“Dr. Stone? You okay in there?” Bartoli called through the door.

Charlie realized she had been in the restroom for a good deal longer than just washing her hands required. She hated knowing that Bartoli and Crane were waiting right outside the door for her, wouldn’t even allow herself to consider that maybe they’d heard her losing her lunch, and tried not to think about why they were waiting, and what they wanted her to do.

“I’m fine,” she called back, glad that it was actually starting to be true. As long as she didn’t let herself think about the corpse—or the spirit that had been so violently separated from it—that would continue to be the case, she hoped. Thank God the water in the sink was running clear. Turning off the tap, she started to wring out the legs of her pants. Forget trying to dry them with the hot air from the hand dryer: she would wear them wet until she could get rid of them.

“Doc, you gotta help me,” said Garland’s voice behind her.

Charlie practically jumped out of her skin. Whirling, clutching the sink for support, she found him standing in front of the toilet, looking every bit as tall and muscular and solid as he had when he was alive. The shackles were gone; so was the blood. His prison jumpsuit was zipped to about halfway up his chest, and he balanced on the balls of his feet like a man poised to run. There was something dark and hunted in his eyes as they fastened on her.

“You got to fix me. Put me back together. Quick.”

Charlie took a deep breath. God, she hated this. He was dead, and yet here he stood crammed with her in a tiny, should-be-private bathroom, minus his restraints, which made him scary as hell, still possessing enough physicality to trap her against the sink, pinning her with his eyes, talking to her in that honeyed southern drawl, which fortunately she knew better than to trust one inch. A ruthless killer in life, she doubted he’d changed any in death. And because she was the victim of some hideous cosmic trick, she had no way to get away from him.

This whole I-see-dead-people thing totally sucks.

“I can’t put you back together,” she spoke as calmly and reasonably as she could. “I can’t fix you. You’re dead. You should be able to see a white light. Go toward the light.”

His brows snapped together. He looked at her with disbelief. “What are you, the fucking ghost whisperer? ‘Go toward the light’ is the best you can do?”

Actually, never having died herself, she had no idea if there really was a white light, but she’d said it before and spirits had never taken issue with it. She’d done a lot of research into the afterlife, too, and according to it—and, yes, TV—there should absolutely be a white light.

“The light should take you to where you’re supposed to go. To—to heaven.” Okay, she faltered on that last bit. Heaven for Garland might be a stretch.

He snorted. “Yeah, right. I’m gonna get beamed right up to those Pearly Gates and get my angel wings and halo on. I don’t think so. Look, I’m thirty-six years old. I got things to do, places to be. I fucking can’t be dead. Fix me.”

“I can’t fix you. You’re dead. Really. Go toward the light.”

Looking pissed, he crossed his arms over his chest. “News flash, Doc: there’s no damned light. There’s like this purple fog with things in it.” With a quick glance around, he seemed to become aware of exactly where he was. She got a glimpse of what she thought was panic in his eyes, and just thinking about what it must take to panic somebody as big and bad as Garland gave her goose bumps. “What are you doing in a bathroom in your underpants? Why aren’t you out there giving me CPR or something?”

Banging on the door, Bartoli called, “Dr. Stone, are you okay? Is somebody else in there?”

Crap, he must be able to hear her talking to Garland.

“I’m fine,” she called back for what felt like the dozenth time, making no effort to disguise the irritation in her voice. “I’m on my cell phone.”

Having glanced instinctively at the door when Bartoli knocked, Charlie looked back at Garland just in time to see him dissolve into a shimmer that swooshed toward the wall before vanishing.

“There has to be a light. Find it and go toward it,” she whispered after him urgently.

“Nice legs, Doc.” The reply that floated back to her was no louder than a breath, but Charlie heard it. Then, even more faintly, “Forget the fucking light.”

CHAPTER FIVE

By nightfall, which in North Carolina in August happens right around ten p.m., Charlie was in the FBI’s makeshift search headquarters, otherwise known as a Greyhound bus–sized RV parked in the driveway beside a pale pink beach house just outside of Kill Devil Hills. The RV was central command, the house provided parking for the RV and lodging for the agents—and Charlie, whose suitcase had already been carried up to the second floor. Not that she had been inside the house yet: she had been ushered straight into the RV. The feds had commandeered the property, which was next door to the murder scene, as their base of operations for the duration of the investigation. Having flown to this bustling beach town in a private plane with Bartoli and Crane, she was now surrounded by FBI agents—and cops, and sheriffs, and deputies, and constables, and practically every other law enforcement type known to man. Even as twilight had turned to full dark and tourists had left the wide white sand beach just beyond the dunes in favor of the town’s restaurants and nightlife, more law enforcement types had swarmed the place to report in or exchange information or otherwise help in the investigation, until the RV was as busy as a Macy’s just before Christmas. Seated at a desk in front of a computer in a tiny back bedroom that had been turned into a surprisingly efficient office, Charlie pushed the hard-copy files she had been studying aside to pour over the autopsy photos that had just popped up on her screen. Shaken loose from her safe haven at Wallens Ridge by the unnerving prospect of encountering Garland’s ghost every time she turned around for approximately the next week, she had embraced the lesser of two evils and agreed to do what Bartoli and Crane wanted.

Now she couldn’t believe she had ever hesitated. Bayley Evans’ desperate need had smacked her in the face the minute she’d stepped inside the RV to join the search dedicated to finding her. Any distress Charlie might be feeling—and she was definitely feeling some distress—was nothing compared to the terrible reality of the missing girl’s plight.

She’s going to die if we don’t find her fast.

The knowledge sat like a rock in Charlie’s stomach.

“So is anything jumping out at you?” The question came from Crane, who leaned back against the wall just a few feet away, scant minutes later. Ever since the photos had appeared on-screen he’d been watching Charlie like a dog hoping for a bone. The blinds covering the narrow window beside him were closed against the night, and the overhead light in the room was giving Charlie a killer headache. Or at least, something was. If not the light, then the glow of the computer screen, or possibly the fact that all she’d had since lunch (which she’d lost) was two cups of coffee and a candy bar. Or maybe it was because she was forcing herself to concentrate really, really hard on the details of the pictures in front of her to keep from getting emotionally flattened by the gruesomeness of the whole.

The photos were horrific. And that would be because the murders had been horrific. Charlie had known the pictures would be upsetting and had steeled herself to face them. But that didn’t mean they didn’t bother her anyway.

I hate this. But there was nothing to do but deal.

Setting her jaw, Charlie continued to study the picture in front of her, practically millimeter by millimeter.

Meanwhile, her headache cranked up to a whole new level of bad.