There comes a point when you have to stop being afraid. As I stood outside the police station, I told myself that time was now. Yet my heart was still thumping and my palms were sweaty. Marner had asked me to meet him there and after the other night, when we’d had coffee and conversation and some legitimate lip-locking on my front porch, I was worried about why he wanted to see me.

Was he going to announce to everyone we were dating? No. That was ridiculous. We’re weren’t dating. Yet. Besides, you didn’t tell your co-workers about every twist and turn in your personal life. So maybe he actually wanted to let me down easy, tell me it was a mistake to kiss me. And do it in front of everyone, so I wouldn’t flip out? Okay, my mother was right. I did take things to the level of ridiculous. No one fixated the way I did. It could be absolutely anything, and most likely something awesome and flattering, like he just wanted to see me.

Instead, as I sailed through the security check-in wearing flare leg jeans and wedge sandals (going for a sexier, bohemian, whimsy Wednesday kind of vibe), Marner met me with nothing more than a “hey.” He didn’t even notice my outfit, even though I’d left the top button of my shirt undone, or the blowsy-breezy effort I’d put into my hair and makeup.

He didn’t touch me either. No hug, no hand tug, no rubbing of the back.

Deflated, I said, “Hey,” in return and waited for him to backpedal. The old “I never meant for you to get the wrong idea” speech. You know the one.

Yet like so many other women before me who angst endlessly over what a man was thinking, I was completely wrong as to what it was. In his cubicle he shoved some papers at me. “There was a five grand deposit in his account,” he said in a low voice. “From a retirement investment.”

That was both a relief (that he wasn’t telling me to buzz off) and disturbing (because why did Ryan have five grand?).

So Marner had taken me and my hysteria seriously. Or he had been curious. Whatever the case, he had looked into Ryan’s assets. “Maybe he wanted to go on vacation or buy a new truck.” Ironic that I was the one now playing devil’s advocate. But it didn’t seem that suspicious to me if the money had come from his own account. People withdrew money all the time from their retirement investments. Hell, maybe Ryan was anticipating needing to buy pills when his prescription ran out.

“Except it wasn’t his. It came from the account of someone else.”

I glanced down at the papers. “Who is William Peppers?” I whispered.

“I have no idea. But this looks like insurance fraud to me, and no offense, but I don’t think Ryan was smart enough to do this on his own. This is a white collar crime.”

“I don’t think Ryan was smart enough to do that solo either.” I couldn’t do it. Most people couldn’t. It would take someone seriously tech savvy and devious to boot. “Can we trace it, like with IP addresses and stuff?” I had no idea what I was talking about, but that’s what they would do on Criminal Minds. “Or maybe I can just look up who owns the company distributing the funds.”

When I looked up from studying the evidence in my hand I saw the reaction I had wanted earlier, delayed. Marner was looking at me like he was on Day 18 of Naked and Afraid and I was a wild boar.

“You look very cute right now.” He reached out and tucked my hair behind my ear.

Cute? Really? Yet I still flushed with pleasure. Hey, I haven’t dated in a while and Marner could make you feel like you were the only human being in existence when he looked at you.

This was the tricky part of crossing that line of friendship with someone. There was no telling what we were actually doing at this point. So despite my inner squeal, I tried to play it cool. “I have a business meeting in twenty minutes.”

“So what does that mean, you can’t go to lunch with me?”

“No, I can’t do lunch, but what I meant was I’m dressed up cute because I have a meeting.”

He looked amused. “I wasn’t talking about your clothes.”

But he did step back and give me space, which I needed if I ever wanted to breathe again.

“Okay, I’ll call you later,” he said. It wasn’t a question, because Marner didn’t ask permission. I had already granted him permission when I had agreed to let him kiss me.

He was a wave I could get swept along with, and that made me nervous. Besides, I suspected we had the exact opposite reaction to the information that insurance fraud was in play. I was inclined to believe that Ryan had stumbled onto it after the fact. Marner seemed to think Ryan had been party to the fraud. It made me wonder what he had seen from Ryan on the job that I hadn’t been privy to. A different side from the charming, carefree guy I knew.

“See ya,” I said.

I stopped by the evidence room where techs were doing what I had once done—scanning fingerprints electronically, processing evidence to send for DNA testing, and generally pushing around paperwork. Unlike on television, it wasn’t a glamorous job, and it didn’t require a science or forensics degree. It was for criminology majors like myself who were detail-oriented and could handle the mundane nature of the daily grind. I could have stayed if it wasn’t for the blood. And for the fact that when I was called to gather DNA, sometimes it was from a live human, and sometimes live humans protested. I hadn’t appreciated being called a skinny bitch by a rapist. Just a little unnerving.

All of those feelings came back when I saw my old co-worker, Sandra, bent over a computer, doing data entry. She had a pile of baggied swabs on her desk next to her. She glanced up and smiled. In her late thirties, Sandra was a divorced mother of two and had a sharp sense of humor. She was immune to gruesome crimes scenes, and part of me envied it, but part of me was grateful I hadn’t gotten jaded the way she had. But being a single mother made her pragmatic. She needed the job.

“Well, well, look who’s here,” she said. “I heard you and Marner were a thing. ’Bout time.”

The curse of having fair skin and Irish genes is you blush the color of a ripe tomato. There is no hiding embarrassment. “Who told you that?”

“I heard DeAngelo and Cox giving Marner a hard time about it. He never admitted it, but he never denied, so that’s totally an admission.”

“I don’t what we’re doing,” I told her truthfully.

“No one ever does.” She twirled in her chair so she was facing me. “Guess what? I finally got my ex’s ass into court. They’re garnishing his wages. I can move out of my parents’ house.”

“That’s awesome. I’m so happy for you.” She had been working on that for at least a year. Her ex-husband had hooked up with a twenty-year-old waitress and gotten her pregnant. That was his argument for not paying child support for his existing kids—he couldn’t afford them now that he was having another one with a virtual teenager. “I’m sorry I haven’t kept in touch better. It’s just, after Ryan…”

Her face hardened. Sandra was not one for expressing her emotions out loud. “Yeah, I know. No worries.”

Then because I was nothing if not irritating, I asked, “Did you process the scene?”

“For Conroy?” She cleared her throat and glanced down at her phone, sitting on her desk. “No, I had that day off. I was gambling at the casino.” But the way she was evading my gaze made me think she was lying.

Maybe Marner was right—I had to move on. There was no end to the questions. There were no answers.

But what was I supposed to do about Detective Dead popping up in my house at will?

That was the five-thousand dollar question.

The next day, I was laying on my couch with a headache from the humidity and a long day of work when Ryan sat on my shins. Too tired to reprimand him, I just said “Hi,” and continued to press a cold cloth to my forehead.

“Are you seriously dating Marner?” he asked by way of greeting.

I sighed. “I went out with him on something that could be called a coffee date. Why?”

“You do realize he’s emotionally unavailable, don’t you?”

“First of all, who are you, Dr. Phil? Second of all, I think you’ve mixed Jake up with yourself.”

“Oh, we’re calling him Jake now, are we?”

It felt strange, but I was. “Yes. We are.”

“I wasn’t kidding about the back hair. The guy is a gorilla. When we were at the beach he looked like an Asian sun bear. And Italians always cheat on their girlfriends.”

My head pounded worse. “Is that based on empirical evidence or anecdotal?”

“I don’t even know what that means, but it’s true. Every Italian guy I know has stuck his fork in veal that wasn’t his.”

That was by far the weirdest description of infidelity I’d ever heard. “Has Marner cheated on his girlfriends?” I’d bet my fully renovated Victorian he hadn’t.

“Well. No. But—”

Exactly. “That’s all I need to know. Stop talking. I have a headache.”

The air shifted and despite having closed my eyes I could sense him move closer to my upper body.

“Your phone is blowing up. You have a bunch of texts from Marner.”

“Don’t read those!” I sat up, grasping around the end table for my phone.

“Oh, and it looks like someone is threatening you.”

That really made me panic. “What?”

It was an unknown number again.

Stay away from the station. Stay away from closed cases or you’ll be dead.

Fear washed over me. “Oh my God, this is so creepy. How could someone know I was at the police station?”

“Because they’re a cop.” Ryan looked at me like that was the world’s most obvious thing. “Who has your number?”

“Marner. DeAngelo. The girls in evidence.” I sat all the way up. “It can’t be any of them. And it’s not Marner.”

“So that leaves DeAngelo.”

“But he doesn’t know I’m investigating your death.”

Ryan gave me a look of total skepticism. “Why, because you were so subtle?”

He had a point. Bailey Burke, crime writer, had not exactly been the world’s greatest cover. “I never claimed to be a PI.”

“He’s texting again.” Ryan gestured to my phone. “I think you should respond.”

Apparently my safety was not priority number one to these guys. “That sounds dangerous.”

“It says that you should meet him tonight at Edgewater Park.”

I squeezed my damp washcloth so hard water dribbled onto my shirt. The somewhat see-through one I had worn to entice Marner. I swiped at it. “I’m not doing that. Only a complete idiot would do that.”

“I’ll go with you.”

“You’re a ghost, remember? You can’t touch things.”

“Then ask Marner to take you. But don’t tell him why.”

“He’s not an idiot either. He never believes me when I lie or stretch the truth. He knows me too well.”

Ryan shot me a long look. “How well does he know you?”

Oh hell no. “That’s none of your business.” Not as well as apparently Ryan was thinking.

“You can still go. Isn’t Edgewater Live tonight? There will be a ton of people there listening to the free music at the beach.”

“That’s on Thursdays.”

“So tell him you’ll meet him tomorrow night. You can’t be killed with two-thousand people there.”

This was a bad idea. Yet I still found myself texting the unknown killer back.

Unfortunately, he said yes.

By the Proper Pig food truck. 7pm.

Almost immediately my phone rang. It was Sandra from evidence, which was weird. She hadn’t called my cellphone in at least a year. “Hello?”

“Hey, it’s Sandra.” She was whispering. “Listen, you didn’t hear this from me, and I’ll deny it until the day I die, but DeAngelo made changes to the police report on Conroy’s death. I saw two versions, totally by accident, because I may or may not have been having sex with DeAngelo on his desk at the time. There was a storm and the power went out that day and everyone left the station, and well…we lingered.”

Shut the front door. Was literally everyone getting booty but me? It would seem so.

“Okay, so what was the discrepancy between the two?” I wasn’t going to dwell on the Secret Sex Lives of Detectives.

“There were footprints in the snow—a woman’s, given the shoe size—in the first report. Nothing in the second.”

Very interesting. “Thanks, I appreciate you telling me.”

“I don’t know what it means, if anything, but I can’t lie about stuff like that. It’s bad karma.” She gave a hurried goodbye and hung up on me.

I tossed my phone down and relayed everything she had told me to Ryan.

“I told you DeAngelo was shady.”

It seemed he was right. “I still don’t know what that means, in the grand scheme of things.”

“That a woman killed me.”

Which made no sense to me whatsoever. What woman would want Ryan dead, and how did he explain DeAngelo’s involvement? My head continued to throb. “I need you to go away. If this is my last night on earth, I want to spend it peacefully.” Because if I was murdered, I had no doubt I would be stuck as Ryan’s sidekick in the afterlife.

“You just want Marner to come over and feed you some Italian sausage.”

I stuck my tongue out at Ryan. “You’re disgusting.” And possibly jealous, which I should not be so thrilled about, but I was.

“Remember the shoulder rug. That’s all I’m saying.”

I talked Alyssa into going to the park with me. Every Thursday night in summer, the city had a live band playing by the lakefront beach, with beer and food trucks. It was very casual, never overly crowded, yet a great place to catch the sunset and hear some music for free. There was a view of the downtown skyline and the beach, which, unlike in my childhood, was relatively clean. Not a needle in sight.

“I’m going to destroy a pulled pork sandwich,” Alyssa said. She was wearing a bikini top that was struggling to contain her chest, and the cutest high-waisted polka dot shorts imaginable. Her hair was pulled back with a retro scarf. Men kept giving her and her cleavage appreciative glances.

I was covered in a long maxi dress, terrified my skin would spontaneously combust from exposure to the sun. I had already applied sunscreen twice and we had only been there seven minutes. I opened up my collapsible chair and warily scanned the crowd. There was a band playing whose enthusiasm far exceeded their skill. Really, sometimes you have to know not to touch the Beatles.

Since the dinner Alyssa wanted was from the very truck the person of interest had named as the meeting point, I went with her, scanning the area nervously. I hadn’t told her anything, because I honestly didn’t know what to say. I had started poking around doing research on the name of the man Ryan had received benefits for. I had also started digging to see who owned the LLC that disbursed the funds. But I had a job as well, and none of it was my area of expertise. I was stumbling around the Internet witlessly.

There was a guy standing in line in front of us who turned around and smiled. At me. “Bailey? It’s Michael Kincaid, from high school. How are you? You look great.”

I had a vague memory of the captain of the football team once nodding at me and asking to borrow a calculator in calculus, but we had never been friends. We hadn’t even run in the same circles. I hadn’t been a party girl. “Oh hi, Michael, wow. Good to see you.”

“I heard you run your own business,” he said, his teeth very white as he smiled. His eyes were shielded behind sunglasses but he was shirtless and in swim trunks, so I could see he hadn’t lost his athleticism.

“Yes, it’s small but I love it. You remember Alyssa?” I tilted my head. “She works with me sometimes but primarily she’s an IT specialist.”

“My, my, my, Michael Kincaid.” Alyssa gave him a blinding smile. “You called me a heavyweight eater in the tenth grade.”

His eyes widened. “What? I’m sorry, I don’t even remember you.”

“Of course you don’t.” Alyssa rolled her eyes. “Alyssa Dembowski. You and your crowd used to call me Alyssa Demcowski. I had brown hair then. Braces. I used to wear T-shirts that said things like “Think like a proton and stay positive.”

Understanding dawned on his face. “Oh, yeah, Alyssa…wow.” He glanced down at her chest. “You’ve really grown up. You’re…gorgeous.”

Sometimes in the course of an ordinary life, you get restitution. Alyssa had just gotten hers. I knew without a doubt she’d be gloating over that until dark. “Thanks. You’re not so bad yourself. But it was never your looks that were the issue.”

The line moved up and Michael took a few steps backward toward the truck. He looked genuinely sheepish. “I’m really sorry for any and everything I ever said in high school. I was a show off and an idiot then. I’m much nicer now. Let me buy you a beer and make it up to you.”

“Make it two and you’ve got yourself a deal.”

While I sunk to third-wheel status, I realized this was the perfect opportunity to try to find Hostile Texter. I glanced at my phone. It was five to seven. “I’m not going to get a sandwich after all,” I said, out of nowhere. “I need a minute to think about it.”

Alyssa gave me a look like she thought I was insane for making such a random comment in the middle of her flirt session. Which I was. “Okay,” she said.

I waved. “Good to see you, Michael.”

Then I hovered around the barbecue sauce table, already regretting my decision to get out of line. That sauce smelled like heaven. No one looked suspicious or familiar. I went around the back of the truck, but I didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Circling back, I noticed Michael and Alyssa were gone.

“Hey,” a guy said, nodding toward me. He was heavily tattooed and was wearing a pair of shorts drooping low on his hips, no shirt. He had on a baseball hat and he was approaching me fast.

I realized I was wedged between a truck and a trash can and I started to move, panicking a little.

But all he said was, “Do you have a lighter?”

Relief coursed through me. “No. I don’t smoke.”

I didn’t. Take that, Ryan Conroy.

Since I didn’t see anyone who looked as if they were trying to make eye contact with me, I decided to give in to the siren call of pulled pork and get back in line. It was now ten people deep, but I could hang tough for that barbecue sauce.

Moving back to where our chairs were set up, my sandwich cradled in my hands like a precious gem, I wondered where Ryan was. So much for his vow to protect me in the form of phantom police. Spectre Security sucked.

He was sitting in my chair, leaning back with his eyes closed. “I heard that.”

“What?”

“Spectre Security sucks. That really hurts, Bai.”

Alarm made my palms sweat. “I didn’t say that out loud.”

His eyes opened. “Really?” He looked impressed with himself. “Damn, I can read your mind now? That’s next level.”

“That’s awful.” My mind was a chaotic neurotic mess with thoughts of both him and Marner and lies and death and cravings for nicotine. “Stay out of my head.”

“I didn’t do it on purpose.” He scanned the crowd. “This band sucks. And I would kill for a beer.”

Because he was in my chair, I was forced to spread out my beach towel and sit down. I couldn’t take Alyssa’s seat without her thinking I was a loon. Besides, she would just unknowingly sit on Ryan and I had a feeling he would like that far too much. Sometimes it was hard to have a best friend who oozed sexuality while you leaked anxiety. For once, I wanted to be sexy.

“Oh God, stop,” Ryan said. “Enough with the pity party. Is this because I said you’re a tightass? I’m sorry. You have your hot moments too.”

First of all, he was still in my head. Second of all, that was the worst attempt at reassurance I’d ever heard. “When have I ever had a hot moment? Don’t patronize me, it’s awkward for both of us.”

“When we went to the Christmas party three years ago at work and you wore that navy-blue dress that barely covered your crotch. Your legs were a million miles long and you looked like you needed a guy to bend you over a—”

Ryan cut himself off. “Anyway, you were hot that night.”

That made me warm. I had thought I looked good that night. I had felt confident in the bandage dress and those sky-high raspberry-colored heels. It was awesome to hear he had noticed. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

“That was before you lost too much weight.”

And he ruined it.

“Get out of my chair.”

He kicked sand at me with his boot. The amazing thing was it actually sprayed over my legs. Not a lot. But it happened. There was a pile of grains in the lap of my maxi dress. “Holy…”

“Oh yeah.” Ryan fist pumped. “I’m getting stronger. This rocks.”

It made me nervous. Not because I cared if he had the ability to move physical objects or not, but because it seemed to me that meant he was firmly entrenched in purgatory.

I was going to say something to that effect but then I realized a little girl a few feet away was staring at me. “Do you have an invisible friend too?” she asked.

Because of course I was talking to myself with everyone around me. Yikes. “Yes,” I told her. “His name is Ryan.”

She nodded, like this made total sense to her. “Mine’s name is Bart. He died a long time ago. He whispers in my ear at night and it tickles.”

Okay. Why were kids so eerie? “Does your mom know about Bart?”

“Yeah, but she doesn’t believe me.”

“I believe you.”

She smiled and went back to slinging sand into a pail, the strap of her bathing suit sliding down her round shoulder. She was about five and she looked like a mini-me. Fair skin, red hair. She patted the sand with brutal efficiency and repeatedly brushed sand off her suit and legs when she got a dusting.

“This is why I am glad I never had kids,” Ryan commented. “They’re freaks.”

Oddly, it was the first time I ever thought I might want some.