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.