“This will be him,” Gemma said ten minutes later as someone knocked on the apartment door. Despite her urgent calls, Gemma hadn’t been able to get back through to Todd’s cell phone to let him know everything was okay. “So what do you want to do?”
She really should have just kept her big mouth shut when she was up in heaven and then none of this would be happening. Tyrone had certainly warned her enough times. Why hadn’t she just listened to him? Perhaps if he’d given her a heads up on the whole being shoved into a computer nerd’s body thing, she might’ve paid a bit more attention.
There was another knock on the door. “Well?” Gemma said.
Holly twisted the fringe of Gemma’s bedspread as she tried to decide. Half of her longed to go throw herself at him, but the other half (possibly the half with the better self preservation skills) wasn’t so keen on the idea of getting punched.
“Just tell him you made a mistake and that I’m not here.”
Gemma raised an eyebrow. “Since when do you lie to Todd?”
Holly raised an eyebrow before glancing down at her long lean legs.
“Oh yeah, good point,” her friend conceded. “But perhaps you should explain it now and get it over with?”
Holly had been thinking the same thing, but had reluctantly dismissed it since it was becoming more and more obvious that she wasn’t going to get very far on her mission if she didn’t have a bulletproof plan. And the only thing worse than not talking to Todd now, was talking to him and screwing the whole thing up even more.
“I’m sure,” she said firmly. “Now go and tell him…but act casual…and smooth down your blouse, it’s wrinkled up the top.”
Gemma snorted. “Well at least I know you’re definitely Holly, only she would say something like that at a time like this.”
Holly sighed as her friend left the room. If only it would be so easy to convince Todd.
It was no good. No matter how hard Holly tried, she couldn’t hear a word that was being said and unless she wanted to open the bedroom door and risk getting her face punched by the man of her dreams, she was just going to have to wait until Gemma came back.
She padded back across to the dressing table, just like she used to. Gosh, that was a nice lipstick. It was sort of like a lip-gloss but with a matt finish. Interesting.
“It’s all done.” Gemma pushed the bedroom door open. “I just told him I’d made a mistake and…Holly, what are you doing?”
“I’m trying on your lip-gloss. Is it new? Anyway, tell me what else Todd said. Did he…What? Why are you looking at me like that? Is there a problem?” Holly frowned. It wasn’t like Gemma to worry about a bit of makeup.
“Yes, there’s a problem. I don’t think Tropical Pink Crush really goes with your stubble.”
“What…? Oh crap.” Holly groaned as she looked in the mirror. This was ridiculous. She could not spend the next two days in Vince Murphy’s body.
She reached over for the makeup remover and quickly smeared it on her face. Except it wasn’t her face at all. Gone were the brown eyes with the heavy lashes, the pointed chin and the nose that was slightly crooked. And instead, staring back at her was Vince Murphy.
It was going to take a bit of getting used to. Though, really, if you took away the attitude he wasn’t such a bad looking fellow. Mind you, he could use some sun. But despite his pale face, he had a nice pair of blue eyes and light brown hair that flipped and flopped all over the place. She puckered her lips. Actually, they were quite full weren’t they? Weird she’d never noticed before.
“Are you okay?” Gemma was looking at her strangely, and Holly realized she’d been checking out her own face. Well Vince’s face. Which was sort of her face since she was the one on the inside. Oh dear, this was getting confusing. She finished wiping the makeup off and quickly turned away from the mirror.
“Just pretend you didn’t see that,” Holly advised as she sat back down on the bed.
“It’s forgotten,” Gemma readily agreed. “Anyway, the good news is that Todd seemed to believe I’d made a mistake, which means we can now get down to working out a plan. What should we do first?”
Holly paused for a minute and rubbed her chin, trying to ignore Vince’s one-day stubble. He could’ve at least shaved for her funeral. “Well the sooner I can find out just how I really died, the sooner I can start convincing everyone of the truth. Especially Todd, so I suppose we’d better start with trying to figure out how those pills got in my system. Mind you, I would’ve quite liked to see myself as a bride as well, but I guess that’s out of the question in this body.”
“Yes, I don’t think that can do any of us any good.” Gemma blanched as she reached for a diamante-studded diary next to her bed. “So pills it is. We need to work out if someone purposely gave them to you, or if you took them by accident. Or perhaps they just did it as a joke that went wrong?”
“Very wrong.” Holly sighed. Not that she really remembered too much of it at the time, but when she’d first arrived on Level One, disjointed images had started to come back to her. Dying wasn’t really that much fun. And it sort of hurt.
“Your stepmother told me they’d found Dimenhydrinate in your system, which is most commonly used in motion sickness pills. Here.” Gemma ripped the page out and handed it to Holly. “These are my notes. They couldn’t be certain of the dosage, but thought it was probably the equivalent of about four pills—not enough to kill you, just enough to make you drowsy. Oh, and they’re not prescription so anyone can get them.”
“Great.” Holly shoved the piece of paper into Vince’s jacket and thumped the love heart pillow she had been hugging, in frustration. “This narrows it down to just about anyone.”
Gemma reached over and grabbed the cushion from Holly’s tight grip. “I better take this. Now that you have all of this man-strength, we need to be careful with you.”
Holly looked at the now misshapen cushion and blushed. “Sorry, it’s just so frustrating.”
“I know. I mean you’re dead. You’ve got every right to be pissed off. And it’s not really all doom and gloom since the person who gave the pills to you—either intentionally or otherwise—might still have them. After all, why would they get rid of them when there’s no need to? It’s not like CSI are going to come crashing through their door with rubber gloves and fingerprint kits.”
“Good point.” Holly brightened up. Okay so it was a long shot, but at least there was still a chance, and if she had to search everyone’s desk to find the pills then she would do it. She sent her friend a grateful smile. “And Gem, thanks for this. It’s so nice to be around someone who’s on my side. The people in heaven were saying I’d killed myself and I guess I was starting to believe it. Especially after, well…”
“Hey,” Gemma said firmly. “It’s got nothing to do with this. For a start it was six years ago. A lot of kids do weird stuff when they’re teenagers. It’s just the hormones. Try t just forget about it.”
“I thought I had,” Holly admitted as she looked down at the smooth skin on her wrists. Well that was one advantage of being in Vince’s body, she didn’t have a constant reminder of a past she would rather forget.
The shrinks had called it self-harming, but to Holly it had been the only way that she could get out all the frustration trapped in her body. The worst thing was she’d worked so hard in the last few years to make amends for her lapse in wisdom, and now all her hard work had been undone in one foul swoop.
“It’s true,” Gemma insisted.
“It was hard enough convincing people that I didn’t do it intentionally then. This time the evidence is sort of compelling, and people start to think, Where there’s smoke there’s fire.”
“For a start hardly anyone knows about what you did back then anyway. When you were alive you couldn’t even see the scars unless you were looking, so enough of the self-pity, here. Of course it’s going to work out. It always does. Remember what we always do when things look bad?”
“Accessorize?”
“No.” Gemma glared. “We rise above it. We’re going to work out how the pills got in your body, figure out a way for you to make up with Todd and then you can prove all those people up on Level One wrong.”
“You’re right.” Holly perked up at the idea. Okay so perhaps revenge wasn’t the best of motives, but it had a certain amount of satisfaction attached to it. She was sure even Dr. Alan Hill would approve. In fact it might be a legitimate part of her therapy.
“Okay.” Gemma chewed on the end of her pencil for a minute. “The first thing we need to do is find out how long the pills were in your system for before you died, and then we need to retrace your steps to work out who you came in contact with.”
Holly stood up and padded across to where Gemma’s laptop was perched. “That’s a great idea, I’ll get on the Internet and see what I can find.” But before she even powered it up, the door opened and Gemma’s roommate, Irene, poked her head in.
“Hey, Gem, I know you’ve just come back from the funeral, but I was wondering…oh, I didn’t realize you had company…” Irene trailed off in a mournful voice.
“Hey, there!” Holly said in the same over-bright she always used when she met Irene. Not that it ever worked since Gemma’s roommate was in a permanent state of misery. Holly studied the girl’s dropping mouth and doleful-looking eyes, the only thing that was upbeat about her was her trust fund and great taste in soft furnishings.
“Hello.” Irene let out a heartfelt sigh before turning to Gemma. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. I’ll go into my bedroom so I don’t disturb you.”
“Irene, of course you don’t need to go into your bedroom. It’s not like we’re using the living room or kitchen.” Gemma jumped to her feet and hurried over to her roommate, gently directing her toward the door.
“No.” Cue another drawn out sigh. “I’d only be in the way and I’d hate to stop anyone else from having fun…”
“Don’t be stupid,” Holly started to say before Gemma gave a warning shake of her head and mouthed, No.
“It’s true.” Irene’s bottom lip stared to tremble as she escaped from Gemma’s clutches and dropped down into the cane chair by Gemma’s dresser. “I’m always in the way. That’s what my ex-boyfriend Dave used to say. And my other ex-boyfriend, Ethan, and—”
Oh yeah, Holly had forgotten that Irene wasn’t just miserable; she liked to talk about her misery. A lot.
She reluctantly got to her feet as Irene got comfortable. So much for her plans to stay here and do some research. At this rate the only thing she would be researching was just how hard Irene’s all-expenses-paid-by-her-parents life was. Well, she should try being dead for a while and then see what misery really was.
Holly coughed. “Actually, Gemma, I’d better go.”
“See?” Irene wailed as she threw herself prostate on the floor. “I told you I was in the way. Why does everyone hate me?”
However, Holly didn’t have an answer to that one and figured this was as good a time as any to leave.
“Sorry she freaked out like that,” Gemma whispered as she walked Holly to the front door. “She’s just a bit—”
“Insane? Miserable? Passively aggressive?”
Gemma’s shoulders slumped. “Yes to all three.”
“You know, Gem, you really can’t keep living here, no matter how cheap the rent or how great the free cable is.”
“Yes well, that’s easier said than done since the person I was going to move in with died recently.”
“Oh, crap, I’d forgotten about that.” Holly moaned as she thought about how they’d been going to move in together when their current leases expired. Especially since while Holly’s roommates might not be as bad as Irene, they had a few funny ideas when it came to how the phone bill should be split.
She and Gemma had even started flat hunting at some of the cute purpose built places down by the river. Then when she and Todd got married, she would move in with him and Gemma would no doubt be planning her own wedding. It had been absolutely fool proof. Well, so she thought. Once again this whole being dead business had ruined everything.
“Don’t be so hard on yourself,” Gemma advised. “Besides, there will be plenty of time to worry about my housing situation after we’ve sorted out your issues. I’m just sorry you can’t stay here while we figure out a plan. Irene’s going to freak when I tell her I have to go out.”
Holly shuddered at the idea of a freaked Crazy Irene. “Look, it’s probably best if you stay in, because otherwise she might make your life hell.”
“Yes, but you don’t have much time to get everything sorted out. Do you really think you can do it on your own?”
“Yes.”
No.
She had to admit that after convincing Gemma of who she was, she’d thought things would start to get easier, but Irene had thrown a wrench in those particular works.
“So where are you going to go?”
There was a question. Obviously Todd’s house was out. Her roommates wouldn’t be back yet and there was no way she was going to her stepmother’s house. Which only left one place.
“I suppose I could go to Baker Colwell. Vince’s ID badge is in his pocket. At least I can use the computers and do some research on the Internet before working out what my last steps were. Then I could make a list of anyone who might have a grudge against me and check out their personal files. You never know, someone might be married to a pharmacist. Or a pilot who uses the pills himself when he’s traveling?”
“I didn’t think you were allowed to do that?” Gemma protested with a frown.
“Well you’re not allowed to slip pills to other people either, but that didn’t stop someone from doing it,” Holly retorted. “Besides, I only have computer clearance to look at the basic stuff. But you must admit, it’s a start.”
“You’re right,” Gemma apologized. “And if we need it, tomorrow I’ll go and see Jeremy about clearance. He owes me a favor since I organized weekly neck massages for all of his department.”
“Thank you.”
“I knew I’d moved to Human Resources for a reason.” Gemma grinned. When her friend had first decided not to stay in the more competitive executive training program, Holly had thought she was crazy. Now she was just grateful that Gemma wasn’t as ambitious if it meant calling in a favor.
“Thanks, Gem. You’re the best.” Holly reached over and squeezed her hand.
“It’s nothing,” Gemma said gruffly. “If I’d come back from the dead, in someone else’s body and I wanted to sort my life out, I know you’d do the same for me.”
“Of course I would,” Holly agreed as a loud wailing noise came from the upstairs apartment. Holly quickly let go of her friend’s hand as she realized Irene’s woe stricken face was pressed up against the windowpane.
“You’d better go, before her head starts spinning around.”
“I just feel so bad that you can’t stay.”
Holly crossed her legs and shook her head. No way did she want to be in the same house as Irene and her misery. She’d seen Cathy Bates in that Stephen King movie and it was a slippery slope. “I’ll be fine. After all, I’ve been kicked out of heaven, turned into a guy and my fiancé almost beat me up. I’d say the worst of the day is over.”