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.