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Ted, remember Bruce? The one you convinced he could fly?"
"Oh, yeah," chortled a ghost with his back to my wall.
"What happened?" asked a plump teenage girl.
Ted shifted to better face his audience and I recognized my headless accountant. I backed up and
motioned to Kristof that I'd found our ghost. He nodded, and I returned to my peephole.
"& sailed clean off the roof." Ted was laughing so hard he could barely get the words out. "Like
Superman. Only, as he soon discovered, he couldn't fly. Landed right on Peterman's Jag. Hit so hard his
fucking teeth popped out like Chiclets. Peterman was picking them out of his seats for weeks. That's
what he gets for leaving his sunroof open."
The haunters roared with laughter.
The old man waved his arms again, like a bird attempting takeoff. "The best part was when the dumb
fuck hits the roof. For a second, he just lies there, dying. Then his spirit starts to separate. He looks
around, gives the biggest grin you've ever seen, then jumps up and dances a little jig on the top of the Jag,
yelling, 'I did it! I did it! I can fly!' Then "
Ted stepped in front of the old man. "Then he just happens to look down, and there, under his feet, is this
body. His body. He stops freezes on the spot stares down, and goes, Oh.'"
"Just like that," the old man chortled. " 'Oh.' "
I looked at Kristof.
"More smacking in order?" he murmured.
"Smacking's too good. Think I can rip out their intestines and use them for harp strings?"
"You could try. Or& "
He tilted his head toward the paper-thin wall.
"& are the best," someone said, then sighed. "We haven't had a decent new one in weeks."
I glanced at Kristof. We smiled at each other.
We found an empty room farther down the hall, where we could talk without being overheard by the
haunters.
I perched on the bed. "So one of us will play patient and the other should be a nurse or "
"First, I need you in a nurse's uniform."
"I don't think I saw any nurses on the way in. I should go see what kind of outfits "
As I slid off the bed, he put out a hand to stop me.
"I think I can handle this," he said. "May I?"
Being able to change women out of their clothing may be most adolescent boys' idea of heaven, but
ghosts can't do it unless they're given tacit permission by the other party. I closed my eyes and
concentrated on letting Kris change my clothes.
"There," he said.
I looked down and saw my boobs looking back at me. Well, the tops of them anyway, stuffed into a
white shirt with cleavage so low I was bound to pop out if I so much as sighed. I wore a skintight white
nurse's dress that barely covered my rear. Speaking of adolescent fantasies&
I glared at Kris, who was grinning like a thirteen-year-old.
"Hey, it's a nurse's uniform," he said.
"Yeah& from a porn movie."
A wide grin. "Works for me."
As I sighed, he stepped closer, finger sliding along the hem of my dress, rippling the fabric so it tickled
against my thighs.
"Remember the last time you played nurse for me?" he murmured. "I was working at the New York
office, and you came up for the weekend. We were supposed to get together for dinner, but you
called "
"I remember," I said, quickstepping away. "Now, we need a plan "
"Oh, you had a plan." He stepped as close to me as he could get without touching. "I was on my way to
a meeting and you called and said, 'I can't wait for tonight, Kris.'"
I opened my mouth to say something anything but his gaze met mine, and the words dried up, leaving
me standing there, lips parted, face tilted up to his.
He continued, "You said I didn't sound very good, and suggested I come by the hotel room so you could
play nurse for me. Which you did. Most effectively. Ordered me into bed& and, by the time you were
done, I couldn't have got out of it if I wanted to." A slow grin. "Of course, neither could you."
Thank God for ghost-hood sometimes. No need to worry about pounding hearts or sweaty palms or
heavy breathing. All I had to do was keep my gaze down, and he wouldn't know how badly I wanted to
say "To hell with it" and cross that last quarter-inch between us.
His lips moved closer to my ear. "I remember every second of that afternoon, Eve. I've replayed it so
many times& in bed, in the shower, even in the car, once during a traffic jam I was sitting there and I
saw a billboard for the hotel we'd stayed in and next thing you know& " A deep chuckle. "I found a way
to make the delay a whole lot more bearable."
I backpedaled so fast I fell right through the wall. Kristof grabbed my arm to steady me, but I moved out
of his way.
I righted myself and glowered at him. "God, you are "
A quick grin. "Incorrigible?"
"Oh, that wasn't the word I had in mind."
"I like incorrigible. Much better than desperate. Or horny. Or desperately horny."
"Arghh!" With a blink, I changed back into my jeans. "There, better?"
He took my hand and pressed it to his crotch. "Nope, no change. Have I ever mentioned how great your
ass looks in those "
"If you do, you're going to find yourself on the wrong end of a shock-bolt spell."
"Hmmm."
"Don't even try it."
"Not going to. I'm just wondering whether I should risk unzipping or just let you continue like this."
"Like what?" I followed his gaze down to see my hand still pressed against his crotch. "Damn you!"
"I take it that's a no on the unzipping?"
I bit back a retort and settled for striding across the room, giving my brain time to find its way out of the
lust-fog. "I need a real nurse's uniform."
"No, you're going to be the patient."
"But you said "
"I said I needed to put you in a nurse's uniform. I didn't say it was part of the plan."
I rolled my eyes and fought the urge to laugh. "Okay, tell me what you have in mind."
I was going to play patient a more thorough disguise, since two of the haunters had already seen me.
Stained, baggy sweats, my hair snarled and oily, eyes red and sunken the look of someone for whom
personal hygiene has been a low priority for a while. After I finished the glamour, Kristof conjured a
wheelchair for me, and we headed back to the haunters.
Chapter 8
"YOU SHOULD HAVE SEEN BART'S FACE." THE YOUNG woman who'd been taunting Barton to
violence had returned to the other haunters. "Franco couldn't write her report fast enough. She was on
the phone to Peterson before Chang even came to collect ol' Bart."
Kristof wheeled me into the room, and silence fell as every eye turned our way. Outfitted in a generic
orderly's uniform, he grumbled under his breath about the nurses being too busy to help settle me in. He
steered carefully, making sure not to run through anything that should be solid. He left me in the middle of
the room, and grabbed the folded bedding from the foot of the bed. With a quick conjure, he duplicated
it into a ghost-world set, then began unfolding the top sheet. I sat motionless, chin on my chest, gaze
downcast.
"Well, looky-looky," chortled Ted, my headless accountant.
I lifted my head and scanned the room. I frowned over at Kristof.
"We got audio," the teenage girl said. "But I think the video's on the fritz."
"Damn," the other woman said.
"I prefer the listeners," Ted said as he sauntered toward me. "Much more unsettling, isn't it, honey? You
can hear us, but you can't see a damned thing."
"Who who's there?" I said.
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