Tonya Hurley_Ghostgirl_03 Read Online Free PDF Page B

smoke. The streetlamps were in disrepair and flickering, transforming the grimy scene from live-action into a stop-motion flip book.

After making sure the coast was clear, she hiked up the fur collar on her coal-black peacoat and stepped out of the car and onto the street, the loud clacking of her high heels against the cobblestones startling her for just a second.

“Shhhh,” she hissed before realizing she was the only one there.

She reached back inside the car and grabbed the green plastic trash bag, which she’d been keeping in the trunk, from the passenger seat. Petula pulled down her sunglasses and stepped lightly and quickly past the shuttered and steel-gated storefronts, padlocked loading bays, broken pay phone, and grungy Dumpsters and tucked down an alleyway with the bale.

“Lock and load,” Petula said, fixing her sights on the glowing target and the straggling crowd huddled around it.

Once she’d gotten close enough to catch a whiff of the unfortunates, she stopped and dug her heel tips into the crevice between cobblestones for stability. Petula then spun around a few times with the bag like a discus thrower, groaning out billows of cold breath into the night air, and let it fly. The sack landed and burst open like a watermelon dropped from a window ledge, spilling all kinds of high-end clothing, footwear, and accessories across the sidewalk. It looked like a fashion fireworks display gone awry.

Petula whirled back around on her heels and sprinted across the uneven surface for her car, her stealth mission accomplished. She pressed her automatic key to unlock the doors as she ran, and as the taillights blinked to acknowledge the command, they illuminated a car parked behind hers, sitting in total darkness. She couldn’t make out a thing about it through her sunglasses, which being her disguise for the evening would be unthinkable to remove, and she was certain it wasn’t there earlier.

It being the dead of night and all, Petula promptly freaked and sped toward the luxury sedan even faster. As she reached for the door handle, a loud, blaring voice called out, as if through a megaphone: “Stop right there.”

Petula acted like she didn’t hear—which was clearly impossible—and fumbled for the door handle, hoping whoever it was might take pity on her and just leave her alone.

“Don’t move,” the authoritative voice demanded, followed by a blaze of light that shot from a lantern on his car roof.

She could just make out the silhouette of a cop exiting his squad car through the glare of the floodlight.

“Thank God for oversize,” she mumbled to herself, adjusted her sunglasses again, and raised her arms limply in a gesture of surrender.

She was discovered. Doing what, even she wasn’t quite sure.

“Don’t you know who I am?” Petula shouted frantically, flashing her ID in hopes of intimidating him. “I want to call my representatives.”

“Turn around and place your hands on your vehicle, miss,” the young officer, unimpressed, ordered calmly but firmly.

Petula felt the blood rushing to her face in embarrassment. She was busted. Exposed. What would her mom say? And Scarlet? Petula didn’t even want to go there. Now The Wendys would find out all the details of her late-night excursions, which would confirm their worst suspicions, and possibly even give them an opening to overthrow her. Et tu, Wendy!

On the bright side, Petula pondered, she’d definitely take the best mug shot ever. She thought as fast as she could under the circumstances, hoping to distract the cop.

“Are they arresting people for wearing fur trim now?” Petula carped, turning her collar up and her head back around to look at him. “Or do you just want to frisk me?”

The patrolman remained silent and gave her a chance to settle down, which was definitely taking a while. He knew who she was. He’d graduated from Hawthorne a few years ahead of her. But even without this background info, he wouldn’t need