Exclusive

EXCLUSIVE

 Prologue
 
Teresa Amelia Loudenberry, “Toots” to her dearest friends, clutched the Egyptian bedsheets as though they were a life preserver.  So tight was her hold, her knuckles were as white as the sheet she was holding in a death grip.  Bluish green veins stood out like small canals against her otherwise-unblemished hands.  Tiny beads of perspiration formed on her pearly forehead before forming rivulets around the contours of her face and settling in a pool of auburn hair splayed across the pillow.
 Toots bolted upright in her bed, startled awake by what felt like a flock of wild geese trapped inside her chest.  Taking several deeps breaths meant to calm her pounding heart, she ran a hand along the unfamiliar sheets, touched the heap of silken covers tossed aside, then opened her eyes as wide as she could, trying to familiarize herself with her surroundings.  As she looked around her, she detected several shadowlike images skirting the edge of the bed, cloudlike puffs colored an eerie, translucent blue.  Toots counted four.  Four clouds clustered around her bed.  She could swear that inside each cloud were faces, faces she seemed to recognize but to which she couldn’t quite put a name.  Her heart hammered faster, and her hands trembled like the last dry leaves on a barren winter limb.  Feeling light-headed and disoriented, Toots squeezed her eyes shut, trying to assure herself that she was in the grip of a crazy dream.
 But her skin still felt clammy, her heart continued to beat at a faster-than-normal pace, and she knew she was forcing her eyes to remain shut.  No, this definitely was not a dream.
 Slowly, she opened one eye, then the other.  The mist, or fog, or whatever the hell she’d seen was gone, but she could feel a coolness lingering around the bed.  Toots snapped the bedside light on and looked at the clock.
 Three o’clock in the morning.  Hadn’t she heard somewhere this was the witching hour? Probably one of those silly ghost programs Sophie had recently become obsessed with.  Whatever, Toots knew enough to know that something supernatural had awakened her from a sound sleep.  A ghost, an apparition, something not of this world lingered in the room, sending a prickling sensation up her spine.  Frightened and shaky, she climbed out of bed, remaining alert and uneasy as she paced the unfamiliar room.
 Pacing back and forth while trying to ease her nerves, Toots allowed her eyes to dart around the garishly decorated room she now called her own.  When she thought of all the remodeling ahead, she almost wished she’d kept her bungalow at the Beverly Hills Hotel until the work was completed.  Who in their right mind could live, let alone sleep, in this purple-and-hot-pink hooker haven?
 
From EXCLUSIVE. Copyright © 2010 by MRK Productions. Fern Michaels is a Registered Trademark of First Draft, Inc.  All rights reserved.  Published by arrangement with Kensington Publishing Corp.