Poltergeist - Greywalker 2 by Kat Richardson

Author:Kat Richardson
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Fantasy - Paranormal
Publisher: Roc
Published: 2011-12-20T15:12:59+00:00

SEVENTEEN

Monday morning my headache had abated but I woke up feeling tired nonetheless and wished I had been drinking to justify feeling so hung-over—at least then I'd have felt I deserved it. My morning run seemed to be uphill all the way and the air was thick and unpleasant. The ferret demonstrated a degree of ire at being returned to her cage that is more commonly seen in goofy Japanese cartoons, so at least I went on my way chuckling at her expense.

I hung out in the PNU Psychology Department office until Denise Francisco showed up for work. She took a look at me as she ducked into her desk and dropped a large, black canvas purse on the floor with a thump.

She avoided eye contact. "Tuck isn't in yet," she said. She snatched a lumpy blue coffee mug the size of a walrus off the desktop and headed back out the door. I followed her.

"I've seen all of Dr. Tuckman that I care to for a while," I said. "I came to talk to you.”

Still thirty going on nineteen, she was wearing a short, flippy skirt over her pudgy hips with several layers of too-tight tank tops under a black denim jacket. If she hadn't been wearing cherry red Dr. Martens she would have scurried, but no one scurries in midcalf mosh boots. She whisked into another doorway that turned out to be a break room. She snatched the coffeepot off its warming plate and cursed loudly and creatively as the merest gloop of black, overboiled coffee oozed into her mug.

"Thirteen paralytic virgins and a partridge in a rutting pear tree! Who drank all the coffee already! You people suck, do you hear me? You S-U-Q-Q, suck! You couldn't give a blow job in a wind tunnel! If manners were makeup, you'd need plastic surgery first! Homeless winos put their hands on their wallets and cross to the opposite side of the street when they see you people coming!”

A voice floated out from somewhere deeper in the warren of offices: "Keep goin', Frankie. My abs need the workout.”

She bent over—almost exposing more than the stiff black net of her trendy petticoat—and scrabbled through a cabinet beneath the coffeemaker. "Goddamn it," she muttered. "They got the hazelnut." She straightened and glared at me. "Do you drink coffee?”

I blinked at her. "Yes.”

Her eyes narrowed. "Starbucks?”

"Only when desperate.”

"What did you want to talk to me about?”

"The project. Terry said you worked on it for a while. I need to know more.”

She shoved her massive mug at me. "Get this filled with hazelnut coffee that doesn't taste like crude oil and I'll tell you anything.”

I looked at the cup, then looked back up at Frankie. "No.”

She pouted. "No? Why should I tell you anything if you won't do something for me first?”

"Because I can just sit and watch you have a coffee jones until you give in and it costs me nothing, whereas filling that portable black hole of a mug will cost me twenty dollars and a half hour of time I won't enjoy in the least.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.