Part 11 (2/2)
Sadie decided she'd tackle the most pressing problem first, but when she stepped into the room, only two out of three were present. The clothed woman had vanished.
Sitting on the blood-soaked bed and arguing viciously were two women with similar features. They were both early twenties with straight-ironed chestnut hair midway down their backs and exceptionally large, enhanced b.r.e.a.s.t.s. In addition to sporting multiple stab wounds, both women were missing the pointer fingers from their right hands.
Sadie cleared her throat loudly through her respirator and the two broke off their argument to turn and look at her.
”I told you she could see us,” one said, crossing her arms across her chest.
”We're dead,” the other countered. ”So n.o.body can see us. Duh!”
”I can see you but yes, you are dead,” Sadie announced.
”Told you!” the first proclaimed and tried to shove the other, but her hands went straight on through.
Then they were both shouting questions at her at once until Sadie held up her hands to silence them.
”I do trauma cleanup and the hotel hired me to clean the mess here,” Sadie began. ”I can also sometimes see and speak to the dead if they haven't gone over.”
”What a weirdo,” the first said to the second, attempting to elbow her in the ribs.
”Yeah!” The second girl snorted loudly.
Oh brother. ”I can hear you. I'm right here,” Sadie announced.
”So what? What are you going to do? Hit us?” the second girl laughed and they tried pummeling each other in a comical slap-and-tickle way but their hands just dropped through to the bed they were sitting on.
”Hey!” Sadie called out. ”I hate to break up the party, but I've got a job to do and part of that job is helping you move on!”
”Who says we want to move?”
”Yeah!” added the second, waving a hand to indicate the room. ”Look how gorgeous this place is! For a year we've been sharing a one-room apartment with rusty pipes and a busted fridge. This place is like heaven.”
Sadie tilted her head at the two. ”But you can't use anything here. You're ghosts. Wouldn't you rather move on to where you're supposed to be?”
The resounding reply to that question was ”Nope!”
It took Sadie a few minutes of convincing, but finally the girls reluctantly admitted that haunting an old hotel was somewhat cliche and not exactly a dream come true.
”So, could I at least get your names?” Sadie asked.
The girls introduced themselves as Opal and Olivia. They were sisters, Opal being one year older. The strip club had pa.s.sed them off as the Climaxic Duo. The gimmick worked. Drooling middle-aged men a.s.sumed they were twins and the clientele got double w.a.n.k for their buck.
A few months ago they'd gone to the next level and had begun accepting invitations to perform services of a s.e.xual nature above and beyond their acts at the club.
”It was our retirement plan,” Opal stated, flipping her sheet of hair over her shoulder out of habit.
”It was a stupid idea,” Olivia sneered. ”And I told you it was crazy right from the start. We should've stuck with dancing.”
”It wasn't stupid,” Opal said defensively, giving her sister what would've been a hard slap on the shoulder, if her hand could make contact. ”We were on track. By next year we would've been enrolled in esthetician school and only working part time at the club until we finished the cla.s.ses.” She turned to Sadie. ”You can only be an exotic dancer for so long before the younger girls crowd you out.”
”I'm twenty and Opal's twenty-one,” Olivia said evenly. ”We had at least a few more years left dancing.”
”They'd already hired those eighteen-year-old gymnasts!” Opal exclaimed. ”They were hogging all the tips.”
”True,” Olivia admitted. To Sadie she said, ”I'm not as flexible as I used to be.”
”And you totally would've rocked esthetics,” Opal told her sister.
”True. Waxing is my life,” Olivia stated seriously.
Near as Sadie could tell by the girl's completely hairless body, she'd been good at it.
”So after rent and food, we were stas.h.i.+ng away almost all our money,” Opal said. ”Last count we had nearly six thousand each and we still had four months to go in our one-year plan. We were totally on track.”
”So what happened?” Sadie asked. ”What can you tell me about the john who picked you up?”
They offered Sadie identical shrugs.
”We got a text message to show up at a room at this hotel to party,” Opal said.
”Did you recognize the number calling?”
”No, but let me check my phone,” Olivia said, glancing around.
”It would've been brought in for evidence, dumba.s.s,” Opal said. ”Didn't you learn anything from all those CSI reruns you love to watch?”
”Oh.” Olivia looked sad. ”I loved that frickin' phone. It was new.”
”So we were drugged up, then killed?” Opal asked.
”Looks that way, and you're not the first girls to end up like this. We need to stop this guy,” Sadie said emphatically. Just then the third fully-clothed female ghost reappeared. ”And what about her?” She nodded her chin to indicate the other spirit who stood quietly at the far end of the room.
The girls looked around.
”Who?” Opal asked.
”Her.” Sadie pointed a finger impatiently to indicate the third spirit, a fully-clothed young woman.
”I don't see anyone,” Olivia said.
”Yeah,” Opal added. ”Are you messing with us?”
”That's really uncool,” Olivia said, ”trying to scare us like that.”
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