The day I tried to kiss my best friend Ryan he killed himself.

Seriously. I confessed my love after a decade of friendship, he scratched his head and said, “Whoa, didn’t see that coming,” then left my house and ate a bullet.

So six months later, when I stumbled into my kitchen (painted citrine-green to promote happy thoughts) at six a.m. and saw Ryan standing there, I did the only thing that seemed appropriate. I screamed. At the top of my black, former-smoker’s lungs. I knew I wasn’t dreaming. The coffee was perking on a timer just like it should be, and I had a full bladder and morning breath—all signs of reality. But that was Ryan standing there wearing a navy-blue T-shirt and jeans, looking very much alive and sporting a full grin. Yet Ryan was dead. Dead, dead, dead. Flat-lined, DOA, pushing daisies, In Loving Memory inscribed headstone dead.

I’d been to his funeral. I’d cried enough tears to float an SUV downriver, and had suffered so much guilt and anxiety I was on the edge of cracking. Snapping into a dozen powdery pieces like peanut brittle dropped on a hardwood floor.

Ryan winced. “Jesus, Bailey, turn it down. It’s the crack of freaking dawn.”

Hearing him speak startled me so bad I cut off mid-scream. My jaw worked for a second before I managed to stutter, “R-R-Ryan?”

“In the flesh,” he said, holding his arms out. Then he laughed. “Or something like that, anyway.”

“You’re dead,” I said, which wasn’t the most brilliant thing I’ve ever said, but I was feeling like I’d been clocked with a brick. My ears were ringing and my chest felt crushed, like it did whenever my mom’s cat took a snooze on my breasts.

He leaned on the marble counter and crossed his feet, which were shod in his favorite hiking boots. The ones his mother had insisted they bury him in.

“No kidding. Where have you been, Captain Obvious?” Then he leaned a little closer to me, studying my face. “Do you have the flu or something? You look like hell. Not that I know what hell looks like, since I’m stuck in purgatory. And I’m so freaking bored, I might actually be willing to take a chance on hell. But anyway, you look wrecked.”

“Uhhh…” I reached a tentative hand out, thinking to touch him, I guess.

“You can’t touch me, Bailey.” The smile wavered on his face. “I’m a ghost, though I don’t really like that word. It’s too dramatic for me.”

My hand froze in mid-air. He was a ghost. Ryan was a ghost. How incredibly and totally bizarre. Heart racing to rival a hummingbird’s, I reached for the phone.

“What are you doing?”

“I’m calling 9-1-1, because I’m having a heart attack.”

“Hold off a minute on that, will you?” He ran his hand through his short brown hair. “I need to ask you some things…like how long has it been since I bit it? They won’t let me have a calendar in purgatory. I mean, what kind of a rule is that? Why does it matter?”

“It’s been six months.” Six long, horrible months. Picking up the phone, I clutched it to my chest and stared at him in wonderment. I had always thought ghosts would be transparent, wispy sort of things, moaning or gazing in longing at the living. Ryan looked like he always had. He looked alive, healthy, exactly as if nothing had happened at all.

“Six months? Are you serious? Man, I thought it was more like a month.” Ryan glanced at his watch. “I’m going to have to keep an eye on that. Scary.” He shook his head. “Are you dieting? I think you should stop. That emaciated look doesn’t work on you. With your red hair, you look like an Irish orphan. You’ve got smudgy black circles under your eyes too, and it ain’t mascara, babe. Why don’t you fix yourself some eggs and bacon for breakfast?”

Maybe I really was sleeping and my stomach was sending messages to eat protein in the guise of a concerned Ryan. Very sneaky. Got to watch that tricky little piece of anatomy—you turn your back for a second and your stomach is completely in charge.

“I haven’t been hungry.” In fact, the thought of scrambled eggs made me gag behind my hand. I picked at my sleep T-shirt and went for the coffeepot. Some things can’t be faced without caffeine, and the ghost of my best friend was one of them.

“You got any appointments today? Stop off at the Bob Evans first and get loaded up. Nothing like a little butter to put the color back in your face.” He sniffed the air. “Man, I wish I could pick up a mug. I’m dying for a cup of coffee. That’s purgatory humor, by the way. Dying for a cup of coffee.”

Yeah, I was just cracking up.

“Umm, I have to stage a house on Avalon at ten, but I’m free until then. I was planning to catch up on some social media, clear out my email.” I also was planning to measure Ryan’s West Park ranch house, that his parents had finally put on the market, hiring my staging company, “Put it Where?” to get it ready for a quick sale. But it seemed rude to bring that up.

“Good. I don’t know how much time I have to hang with you, so drink your coffee and let’s plan our strategy for finding my killer.”

It’s embarrassing to admit, but at this point I completely lost it. Hysterics are not usually my forte, but I had spent the last six months suffering. We’re talking sobbing myself to sleep, therapy, guilt hanging like a choker around my throat kind of six months. And here he was, Mr. No Big Deal. Like strolling into my kitchen was expected and nothing out of the ordinary.

“Killer? Did you say killer? What are you talking about?” I said in something that could only be defined as a shriek, given that it rivaled an opera singer in pitch. “You killed yourself, Ryan, six months ago yesterday. You stuck your police department issued gun in your mouth and pulled the trigger in your car. You sent a text and you left a whole mess of people behind who hate that you’re not with us anymore. It was selfish and shitty and it sucks and I miss you and I…I…just want you to know that.”

My air gave out and I stopped to breathe.

“You think I killed myself?” Ryan stood straight up and stared at me. “Holy shit, how could you think that? What kind of a douchebag kills himself?”

Well, I had been wondering the same thing.

“I was murdered, Bailey, and I’ve come back so you can help me find out who my killer is.”

“Oh,” I said. It’s not easy to be witty in these circumstances. If Ryan had been murdered, that changed everything. It altered the entire scope of my grief and shifted my guilt to anger and my shock to horror. “Can we have a do-over?”

His eyebrow went up as I gulped half a cup of coffee, hot liquid sloshing over the mug and onto my red shirt. I brushed frantically at my now wet chest.

“This is crazy, just absolutely bleepin’ crazy! I want a do-over! I want to go back in time and erase February seventeenth. I want you not dead.” My words crashed to a halt with a wheezing gasp. “Crap, I’m hyperventilating.”

“Okay, take a deep breath, babe, come on now. I’d tell you to stick your head between your legs, but you’re standing up and wearing no pants. I may be dead but I’m not in a coma, and that’s more than I need to see.”

“Wait.” A horrible, humiliating thought occurred to me. “Do you remember coming over here the day you died?” And me trying to lay one on him. His quick cop maneuvers that allowed him to dodge it. The way he had stuck his feet back into his snowy boots at warp speed and muttered a few things at the floor that could have passed for a goodbye or a “Good God”—I was never sure which. Neither one was desirable.

If he remembered all of that, then I wanted to die.

“No, that’s the whole problem. All I remember is driving over to your house. Then it’s a blank until I pulled into the lot at the park. I don’t even know what made me go to the park, and I don’t know who was in the car with me. Because someone was. I know there was someone talking. Then nothing. I don’t know what happened.” He shook his head. “But I didn’t kill myself, and I’m pissed that you would think I would. What the hell? You know me better than that.”

“Ugh!” I gasped in indignation. How was I at fault here? “You sent a text to your mother! The department said you killed yourself, no question about it. Prints, powder burns, all that crime scene crap—they said it was clear that you did it. Going to see an old friend—me—is typical suicidal behavior. You transferred money, made a will, and drove yourself to a peaceful, private location that was meaningful to you!”

“The park was meaningful to me?”

He needed a sign that read Big Dumb Dead Man stuck to his forehead. Geez. “You told me you lost your virginity there!”

Understanding dawned on his face. “Oh. I’m with you now. Yeah, that’s right, I told you about that, didn’t I? Cami something-or-other. Can’t remember her last name. She had a great…” His hands came up in front of him, then he cleared his throat. “Sense of humor. She was a fun girl. But I’d forgotten all about that park. Those were good times.”

I rolled my eyes. “Your sensitivity is heartwarming.” Then I remembered where my thoughts had been going. I know, a little slow on the uptake, but the dead rising at six a.m. tends to throw me off. “So you don’t remember coming over here that day?”

“I said that already, Bailey. Keep up with me.” Ryan started to pace, his hands in the pockets of his jeans.

He had no memory of my little moment of insanity. My pathetic little speech about how all the feelings I had for him were much more than friendship. That kiss. Ugh. That attempted kiss. I had nightmares about that moment, where my lips inflated into giant taco-sized suction cups attacking Ryan while he pointed his gun at me and told me to freeze.

Man, I was glad he didn’t remember any of that.

Not that it really mattered, since he was dead, after all, but never underestimate the power of mortification.

“None of this makes sense.”

No joke. Give the dead guy a gold star.

I watched him as he did another circuit back and forth in front of my French country cabinetry, marveling that I could smell him. The scent of fresh-cut grass clung to him, with an underlying hint of sport deodorant. Since Ryan had died in winter, but now smelled like summer, I wondered if the seasons changed in purgatory like they did here in Cleveland. It seemed like a possibility, because wouldn’t purgatory replicate your real life? Or was it your own personal purgatory, like a Groundhog Day for eternity? Mine would be a slushy overcast day in March where everyone I know is in Florida on a beach and I’m stuck shoveling snow off my driveway with my power out. I banished the horrifying thought, worried if I lingered too long there, I would manifest it for my future afterlife.

“Why would the department rule my murder a suicide? I’m a detective, for God’s sake. I worked with those guys. They should have thoroughly investigated my death. They should have known I wasn’t suicidal.”

“They were all at your funeral,” I said, then realized immediately that wasn’t helpful. It was like offering a band-aid to an amputee. Totally irrelevant at that point.

But Ryan rubbed his mouth and looked curious. “Yeah? How many people? Did they have the police bagpipe band? I always wanted the band to send me off.”

“The band was there, and they played Amazing Grace on the pipes. Not a dry eye in the house. I guess if I had to estimate, there were at least five hundred people at the funeral. You got a nice plot at Holy Cross cemetery, by the way. Next to the fence, easy to find, but away from traffic.”

The one thing I’m always aware of is the value of real estate, and his gravesite was premium because of its location, location, location.

I should know—I’d been there many times staring at his headstone, searching for answers, peace, and an understanding that didn’t exist. Until maybe now. Murder was bad, but suicide was worse.

“Cool. My parents probably paid too much for it, but it’s good to know I’m important to some people.”

“You’re important to me.”

What? That wasn’t a vow of love or anything. It was just telling the truth. It could be my only chance to say those words to Ryan before he vaporized in front of me or something.

“That’s sweet, babe. You know you’re important to me too. We’ve been friends a long time, and I’d do anything for you, and I know you’d do the same for me. That’s why you have to help me now.” He reached out and his hands rubbed my arms.

Only I didn’t feel anything. They were touching me, but there was no sensation whatsoever. Only I could see him doing it. Hello. Freaky.

“This is very, very strange. Like the time I did acid in college and thought my roommate was a rabid dog wearing a figure skating costume.”

“You dropped acid?” Ryan snorted. “That must have been hilarious. You going wild is like telling a nun to go party.”

Well. Just because I was neat and tidy, and preferred to spend my weekends relaxing with a good, mind-improving (okay, I’m stretching here) book, suddenly I was a nun?

“There are sides to me you’ve never seen.” I reached for my electronic cigarette, which I knew was a seriously bad habit, but when you’re wound as tight as I am on a regular basis, you need something to dislodge stress.

I took a juvenile pleasure in taking a deep drag and blowing the scentless vapor cloud in Ryan’s direction. This felt so normal, like old times. He hated my habit, and before I’d quit regular cigarettes he had been known to flush them down the toilet, break them in half, and run over whole packs with his unmarked cop car. I had weaned myself onto the vape two years earlier, then had quit altogether the year before. But Ryan’s death had been a shock that had me reaching for my addictive comfort. Some people want the comfort of cheesecake, I wanted to suck down some cotton candy vapor.

“I thought you quit.” He capped that statement off with a fake hacking cough. “As for you having secrets? Please. I’ve seen everything you’ve got.”

He’d never seen me naked, but I didn’t imagine he meant that. He meant I couldn’t do anything that would surprise him. That he knew me too well. That I was safe and predictable and boring. In my second career, having left my post-college position as an evidence tech (I hate blood, so it was a lousy fit), I was a workaholic with a perky smile, neatnik habits, and zero social life.

My social life, or lack thereof, was his fault for making me fall in love with him, and ruining me for all other men. I used to be able to fake it. I could go for months and months without thinking about how much I’d rather be with Ryan. I would date and never worry that part of me knew I had stronger feelings for Ryan than I did for my latest boyfriend. That was when I was younger, and being propelled along by the excitement of sexual discovery.

Now I was twenty-eight, pretty sure I’d tried everything there was to do without getting too kinky, and no longer able to fight my feelings for Ryan.

So I’d told him.

And he’d killed himself.

Or not, said his ghost standing in front of me.

“So…you got sent back to solve your murder? I’ll help you if I can, but my mind is concerned with things like square footage, not homicide. Remember how lousy an evidence tech I was?”

It had actually hurt our friendship when I had quit. Ryan had endorsed me with the department as a hard worker, but some of the crime scenes (actually, all of them) had not been my cup of tea. Plus I sucked at wearing sensible shoes.

“Did they give you any instructions or anything in purgatory?” I asked. “How long are you here for?”

I took another hit off my electronic cigarette. I was feeling a little better, getting the hang of this communicating with the dead thing. Ryan was just like he’d always been. Nothing was creepy or gross or disturbing. Okay, it was a little disturbing, but this was like cheating. This was allowing me the chance, the time, to say all the things I had spent six months wishing I could tell Ryan.

“They don’t tell me shit up there. I found out I was killed, and I asked them for details, and they said they didn’t know the specifics regarding my death. How is that possible? Like, if they don’t know, who the hell does? So basically, I got pissed and told them to send me back and I’d figure it out on my own. They gave me permission if I agreed to follow some lame rules. Number one was that I can only be visible to one person, so I picked you.”

Warm fuzzy feelings stole over me. “You picked me? That’s so sweet! Even though I’m neurotic and vape and am not even remotely wild?”

He looked a little embarrassed, a hint of color in his cheeks. “Hey, we all have our flaws. And truthfully, I like you just the way you are. I guess opposites attract, even for friends. And I knew I could trust you not to freak out on me.”

No freaking here. I was on it. I felt better for the first time since I’d gotten that devastating phone call six months earlier.

Ryan hadn’t killed himself. He hadn’t been horrified by my declaration of love (or if he was, he didn’t remember it, which still worked for me). And out of all the people in the whole wide world, (five hundred mourners, you know), he had picked me to appear to.

“I figured you’d make up a little list and organize the hell out of an investigation.”

Darn straight. I could muscle anything into a To-Do List. “Okay, we’ll figure this out, not a problem. Let me get dressed real quick and you can give me the plan of attack. Tell me where to start.”

I dumped my coffee in the sink, wiped the stainless steel with a sponge, thoroughly rinsed the mug, than deposited it in the dishwasher. I wiped the mouthpiece of my e cigarette and plugged it back into the wall charger. I never took it anywhere with me, because it was far too tempting to hold it between my fingers all day cigarillo-style and pretend I was looking sultry like Rita Hayworth, when really I looked like I felt guilty over using it, which I did.

“You need to take a look at the police report on my death. Who was the investigating officer?”

I had a vague memory of a rather smarmy dark-haired guy with an Italian name who hadn’t been in the department when I’d worked there. I padded up the back stairs of my narrow Victorian house to the second floor. “I’m not sure. I’ll be right back, I just need two seconds to change.”

But when I walked into my bedroom, decorated in a mix of vintage and industrial pieces, heavy on the floral fabrics, Ryan was lounging on my bed on his side, head propped up by his hand.

“Hey, look what I can do,” he said, clearly pleased with himself.

I stopped in my tracks and grabbed at my chest, scared witless. “Holy crap! Please don’t do that again. I’m still alive, you know, and would like to stay that way. My heart can only take so much.”

“Oh, come on, I have to have some kind of fun. Being dead is very boring. It’s like sitting in the lab waiting for a blood test. Flipping through a gardening magazine with old people making phlegm noises in the back of their throat all around you.”

“Now there’s a disgusting visual, thank you for that.” I headed into my walk-in closet. “Why don’t you pop back out into the hall so I can get dressed?”

Instead, he appeared in the closet a foot behind me.

“Geez, quit it!” I dropped the hem of my T-shirt, which I had been hiking up past my hips, and scrambled away from him, tripping on the corner of a suitcase. “I would like a little privacy, please.”

“Just get dressed, who cares? I want to hear about the detective on my case before I get called back to hell—I mean, purgatory.”

I was not wearing a bra. I cared. “Close your eyes.”

“Oh give me a break.” But he shut them and leaned against a row of empty wooden hangers, which were waiting for my dry cleaning to be picked up and assimilated back into the closet.

I have a very organized closet. It gives me pleasure to see all the boxes of shoes, with photos of each pair attached to the front, lined up by color. Sweaters zipped into soft cases, handbags on hooks, and belts creating a colorful rectangle in the corner. Neat and tidy.

But it was weird that he was leaning and nothing was moving. “Hey, how come you can lean on things, but you can’t touch me or pick up a mug?”

“I have no idea. Like I said, they don’t tell me anything. I’ve spent the whole time since I died trying to get some information and all I get is cryptic non-answers. I’m a cop. I know BS when I hear it, and these guys have been handing me a load. They have to know what happened to me.”

“Maybe they know, but they want you to figure it out. Maybe it’s a test or something.” I took off my T-shirt and put on a bra in less than two seconds flat. I immediately felt better once the girls were secure. Left loose in Ryan’s presence, who knew what they might do. “Maybe that’s why you’re in purgatory instead of heaven. Or were you supposed to go to the light but you didn’t?”

“There was no light anywhere. Trust me, babe. And I definitely feel like I’m in a holding pattern. So maybe you’re right. Maybe once I solve the question of my death, I can move on.”

The thought made me feel a little sad. Of course I didn’t want Ryan hanging out in eternity’s version of a waiting room, but on the other hand, I was getting extra time with him. I reached for a sleeveless, floral print shirt, hanging in the tops/business casual section of the closet.

“You really have lost too much weight.”

“What?” I spun around and found Ryan staring at me critically. So much for his closed eyes. The aqua and yellow shirt was in my hand. Not on my body. Which meant I was only in panties and a bra, and he was staring at me. Damn.

“You look too skinny. Men like women with something they can grab onto.”

Nice to know even in death he found me unattractive. I rolled my eyes at the hangers. “Thank you. I’ll remember that next time I’m looking for a man to grab me.”

“Hey, I just had a thought. I wonder if I can still get a hard-on?”

Good grief. “You could have kept that thought to yourself.”

“No, I’m serious.” Ryan sounded agitated, but I refused to look at him. “Man, I don’t know which would be worse—never getting it up again, or getting it up and not being able to do anything about it.”

We were wading into waters I could very easily drown in. “I’m sure there’s a hot ghost or two in purgatory you can investigate this issue with.”

“I can’t wait that long—this is scary. Quick, just turn around and take your bra off. Let’s see what happens. I have to know.”

Nothing could get me into my shirt and wide-leg trousers faster than that. “You’re not going to be aroused by me. We’re friends. It’s not the same.” Unfortunately. “So forget it. I’m not taking my bra off in front of you. Pop into the Crazyhorse Saloon tonight and get the answers to all your sexual questions. That’s what sixteen-year-old boys do.”

I smoothed my shirt in place, finished buttoning my white pants and turned to face him. “Look, I’ll help you do whatever it takes to find your killer, but I have to draw the line somewhere.”

“I’d take my pants off if you asked me to.”

It was tempting, but I controlled myself.

He bit at his fingernail, a clear sign he was stressed.

I sighed. The hard-on mystery was not going to be solved by me, but I could apply myself to the murder question. “The detective who called me had an Italian name. He was kind of, I don’t know, overly nice. Oily, almost. He took a little too much glee in telling me that you’d, and I quote, “blown your brains out.”

That effectively distracted Ryan from his potential penis problem. “DeAngelo. That sounds just like him. He’s thorough, a good detective, but borderline weird. Sometimes I wonder if he can solve so many crimes because his mind is just a little too close to a criminal’s. Like a Dexter complex.”

No one could ever accuse me of that. I’d hated when there was blood spatter at scenes I was fingerprinting. But DeAngelo? It was possible he was into it. “I think that would be an accurate description of the guy I talked to on the phone. He approached me at your wake and gave me more details than I wanted to hear.” I was pretty sure that conversation was what had ruined my appetite permanently. “And when I was on the verge of vomiting, he asked me out.”

“He asked you out at my wake?” Ryan looked horrified, which was a good approximation of how I had felt.

“Yes. He did.”

“Mother-effer.” He stood straight, his hands curling into fists. “Who does that? I always thought he was a little off, but we got along. Yet I’m not even in the ground and he’s poaching on what’s mine?”

Hold it. Do not pass go, stop right there, wait a manic minute. Everything about that statement was so right, yet so wrong. It was like winning the lottery, but doled out at a dollar a day. “What do you mean, yours? I’m not your wife, not your girlfriend, not even your ex. I am your friend. While I admit the timing was tacky and inappropriate, there was no reason what’s-his-name couldn’t ask me out. And no reason I couldn’t say yes if I wanted to.”

Which would only have happened if I’d taken a blow to the head and suddenly found short, smarmy, arrogant men attractive, but the point was, the choice was mine.

“Don’t get your panties in a bunch. I’m just saying.”

I wanted for the rest of the sentence, but none seemed to be forthcoming.

“So what do you want me to do, Ryan? Find the police report. Okay. Anything else?”

“Try to remember what DeAngelo told you. And call Marner—he should be able to get you the report and answer any questions you might have.”

Marner was his former partner and good friend—his first name was Jake, though everyone but God and his mother seemed to have forgotten that. “Got it. I can do that.”

Ryan patted the pocket of his jeans. “Damn, I have to go. They’re calling me.”

“You have a cellphone?” I asked in horror. That was my vision of hell—a phone ringing at all hours in my afterlife. Non-stop notifications.

“It’s on vibrate.” He pulled it out and glanced at it. “Text message. What? They’re saying I didn’t fill out my Request for Reentry paperwork correctly, and I need to re-file. This red tape is killing me.” A grin split his face. “Killing me, get it?”

“I’m glad to see you’re taking this dying thing so well, and that you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”

“Got to roll with the punches, babe. And it’s not so bad, just different. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”

Sudden fear gripped me. “Wait, Ryan, don’t go—”

But he flipped me a wave. “Love you more than beer, Bailey. See ya.”

And he was gone. Not like a puff of smoke or sugar dissolving in iced tea, but just there one minute and gone the next.

I needed another cup of coffee.