So maybe on the Highway to Hell (which was the best name she could come up with for the purple-twilighty-monster-filled place he’d described) there were a few twists and turns with which she was unfamiliar.
The thought sent tingles of alarm down her spine.
“Dr. Stone?” As if they were traveling to her from a long way off, the words Bartoli had just finished uttering finally reached her brain.
He’d said, “Is something wrong, Dr. Stone?”
“No,” Charlie got out, hoping that she hadn’t taken too long to reply. Her voice sounded strange to her own ears. She felt as if she were speaking to him from the bottom of a well. Then she realized that she was stiff as a poker and gripping his hand hard and digging her nails into his (dark-suited) shoulder and was probably pale and tight-lipped, too, and he must think that all that tension was somehow directed at him.
“You sure? Because it almost sounded to me like you just told me to go fuck myself.” The only saving grace was that he was looking down at her with a quizzical gleam of humor in his eyes.
Oh, God, so I did say it out loud. As she heaped a thousand curses on Garland’s head, that thought was instantly followed by two others: At least Garland can’t read my mind, and Think fast.
“What?” An actress she wasn’t, but the surprise in her reaction was convincing because it wasn’t in fact fake. It was just rechanneled from her very real surprise that the thought she’d flung at Garland had actually emerged from her mouth in spoken words. “It must be the music.” Which wasn’t really that loud, but still. “I’m having trouble hearing, too.” She took a deep breath. “What I said was, I’m just like yourself.” Whew. Close enough. “In being currently uninvolved, that is.”
“Oh. Well. Good to know.” He grinned at her with a sudden boyish charm that made her despise Garland even more. This guy was handsome and smart and decent, and if he didn’t think she was at least two parts clumsy fruitcake it wasn’t for want of evidence. “I thought I might have hit a nerve with something I said.”
“No, of course not.”
A sardonic laugh in her ear sent goose bumps racing over her skin. Garland! She couldn’t see him, the SOB, but he was still nearby. Close enough to listen in. Right behind her, she guessed.
It was all she could do not to whip her head around to check.
But she couldn’t, not while she was dancing with Bartoli, and Kaminsky and Crane were darting around the sidelines filming their every move. She had to ignore one more phantom one more time. She had to be calm. She had to be cool.
Where is he?
Not knowing was driving her insane. Her nerves were so on edge that she imagined every whisper of the warm breeze against her skin, every curl of gray smoke from the tiki torches, every stray snippet of conversation that reached her ears from the other couples, crowding close in around them, was just one more manifestation of him.
From somewhere fairly close, Crane called, “Yo, bro, can you look this way?”
Charlie and Bartoli—clearly the “bro” Crane was jokingly addressing—both glanced in the direction of Crane’s voice. Sure enough, there was Crane, waving and grinning and filming from the sidelines, on the opposite side of the floor from where Kaminsky continued to film. Charlie realized with the part of her mind that was still capable of processing anything tangential that she and Bartoli had completed almost one full circuit of the floor.
Bartoli had far more presence of mind than she did: he grinned at Crane just like a tourist mugging for the camera.
Charlie summoned a weak wave.
“Holy shit, that’s the FBI guy from the Ridge you’re dancing with. Tell me you’re not hitting that.” Garland’s growl in her ear made Charlie’s breath catch and her lips tighten. But by the time Bartoli looked back down at her, she had regained enough command of herself to dredge up a smile.
“You should’ve told me you were that hard up, Doc. We could’ve worked something out,” Garland said. “All you had to do was walk around the table in that room where you showed me your inkblots. We could have had a good time. Don’t tell me you didn’t fantasize about it, because I sure did.”
Charlie’s shoulders tensed. Her smile froze in place. She could feel the hostility bubbling up inside her.
Ignore him, she ordered herself.
“Probably we ought to try to engage in some general conversation,” she said to Bartoli. Maybe she sounded a little stiff, a little pedantic, but, hey, she was talking and making sense, and with Garland uttering foul things in her ear, that was no mean feat. Discussing the case was out; talking about anything personal with Garland listening was out, too, although of course Bartoli wouldn’t know that.
Bartoli said, “Let’s see, general conversation; suppose you tell me a little bit more about yourself? I know that after … what happened, you and your mother moved to South Carolina and you finished high school by correspondence. I know you graduated from the University of South Carolina with a major in biology, you were top of your class at USC med school, and you did your internship and residency at Johns Hopkins. I know that both your parents are still living, but not together, and according to what you just said you are currently unattached. Any other pertinent information about your life you want to fill me in on? Pets? Food allergies? Hidden talents? We probably need to do one more circuit of the dance floor before we stop, so now would be a good time to let ’er rip.”
Charlie blinked at him in surprise as he so casually reeled off the basic facts of her life. Then the answer hit her like a brick: “You did a background check on me.”
“You bet your big blue eyes he did,” came Garland’s voice from somewhere to her right. “Don’t let him snow you, Doc: he knows everything you ever did in your life. He can tell you what color panties you have on right now. Even supposing he hasn’t already seen them.”
Charlie refused to so much as flicker an eyelash in the direction of the voice in case Garland took it as admission that she’d heard him.
Ignore. Ignore.
“Had to,” Bartoli said. “Before we asked you to come on board, we needed to know as much about you as possible. I wouldn’t have been doing my job otherwise.” He gave her an apologetic grimace. “If it makes you feel any better, if you’ve got any deep, dark secrets, the Bureau didn’t find them.”
“Speaking from personal experience, the Bureau couldn’t find its ass with both hands,” Garland said.
“I don’t.” Charlie kept her eyes glued to Bartoli’s face. “Have any deep, dark secrets.”
“You have me,” Garland pointed out. She still couldn’t see him, which was driving her insane. “Don’t tell lies to the po-po, Doc. Don’t you know you can go to jail for that?”
Go away. Charlie wanted to shriek it, but managed to smile at Bartoli instead.
“I was pretty sure of that even before the background check,” Bartoli said. “In this business we get good at reading faces, and what yours says about you is that you have character and intelligence and honesty. I saw that as soon as I met you.”
“This guy sucks,” Garland said. “He should be telling you what a hot little body you have.”
Charlie shot a lightning glance in the direction of the voice—she didn’t mean to; it just happened—but since she couldn’t actually see Garland, she couldn’t be sure he got the whole shut up or die import of it.
“I appreciate that. Thank you,” she told Bartoli. Okay, she did sound kind of stiff and pedantic, but she was having trouble working out how to have a real conversation with him while a demon listened in and jeered in her ear.
“I have to admit, you were a surprise,” Bartoli said. “After going over your credentials, I was expecting somebody more … imposing.”
“What he means is, he thought you were going to be butt-ugly,” Garland said. “That was what I thought, when I found out the psychiatrist they were taking me to see was a woman. I mean, who sticks a babe in a men’s prison?”
Concentrating on Bartoli while tu
ning out Garland was challenge enough without having the fact that Garland had called her a babe break loose and start worming its way into her mind, which is what, Charlie was horrified to realize, it was doing.
“You were a surprise to me, too. I mean, having the FBI show up at the prison was a surprise to me,” she said, rattled. Her dilemma was maddening: if she encouraged Bartoli to go where she thought this conversation might be heading—i.e., somewhere more personal—Garland would hear everything, yet if she tried to keep Bartoli from going there, he might take it as her subtly warning him off, which was the last thing she wanted to do.
“Not a bad one, I hope.” Bartoli’s smile was personal. Her pulse would have quickened except, oh, wait, it was already racing from stress.
“Other than the whole Boardwalk Killer thing, no,” Charlie replied, and smiled, too. “I wouldn’t characterize it as bad.”
“I wouldn’t characterize it as bad,” Garland mocked. “Jesus Christ, Doc, he ought to have his tongue down your throat by now. Dancing like this, you ought to be wanting him so bad you’re getting wet in your panties. Instead, there’s six inches of space between you and he’s smiling at you like you’re a fricking nun. I can tell you right now, you ain’t gonna have no fun in that bed.”
“Is anything wrong?” Bartoli frowned down at her. Charlie realized that her face must have frozen—or something—as she’d listened to Garland. Actually, no telling what her face had done. If the way she felt was any indication, it might have gone homicidal.
Damn it—him, Garland—to hell.
“No,” she said hastily. Then she amended her reply to, “Well, nothing much. It’s just … my stomach’s acting up again.”
She hoped the explanation was enough to cover any weird behavior he might have noticed while she was trying not to react to Garland.
“You’ve been pretty much under the weather since we met, haven’t you?” The sympathy in Bartoli’s voice made Charlie want to howl. Why, just when she had met this absolutely great guy, did she have to be afflicted with the worst ghost in the history of her own particular universe?
“Seems like it, doesn’t it?” She summoned a pseudo-rueful smile. Her entire body was tense as she realized she had lost track of Garland. Was he still close by, or had he, by some miracle, gone? My luck isn’t that good. “I think maybe I have a touch of the flu.”
“I’m sorry we’re—” Bartoli broke off. Charlie followed his gaze, to spot Kaminsky waving them in. He looked back down at Charlie. “Looks like we’ve done our time.” They stopped dancing, and he took her arm. “Come on, back to the salt mines.”
“That was fun,” Charlie said brightly as they made their way through the dancers toward where Kaminsky waited on the sidelines. A glance around told her that Crane was working his way toward the same spot. The same glance revealed no trace of Garland.
“It was,” Bartoli agreed. “We ought to do it again sometime—when I’m not on duty and we’re not on camera.”
Charlie glanced up at him, suddenly feeling warm all over. He was interested. The sense that something could be beginning here hadn’t been all on her side.
“I’d like that,” she agreed. She and Bartoli had rejoined the crowd on the sidelines, but hadn’t quite reached Kaminsky when it happened.
A derisive snort in her ear located Garland for her. She’d known he was still there.
“Just to give you a heads-up, Doc, he’s the type that asks permission. Is that what you want? May I put my hand on your titty, Dr. Stone?” Garland’s mocking falsetto made Charlie clench her teeth. “Is it okay if I put my dick in your—”
Jerking her arm from Bartoli’s hold, Charlie stopped dead. Then, as Bartoli looked down at her in surprise and Charlie remembered that she was the only one who had any idea that a devil was tormenting her, she grabbed hold of her composure with both hands and held on tight.
While winging this heartfelt admonition toward Garland: No more.
“Um, you know, if you’ll excuse me, I really need a bathroom break,” she said.
Without waiting for Bartoli’s reply, she turned on her heel and headed toward the ladies’ room, the sign for which she could see outside a one-story, whitewashed brick outbuilding on the far side of the gazebo.
“You. Come with me,” she ordered out of the side of her mouth, as certain as it was possible to be without actually seeing Garland that the rat bastard was close enough to hear her perfectly well. It was all she could do not to stalk through the crowd, but with careful self-control she managed it. Reaching the ladies’ room moments later, she pushed through the swinging door, where she was greeted by a delicate floral scent and a wall of blessedly cool air-conditioning. At a glance she took in the posh lounge with its aqua leather couch and chairs and a small corridor leading into the sinks and stalls beyond, and ascertained that the restroom appeared to be empty. Marching into the center of the lounge area, she whipped around to snarl at what looked like empty space, “This. Has. Got. To. Stop.”
“You sound like you’re pissed at me, Doc.” Just as Charlie had expected, Garland materialized right in front of her, all six-foot-three hunky golden inches of him. “Now, that’s what you call a real co-inky-dink. ’Cause, see, I’m pissed at you, too.”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“Is that right?” Charlie’s eyes flashed fire. Standing scarcely more than arm’s length away, Garland looked as big and bad and muscular and intimidating as ever. At that moment Charlie was just so furious she didn’t care. Taking a step forward, she thrust a pugnacious finger at his chest. “Listen, you jackass: any more dirty talk in my ear, and what I do next will make that whole incense-and-candle thing look like a party game.”
Garland’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “You threatening me, Doc?”
“Oh, yeah,” Charlie replied with relish. “Count on it.”
“I wouldn’t.” He smiled a tigerish smile. “If I were you.”
“Oh, dear, maybe you’re right. Maybe I shouldn’t threaten you.” Charlie clapped both hands to her cheeks à la the Home Alone kid, then let them drop again as she finished by fixing him with a glare. “Maybe I should damned well promise you that if you don’t stay away from me, bad things are going to happen. To you.”
“If anybody should be threatening anybody, I should be threatening you. Last night you did your damnedest to kill me.”
“I did not. Nobody can kill you. You know why? Because you’re already dead.”
“Yeah, well. Whatever. You did your best to screw me over, then. You think being sucked into that damned wind tunnel you created didn’t hurt? It did. It hurt like hell.”
Remembering, Charlie suffered a brief pang of conscience. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. I was trying to send you to where you’re supposed to be.”
“You were helping me out, in fact.”
“That’s right, I was.” Honesty compelled her to add, “Sort of.”
“Let’s get real, Doc: you tried to send me off to hell.”
“If that’s where you’re supposed to be, it’s not my fault.”
“Well, you can forget it: I’m not going.”
“The thing is, you don’t exactly have a choice. You die, you go. So go already.”
“You’d like that, wouldn’t you? Too damned bad.”
“You know what? I don’t care. As long as you go be a ghost somewhere else and keep your nose out of my business, I don’t give a flip what you do.”
“What, you didn’t appreciate my heads-up about your new boyfriend? I was just trying to help you out there. Keep you from winding up with a dud in the sack.”
Charlie didn’t smile; she bared her teeth. “And I was just trying to help you out by hurrying you on your way to eternity.”
“Yeah. About that: you try that woo-woo stuff on me again, I’m liable to get nasty.”
“Nasty how? Are we talking popping out of dark corners going Boo? You’re ectoplasm, remember?” The face she made at him was pure mockery. “You don’t s
care me, Casper.”
“Casper?” He looked both surprised and affronted.
“Yeah,” she said, rubbing it in.
“Just so we’re clear, Doc, I ain’t no fucking Casper. Mess with me again, and you’re liable to find that out. The hard way.”
“Oh, I’m shaking in my shoes. At least, I would be, except, guess what?” Charlie stabbed a finger at him again, only this time it sank knuckle deep into his wide chest. The electric tingle she felt at the contact was hardly noticeable. It paled in comparison to the satisfaction she got from watching his expression change as her finger penetrated what appeared to be the solid surface of his shirt, then withdrew with as little fuss and muss as if she’d been poking air. “You’ve got no substance. You’re about as dangerous as water vapor. Except for being childishly annoying, there’s absolutely nothing you can do.”
“Start waving your incense at me again, and you’ll wish I was only being childishly annoying.”
“Oh, so there are other options? Enlighten me, why don’t you? Exactly what are you going to do, tough guy?” She took another pugnacious step toward him. With her face tilted up now and him looming over her, they were practically nose to nose. His eyes were as brightly blue as the ocean had been earlier. He looked, in a word, alive. As vividly alive as anyone she’d ever seen, as a matter of fact, even though he absolutely was not. “Moan a little? Rattle some chains? What?”
His face hardened. “You try sending me to Spookville again, Doc, and one of two things is gonna happen: either you’re not going to succeed and I’m going to make tonight’s childishly annoying little threesome the least of your problems, or you will succeed and then I’ll find my way back just like I did this time. Only next time I’ll bring something with me: one of those monsters prowling through the fog, maybe, or some other poor damned soul who’ll help me make your life miserable. And that’ll just be for starters. I guarantee it.”
“You can’t bring things back with you.”
“How do you know?”
The Last Victim Page 14