Speed Dating With the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page A

was hard to do when he leaned close and his breath moved across her cheek like a warm sea breeze. When–
    Enough. Emily Dee died a virgin.
    “Yeah, it’s a high-priced gig, all right,” Cody said. “What was your dad charging for that one, $400 for an overnight?”
    “Basic package. And an extra hundred to go in with the team and hold an EMF meter.”
    “My thermograph got nothing,” he said. “I think that place is deader than Bob Dole’s dick.”
    Kendra teenybop-giggled despite herself. “You’re the only person alive who thinks a place is dead if there are no dead people banging around.”
    “Besides your dad.”
    Kendra rolled her eyes and immediately regretted it. That’s sooo Hannah Montana. I need to bring my Megan Fox moves or he’ll ignore me.
    “Maybe this place will be luckier ,” she said.
    Cody looked away from her for the first time and took in the ramshackle, sprawling structure. “It’s got game, for sure.”
    The rear door to the van opened and a rotund man in a black jumpsuit like Cody’s–but not nearly as attractively packed–shouted at him. “Come on, Cody, this stuff don’t unload itself.”
    “Better go be part of the team,” Cody said in a conspiratorial whisper she found dead sexy. He swiveled and gave a mock salute to Jonathan Holmes, the overweight, bearded man with a dramatic bald dome and a Fu Manchu mustache. “SSI or die,” he shouted.
    “Get over here, Future,” Jonathan grumbled. “I better get some work out of you before the cameras show up.”
    “Catch you later,” Cody hollered to Kendra, and she imagined his tone meant “Let’s hook up” instead of “Down the road, kid.”
    She tried one bit of spunk. “So, how’s that ‘Future of Horror’ thing working out?”
    It got him to turn and flash another smile.
    Worth it, worth it, worth it.
    “The future’s dead ahead,” he said.
    “You can do better than that. How about ‘The future’s so dark, I gotta wear night vision’?”
    “Sweet. Can I use it for my Web site?”
    “Sure. But you’ll owe me a cut of the T-shirt sales.”
    “You’re just like your dad. Got that entrepreneurial spirit.”
    “Cody!” Jonathan called again, wrestling a metal strongbox from the van.
    “Hey, Holmes, that’s my MAC Attack. You break that and I snap your cinnamon twists.” Cody launched into a run, and Kendra couldn’t help ogling those muscular buns in action.
    Two middle-aged women came up the walk, flanked by brittle shrubbery that was more twig than foliage. They looked like school teachers who’d taken their Thanksgiving break early.
    Séance junkies or psychokinetic spoon-benders? Plain old ghost-chasers? Or maybe they’re in that special class of versatile wingnuts who embrace the alphabet soup of the unknown, from the Abominable Snowman to X-ray vision.
    Whatever their specialty, they fell into that category Dad liked to call “paying customers.” Kendra shot one more wistful glance in Cody’s direction as he loaded his MAC Attack on a dolly, then she headed inside to the registration desk.
    Time to pass out tickets to the freak show.

 
     
    Chapter 5
     
    “How bad do you need the money?”
    Janey Mays leaned back in her cracked leather chair, a cigarette dangling from her lips. The office was hazy with smoke, and the hotel’s owners had been pushing for a tobacco-free policy, but they’d only bought the overgrown outhouse six months before. Since they lived in Florida and Janey had worked her way up over forty years from laundry maid to manager, she felt more attuned to the hotel’s needs and more qualified to set the ground rules.
    “I’m in for a couple of grand,” Violet said, fidgeting on the edge of the metal folding chair.
    Janey made sure the employees were uncomfortable in the office. It wasn’t difficult, since the philodendron had long since choked to death and the potted fern was curled and brown. The office was ensconced behind the front desk like a secret catacomb,