Page 16 of Dead Serious: Case 3 Mr Bruce Reyes

“Dusty said her outfit wasn’t sleazy.” He turns his head again. “Yes, I’m sure Bruce appreciated it very much.”

“Dusty?” I repeat slowly. “Your dead drag-queen friend? What does she have to do with this?”

“She was here with me yesterday and yes, she was dressed as a stripper nurse.” He glances to the corner of the room and gives an exasperated eye roll. “Well, you were.”

I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to strange three-way conversations with people only Tristan can see.

“You think I saw Dusty last night?” He nods. “And she’s here right now?” He nods again. “But I can’t see her.”

“Maybe it was the drugs,” Tristan muses, his voice still slightly squeaky. “They had you on quite a high dose of morphine last night. Maybe your altered state of mind allowed you to catch a glimpse of her. Like picking up a rogue radio frequency.”

“Oh.” My head drops back against my pillow again and I frown.

“Is this too weird for you?” Tristan chews his lip in worry.

“It’s just going to take a little getting used to.”

“Are you sure?” The apprehension in his question is palpable.

I know how hard it was for him to open himself up and tell me the truth about what he can see and what he does. And it’s not like I don’t believe him—I saw the proof with my own eyes when everything started levitating in the living room, not to mention the freaky dream I had that night about having tequila with Death in a bar in Mexico while some mariachi named Alejandro played quietly in the background.

The jury’s still out on whether that part was real or not, but it’s a lot to get my head around.

“Um…” I frown, not sure whether I’ve upset Dusty or not but feeling like I owe an apology. “Sorry for saying your outfit was sleazy.” I say awkwardly to the empty room. “In my defence, I thought you were an hallucination.”

“It’s fine.” Tristan gives my hand a squeeze as he rolls his eyes again. “She loves being all dramatic.”

5

“That’s not Consuela,” I say absently as I lift the spoon to my mouth and suck the chocolate ice cream from it. “My money’s on evil twin.”

Danny lifts his own spoon to his lips, licking the gooey mess from it while holding the tub of Ben and Jerry’s Cookie Vermont-ster in his other hand. He’s completely transfixed by the trashy telenovela unfolding on the TV.

I turn my attention back to the woman on the screen wearing a frothy white meringue of a wedding dress that looks like it belongs in the eighties. Her permed hair is back-combed to the ceiling and she’s wearing a rhinestone-encrusted headband across her forehead which has a short, spiky veil attached to it. She says something in rapid-fire Spanish, her expression smug and her eyes flashing. My gaze drops to the subtitles at the bottom of the screen.

“It is too late, Santiago, we are married before God and our families.”

The man standing in front of her in a tux with a lurid lime-green cumberbund shakes his head and begins to speak, his moustache quivering.

“Why are you doing this, Consuela?”

She smirks.“Because…”

“Wait for it,” I whisper to Danny gleefully as the camera zooms in to a close-up of her heavily made-up face.

“I am not Consuela… I am her sister, Catalina.”

“Called it,” I say smugly and hold up my hand. Danny turns to me, his spoon clamped between his lips to free up his hand so he can high-five me.

Danny pulls the spoon from his mouth. “Fiver says he goes for a gun.”

“You think?”

He nods and digs his spoon back into the tub.

“Where is Consuela?”Santiago demands.

“Somewhere you’ll never find her.”She tilts her head back and laughs like a musketeer.