Ashes to Ashes (Experiment in Terror #8) by Karina Halle

if she were cold. “I think I should keep showing
you around.” She walked out of the room as Dex came around to me
and held out the ball.
    “ Touch it,” he
said.
    I grimaced, pushing his arm
away. “No. That’s a dead kid’s toy.”
    “ But you’re so
good with balls.”
    “ Shut
up.”
    He put the ball on top of the
first bed and we hurried after the two of them. Kelly led us back
the way we came and down toward the classrooms. Almost all the
doors were closed so we just read the signs on them as we walked
past. Mrs. Collins. Mrs. Keats. Mr. Murphy. Ms. Ross. There were
about fifteen rooms in total and the last ones we’d come across as
we went further into the west wing were all the artistic
electives.
    “ We’re an arts
school,” Kelly explained, “but we still believe in having a proper,
well-rounded education. Most of the teachers here just teach the
basics for each grade—math, English, science, history. But two
hours of every day the kids get to take art classes, and that’s
where the teaching becomes more specialized. Like Brenna,
here.”
    We came to a stop outside an
open door and peered inside. The room was covered in paintings with
paint splattered stools and stacks of easels in the corner. At a
large desk was a woman asleep, dark brown hair pooled all around
her.
    Kelly cleared her throat. “Like
Brenna here,” she said a bit louder, but even then her voice was
quiet as a mouse.
    “ Brenna!” Dex
yelled.
    I smacked him on the chest as
the woman jumped up from her sleep, her hair all in her face.
“What? What?”
    “ You’re a
jerk,” I told him.
    He shrugged. “Got the job done,
didn’t I? Don’t say I’m not a man of results.”
    Kelly waved at Brenna who was
trying to clear her messy desk and appear like someone who hadn’t
just fallen asleep on the job. “Hey, Brenna, sorry to wake you. The
ghost hunters are here.”
    Brenna got out of her chair and
smiled at us. “Hi,” she said exuberantly. For some reason I was
expecting Brenna to look like a meek and put-upon person but that
wasn’t the case. She was young-looking, maybe just a few years
older than me, with wavy brown hair and an apple-cheeked glow about
her. “I’m Brenna McIntosh.”
    “ I’ll leave
you guys with her now,” Kelly said politely before walking off down
the hall like a wisp of a person.
    “ Can I tell
you how happy I am to meet you?” Brenna said as she came around the
desk. Dressed in boot-cut jeans and a black tunic, she seemed even
more personable. She stopped in front of me and pulled me into a
hug. “Sorry, I’m a hugger,” she said to my back while I was brought
forward into a cloud of strawberry perfume.
    “ That’s okay,”
I told her, getting my bearings as soon as she released me. “I
guess you watch the show?”
    “ All the
time,” she said proudly. She looked over at Dex. “And you, I loved
you in the Sasquatch episode, well at least the parts of it that
you were allowed to air. But poor Twatwaffle.”
    He stuck out his lower lip in
mock sympathy then sighed. “Yes. Thank god all good llamas go to
heaven.”
    She didn’t seem to catch on—or
she didn’t mind—his sarcasm because she went onto Rebecca next.
“And you must be the new manager. You’re doing a great job.”
    I could have sworn Rebecca
blushed at that. “Thank you.”
    “ Brenna,” Dex
began, “do you mind if we talk to you on camera? Is this a good
time?”
    “ No problem,”
she said. “I’ve been preparing for this. It’s too bad I fell
asleep, I probably ruined my Hollywood face.” She burst into a
flurry of giggles.
    “ You look
great,” I reassured her as Dex touched my shoulder and let me know
he was running out to the car.
    “ So are you
sure you’re okay with us filming right here today?” Rebecca
prodded, ever mindful of a lawsuit. When Brenna nodded she went on,
“Even with the kids and everything?”
    “ Oh,” she
said, “well I guess you shouldn’t really film the kids. I