Cave Creek, Arizona
At first, the chill was a drowsy nibble at the distant and ragged edges of my awareness, raising goosebumps on the parts of my flesh bared to that spring night. The sensation was vaguely disturbing, but not troublesome enough to stir me from the fitful shallows of sleep. I remember rolling onto my side, pulling the comforter up to my right earlobe and murmuring some insensible protest.
That was when I heard Nickâs voice. Or thought I heard it.
Impossible, I told myself, nestling groggily into my polyester burrow. Heâs dead.
Just then, a hand came to rest on my hip, and the chill sprouted teeth and bit right through cotton nightshirt, skin and tissue to seize the marrow of my bones.
I choked out a hoarse cry, too raw and guttural to qualify as a scream, and shimmied off the mattress to land hard on both feet. In the space of an instant, my senses shifted from dial-up to broadband, and I pressed one hand to my chest, in case my heart tried to flail its way out of my chest. My brains pulsed, Cuisinart-style, then scrambled. I couldnât seem to drag a breath past my esophagus, though my lungs clawed for air like a pair of miners trapped beneath tons of rubble.
I felt that way once on a stair-climber at the gym after sucking in a pack and a half of nicotine in a bar the night before, and subsequently swore off exercise forever. Hell, somebody has to serve as the bad example.
But I digress. Get used to it.
My eyes must have bugged out, cartoonlike. NickâNickâlay on top of the covers, dressed in his snappy gray burial suit, with his hands cupping the back of his head. Except for a peculiar greenish glimmer emanating from his skin, he looked pretty much the way he had before he collided with a semi on the 101 North and was thrown through the windshield of his BMW. Along with Tiffany, Nickâs lover du jour, who was scarred for life and for some insane reason blamed me for her Frankenstein face and deflated implants.
One of the many things I donât like about dead people is that a lot of them glow in the dark. Not that Iâd seen any before my late ex-husband turned up that momentous night, a full two years after his funeral. Since then, unfortunately, Iâve become something of an authority.
âHey,â Nick said companionably, as though the situation were entirely normal, and not something out of an old segment of Unsolved Mysteries.
My stomach quivered. Like my heart, it was threatening to leap out of my throat and make a run for it.
âYouâre dead,â I pointed outâquite reasonably, I thought, given the circumstances. I knew heâd croaked, but I wasnât sure heâd been notified. He looked so calm and matter-of-fact, as though turning up in his ex-wifeâs bed in the middle of the night was a perfectly ordinary thing to do.
Nick sighed, slipped his hands from behind his head and hoisted himself as far as his elbows. âSort of,â he admitted, with a rueful note.
I managed a step backward, ready to hot-foot it out of there, jerk open the outside door, and dash down the fire escapeâstyle stairway to Bad-Ass Bertâs Biker Saloon. Normally, I didnât seek out the company of Bertâs clientele, especially when I was naked except for a slip of cotton jersey that barely covered my thighs, but given the situation, I was game for just about anything. Trouble was, once Iâd retreated half a stride, I couldnât seem to move again.
âHow can you be âsort ofâ dead?â I asked.
âItâs complicated,â Nick replied. âIn some ways, Iâm more alive than you are.â With that, he swung his legs over the side of the mattress and stood up, turning to face me across the expanse of tangled bedding. The glow surrounding his lean frame flickered a little, as if somebody had turned a celestial dimmer switch.
âRelax,â he said. âItâs okay.â
Sure. No problem. Pay no attention to the walking, talking corpse.
âYouâre dead,â I repeated stubbornly.
âYeah,â he agreed wryly. âIâve noticed. So maybe we could get past that?â
âDonât come near me,â I ordered. Pure bravado, of course. Iâd read The Damn Foolâs Guide to Self-Defense for Women and practiced all the moves on Bert, who was a genuine bad-ass, but if there was a chapter on phosphorescent assailants, I must have missed it.
Nick tilted his dark head to one side and looked pathetic, though still damnably handsome. Apparently, being deceased was neither messy nor strenuous; his suit was wrinkle-free, if slightly out of fashion, his hair sleek, and there was no sign of his hallmark five oâclock shadow. No tire marks, either, thank God, and no blood, guts or jutting bone fragments.
He must have read my mind. With a sad grin, he looked down at himself, before meeting my gaze again. âHell of a patch job, though. You should have seen me before the mortician did his thing.â He shuddered. âYou havenât livedâso to speakâuntil youâve seen yourself lying in pieces on a slab. Definitely not a pretty sight.â