Blown To Pieces (PTO Murder Club Mystery Book 2) by Katie Graykowski Read Free Book Online Page A

system. “Please take your seats. The candle-lighting ceremony is about to begin.” Astrid’s voice boomed in her fake British accent. I was convinced that she used the accent because she thought it made the words coming out of her mouth sound less crazy. Since the accent made some of her words incomprehensible, I guess it worked.
    “Oh God, I thought the candle-lighting ceremony only took place on the full moon.” Monica whipped up the silver-and-purple tablecloth and looked under the table for the fire extinguisher.
    Based on the one and only séance she’d been to here before, she knew “candle-lighting ceremony” was code for attempted arson.
    “Check under your seat.” I’d had Astrid’s housekeeper, Dulce, Velcro small fire extinguishers to the undersides of all of the chairs. “Astrid decided that since the last candle-lighting ceremony brought Sebastian Sidebottom, her spirit guide, in so clearly, it needed to be added to every séance.”
    Here’s the thing about séances, candle-lighting ceremony or no: they never turn out well. No matter whom you contact, the conversation’s always one-sided and open to interpretation. Once, I offered to buy Astrid a Magic 8-Ball because it was about as accurate as Sebastian Sidebottom. She was not amused and tacked a fifty-dollar-a-month “use fee” onto my rent. “Use” of what? My own rented house? Still, it was the only place that kept Max in the same elementary school and kept us from living out of my car.
    The lights flickered and then went out, as the door was thrown open, bouncing off the wall and hitting Donnalee Murphy square in the face. “Who’s there?”
    When it came to blindness, Donnalee could give bats a run for their money.
    Donnalee smacked into the door again, which bounced off the wall and hit her again. “Why do the spirits keep slamming the door in my face?”
    “There’s no one there.” Astrid marched past Donnalee and opened the door. She spun Donnalee around a couple of times and pointed her in the general direction of the table. It was like she was priming Donnalee for some piñata bashing.
    “I like Richard Gere too,” Vesta Neance yelled from behind Astrid. Vesta was to hearing as Donnalee was to sight. If you put them together, they might be able to make it home in one piece...maybe.
    “Spirits of the afterlife, we summon you,” Astrid chanted as she held her candle high. “Your daughters of light are waiting. Come to us.”
    “Come to us,” Donnalee and Vesta chanted.
    “Come to us.” Astrid’s voice rose as she waved her candle around.
    “Come to us.” Donnalee and Vesta waved their candles around.
    It looked like Eloise Dunlap and Mitzi Lange—the other two “daughters of light”—were running late or weren’t coming.
    Monica leaned close to my ear and whispered, “Ten bucks says Donnalee catches her hair on fire before the night is over.”
    “I’m not taking that bet. The reason she has a mullet is because she caught her bob on fire a couple of weeks ago.” You could call me lots of things, but fool wasn’t one of them.
    “Shhh.” Astrid pegged us with her beady little tattooed-eyeliner eyes. Unfortunately, they were magnified to cow size by her Coke bottle rhinestone glasses. Add in her silver-sequined muumuu and gold-lamé turban, and she could have traded places with the ball they drop in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. The trick was to not look directly at her or your retinas were toast.
    “Oh God, I looked directly at her.” Haley rubbed her eyes. “My eyes are on fire.”
    See?
    Donnalee walked up to the altar at the back of the room and tried to light several strands of red licorice on fire. After the fifth attempt she finally gave up, felt around on the altar for the candelabra, and found the candles. The smell of burning plastic stung the inside of my nose. All of the fake fingernails on Donnalee’s left hand were on fire. I jumped up, ducked under the mosquito netting, grabbed five