Fat Chance Read Online Free PDF

sighed, then popped a grape into her mouth. “Any other guy would have screwed your lights out.”
    I wish. My cheeks felt warm. I’m not sure whether it was because I was imagining Liam and myself together or remembering that he’d declined my offer to do just that. “Sam probably knows someone.”
    “True, but I doubt he knows anyone as hot as Liam McGarrity.”
    “Sure he does.”
    Jane shot me a glare as she reached for a wedge of cheese. “ Heterosexual hot guys.”
    Liv reclined on her elbows, her gaze fixed on the house. “Are you going to name it?”
    “Name what?”
    “The house. People on Palm Bach name their houses. You know, Hidden Palms. Restless Waters. Something beachy and pretentious.”
    “You really think I need to call my house something?”
    Becky rushed out and said, “This place is a crime scene.”
    “It is not. It just needs a redo.”
    “No,” Becky said in a single, clipped syllable. “I mean it’s an actual crime scene.”
    “So someone stole the appliances and some of the fixtures. It’s not like—”
    “No, Finley! Call the police. I just found a dead guy in the closet.”

Whoever said dead men tell no tales didn’t have
a dead person stuffed in their closet.

two
    T HAT IS DISGUSTING ,” I said, speaking over the lump of revulsion lodged in my throat.
    That was a partially visible body protruding from a half-rotted box shoved into the back corner of the master bedroom closet. Even more disgusting was the state of the corpse. The arm hanging out of the trunk was almost all bone, but from what I could see from my vantage point, the skull still had long brown hair attached in places. “I don’t think it’s a dead guy. ”
    Becky gagged, backing into me as she retreated, hand over her mouth. “Of course it’s a guy. It has an opposable thumb. See?”
    Looking at the curled, fleshless fingers, I agreed that the remains were human. “Look at the hair, though,” I said. “I think it’s a dead girl.”
    “Girl, guy, who cares? Dead is dead. We have to call the police,” Liv insisted. “Let them figure out the gender after they get it out of here.”
    “I think we should wait outside,” Jane quavered, her voice shaking slightly. Understandable, since she was already falsely arrested for murder earlier this year. “Does anyone remember what I touched?” She pulled a tissue and a trial-sized container of Purell from her purse and wiped down the doorknob. “Where I might have left prints?”
    “Don’t worry about that,” Liv said. “There’s no way we can get into trouble for this. That poor soul has been dead for too long.”
    “But we should definitely wait outside,” Jane insisted.
    “We should,” Liv agreed. “If only to get away from the creepy factor.”
    “Let’s go.” Becky backed out of the room.
    I wanted to be right on their heels, but I waved them on, an odd tightness in my throat as I fixed my gaze on the small round object clutched in the deceased’s curled fingers. My heart seized in my chest as I focused on the familiar green enameled palm fronds just visible through the cracks in the finger joints.
    Glancing over my shoulder to make certain I was alone in the room, still battling my revulsion, I made a first, tentative grab for the medallion. I got within a hair of the skeleton, then snapped my hand back while swallowing the squeal of serious eewww in my throat. It took three tries until I was finally able to grip the medallion with my fingernails and give a tug. The medallion came loose, as did the forefinger of Dead Girl.
    I grimaced as the bone dropped to the floor, then rocked back and forth before settling against my instep. I leaped away from the bone as if it might bite me, all the while wondering if I could be charged with some crime for de-fingering a corpse.
    Putting aside any thoughts of the legalities of my actions, I inspected the medallion cupped in my hand. Though it was badly tarnished I could tell it was silver and