    She studied the cubicle, empty except for a giant iron hook that had long been attached to the ceiling above. The rope by which John Bradbury had hung had been removed, but the black lighting set up by the haunted house company remained. She thought that the basement, with its stone foundation pillars, wooden beams, and strewn paraphernalia seemed not eerie, but sad. The soft lighting made if look almost as if surrounded by a red mist. She walked over to where Bradbury had died.
    “What were these crevices for?” she asked.
    “I really don’t know.” He paused. “Poor John.”
    She stood still and wished Micah wasn’t with her. Some alone time might be beneficial