The Helena Diaries - Trouble in Mudbug (Ghost-in-Law Series Novellas) by Jana DeLeon Read Free Book Online Page B

wasn’t about to let it slip away over tube socks.
    Then the tube socks vanished.
    I ran my gloved hand down my leg, but only cold skin met my touch. Weird. I hadn’t realized I was cold to the touch, but then, I hadn’t gone around touching myself either. I supposed that explained the chill some people felt when they were near me. I rose back up and realized the leather glove was gone, but I was now wearing a corsage of lilies.  
    Death was exhausting.
     

Trouble in Mudbug—Chapter Thirteen
     
    Wherein Helena touches something…at the absolute wrong time
    As I didn’t want to startle Maryse and Luc at the hotel, I wore my standard pink polyester to the hospital. But as soon as I stepped through the car, I changed into my breaking-and-entering wear. I’d been practicing all afternoon and had sorta gotten the hang of it. At least, half of the time, things went right. Maybe less than half.  
    Whatever.
    Rather than look impressed with my leopard-print, spandex bodysuit, Maryse looked like she’d eaten bad Chinese food. I should never have expected her to have any appreciation for style. She’d worn a cocktail dress to my will-reading, spent the rest of her time in rubber boots, and didn’t own underwear. What could she possibly know about fashion?
    I would have let the whole bad-Chinese look go, but when she started laughing, Luc—who wasn’t looking near as hot anymore—stepped out of the car to see why, and the horrified look on his face only made Maryse laugh harder. So I changed into an all-black, completely boring ensemble so that the hilarity would cease and we could get on with the real business at hand.
    That’s what I get for working with amateurs.
    Maryse made some snide remark about how if I’d learned to touch things instead of wasting time on hideous wardrobe choices, it would have been handier as then I could have stolen my own file. I swear, when all this is over, I’m going to figure out a way to contact a civil liberties organization and sue.  
    Anyway, despite the somewhat rocky start, we did manage to get my medical records. Unfortunately, we also discovered that the psychic nut has cancer, and I could tell Maryse was freaked. I tried to work up some aggravation that this development could impede my murder investigation, but even I couldn’t reach that level of selfishness. The reality was, it blew.
    We almost made it out of the hospital without incident. Almost.
    There was a bit of a panic when a nurse came into the records room. Maryse hid and I tried to stop her—even donned a boxing outfit complete with gloves for the hit—but I couldn’t manage to connect a blow. Even worse, no matter how hard I tried, the damn gloves wouldn’t come off when the panic was over, and my Nikes were gone and replaced with the old pumps. It was not a look that would get me on a Paris runway.
    Just when I thought we were in the clear, the nurse came back. I yelled at Maryse to run and she took off like she was on fire. I tried to follow, but without the Nikes, the nurse gained rapidly. Then as I rounded the corner for the exit, I hit a medical cart and flipped completely over it, sprawling onto the floor.  
    Shit scattered everywhere and before I knew it, that nurse was running right past me and straight for the exit door Maryse had just run out of. I jumped up and bolted for the door, knocking the nurse to the ground as I ran outside, but that completely average-looking scientist that Maryse liked was already hauling it out of the parking lot.
    I was left walking again.  
    And the Nikes were nowhere in sight.
    That reasonably good-looking scientist was waiting for me at the gas station down the street from the hospital, so I only had to manage a couple of blocks. I spent the time attempting to fix my wardrobe malfunction, but only succeeded in making it worse. The only thing I’d changed by the time I reached the gas station was the tank top, which was replaced with the top from the polyester