"Mary Janice Davidson - Betsy 01.5 - Dead Girls Don't Dance" - читать интересную книгу автора (Davidson Mary Janice)

She coughed out more sand, cursing herself. She'd been so moody last night,

instead of finding a decent alley to skulk in or a flophouse to cower in, she'd

just burrowed into the beach sand like a big old worm, and waited for sunset.

Except this idiot found her before she could rise.

"Did—" Cough, hack. "—you call—" Hack-hack. "—anybody?"

"Well, yeah," he said, sounding weirdly apologetic. "I mean, I was running down

the beach here—I've just gotta get down to two-twenty-five, y'know, and lay off

the Cheez E Brats—anyway, I was running and tripped over something, and I

thought it was a piece of driftwood but it was your foot, so I started to unbury

you and then I couldn't find a pulse so I called the cops on my cell phone. You

didn't look, y'know, grody or anything. In fact, for a corpse, you looked pretty

good."

He's an idiot. Perfect. She finished coughing. It was amazing—even if you didn't

have to breathe, sand got everywhere. Every time she moved, more of it trickled

into her underpants. "How long ago did you call?"

"Uh… coupla minutes… look, are you sure you're all right? The sun's just about

down, and it's getting kinda chilly, even for June—"
"The sun set," she said, wiping her mouth with her forearm, then grimacing at

the way the sand stuck to her lips—worse than ChapStick!—"at seven fifty-six

p.m. It's technically dark."

"Well, uh, okay, but—"

"So I have time for a snack before the authorities arrive."

"Okay. Like, um, you want an Orange Julius or something? My treat."

"I know." She leaned toward him—easy enough, he was hovering over her like

a—heh, heh—grave robber—and grabbed him. He was wearing a tan t-shirt and green

swimming trunks and beach shoes; the t-shirt shredded under her preternatural