Speed Dating With the Dead Read Online Free PDF Page B

magazines, electric heater, broken lamp, and mop bucket that created an obstacle course on the floor. She made a ceremony of opening the door, which gave a gratuitous creak. She’d instructed maintenance to quit oiling door hinges. She also added extra mirrors in the hall and reduced the wattage of the light bulbs. All to create atmosphere.
    Stroke of genius, marketing the hotel as a ghost hunter’s getaway. Hype your cobwebs.It’s easier than dusting.
    “Make sure Mr. Wilson gets what he needs,” Janey said. “He’s talking about making this an annual event.”
    “He’s kind of creepy,” Violet said.
    “Play along. Act scared. Let him believe what he wants to believe.”
    “He asked me if I’d ever had any ‘experiences’ here.”
    “A little white lie never hurt anybody,” Janey said, appreciating the irony. She’d busted Violet for embezzling, but here she was promoting dishonesty as simply good business.
    As Violet exited in a waft of lavender and apples, Janey smiled, the parchment of her cheeks crinkling. The pleasure was still spreading across her face when the phone rang. Cell phones rarely worked here on the carapace of the Eastern Continental Divide, another advantage to the new marketing angle. The jangling phones and crackling lines added to the mystique.
    “Janey, it’s Stevie.”
    “Hey, good news. We booked it full for the conference.”
    “Good,” Stevie said, though his tone was ambivalent.
    “Something wrong?”
    “This isn’t easy for me. You know how I much I love the place.”
    Janey didn’t fall for it. Instead, her gut tensed in paranoia. “Yes.”
    “Chad and I had an offer.”
    “An offer? I didn’t even know you were selling—”
    “Two mil an acre. Condo project. They’ll knock off a little for the demolition costs, but they want it fast to catch the good interest rates. We couldn’t pass it up, not the way the hotel has been bleeding red ink.”
    “How soon?” Janey said, skin tingling, hoping she’d have a good half a year or so to rob the till. Early retirement wasn’t so bad.
    “Sunday.”
    Sunday? Two days from now.
    “I don’t—”
    “We’ll be down next week to deal with it. Don’t worry, Janey, you’ll get a nice severance package. Chad and I aren’t monsters.”
    “What about the staff?” Janey said, not that she cared. She was buying time to give her racing mind a chance to settle down.
    “Don’t say anything so they don’t walk out. Give the ghost hunters their money’s worth. One last hurrah for the old White Horse, eh?”
    You can bet your sweet little tush on that one, Stevie.
    “Farewell, love.” Stevie hung up.
     The hotel was her life, her identity, her playground. She’d imagined keeping her room on the second floor until they wheeled her out in a zippered bag. Janey gripped the dead phone, unable to face the void that loomed in front of her.
    “Two days.”
    Had she said it aloud?
    She had the acute feeling that someone was watching her.
    Janey turned. Nothing.
    Paranoia.
    But that didn’t mean they weren’t watching.
    She wondered if they’d overheard.
    Two days.

 
     
    Chapter 6
     
    Smells like pigeon poop and mummies up here.
    Wayne played his flashlight beam along the narrow strip of decking that served as a crawl space. The attic was insulated with shredded newspaper, so it was a miracle the White Horse hadn’t long since burned to the ground, especially given the shoddy state of the wiring. The rafters were crisscrossed with cables and pipes, evidence of the hotel’s attempt to change with the times. The upgrades had been haphazard, and the tangles created the suggestion that monstrous, hairy spiders would come creeping out of the shadows at any moment.
    He planned to make the attic a hunt location, but he couldn’t picture running a bunch of forty-something TAPS wannabes up the ladder and through the cramped quarters. One of them might wander off the decking in the dark and plummet through the gypsum