So much for kicking down the door. Charlie could see a key in the lock.

Spotting Charlie, Kaminsky stopped short just steps into the sitting room. Still fully dressed except for her heels—she was now in stocking feet—Kaminsky was flushed, breathless, her black hair ruffled, clearly on high alert. Charlie’s eyes widened as she spotted the gun the other woman was two-handing.

“Is somebody else in here?” Kaminsky’s voice was sharp. Her eyes ran swiftly over Charlie.

“Cute friend,” observed an appreciative male voice behind her. Charlie tensed even as she cast an automatic glance around: wherever Garland had disappeared to, he was now back. Arms crossed over his chest, leaning a broad shoulder against the hall wall, he looked as real and solid as Kaminsky. God, what had he been doing since he’d been killed? In the course of the last few hours, he’d even acquired a tan. “Think she actually knows how to use that gun?”

She’s FBI, Charlie almost snapped before remembering that for all intents and purposes he was not present and she and Kaminsky were alone.

“No, of course not,” she said to Kaminsky instead. The strain of not being able to reply to Garland gave her voice an edge.

“I thought you were being attacked. You’re telling me you screamed like that just for fun?” Kaminsky looked pissed. She cast a suspicious glance past Charlie in the direction, Charlie realized, in which she herself had just thrown that hostile look at Garland. “You trying out your own personal version of a test of the emergency broadcast system, Dr. Stone?”

Garland grinned. Charlie tried not to notice. “I slipped in the shower.”

“And screamed like that? Most people just say ouch.”

“It hurt.”

Kaminsky glanced past her again. “You mind if I look around?”

“Knock yourself out.” Okay, Charlie realized she sounded grumpy. But the strain of ignoring a six-foot-three-inch, muscle-bound, smirking ghost with possibly evil intent was making her nerves jump. “You think I’d lie about a thing like that?”

“I don’t know you well enough to know what you’d do.”

“What’s up with that chick?” Garland watched Kaminsky with interest as she walked swiftly through the apartment, gun held low in front of her, checking corners, closets, bathroom. Twice she walked right past Garland—who’d stepped inside the living room to give her clear passage—coming within inches of him both times without appearing to sense a thing. “She’s a cop, isn’t she? I can smell ’em a mile off. What, are you on some kind of house arrest now or something?” He shook his head. “Damn, Doc, what the hell did you do?”

Aside from a glare at him that she hoped said Shut up, Charlie ignored him.

“So you really made that much fuss just because you fell in the shower,” Kaminsky marveled as, search completed, she walked back into the sitting room, clearly much less wary than before. The look she gave Charlie as she tucked her gun back into the shoulder holster beneath her jacket brimmed with disgust. “If you scream like that when you fall down, what do you do when something scares the snot out of you?”

“I’d say scream louder, but I don’t think you could,” Garland said to Charlie, once again clearly enjoying himself. “That scream was righteous. Scared the hell out of me.”

Kaminsky stopped right in front of him. His lids went to half mast, and Charlie was willing to bet the farm that it was because he was giving Kaminsky a thorough once-over.

Part of Charlie wanted to shriek There’s a serial killer in the room with us, right now, right behind you, but she didn’t because she knew it wouldn’t do any good.

Kaminsky couldn’t see him. Kaminsky wouldn’t believe her. Kaminsky would think she had bats in her belfry, and the word would spread.

Besides, even if Kaminsky did believe her, what could she do?

Nothing, that’s what. Couldn’t arrest him, couldn’t kill him.

With that, Charlie had a terrible epiphany: the only thing worse than a live serial killer was a dead serial killer.

Sad truth was, Garland was her problem, to deal with on her own.

“Sorry,” Charlie managed stiffly, while exercising extreme control in keeping her gaze focused on the other woman instead of blasting Garland with a dirty look as his eyes lifted to focus on Charlie again instead of—all right, she was guessing here, but the general direction seemed right—Kaminsky’s butt. “The scream kind of—popped out. Next time I fall, I’ll try to remember to say ‘Ouch,’ instead.”

“You do that.” Kaminsky headed for the door. Reaching it, she looked back at Charlie. “Why don’t you do us both a favor and just go to bed?”

She left before Charlie could reply.

“You sure put her panties in a twist,” Garland observed as Charlie went to close and lock the door. Her spine stiffened. Turning to face him, her back to the door, she forbore snapping, I put her panties in a twist? You’re the one who made me scream, in favor of a more controlled, “Why are you here?”

Remembering Kaminsky, she’d kept her voice to a whisper.

Garland shrugged. “Beats me.” He, on the other hand, spoke in a perfectly normal tone. Because he wasn’t concerned about being overheard. Because no one but her could hear him. Thinking about it, Charlie practically gnashed her teeth.

Why, God, why?

“That’s not an answer,” she growled.

“It’s the best one I’ve got. So what’s up with the cop? You had FBI agents show up for you at the Ridge right before I bit the big one. You in some kind of trouble?”

“She’s not a cop. She’s FBI. They came to the prison because they wanted my help.”

“With what?”

Charlie knew she should have foreseen the question. The truthful answer, to help them catch a serial killer, didn’t seem like the smartest thing in the world to admit under the circumstances. Not when the man—apparition, whatever—she was talking to was a serial killer—former serial killer?—himself. Now that the excitement of Kaminsky’s would-be rescue mission was over, she remembered that she should be afraid of him. That she was, in fact, afraid of him.

He’s a ghost. He can’t hurt me. Can he?

She eyed him warily. “A case.”

“What kind of case?”

“What do you care? It’s nothing to do with you. You’re dead, remember?” Charlie moved away from the door as she spoke, heading for the bedroom. Having been plagued by the random appearance of apparitions for many years now, she’d put some effort into learning how to manage her affliction. Most of the spirits she encountered were harmless; she had never yet known one to be able to inflict physical damage on the living, but yet, she cautioned herself, was the operative word there. Nevertheless, some were malevolent, giving off negative energy that could adversely affect their environment and the people around them. And some, with Garland being a case in point, were downright frightening, whether she actually thought they could hurt her or not. Still others were merely stuck here on the earthly plane. Over the years, she had done enough research, and discreetly consulted with enough mediums, psychics, and clairvoyants, to know how to deal with wayward phantoms when the need arose. Knowing even as she had agreed to accompany Bartoli and Crane that the likelihood she would encounter the disembodied spirits of the newly, violently deceased was high on this excursion, she had tucked what she called her Miracle-Go kit into her suitcase. That’s what she was heading for now, with, unfortunately, the very ghost she most wanted to send into eternity standing between her and her objective.

CHAPTER NINE

Fortunately, Garland had no clue what she had in store for him.

“I remember, all right,” he said. “Piss poor job you did saving my life, by the way.”

“You bled out. There was nothing I could do.”