Speed Dating With the Dead by Scott Nicholson Page B

of Spirits.’ One could take a number of meanings from that title.”
    “It’s supposed to be open-ended,” Wayne said.
    “Naturally,” Gelbaugh said. “What better way to kick off a paranormal conference than to turn on the metaphorical fog machine and cloud the collective consciousness?”
    “My panelists have credentials that–”
    The walkie talkie on Wayne’s belt squawked, and he retrieved it, glad he didn’t have to defend the reputations of people he’d drafted because they were willing to jabber for free.
    “Excuse me.” He pressed a button and said into the mouthpiece, “Wayne here.”
    “We got a problem, Boss.”
    Burton had a flair for understatement. His “problem” was another man’s “life-and-death crisis.” At best, he’d run into a wiring problem. At worst, the whole telecomm system had melted down.
    “On my way,” he answered, brushing past Gelbaugh and heading for the stairs. “What you got?”
    “In the medium room.” Burton responded. “They were playing around with automatic writing, and a woman fainted.”
    “Christ,” Wayne said. His first thought was not of the woman’s well-being, but of his liability insurance. He almost wished he believed in God so he could pray the victim was diabetic or had some other chronic ailment instead of suffering emotional trauma.
    All conference attendees were required to sign waiver forms acknowledging the physical and psychological risks of ghost hunting, but his attorney had said the papers were little more than good publicity. A lawsuit was a lawsuit, and in a courtroom, everybody lost but the lawyers.
    There was one more possibility, one he wasn’t yet prepared to face. But she would wait for an intimate moment to make her appearance.
    You and me, just like the old days. Just like we never have before.
    He was leaping up the winding stairs three at a time when Kendra called after him from below. “Something wrong?”
    Wayne peered over the railing. “An Elvis sighting.”
    “Dad,” she groaned, but he was already thundering to Room 218 and whatever unpleasant surprise awaited.

 
     
    Chapter 10
     
    Amelia appeared to be breathing normally, but her fluttering eyes gazed past Burton’s shoulder to a point on the ceiling.
    “She’s up there,” Amelia said.
    Burton, checking her pulse, put his head to her chest, but her heartbeat was lost in the pillowy softness of her breasts and he wasn’t willing to burrow in for better audio. If she were having a heart attack, she was having the most blissful cardiac arrest ever recorded, because her smile stretched across her rounded face.
    “Dearheart,” said the thin man Burton took to be her husband. He was excited but his voice projected no life-or-death anxiety. “Are you stepping through?”
    The other three people in the room were frozen around the glass coffee table that held an Ouija board. All three wore white badges that featured their names and the cute little ghost logo Wayne used for his Haunted Computer Productions trademark. They were paying customers, which made the situation more controllable. Paranormalists were used to drama queens and catatonia, and sometimes a gathering of like-minded seekers led to a game of one-upmanship that had the clairvoyants and sensitives quivering in the throes of unseen forces. Their performances could make an orgasm-faking porn actress proud.
    But Amelia had dropped like a sack of flour, with a limp-boned surrender that would have been difficult to fake. The human body had a number of involuntary defenses, including the instinct to brace for a fall. Burton, watching the session on one of the control-room monitors, had taken her flop for the real thing. Overweight people were more prone to health problems, and in stressful environments the pressure on bodily systems naturally increased.
    After calling Wayne on the walkie-talkie, he’d raced to 218 and arrived less than a minute after her collapse. Amelia’s husband Donald didn’t