Cornelius’ cell phone rang from somewhere within his black suit coat. He dug it out. “Excuse me a moment, ladies.” He walked away from us. “I told you not to call me until tonight,” he said as he walked away.

  I turned to Tiffany, who was staring at me point blank, her smile now set on dim. I decided not to waste time with talk about the clouds or lack of them.

  “I’m surprised to see you here, Tiffany. I thought you were with Roughlock Realty.”

  She snorted. “Not anymore. They were too mom-and-pop for my taste, dealing mainly with locals.” She eyed Cornelius as if he was marbled with fat and delivered fresh from the butcher. “I prefer to play ball with the big boys, especially if they’re from out of town. That’s where the money is.”

  Ah, realty as a sport. She would enjoy sparring with Ray, then.

  “Where is Leroy?” I asked. Leroy was the guy I’d talked to when I’d called Canyon Realty this morning to set up the walk-through.

  “He ate his last greasy hamburger at lunch and keeled over.”

  Holy crap! “He’s dead?” I could still hear his wheezy voice in my head.

  “Nah, it was just a little heart attack.”

  “Just a little one?” A heart stopped for any length of time seemed like a big problem to me.

  She waved off my concern. “It’s his third. The doctor told Leroy’s wife that if the greasy food didn’t stop, Leroy’s heart would, and the next time it would be for good.”

  That meant I’d be trying to help my ghost-whispering client buy a haunted hotel from a guy who had a ticking time bomb in his chest. Just my luck.

  “Should I contact Leroy then, if Mr. Curion decides to put an offer on the property? Or you?” Or could I hear what was behind Door Number Three, please?

  “I’m taking it over. Leroy and I will split the commission.”

  Splendid. I couldn’t wait to be reminded on a regular basis that Doc had had sex with Tiffany. Maybe I should find out what her favorite positions were so that the images in my head were accurate during my spasms of jealousy.

  She pursed her lips. “How long have you been with Calamity Jane’s? I don’t remember seeing you around before that open house I had up on Terry Peak last month.”

  “I started working for Jane this spring.”

  “Doc Nyce is a client of yours.”

  It wasn’t a question, but I nodded, anyway.

  “He says you’re good.”

  At what? The realty business? Keeping secrets? Knocking boots?

  Why was he talking about me to Tiffany? More importantly, when was he talking about me to her?

  “Oh, yeah?” I tried my damnedest to feign indifference.

  “He said you got him a nice deal on his new place.”

  Had she been in there? How many times? Naked?

  Criminy! This insanity had to stop. What was it about Doc that turned me into such a green-eyed, untrusting, paranoid nutcase?

  “We were in the right place at the right time,” I said, and changed the subject before we started comparing notes on Doc’s kisses. “Have there been any previous offers on this hotel?”

  “Just one, but the buyer backed out early after learning it had a reputation.” She looked at Cornelius. “How’d you find this guy?”

  “He just walked in the front door and I was available.” She didn’t need to know he’d come looking for me in particular. That would open a nest of questions I’d rather avoid.

  “Like he fell out of the sky, isn’t that crazy? How’d he hear about the hotel?’

  “The Internet.”

  She checked her cell phone, and then asked, “How do you like working with Ray Underhill?”

  I’d rather eat a bowlful of hissing cockroaches soaked in rat piss. “It has its ups and downs.”

  She leaned in close. “Has he tried to get you into the sack yet?”

  Her bluntness caught me off guard. As much as I wanted to confide to a peer about the crap I’d dealt with from Ray, I thought of Jane’s policy about badmouthing coworkers. For all I knew, Ray could be using Tiffany to set me up for a fall.

  “Ray’s been a perfect gentleman for the most part.” That lie even tasted bad.

  Tiffany’s sculpted eyebrows raised. “We are talking about the same Ray Underhill, right? Fake tan, fake smile, fake charm, fast hands?”

  Yep, that was the same dickhead. Although, I’d only witnessed Ray’s charm when he’d used it on his clients. “I think so.”

  “Hmmm. Maybe I have him pegged wrong.” She frowned at my hair. “Or he’s not into blondes.”

  “That’s probably it.”

  He would never be into me, mind or body, not as long as I continued to stand upright and breathe oxygen.

  Wait! Maybe that’s what Ray was doing with the Mudder Brothers crates—necrophilia. I cringed at the morbid nosedive I’d taken and tried to pull out of it.

  “I think he prefers redheads.” Like Mona. And Tiffany.

  “They all do,” she said with a smirk, “at first.”

  And we were back to the “Tiffany Does Doc” show in my head, damn it. How much did lobotomies cost these days? Maybe I could sign up for a payment plan.

  I tried to steer my head away from the images of tangled legs and focus on learning more about Ray, the lesser of two evils. “Have you worked with Ray a lot?”

  “A little bit here and there over the years.”

  “He’s a good salesman,” I baited.

  She shrugged. “He knows a lot of people with money to burn.”

  “I wish I knew what tree he was finding them in,” I muttered. “I could use a few more hanging around my desk at work.”

  Tiffany looked me up and down, her alabaster forehead wrinkling. “Violet, can I be honest with you?”

  Oh, crudmeister. This couldn’t be good. Where’d I leave my Kevlar vest? “Sure.”

  “I don’t understand your hair.”

  My hair? I hadn’t seen that coming. I tucked some loose curls behind my ear. “What’s to understand?”

  “You’re not using it to its potential.”

  My hair had potential? For what besides ensnaring small flying animals?

  “You should put some volumizer in it, fluff it up a bit more, work the Dolly Parton angle.”

  Make it bigger? Was she serious? I wouldn’t be able to fit through doorways.

  Tiffany looked down over my hips. “You definitely have the curves for it.”

  I looked down over my so-called curves, trying to suck in the extra speed bumps. “I don’t know. I’m a little light up top to pull off Dolly.” Make that a lot light.

  “Nah. You just need a push-up bra.”

  In addition to the one I already had on? My chin would be resting on my boobs. A blush raced down my neck, bee-lining toward my substandard cleavage.

  “Or you need a better one.” Tiffany added. She must have smelled the embarrassment smoking out of my pores. “In the meantime, try this.”

  She adjusted the knot of fabric at my sternum, tugging it and refitting, and then pulling on some of the fabric near my armpits, exposing cleavage I didn’t realize I had. She stepped back and eyed me again. “That’s better.”

  I frowned down at the tops of my boobs puffing out of the dress, looking a cup size bigger. How’d she do that? I had a hell of a time just making them point in the same direction most days.

  “Now shake your hair out, like this.” She did a shake and fluff with her red locks and motioned for me to try it.

  Glancing around to make sure nobody was watching, I took out my hairclip and followed her directions, curls flying everywhere.

  “That’s it.” She scrutinized me like a sculptor eyeing a big pile of clay. “Now you look like a woman who knows how to get what she wants.”

  Right. I shoved some curls out of my face. Just like that, buyers would start lapping at my feet. I wished.

  “Trust me,” she said. “I know what I’m talking about. I haven’t won all of my awards for my brains alone. I know how to flip a property—any property. And dressing the part is half of the secret.”

  “Thanks.” I think.

  I felt like I’d just gone through a makeover to increase my curb appeal, and I couldn’t quite figure out why she’d offered her services. Would she be so willing to give advice if she knew that I was sleeping with the guy who got away?

  According to Doc, Tiffany had moved on to new prey. I hoped he was right, because ten bucks said going head-to-head with this she-wolf would leave me scratched, bitten, and crazy from a nasty case of rabies.

  I didn’t doubt for a moment that Tiffany fought for keeps. Hell, I’d witnessed her outright hostility when she’d attacked Doc in front of clients. Her head had almost spun clear around. If Tiffany was going to be the seller’s Realtor, I didn’t need her to find out about me and Doc until Cornelius had this hotel in his back pocket.

  “Sorry about that,” Cornelius returned to my side, his gaze on Tiffany.

  “No problem.” Tiffany pointed at my chest. “Violet lost her necklace. You haven’t seen it, have you?”

  Cornelius’ gaze followed her finger, his eyes widening slightly. The big lug-head grinned at me as if he just now realized I came with breasts attached. “No, but I’ll keep looking.” His focus dipped back down to my chest before returning to Tiffany.

  Yeah, I bet he would.

  Tiffany winked at me. “Like I said, half the secret.” She nudged her head toward the casino. “You two ready to take a look at the place?”

  “Lead the way,” Cornelius answered, making no attempt to hide his admiration of her butt as she walked in front of him.

  I shook my head and followed. It’s no wonder Doc had slept with her. He was a mere mortal male, after all.

  Her tour started with the main floor. Casino space took up two-thirds of the square footage. The remaining space held a dining room and a few windowed offices for the management, custodial, and maid services.

  I was standing in the laundry room next to Cornelius, the smell of bleach heavy in the humid air, when he started making a low burbling noise in his throat. It took me a moment to realize the noise wasn’t coming from the sloshing washers on my right.

  Tiffany must not have heard him, because she continued reading staffing figures from the financial report.

  The burbling morphed into a high-pitched whine, like a fan belt getting ready to snap.

  Tiffany flipped the page and listed off several more percentages.

  I nudged him.

  The whine stopped. He opened his eyes.

  “You okay?” I asked.

  “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  His eyes scanned my face. “The whispers.”

  Crap. He was talking about ghosts again.

  I glanced at Tiffany, who had stopped reading.

  Her gaze rested squarely on me. “Do you need a moment alone with your client?”

  I looked up at Cornelius. “Do I?”

  He cocked his head to the side, listening for the count of three. “No, they’re gone.”

  “Maybe we should check out the second floor now,” I suggested, wanting to escape from the laundry room before Cornelius got squeaky again.

  Besides a set of handicap-equipped guest rooms on the first floor, the other fifty-two rooms were located on the second and third floors, including the two grand suites.

  Unfortunately, the Midas touch didn’t extend beyond the first floor. Dingy stained maroon carpet lined the long narrow hallways on both levels; a deer trail was worn along the center. Scuffed and patched yellow walls bracketed the way. Even the light coming from the ceiling fixtures seemed aged, fading.

  A bulb flickered overhead as we walked down the hall.

  Cornelius tapped my shoulder, and then pointed at the problematic fixture. “Someone is trying to get our attention.”

  It’s called loose wires, you buffoon. I smiled, keeping my skepticism firmly locked behind my closed lips.

  A hint of stale cigarette smoke lingered inside the two grand suites on the third floor, the flowery-scented air fresheners not cutting it. The bathroom fixtures needed an upgrade, as did the faded bed covers, dinged-up furniture, and out-dated curtains. The carpet looked tired, worn out—that made two of us.

  Catching the guest rooms up to the present day would take a chunk of capital. The reduced price on the place now made sense, as did the sad state of the financials.

  We were standing next to the window in one of the suites when Cornelius asked, “Do you guys hear that?”

  Don’t ask what.

  “Hear what?” Tiffany asked.

  Crap.

  “That whispering,” he said, moving over to the wall near the laminated headboard.

  “What whispering?” Tiffany cocked her head to the side.

  Cornelius pressed his ear to the wall and closed his eyes. “They’re in here.”

  “According to the paperwork,” Tiffany said, flipping through the papers in her hands, “an exterminator recently visited the premises. If you’re hearing movement, I can arrange for a second exterminator to inspect the building.”

  He held up two fingers. “I hear two of them.”

  “Two mice?” Tiffany frowned at me. “He can count how many by sound alone?”

  I need to pull on the hand brake before this train jumped off the tracks. “Tiffany, could I have a moment alone with my client?”

  She shrugged. “Sure. I’ll wait in the hall.”

  No, that was still within hearing distance. “We’ll catch up with you at the elevator.”

  I counted to five after the door shut behind her before whirling on Cornelius. “Okay, explain.”

  He pointed at the wall behind him. “There are two entities in the wall. I can hear them whispering.”

  I’d heard a similar ghostly tune before from Doc, so my eyes didn’t bug out even slightly. I decided to play along, let him get this out of his system.

  “Why are they inside of the wall?”

  “Sometimes they get caught.”

  Really? I thought they were ghosts—all wispy and ethereal. I let that one go. “Why are they whispering?”

  “Usually, it’s because they don’t like to be heard.” He tapped his cane on the wall. “But to be positive, I’d have to ask them.”

  “And how do you do that? How do you speak to them? Through a Ouija board?” My second guess involved lighting candles, holding hands, and chanting. If he’d buy the hotel, I’d bring the matches.

  “Those things don’t work. You have to have the ability to communicate, plain and simple.” He tapped his cane lower down on the wall, near the baseboard.

  “Communicate with the dead?”

  “Exactly.”

  We needed to get out of here before he put a hole in the drywall. I pointed at the door. “What do you say we wrap up here, get a copy of those financials, and talk about this more over a cup of coffee?” I certainly didn’t want to take him back to Calamity Jane’s, not with him telling ghost stories.

  He hesitated. “I don’t drink coffee. Caffeine makes me sleepy. I stick with protein shakes.”

  That confirmed it. He was an alien hiding inside a clone of Abe Lincoln. “Some ice water?”

  “Okay, but absolutely no ice.”

  My last client had had ice tray hang-ups. Cornelius would have gotten along well with her.

  “And I want to come back again,” he added.

  Fine. Whatever. “I’ll arrange that with Tiffany.”

  “At night.”

  Nope. Nay. No way. “I’m sure that’ll be no problem.”

  He followed me out into the hall. Tiffany waited at the other end, her toothy smile a beacon.

  “All set?” Tiffany asked as we approached.

  When I nodded, she pushed the down button. The doors dinged open.

  On the main level, we followed Tiffany back to the front desk.

  “Is there anything else you’d like to see today?”

  Cornelius shook his head. “Not in the daylight. The ghosts are more active in the evening.”

  I shot Cornelius a warning look.

  “Especially at dusk and dawn,” he continued, seemingly oblivious to my telepathic shout to shut the hell up.

  “Did you say ‘ghosts’ or ‘guests’?” Tiffany asked, her eyes narrowed.

  “Gho—”

  “Guests,” I interrupted. “He said, ‘guests.’”

  Tiffany’s cell phone rang, saving my day. “I’m sorry, but I’ve been waiting for this call. It will take just a second. Do you mind?”

  “Not at all.” It would give me time to duct tape Cornelius’ mouth closed.

  She walked to the other side of Socrates, the mule, and stood with her back to us. “Hello?”

  I poked Cornelius. “Ixnay ethay ostghay alktay,” I said in Pig Latin.

  He cocked his head. “I don’t speak French.”

  “I said nix the—”

  “Of course, Doc,” Tiffany’s voice cut through my thoughts. “I’ve been waiting for your call all afternoon.”

  “—ghost …”

  Cornelius asked something again, but I didn’t hear a single word. My ears were tuned into the sound of Tiffany’s voice. She’d been waiting for Doc’s call this whole time?

  “Yes, of course.” She practically cooed.

  Cornelius said something about a room. I nodded without looking at him.

  “I’ll just come by your office later,” Tiffany said. “Maybe I can entice you to go to dinner with me.”

  What! I took a couple of steps closer.

  She giggled, all flirty.

  I wanted to strap her to the dead mule and rub her nose raw with my elbow.

  “Great. It’s a date. I’ll see you then.”

  I was practically standing in her shoes by the time she hung up. She turned, her smile opening into a surprised “O.” She stumbled back a step at the sight of me.

  “God, Violet. You scared me. What are you doing?”

  “Cornelius has a question for you,” I lied without a hitch.

  Her eyes narrowed. “I said I’d just be a second.”

  “Sorry, but he’s in a hurry to leave.”