No …

Charlie’s own eyes popped open, to nothing but a whole lot of dark. She was, she discovered, as she lay there trying to make sense of where she was, gasping for breath and making soft whimpering sounds. Thrashing around in her bed in the FBI’s rented beach house, mourning a dead girl. A dead girl she hadn’t been able to save.

Dear God, I can’t do this.

“You’re safe, Doc. I’m right here.” That voice, coming to her out of the dark, instantly shut her up. It froze her in place, widened her eyes, and then practically gave her whiplash as she snapped a look in the direction from which it had come.

Garland crouched by the side of the bed. She couldn’t really see much more than his outline and the gleam of his eyes: it was too dark. But she knew without a doubt that it was him.

Her heart, which the dream had set pounding, slowed. Her too-fast breathing steadied. The tension in her muscles eased.

The ridiculous, horrible, impossible-to-process thing about it was, having him there actually made her feel safe.

His hand rested on the bed near her shoulder. She could see the dark shape of it against the white sheet. Just to make sure, just to test whether this was a dream or real or, third alternative, whatever the previous night had been, she put her hand on his.

It sank right through to the sheet, leaving her to experience no more of him than an electric tingle. No warm flesh or solid muscle and bone. Nothing substantial at all.

Her ghost remained a ghost.

He yanked his hand away.

“What was that?” He sounded wary.

“I’m awake, and this is real,” Charlie said, although not with complete conviction.

“Yes to both.”

Charlie rallied enough to frown at him. “So what are you doing in my bedroom? What part of off-limits didn’t you get?”

“The noise you were making was interfering with my enjoyment of Sports Center. I came in to shut you up.”

She was immediately self-conscious. “I was having a nightmare.”

“I know. Just like you did last night. I came in to shut you up then, too.”

Charlie sighed and bit. It was bugging her to death, and she had to know. What was more, he knew it. If this was reality and in this reality he was nothing more than magnetic energy to the touch, and if her dreams, where she could have imagined he was a living man, were hers alone, which meant that he shouldn’t have had the first clue what went on in them, then what, exactly, had last night been? Embarrassing and infuriating and unsettling as having this conversation was sure to be, she needed to have it for her own peace of mind.

“So you want to explain last night to me?” If her question was slightly gruff, it was because she still really didn’t want to go where this conversation would lead.

She could just barely see his slow, curling smile. “Short answer is, looks like I’m your dream man, Doc.”

If hitting him with her pillow could do any good, she would have done it. As it was, she went with what was practically her only option: ignoring it. “I’m serious. What happened last night?”

His smile widened into a wicked grin. “Well, let’s see: we danced, and we made out, and we got each other hot, and then you—”

“You know what I mean,” she snapped, before he could get to the part where she had started stripping.

He said nothing for a moment, and she wasn’t sure he was going to answer. Hitching herself up on the pillows, she folded her arms over her chest and glared at him.

“Garland. Stop being a jackass, and tell me how you ended up in my dream.”

“Try calling me Michael,” he suggested. “And I wouldn’t say no to a please.”

Remembering the circumstances under which she had called him by his first name made her heart beat faster. It was all she could do to keep her breathing from quickening.

She could feel him waiting.

“Michael.” She said it reluctantly, and thought she saw a flicker of something in his eyes. Despite her best efforts, she felt her blood begin to heat. The next word was several degrees less difficult: “Please.”

He smiled at her, slow and almost sweet. “Now, how hard was that?” He then eased into a sitting position on the floor beside the bed, with his back against the wall and an arm on his bent knee. Her eyes had adjusted enough to the gloom so that she could actually see him a little now. They were at right angles to each other, close enough that she caught what looked like a quick, wry smile. “Since in my present state climbing into bed with you and making us both feel real good isn’t looking like it’s an option, I guess talking’s all there is to do.” Charlie was just drawing a breath at the image this planted in her brain when he added, “Like I said, you had a nightmare last night. I got through your salt barrier—went right out through the ceiling—and came in to see what was up. There was this girl in your room. Dead girl—see, I recognize the type right off now.” Humor just touched his voice. “You were asleep, but you seemed real agitated, tossing and turning and moaning. I was just coming around the corner of the bed, trying to get between you and the girl in case she had bad intentions or something, when she saw me and started to turn away. Then—here’s the good part, Doc—you rose right up and tried to go after her. Not your body—it stayed where it was, in this bed. But you. Your spirit, I guess, if that’s what you want to call it. You went flying after that girl, who vanished right out through the wall. And if I hadn’t caught you around the waist and hung on, you would have gone after her. But I did catch you, and it was the damnedest thing. We were both the same, both as solid and alive as you are now and I used to be. I could hold you, Doc, and feel you. It surprised the hell out of me, let me tell you. So I grabbed on tight, and then we got whisked back to that dance where we were earlier, and I figured that must be where you were in your dream. Only me grabbing on to you took me with you.” His brow furrowed. “You got any explanation for any of that?”

Charlie’s eyes had widened as she listened. Everything he had said was a revelation, and while her mind pondered the ramifications she answered his question almost absently. “It had to be a form of astral projection. I don’t think I’ve ever done it before. In fact, I didn’t know I could do it.”

“You lost me, Doc.”

“Many people believe the soul can leave the body for brief periods while the body is still alive, especially while sleeping or under conditions of extreme emotion or duress. There’s actually a lot of literature backing it up.”

“Ye-ah.” Obviously dubious, he drew the word out. “So your soul and my soul met in the sky.”

His tone earned him a sharp look. “I don’t know why you sound so skeptical. You’re the one who’s dead and still walking and talking and causing problems.”

His grimace conceded the point. “ ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy,’ huh?”

She blinked at him, genuinely surprised. “That’s Shakespeare.”

“Believe it or not, I know that. I can read, Doc. Like I said, there wasn’t a whole lot to do in prison.”

At another time she might have marveled a little more, but just then her thoughts were finally coalescing to pinpoint the most important part of what he’d told her.

“The girl—the one you said you saw—what did she look like?”

“Blond. Pretty. A kid—maybe seventeen, eighteen. In a puffy pink dress.”

Holly.

There was no one else it could have been.

Charlie’s heart started to pound.

“You actually saw her?”

“Clear as I’m seeing you now. She was coming toward you, saying something, but when she saw me she vamoosed.”

Charlie sucked in air. “What did she say?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t quite catch it all. Something about a bag. ‘It’s in the bag,’ maybe, or ‘where’s my bag,’ or something like that. Like I said, when she saw me she shut up and got out of here.”