“Are you sure you want to come to this?” Leighanne asked delicately, brushing her long blonde hair over her shoulder as she studied her husband’s weary face.

“I definitely don’t want to but I feel like I have to,” Brian explained, playing with the wedding band on his finger out of habit. 

“You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do.”

“The other guys are expecting me there. I can’t let them down. They’ve been there for me this whole time so I can’t very well stop being there for them just because I don’t think what they’re doing is right,” the blonde man shrugged and reached for the door handle, “If I don’t go now I never will.”

Leighanne nodded and watched as Brian got out then grabbed the cooler full of drinks from the back (his contribution to this soon to be annual get together).

Brian balanced the cooler delicately in his hands as he made his way down the beach, over rocks and driftwood, barely able to see over the tower of food and drinks he was holding. 

“Hurry up!” AJ chastised him, waving the couple down the beach towards their circle of lawn chairs. 

Brian rolled his eyes and didn’t change his pace at all, “I’m coming, hold your horses.” As he reached their small bonfire he could smell hot dogs and roasting marshmallows and smiled at the normalcy of it all. He put down the cooler and looked at all of his friends sitting in a circle around the fire and couldn’t help but feel sad when he noticed they’d left a spot for the friend that would never join them. 

“Took you long enough, I’m going gray over here!” AJ teased, grabbing a coke from the cooler full of ice. 

Brian smiled a strained smile and took his seat next to his wife, kissing her cheek quickly, “You have to have hair for it to go grey,” he teased AJ before becoming more serious, “Well I’m here I guess we can start.”

“I’ll go first!” Leighanne offered and everyone looked at her in surprise. When they’d come up with the idea to make the anniversary of their friend’s death a happy occasion, to remember the good times, they had assumed that one person who would not find it in them to contribute would be Brian’s wife. 

Leighanne took a moment to think, brushing her long blonde hair away from her face, “First of all I have to say I can’t believe it’s been a year. A year seems like such a long time. I know you are all well aware of the fact that he and I never really saw eye to eye on a lot of things but... I did love him. Now that he’s gone I feel like I see him everywhere I go. I can’t count the number of times I’ve done a double take thinking he was walking past me on the street…but…this is supposed to be happy so, here’s my happy memory. When Baylee was born he was a complete wreck; I think he was even more nervous than Brian was. The first time he held him it was like you could see he’d just fallen in love despite the fact that he was incredibly worried about dropping him, or doing wrong by him. I’ve never seen him look as perfectly happy as I did at that very moment, and I think it made Brian wonder whether he really was Bay’s father,” she laughed and everyone smiled, determined to get through the whole night without crying, “that’s my story. I will always think of how he looked that day.”

The older blonde woman looked to the person on her left, keeping the stories flowing around the circle but Brian couldn’t bear to listen. He kept looking at that empty spot across from him, wondering what could have been. The stories everyone was sharing were heart warming, funny, embarrassing at times and most definitely had been thought about in the days before their gathering to make sure they weren’t depressing. 

“I can’t do this!” Brian suddenly burst, interrupting Howie’s silly story, “How can you all just sit there and tell happy stories and pretend like everything is okay?! It’s not okay!” 

“Brian…” Howie soothed with a sigh, feeling for his friend. He had taken everything the hardest, and when they’d decided to have a positive gathering for this first year anniversary. 

“No Howie, don’t,” Brian wiped at his eyes, unable to keep himself from crying, “We’re all sitting here having a party on the very spot the police found his body, on the anniversary of his death! He’s dead and we’re roasting hot dogs and drinking beer and saying it’s in his honour!” 

“I only have a coke,”

“Shut up AJ!” Brian snapped, shaking his head angrily, “It’s not funny! You’re all sitting here talking about the funny times we had and whatever bullshit you can think of when we don’t even know what really happened to him! It’s not fair to him! It’s not fair!”

“How is it not fair?” Howie questioned gently.

“We should be out there looking for the person who took him from us not accepting the fact that he’s gone!”

“Brian, his case is still open, we haven’t given up hope that we’ll find the person responsible but there’s nothing we can do. We’re just regular people, not the police or the FBI, or whomever else. It’s not up to us to do the investigating. We need to accept the fact that he’s gone so we can move on.”

“If we move on then we’re letting his murderer go unpunished,” Brian said softly, looking out to the sea, watching the waves rolling in. 

“What can we do though?”

“I don’t know,” Brian sighed, not tearing his eyes away from the water, “But I know in my heart he would want us out there trying to find him some justice.”

AJ knew that in their small circle of friends no one was hurting quite like Brian, and he pained him to see his friend so torn up over something that happened a year ago, “It’s time to move on, he would want you to be happy,” he said as nicely as he could without downright telling him it was time to get over it. 

Brian shook his head forcefully, “I can’t move on, I can’t be happy until I know what happened that night. I just can’t sit here with all of you and pretend everything is okay because it’s really not okay. Nick is dead, do you get that? He’s dead! Someone took him from us, stole his life from him, and he’s never coming back. There has got to be a person out there that knows what happened on this beach. People don’t just show up dead! There has to be something the police are missing! I will not let him go until I know what happened to him. Come hell or high water I’ll make the person who took our brother from us pay.”

Kevin had stayed quiet the entire evening, not wanting to get involved in a battle of wills between the other boys. Since the day Nick had died it had been a struggle to band together when everything seemed like a complete mess. He often said that, referring to the day Nick died, but then he would be quickly corrected because in the eyes of others Nick never died, he was killed, murdered. Brian would correct any person who referred to Nick’s death as such in a heartbeat. His cousin had been the most involved with the police investigation to the point of complete obsession. Walking into Brian’s basement was like finding yourself in an episode of CSI. He couldn’t blame him though; he still sometimes couldn’t believe that their youngest brother was gone, just like that.

He remembered that night like it was yesterday. He and his wife were at home fast asleep when the phone rang, and anyone with family living far away knows that a phone call in the dead of night usually is never a good thing. He immediately thought of Kristin’s parents and his own family so he was surprised to hear Howie on the other end asking for help because no one could find Nick.

AJ and Howie were spending the weekend at Nick’s house. Some sort of bachelor’s weekend that the old married guys weren’t invited to. One night they’d decided to check out what the nightlife had to offer and had all gone out drinking. But by the time they were ready to call a cab for a ride back to the Carter Hotel no one could find their younger companion. Howie, AJ, and some of their friends had searched high and low around the club they were at for Nick. They called his cell; they called his house, anywhere that he might have been. After a few hours of fruitless searching they’d given up and headed back to the house to see if he was there. He wasn’t though, and they finally decided to call Kevin. There wasn’t a whole lot he could do since he was home in Kentucky and they were in Los Angeles, but it was their instinct to call him because they figured he would know what to do. 

’He probably went home with some floozy, wait until tomorrow to decide he’s missing,’ Kevin had dismissed them, annoyed that he’d been woken from a deep slumber because of Nick getting himself lost in Hollywood somewhere. 

Tomorrow came and went, the next day and the next day and still no Nick to be found. By that time they’d all gotten together at Nick’s house in Malibu, waiting for something to happen or for someone to call. Once again it was a middle of the night phone call that roused them all from sleep. This time Brian had taken the call, and Kevin hoped he would never again see the fear and deflation in his cousin’s eyes. 

‘They need one of us to come look at a body,’ Brian had said and they had all looked at each other, willing one another to take one for the team and go find out if it was Nick. Kevin secretly hoped they were just going to see their first dead body, come home, and find Nick laughing at them from the backyard. 

It was Brian who ultimately volunteered to go because the anticipation was killing him. He needed to know the truth more than anything in the world. When he got to the police station they explained to him that the body of a man fitting Nick’s description had been found on a beach outside a small town called Sunrise, only a short drive from Nick’s home. The man had been found stripped down to his underwear, bound, with a bag taped around his head. 

Brian’s call to let them know he had given a positive identity on the body was really the last thing Kevin remembered. After that there was a lot of crying, a lot of grief, and a lot of sedatives passed around the household. 

Brian had never really talked about what he’d seen at the police station that day but Kevin could see in his eyes that it was not the kind of sight you could just forget about.

The car door slamming broke Kevin from his trance-like state and he gritted his teeth to hold back the tears, now that a fresh onslaught of memories was plaguing him.

“Leighanne is getting a ride with us,” Kristin informed him and Kevin looked at her with a questioning gaze, “Brian wants to stay here for a while,” she explained, reading her husband’s body language.

“I’m worried about him,” Kevin admitted, looking at the silhouette of his cousin walking down on the beach.

“He’ll be okay…in a way he’s right, we shouldn’t start celebrating Nick’s life until we know how he died.”

“He didn’t die, he was killed,” Kevin said offhandedly, still watching Brian in the distance.

***

Brian kicked at the rocks, huffing out an angry breath with each stone he sent careening across the beach. 

“You’re so melodramatic.”

“Shut up, I’m mad at you,” Brian spoke aloud to the voice in his head as if he were conversing with his best friend right then and there.

“You know you can’t stay mad at me,” Nick’s voice told him slyly and factually. 

Brian shook his head, “No, I’m really upset this time. I can’t believe you would do this to me!”

“I haven’t done anything to you.”

“Yes you did!” Brian yelled out to the empty beach, “You left me! I hate you for that! I hate the fact that you got yourself killed and didn’t even give me any way of finding out why! I HATE YOU!”

“Take it back,” Nick’s voice was stronger now and Brian couldn’t help but notice the sudden clarity as compared to how his voice usually sounded when he was talking to him in his head (as crazy as that already was).

“I can’t,” Brian whispered then was suddenly surprised when goose bumps rose on his arms and the hair on the back of his neck stood straight up on end.

“Take it back,” the voice said again, angrier this time and Brian swore he felt someone behind him, watching him.

He whirled around, his eyes going completely wide when he saw Nick standing in front of him looking pissed off. 

“W...who...I…oh my…Nick?” he asked, his voice barely there as he squeaked out the words.

“What?” Nick asked plainly, crossing his arms over his chest.

“You’re…dead…”

“What are you talking about?” the blonde questioned, fighting back a smile. 

“You’re dead! I saw your dead body! I put you in the ground! You’re dead!” Brian was petrified with fear, his body rigid and cold.

“You’re crazy.”

Brian nodded, wide-eyed, “I must be going crazy that has to be it. You’re not really there, I’m just dreaming. This is all just a dream. I’m going to wake up and I’ll be at home and you’ll still be very dead.”

Nick watched his friend, amused, “I think maybe you should have your head examined.”

“This whole past year happened, I know it did,” Brian said as if he was trying to convince himself that he hadn’t dreamt up Nick’s whole murder, “I’m not crazy.”

“You are definitely crazy; batshit crazy even!”

“You…are you…you’re…alive?” Brian asked his voice full of uncertainty, his chest heavy as he panted nervously. He looked the man in front of him over and there was no disputing that Nick was standing in front of him plain as day. 

At his question Nick suddenly burst into hysterical laughter, slapping his hand on his leg, “I so had you going there for a second!”

“What?” Brian was thoroughly confused.

“Dude, I am so totally dead! I almost had you honestly believing I was still alive! Even after a year without any practice, I’ve totally still got it!”

“It’s official,” the shorter man sighed, “I’m crazy.”

“You’re not crazy,” Nick brushed him off, walking a little ways to sit down on a log; “I really am here.”

“But you are dead?” Brian wanted to clarify, still pretty confident in the fact that he was losing his mind.

“Yes,”

“Like a ghost or something?”

“Very much like a ghost or something.”

Brian ran his hands through his hair, trying to take it all in, “I thought visits from the other side were supposed to be heartfelt and meaningful. I didn’t think ghosts were supposed to practical joke.”

“This is me, I don’t do heartfelt and meaningful,” Nick shrugged. 

“I guess if I was expecting to be visited by your spirit I wouldn’t assume you would have suddenly become sensitive,” Brian reasoned in his mind, “So…why are you here?”

“You said you hated me,” Nick pouted, “Which you still haven’t taken back.”

“I won’t take it back, I meant it.”

“That’s unfair.”

“The guys…they act like you’re gone to the store or something,” Brian sighed and paused for a moment, thinking of questions he could ask Nick before he woke up and realized it was all a dream and he had been institutionalized during the night, “What happened to you?”

Nick pursed his lips, and then shrugged, “I don’t know I can’t remember.”

“What?!” Brian screeched, “How can you not remember what happened to you?”

“I don’t remember much of anything just bits and pieces here and there but only good things. It’s like the bad parts of my memories are gone,” Nick tried to explain even though he didn’t image he sounded any saner than Brian felt. 

“Then I don’t understand why you’re even here,” Brian huffed, “If you can’t even help me find who killed you then no one can!” 

“Who killed me?” 

Brian let out an exasperated sigh, “Well I would kind of hope that you could answer that question because I obviously can’t.”

“Maybe that is why I’m here,” Nick suggested, “I don’t really know myself. For the past couple of days I’ve been able to see what was going on down here but then I just found myself sitting on the beach. There’s got to be a reason, and that could be it.”

“How are you going to help if you can’t remember anything? Besides, once I wake up and you’re gone no one will believe I was talking to you anyway.”

“Brian, go home and go to bed and I promise you I’ll be there in the morning,” Nick assured him, only able to make out the older man’s outline in the darkness. 

“Nicky, if I wake up in the morning and you’re there…I’ll take it back,” he swore, meaning every word.

Brian slowly opened his eyes, taking a deep breath of the fresh morning air coming in through the windows. He’d come straight home from the beach and thrown himself into bed, trying to get rid of his delusions. He glanced over and saw Leighanne sleeping peacefully and decided to give her a morning off from mommy duty and check on Baylee before she got up.

He yawned as he hoisted himself from the bed, making his way over to the bathroom. He washed his face, trying to rid himself of the sleeplessness that had plagued him all night. Brian couldn’t believe the crazy things he’d dreamt up the night before. It had seemed so real but his better judgment told him that he was imagining having seen Nick on that beach. It wouldn’t have been the first time he’d dreamt about Nick but this one had been the most vivid.

Eyes closed he reached around for a towel, furrowing his brows when suddenly one was pressed into his hands.

“I thought you’d never get up.”

Brian’s eyes shot open and he flew backwards, his back slamming into the shower door, cracking it, “You...you…that was a dream!”

“Do we really need to go over this again?” Nick asked with a roll of his baby blues, “I told you I would be here in the morning.”

“Yeah I know, but that never happened. I was asleep, I was dreaming, you’re not real because ghosts don’t exist. It didn’t happen.”

“Brian, it happened. I’m really here, you’re really awake and your shower is now really broken. You won’t be able to magically wake up and get out of that one either.”

“How did you…grab that towel?” Brian randomly asked, looking down at the towel that was still clutched tightly in his hands. 

Nick shrugged, “I wanted to grab it so I reached out and grabbed it; just like you were doing.”

Brian’s heart was beating as fast as a speeding bullet as he watched Nick move around the bathroom. He still could not believe that any of this was happening. His brain kept telling him that it wasn’t physically possible for Nick to have come back from the dead. Ghost or not he was back from the dead and that just did not seem normal, “Can you…touch me?” he asked.

Nick gave Brian a disturbed look, wondering what kind of things he was implying with his question, “Do what now?”

Brian sighed, not at all shocked that even as a ghost, Nick could take a simple question and turn it all around so it was dirty and perverse, “Touch me, like my arm or something…just so I know you’re real?”

Nick still looked sceptical but finally he walked over to Brian and poked him square in the chest, enough to move him back so there would be no disputing that Nick had touched him, “Now do you believe me?”

Brian nodded and rubbed the spot on his chest that still stung from Nick’s finger, “I do believe you now. I’m sorry I doubted you.”

“It’s okay,” Nick shrugged and hopped up onto the vanity to take a seat, “You still owe me something else though.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, it’s morning, and I’m here,” Nick reminded his friend.

“Oh!” Brian’s eyes widened as he was hit with a realization, “You’re absolutely right, I’m sorry I forgot about things I promised you during my crazy delusion on the beach. I take it back. I don’t hate you.”

“Thank you,” Nick grinned, “So what do we do now?”

“Why are you asking me? Shouldn’t you be the one with the answers?”

Nick sighed and looked around the bathroom for some kind of sign. A sign that he had a feeling he’d never get, “I really wish I had some answers, dude. Like I said last night, I don’t know why I’m here, I just found myself on that beach and was so excited to see you…I don’t know what I’m supposed to be doing here. To be honest, I don’t want to be stuck like this forever. I left a lot of good looking dead women to come hang out with you.”

“I imagine this all must be really confusing for you too…” Brian’s thoughts were interrupted by a soft knock on the door.

“Brian?” Leighanne asked gently, “Are you okay? Who are you talking to?” 

“Yeah,” he answered, opening the door, “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing, I just heard you talking to someone…” she trailed off, putting the dog that was struggling in her arms gently on the floor. 

The small Chihuahua immediately ran into the bathroom and started growling and barking viciously at the bathroom vanity, much to Brian’s amusement.

“That’s funny, dogs bark at you!” he laughed, looking at Nick who had pulled his feet up onto the counter and far away from the dog.

“Dogs bark at me?” Leighanne asked, completely confused, “The dog is barking at the sink, not at me.”

Brian looked at Leighanne with a questioning gaze, then looked back to Nick, “She can’t…you can’t…see him?”

“See what?” Leighanne asked wearily, wondering what Brian was going on about now.

“Him,” Brian answered simply, pointing in Nick’s direction.

“I can see the dog just fine Brian and I don’t get why he’s barking his head off. Oh my goodness, the shower door is broken! What happened to it?”

Brian laughed heartily, running a hand over his hair. He was completely unsure now as to whether or not he was crazy. He had hoped that if someone else could see Nick also then it would validate his insanity, “Well I guess the dog is my only confirmation.”

“Confirmation of what…what is going on with you? Are you alright?” Leighanne’s voice was full of concern and she gazed at her husband as if he had completely lost his mind.

“I’m just great,” Brian smiled, “I’m going to be down in my office for a while, I have some things to take care of,” he explained, hoping that Nick would get the hint and give the dog the slip to follow him. 

***

Brian watched carefully as Nick turned the pages of his scrapbook, carefully reading the details in every article. It was still unreal to him, sitting with his best friend who had been dead for (as of the day previous) over a year. The page turned and Brian heard Nick gasp as he read over the headline blazed across the top of the book.

Pop Star Slain In Brutal Murder

“I can’t believe this is about me,” Nick whispered, running his finger along the page under the words that he read. Brian had kept every article about the murder, the police investigation, the follow up and eventually the admission that leads had dried up and the case was going to the back burner for the time being, “Why are you showing me all of this?”

“I was hoping that maybe if you read about your death you might start to remember some of the details,” Brian admitted, sliding the scrapbook back across the desk towards himself. With a sigh he tossed it in a drawer and snapped the drawer shut, not wanting to have to think about all the details of Nick’s death. It’s not like he would have needed the articles to remind him, he had every gory detail memorized. 

“You tell me,” Nick suggested, “You tell me what happened and then maybe I’ll remember something.”

Brian let out a frustrated grunt, running his hands through his hair roughly, “I don’t know what happened, Nick! I can’t tell you what I don’t know! Everything I know is in those articles.”

“How do we even know that’s why I’m here?” Nick wondered, getting frustrated by how Brian was pushing him to remember things he didn’t think he could. It was like his memories were erased, it wasn’t like he’d just forgotten about what had happened. It was gone. 

“Why else would you be here?” 

“I don’t know!” Nick shrugged, “Maybe I’m here to…be a really cool Halloween party guest?”

“Yes Nick, that must be it,” Brian rolled his eyes, “What a great conversation starter you’ll be when no one can even see you!”

“Not necessarily. Leighanne can’t see me, but who knows; maybe someone else might be able to?”

Brian nodded, “You might be right. We should find out if the guys can see you too.”

“Even if they can’t…” Nick trailed off, sheepishly looking down at his hands, “I’d like to see them,” he confessed, his voice tinged with a loneliness that shook Brian to the core. At least during this past year they’d had each other, but Nick had been on his own, without them, wherever he was. 

“Let’s find out,” Brian said, reaching for the telephone.

“Who you gonna call?” 

Brian chuckled as he dialled a number, glancing up at Nick as the line began to ring, “Ghostbusters!”

“Mean,” Nick pouted, crossing his arms over his chest. 

“You love it,” the older man grinned.

“Yeah, I do, it was a great burn,” Nick finally laughed.

Brian smiled then drew his attention to the phone as he heard a hello on the other side of the line, “AJ! Hi, it’s Brian. What would you say to a home cooked meal? I want to make up for being such an ass yesterday.”

Nick drew his attention elsewhere as Brian spoke on the phone and he reflected back on the articles in the scrapbook. He wanted to remember so badly, but every time he tried to pinpoint a specific time in his mind he would come up blank. After reading what had happened he was sort of glad he’d forgotten. He knew that those kinds of memories would not be the kind he would want to carry with him into the afterlife, so he hadn’t. Finding the person who had hurt, and ultimately killed him seemed to be something Brian was very passionate about so he was determined to help him achieve that. He couldn’t blame him of course, he was sure that if he were in that position he would want to find the ‘bad guy’ as well. He only wished he could be more of a help to Brian and the other guys. There had to be something he had in him that would help, he only needed to find it. 

Nick had been wishing since the moment he’d found himself on the beach that he could go back and get those lost memories, to help him help Brian. He was worried that even in death he would fail his best friend. At the same time he was also worried that Brian would start to ask about what it was like on the ‘other side’ because it was just another thing on the long list of things he couldn’t tell him. 

“Nick?” Brian asked, watching his friend stare into space. 

“Sorry, I was just thinking.”

“What were you thinking about?” Brian wondered, wanting to know everything that could have possibly been going on in Nick’s mind. 

“I’m sorry.”

“I’m confused.”

“You were right to hate me,” Nick sighed, “I was such a screw up when I was alive and then I had to go and get myself killed like you said, and I didn’t even leave so much as a clue. Isn’t that just like me? Someone is trying to end my life and I can’t even leave a breadcrumb to help lead the way.”

“I wasn’t right,” Brian stressed, not wanting Nick to feel guilty, “I just don’t understand it. If someone wanted your money they would have asked for some, if someone wanted to be famous they would have left something behind but there was nothing! The entire crime scene was clean, the police said your body had been moved, that you hadn’t been killed on the beach you were just put there. The only thing the DNA evidence showed was that you’d had sex with Toni the night you'd disappeared. They could tell the DNA was old and there wasn't much of it left, but it still gave a link to her from that night; all of us cleared her though because she was your girlfriend. She was a complete mess; we knew she’d never be able to do that to you. The police figured there was no way she could have done it because she couldn’t have lifted your body and carried it down the beach, so the only suspect in the whole investigation was your girlfriend and it only took the police two days to clear her of everything. Then of course we had hotlines set up to try and find out if anyone had seen anything the night you disappeared but all of the wacko fans calling had the police going all over the state, hell, all over the country on wild goose chases that lead to absolutely nothing. We know as much today as we did a year ago.”

“I want to help you Brian but I don’t know how,” Nick muttered, putting his head in his hands.

“We’ll figure it out Nick,” Brian assured him, “but for now let’s concentrate on finding out if I’m the only lucky one who gets to hang out with Casper. Now I have to tell my wife we’re having guests for dinner. Maybe you should stay in here…I can’t explain the angry dogs all day long.”

“I’ll be as quiet as a church mouse,” Nick assured him, zipping his mouth closed dramatically.

“Normally I would say you’re full of shit but since I’m the only one who can hear you I guess I’ll have to take your word for it,” Brian laughed with a shake of his head. He gave Nick a smile then left him in the office, leaving the big investigation for another day.

Nick slowly opened his eyes, blinking at the light shining against his face. Once he was focused he stared at his own reflection in a large mirror, curiously looking over his every feature. He looked the same now as he did before he had died, the only difference being that there was no such thing as highlighting in the afterlife so his hair had grown in a dark blonde, which he couldn’t say he disliked. It complimented him, made him look older. 

‘As old as I’m ever going to get,’ he thought bitterly. 

Something new in the reflection caught Nick’s eye and he glanced behind him, shocked to find himself in an entirely new location once he’d turned. He glanced around for a sign, trying to figure out where he’d ended up. 

“NEXT!” a loud shout called out and Nick saw a woman behind a desk, waving him over towards her. 

“Um, hi,” he spoke, approaching the tall oak desk that nearly hit him mid-chest, “What is this place?”

“The library,” the woman answered testily as if he should have already known and Nick could hear a bit of a Caribbean accent in her voice. 

“So, what am I in line for if this is the library?” he laughed, glancing around to see that he was the only person in the entire room aside from his friend manning the desk.

“Well you can’t very well just go around looking at whatever you want!” she threw her dark hair over her shoulder dramatically and crossed her arms firmly across her chest.

“I’m really not that into books actually, I don’t want to go looking around!” Nick assured her, not wanting this woman to get upset over nothing.

Suddenly she laughed. A loud, raucous laugh that Nick felt vibrating in his ear drums, “This isn’t a library of books, silly child. This is a library of memories!”

“Memories…but, how did I even get here in the first place?” Nick questioned curiously, scratching his forehead. 

“You asked to come here,” she told him with a shrug.

“No I didn’t!”

“Yes you did! You said to yourself that you wanted to remember, so here you are. Don’t think that your thoughts are your own anymore. Someone can always hear what you’re thinking and see what you’re doing and will try and get you what you need.”

“I do need them!” Nick stressed, “So where are they and how do I get them back?”

“You follow me,” she instructed, leading Nick behind the desk and through a door which lead down a long, bright, hallway.

Nick followed along behind her, taking a moment to look the woman over. She wore a long skirt with many different vivid colours and a peasant top, and her long hair hung down her back in braids almost to her hips. He thought it was odd to find a person like her to be running a place like this. He would have half expected it to be angels or something sitting behind the desks…of course he would have preferred if they were the Victoria’s Secret kind.

“Where are you taking me?” he asked aloud, reading the labels on the doors as they passed them. 

“We need to get to C, don’t we?” 

“What do I call you?”

“Flora,” the woman answered, pulling him down yet another hallway where the doors suddenly were labelled with last names beginning with the letter C, “This is you,” she announced, stopping in front of a door. 

“So what happens now? I just get them and go?”

Flora sighed and looked at Nick critically, wondering how she could explain the seriousness of what he was about to do, “When you died we went through your memories and picked out the ones we deemed too upsetting to bring along to the afterlife with you. All your mistakes, regrets, pain, and heartaches, all of it was taken to keep you happy now that you’ve moved on from your earth life. If you go in that room and you get your memories you’re going to have them forever. All of that pain – physical and emotional, all of your hurts will come back to you. If you make the decision to go in that room you’re making the decision to let everyone else be happy while you may suffer internally with the knowledge of what you’ve done in the past or what was done to you.”

Nick didn’t want to spend his eternity with regrets, and he sighed, running a hand through his hair, “My biggest regret will be not helping Brian get closure.”

“Don’t do this for someone else, only do it for you,” Flora warned him.

“Brian’s closure is my justice,” he explained, “I need to know what happened that night so I can help Brian find out who killed me.”

“Don’t think that your memories hold the key to that answer! Things might not be all that you think they are! Besides, that’s what the police are for, you shouldn’t meddle.”

“They’re not doing their job though! I’m the only person that truly knows the answers! Hasn’t anyone else been in this kind of position before?”

“Of course,” she nodded, still fiddling with the room key, “Any time there’s a sudden development in a police investigation years after the case has gone cold it’s usually because of things like this. Someone decides that their family has gone through too much and they send information to the other side.”

“I don’t want my family to go through any more than they already have. They deserve answers, I deserve answers. It would be different if I had given you those memories but I didn’t, they were taken from me before I got the chance to say I didn’t need them,” Nick argued, tempted to just grab the key from the woman so he could see what was on the other side of that door. 

“Okay,” Flora nodded, knowing he was going to want this no matter how she put it, “I just want you to realize Nick that when you go in there you might not find what you’re looking for. The answers you think are held in your memories may have never happened in the first place.”

“I know they’re there, I can feel it,” Nick whispered, holding a hand firmly over his heart. 

Flora reached out and unlocked the door, both of them shielding their eyes at the initial brightness that spilled out from the opening. She grabbed Nick’s arm and lead him in, both of them stopping in front of a small box that looked very much like a safety deposit box. 

“That’s it?” Nick asked curiously and the older woman nodded.

“I need you to decide…what do you want back? Do you want everything or just a particular moment in time?”

“I want it all,” commanded the blonde strongly, “I can’t risk missing a single detail.”

Flora nodded and gave Nick a small key, pressing the warm metal into the palm of his hand, “All you need to do is open the box and everything will come back to you. I will warn you though that you’ll relive all of those moments, and how they physically felt…including the reason you’re standing here in front of me. It might be very painful for you to experience.”

“I need to do this,” he retorted, staring straight down at the box as Flora left him alone in the room to experience the missing pieces of his life all over again. 

Flora’s final words had shaken him slightly and Nick faltered while reaching for the box. He was afraid to experience his death. He knew the details from reading the articles in Brian’s office but he could never remember that happening to him. He didn’t know what was done to him during the days he was missing, and he was terrified to know what it felt like to die. He wasn’t at all sure if the clues and secrets he so desperately desired would be found in the small box, but if anything he would be able to give Brian some sort of indication of what he’d gone through during his final days. He didn’t want to let Brian down, he was far more worried about knowing Brian’s life was happy and fulfilled. 

Taking a deep breath Nick reached out and put the key in the lock, as he let all of the air out of his lungs he shut his eyes and turned the key, ready to find out the truth no matter what the cost. 

One Year Previous

Nick finished the rest of his beer, putting the bottle on the bar next to the rest of them with a thud. He glanced around the club, looking for someone who looked halfway interesting to dance with. He’d come with Howie, AJ, and some of their friends but had lost them earlier in the evening as everyone spread around the dance floor. 

“I need to talk to you!” a voice called to him over the thumping music and he glanced to his right, surprised to see his girlfriend (now EX girlfriend) Toni standing beside him looking positively frightened.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, leaning down to speak into her ear. 

“I really need to talk to you!” 

Nick sighed and rolled his eyes, the drama was so typical of her. Grabbing her arm he led her through the club and out the backdoor to the parking lot, “What is it?” he asked, pulling a cigarette out of his pocket. 

“Can we talk in your car?” Toni asked, looking over both of her shoulders nervously. 

“Why don’t you just tell me what this is about? If you’re trying to get back together with me it’s not going to happen. I told you yesterday, I’m not going to stay with a girl who is obviously cheating on me. I need to just do my own thing for a while.”

“This has nothing to do with yesterday I promise you I don’t want to get back with you,” Toni stressed, finally convincing him to talk in the car. 

Nick picked up on her nervousness, wondering what on earth was going on with her. He might have been upset with her but he’d been with her for so long he couldn’t help but be concerned, “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“You remember all of the phone calls we kept getting at the house…the hang-ups, the pranks, all of that?”

Nick nodded, “Of course I remember, that’s how I found out you were with someone else if you recall?”

“I know something that I don’t think I should know and I’m worried someone might try to hurt me!” she blurted out, her body shaking slightly.

“Who would want to hurt you?”

Toni did another 360º scan of the area before she turned back to Nick, “The guy that I was seeing when you were on tour is not a very nice guy at all. Well, it’s not that he’s not nice it’s just he’s in the type of business that gets you into dangerous things. He’s into all sorts of things he shouldn’t be into and someone gave him something to hold onto, something that’s very important to them…and I took it.”

“Why would you do that?” Nick demanded with his eyes wide as he listened to her crazy story, “Why would you take something important from someone who you say is into bad things? This makes absolutely no sense!”

“I don’t know!” she admitted, “I thought if I took it then maybe he would just forget about it and maybe later on I’d be able to use it if he pissed me off or something.”

“That was stupid,” Nick sighed, bringing his forgotten cigarette to his lips. He patted his jeans, looking for his lighter but Toni was quick on the draw, handing him a pack of matches, “Thanks,” he said, thinking how odd it was for anyone to carry matches anymore.

“Keep ‘em,” she instructed.

“So why are you coming to me with this? How could I possibly be of any help?” Nick asked curiously, tossing the matches into the centre seat console absentmindedly. 

“To be honest, I was hoping that if things got too intense and I needed to get away, that maybe you could lend me some cash just until I can find somewhere else to live.”

Nick rolled his eyes, “Of course this is about money, why else would you come to me? I might as well change my name to ‘Bank of’.”

Toni was about to reply when a loud knock on the window interrupted their discussion, “Oh my god Nick,” she suddenly gasped as she noticed who was outside the window. 

In a flash they were both pulled from the vehicle, Toni screaming as Nick was slammed up against the side of his SUV. He felt adrenaline surge through his veins as he looked at the men who were holding him down and he struggled against them, throwing fists and his body against them to get away. 

His efforts were fruitless though because a firm smack to the back of his head with a pistol was all the other men needed to render him completely unconscious. 

***

Nick blinked slowly, coming to for what seemed like the hundredth time. His mouth tasted like metal, and he could feel his lips sticking together from all of the caked on blood. He had been slipping in and out of consciousness since he and Toni were taken from the parking lot at the club. He was certain that it had been a long time since that happened. It had to have been at least a day because from what he could tell it was dark outside just as it had been when they were taken. 

There had been so many questions asked of him, and so many answers that he couldn’t give them. They were under the impression that Toni had told him about something but apart from asking him for money she hadn’t really told him anything.

“Hey, he’s coming around again,” a gruff voice spoke and Nick tried to look up and see who was speaking but his vision was completely unreliable. He’d been hit in the eye so many times the blood vessels had burst and all he could see was a sea of red out of his right eye. 

“Maybe he’s finally ready to talk,” another voice suggested and Nick just tried to shake his head so they would know that he didn’t have anything to say, “What did she tell you about the list?”

“I…no list, she didn’t…say,” Nick whimpered, yelping when he was immediately hit in the stomach, stealing any air he may have had in his lungs.

“You’re lying!” the man yelled in his ear, shoving him roughly, “I know that stupid bitch told you! Why else would she have gone running to you? She told you about the list to make me angry!”

The two men seemed to walk away but Nick could just barely make out what they were saying.

“We should just get rid of him, that way whatever he knows goes with him and Mr. Esposito never has to know that the list got out of our hands,” the original voice suggested and Nick held back tears, praying to God that they wouldn’t kill them. 

He heard the second man sigh heavily and he didn’t trust the silence that was in place of a response to the suggestion. 

“Please…Please! Don’t…kill me…” Nick cried out, never having been so scared in his entire life. 

“You’re begging now? You’re going to sit there and beg for your life when all along you and that bitch have been trying to ruin me?!” the man struck him again, leaving his ears ringing.

Nick wanted to tell the man again that he didn’t know anything, he was completely innocent in the whole thing but he didn’t know how to get the words out of his mouth. He knew though that whatever he would say would mean nothing. They’d found him with Toni and she had obviously threatened to relay whatever information she knew to bring down this man. It was meaningless to try and plead because even if he didn’t know too much before, he certainly knew too much now. He knew that there was a list, Toni knew about it and where it was, and he could identify these two men by their voices. A horrible sinking feeling settled in his stomach as he realized they had mentioned a name. The name of their boss he had guessed. They would have never mentioned a name and made themselves vulnerable if they had any intention of letting him go. His breath was coming in fast pants as he realized he was not going to live through the rest of the day. He couldn’t believe that it would end like this, that he would never see his parents again, or his brother and sisters. He would never see his friends again, or the Boys. He would never get married, or have kids, or grow old. He just couldn’t believe it.

Slowly, Nick forced himself to lift his head straight, fighting to focus his good eye so he could see. Finally when he saw around him he realized he was in what seemed like a warehouse, full of shipping containers. He was nearly naked, and his skin looked completely red, dotted with blood from his face and chest. His breath was heavy and laboured as he looked around the room, wondering what had happened to his captors. 

‘Maybe I can escape, I have to at least try,’ his mind tried to convince him but the more he realized he wouldn’t be physically able to get himself out of his binds the more frightened he became. Nick could feel hot tears running down his face as he heard footsteps coming up behind him. He could hear someone breathing heavily behind him and the presence of someone standing just behind his chair. His breath became more ragged, wondering what was about to happen. 

In a flash he could see nothing but white and the air was gone. He struggled to breath, fighting against his binds despite how they cut into his flesh. It was the most agonizingly painful thing he’d ever experienced; his lungs burning like someone had thrown a match down his throat. The pressure on his Adam’s apple was as intense as the pain of having no oxygen, and it didn’t take long before he got light headed and gave in, ending the fight. He only managed a few short staggered puffs of breath before the bag that had been put over his head left him void of everything his body needed and he slipped into black.

Brian checked yet another room, wondering where his charge had run off to. It had been hours since he left Nick in his office to go talk to his wife, and when he’d returned he found his friend gone. Brian had searched the house completely, wondering if finally his brain had snapped back to reality and Nick had never been there in the first place. 

As he stepped outside onto the porch he let out a sigh of relief, glad to see Nick sitting on the railing of the deck. As crazy as he thought he was for seeing him, he was sort of getting attached to having him back, and didn’t want him to leave again. 

“What’s wrong?” Brian asked as he approached the young man. The sun was hitting Nick just right, making him look foggy and…see through. Nick had always looked solid, and just as he did before he died so to see him looking so ghostly was a bit of a shock to the system. 

“Remember when you told me Toni had been cleared after the police found that DNA on my body?” Nick asked, not looking away from the backyard. 

“Yes, I remember. Why do you ask?”

“Toni and I did have sex but if I was gone for two days before my body was found, it would have been four days since she and I had been together. I had showered, I had changed my clothes, and I had gotten her completely out of my system…how could the police have found her DNA on my skin still? Hell, I was found at the beach…did the tide never come in? Was my body bone dry when they found it?”

“Do you remember all that?”

“Just answer my question please,” Nick sighed. 

“Well, they did search your house maybe they found it there?” Brian suggested, shrugging his shoulders slightly. He wanted to know what Nick remembered about who had hurt him not what his libido was like before he was taken.

“You said they found it on my body! Did they find it in my house or on my body?” the younger man demanded.

“I’ll check,” Brian held up his hands in defence then ran back into his office to grab the folder that he kept all of the police reports in. He’d hired a private detective who had managed to scrounge up all of the things the police had refused to give him. He brought the folder back out to the deck, reading over some of the information, “On your body. It says here the DNA was on your body.”

“They’re lying!”

“The police are lying?” Brian questioned, surprised by Nick’s revelation, “How do you figure?”

“The day before I went to that club with Howie and AJ I broke up with Toni. No one knew about it because I wanted to deal with it myself without everyone thinking I needed their help. She and I had…been together, that day and then I saw a bunch of text messages her in phone…I can’t recall exactly what they said but I asked her if she was cheating on me. She eventually told me that during our last tour she’d started seeing someone else, had tried to break it off but then decided not to. She’d been seeing us both since then. I kicked her out right then and there, and the first thing I did when she walked out the door was have a shower. I wanted her off of me, so I scrubbed until I was raw. There’s no way there was enough DNA to make her a suspect left on my body four days later,” Nick theorized to his friend, finally turning around to face him. Since he had gotten back from the library a lot of things started to make sense in his head, or rather, they didn’t make sense. He was deeply disturbed by the memories he’d gotten back, but now he needed to help Brian and not think about his own misery. 

“Did you get your memories back?” Brian asked, not wanting to touch on what Nick had just told him before knowing exactly how he knew all of those details.

“Yes, I have them back,” Nick replied, his voice full of frustration, “Back to the matter at hand!”

“Okay,” the older man nodded, “So you think the police fabricated the evidence because…?”

“They didn’t need DNA to lead them to Toni,” Nick tried to explain, “They had to have known about her before, but they found a way to clear her so they wouldn’t have to explain why they never looked at her as a suspect.”

“I don’t think I follow,” Brian chimed in, wanting to know exactly what Nick was getting at. 

“From what I can tell,” Nick began, putting the pieces together in his head, “The guy that Toni was dating was into something illegal. That night at the club she came to me and asked me for some money so she could get away from the guy. Obviously when she’d told me she had tried to break up with him but decided not to, that actually meant he wouldn’t let her. Now, this is just a guess, but I think this guy might have been in the mob.”

“Like the mafia? Is there even an LA mafia?” Brian suddenly laughed, shaking his head dramatically, “And I thought I was crazy for talking to a ghost now you’re telling me your death was a mob hit and the police are covering it up?”

“That’s exactly what I’m telling you,” Nick deadpanned, crossing his arms firmly across his chest. 

“And you’re absolutely certain you’re not completely insane?”

“Stop it Brian I’m being serious here! You have no idea what I went through to remember all of these details and now that I’m trying to help you solve this mystery you’ve been killing yourself over for the past year you’re mocking me!”

“I’m sorry,” Brian apologized, knowing Nick was right. He had been searching for these kinds of details, but he had never imagined Nick would tell him that organized crime was the motive behind his murder, “I want to know everything you know. To be honest it kind of worries me that your murder could be linked to something as serious as that because you know what happens then? Absolutely nothing! If the police are covering this up then we’re never going to get the answers we want and need. I certainly can’t go to the cops and tell them what you just told me because I’d be accusing them of lying about your case.”

“Then we’ll do it ourselves,” Nick shrugged.

“I’m sorry? We’ll do it ourselves? What are we, Brian and Nick P.I? We can’t do it ourselves!”

“Why can’t we?” Nick demanded to know.

“You expect me to go running all over the place chasing after some Mafioso who you claim had something to do with your murder?” Brian laughed fiercely, rubbing his forehead with his fingers. 

“I said we!”

“Oh, right, I’m sorry, you said we! So I can go running all over the place chasing after some Mafioso with my good friend the invisible spirit creature! I’m really sorry Nick, I know you have nothing to lose at this point but I do! I’m not exactly ready to get caught up in some seedy underworld and get myself killed! I’m really not ready to die yet!” 

“AND I WAS?!” Nick exploded, his voice seething with anger, “You went on and on about how all you wanted was to solve my murder but then when it comes time to actually do it you won’t! The police aren’t going to help you, I know they won’t. There’s no way they would have cleared Toni! The police and the FBI are always watching those types of people, so they had to have known she was linked to them. My murder didn’t exactly look random and unplanned, they had to have suspected. There would have been tapes from outside the club that night with the two of us on it, but you never heard about any tapes did you...because they never looked for them. Saying that, it’s now in our hands; don’t you want to help me get justice? That way you can move on with your life. I was in no way ready to die Brian don’t think because I didn’t have a pretty wife and a perfect child that I was okay with the fact that someone stole my life from me. I told you before, I don’t want to be stuck here watching everyone else be happy while I’m miserable forever,” he finished in a whisper, realizing now more than ever what Flora had meant by there being consequences to him getting his memories back. 

Brian opened his mouth to apologize once again when the sound of the side gate opening caught his attention and he turned away from Nick, not wanting anyone to know he was talking to himself again.

“I heard yelling,” AJ commented as he walked into Brian’s backyard. He had gone to the front door and Leighanne and told him Brian was out back. When he’d gotten to the gate he could hear Brian talking to someone but upon inspection there was no one there. 

“Venting,” Brian shrugged, watching Nick out of the corner of his eye as AJ walked across the patio with his hands in his pockets. 

“More like being a hypocrite,” Nick muttered, rolling his eyes. 

“So, what do you think of the backyard?” Brian asked, grabbing AJ by the shoulders so he could turn him directly towards Nick, hoping the other man would see their friendly apparition. 

“It looks exactly the same as it did the last time I was here,” AJ replied dryly, seeing right through Nick to the lush grass below.

“I bet AJ would help me take on the mob,” Nick said haughtily hopping down from the railing. 

“Why don’t you go ahead and ask him!” Brian said sarcastically, glaring at Nick.

“Ask who what?” AJ asked, surprised by Brian’s sudden outburst. 

“I…thought you said something else,” Brian mumbled, excusing his flare-up. 

AJ raised an eyebrow, staring at his friend sceptically, “Are you sure you’re okay? I know yesterday must have been hard for you…”

“I’m fine,” Brian assured him, “My ears are just a little plugged,” since Nick never shuts up.

“You should see a doctor about that,” Nick of course piped up. 

Brian fought the urge to reply and just watched AJ as he glanced around the yard.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” AJ asked and Nick couldn’t help but think how badly he could go for a cigarette. 

“Go right ahead,” Brian shrugged.

AJ took out the pack and bumped out a cigarette, searching his pockets for his lighter, “I think I left my lighter in the car,” he commented.

“I’ve got a light,” Brian said and grabbed a pack of matches off the top of the barbeque, tossing them to his tattooed friend. 

“Thanks,” AJ smiled and opened the matchbook, breaking off the small paper end and folding back the top of the pack so he could light it.

“Oh my god,” Brian heard Nick whisper from the other side of the patio, watching Nick approach AJ slowly, his eyes wide. 

Brian looked at him quizzically, wondering what was wrong. 

“I do...I did... I did the same thing, flip over the top and slide the match between the top and the strip that lights the match…there was something written on the inside of the flap,” he said, the memories flooding back in greater detail like a slap to the face.

Brian couldn’t speak because AJ was already staring at him funny, so he tried to relay a message with his facial expressions, wondering what on earth was going on.

“Brian there was something written on the inside of the matchbook! I had the list!”

“So what should we do?” Brian asked, directing the question to Nick even though he was speaking to AJ. He had no idea what list Nick was talking about but it was obviously important to him.

“Please tell me you have my things still,” Nick said at the same time that AJ asked whether Brian still had his Xbox set up.

“I do,” Brian nodded, giving Nick eye contact before leading AJ into the house. 

Nick ran his hands through his hair as he watched Brian walk into the house, he needed Brian to talk to Toni and he needed to know where his belongings had ended up so he could find that matchbook and finally have some evidence to prove he wasn’t completely off base in his claims that his murder was more than what it seemed.

“I hate you,” Nick muttered angrily, the pout so prominent on his face he could barely see through the slits that were now where his eyes should be. 

“I need brain food!” Brian defended in a hushed tone, waiting patiently at the McDonald’s counter for his food, “You can’t expect me to think seriously about anything without a hearty meal to help me concentrate!”

“Why did it have to be here though?” Nick whined, wishing he could smell the food, “I want some so bad.”

Brian rolled his eyes, trying not to let people around him see him talking to air, “You don’t want any. Think of it this way Nick. All those years you struggled with your weight fluctuating, your clothes not fitting right so often that you wore clothes four times too big, your self confidence has never been great and sometimes I worried you might take drastic measures to fit the mold that people expected you to…”

“Where exactly are you going with this?” Nick asked as the woman behind the counter gave Brian his meal and they set off in search of a table.

“All I’m saying is that maybe death has been the best diet you could have ever been on!” 

Nick’s face dropped and he glared at Brian, reaching out to knock the older man’s tray over onto the floor with a loud crash, “Asshole.”

“My food is on the McFloor,” Brian said breathily, now adopting a pout of his own.

Nick just smiled smugly and shrugged, “Maybe now you know not to be such a McJerk!”

Brian’s shoulders dropped with defeat and he sighed, picking up the garbage that once was his meal. With a glance back to Nick he headed back to the counter to buy another one, secretly plotting a way to get his vaporous companion back. 

“Enjoy your McDeath,” Nick said sarcastically as Brian sat down at a table with his new food triumphantly.

“At least I’ll die full, unlike some people,” Brian grinned and dramatically bit into his burger while Nick looked on longingly, “Now, can we discuss serious matters here? You said you would tell me about the list.”

“Right, the list,” Nick nodded, and then went into the details of what had happened in his regained memories, with the men who had killed him asking about the list and its whereabouts.

“So you think Toni stole the list and gave it to you? Why would she do that though?”

“She was so obviously scared that night. She saw the opportunity to give me the matchbook so she took it, and then made a point of telling me to keep it. Maybe she thought that if she got rid of it then they wouldn’t chase her when she ran away. I’m guessing she didn’t imagine they would come after me for it because she didn’t know they were there watching us. So they would have had no reason to suspect me,” Nick theorized, watching Brian continue to eat as he thought. Brian was definitely right about the brain food, if there was one thing that helped him concentrate on a specific task it was having food in his hand. 

“Why is Toni still alive and well though?” Brian wondered, not understanding why these two guys would have gone through the effort of killing Nick without getting rid of the person who had stolen their secrets in the first place. 

“That’s what I haven’t quite figured out,” Nick admitted, “That’s why we need to go talk to her.”

“And what exactly are we going to say to her?”

Nick paused for a moment and collected his thoughts, “I don’t want to scare her. There’s no way we can tell her details about what happened in the car because I’m the only other person who knows them. That might freak her out a little bit. I have this feeling that maybe this guy is still in her life, and that’s why he didn’t get rid of her. I just want to get a feel for how she’s acting. I know her, I know everything about her, so I’m going to know if she’s freaked out when she sees you come to her door and start asking questions about whether she knows anything about my death. Even if you just go to her and explain that you’re trying to take things into your own hands. I think it’s going to be a good idea to talk to her.”

“Should we talk to her after we go to the storage locker?” Brian asked, having planned on taking Nick to the self storage area where he was keeping all of his belongings, not having had the guts to get rid of them.

“I’m worried it won’t be there. Who emptied out my car?”

Brian blanched, “The police did. They impounded your car after you went missing because when Howie found it the doors were wide open. They dusted for prints and all of that, and before they did any of the tests they emptied everything out of it and gave it to me.”

Nick sighed heavily, “Do you think they would have thrown anything out?”

“It’s hard to say,” Brian shrugged lightly, “I don’t imagine they would throw something out but if, like you said, they might have been looking for the same list maybe they took it. Or maybe it just got thrown away because it looked like garbage. We’ll have to go through everything and see.”

Nick nodded then let Brian finish up his meal, anxious to get on the road and look for that matchbook. He knew it was going to be like finding a needle in a haystack but it was worth a shot anyway. Maybe this ghost thing came with super powers he hadn’t discovered yet that included finding a one inch by one inch matchbook lying amongst an entire households worth of stuff. 

“Nick…” Brian breathed, suddenly looking up from his food.

“What?”

“You were right.”

“I’m always right,” Nick shrugged.

“Stop being an ass, I’m serious here. You were right about Toni.”

Nick raised an eyebrow high, giving Brian a curious glance, “I was right about Toni?”

“The police had to have known who she was. The police are covering something up!”

“What made you suddenly realize I’m a genius?”

“Just now, talking about the stuff from your car…the police impounded your car and fingerprinted it. You said you were talking to Toni in your car when those guys came, right? Unless she was wearing a pair of gloves and a hat it’s not fathomable that Toni’s fingerprints, or hair, or anything else would not have been in that car. They made up the DNA to prove to us you were still dating her, and clear her from the crime but why would they do that?”

Nick thought long and hard about Brian’s revelation then it came to him, “They want Toni to lead them to the list. They couldn’t risk having her caught up in my murder investigation because then her boyfriend would drop her like a hot potato. Maybe Toni didn’t mean she was in trouble with this guy when she came to me, maybe she was in trouble with the police.”

“How can we be so sure that this list is still important? It’s been a year.”

“It was important enough to kill for,” Nick reminded him.

“You ready to go find that matchbook?” Brian asked with a sudden burst of energy, quickly crumpling a wrapper in his hand.

“Ready as I’ll ever be.”

***

Brian sighed and wiped a bead of sweat off his brow, looking forlornly around the storage room, “Nick I don’t think it’s here.”

“It has to be here!” Nick groaned in frustration, pulling another box towards him that was once again full of clothes and other crap he never needed while he was alive. 

“If it’s not here, it might be at the police evidence lock up. They might have accidentally kept it. Obviously they don’t have the list or all of this wouldn’t have happened in the first place,” Brian pointed out, almost worried that this so called list didn’t even exist and Nick had mistaken the writing on the inside of the matchbook.

“Well we’ll keep looking until we know for sure it’s not here,”

“Nick…I can’t look anymore! It’s been hours, I’m tired, I’m hot, and eventually I do need to go home to my family!” 

Nick’s head snapped up and he looked at Brian with his eyes full of disappointment, “Fine, go home. I’m going to keep looking until I find it. To be honest Brian I’m kind of disappointed in you. You really made it seem like you would go to any lengths to figure this out but now I know it was all just talk in front of the guys so you didn’t have to admit that you’re too scared to let go of me and my stuff.”

“I am scared to let go of you,” Brian admitted, “I’m scared right now that you’re going to leave and never come back and I don’t think I can lose you again.”

“You make it sound like you’re in love with me.”

The older man rolled his eyes, “Not in love with you but I do love you. You’re my best friend. I can’t just get over you like they seem to have been able to.”

“Whether you like it or not Brian I’m not here to stay. I’m going to find that list, we’ll find a way to use it to figure out who killed me and then I’m gone. I can’t stay here forever. Even Casper got to go home at the end of the movie,” Nick noted, resting his head against his hand casually as he watched a multitude of emotions cross Brian’s face. 

“This is your home, Nick.”

“No. It’s not. Not anymore. There’s nothing for me here. Eventually you’re going to get tired of having an invisible friend, and you’ll move on with your life and then where will that leave me? Alone, that’s where. At least if I go I can be with people who can see me and talk to me and I can just finish my existence.”

“What’s it like there?” Brian finally asked, having held back the question since he’d first seen Nick.

“I can’t tell you,” Nick admitted, “You’ll just have to find out for yourself. I don’t want to give you false expectations because it’s a little bit different for everyone.”

Brian pressed on, not deterred, “Then tell me what it’s like for you.”

“No,” Nick said stubbornly, “It’s mine and mine alone, I can’t tell you what it’s like for me.”

“It’s yours? You come here and expect me to devote every second of my time, risk my life and the life of my family chasing mobsters and you won’t even tell me the details of where this new “home” is and what it’s like there?”

“I’m not allowed to tell you what it’s like after you die! It’s a rule!” 

Brian rolled his eyes dramatically, “Since when have you ever followed rules? Hell this whole mission we’re on right now is going to break the law many times over!”

“Why are you so desperate to know?”

“I just want to know that you’re being taken care of.”

Nick sighed, “You don’t have to worry about me Brian. Nothing can happen to me…I’m already dead.”

“Don’t remind me,” Brian said sadly, “I’m sorry Nick I just need to get out of here. Are you coming?”

“No,” he shook his head, “I’m going to stay. I’ll catch up with you later.”

“Don’t you need a ride?”

Nick laughed sarcastically, “You think that they would give me powers of invisibility without first thinking how I would get around?”

“Point taken,” Brian chuckled then waved his friend goodbye.

“Maybe when I find it I’ll go haunt a house! Rattle some chains or something…” Nick called behind Brian watching his shoulders shake with laughter as he headed to the door.

Nick breezed past the front desk, the guard positioned behind it completely unaware of the intruder.

He had spent all night looking through boxes for the list only to come up empty handed. Just like Brian had said his next place to look was in the police evidence warehouse, and it had been a lot easier for him to get in then it ever would have been for Brian. Finding his evidence box was a completely different story. 

The entire building was full of shelves from floor to ceiling full of boxes. The only identification on them was the case number, and of course Nick never thought to ask Brian what his case number might be before he’d come. 

With a heavy sigh Nick looked around the room, finally spotting a small computer off to the side, unsupervised for the time being. Curiously he checked it out, realizing that the older computer was basically a registry of all the boxes in the room. The only problem was the computer required a badge number in order to search for the case number and find the appropriate shelf. 

“Security,” Nick scoffed, needing to figure out how to find that box. 

“Excuse me,” he heard a voice say and he continued to try and figure out how to get past the small detail of a missing badge number even though people had come back into the room.

“Ahem. Excuse me,” the voice repeated, louder and far more annoyed this time and Nick looked over out of curiosity, wondering what was going on. 

He turned around and found himself face to forehead with a petite Hispanic woman. She was dressed in a business suit, with a badge hanging off of her lapel. Nick wondered what was looking through him at but he quickly realized that she wasn’t looking through him at all, she was looking at him.

“Yes?” he asked, unsure as to whether or not the woman would be able to hear his words. 

“For a second I thought you couldn’t hear me,” she said, her demeanour immediately changing from being annoyed back to chipper. 

“You shouldn’t be able to hear me,” Nick muttered low enough that she couldn’t hear, “Can uh…I help you?”

“I’m having trouble finding some evidence. It’s not on the shelf it should be on,” she explained and Nick realized that this woman thought that he worked there. How she could even see him in the first place was a mystery and he was thoroughly disturbed by it. 

“Um, have you looked it up?” Nick asked, pointing to the computer, “Maybe it was moved.”

She gave him a strange look, raising a thin eyebrow high up her forehead, “Maybe,” she said sounding completely unconvinced, heading to the computer. She sat down and typed in her information (which Nick keenly memorized), and watched as the screen prompted her for more information. She filled out the second form and a shelf number with an appropriate letter was printed out on a small sheet of paper from the printer next to the computer, “Same number. I went and looked but nothing was there. Could you help me?”

Nick’s eyes went wide, wondering what he could do to get himself out of this situation, “I uh, I’ll try but uh, I don’t work here…I’m a cop.”

“You are?” she inquired curiously looking him up and down. He was lucky enough that someone on the other side liked him enough to have put him in a plain white t-shirt and a pair of jeans rather than let his soul wander the earth in a pair of blood soaked boxers. 

Nick nodded, though it lacked the confidence it should have had, “Yeah. LAPD,”

“What division are you with?”

“West Traffic,” he replied, thankful for those times he’d gotten arrested since at least he learned something from it. 

She didn’t look convinced and Nick was nervous but thankful when she let it drop then asked him to accompany her while she looked for the box. 

“You’re actually IAB aren’t you?” she asked in a quiet voice, looking around to make sure there was no one around.

“How did you know?” Nick asked in the worst impression of a surprised person.

“Traffic cops don’t have clearance to the evidence lock-up. You should remember that next time you’re sent here to find something. You must be new?”

“Brand new,” he nodded “You’re IAB…too?”

“Yes,” she grinned, “I’m Officer Torres, you can call me Valerie.”

“Valerie,” he smiled, “I’m Nick,” he made sure not to mention the part about rank because he wasn’t sure if she would know he wasn’t brand new. 

“Ok,” Valerie bubbled, “This is the right row, now to find the shelf.”

Nick glanced at the shelf number and started searching. He was completely disturbed as to how this police officer could see him and he wasn’t quite sure what to make of it. What made her so special that she got to see him when even the rest of his friends couldn’t? He just didn’t understand it. He’d have to tell Brian. 

“It’s not here,” Nick told her, seeing the place that the box was supposed to be just an empty hole amongst the rows. 

“Damn,” she muttered, looking down at the paper then back up to the empty spot, “Things always go missing in this city. Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Um, no actually, I was about to look when you asked for my help,” Nick explained. 

Valerie gasped, “Oh I’m so sorry, well since you helped me find the right spot I’ll help you find yours.”

Nick grinned, “That would be great.”

As they walked back to the computer Valerie kept looking at him strangely, “I hope you don’t take offense to this but are you alright? You seem awfully…pale.”

“It’s been a rough week,” Nick explained, “Now I’m not entirely sure how to use this search system. Do you think you could help me?”

“Sure!” she nodded and sat down in the seat, going through all of the steps while asking for Nick for the detailed information, not even realizing she hadn’t asked him to log himself onto the system, “You know, I’m really surprised they’re putting someone as new as you on this case. No offense.”

“None taken,” Nick shrugged, “I guess they wanted me to get something interesting to break my cherry,” he added as they grabbed the print off then went in search of the box. 

Valerie smiled at him before giving him a look like he was growing horns “Interesting,” she said sarcastically, “From what I’ve heard that case could be something really big.”

“What have you heard?” Nick asked curiously.

Valerie shrugged, “Someone at IAB has been pushing for an explanation as to why the lead homicide detective in the case has been linked to some curiously unsolved narcotics investigations.”

“They think one of the cops is dirty?” he asked, trying to use the lingo to sound informed.

“Well we are in the business of dirty cops after all,” she pointed out and they both looked up as they found themselves in front of the right shelf.

Nick nearly fainted as he saw his case number written on the box and he pulled it down from the shelf, grunting at how heavy it was. He brought the box over to a table and realized that he was required to wear protective gloves before he could touch the inside of the box. A slight sense of panic set in as he realized that after carrying that box such a long way he didn’t think he’d have the energy in him to try and get gloves onto his hands. Picking things up and touching things took a fair bit of concentration and he’d done a whole lot in the last few hours. 

Valerie didn’t seem to be paying attention to what he was doing so he just dove in glove free, tearing the top off the box. The first thing he pulled out was a long folder and he curiously glanced inside, gasping at the site.

“What is it?” she asked, eyes going wide when she heard Nick’s breath.

“Um, the pictures are just…shocking,” Nick replied, unable to tear his eyes away from the pictures of his body, mutilated and bloody with a bag tied around his head and hands behind his back laying on the rocky beach. 

“Yeah, I heard about that on the news when it happened. I guess the guy was famous but I had never heard of him to be honest. Had you?”

“Yeah,” Nick nodded and put the pictures back in the folder before looking for something else in the box, “He was a singer.”

“Was he any good?” Valerie wondered.

“Better than he thought,” Nick commented with a strained smile, looking through clear evidence bags to see if the matchbook was hiding anywhere. 

As he walked continued to search through the evidence of his own murder he thought about what Officer Torres had told him about dirty cops. The business of dirty cops, she’d said. He wondered what she meant and thought back to every cop show he’d ever watched, realizing that she, and now he, were both working for Internal Affairs. She was a cop who went after other cops! It was finally starting to make sense why this little woman who had no link to him whatsoever, and didn’t even know who he was before he died could see him clear (or unclear) as day.

Footsteps through the building drew Nick’s attention away from the box and he listened carefully, trying to figure out if they were coming towards them or going away.

“Officer Torres…”

“Valerie,” she corrected.

“Sorry, Valerie, could I ask you a personal question?”

The woman once again raised her eyebrow and shrugged, “I guess it depends how personal it is but you can go ahead and try me.”

Nick licked his lips, pulling his bottom lip between his teeth quickly, “Do you believe in ghosts?”

“Ghosts?” she chuckled, “I definitely do believe in ghosts, but sometimes I think people are led astray by their imaginations. I think what I believe in is hallucinations and our minds playing tricks on us, but I don’t dismiss the idea that there could be a few select people out there who are able to connect with spirits, and people who have moved on but I don’t think that just anyone could do it.”

“Does your mind play a lot of tricks on you?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m just saying you might be forced to start, unless you’re one of those select people,” Nick shrugged, and then turned as another man entered the room. He was dressed similarly to Valerie, dark suit, badge hanging from his pocket, and probably a gun somewhere under his jacket. 

“Val? Val Torres? What are you doing here?” the man asked, sounding legitimately surprised to see her, looking at the open evidence box on the table.

“I’m just waiting for Officer…um, I didn’t catch your last name,” she said, looking at Nick. 

“You know my last name!” the other officer replied.

“Not yours, Nick’s,” Valerie rolled her eyes.

“Who is Nick?”

“Nick is the guy right there!” Valerie pointed in front of her and Nick just shrugged his shoulders.

“Don’t say I didn’t warn you,” Nick told her, knowing the other man couldn’t see him or hear him.

“Who?” the male officer asked, getting obviously frustrated, he walked over and looked at the open box on the table before sending a curious glance to the woman, “What are you doing with this?” 

Valerie let out a frustrated sigh, “Come on...  the guy standing right next to you is looking through it. It’s for the case he’s working on.”

“Are you losing your mind?” Josh asked in all seriousness, “Now you’re talking to the evidence?”

“I never said I was talking to the evidence I said I was talking to Nick.”

Josh chuckled and picked up the folder full of pictures out of the box, obviously familiar with the case, “You mean this guy?” he asked, holding up Nick’s picture.

Valerie’s eyes widened and she looked from the publicity photo (obviously taken before death) to Nick then back, still not quite knowing how Josh could completely avoid the guy, “Yeah,” she said breathily.

“Nick Carter. You know, the dead guy,” Josh tapped the picture a few times then put it back in the box, “Maybe you need a vacation.”

“Maybe I do,” Valerie nodded.

Nick wanted this Josh guy to leave so he could continue looking through the box but instead the other man started packing everything back in, even securing the lid back to the top. 

“You shouldn’t have this, you could get in trouble for looking through someone else’s evidence,” Josh said, picking up the heavy box. 

“I need that box. You have to help me,” Nick stressed, looking at Valerie but she was still wide eyed in shock over the fact that Nick was looking through his own case file. He was positive the next thing out of her mouth would be screams and she would run from the room but instead she looked from the box to Nick and back again.

“Josh wait!” she said, rushing over to him, “I uh, was asked to look for something in there.”

“What?” Josh asked sceptically.

“A matchbook that isn’t part of the investigation,” Nick said to her and she relayed the message.

“A personal item that accidentally ended up in with the evidence but it’s been cleared and is no longer needed for the investigation,” she explained, inching towards the box. 

“Why would they send you when regular PD could have done that?”

Josh was asking too many questions and Nick was getting nervous.

“I’m personally involved in this case,” Valerie lied, “I know…knew…the victim.”

Josh looked surprised, “Oh! Sorry,” he said, bringing the box back, “I didn’t realize.”

The other man brought the box back then went off in search of what he’d come from, both Valerie and Nick letting out sighs of relief. 

“What the hell is going on?” Valerie demanded, speaking to Nick in a hushed voice, “Are you really dead?”

“It’s complicated,” Nick explained, “Why are you so casual about this?”

“Let’s just say you’re not the first visitor from the other side I’ve encountered in my life,” Valerie brushed off, pulling the lid back off the box, “I’m looking for a matchbook?” she asked and Nick nodded. The woman pulled everything out of the box, laying it all out on the table carefully before reading through a manifest of everything that was contained in the box, “It’s not here.”

“How can it not be there?” Nick asked with a heavy sigh.

As Valerie started putting everything back into the box she glanced up to her new companion, “What are you trying to find?”

“A murderer,” Nick deadpanned.

“What do you think this has to do with me?” she wondered.

“I think you’re supposed to help me,” Nick decided, knowing that he and Brian would have had a hard time getting everything done on their own, “If you’re willing.”

Valerie took a long time to think, bringing the box back to its rightful shelf then returning to where Nick was standing waiting for her, “I’ll help you.”

They were now a team of three.

Leighanne hung up the phone with a curious expression written across her face. She turned to her husband who was sitting at the dining room table drinking a coffee and reading the morning paper. 

“Brian?” she asked, approaching the table.

Brian glanced up and smiled, “Yeah? Who was that on the phone?”

“That was the security company over at the self storage,” she explained, “They were doing their checks this morning and realized the door to your storage area was unlocked.”

“Oh, I guess I’ll have to go down and lock it,” Brian said, looking back to the paper. He had thought initially to give Nick the key to lock the door but he was concerned that if Nick left the building a floating key might draw attention. He wondered momentarily if Nick was still inside the storage area, or if he’d moved on to something else.

Leighanne sighed and sat down beside Brian, “Why did you go down there again?” she asked concernedly, “You need to let go of that stuff. We should give it away to charity or have an auction for the more expensive things.”

“That’s Nick’s stuff!” Brian replied, shaking his head, “It’s not mine to give away!”

“He’s not going to need it, Honey. Nick isn’t coming back for it,” the blonde woman pointed out.

“It’s Nick’s stuff,” Brian repeated, shrugging his shoulders.

“Fine, but why were you down there yesterday?”

“I was looking for something of mine that was in his car,” Brian explained as he folded the newspaper back up.

“Well you looked a little too far for that. Don’t you remember? When the police brought over the stuff out of Nick’s car I put it in the basement.”

“Oh my god you’re right, the basement!” Brian exclaimed, bolting out of his seat as he remembered. The day the police had brought everything from the car that wasn’t evidence over Brian was at a meeting with the other boys so Leighanne had put everything in a storage bin and put it in the basement for Brian to bring over to the storage shed, which was obviously something he’d long forgotten to do.

He bounded down the stairs, skipping more than a few to get into the basement faster. He scanned the room quickly, looking for sign of the bright blue container. Out of the corner of his eye he saw it stacked against the wall labelled ‘Nick’ on masking tape and ran over to it, knocking everything down around it. 

He tore the top off the container and spilled the contents across the floor, frantically searching through CDs, random half empty packs of cigarettes, manuals for the vehicle, receipts, paper garbage and condoms…condoms? Wow that was a lot of condoms.

Brian knew for sure he had the strangest friend in the world as he tossed the jumbo sized pack of contraceptives to the side, wondering what on earth Nick was doing in his car besides the obvious. He had everything spread across the floor and as if it was a sign from God, sitting directly in the stream of sunlight coming through the basement window was a small two inch, by two inch matchbook. 

Brian was frozen; he could not believe he actually had it in his basement the entire time. He slowly reached his hand out and picked up the matchbook, almost afraid he would damage it. It was white, with the name of a Hotel restaurant written on the front but those weren’t the words that were going to be important. Holding his breath Brian flipped the pack of matches open. Written in small writing from the top of the pack all the way down behind the matches was a list.

It wasn’t a list, it was the list. Brian had found the list; now all he needed to find was Nick.

***

Nick had a hard time believing that Valerie was a cop. She didn’t seem very cop like. Of course, his only history with cops was either through being arrested or watching television. There was no way for him to know whether or not there were other cops like her out there. 

“Is this the right place?” Valerie asked, pointing to Brian’s driveway. 

“Yeah, you have to buzz to get in,” Nick explained, hoping that Brian would answer the call instead of Leighanne because it was going to be interesting to have to explain why a strange female cop was coming to see Brian in the middle of the day.

Valerie rolled down the window on her old Volkswagen Rabbit and hit the button on the call box. 

“Hello?” Leighanne answered and Nick groaned.

He was trying to think of something clever to tell her but Valerie beat him to the punch, “Good morning ma’am. My name is Officer Valerie Torres. I was hoping to talk to your husband.”

“What’s this about?” Leighanne questioned.

“It’s about Nick Carter,” Valerie answered and within seconds the gate started to open.

“You’re good.” Nick chuckled.

“They teach you all about excuses and avoidance at the academy,” Valerie explained, “You have to know what to say when you want to get things from people. If I had just said my name and not sounded official she would have questioned my interests, and maybe even been suspicious of Brian but because I made it sound like it was an official visit she had no problem letting me in. It’s a trust factor. People have to feel comfortable and unthreatened in order to give other people complete trust.”

“Leighanne doesn’t trust anyone, so you’re lucky,” Nick chuckled as they parked in front of the house. 

Brian walked out the front door, wondering who on earth was coming to talk to him about Nick. He was equally thrown off when he saw Nick step out of this person’s car (literally step out of; he didn’t even bother to open the door for show.)

“Hello,” Brian said cautiously, reaching his hand out to shake the woman’s. He took a moment to look her over; curious to know why Nick was following this slight woman around.

“It’s cool Brian, she’s on our side,” Nick reassured him with a cheesy grin.

Brian didn’t acknowledge his statement, still not sure why or how Nick had brought this woman to his house.

“Hi Brian, my name is Valerie Torres, I’m a friend of Nick’s.”

“A friend…I wasn’t aware Nick had any friends,” Brian pointed out, still confused.

“Hey fuck you,” Nick grumbled, “No friends? I have thousands of friends! I have so many friends I couldn’t even haunt them all if I wanted to!”

Valerie held up a finger, interjecting, “I do believe he meant friends who are aware of your presence.”

“You can see him?” Brian asked wanting to clarify that fact since it was so bizarre.

“Yes.”

“Did you know Nick before he died?”

“I’m right here you know,” Nick cut in, annoyed.

“No, I just met him earlier today. Trust me; you’re about as shocked as I can see him as I am. You can trust though that I’m a very reliable person, and I’m going to help you and Nick as best as I can.”

“She’s the best cop in the whole city,” Nick added. 

Valerie chuckled, “When does he start being quiet?”

“It doesn’t happen. We thought we would finally get some peace and quiet once he was dead but apparently even in death he can’t shut his big trap,” Brian said with a long sigh, looking at his friend who just shrugged, “We should move this conversation somewhere else though because I have something really important to share.”

“What is it?” Nick asked as Brian led them to the pool house.

“First of all, I need to say that if we’re going to start a little club we need to find a different place for our clubhouse because having a female police officer in plain clothes over to my house every other day is going to start causing some suspicion from my wife. She might very well start asking questions as to what you’re doing here and why I’m spending so much time working on Nick’s case,”

Nick rolled his eyes, “Couldn’t have Leighanne thinking you care about me more than her.”

Brian stiffened his back at the words and shook his head at Nick, “Don’t even start that. If I have to go into the ‘I love you differently’ explanation for the millionth time I might just kill myself.”

“Okay!” Nick grinned, “Then you can hang out with me forever!”

“Which is exactly why I have no intention of going into that explanation again,” Brian deadpanned then reached into his pocket, feeling the hard paper touch his fingers, “Now, I have something important to tell you.”

“So we’ve heard,” Valerie concurred, “Please share.”

“I found it,” Brian finally announced boldly, retrieving the matchbook from his pocket, “It was here the whole time.”

“That’s what you were looking for?” Valerie asked rhetorically, looking at the small item quizzically.

“Is it…?” Nick asked, afraid to even say the words aloud.

Brian nodded and flipped open the matchbook, showing Nick the writing on the inside, “You were right, there is a list.”

“Well now we have to go see Toni and see what she knows!”

“Whoa, whoa,” Valerie interrupted, still a little out of the loop on everything that was going on, “Who is Toni?”

“She was my girlfriend,” Nick explained, “She gave me that matchbook the night I was killed, trying to hide it from someone. Then two guys came up and pulled us out of the car and, well, you know the rest.”

“Actually you would be surprised how little I know. I pretty much only know what I saw on TV and the few details I’ve heard through the department about the stall in your investigation. You still really need to fill me in on the details that I’m missing,” she pleaded, needing to know the full story before she could help them in any way.

“She’s right Nick, we need to go through everything we know from the moment Toni walked up to you in the bar until the moment you realized you were the walking dead,” Brian agreed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

“I’m not a zombie,” Nick rolled his eyes.

“Regardless of whether or not you’re aimlessly roaming on the hunt for human flesh or looking for a starring role in the Hollywood haunted walk as an apparition, I would appreciate some details,” Valerie looked between the two men, wondering what she had gotten herself into by offering to help Abbott and Costello find a killer.

“Sorry,” Brian apologized, “Go ahead Nick.”

“Okay,” Nick nodded, watching Brian and Valerie get comfortable on the couch, “So, I went out one night to a club with Howie and AJ.”

“Who are Howie and AJ? Are they the men who came after you and your girlfriend?” Valerie questioned, pulling out a small notepad.

“EX girlfriend,” Nick clarified with a laugh, “And no, Howie and AJ are, were, my friends. We had just gone out that night together to have some drinks.”

“Sorry,” she smiled, “Continue.”

“I’m at the club with Howie and AJ and Toni walks up to me all in a panic…”

Valerie piled another load of laundry into the machine, popping in the quarters with one hand as she poured in detergent with the other. 

“This is awkward,” she admitted, looking at Nick who was pacing back and forth over the top of the dryers. 

Nick stopped walking and raised an eyebrow down at the woman, “Why?”

“I don’t like doing my laundry with strange men,” Valerie explained with a small chuckle.

The blonde shrugged then continue his pacing, “It’s not like I’m head first in the dryer smelling your panties…yet.”

“What was that you said about not smelling them yet?”

“I’ll save that for when you’re asleep.”

It was Valerie’s turn to raise an eyebrow, “What makes you think you’re going to be anywhere near my panties while I’m asleep?”

“I never said I would do it while they were on you! I meant in your apartment!”

“You’re not coming to my apartment,” she laughed loudly, throwing her head back as if his statement were the most ludicrous thing she had ever heard. 

“Sure I am! I need somewhere to sleep and Brian said he wanted some family time, and he hogs the covers anyway!” Nick whined, jumping down off the top of the dryers. He pouted at Valerie, giving her the biggest puppy dog eyes he could manage.

“You’re dead,” she reminded him as if he had merely forgotten that tiny detail, “You can’t sleep.”

“I can’t smell either, so I guess your underwear is safe,” he grinned, “Please take me home with you? If you say no I’ll just come in anyway and sing to you all night in the worst imaginable voice. I’ll knock things over and make a big mess and you won’t get a wink of sleep and no one will believe you have a poltergeist.”

“Wow,” Valerie said dryly, twirling her piece of her long brown locks around her finger, “I guess I’ll have to say yes to you then because I would be so embarrassed if my neighbors found out about my big mess and I couldn’t explain it away with a theory about angry ghosts in my place. You really are convincing.”

Nick knew she was being sarcastic but he just smiled big anyway, “Great! I’ll be as quiet as a church mouse.”

“Do you have factual evidence proving that mice that attend church services are in fact quiet?”

“Yes,” he nodded, “I’ve met them.”

“I just wanted to clarify, for my records, in case you go making noise then try to say its part of the church mouse noise allotment,” Valerie smiled, shaking her head at Nick.

They had left Brian’s after a lengthy conversation about figuring out a strategic game plan and Nick had decided to accompany Valerie to the Laundromat. Brian was concerned that Leighanne might start to think something was up with him, especially after the incident with the storage locker from that morning; so Nick had tagged along with her, not wanting to have the temptation of messing with Leighanne’s precious belongings, becoming Baylee’s imaginary friend, or driving Brian absolutely up the wall while he did those things. 

“Why did you become a cop?” Nick asked curiously, his eyes watching clothing go round and round the washing machine.

“My father was a cop, my brother is a cop, my grandfather is a cop,” she listed off, ticking off all of the people in her family who were in the police force at one time or another.

Nick finally looked over at her, giving her a curious glance, “You said is when you mentioned a grandfather. Your grandfather isn’t retired yet but your dad is?”

“My grandfather actually is retired, I always just think of him as being in because he still works along side the force. He does things like goes to schools and talks about street safety and things like that. He’s very energetic for his age.”

“What about your dad? What does he do?”

A strange shadow crossed Valerie’s face and he looked down to her hands, idly picking underneath her nails, “He’s dead. He was killed.”

“I’m sorry.”

Valerie gave him a tight lipped smile and nodded, “I appreciate that but you of all people shouldn’t be sorry. You’re in no way better off.”

“No, I am,” Nick stressed, “I’m starting to think it’s easier being the person who was killed than it is being the person who lost someone they love.”

“To be honest I would love nothing more than for that to be true, because at least then I’d know he’s still doing well.”

“At least you got to see him after he was gone,” he reasoned, turning his head back to watch the clothing in the spin cycle.

Valerie’s eyes went wide, “How did you know that?”

Nick smiled, “I assumed. You said earlier that I wasn’t the first person from the other side you had encountered in your lifetime, and just now you said you hoped he was still doing well. So I guessed that it would make perfect sense for you to see your dad’s spirit. He obviously had some unfinished business to attend to, much like myself.”

“The difference between you and him is that it’s my fault he’s dead,” Valerie said quietly, concentrating on folding some of the towels she had just pulled from the dryer. 

“How is it your fault?” he asked, brows furrowing.

Valerie concentrated on the towels, not looking up as she spoke, “I had made him aware of a case I was working on, one of my first, just after I started working with internal affairs. I had been plucked up straight out of the academy because they saw the type of personality in me that would not put loyalty to the force before ensuring justice was being served. Anyway, I was working on this case and some things were starting to point towards a particular police officer, who also happened to be someone my dad was close to…his partner,” she took a deep breath, collecting her thoughts and fighting back any emotions that threatened to take over, “I knew I shouldn’t have told him because it honestly wasn’t his place to know. My dad went ahead and confronted his partner about it, demanding to know what was involved in but the other man denied everything. My father was persistent and took to following his partner around when he was off work, thinking that he could help me with my case and put his mind at ease at the same time. One night though he was caught sitting outside of an abandoned building while a drug deal went down inside and his partner walked out of the house walked straight over to my father, put a bullet in his head and walked away.”

“You catch the guy?”

Valerie nodded her head, wiping away a few stray tears, “I did. Someone else who was there that night gave him up because he didn’t want to be associated with a cop killer, even if the cop killer was a cop themselves. The snitch told us everything and I was able to help catch my dad’s killer.”

“I knew you were a good cop,” Nick smiled, trying to brighten the situation since it had suddenly become melancholy.

“Yeah,” Valerie sighed, “Too bad the system doesn’t work all that well and he ended up getting off. Circumstantial evidence, they said,” she stopped talking as a woman walked past to empty out her dryer and she finished folding the rest of her clothing, “Shall we?” she asked as she packed the last of her clothes into her laundry bag, not bothering to look to Nick for an answer before she walked out the door. 

***

Nick had never seen so many books outside of a library in his life. Valerie certainly was a fan of reading, he’d concluded as he walked into her small apartment and couldn’t see walls for all of the side by side book cases. 

“What is all this?” he asked, checking out some of the titles.

“Pretty much every book I’ve ever gotten in my life,” Valerie chuckled, “Some of them are from high school, some from university and the academy and others are books that I read leisurely or bought on impulse.”

“Speaking of books,” Nick segued, looking at the purse that Valerie had just dropped to the kitchen counter. 

“You can’t even wait for me to put my clothes away?” Valerie asked, rolling her eyes. She opened her purse and pulled out a baggie with the matchbook inside. 

“This is important,” Nick stressed, waiting patiently for her to cross the room and have a seat on the couch. 

“We don’t even know if I’ll be able to figure out what it says,” she shrugged, “I’ll probably have to bring it into work tomorrow and have someone take a look at it. I’ll need expert opinions.”

“We can at least try,” he huffed, crossing his arms tightly across his t-shirted chest, “I would rather figure it out on our own without having to bring experts into the mix; the less people who take a look at this stuff, the better.”

Valerie nodded, knowing where he was coming from, “I understand that, but trust me when I tell you that no one is going to have any clue what this is about, and even if they do they’re in no place to say anything.”

“I don’t trust the police,” Nick stubbornly interrupted, a scowl drawn across his normally cheerful face.

“Thank you,” Valerie scoffed, feeling the love.

“I didn’t mean you. I meant…the others.”

Valerie decided not to get into with him about whether or not he should trust the police, instead she decided to appease her friendly apparition by taking the matchbook out of the bag. She flipped the top open and looked critically at the small black lettering written precisely down the paper. 

11030145 1BD KINNA
11201539 BLB1 FUMI
12092212 GLB8 FELICITY
01181427 WHT4 PRINCESS

“What is all this?” Valerie questioned rhetorically, seeing a very similar coding all the way down; a combination of numbers and letters all adding up to nothing as far as she could see.

“Are those names?” Nick asked, pointing to the letters at the far right as he took a seat next to Valerie on the couch. 

“I’m not sure,” she shrugged, “Could be names, but they could just be words that mean something else to keep us all confused.”

“Somehow I think this is a lot simpler than we think,” he rationalized.

“I think you’re right, I think there might be a really simple way to figure this out but I don’t think we’re the ones to figure it out. I don’t know what it is; I think it would be best if I asked.”

Nick sighed long and hard, looking at the brunette skeptically, “Alright, but only someone you trust.”

“I promise you this won’t get into the wrong hands; even if we figure out what it is I won’t give any explanation into the meaning behind it. Your secrets are safe with me!” Valerie assured him. She moved to pat his leg then stopped short, not sure if she would be able to touch him.

“I can’t feel anything,” Nick answered her unasked question, “But I’m solid.”

“I’m sorry,” she sheepishly told him, blushing. 

“Don’t be.”

“Tomorrow I’ll bring this to work with me and figure out what it all means, and you have to promise me that you and Brian won’t go and talk to Toni.”

Nick’s eyes went wide and he glanced over at her, “What? Why?”

“I’ve seen things like this happen before. If you go and talk to her you’re going to tip her off to the fact that something is up. She’s going to wonder why after a year Brian is suddenly asking questions about what she remembers from that night. She’ll run I know she will, and if she doesn’t then she’ll tell people that Brian came to see her…not the kinds of people you want to know. For Brian’s sake, hold off on talking to Toni.”

He let out a frustrated groan, finally nodding his head, “Fine, I won’t go talk to Toni” he said, thoroughly annoyed that she was somehow managing to take over their entire operation.

“Thank you,” Valerie smiled.

Nick grinned back, but for alternate reasons. He could promise all he wanted that he wouldn’t talk to his ex-girlfriend but he never said anything about keeping Brian from talking to her. After all, even if he had talked to her, she wouldn’t be able to hear him anyway.

"You look ridiculous," Brian whispered harshly under his breath, adjusting his sunglasses on his nose as he and Nick walked down Rodeo Drive. 

Nick took his attention away from the lavish shops and scantily clad female shoppers to shrug at his friend, "I think I made a much better effort at going incognito than you did. Besides, I don't know how you didn't realize I did this for you! You're the only one who can see me!"

Brian's eyebrow slowly rose up his forehead, arching high, "You dressed up for me?"

Nick adjusted the neck of his sweater and brushed away imaginary lint from the sleeves, "Well I wouldn't say that, but I tried to look nice."

Brian let out a long sigh, taking another moment to look his friend over. When he'd told Nick he planned to look inconspicuous when they went out, he never meant he would be dressing as if they were off to rob the Louvre. Brian had donned a baseball cap and a pair of sunglasses, making him less recognizable but Nick (who he wasn't even aware had a variety in his wardrobe) was wearing a pair of dark sunglasses, jet black pants, black turtleneck, and the piece de résistance…a beret, "Well when you're finished stealing the Mona Lisa, you know where to find me," he shook his head then continued walking down the busy street.

"Oh funny, you're a riot," Nick muttered, reluctantly following behind the shorter man.

Brian suddenly gasped, “There she is!” he announced, abruptly stopping dead in his tracks. 

Nick, who was completely unprepared for Brian’s sudden halt found himself sauntering straight through his friend as if he were not even there. Spinning around Nick’s eyes were wide and he gave Brian a look of complete concern.

“Wha…” Brian sputtered, “What was that?”

“I didn’t know you were stopping!”

“You…that was…” Brian suddenly shuddered, a chill running down his spine, shaking him to the core, “I thought you were solid?”

If he could have, Nick was sure he would be blushing, “Only if I think about it, if you catch me off guard I’m not really all that solid.”

“Never do that again,” Brian requested, realizing why that night on the porch Nick had seemed so unreal and foggy.

“I’ll try,” the tall blonde assured his friend. He was overwhelmingly embarrassed at what had happened, feeling as exposed as if he were walking naked down the street.

Brian looked in the spot he’d been previously gazing at before he was rudely invaded and his face dropped with disappointment, “She’s gone!”

Despite the fact that Valerie had specifically asked that they left Toni alone, Nick and Brian found themselves compelled to at least see what she was doing. They thought that an impromptu stakeout might open some more doors for them. They needed to know that Toni was going to be a worthwhile ‘witness’ and would have information they could use, and in order to find out those things they needed to see her, regardless of what Valerie wanted. They had no idea why Toni had made it through the night that had cost Nick his life, and only hoped that something might give away what had really gone on that night if they saw what she was doing with her time. 

Finding her hadn’t been too difficult. Toni still worked at the same job she had when Nick was alive. She was obsessed with the fashion world so it was her dream job to be a clothing buyer. Nick had spent a lot of time throwing his name around with a lot of people to get her a job at Mystique, one of L.A.’s most exclusive boutiques. Toni’s job required going to smaller shops to get designers to sell some items exclusively through Mystique so she spent a lot of time out of her office, basically shopping around. 

A quick phone call to Toni’s office pretending to be her brother had told them she was headed to a lunch meeting in Hollywood, and from there they’d followed her all over while she shopped. Brian was beginning to wonder what they were truly accomplishing on their little expedition and he was very close to turning around and going home. Something was keeping him there though. He wasn’t sure if it was for Nick’s sake or if it had something to do with the little tingle at the bottom of his stomach. It was like radar going off in his body, a strong signal telling him he was on the right track to something – he just didn’t know what that something was. 

“I think she went in there,” Nick said, pointing to the storefront next to where they’d last seen the woman.

Brian squinted against the bright California sunshine, trying to follow Nick’s finger, “We’re not going in there,” he stated firmly, noting the eager look on his friend’s face.

“It’s going to look worse if we stand outside the door and stare at the windows,” Nick commented, dragging the smaller man along by the arm.

“It’s not you people will think badly of, it’s me and I’ll take my chances thank-you-very-much!” Brian tried to argue but Nick was still yanking him firmly in the direction of the large glass doors. 

Brian was grimacing as the huge doors opened they stepped into the bright, colourful store. By the cash, by the racks, in the changing rooms, he knew they were there - women. Women were everywhere and he swallowed hard, glancing over at his friend whose ridiculous grin told him he would get no sympathy there. 

“Good afternoon!” a saleswoman suddenly appeared, looking cute and perky, flipping her blonde hair over her shoulder, “Welcome to Victoria’s Secret – can I help you find anything today?”

“Um…” Brian’s eyes went wide, staring at the girl, “I’m just browsing, uh, looking, uh, for someone else not for me! I don’t wear women’s underwear.”

Nick died laughing right along with the attractive salesperson as Brian stumbled all over his words, obviously embarrassed to be in a lingerie store, “Well if you need anything let me know!” she piped, a huge grin plastered across her face.

“Yeah, thanks,” Brian muttered, drawing his eyes downward. 

“Oh boy, you are red as a beet,” Nick laughed, still looking at the women who were walking around the store. A few had looked in Brian’s direction when they walked into the store as any woman would when a man suddenly entered their territory but the attention had drifted off after a few moments. 

The two of them started walking through the store, pretending to look through some pajamas while checking out some of the women in the store to look for Toni, “You just wanted to come in here so you could go into changing rooms.”

Nick gasped and Brian thought he might have insulted the younger man, “I never even thought of that! I’ll be right back!” he said, suddenly rushing off to the changing area.

Brian rolled his eyes, “Oh god, I shouldn’t have said anything.”

“Brian?”

He froze, his hand still gripping a silky pair of pajamas. He slowly turned, not sure if he should even respond to his name, “Yes?”

“I thought that was you,” Toni said, crossing her arms over her chest, “Funny seeing you here.”

“Looking for a present for Leighanne,” Brian lied, trying to hide his nervousness. He glanced around quickly for Nick, wishing he would for some reason come back. It was too ironic that the second his friend stepped away would be when he was spotted by the person they’d been following all day.

“Is she here?” Toni questioned, following Brian’s eyes as he glanced around the store.

“Oh, no, I was just looking around…for ideas,” he excused, taking a moment to look the woman over. She had always been striking; the complete opposite of anything Nick had ever dated in the past. She was a tall girl but had a medium build, far bigger than any of the size negative ones Nick had dated in the past but by no means was she fat. High cheekbones, green eyes, an olive complexion and long dark brown hair gave her a very Mediterranean appearance. 

“Been a long time,” she commented idly, pulling her long ponytail over her shoulder. 

Brian nodded, “You should have kept in touch,” he said, taking note of her expensive clothing. She could have easily gotten what she was wearing from work but even with her staff discount Toni was far from wealthy and would never spend her own money on things like clothes and shoes, that was what Nick was for. 

“I could say the same to you,” Toni said coyly, crossing her arms over her chest casually. 

“So…what have you been doing?” Brian questioned, trying to make leisurely conversation. 

Toni laughed and turned to look at a lazy negligee on the rack, “You should know Brian.”

Brian blanched, his heart speeding up gradually, “Sorry?”

“Why are you following me Brian? I saw you earlier, and have seen you multiples times today. You haven’t done a very good job of hiding yourself, and it’s hard to not notice you muttering to yourself in the middle of the street.”

“I’m not…coincidence…” was all he managed to get out, sounding utterly unconvincing. 

Toni’s expression turned serious and she got very close to the man, not wanting anyone to overhear what she was saying, “I don’t know what you think you’re doing by following me around but it’s been a year, and there’s nothing I can tell you that I haven’t already told the police. I heard you were pretending to be some sort of detective but I never actually believed you would be so completely unable to get over him. Nick is dead, and you need to stop following me around.”

“Why would you think this has something to do with Nick?”

She laughed and shook her head, “I’m not stupid Brian. You never even spoke to me when he was alive, so I can’t think of any other reason why you would want anything to do with me now that he’s gone. I hate to break it to you Brian but like I have told everyone thousands of times, I don’t know anything about what happened to your friend.”

“I know more than you think I know,” Brian suddenly blurted out viciously, knowing immediately he had made the wrong decision in revealing that kind of information.

Toni stared into his eyes with a stone cold gaze then suddenly turned and started walking out of the store quickly, her shoes clicking soundly against the floor. 

Brian followed her to the door, watching the woman as she walked across the sidewalk and straight into a luxurious town car, chauffeured of course, “Where the hell is Nick,” he muttered, turning back into the store to find his ghoulish friend. 

***

Nick gazed out the window, not too far from where Brian had stood just moments ago. He watched the woman he once loved rush into the dark car and he wondered what Brian had said to her. He’d seen them speaking from across the room but was too terrified to make his way over to them. For some bizarre, unknown reason he wanted so badly for Toni to be able to see his body and hear his words and he didn’t want to be disappointed if he went over to her and found that things weren’t that way at all.

He should have been angry with her, he should want to demand she tell him why she didn’t protect him – she had sat by idly and let him die! Those weren’t the things he imagined himself saying to his former lover though, instead he wanted to tell her he missed her; the way she walked, the way she talked and the way she had (once) loved him. He may have been without his senses but he still had feelings, strong feelings, that despite the fact that she’d cheated (because he was no saint), and ultimately gotten him killed, were still longing to have her back. He craved the closeness, the passion, the desire that went along with loving someone and he wondered if this was all part of what Flora had told him to look out for. Things he would always want in the living world that he would never be able to have. 

“There you are!” Brian said quietly, catching his breath from his long trek around the store, “Let’s get out of here,” he suggested, heading for the door without Nick’s approval. 

Back on the crowded sidewalk they walked quietly and without a purpose for the first time that day.

Brian curiously watched tourists pose in front of stores, wanting to prove to their friends back home that they’d really seen places like Armani and Chanel where there was sure to be celebrities spending ridiculous amounts of money just inside the posh looking doors. 

“She’s still with him,” Nick suddenly spoke, throwing his beret to the ground as they walked, obviously done playing dress-up for the day.

“How do you know?”

The younger man shrugged, “I could just tell. The way she acted, the clothes, the chauffeured car, everything told me that she hadn’t left him yet. She’s living his life.”

“Living his life…you don’t even know the guy.”

“I know enough.”

Brian took a moment to watch Nick, wondering if that was depression he saw on the man’s features, “That’s a good thing though right? That she’s still with him? That means we have more of a shot of finding something,” Brian offered but Nick wasn’t convinced. 

“How can she stay with him knowing what he did to me?” Nick questioned rhetorically, knowing that the only person who could answer that question was Toni.

“Maybe she doesn’t know?”

The other man’s face was void of expression and he blinked once, then twice, at Brian, “Yeah I’m sure she thinks it was purely coincidence that the night I disappeared was the same night she saw me get beat up and abducted from a parking lot.”

Brian took a sharp breath, “Excellent point.”

“What did she say to you?” Nick finally asked as they reached Brian’s car.

Brian took his time opening the doors of his black BMW sedan before answering his friend, “Essentially she told me Val was right.”

Nick raised an eyebrow, silently asking the older man what he meant.

“She knew we were following her,” Brian explained as he started the car then pulled out onto the busy Hollywood streets.

“We?”

“She knew I was following her,” he corrected, “Somehow she heard I was asking questions about your case and she thought I was going to question her about it.”

Nick scratched his blonde head in thought, “So why did she practically sprint out of the store?”

Brian sighed heavily, “I screwed up big time.”

“What did you do?!”

“I might have implied I knew more than she thought I did about your murder.”

Blue eyes wide Nick gaped across the car towards the driver’s side, “Shit! Valerie was right! We should have never gone to talk to her; she has every reason to run now that she thinks we’re onto her!”

Brian nodded solemnly, gulping back his embarrassment, “As much as I hate to admit it…Val was right and now I might have just fucked everything up.”

Valerie smiled and waved at fellow officers as she walked through the building, ignoring the strange questioning glances on some of their faces as they greeted her. It wasn’t unusual for a police officer to wonder why someone from internal affairs was walking through the building because it usually meant one of their comrades was in some sort of trouble.

“Good morning!” she chirped to everyone as she opened the heavy glass doors to the forensics lab. She caught sight of the man she was looking for over in the corner so she immediately headed in his direction.

Timothy Baker was a thinker plain and simple. Puzzles, riddles, and ciphers, he could do it all without so much as a frustrated pause or having to sleep on it. There weren’t too many things that left him wondering what the answers were. He was called upon from time to time from various organizations to lend his mind to their cause and help them process clues that they’d become stuck on. He often worked on cold cases, kidnappings, serial murders, and of course the odd piece of evidence that threw everyone for a loop. 

He watched as a stunning young Latina woman approached him from across the room and he felt a sense of déjà vu, like he had met her in the past. He couldn’t quite describe it; it was if he’d never met her but knew everything about her. He drew his thin, lanky body out of his seat, giving her a smile as she finally came to stand in front of him.

“Sergeant Baker,” she said as more of a statement than a question and he slowly nodded his head, “It’s good to see you.”

“Have we met before?” he asked bluntly, reaching out to shake her hand, “Officer…”

“Torres,” Valerie answered with a big grin, “And we have crossed paths.”

“Okay,” he felt compelled to take her word for it, “What can I help you with today? I’m assuming you’re bringing me something to work on?”

“Of course,” Valerie nodded then reached into her black satchel to pull out the zipper lock bag that contained the small matchbook, and handed it over to him, “On the inside there seems to be some sort of message or code that I was hoping you might be able to figure out.”

Baker noticed the lack of registration on the item, and he silently wondered whether this was for an actual case or if this woman was having him look at personal problems, “Is there a case number?”

“Not yet,” Valerie shook her head, “I’m not sure if this has any relevance. It’s for a cold case I’m working on, I happened to find this but it wasn’t tagged as evidence so I wasn’t sure if anyone had noticed the inscription on the inside. I thought maybe something was overlooked. If you figure out it’s nothing then I won’t put it into evidence.” 

“I’d ask what case but given your position I don’t imagine you can tell me anything,” Baker commented, knowing by the badge hanging around her neck that she was IAB. He didn’t want to know what cops were in trouble again, not that Officer Torres would have been in a position to tell him. He might just be a brain, and not actually out in the field but the rules of police loyalty still applied. Had she mentioned anything about an officer being questioned in an investigation it was an unwritten rule that he couldn’t keep that kind of information to himself. Otherwise, she would have gone to someone within her own department.

Valerie smiled, “Sorry no, I can’t really tell you any details about the case. How long do you think it will be before you can take a look at this?”

“I don’t have a lot of cases backlogged right now, so I’ll take a look at it right away,” Baker offered.

“That’s fantastic, I really appreciate it!” she grinned and handed over the matchbook.

“Would you like to lend me a hand since I can’t really share this with someone else?” he felt compelled to ask her, taking the bag from her hand. 

“And here I was under the impression you were the master. Why would the master need help?” Valerie joked and took a seat in front of the desk, dropping her purse and coat into the chair opposite her. 

He chuckled and shook his head modestly, “I’m not the master but thank you for the compliment. I like to throw ideas around, get feedback from other people otherwise I could get way off track and never know it. I also like to know if people think I’m out of my mind insane, so I know when to start going back to the basics.”

“This should be interesting,” Valerie grinned and watched Baker as he took the matchbook out of the bag.

“Hmm,” he sounded thoughtfully after taking his first look at the matchbook’s cryptic list. 

“Figured it out yet?” Valerie teased, watching his face change to a variety of expressions as he thought over the multiple possibilities.

Baker laughed heartily, “I’m good but I’m not that good…not recently anyway.”

Valerie smiled then reached over to hit play on the IPod powered stereo perched on the man’s filing cabinet, “To help you think,” she explained when he gave her a curious glance.

“How did you know that?” he asked, getting a strange vibe from the female officer. Since the moment she had walked into the room he had felt like there was something special about her. 

She chuckled and folded her hands in her lap, shrugging innocently, “Maybe I’m psychic?”

“If you were psychic we wouldn’t be here right now, would we? To be honest I’ve been kind of wishing I had psychic powers lately. Ever felt like you’ve hit a brick wall professionally?”

Valerie nodded slowly, “I can’t be much fun bring the man with the answers if you don’t have the answers people are looking for.”

“That’s exactly what I mean!” he exclaimed, then drew back, “I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” he added.

“People say I’m easy to talk to,” Valerie confessed, “So what answers do you have for me?” she swiftly changed the subject with ease, drawing Baker’s attention back to the matter at hand.

“I have a feeling the people who made this couldn’t have been too clever,” Baker theorized, “What are you able to tell me about the case? Some details would really help. Otherwise the possibilities could be potentially endless.”

“Homicide – white male in his twenties, killed execution style and dumped on the beach. I have reason to believe the initial location was some sort of warehouse then the body was moved, this was recovered from the victim’s car,” she explained, hoping he wouldn’t ask why she thought he was killed in a warehouse because she didn’t think she could explain the fact that Nick had told her as much.

“Could just be a way of writing himself notes. I’ve seen so many cases where things we think are messages or clues just turn out to be someone’s special way of keeping track of things or reminding themselves to pick up milk on the way home. The amount of people who use ciphers continue to surprise me,” Baker thought aloud, “I’m leaning towards no for this one though something about it is telling me it’s not a simple reminder. Does November 3rd have any significance?”

Valerie’s lips pursed in thought, “Not that I know of. The crime happened in August, and I haven’t seen anything else that would lead me to November being a point of interest.”

“The first section is a date and time, maybe a meeting time or delivery time?”

Valerie watched intently as Sergeant Baker went verbally through his steps of deduction, going over each part of the list section by section making various assumptions and predictions about what it could mean. Everything he suggested was subject to change and frequently one thing became another entirely. Valerie thought over his suggestions, wishing Nick had come with her so things might start to make sense to him. He was the key to knowing what things made sense and what were completely out of left field. 

After a very lengthy pause Baker finally looking confident as he looked up at Valerie, “Does the victim work on the docks?” he asked as he copied the list onto a new sheet of paper, adding crucial spaces and notes that brought the truth of the message to life before their eyes.

“No, he was a singer,” Valerie stated and a look of recognition crossed the man’s thin, weathered face. 

“Well whoever wrote this had some kind of interest in them.”

Valerie raised her eyebrow curiously, “What makes you say that?”

Baker smiled proudly then held up the new version of the list, along with a map of the dockyards,

11 / 03 / 0145 / 1BD / KINNA
11 / 20 / 1539 / BLB1 / FUMI
12 / 09 / 2212 / GLB8 / FELICITY
01 / 18 / 1427 / WHT4 / PRINCESS

“The date, the time, the dock name and number, and what I’m assuming is the name of a container ship. These are just acronyms for the dock names that are commonly used in shipping schedules but the ordinary person wouldn’t use them. I’ll double check on the names of the ships and whether or not they were in port on those particular days but for the first time in a long time I’m confident that I’m right on this one.”

“A shipping schedule?” she questioned rhetorically, taking the sheet of paper out of the man’s hands.

“Does that help clear anything up for you?”

“I’ll still need to know who owns the ships and what was on them.”

Baker chuckled and placed the matchbook back into the plastic bag, “That’s your job, not mine. My work here is pretty much done.”

“I still can’t believe that’s it, it barely took you two hours. I was expecting a wait,” Valerie complimented.

“Sometimes the answer is really simple, right in front of your face, and you just need another set of eyes to take a fresh look at it. Plus it helps that I have things like dock lists and airport terminal lists and a map of everything imaginable that could be used in an acronym across the city.”

Valerie nodded thoughtfully, “Yes, that’s very true, its better that a guess be an educated one. Thank you for being my extra set of eyes, at least now I have some leads.”

Baker shrugged modestly, “That’s my job.”

“People should get gratitude even if it is for their job,” the woman told him honestly, then went on her way, needing to find Nick and Brian. Nick’s place of death, the warehouse, was suddenly starting to make sense. The person who had lost the list was in shipping and obviously either owned or worked at the dock where they’d taken Nick to kill him. She know had the how, where and what all she was left with was why and who.

Valerie stretched her arms in an attempt at grabbing the edge of her towel from the rack without having to open her eyes. It seemed as if the shower had gotten further away while she was enjoying herself under the hot water. With a frustrated grunt she wiped her face free of falling water droplets and walked out of the steamed glass shower, surprised to find her towel missing. 

Did I put it out she asked herself silently, knowing the answer was a most definite yes. She remembered distinctly grabbing a fresh towel from the closet when she walked into the bathroom. 

“Nick?” she called into the silence of her apartment, listening for any noise at all, “This isn’t funny!” she added, pulling on the t-shirt she’d been wearing before her shower. 

She reached for the door knob, feeling especially uneasy. The hairs on the back of her neck stood as she turned the cold knob to open the door, not expecting to see someone standing on the other side. Valerie let out a blood curdling scream, throwing herself back against the bathroom vanity, her mind immediately flashing to whether or not she’d locked up her gun when she came home. 

“Whoa, calm down!” Nick exclaimed, holding his hands out in defence, not thinking she would be so startled.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing?” Valerie screamed, grabbing the soap dish from the counter, hurling the plastic dish towards the man.

“I’m sorry!” Nick defended, dodging the flying bathroom accessory out of instinct, “I didn’t think you would get so freaked out. Aren’t cops cool under pressure?”

Valerie blushed, “Not when they’re scared out of their minds,” she stumbled over her words, crossing her arms across her chest. 

“I really am sorry,” Nick stressed, taking a moment to look her over. He couldn’t deny that she was a very pretty woman. Not beautiful, but pretty, and definitely not what he would normally go for. He liked long legs, and despite being slender and shapely Valerie’s legs were short. Not stumpy or stubby looking but most definitely short…

“Hello?!” Valerie snapped, wondering where his mind was, “Would you stop checking me out and listen to what I’m saying?”

“What?” Nick asked innocently, moving his eyes back to hers.

“Did death turn you into a complete pervert?” she questioned irritably.

Nick shook his head, “No!” he defended, “I was a pervert before I died thank you very much. It’s always been one of my greatest attributes.”

“I can’t believe you,” she grumbled, self consciously pulling down the shirt she was wearing in the hopes that it would cover a whole lot more than she was currently.

“Sorry that I couldn’t stop being male when I stopped being alive,” Nick scoffed sarcastically, not surprised when Valerie simply rolled her eyes in response.

“Was there something you wanted or do you steal my towels and spy on me often?”

Nick shrugged, “You didn’t call.”

“I couldn’t find either of you,” Valerie defended, moving away from Nick so she could get dressed in private.

She moved into the bedroom and closed the door, leaving it open just a crack as she searched her drawers for clothes, aware of the fact that Nick was likely looking in. 

“We were busy,” Nick answered, stuttering slightly as he thought of what to say without revealing the fact that he and Brian were out doing exactly what they had promised they wouldn’t do. 

“You were busy?” She questioned mockingly, as he suddenly appeared next to her in the bedroom, “Doing what?”

“A little shopping...”

“SHOPPING?!” Valerie exploded; her dark brown hair bouncing wildly as she swung her head around to face Nick at breakneck speed, “I was busting my ass finding out information for you two and you were out like a couple of housewives giggling, gossiping, and shopping?”

“There actually wasn’t a lot of gossiping, and we didn’t giggle,” he corrected, flopping back on her comforter, “I imagine this is soft, you seem like the type of person who would buy something with a very high thread count. Is it Egyptian?”

Valerie ran a hand down her face with a long sigh, “It’s from Sears, and its average soft, it’s just a duvet cover, it came in a bed in a bag…why are we having this conversation?”

Nick stretched out on the bed, making himself comfortable as Valerie looked on. He liked Valerie, he sometimes felt as if he had known her before all of this, and he knew that they would be good friends if he were alive. They were obviously good friends now, otherwise she wouldn’t be helping him, but things would be better if it had been a year prior. He could see himself having a lot of fun with her. 

She sighed again, watching Nick curiously. He had moments where he would drift off into his own world, and he was desperate to know what was going through his head. She reached over and slapped his leg to get his attention anxiously, wanting to tell him about what she had found out about the list.

No response. 

“Nick?” she asked in an annoyed voice.

“What?”

“I’m trying to get your attention!”

“Well you could ask nicely,” he pointed out, sitting up on the bed.

“I tapped your leg,” Valerie explained, immediately realizing that he wouldn’t have felt it, “Sorry; I’ll remember to just say your name next time.”

“I appreciate it,” Nick chuckled, flipping his shaggy blonde hair back, “What did you want?”

“Did you change your clothes?” 

“Irrelevant,” he brushed off, “Is that all you wanted?”

“I wanted to tell you about the list,” Valerie sat down next to him on the bed, pulling her legs up to sit Indian style.

“What did you find out?” he asked, his interest suddenly peaked as he sat the same way to face her on the bed.

“Well, I’m almost certain that you were right about being killed in a warehouse,” she explained, brushing a stray lock of hair behind her ear, “The list is a shipping schedule. The finer details of what ships, what they are carrying, and how this has anything to do with your murder is yet to be determined.”

Nick nodded slowly, trying to put the pieces together in his mind, “Keeping that in mind, does the name Esposito ring any bells?”

Immediately Val straightened up slightly, surprised to hear that question, “Yeah, it might. Where did you hear that name?”

Nick looked at her quizzically, not sure why she suddenly seemed jumpy just by him asking a simple question. It was apparent to him that the name he had overheard that night in the warehouse before his death was more important than he had ever thought, “When I was…being killed, I may have heard the name mentioned. Who is he?”

“Well, if we’re both talking about the same Esposito then he is Dominic Esposito. Right now he is in the middle of one of the FBI’s biggest investigations. They have been trying to bring him down for drugs, and racketeering, and organized crime for years but they can never get anything to stick to him. The guy is more slippery than a greased watermelon. Also, which should come as no surprise at this point, his “legitimate” business is shipping and receiving. As the police have come to learn though he’s usually shipping drugs and receiving stolen property. The guy is nothing but criminal scum,” Valerie explained, “It would be pretty ballsy of him to go and kill someone as high profile as you though. That is kind of like putting a target on his whole operation.”

“Unless he has the police on his side, or unless he had no idea what was going down until after I was already dead. He wasn’t there when I was killed, I’m just sure I heard those guys mention his name,” Nick countered, raising an eyebrow in the woman’s direction. 

As much as she wanted to argue with him Valerie was after all in the business of putting cops behind bars and she had seen more than her fair share of cops doing dirty deeds for high prices, “The cops on his side? Those would be some cops who would be very nervous right now with the FBI sniffing around. They’d be vulnerable, and panicked, but most of all they’d be extremely dangerous for us to go chasing after. I would even go so far as to say they may be more dangerous than Esposito himself, so let’s try not to focus too much on the prospect of dirty cops being involved at this point in our investigation.”

“Understood,” Nick agreed, raising a hand to tap his chin thoughtfully, “I just wish there was a way I could be more helpful.”

Valerie smiled slightly, wishing at that moment that it would be worthwhile to give him a reassuring pat on the back, as if he would even notice, “You have been more help than you know. Right now we just have to sit back for a bit, wait to find out the rest of the information about the shipping schedule, and then I will start looking further into it. That’s not something that you and Brian can really get involved in without being noticed by someone else. I will go down to the docks as soon as I find out anything else and start asking questions. You are helping as much as you possibly can, especially under the circumstances Nick.”

“Thanks,” he nodded, lifting just the corner of his mouth into a smile, “I’ll let you get to sleep,” he added and left her alone in the bedroom. Once he was out into the main living area of the apartment he found himself searching for more answers in his mind, desperate to help with clues since he couldn’t help in physicality. 

There were times, when the sky got dark, and the air was still that Nick would find nothing else in the world to do but sit and think. He used to value those times because between touring, recording, and being loved by the world he just didn’t find the time to sit and think. So it became special, those ritualistic moments when the moonlit sky and stillness called to him and he answered; paying his dues with his thoughts. He craved for the way it used to feel, the cool air, the shining stars, all of it. He just wanted to feel something, anything, the way it did before he’d died. Now that sleep never came he spent all of his nights staring up at the dark night sky, all of his nights not feeling wind, not enjoying the moon or the stars because they brought him nothing but the realization that he would never be whole again. He would never fall asleep curled up in a warm blanket on a patio just as the sun began to rise. He would never again fall asleep, or feel warm. It was discouraging, maddening, and motivating all at once.

As much as he wanted to stay with Brian, and hold on to that last little piece of how things used to be he knew he had to move on, but most of all he wanted to move on. It was those lost sensations, feelings, and emotions that drove him forward in their investigations. He wanted to find his killer not just for justice, not just for Brian, but so that he could go home and finally be at peace.

Nick sighed and looked back towards the windows of Valerie’s apartment, knowing that she was sleeping soundly inside. He didn’t feel like he had been able to contribute nearly as much as everyone else. All of his solo efforts ended up being finished by someone who was “able” and he never forgot that. He couldn’t do anything without Val or Brian and it made him feel like his entire purpose here was lost. Had his whole life lead up to this very moment? All he had to do was, answer a few questions and put together a few clues to find a solution and he couldn’t even do that. He could walk through things, and think himself into various locations but when it came to solving riddles where the key was staring him in the face he was at a loss.

“I have to do something!” he groaned out of frustration to the night sky. He continued to stare up at the stars, willing them to move and spell out an answer, “Tell me what I can do,” he begged of them.

Nick closed his eyes tight, and prayed for the guidance to find the truth. After a quiet, calming moment he slowly opened his eyes, taking in everything around him. The small sitting area and dining room in the distance…

“Wait,” Nick paused, realizing that just seconds ago he was standing on a balcony and now he was in someone’s living room, “Where the hell am I?”

His head whipped around at lightning speed, looking for anything that might be remotely familiar. This had happened before of course, but the last time he had found himself in the library. He remembered Flora telling him that someone could always hear what he was thinking, and would try to get him what he needed.

“This is what I need?” he asked himself, shrugging his shoulders. He didn’t recognize anything in the room. It was decorated in a very old style, a very rich style, but there were no photos or anything that could give him an indication of whose house it was.

Hearing noise from the other room Nick’s ears perked, concentrating on what direction the sound was coming from. Knowing he couldn’t be seen he ventured out into the foyer, following the echo of someone walking through the hall.

"Could you please take these upstairs? Thank you,” a female voice spoke and Nick’s eyes went wide with shock.

“I know that voice,” he said aloud, getting butterflies in his stomach at the thought. He continued to follow the footsteps and the voice as they got louder. He turned a corner, anticipating who would be standing there unknowing to his presence. He smiled a little as he watched her sort through some shopping bags, “Hi Toni,” he spoke, grinning now that he realized what he needed to do, “A stakeout!”

Toni was of course oblivious to the presence of her ex-boyfriend’s ghostly figure in her house, and went about sorting through her bags from her latest evening shopping excursion.

“Miss?” the housekeeper asked carefully, as she entered the foyer, “Mr. Antonio called, he said to tell you he is running late so he will meet you at the restaurant.”

“Okay, thank you,” Toni replied and Nick’s smile grew as he realized he was standing in the house where his murderer ate, slept, and fucked his ex-girlfriend.

“So, we’re going to dinner? Well I’d best snoop around while you get ready,” Nick announced loudly to an audience of none, leaving Toni in the hall while he went in search of something incriminating.

~*~

Valerie shivered as a chill blew through the room, waking her up enough to wonder where it had come from.

"Nick?" she called out, glancing at the clock to that that it was still only ten-thirty, "I swear sometimes I'm really sixty years old," she chuckled, wrapping a blanket around her shoulders.

She ventured into the living area, taking a quick glance around for her missing Polter-Nick.

"Nick?" she called out a second time as she spotted the open patio door.

Valerie poked her head out the door, a cool breeze hitting her warm cheeks, "Where is he?" she asked aloud, glancing back towards the living room sofa.

"Finding answers," the reply came out of the darkness of the quiet apartment.

Valerie raised an eyebrow, "What kind of answers?"

"The first step in the acquisition of wisdom is silence, the second listening, the third memory, the fourth practice and the fifth the teaching of others," the older female voice quoted.

"You’re using ancient Jewish philosophy now? Really?" Valerie chuckled, "You're always such a fountain of inspiration for a disembodied voice!" she remarked sarcastically, "So let's see... Nick would be on the practice stage right now. What could he possibly be practicing? Is he off trying some new tricks to ward off the Scooby gang? Using his ghostly abilities for the greater good? How could he be finding any answers from that?"

The voice chuckled heartily, "You'll see!" she announced with vigour in her voice, and then, as quickly as her presence was felt, she was gone.

"I hate when they do that!" Val muttered, making sure the patio door was firmly closed before retreating back to her room to wait for Nick's valiant return, or morning, whichever came first.

After searching through what seemed to be hundreds of rooms Nick finally found one that seemed like there might be something of value to him... an office.

He caught a glimpse of the clock as he entered through the door and his brow furrowed, "Ten-thirty?" he questioned curiously, "They can't be meeting for dinner this late," he reasoned. He took a look around the expansive office, wondering why on earth a person would need an office in their house quite this big. It was as large as his old master bedroom he figured with a sprawling oak desk, filing cabinets, and even a sitting area with couches and a coffee table. Nick was pretty sure that behind one of those walls was a bar, and behind one of those paintings there was a safe full of dirty money, but neither of those he was particularly interested in.

As he scratched his brow in thought he looked at the photos on the wall, seeing one that appeared to be two men cutting the ribbon at a new Italian restaurant, "Restaurant!" he exclaimed with eureka-like enthusiasm, "The maid didn't say that he would meet her for dinner, she said he would be meeting her at the restaurant, he must own it!"

Realizing that time was a precious commodity Nick quickly got to work looking for evidence, but like most business men who dealt in things a little on the shady side this Mr. Antonio had his desk locked up tight.

Nick quickly assessed the large oak desktop, noting that there was not even so much as a computer or calendar in sight, "Afraid of technology?" he asked as if the man were there to answer before reaching his hand through the desk to unlock the drawers from the inside. With a sneaky grin on his face he popped open the drawers seeing that they were full of brown file folders, letters, invoices, and other paperwork.

He quickly started pulling them out, taking a fast skim through them to see if there was anything he found familiar, or felt he may need. It seemed as though most of the files were pretty clean (probably as a precaution in case the authorities should ever decided to wake a look-see at what kinds of things this guy was keeping around,) but one piece of paper caught his eye. It was a list! Not the list, but a list none the less of ships and arrival times, printed out exactly like the one on the back of the matchbook. This one was probably legitimate otherwise he couldn't have seen them going through the trouble of writing out the sneaky ones on the back of a matchbook if they were just going to have it printed out at home. Nick read over the paper, not surprised to see that it was written on Esposito Oils company letterhead. Below the shipping times was an address, of a warehouse, where it seemed Mr. Antonio had an interest in. That warehouse was where he stored all of his restaurant supplies, and where he got his larger shipments, and no doubt some secret ones especially for Esposito.

"That's it that has to be the right place" Nick whispered, finding as many pieces of paper with that letterhead as he could find. As he gathered up the file folders to return them to the drawer they suddenly slipped straight through his fingers and slapped to the floor with an echoing whack.

"Shit," he muttered, not making any effort to be quiet even though unbeknownst to him Toni was standing frozen on the other side of the door.

She had been walking down the hall past the office door when she heard the noise of the paperwork hitting the polished hardwood floor. She carefully tried the door, surprised that it was in fact still locked. She was about to chalk it all up to her overactive imagination, after all she lived in a big old mansion, noises were commonplace, but the desk drawer slamming shut made her more than certain that someone was in there. She pulled out her master key, cautiously approaching the door since she had no idea what she would find on the other side.

Meanwhile Nick was standing over the desk puzzled. Now that he had the papers he had no idea how he was going to get them all out of the house. There was no way no one would noticed a small stack of 8 ½ x 11 making its way out of the house alone and he didn't think he had the strength left in him to try and carry it anyway.

The turning door knob broke him from his contemplation and he gasped as Toni poked her head in the door, slowly entering the room.

"Hello?" she called out to the seemingly empty room, "I know you're there, I heard you, so show yourself!"

Nick watched as she glanced around filing cabinets then finally behind the desk. Toni stood and looked at the papers splayed across the top of the desk. She lightly pushed through them and something seemed oddly familiar and coincidental since her encounter with Brian following her.

As Nick moved much closer to her he watched the hairs on the back of her neck and arms suddenly stand on end.

Toni gasped and whirled around, "Nick?" she struggled to say, feeling ludicrous for even thinking it, "Nick is dead, that’s crazy, you're imagining this," she told herself with false confidence.

Feeling a twinge of malice Nick could no longer fight his urge to bring out his inner Patrick Swayze. He lifted a hand and brushed it down the back of Toni's bare arm, laughing when fresh goose bumps spread like wildfire across her skin.

She cried out in fear, launching herself back against the nearest filing cabinet, her eyes shuffling back and forth across the room, "It was the wind," she told herself but the window was shut tight, "It wasn't real," she said though she knew it was real as day.

Nick hadn't really wanted to scare the life out of her, but he couldn't help but hold resentment against her for his untimely demise. He couldn't deny that a part of him still loved her, but at this point he really didn't like her very much.

Her chest heaved with deep frantic breathes as she waited for something awful to happen. She could feel her body temperature lowering and it was only proof to her that she was not alone in the room.

"Nick? Is that really you?" she whispered, not really expecting a reply, "You don't know how sorry I am for everything that happened. I never meant for you to get hurt...let alone killed. This cop, he told me if I ever told anyone what really happened he would make it look like I hired someone to kill you and I would spend the rest of my life in prison. I had to pretend like nothing happened and move on; you can't imagine how hard that was for me. I had to pretend like I didn't miss you, and feel responsible. I really did love you. I still love you now."

Nick was moved by her words, feeling sorry that she too had to suffer through everything that had happened. He watched tears slip down her cheeks and he sighed, "I forgive you," he said to what he thought was deaf ears but the sudden look of sheer horror on Toni's face told him otherwise.

She let out a scream, covering her mouth wide eyed, "Nick?!" she squeaked out, her eyes growing bigger the more terrified she became. She tried to back up further into the filing cabinet to get away from the ghostly version of her former lover standing before her. With cheetah-like speed she made a break for the door, not seeing the small African elephant statue propped against the desk. The statue was just enough to trip her and send her flying through the air and to the floor, her head soundly smacking against an antique coffee table.

"Oh my god!" Nick yelled out in shock, rushing over to the girl on the floor, "Toni!" he tried to revive her but with his mind racing he couldn't seem to find a pulse. He grabbed a glass coaster from the coffee table and held it beneath her nose, thus confirming his worst suspicions.

"Oh shit," he moaned, "I think she's dead! Oh, I know! I'll do CPR!" he nodded with his expert idea, setting up his hands over her heart before realizing it was not that great of an idea, and kind of a lost cause, "What am I doing? I don't breathe."

With a heavy sigh Nick sat down next to the body, wondering how the hell he was supposed to get his information and get to that restaurant if his guide, his ride, was lying dead on the floor. Surely their entire operation would be compromised if Mr. Antonio was preoccupied with the death of his fiancé.

"I guess a broken neck is better than life in prison," he said down to the woman, sighing again. Many things raced through his mind including some possibilities of what his options might be at this point in time. He looked down to Toni's still warm body and cautiously passed his arm into her, watching as the deceased jerked in response, "That's it," he gasped, "When I walked through Brian he had to make the conscious effort to keep walking, to pass through me, but what if he hadn't been able to? This is why I'm really here, I know it!"

As morbid as it seemed, and felt, Nick went with his gut and laid down on the floor next to Toni, closing his eyes firmly before rolling onto her... into her.

When he opened his eyes he was disappointed. It must not have worked. He was still himself. He heard his voice in his thoughts; his eyes looked out at the world, but those most definitely weren't his delicate feminine hands, or his smooth shapely legs.

Nick laughed aloud a higher more femininely enhanced voice being what resonated through the room, "It worked! I'm her!" he exclaimed, getting up to give a few triumphant victory jumps, pumping his tiny hands in the air. His feet came back to the floor and he was surprised he was able to keep himself from breaking an ankle in Toni's extravagant stilettos since he was so preoccupied with amusedly watching his supple bosom bounce with every jump thanks to the gift of gravity.

"Now that was a feature I was hoping came standard," he grinned mischievously, having to sincerely fight the urge to test out his new body further.

As Toni he quickly gathered up his papers (unable to his excitement at being able to pick things up without deep concentration) and locked the room back up just as it had been before. He caught a glimpse of himself in the mirror and quickly adjusted his hair, not wanting it to look like he had just fallen and broken his neck or anything. He wiped a drop of blood from Toni's hairline, making sure she looked perfect as always before he was seen in public.

"I do believe I have a date to get to," (S)he grinned, walking haphazardly down the hall, dangerously perked atop a pair of five inch heels.

By morning Valerie was really beginning to wonder where Nick had gone to the night before. She had wanted him with her when she followed up her leads on the matchbook and headed down to the dockyard, but instead she had to bring Brian who was not the most inconspicuous of sidekicks, she preferred the invisible kind.

“So tell me again… Nick just disappeared into thin air?” Brian asked for what seemed like the hundredth time, being very confused as to his friend’s sudden disappearing act. He had a bad feeling in his stomach that Nick was either in trouble or maybe he was even gone for good. He didn’t know what he would do if Nick didn’t show up in the span of the day.

“Are you really going to go over this again?” Valerie asked with a heavy sigh, “I told you already! I didn’t actually see him vanish. I went to bed early and when I woke up he was gone,” she repeated, sticking her hands tightly into her pockets.

It was a surprisingly brisk morning for Los Angeles and she had pulled her khaki jacket tight around her body, shielding herself from the cool wind coming in off the ocean.

They hadn’t had too much luck as far as finding out information; everyone seemed very hesitant to talk to any police. It didn’t surprise her; she had been in many situations in the past where people thought they were better off keeping to themselves and not letting the cops find out their names, even if they were perfect angels.

Valerie took another glance around the dockyard, the wind pulling her long hair from its neat bun, whipping it in front of her face. She was looking for someone, anyone, who might be willing to take a look at the shipping schedule. It wasn’t as if she was asking them to ID anyone specific after all, but the people in question weren’t the type to finger. Men driving forklifts, carrying heavy loads, setting up cranes, a man in a dark blue jacket, all working away seemingly oblivious to their presence. Except…

“Do you see that man over there?” Valerie asked, discreetly motioning her head towards the fellow in the blue jacket, “Don’t look though!”

Brian raised an eyebrow, wondering how he was going to see without looking, “Um, how can I see him if I don’t look?”

Valerie inhaled deeply, once again wishing she was there with another cop, “Your peripherals.”

Brian nodded (in an unsuspicious way) and cautiously gazed out of the sides of his vision, not realizing he was blatantly in a very suspicious way moving his eyes, and subsequently his head towards the man in question, “Oh! I see him.”

Rolling her eyes, Valerie let out another heavy sigh, “Really? I couldn’t tell. I bet you can’t see me though.”

“What do you…?” Brian started to ask before realizing that he had no in fact turned his head completely towards the man and was turned away from Val, “I’m sorry!”

“It’s no problem, I guess seeing without looking is more of a cop thing,” Valerie said, hooking her arm around Brian’s, “I think at this point though,” she began leading them across the dockyard, being very cautious of the blue jacketed man, “you should probably leave.”

“What? I can’t leave you alone! What’s going on?” he rushed to ask.

“I think we’re being followed,” she replied bluntly, not at all letting her worry show.

“Followed by whom? Who is that man?”

“I’m not sure,” Valerie admitted, making eye contact with Brian’s baby blues, “Ever since we got out of the car there has been a guy… in a blue jacket, the one over there… he was in the parking lot, and I have seen him at every stop we’ve made along the docks. At first I thought maybe it was a coincidence, but I just saw looking right at us. That’s just one too many coincidences for me,” she spoke calmly, not wanting to give off any signals to their tail that she might be onto him, beyond Brian checking him out.

Brian shook his head firmly, “I can’t leave you out here alone.”

“If you stay, and something happens and you get recognized how will you explain this?”

He knew she was right, knew that he couldn’t stay for so many reasons. If he ended up in the middle of some Mob heated gun battle in the middle of the day the press might ask questions, his wife would ask questions, and worst of all Kevin would ask so many questions.

“You’re right,” he admitted in defeat. As much as he didn’t want to leave her, he couldn’t stay.

“Listen, I’ll keep talking to people down here, making it look like everything is normal. Whether I find anything or not I’ll head right back to my office and I’ll give you a call to let you know I’m okay. Maybe by that time Nick will have shown up and I’ll be able to tell you a little more.”

Brian didn’t look overly reassured but he nodded anyway, “Be safe,” he instructed.

“I always am. Brian, I’m the last person you need to worry about. Trust me! If there’s any one thing I can tell you right now that I am absolutely sure of it’s that I’m fine, and I will be fine. I told you, I’ll call you,” Valerie smiled slightly then started leading Brian away from the docks so it wouldn’t look too obvious that he was taking off out of nervousness of their stalker. She watched him walk away and once he was out of sight, back to the car, she turned back to the docks.

She could feel that she was still being followed but she went about her business, looking for someone who would answer her questions.

“Excuse me,” she cleared her throat, watching a young man probably only in his late teens or early twenties turn from his spot loading a palate.

“Can I help you?” he asked, giving the woman a once over.

“My name is Officer Torres,” she introduced, flashing her badge, “I wonder if you might answer a few questions for me?”

~*~

Toni’s legs slipped easily over the edge of the bed, her small feet touching the floor gently as to not make a sound.

Nick was getting anxious. All he had managed to learn from meeting Toni’s boyfriend the night before was that Satino Antonio was not a good person. Santino was already suspicious of his beloved’s odd behaviour at the restaurant which was only heightened when they returned home and Toni was only interested in a good night’s sleep. Nick had to be quick on his toes to come up with excuses and lies that even a mobster would believe. Even though he was in Toni’s body he couldn’t fathom letting the other man touch him (unless he got him drunk first) and despite the fact that Antonio was a killer, Nick didn’t feel right making him an unwilling participant in necrophilia. That was just too extreme, even for the dead guy.

It was during the night, when the man in the bed next to him was asleep (and Nick could stop getting shivers from the thought) that he had made his first move, using a fax machine he had found in the kitchen to send all of the documents he had taken from the office and hidden to Valerie’s office. Once they’d been faxed he hid the documents outside, somewhere that only he, or the neighbour’s dog would find them in case he needed to get the originals to the police.

When morning came Santino awoke early, going about his morning rituals not realizing that a man possessing his girlfriend was watching his every move.

The boyfriend wasn’t Nick’s only problem though. He had lucked out and found the documents, he was planning on following Satino throughout the day in the hopes that he might find his way to the docks and lead him straight to where the killing had took place, but that was where his luck ended. He hadn’t dreamed in a thousand years that if he took over Toni’s body (not that he had ever dreamed of that to begin with) she would be dead, and despite his helpful hand in reanimation was still very much dead.

If he could smell, Nick reasoned, he would smell like death; literally.

Luckily Toni’s body hadn’t gone through any kind of rigor mortis, but every time Nick looked at the hands that stretched out in front of him they were becoming more pale and waxy from the lack of blood flow. If he was going to uncover any kind of mysteries using this body it needed to be before Toni had started to really decompose.

Nick grimaced at the thought, not having felt completely comfortable with the idea that he had killed the woman he used to love (and had recently thought he still did love) then snatched her body to use as his own vessel. He hoped that using Toni this way wouldn’t keep her from going on, since he knew how much he was looking forward to that himself.

Toni’s head tilted towards the door, listening for any sounds. When the coast was clear Nick walked her body through the house, throwing on clothes quickly then setting off after Santino, and in search of his warehouses. He had the list of all of them practically memorised but there was no way to know which one was the one he wanted, which one would hold the key to his murder and have enough evidence to put Antonio and, ultimately, Esposito in prison.

Regardless, he was going to go down there and find something incriminating.

Valerie reluctantly spat out another thank you, turning away from the man who she was speaking to despite the fact that he had given her nothing. Everyone had told her the same thing – they didn’t know anything. They couldn’t tell her if they recognized the names of the ships on her list “We get a lot of ships in here officer,” and they couldn’t tell her if they knew anything about warehouses owned by Esposito Oils, “I just work here, I don’t keep tabs on whose stuff is coming in and out,” so she was frustrated, to say the least. 

She knew going in that the majority of people were going to be hesitant to talk to anyone who introduced themselves with a badge, but she had hope that a few people would break the mould and give her a lead. 

With no luck, and no answers she thought it was only reasonable to head back to her office. She wondered for a moment if the man in the blue coat would follow her there, or if he were just there to see what she found out at the docks. Only a move towards her car would tell her the truth. 

As she walked between the warehouses she caught a glimpse of a woman looking haggard and gaunt, stumbling along the asphalt. A short skirt and stiletto heels did nothing but make it obvious she was in the wrong part of town, but perhaps she knew something. 

“Excuse me, Miss,” Valerie called out, making the woman look up from the sheet of paper she was conferring to, and also the blue jacketed man followed her with his eyes. 

“Oh hey Val,” the woman replied leaving the officer in complete disbelief as to how this person knew her. 

“Do I know you?” Valerie asked point blank. 

“Oh!” the woman laughed in a high pitched tenor, “I totally forgot that you don’t see me as me you see me as her.” 

Valerie blinked hard, her hand slowly moving to her sidearm as her scepticism increased, “I’m sorry, who is it that you think I should know you as?”

“It’s me, Nick!” the woman announced, hand on the hip, eyebrow towards the sky. 

“I’m not sure I know a Nick,” Valerie told her slowly, not sure if she should believe it was her Casper that was inside that waxy looking woman. 

“After I left your house last night I went to Toni’s to find out info about her boyfriend, but then I accidentally killed her so I figured I should probably take her body for a spin so I could get some info on this warehouse we’re looking for.” 

Valerie groaned and covered her face, “Oh god, it is you.” 

Toni’s head moved from left to right checking out the scene, “How do you know I’m not making it up?”

“Who could make that up? Idiot,” Valerie shook her head, “Ok so you’re walking around in a decomposing corpse, which is disgusting by the way, and you’re looking for what?” 

“Well when I was,”

“Wait,” Valerie interrupted, “We shouldn’t talk about this right now. I’m being followed. Brian was with me earlier I sent him home because this guy was giving me the creeps so it would probably look very suspicious if you tell me anything. I don’t want him to know what we may know.” 

“So…” Nick used his ex girlfriend’s head to take a quick glance around, not seeing the suspicious character that was following the policewoman, “Where is this guy?” 

“Hiding,” Valerie deadpanned, “He wouldn’t be out in plain sight.”

“Then how do you know he’s there?” 

Valerie took a deep breath as to not kill the dead woman for good and rolled her eyes, “Don’t question it. I know. I’ve seen him multiple times. Why do you always have to argue with me?” 

Toni’s slight shoulders shrugged, “Because I’m annoying?” 

“That’s for certain,” Valerie agreed, “So here’s what I’m thinking. I’m going to go back to my office and see if this guy follows me – do you have a phone?” 

“You think I’m carrying this for the fun of it?” Nick asked, motioning to Toni’s small designer handbag that was slung over his forearm. 

“Why are you carrying it?” 

“No pockets.”

“Right,” Valerie nodded, “So here’s the deal; call me in an hour and let me know what you found out. And if this guy doesn’t follow me and he stays here you need to be careful, I might even suggest dumping the body and going incognito.” 

“I’ll keep an eye out,” he assured her. 

Valerie merely nodded then turned and walked away, sticking her hands firmly in the pockets of her jacket. She was confident that Nick would call her with positive news, but in the mean time she had to figure out why she was being tailed and who was doing it. 

~*~

Brian tapped his foot impatiently against the floor of his car, wondering why he hadn’t yet heard from Valerie. It probably hadn’t been long enough to warrant being this anxious but he was worried about her, what with that strange guy following them and all. She was right in sending him away to protect his anonymity in the case but he couldn’t help but be worried, and curious. He couldn’t take the anticipation of a phone call that he feared may not come, and with Nick essentially missing his nerves were completely fried. 

“That’s it,” he said aloud to the dash of the vehicle, “I’m going down to her office. I’ll wait for her there.” 

He started the car and put it in gear, heading in the direction of Valerie’s office. He’d never been there, and only knew the address from seeing her business card that she had given Leighanne on their first meeting but he was sure if he explained the situation they would let him wait for her, at least he hoped they would. 

It took him about twenty minutes to arrive in front of an office building labelled with ‘LAPD Professional Standards Bureau’ written boldly across the door’s windows. He was nervous as he walked in the doors; the whole place was covered in police officers. That wasn’t unusual considering that it was supposed to be crawling with cops but it heightened Brian’s nerves none the less. 

A receptionist sat behind a large desk just inside the doors and she glanced up at Brian as he approached her, showing no sign of recognition much to his relief. 

“Hi,” Brian smiled and she returned the grin.

“Can I help you?” she asked. 

“Actually yes, um I’m wondering if Officer Torres has come back to her office.” 

The look on the woman’s face was still not one of recognition, “Torres?” she asked, “I’m not sure I know them, let me just look it up.”

“Valerie Torres,” he said with a smile to try and be helpful and waited once again as the receptionist typed away into her computer. 

“Sir I think you have the wrong place,” she told him and Brian’s brow furrowed with confusion.

“This was the address on her business card,” he explained.

The receptionist looked at him at a loss, not knowing how to make it any more plain, “There’s no Officer Valerie Torres working in this office.” 

Brian didn’t know what to do, why would Valerie have lied about where she worked to the point of coming up with fake business cards. Was this woman even a cop? 

“Are you able to look her up to find out where I should be going? I really need to speak with her,” Brian stressed, wondering if maybe he just had the wrong place. 

“Sure,” the receptionist nodded and turned to the computer once again, “Our city-wide directory is a little outdated, they’re doing work on the new servers right now but she can’t have gone far so we should be able to find out.” 

Brian smiled at the woman again, his cheeks starting to feel the burn from all of his fake grins, “Thank you so much.”

The receptionist’s fingers clicked away against the keys before finally turning up towards Brian with a smile, “Well I think I found her!” she told the man, handing him a slip of paper, “Her office is across town – Wilshire Precinct.” 

“Thank you,” Brian told her honestly as he took the slip of paper then headed off towards his next destination. He was confused to say the least by the fact that Valerie’s office wasn’t where it should have been, but he was chalking it up to his own misdirection. Maybe he had only assumed she would be at that building… even though before today he was sure he didn’t know it existed. 

Another short drive and he found himself in front of yet another police building; only this time the building had a lot less finesse, and he was sure it wouldn’t have a good looking receptionist waiting anxiously on the other side of the door. This place was less police headquarters, and more ‘we’d like to talk to you downtown’.

He was much more cautious as he walked into the brick building, squeezing past people and police officers to finally get to the desk which was behind a thick sheet of Plexiglas no doubt for the protection of the desk sergeant should any crazies come in and start shooting. There was a slightly overweight blonde woman in a police uniform seated in the middle of the desk, a set of crutches propped up against the wall just behind her. 

“Hi,” he said, stepping up to the desk.

“How can I help you?” she asked and Brian once again put on a smile. 

“I was hoping you could help me find someone. I’ve been speaking with an Officer Torres and I guess I went to the wrong office, they told me to come here,” he explained and the woman’s eyes lit up with the recognition he had been waiting for. 

“You mean Sergeant Torres?” she asked and Brian was once again confused. 

“Maybe?” he said in an unsure voice, not knowing if maybe he not only had Valerie’s office wrong, but also her rank. 

“He’s just over there!” she replied in a bubbly tone, not letting Brian get a single word in to correct her before she had summoned over a much older man, definitely beyond his retirement years. 

“You are looking for me?” the older Hispanic man asked and Brian, once again, smiled. 

“Actually, I’m sorry, there was a mix up. The person I’m looking for is a woman – Valerie Torres.” 

The older man’s features turned soft and he took Brian by the elbow, “Son, I’m sorry; I didn’t think there was anyone left who didn’t know this but… Valerie is dead.”

“What?!” Brian asked, nearly laughing at the situation, “She’s not dead I was just with her. She told me she was coming back to her office so I went to the place that was on her business card but they told me she didn’t work there and to come here – they looked her up!” 

Sergeant Torres lead Brian away from the desk and to a small break room full of a table, chairs, and vending machines, “You can’t have been with her today,” he explained to the young man, “Valerie Torres is dead, I am completely certain of it because I’m the one who put her in the ground. I’m her grandfather.”

Valerie walked briskly back toward her car, not wanting to stop to see if the man was still following her. She needed to call Brian and let him know she was okay, but she also needed to lose her tail and get back here to find out what Nick was up to. 

She turned down between two large warehouses, manoeuvring around dumpsters and various pieces of machinery that were positioned down the alleyway. 

Just as she went to turn the corner back out into the open a body stepped into her view, forcing her back into the alley. She was about to chastise the person for not watching where they were going when she realized the offender was none other than the man in the blue jacket. 

“Why are you following me?” she immediately demanded to know. 

“I think you know why,” the man replied, then moved the right side of his jacket aside to show her a holstered weapon and a badge.

“I don’t think I do. Whatever happened to police camaraderie?” 

“Well,” the man replied snidely, “As it turns out the bad guys pay better than the good guys do.” 

“I’ll have to keep that in mind,” Val said, her eyes scanning for an escape route away from the guy with the gun, “What do you need from me?” 

“Oh it’s not me that needs it,” he chuckled, “It’s who I’m working for. They need you.” 

“Oh, why didn’t you just say so?” Valerie smiled, “Take me to your leader!”

The man smiled and pulled something out of his pocket, “You’ll see him soon enough,” he told Valerie before hitting her firmly over the head with the leather black jack he had been concealing in his hand. 

The woman’s body slipped easily to the ground and he didn’t even bother to ensure the coast was clear before pulling her body up and dragging it off to his car. 

~*~

Brian stared at the old man in complete shock, though he knew he shouldn’t really be all that surprised. Here he was, not able to believe the man when he told him that the policewoman was dead yet at the same time he was concerned about the whereabouts of his dead best friend. 

“Sir, when did this happen?” Brian boldly asked, needing to figure some things out before he could leave the old man to his business once again.

“Call me David,” the man told Brian with a wave of his hand, “Just over two years ago Valerie took her own life.”

“Why would she do that?” Brian asked, not truly expecting an answer to the question, “What happened?” 

“She was very broken up over her father’s death, they were very close. He was the whole reason she joined the force, and he was so proud of her when she decided to go the Internal Affairs route because he knew that there was a lot of dirty cops in this city and he wanted his daughter to be part of cleaning things up. When he was killed she blamed herself because it was her information that got him killed but… it was his own stupidity. He’s my son and I loved him but he did the wrong thing in confronting his partner. He thought that he was helping his friend, his partner in defending people from criminals, get help. He was naïve in thinking that the man he trusted was merely in a situation that he couldn’t escape from rather than being there voluntarily. It was Valerie’s father that made the decision, and he ultimately signed his own death certificate because of it. There was no way Valerie could have changed anything that happened, but she was young and relatively new and didn’t realize what could happen. I’m sorry,” the old man paused, wiping at his eyes quickly, “I honestly don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”

“No, thank you,” Brian told him, putting a comforting hand on the man’s shoulder, “I can’t tell you how much it means to me.” 

“It’s strange,” David admitted, “I haven’t really talked about this with anyone but I can’t help but want to tell you everything.” 

“Only tell me what you feel you need to,” Brian said, not wanting him to feel exposed by all that he was revealing. He was a very confused person having learned that the woman they’d been working with was, like Nick, a spirit but Valerie’s corporeal existence was what confused him the most. Why wasn’t she invisible like Nick? What was giving her the power to move about like a living human being? From what he’d seen there were even people who recognized her and spoke to her as if they were friends and coworkers. The possibility that it was all a ruse just seemed unlikely to him. 

David took a deep breath then let his dull brown eyes lock with Brian’s, “After her father died… about a year I’d say, she started acting differently. She was being erratic, and we were beginning to get concerns that she was depressed after just having been through the anniversary of his murder. It just got progressively worse though, people started commenting on the little things like that she was speaking to herself as if having ongoing conversations with someone who wasn’t even there. She wasn’t sleeping at night, and no matter what we did to try and help her she was off in her own little world. She started spending so much time working on these projects she was making up for herself that she was put on probation at work. From there she just went deeper and deeper into her delusions. She tried to tell us at one point that she wasn’t talking to herself, that she was talking to her father… we knew then that she was too far gone, so we had her committed. She rambled on and on about new evidence she had found against her father’s partner saying that he was wanted by the FBI and they were doing some kind of undercover sting operation. There was no way she could have gotten evidence from the hospital; we knew she was making it up. I can’t even tell you what we went through Brian. She literally drove herself insane. When the hospital called and told us that she had killed herself… we weren’t actually all that surprised. It had been something I had felt coming for a long time.”

David’s words spoke volumes to Brian, volumes beyond his wildest imagination. He never thought that with all of the insanity going on around him that things would actually start to make sense. How could this old man telling him about his granddaughter’s suicide suddenly start to give Brian insight into the past couple of weeks? It astounded him. Everything David was telling him about Valerie sounded so much like his own life; the anniversary of the death, talking to herself, coming up with evidence seemingly out of nowhere, and finally needing to stop the voices and all of the lunacy enveloping her by taking her own life. He didn’t believe himself to be stronger person than Val, just in a different situation. She didn’t have anyone there to help her like she’d been able to do for him. It was just her and the spirits. If he had been alone with Nick, knowing that only he could see him he probably would have felt the same as she did. Alone, isolated and completely out of your mind, batshit crazy. He didn’t blame Val for not telling him everything, but now he needed to speak with her more than ever before. Valerie and Nick had died at the same time, both of them taken from their families because of circumstances outside of their control. Valerie may have had a hand in her own end, but he couldn’t deny that there was a whole slew of influencing forces that could have helped her along. The thought that Nick’s murder could be in some way related to (if not only slightly) Valerie’s suicide worried him, because he had no idea now what the two of them were capable of. If only he knew where Nick was, whether Nick knew about Valerie and what they both intended to do. 

“Thank you,” Brian told David honestly, shaking the man’s hand, “I wish I could tell you everything that is going on right now, and some day I will but for now I have to go.”

“You never told me why you thought you saw my granddaughter, and why you were looking for her so long after her death,” David reminded him, still curious to know where this man had come from and why he had been so sure to have been in contact with Valerie. 

“I must have been mistaken,” Brian lied, and the older man saw right through him. 

“Oh,” David nodded then suddenly gave Brian a serious but all knowing stare, “When you find who you’re looking for… tell them I say hello.”

Unsure as to whether or not the man was seriously thinking Brian was going to find this person he’d mistaken for his granddaughter, or whether he had suspicions that Brian was telling the truth the younger man just nodded, his blue eyes shining with an honesty that was unmistakable, “I will,” he told David with another shake of his hand, “I will.”

There is a scene in every big budget Hollywood movie set in San Francisco that involves a car chase. The bad guy verses the good guys in a crazy, destruction laden adventure through the city. Cars soar over hills, amazingly managing to stay in one piece as they come crashing back to the ground. Any normal person would be incapable of keeping control of the car at that speed with that kind of recklessness but, of course, none of those car chases were real. “Stunt driver; closed course.” Dozens of cars ruined trying to achieve a single decent shot. Brian now knew that stunt driving was a career he could seriously investigate should his savings ever run out.

It may have been traffic filled Los Angeles instead of the daunting hills of San Fran but Brian was flying across the roads with a few broken traffic laws being the least of his worries. Once he left the police station with his newfound knowledge he knew that he couldn’t wait around for Valerie to get a hold of him. Something wasn’t right; he knew it in his gut. Once he’d peeled away from the precinct and was speeding down the freeway with reckless abandon he realized he didn’t really know where he should go. His first instinct was to go right back to where he’d left his partner in crime; the dockyards.

They were just as busy when he arrived as they had been when he left and he had just as little idea of where to go as he and Valerie had that morning. With a sigh he parked his car and headed out towards the waterfront, glancing left and right for any kind of sign or indication of where his friend might be. He walked up and down the docks, looking for something; anything that might lead him to the answers. He tried asking a few people if they’d seen the female officer but of course the dock workers were mum. It irked him how quiet everyone was. He would expect a bunch of men working on or near the ocean would be loud, raucous, people. Instead it was like they were all scared; of what he wasn’t sure but he was nearly positive that by the end of the day he would find out.

“Hey,” a soft voice called out to him and Brian glanced around quickly, not seeing anyone looking in his direction. With a shrug he turned back towards the water until the voice once again called out for acknowledgement.

“Me?” he asked rhetorically catching a young man glancing at him out of the corner of his eye. He had a ball cap pulled down tightly over his brown hair, so low that Brian could barely make out the fact that the man was looking in his direction.

Without any sort of confirmation the boy continued to look over a shipping manifest and spoke, “You’re that singer.”

“You know me?” Brian asked, not looking back at the young man since he got the feeling that talking to him would be a faux pas.

The man chuckled quietly, “Well I haven’t lived under a rock for the past ten years if that’s what you mean. Your friend that you were here with earlier...” he trailed off, giving a quick look over both shoulders.

“Where is she?” Brian urged.

“Pier 14,” was all the man said before nervously shuffling away, keeping his eyes front and away from any recognition of Brian’s presence.

“Gee, thanks for all your help,” Brian sarcastically rambled to himself. He turned to the buildings and looked for a number so he could identify what pier he was standing on.

~*~

Valerie blinked slowly against the lights, coming to her senses once again. It had been hours since she had been taken from the alley way and she had been in and out of consciousness since then. In the background she could hear hushed voices having a heated conversation and she strained against her throbbing head to hear what they were saying.

“Where did she get all of this?” a man’s voice demanded followed by a ruffling of papers.

“It was in a fax that came in to headquarters,” a second voice explained, “A fax that came from your phone number.”

“That’s not possible. I’m not stupid; I would never have incriminated myself by sending this kind of information to the cops! Do you take me for a fool?”

“What about your girlfriend?”, yet another male voice broke into the conversation, “She had access to your fax machine.”

“So does the maid,” the first voice cut back in laden with sarcasm, “Toni would have to have a death wish to try and screw us like that. She knows that the reason she lived last year was because of me, and she would be the first person we would come after.”

“Well we better get some answers...”

“She’s awake!”

Valerie straightened at the words she knew were about her. She held her head high, wanting to make sure that her captors knew she was not afraid of them.

“I always knew you’d get yourself into trouble,” a voice said with a chuckle as a man walked towards her through the shadows. He was tall, muscular, and undeniably familiar to the woman.

“Hi Josh,” Valerie said to the police officer even before he stepped into the light.

“Were you expecting me?” he laughed, raising an eyebrow in Val’s direction.

“I had a gut feeling,” she replied, giving him a once over before her attention turned to the man who walked in behind him, none other than Santino. The other voice she’d heard had been from the man who had followed her all day, so she was sure know that she was looking at the persons in charge, “It’s so nice to finally get to meet you,” she said to the Mediterranean looking man to her left.

“I can’t say the feeling is mutual,” Santino replied, watching her closely through squinted eyes.

“So,” Josh began, pulling over a folding chair. He turned the grey chair backwards and sat down on it, cocking his head to the side, “How did you figure us out? I’m very curious. Who squealed?”

Valerie chuckled, “No one did. I’m just a damn good cop.”

“Here’s the thing though,” he said sarcastically, “You’re not a cop at all. I couldn’t find any background information about you, or even what your position was with IAB. All I knew was that you always seemed to be snooping around things that could incriminate me. I nearly lost it that day when you were looking through that pop star’s evidence files. I knew you didn’t know him, and I’ll be damned if I know what you were looking for. None of that evidence could connect him to us... I made sure of it. So who are you... are you some kind of undercover? A ghost, maybe?” he laughed.

“Something like that,” Valerie gave an uncommitted reply.

The officer laughed and circled the woman on the chair, continuing his monologue much to Valerie’s dismay. He nattered on and on, and she let her mind wander.

Where was Nick? She was sure he would have figured out where to find her by now. He was supposed to have called her, and hopefully would have known that something was up when she never answered. It had to have been hours since she was hit over the head considering that the sun was now on the opposite side of the docks. Slowly she tuned back in to what the man in front of her was saying, though still generally uninterested.

“You’re not even paying attention are you?” Josh scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest.

“To be honest? No.” Valerie shrugged as best as she could with bound hands.

Her fellow officer lifted his hand, ready to strike her for her insolence but a loud crash of breaking glass from the other end of the warehouse got everyone’s attention.

“What was that?” Santino asked, all of the men looking between each other.

“I’ll check it out,” the man in blue, her stalker from earlier, said before heading off in the direction of the noise.

****************************************************************

Nick had slipped off his heels to keep the noise to a minimum as he walked through the large warehouse. Boxes lined tall shelves, all marked with the stamp of Esposito Oils. He had paid no mind to them until he noticed a familiar sequence of letters and numbers along a bunch of crates.

“This is them,” he whispered in Toni’s soft voice, finally seeing what it was that came off the ships. The reason he was killed was the contents of these crates. So many answers lied just a few feet away.

Like a scene straight out of a horribly clichéd action movie he found a crowbar a short distance away. He had to duck under the shelving to get good leverage so the nails slipped easily out of the wood. Under the panels there was a layer of shredded paper. He dug as fast as Toni’s slowly softening manicured nails would allow before finally the hands hit something solid.

With a smile Nick got a grasp on the contents and pulled it out.

“Olive oil?” he asked rhetorically, putting the bottle aside to reach in for something else. All he found was more olive oil. Bottle after bottle that he yanked out of the crate, all the same decorative containers of olive oil; like something you’d find in a souvenir shop, “I’m dead over some crates of fucking COOKING OIL?”

Now he was angry, and with a surge of emotions he swiped the bottles he’d laid on top of the crate onto the floor, hearing them hit the floor with a resounding crash. Breathing heavy he realized what he’d just done. Surely they’d heard him, and here he was completely exposed.

He had to find somewhere to hide.

The cop watched as the two men walked briskly down the corridor of the warehouse towards the source of the noise then turned back to the woman in front of him, too cocky for her own good.

"Friend of yours?" he asked smugly, circling her again.

Valerie chuckled, "Maybe it's the cops!"

Her comment made Josh laugh just a little bit too hard, and she knew that he was mocking her, "Honey there are no honest cops left in this city, unfortunate for you."

"Like Sid Bromwell?" she asked, watching the man's face carefully as she spoke the name.

"What do you know about him?"

Sid Bromwell was the detective in charge of investigating Nick's death. Valerie knew better than anyone the type of cop that Bromwell was, and he definitely wasn't an honest one.

"I know the only reason he was lead on that murder was to keep things going in circles, I know that about him. The honest cops that ARE still out there, that I know are out there, are onto him, I know that too. I know he's involved in some kind of drug operation, which I'm willing to bet you're involved in also," Val theorized, knowing perfectly well exactly what was going on though she would never let on to the man what all she did know.

Josh's eyes narrowed and Val knew that she had pushed his buttons, "Who the fuck are you?"

"You know who I am," she challenged, "You knew me before today!"

"No, I pretended to know you because you acted as if you knew me!" he corrected, "You walked around with a badge on your shirt, sneaking around, and seeming like you were checking up on me! Of course I pretended to know you! I wanted to know why you were checking up on me and what you knew! The thing I could never figure out is why you had that kid's evidence box that day. How did you link me to him?"

Valerie nearly smiled, "I had no idea you had anything to do with Nick Carter's death until just now. I just knew you were involved with Sid Bromwell, and Tom Cane. I know you from a different case."

"Can't say I've ever met the guys," he avoided with a shrug of his lean shoulders, eyeing Valerie carefully.

Valerie did smile this time, and laughed, "I know for a fact that you know them. I think you can tell me a lot about them."

"Now, now," Josh turned away from her, his attention drifting to the corridor where his partners were checking out the noise, "If I told you anything... I'd have to kill you."

"I'm game," Valerie said casually and Josh turned around in surprise.

"Yeah right," he scoffed, "No amount of information about those two creeps would be worth dying over. Why do you care so much about them?"

"Because," Valerie explained, pulling slightly against her restraints, "There's only one reason that Bromwell was in charge of that case. He's one of the dirtiest cops on the force nowadays, and they give him something as huge as a celebrity being brutally murdered? I don't think so; someone else was running the show. My best bet is that Tom Cane was behind all of it. Cane gave the order to kill Nick Carter that night, to cover his own ass, because he was worried about being caught. What he didn't know is that Nick didn't know anything, so his little henchmen tortured and murdered an innocent man. That's all he ever does though is cover is own ass... he did the same thing when he killed my father."

“Your father?” the officer asked, acting as though his interest was piqued, “And just who was your father?”

“Bromwell’s old partner, Joe Torres,” Valerie answered simply and watched with curiosity as Josh’s eyes widened just a fraction of an inch. Enough for her to know she’d just hit a nerve.

He laughed it off and glared at her, “Sorry, that’s just not possible. Try again.”

 ~*~

If there was one thing Brian hated about trying to be quiet, it was how easy it was to make a lot of noise when trying to work in absolute silence.

He could hear everything from the sound of his sneakers lightly squeaking against the damn cement floor, to his own deep inhales and exhales as he breathed quickly.

He had expected that getting into the warehouse would be difficult. He was anticipating some kind of super-spy moves to get around security but he quickly discovered that there was none. There was no one outside and no one inside as far as he could see.

 Brian crept along the high shelving units lined with pallets. The wooden skids were lined with wooden crates and Brian found himself drawn to one that was ajar. He wanted to see what was inside. Peering over the top he just saw bottles. Olive oil, he determined after checking out the box as well as the bottles that were strewn on the ground. Someone had definitely been there, he could tell from the destruction of the crate. He was about to move on when something caught his eye.

Brian picked up the decorative bottle and turned it over in his hands. It was pretty typical - the type of traditional bottle you'd buy as a gift. The dark green, corked bottle was decorated with painted olive branches and was held on the bottom by a wicker cup. It was the cup that caught Brian's attention. From one of the broken bottles he could see that the bottle ended short, and didn't go all the way down to the bottom of the wicker.

He yanked the cup off the bottom of the bottle and nearly jumped when something fell out. The bottle, which had the appearance of being rounded, was flat on the bottom and merely glued to the wicker. What really filled the cup was a small, tightly sealed package of fine white powder.

Brian wasn't naive enough to not know what was probably in the bag, but for his own reassurance he started going through the bottles, checking many of them only to get the same result. He wished Nick was there for the discovery. Nick had been killed because he held the key to what appeared to be an incredibly large drug shipment. This was bigger than they'd thought!

Hearing a noise his head snapped up and he saw shadows approaching him from the other side of the warehouse. Quickly he stuck one of the bags into his pocket and ducked down behind a pile of boxes.

 Brian carefully listened, his ears again filled with the sound of his breathing as he tried to remain undiscovered.

"What the fuck..."

They'd found the crates and the olive oil spilled all over the floor. For a split second Brian panicked, worried that maybe he'd tracked oil on his shoes right over to his hiding spot behind the boxes. He took a chance and quickly poked his head out to check, looking for any shoe prints he may have brought over.

"Go look over there!"

And in a snap he was flush against the wall, breathing quickly. Had they seen him?

It was quiet for a few moments, and he wasn't sure if the two men had left or if they were merely waiting for him to make the first move, first mistake, by exposing himself again. Brian nearly smiled at that thought. He knew that if Nick was aware he'd just been thinking about self exposure he'd never hear the end of it.

"Santino! Get over here, I found something!" a voice yelled and Brian cowered lower, not sure if they were coming to see him or if they'd found something else.

"Holy shit! Oh my God!"

"What's going on over here?" This voice sounded far more authoritative, as if he were the fellow in charge of the operation.

Brian heard the new man's footsteps rushing in the opposite direction of his hiding spot and he breathed a small sigh of relief.

"Santino... isn't that your girlfriend?"

Suddenly Brian's interest was piqued, and he listened to the three of them discuss what they'd found... it was a body.

He had just been out there, and hadn't seen a dead body lying on the ground! You'd think that would be something a person would catch when looking for a decent place to hide.

He thought about what they were saying, and realized that the only mob girlfriend he knew of was Toni. It couldn't possibly be Toni, could it?

~*~

"When I left my house, she was alive," Santino stressed to his superior, still in shock after the discovery of his girlfriend's expired body lying on the floor of the warehouse.

"Is it just me or..." the other man, in the blue jacket, paused as he looked over the corpse, "Does she not look very fresh to you?"

Josh eyed the man sceptically as he crouched near the body on the floor, "What exactly do you mean by that?"

"Well I've seen plenty of dead people. And usually when a person is alive in the morning and dead by afternoon they're not so... juicy."

"What do you mean?" Josh asked, raising an eyebrow, "Wouldn't the "fresh" ones be the... juiciest?"

"No," Blue jacket scoffed, "Can't you smell that?"

"Yeah, but she is dead after all."

"Dead people don't smell instantly, are you sure you're a cop? She's been dead for a while... she's decomposing for crying out loud!"

Santino immediately interrupted the argument, "Look buddy, I was with her this morning. There's no way she was dead! If she was how would she have gotten here?"

Josh was pulling on the ends of his hair at this point, "Why the hell are we standing here arguing about this? How did she get here and who the fuck killed her? Find out! Someone else is obviously here!"

At this point Brian had nearly crawled out of his skin. He had never felt so nervous in his life. Who would have thought that a celebrity, a singer, a family man, a Christian (and all of the things that encompassed his being that had NOTHING to do with crime) would be in a situation where he was literally hiding for his life? He couldn't fathom the thought that his entire life was on the line, and depending merely on his ability to keep still and quiet. Sure, he could have walked outside that morning and been hit by a bus but he'd never deliberately walked out in front of a bus and that was how the situation was significantly different.

It had been a while since he heard the discussion of finding Toni's body, and listened to the sound of the three men walking away from his hiding place. Now could be the time to come out but with the three of them lurking around he didn't want to press his luck.

"Your goons obviously aren't very good at hide and seek," Valerie smirked sarcastically at her adversary, and he seemed to be at the end of his rope.

"Enough of this bullshit!" Josh exclaimed, pulling a pistol from his belt, "I know you're in here! Come out now or I kill your partner!"

And with that he swung around and pointed the gun at Valerie's head.

"How much do you value her?" he screamed again, knowing in his gut that whoever was in the warehouse was an accomplice of hers, "Because I don't give a shit about her, and her death is only going to mean less chance of me getting caught. Come out now and she lives a little longer, stay hidden like the fucking coward you are... and she's dead."

Brian hadn't known until the moment he heard her voice that Valerie was in any kind of danger, but he knew things (well, he thought he knew things) about her. If he went with what her Grandfather said he could leave her to the proverbial wolves and hope for the best. What if he was wrong though? What if he really was letting a woman die?

Breathing deeply Brian tried to decide. If Valerie was really like Nick, she couldn't possibly be killed but if she wasn't, and that guy hurt her, it would be on his shoulders.

It was not an easy decision by any stretch of the imagination. When given the choice of probably die and maybe die he didn’t know what to pick. How could anyone know? If he kept hiding he might get caught, and they would probably kill him. If he came out of hiding he would definitely get caught and they would definitely kill him.

He wished Nick were there to help him decide what he should do. As he thought more about his friend he came to the sad realization that Nick never got to be in this position. He never had the choice of whether to live or die. He never got to walk away from the situation; he was thrust head first into it. So really, Brian had it better than a lot of people would have. No one got to choose when they got cancer, or whether they’d step out in front of that bus, or have an ex-girlfriend with a crazy mobster boyfriend. What they did get to choose was what kind of person they left the world as. He wanted to leave the world as a good man, not as someone who ran away when the pressure got high.

He told himself to be brave, and he really wanted to be but Brian couldn’t stop himself from shaking with fear.

His legs shook as though he’d just run a marathon as he started to move from his hiding spot.

Overall, it was a bad decision, he knew. He just wasn’t sure if it would be the last bad decision he’d ever get to make. But, he just didn’t feel right about leaving Valerie potentially defenceless. Ghost or not, she deserved to know that there was someone there who would die to protect her. He wished Nick had known that when it came down to the end.

Cautiously he stepped into the open, coming up from behind the men who were looking for him.

“YOU HAVE 30 SECONDS!” Josh yelled angrily and as Brian got closer to the open floor of the warehouse area could see the cop had his gun pressed into Valerie’s left temple.

“Okay!” Brian called out, trying to keep his voice from failing him, “I’m here! I’m right here! Just don’t hurt her!”

In a flash the man in the blue coat grabbed him and he was pulled and dragged over to a crate next to where Valerie was sitting. He was forced into a sitting position and just as quickly he found himself with guns in his own face, something he never thought he would ever experience.

“Who the fuck are you?” Josh asked initially before taking a moment to really look at Brian’s face, “Wait... you’re that guy... the guy in the boy band! You were the one always poking around for information about your little friend.”

“I still want information,” Brian relayed in his shaky voice, “That’s the only reason why we’re here. I’m trying to find out who killed my friend.”

Josh rolled his eyes dramatically, “Cry me a river. What is it with you people and having to know every detail about everything? Your friend is dead,” he turned to Valerie, “The man you claim is your father is dead. Get over it, already!”

“We deserve some justice!” Brian said boldly. He went to stand but the two thugs standing next to him threw him back down onto the crate with a thud.

“You don’t deserve shit,” Josh shook his head, reaching up with one hand to scratch his temple; “I can’t believe you people. Why did you think you wouldn’t end the day in the ground next to your beloveds?  There’s really no way we can let you leave alive... you know that right?”

“Wow, the bodies sure do pile up around this place,” Valerie sarcastically contributed and Brian looked over at her, still unsure about where she stood in the whole plot.

Taking a deep breath as to hold back his emotions Brian looked up at his captors, “I don’t care what happens to me anymore. I just need to know what happened to my friend.”

“Brian, don’t say that. You don’t know what you’re saying,” Val muttered under her breath just loud enough for him to hear her.

Suddenly out of the quiet of the room there was laughter. Santino was laughing right at Brian as if he’d just told a funny joke.

“Do you have something you want to say to me? Why is that funny?” Brian asked, suddenly feeling a little more confident now that he’d basically admitted he was ready to die for the information.

“Yeah, I do have something to say to you,” Santino nodded and stepped up so close to Brian he could smell the cheap cologne on the man, “You want to know what happened to your friend? I’ll tell you. He pissed his pants, cried like a little girl, and begged for his fucking life right before I took it from him. Your friend was a pussy, and he died that way. There you go... something to remember him by.”

It only took a split second for Brian’s emotion level to increase from cautious to out of control.

“You asshole!” he yelled before lunging at the other man. He managed to get Santino onto the ground before he was tossed to the side. He went to go at him again but a pistol pressing to the underside of his chin stopped him short.

Santino, embarrassed by the fact he’d been taken down by someone much smaller than him, kicked Brian while he was down on the ground, “Kill this fucker already!” he yelled at Josh.

Josh motioned to Brian, who was now holding his side protectively, to get up off of the ground, “Hold your horses,” he told Santino, “I’ll give him that one outburst. The guy has been searching for answers for a year only to find out his friend died a coward... he’ll get a free pass on that one.”

Santino shook his head, glaring at Brian, “No free passes Josh! Why are you stalling? We don’t need them. We need to get rid of them before Mr. Esposito gets here!”

“It is broad daylight,” blue jacket reminded the other man, “there’s no way we could get out of here with three bodies without anyone noticing.”

“Like who?” Santino asked sarcastically, “the police?”

“Enough!” Josh snapped, “You’re right, I get it. We don’t need them.”

“Kill her first,” Santino encouraged, smiling smugly at Valerie, “I can’t stand the look of her any longer.”

Valerie, who had been strangely quiet during the whole ordeal just smiled in return as if they weren’t talking about her impending death. Turning to Brian her smile turned sour, “I’m sorry,” she told him, “I really am.”

“It’s okay,” Brian sighed, feeling tears bite the back of his eyes, “At least if I have to die it was trying to get justice for Nick. It’s not really like I’ve spent the last year living by any stretch of the imagination. I’ve been dead to everyone I know for months.”

Valerie shook her head, “You’re not going to die Brian,” she told him and he nearly bought it.

“Oh spare me,” Josh groaned, “This is excruciating. Buddy, I’m thinking we may have done your friend a favour. If I wasn’t sure he was dead, I’d think he was hiding. You two are painful to listen to!”

“I think Mr. Esposito is finally here. I heard his car,” blue jacket suddenly spoke, and Josh dismissed him with a wave of his hand, “I’ll go let him in.”

“Whatever, I don’t care,” Josh muttered, “I just need to take care of the garbage first.”

Without another word Josh lifted his weapon, holding it perfectly steady in Valerie’s direction. She sat, unflinching, waiting for him to pull the trigger.

With ease, Josh’s finger went to the trigger.

Brian couldn’t watch. Dead woman or not, he didn’t want to see someone get executed. It just wasn’t right; especially knowing that he was next. He couldn’t bear to see what it would look like, what his family would see if and when they ever claimed his body.

Shutting his eyes tight he swore he heard every movement of metal on metal as the trigger was pulled and a bullet was propelled out of the chamber.

The air whooshed out of his chest and he swore he could feel the impact of the bullet, just like he would probably feel it when his turn came. The sound of a body falling to the ground broke him from his reverie... mostly because it was coming from the wrong direction.

Brian’s eyes snapped back open and in front of him Santino was on the ground clutching his chest just below the collar bone, crying out in pain.

“What the fuck man?” Santino yelled at Josh, “You just shot me! I can’t believe you just turned around and shot me.”

“No,” Josh’s voice was laced with confusion, “I didn’t. I swear I was aiming for her. You saw me aiming for her! It was like... someone hit me and I lost control! My arm... it just... moved!”

“There’s no one even standing near you! You just turned around and shot me!” Santino kept repeating. He was really bleeding now, despite his efforts to keep pressure on his own wound.

Brian heard a chuckle and turned his head to see Nick standing next to his crate, looking smug, “That’s what you get for calling me a pussy. Pussy.”

Josh was staring at the gun in his hand as if it were possessed so Nick took the opportunity to knock the offending weapon out of the man’s hand, laughing when he heard him yell out in confusion.

“Nicky...” he whispered below the commotion of the room, feeling like his friend was tight-rope walking the delicate thread between life and death. He was trying to get Nick’s attention when he was interrupted by a new noise.

The sound of the gunshot had triggered more than just whining from Santino. The doors of the warehouse were flying open and with lightning fast speed black SUVs with flashing red lights were blowing in.

“Get down!” the man with the blue jacket had suddenly returned to the room and next to him as if he had circled around behind the crates. Brian’s instinct was to get as far away from the guy as possible but he realized as the man pulled him and Valerie behind a stack of empty crates that something wasn’t right.

“It’s you,” was all Valerie said to the man but Brian heard the message loud and clear without any more details required.

The man in the blue jacket was a good guy.

~*~

Brian was confused.

He poked his head over the top of the crate to see how things were going on the other side but what he really wanted was some kind of explanation as to what was happening.

He’d been sitting and waiting for the longest time while the FBI arrested Josh and Santino. The most he’d been able to figure out is that blue jacket, who they now knew as Agent Taylor, had been working undercover in the Esposito crime family for seven years. That specific day, unbeknownst to Brian and Valerie, had been chosen as the day the feds were going to take down the whole drug operation at a few key spots around the city, including police headquarters.

The reason Mr. Esposito hadn’t shown up in the time they spent in the warehouse was that he and his lawyers had been tied up with the FBI since morning.

Agent Taylor had been wearing a wire the whole time, so apart from getting mountains of evidence about the drugs he had also gotten a very clear admission of guilt. He had Santino, on tape, confessing to killing Nick. It was the justice Brian had been waiting twelve long months for. Finally, someone was going to go to prison for killing his best friend.

“Brian?” Agent Taylor asked, approaching the man.

Brian nodded and stood, “What’s happening now? I need to let my family know I’m okay.”

“We’ll let you get on the phone to your family right away,” Taylor assured him, “We do need to go back to my office though. I need to ask you a few questions about everything that happened today. I have some serious questions. I especially have questions about how the wrong person ended up getting shot. I leave the room for five seconds...”

“If I let you ask me some questions will you promise to give me some answers in return? I’ve spent a really long time waiting for them and I think you might be the only person who really knows the truth.”

“I don’t know if I’ll have the kinds of answers you’re looking for,” Agent Taylor told him, his brow furrowing, “I wasn’t there when your friend was killed.”

“No,” Brian corrected him, “I know about that. I know how Nick was killed. What I need to know now is why. I really don’t understand anything that has happened here.”

“Whatever I can tell you... whatever I’m allowed to tell you... I will.”

“Thank you for that,” Brian breathed a sigh of relief and turned to offer Valerie a friendly smile. What he found instead was more crates and no Valerie.

“Are you looking for your friend?”

“Yes,” Brian nodded, “I haven’t seen her in a little while.”

Agent Taylor looked around the room quickly then shrugged, “Neither have I to be honest. Well she’s either talking to another Agent or she took off.”

“Why would you think she would take off?”

The Agent laughed and raised an eyebrow towards Brian, “C’mon, I know what’s going on here.”

“You do?” Brian asked curiously, trying not to be nervous by the question.

Agent Taylor nodded his head, “Sure, it’s pretty obvious. She was lying about who she was, right? I’m the one that did all the research on her when she first started popping up everywhere and she was using an alias. She wasn’t a cop, and the person she was pretending to be has been dead for two years. What I couldn’t figure out was what her stake was in the whole thing, why she was even involved.”

“She helped me,” was all Brian told the man, “I wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for her.”

~*~

“So were you playing me this whole time?”

“Pretty much.”

“Why?”

“You weren’t supposed to know that you had help.”

“If this was all planned then why did you act so shocked in the evidence lockup when you realized who I was?”

“I didn’t know who I was looking for. I’d been sitting around anxious for days on the lookout for the person I was waiting for and then you showed up and I didn’t realize you were... you.”

Nick flashed his patent Carter grin, “You mean you didn’t recognize me?”

Valerie just rolled her eyes in response, “No. I’ve been busy the last little while. I don’t get to watch much MTV.”

Nick hopped up onto one of the crates as FBI Agents buzzed around them oblivious, “So are you some kind of angel or something?”

“Hardly,” Valerie groaned, “Quite the opposite in fact. This is me paying my dues. Getting back into the good graces of whoever is up there controlling everything.”

“Why were you in their bad graces?”

Valerie took a long moment to compose her thoughts, thinking of the best way to say what she wanted to say since no one had really asked her the question, “I was selfish,” she finally said and Nick looked confused, “I wanted something so bad I stopped at nothing to have it.”

“What did you want?” he wondered aloud.

She sighed, “To be with my Dad again.”

“Do you get to?”

“Do I get to what?”

“Be with him again,” Nick clarified.

“I’m not sure,” Valerie shrugged her petite shoulders, “I guess I’ll find out when I either leave here, or don’t. I kind of screwed up letting myself get sidetracked with my own personal vendettas. It was just kind of ironic that our lives ended up being so linked.”

Nick watched Brian from across the room, seeing his friend talking to the FBI Agent that had been in the warehouse with them before. He couldn’t believe that Brian was going to give up his own life for the sake of Nick’s lost one. He only wished he knew before what an amazing friend he had in Brian. Sure he had loved him as best as he knew how but admittedly, he wouldn’t have taken a bullet for him. In that aspect, he really was a coward.

“Do I have to go now?” Nick asked sadly, feeling so torn between his desire to stay and his need to leave.

“Yeah,” Valerie told him with a solemn nod, “You did what you came here to do. Brian can go on living his life now; he can stop wasting it on you.”

Nick turned to glare at her defensively, “He wasn’t wasting it on me! He’s my best friend!”

“He was your best friend,” Valerie disagreed, “Brian’s life will be so much better now that he can let you go. He can live again. You did a great thing by coming here.”

“He thinks this was about me,” Nick crossed his arms across his chest, still watching his old friend, “He thinks that this was about my justice. It wasn’t. It was always about him.”

“If Brian wants to think that this was his last favour for you, to help you have peace, then let him think that,” Valerie followed his gaze and they both watched as the shorter man followed Agent Taylor over to a vehicle, “You should go say goodbye.”

“So soon?” Nick was shocked; he thought he would have more time.

“There’s no point in waiting. You can’t stay. Nick, it’s time for you to go home.”

“Brian...” Nick spoke into the quiet of the car.

The older man turned in surprise, not having expected to see him there. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t reply. He wasn’t alone in the car and didn’t want to rouse any suspicion while talking to his imaginary friend.

That was, of course, how Nick wanted it. He selfishly wanted to be able to get away without things getting too emotional.

“I need to go now,” Nick told him and Brian nodded his head as if it were something he had been expecting to hear.

“I really don’t want to, but I have to. I’m going to be grateful to you forever, I hope you know that. Thank you so much for getting justice for me. I learned a lot while I was here, and I’m glad we got to do this one last thing together. I’m really sorry Brian for the way things turned out. I’m sorry I’m not here right now, flesh and blood. I’m sorry I’m not going to get to see Baylee grow old. Most of all, I’m sorry that it took me dying to find out you’re the best friend anyone could ever ask for. I wish I had listened to you more. Like that time when you told me Toni was no good for me,” he chuckled nervously.

At this point Brian was welling up, tears beginning to spill down his cheeks but not for the obvious reasons. Though Nick’s words moved him, it was more heartbreaking to watch as his friend started to fade away. The more Nick gave closure to their time together the fainter he became and Brian realized he really was losing him all over again. The FBI Agents sitting in the front of the vehicle chalked it up to the excitement of the day. Brian, after all, had been through an awful lot.

“I want you to promise me that you’re done now. No more chasing after ghosts. It’s time to let me go.”

Brian nodded, “Promise...” he whispered under his breath.

“You need to get rid of my stuff, I don’t need it. Give it away, or something. Just be careful if you’re gonna give it to like, a children’s charity or something, I’m sure there’s a tonne of porn in there,” Nick chuckled then eyed the door as soon as he heard the engine of the SUV start.

Brian put his hand over his heart and that was enough for Nick to understand what he meant, “I love you too, man. I’ll see ya. Not too soon I hope.”

Looking towards the two men in the front who were engaged in conversation Brian quickly turned back to his friend who was becoming more and more faint before his eyes, “Bye Nicky,” he whispered and with his final parting words he was gone.  

~*~

His living room was a flurry of activity as soon as he walked through the door and Brian sighed. He knew that every one of his friends would have come over as soon as they’d heard about the adventure he’d been on all day, but he just didn’t expected it to be so loud.

“Brian!” Kevin announced as soon as he saw his cousin walk through the door and he moved to pull him into an embrace.

“Bri, what’s going on?” Howie asked, “First we hear that you’ve been in some kind of police shootout then you want us to come over...”

“I’ll fill you in,” Brian told them, moving away from his friends to take a seat next to his wife on the couch.

“Most importantly,” AJ interrupted, “Are you okay?”

“Honestly?” Brian asked rhetorically, chewing his bottom lip, “I haven’t been this good in a long while.”

“Glad to hear it,” AJ smiled slightly then grabbed a seat so he would be comfortable for Brian’s story.

“Let me start from the beginning,” he began by taking a deep breath, “You guys are going to be terribly confused at first but trust me this will all make sense in the end. I met a man today, his name is Sam Taylor. He works for the FBI. For the past seven years he’s been working undercover as a mob enforcer trying to bring down a huge drug ring. The drugs were coming into the country on container ships, hidden in bottles of olive oil...”

“Wouldn’t it be wet?” AJ asked.

Brian rolled his eyes, “Let me finish the story, and no it was in the bottom bit.”

“Like in one of those wicker baskets like you see at the gift shops?”

“Like that,” Brian chuckled then picked up where he left off, “The shipments were mixed. Some of them were clean, and some of them weren’t. But both of them went to restaurants, they were the middle men. They paid for the olive oil and got kickbacks for passing along the drugs. The shipping numbers for the drug shipments were written on the inside of a matchbook. It was so the middle men would know which shipments they needed to pick up and when. The first restaurant owner would pick up the first number and pass it on to the next one, and so on. One of the restaurant guys, Santino Antonio, lost the matchbook with the numbers. His girlfriend took it. She knew what was going down and was going to use it against him for one reason or another but she decided to back out at the last minute and passed the matchbook off to Nick.”

“What?” Howie gasped, “Nicky was involved?”

“He didn’t know it,” Brian clarified, “You’ll see this on the news later but the cops were involved in this too. The FBI had a mole, Agent Taylor, and some information had slipped out that someone was working on the inside. The Chief of Police, this Tom Cane guy, wanted the mole gone and offered up big money for it to happen. Unfortunately for Nick, he ended up the fall guy. They made it out to look like Nick was the one leaking information, that he was the one with the list of shipping containers.”

Howie couldn’t help but interrupt again, “But if he wasn’t involved, why wouldn’t they put two and two together?”

“Toni,” Brian answered, “This Santino guy legitimately thought that Toni was the insider, but she was his girlfriend so he wasn’t going to kill her. He didn’t realize she was just being spiteful, he thought she was passing the list off to Nick for him to go to the cops. So they killed him, dumped his body, and the cop assigned to his case, Sid Bromwell, did everything he could to cover the whole thing up. After a while everything had been so quiet that they thought it had to have been Nick who was leaking the information so they picked up right where they left off, a big mistake on their part. That’s kind of where I came in. I met a really helpful police officer, who filled in a lot of the blanks for me and helped me answer some questions. Then I ended up at this warehouse... I finally found the place where Nick was killed. I didn’t know it but there was supposed to be a big drug shipment that day, and a raid by the FBI.”

Leighanne was rubbing Brian’s knee consolingly, having heard most of the story on the phone earlier in the day.

“Are you hurt? I can’t believe you were stuck in the middle of all of this. Did anything happen to you?” Kevin asked with concern in his voice.

Brian nodded, “No, I’m okay. I’m not going to lie... I almost got shot and I’ve never been so scared in my life. I’ve also never been so thankful for everything that I have.”

“And are you finally done with the witch hunt? Can Nick just be our friend who died now instead of our friend who was killed?” AJ asked bluntly, not sure what the protocol was going to be.

“I spent the last year of my life searching for answers and now that I have them I don’t know if I’m any more satisfied,” Brian admitted, “I’m not going to just stop thinking about him or talking about him, even. But I am ready to put Nick to rest and live my life for a while. I’ll spend one day a year, at the beach with you guys, letting Nick be top priority. That’s all.”

“Apart from the obvious,” Howie carefully broached the question, “What changed? You spent so much time on this...”

Brian smiled and looked to Leighanne, making them all think he was referring to something he’d told his wife instead of his dead best friend, “I made a promise that I would move on. No more chasing after ghosts.”

One Year Later

Balancing a cooler, and a shoebox delicately in his hands Brian made his way down the beach, seeing that his friends had just gotten the fire started.

Leighanne was following not too far behind him with Baylee and he turned to smile back at her just for a little reassurance.

He thought it would be hard to make this trip, that he would think about how things had gone the year previous and not be able to do it. After all, last year he got to see Nick by the end of the night and he knew that wasn’t in the cards for that night.

“You made it!” AJ called out to them with a wave, jogging up quickly to help Brian with everything that was in his hands.

Brian smiled and slapped his friend lightly on the shoulder, “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. I hardly ever get to see you guys anymore!”

“Aww, we miss you too,” Howie joked before leaning over to kiss his wife’s temple.

A lot had changed for all of them in the two years since Nick died... was killed. Brian always thought it would be impossible for him to go on with his life, that he would have lost a part of himself when he buried his friend. It wasn’t the case though. Nick’s case was still active as it made its way through the court system and Brian kept an eye on it in the papers but he didn’t go to the courthouse, he didn’t check up with Agent Taylor to see how things were going.

Over time he went from thinking about Nick every hour, to every day, to every week, and now he only thought about him if something in particular jogged his memory. Like a certain song, or something silly Baylee would do that was so like his old friend.

“Hot dogs?” he heard Kevin asked and he nodded before helping his family get settled on the large piece of driftwood acting as their seating for the evening.

“So who’s going first this year?” Brian asked and everyone looked around at each other before looking back to him.

“Why don’t you show us what’s in the shoe box first?” Howie asked, having been eyeing the box ever since Brian sat down.

“Oh that,” the blonde smiled and brought the box into his lap, “This is all that’s left of Nick’s stuff.”

“You got rid of all of it?” Kevin asked, surprised that Brian was able to part with most of what was in his storage shed.

“Yup, no more paying for storage,” he laughed, “I saved the things that I didn’t think anyone would really want but that would mean a lot to all of us. I want you guys to take whatever you want. Whatever it is that’s important to you... to remind you of Nick.”

Brian opened the top, looking at the myriad of smaller items in the box. There was some Backstreet stuff - pictures from their early days on tour, cassette tapes of some of their high school shows, ticket stubs from around the world. But there was also some Nick stuff – a sketchpad, silly pictures of all of them goofing off together, of his siblings, and dozens of little knickknacks that their friend would have picked up along the way.

“Did Aaron get what he wanted?” AJ asked as he took the box and started skimming through it.

Brian smiled and nodded, “Yeah he took a lot of what was there. A lot of it was Nick’s clothes, CDs, photo albums, that kind of thing. This was just the stuff that they left for us.”

As the others looked through the shoebox Brian cleared his throat, “So I think I’ll go first... while you’re all looking through that stuff.”

“What kind of story is this, first?” Kevin chuckled, “If it’s a dirty story we better cover the kid’s ears.”

“It’s not a dirty story, though there’s a lot of those when it comes to Nick,” Brian laughed, “It’s a funny story. He and I went shopping this one time. Somehow we ended up in Victoria’s Secret...”

Howie interrupted, “Are you sure this isn’t a dirty story?”

“Yes,” Brian snickered and shook his head, “Anyway, Nick was wearing the most ridiculous outfit I’d ever seen. He must have seen a French movie or something because he was wearing a beret and a turtleneck. The boy must have thought he was invisible because I really don’t think there’s any way he would knowingly go out in public like that...”

The others all laughed, wondering why they’d never heard this story before, and Brian smiled to himself knowing that he now had a whole bunch of stories that no one but he and Nick would ever know, from the extra time they’d spent together.

~*~

“He looks happy,” Nick commented, looking back over at Valerie who had been patiently waiting for him while he spied on his friends.

“He really does, I’m glad,” Val gave him a smile then yanked on his arm, “A beret? Really? You could have worn anything in the world and you wore a beret?”

“I was sleuthing,” he explained, letting her pull him in the other direction, “That’s what you wear when you’re being a sleuth.”

She laughed loudly and shook her head, “I thought you wore ex-girlfriends when you sleuth?”

“Well...” Nick laughed, wrapping his arm around her as they walked, “That too.”

Stopping Valerie looked up at him and raised an eyebrow, “Remind me again why I decided to spend the rest of my afterlife with you.”

“What are you talking about? I’m awesome! I’m funny, and good looking, smart and lovable. I’m going to look like this forever, I mean, come on how could you pass that up?”

“So when do we get to do this again?” Valerie asked, looking up at the sky.

Nick turned to look back in the distance. He could now barely make out the bonfire burning where his friends had gathered, “A year?”

“A year it is,” she nodded and the two of them made their way back down the beach.

FINIS

I started this story on October 26, 2006. Finished it May 09, 2010. What a long and often frustrating road it was to get to this point.

I appreciate every award I've ever won, every review I've ever gotten and every person who came back to read an update.

I really hope I made all of you happy with the ending. It was challenging enough making myself happy with it. :P

Really briefly I need to thank a few people: Mare, for giving me deadlines that for about four chapters I kept to. :) Julie, Sarah, and Rose, for being honest in your reviews and letting me vent my frustrations about writers block on more than one occassion, Kelly, for encouraging me to keep writing even when I felt like I was losing steam, and finally Alaina who (even when I really wanted to go to bed) made me keep writing until the very last word had been typed. 

Thanks again! Julilly