That was the thing about a man with a gun.

“If you’d told me you were going with your boyfriend, I wouldn’t have busted my ass breaking through your ju-ju walls to get out here,” a growly voice said in her ear. It was so unexpected that Charlie almost stumbled on one of the weathered gray boards underfoot as Garland materialized beside her, looking disagreeable as all get-out. He was bleary-eyed, with stubble on his jaw, and if ever a ghost could look like the morning after the night before, he did.

“Go away,” Charlie muttered out of the side of her mouth.

“Cramping your style, Doc?” But to Charlie’s relief, he vanished as suddenly as he had shown up.

She was left to deal with a jumble of emotions, none of which were pleasant and all of which it was necessary to hide as she reached the beach and Tony caught up with her.

“Beautiful morning,” Tony observed, smiling at her. With his chiseled features, dark eyes, quick smile, and tall, well-built frame, he was good-looking enough to make any woman take notice. Charlie noticed, but, unfortunately, she was not in the mood to appreciate. She nodded, and set out.

The beach was perfect for running: firm and flat, a wide, white sand surface that she refused to compare to the soft, crumbly texture of the beach she’d visited in her dreams, although that comparison—was this the beach?—was what immediately popped into her head. Dismissing the memory with an inner snarl, she picked up her pace. To paraphrase South Pacific, she was going to run that … whatever he was, right out of her hair. To that end, she put one foot in front of the other and concentrated on the here and now. She deliberately didn’t look at the Meads’ house as she passed it, although all she was actually able to see of it from the beach was the second story, which had its own terrible connotations that she wasn’t going to allow herself to think about. As it was, she could almost feel Julie Mead’s anguish rolling out in waves from the master bedroom. As long as she kept going and kept her eyes turned toward the ocean, though, she could cope.

The view was spectacular. The sun was just rising above the eastern horizon in an orange and purple and pink blaze of glory. Rainbow-colored breakers rolled toward shore. The temperature verged on hot—probably low eighties—but it was not yet humid, and a nice breeze blew in off the ocean. Only a few others—a couple of joggers, a wader or two—had ventured out so early in the morning, so she and Tony practically had the beach to themselves.

“You usually do five miles, right?” Tony asked. He was between her and the dunes and the houses, Charlie noted, and wondered if he’d done that deliberately, positioning himself to act as a buffer for her against the most likely source of potential danger, sort of like a certain kind of man automatically walked on the outside of the sidewalk to protect the woman with him from runaway cars.

It was a nice gesture, but again, she wasn’t in the mood to really appreciate it.

Damn Garland anyway. Last night he’d invaded her dreams. Now he was invading her run.

“You found out I usually do five miles from the background check you ran on me, right?” Charlie asked with resignation.

“Yes.” He kept pace with her easily, although she was kicking it up because she really, really needed the endorphins. A sideways glance told her that he wasn’t even breathing hard yet. Athletic, which considering his build wasn’t really a surprise. Probably played some kind of sport in high school or college. Plenty muscular, although he was less so than—anyway, he was muscular, and from the way he’d had his gear with him and his current lack of difficulty catching his breath although she was setting a mean pace, she guessed he must run regularly to keep fit, too.

Here’s the guy I should be dreaming about, she thought sourly, and scowled.

“Like I said before, I was just doing my job,” Tony said, clearly misinterpreting her expression. Since it was impossible to explain how cosmically unfair it felt that she had found this great guy at the same time as she had been saddled with the ghost from hell who unfortunately seemed to possess the ability to invade her dreams and make her wild with lust, she changed the subject.

“Any luck identifying the car from the surveillance film Officer Price gave you?” she asked.

He shrugged. “It’s a gray Avalon. Right place, right time to be of interest. No visible license plate or identifying marks. Driver impossible to see.”

“Hmm. So how helpful is that?”

“We’re having a DMV check run to identify all local owners of gray Avalons. I imagine we’re talking a fairly substantial number. Will our guy be among them? Who knows? It’s one more puzzle piece.”

“That’s what you do, isn’t it? Put the puzzle pieces together.”

“We have to find them first.” Tony gestured at a banana yellow shingle house a little farther up the beach. “If you’re going for five miles, that’s the halfway mark. We probably want to turn around there.”

Charlie glanced at him. He was breathing a little harder, and there was sweat beading his brow. Well, she was breathing a little harder and sweating, too. Usually she ran at a more deliberate pace, but this morning she’d felt the need to clean out as many cobwebs as she could.

“How do you know?” she asked.

“I try to run every day. Keeps me sane.”

Charlie gave the cosmos a mental kick. The thought of seizing the day and suggesting they run together regularly in the future occurred, only to be immediately dismissed. Later she might count it as an opportunity lost, but for now she just was not in the mood to pursue this particular romantic path.

She had a ghost to deal with first.

They reached the house Tony had indicated and turned around. Despite her best efforts, Charlie had another flashback to that thrice-damned dream. Only as she forcibly rejected it did her mind’s eye focus on the other key player beside herself and Garland: Holly.

Holly in that pink prom dress.

The connection hit her like a baseball bat to the head. The only possible excuse she could make for not having seen it before was that she had been preoccupied with Garland.

“You know, I think the dance connection is key.” She was huffing a little as she spoke now, which was good. Despite certain unwelcome mental intrusions, she was already feeling much less tense. “Last night I …” Dreamed was what she didn’t say. “… had kind of an epiphany about Holly Palmer—my friend who was murdered.” Tony nodded to indicate he knew who she was talking about. “I think she might have gone to a dance in the days before she died, too. I wonder if all those girls did.”

“I’ll have it checked out, although I don’t remember reading anything about the victims going to dances in the original files.” His breathing was coming a little harder than it had been, too, as he frowned at her. “You realize that if it turns out the girls who were killed fifteen years ago also attended dances in the days before they died, it makes it more likely that we’re dealing with the original Boardwalk Killer than a copycat.”

Charlie nodded. “I thought of that. But it’s also possible that this guy is a copycat who is intimately familiar with details of the original case, details that didn’t really register on law enforcement’s radar at the time. If he’s a copycat, he would be obsessed with the original. You’ve heard the saying ‘Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery’? This guy will be trying to slavishly re-create the original murders down to the smallest details.”

“That the current killer possibly finds his victims at dances is something that’s not out there in the media. Even the local agents are unaware. We just started to look in that direction ourselves.” Tony sounded like he was thinking out loud. “So if this is a copycat, he must be basing his actions off the original files, assuming this information is in there somewhere. How would he have access to them?”