Speed Dating With the Dead by Scott Nicholson

she said.
    Either that, or the game has already begun.
    “I’ll inform the front desk,” hubby said, as if pleased at a chance to escape, lest Amelia’s glare turn him to glass and then shards and slivers.
    “Wayne’s going to love you,” The Roach said.
    Amelia beamed, though The Roach was sure she’d completely misinterpreted his statement.
    Too bad you’re not clairvoyant, because if you could see the future the White Horse demons have in mind, you’d be swallowing that smile.

 
     
    Chapter 9
     
    “How’s it going?” Wayne said, patting Kendra on the shoulder and looking at the check-in sheet.
    “Forty-three so far,” Kendra said.
    “We’ll put you through college yet.”
    “Unless I run away from home and join the circus.”
    “You’re already in the circus, honey.”
    “Well, they’ve certainly sent in the clowns. You’ve got psychics, remote viewers, a couple of cranky quantum physicists, and a woman who claims to be the reincarnation of Madame Blavatsky.”
    “As long as she didn’t pay in rubles.”
    “I’ve got a feeling she’ll probably add a hillbilly to her past-life collection by the time the weekend’s over,” Kendra said, rolling her eyes to indicate the surroundings.
    The hotel had given them its “history room” for registration, the walls replete with old photographs, door handles, wallpaper samples, and other relics of the building’s past. A glass case held an ancient Royal typewriter, its black ribbon cracked and curled. Beside it was a tattered copy of “The Yearling,” and a placard explaining author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings had stayed at the hotel in the summer of 1936, taking breakfast in Black Rock and dinner in Boone. The glass case also held Southern Appalachian artifacts like corn-husk dolls, a dulcimer, a ceramic moonshine jug, furrier’s tools, and a hand-stitched quilt that looked as if it has been pieced together with dust. The room smelled of linseed oil and old paper.
    “It’s all about presentation,” Wayne said, imparting a basic business principal disguised as a parental lecture. “Give them a little atmosphere and let their imaginations do the rest.”
    Kendra rolled her eyes. “I know, I know. ‘People don’t buy products, they buy emotions.’ Jeez, Dad, why don’t you get out of the ghost game and launch a political consulting firm?”
    “There’s not much imagination in that. Plus you’re on the losing team half the time.”
    A tall man with a dramatic swoop of gray in his dark hair entered the room. He wore a rumpled tan blazer and the top two buttons of his shirt were undone, exposing the wiry hair on his chest. “Is this where we register?” he said, in a low, mellifluous tone.
    “Step right this way,” Kendra said, motioning him to the table.
    “I paid in advance,” he said. “Martin Gelbaugh.”
    As Kendra checked his information and gave him his badge and packet, Wayne lifted the lid on the ancient piano in the corner. He poked the lowest C, and as the note reverberated against the room’s wooden surfaces, he tapped a note higher up the register. The two harmonics clashed, horribly out of tune even to Wayne’s untrained ear.
    “The upper C is about eleven vibrations per second flat,” the man said.
    Wayne looked at Gelbaugh, studying the hands that appended the badge to his suit jacket. The fingers were gaunt but graceful, like those of a musician or fine craftsman. “Perfect pitch, huh?”
    “I’m not convinced that ‘perfect’ exists,” he said, smiling at Kendra. “Unless perhaps it’s the angelic demeanor of this lovely young lady.”
    The gallant attempt at flattery would only enrage his daughter. She was convinced that every man over the age of 20 was a hopeless perv, and Wayne endorsed that sentiment. But she disguised her grimace so that it could be mistaken for a shy smile.
    The customer is always right, even when he’s an asshole. I’ve taught her well. The Digger’s daughter.
    She’s your