"We're Sleeping Here Tonight?" — Broke Single Mom Buys $50 Ghost Hotel, 6-Year-Old Found $240M

"We're Sleeping Here Tonight?" — Broke Single Mom Buys $50 Ghost Hotel, 6-Year-Old Found $240M

She thought buying the abandoned Riverside Grand Hotel for fifty dollars was either the stupidest or bravest thing she'd ever done. Standing in the crumbling lobby with her six-year-old daughter Lily clutching her hand, Jessica Morgan was leaning toward stupid.
The fluorescent sign outside barely flickered anymore, half the letters dark, spelling out something that looked more like "RIDE AND" than the elegant name it once bore. But it was hers now. All twelve floors of water-damaged rooms, peeling wallpaper, and whatever ghosts the town swore still walked these halls after dark.
Jessica was thirty-one years old and so broke that fifty dollars felt like a fortune. She'd scraped together the money from tips she'd earned waiting tables at the Highway Diner, working double shifts while her mother watched Lily. The hotel had been on the county auction block for years. Nobody wanted it. Nobody except a desperate single mother with nothing left to lose.
Three weeks ago, her landlord had changed the locks while she was at work. Everything she and Lily owned was either in her beat-up Honda Civic or in the storage unit she'd maxed out her last credit card to rent for one month. The eviction had come after months of warnings. She'd been juggling bills like a circus act, always dropping one to catch another. This time, the rent was the one that fell.
Her ex-husband Danny was somewhere in Nevada, according to the last postcard he'd sent. Not that it mattered. He hadn't sent child support in eighteen months. The courts couldn't enforce what they couldn't find, and Danny had gotten very good at not being found.
The hotel auction had been advertised in tiny print at the back of the local newspaper. "Riverside Grand Hotel, as-is, where-is, minimum bid fifty dollars." Jessica had stared at that ad for three days before making her decision. A hotel meant rooms. Rooms meant shelter. And shelter was something she desperately needed.
"Mama, it's really big," Lily whispered, her voice echoing in the empty lobby.
Jessica squeezed her daughter's hand. "It is, baby. It's going to be our new home."
"Is it really haunted?"
Lily's eyes were huge, equal parts scared and excited. The kids at school had been filling her head with stories about the Riverside Grand. How people had died here in a fire in 1952. How guests still heard footsteps in empty hallways. How room 712 was cursed.
"There's no such thing as ghosts," Jessica said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. The lobby was dark even in the middle of the day. Most of the windows were boarded up, and those that weren't were so filthy they barely let in light. The grand chandelier that must have once sparkled overhead now hung dark and dusty, half its crystals missing.
But underneath the decay, Jessica could see traces of what this place had been. The marble floors, though cracked and dirty, were real marble. The carved wooden reception desk was solid oak, built to last. The sweeping staircase that curved up to the second floor had ornate railings that must have cost a fortune when they were new.
This had been a grand hotel once. Before the interstate bypassed the town. Before the new Holiday Inn opened on the highway. Before the fire that killed three people and gave the place its haunted reputation. Now it was just another piece of the town's dying downtown, too expensive to demolish, too damaged to restore.
Except Jessica didn't need to restore it. She just needed four walls and a roof. Somewhere to sleep where the police wouldn't wake them up. Somewhere Lily could call home.
She pulled out the key the county clerk had given her along with a stack of paperwork she hadn't had time to read. The key was old fashioned, heavy brass, the kind you never saw anymore. It opened the main entrance and, according to the clerk, the manager's office behind the reception desk.
"Let's explore," Jessica said, trying to make this feel like an adventure instead of a disaster.
They pushed through the door behind the reception desk. The manager's office was smaller than Jessica expected, but it had a desk, filing cabinets, and a couch that looked like it had seen better days. The room smelled musty, like old paper and mildew, but it was dry.
"Can I sleep on the couch?" Lily asked.


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