"Casey Daniels - Pepper Martin 01 - Don of the Dead" - читать интересную книгу автора (Daniels Casey)

"You're gay." I knew it. The good-looking ones always are.

"No!" A smile came and went over his expression. "I'm just really busy."

I knew a brush-off when I got one and let's face it, I wasn't exactly feeling like my usual
I-am-woman-hear-me-roar self. I spun around and headed out of the office.

"Can we talk about your brain?"

Dan's question stopped me cold. I tried not to look too eager when I stopped and turned back to him.
Kind of hard considering my sneakers left skid marks on the linoleum.
 For the first time since I plucked the two-carat diamond from my finger and chucked it at JoelPanhorst ,
I was actually going out on a date. And so what if the guy just happened to be interested only in what
was happening inside my skull.

It was pitiful. But it didn't stop me from telling Dan I'd meet him the next evening atMangia Mania, a new
bistro over inCleveland 's Little Italy neighborhood that was getting a lot of press and packing in a crowd
of the young, the chic, and the trendy. It was right around the corner from my apartment and just a
couple minutes from the cemetery.

By the time I left the hospital, I'd convinced myself that things were looking up. I had Dan to look
forward to and maybe I could distract him enough to get him to notice the body that went along with my
brain. With any luck at all, he also might be able to explain the static in my head. And why it had decided
to morph itself into a wisecrackingwiseguy .

Chapter 2




I was in a pretty good mood when I got to theoffice the next morning. Who could blame me? Six
o'clock was only ten hours away and in ten short hours, I'd have Dan the Brain Man all to myself. Minus
the distraction of X-rays, CT scans, and the hubbub of the hospital ER.

It was enough to make any girl smile.

Unfortunately, even my good mood wasn't enough to get rid of GusScarpetti . He was waiting in my
office when I got there.

"No. No. No." I closed the door and stood with my back against it, my hands on the knob behind me.
Just so my own personal I'm-not-really-here-but-you're-talking-to-me-anyway couldn't see that they
were shaking. "You can't be here. You're not real."

"Not as real as I used to be." Gus was lounging in my one and only guest chair, one leg crossed over the
other. He glanced around.GardenViewCemetery was established in the middle of the nineteenth century
and the office was located in what used to be the caretaker's house. It was one of those big, rambling
buildings with high ceilings and wooden floors. Somebody, sometime, had decided to chop up the rooms
to make lots of small offices.