Holly waited until Gemma had shut the door before turning and heading for Baker Colwell head office. The August evening was sultry and warm and she shrugged off the heavy black jacket that Vince Murphy seemed to have surgically connected to himself. Ah, that was better, though boy, the gray T-shirt seemed a bit tight. She glanced at her arm and was surprised to see a bulging bicep staring back at her.
Vince Murphy worked out. Well, how about that?
Then she wondered if it was weird to be staring at her own arms? Actually this whole thing was still a bit too weird for her liking. Thank goodness she had convinced Gemma of the truth, but how on earth was she going to explain it to Todd when she saw him tomorrow? And what was she going to say to her roommates when she went back home to sleep? Probably would’ve been better all round if Irene had been away on business for the week.
She slung her jacket over her shoulder. Actually this man-strength was quite handy because it felt like she was only holding a flimsy bit of cotton rather than half an animal hide.
And was someone following her?
Holly glanced around just in time to see two people waving frantically at her. It was two guys and since she had never seen them before in her life, she increased her pace, but the next time she looked back, they were still there, and so she sped up some more. What the—
The panic flooded through her as she remembered each and every one of her stepmother’s boring lectures on being careful when she was walking on her own. Not that Holly had ever bothered to listen to them, since stuff like that only happened to other people.
Normally in the movies.
Of course, that’s what she used to think about premature death as well. She quickened her pace as the reality started to hit home. Had she really come all the way from heaven just to be mugged?
Behind her she could hear them calling something out to her, but she had no desire to go back and see what they were saying as she dashed across the road. Fortunately, at the moment a truck drove past and while their vision was blocked she darted around the corner, down Grafton Street and into the corporate splendor that was Baker Colwell’s head office.
That was a close call, but at least she was out of danger and she fumbled around in Vince’s jacket until she found his ID card and ran it through the machine. She was further relieved when the night-watch guy did nothing more than shoot her a cursory glance before returning his attention back to the game on TV.
It wasn’t until she was in the elevator that she felt herself start to relax. Honestly this was just getting ridiculous and she was starting to wonder if she really had been sent back to earth at all. What if she was in some sort of alternative reality game and a spotty fourteen-year-old kid called Kevin was getting to platform ten by making her suffer through all these things? It sounded a bit extreme, but as she stared down at Vince’s long legs, it was no less realistic.
She stepped out of the elevator and was pleased to see that the third floor was virtually empty. She would like to think it was out of respect for her funeral that there were none of the regular “working eight till eight is great” crowd, but she had a feeling it was because the CEO was out of the office for the next week. Even the most dedicated Baker Colwell workers tended to take it easier when the head honcho wasn’t around to witness their dedication.
At least there was something soothing about being back here. For the last year her life had revolved around Baker Colwell and even when she wasn’t working, she was normally with either Gemma or Todd, so the conversation often drifted back to the place. She tried to fight back the nostalgia as she hurried across to her cubicle. Last time she had been here was when she was alive.
Her desk was just the way she had left it. Pens lined up, stapler to the left and her neatly written to-do list ready for when she came into work on Monday morning. Except there hadn’t been a Monday morning, or a to-do list. It was all Level One rules, dead people and manual purges. Life seemed a whole lot simpler when she’d been alive.
She sat down at her chair and adjusted it for Vince’s larger frame. She might not have a chance to do all the tasks that were written on her list, but she was definitely going to make sure she got her issues sorted out. Okay, so there wasn’t much time, but she had always prided herself on being organized. It’s what had helped her achieve so much.
Holly flicked on her computer and entered her password only to be greeted with a flashing icon telling her that her username wasn’t valid.
Well that couldn’t be right and she frowned for a moment before realizing she had been taken off the system. So soon? Of course the Baker Colwell motto was that efficiency was the way of the future. But still, shouldn’t there be a period of mourning before these things happened? And why change her password but not pack away her desk?
Thankfully she knew Gemma’s password and she tapped it in. Her first stop was the Internet to look up the motion sickness pills but all she could discover was that taking too many could result in illness and occasionally death. Like, tell her something she didn’t know.
She scanned down the page. It seemed that the effects of the pills could last from four to eight hours, so it looked like she was going to have to map her movements for most of the Friday. Hmm, well that shouldn’t be too hard and she opened up a word document.
Ten minutes later she printed it out and had to say that it didn’t look promising. Nothing really stood out at her to announce that it was at this point she ingested four motion sickness pills, which had led to her falling asleep in the bath and ruining her life forever.
Perhaps Gemma would be able to make more sense of it tomorrow? She shoved it into the pocket of Vince’s jacket and decided while she was here, she might as well have a snoop through the personnel files and see what she could find.
She entered a search for anyone with a criminal past with a particular preference for drugging people.
Unsurprisingly she didn’t get any results.
Holly chewed at her bottom lip as she tried to figure out who would do this? Perhaps she had accidentally spilt something on the cafeteria floor and the cleaner had taken an unwholesome dislike to her from that moment on? Or someone who had taken exception to the way she poured her milk into her coffee before the water had boiled, or…
At that moment Holly glanced over to her to-do list again and caught sight of her neat handwriting reminding her of her presentation on Monday. Holly had only been in her new job for a month so this was her first important project and she’d been busting a gut to make sure that everything about it was perfect. Pity she hadn’t factored in dying.
She sniffed again. It was such a great job as well—okay so finance operations was a little on the hard side—but still great. Gemma had thought Holly was rushing things, applying for a promotion only a year after joining the company, but Todd had thought that it was important to show her bosses that she was a player who wanted to make something of herself.
Holly agreed, especially since she had wanted to make something of herself, which was why she’d bought the most adorable black ankle strap shoes to celebrate. After all, how could you climb the corporate ladder without a good pair of heels?
Oh and she bet Tina Macdonald was finding it hilarious that Holly didn’t manage to do her presentation, since it was no secret Tina thought the promotion should’ve been hers. She’d even gone as far as complaining to Personnel about an unfair interview process. Yeah right. As if Tina had the calves for ankle strap shoes, and—
That was it.
Motive.
Holly was perfectly still as she realized she had just figured out who had slipped her the pills. Goodbye earthly issues and Level One. She knew all it would take was a little application and organization. Wait until she told Gemma about it.
Oh, and it made even more sense because she specifically recalled that the morning she died—on the pretence of being nice—Tina had given Holly a cup of coffee when they’d been in the staff room. Even though at the time it had tasted perfectly normal, it was now obvious Tina had laced it with pills so Holly would be forced to cancel her presentation and perhaps risk getting demoted. It all added up nicely.
She turned off her computer, tidied up her desk and out of habit, reached into the bottom drawer to grab her latest Bride and Beauty magazine (in case she had problems sleeping) and headed toward the elevator.
It wasn’t until she was outside the building that she congratulated herself on being such a genius in working it out. Of course she always had been clever. She thought back to The Rich and the Restless, her favorite soap opera, where everyone was convinced Joanne and Carlos were going to get together, but Holly had been adamant Lee would win through in the end. And she had been right.
Being right was such a nice feeling and she was still basking in it as she sat down at the nearby bus stop and searched Vince’s pockets to find a cell phone to call Gemma.
There was no answer and Holly cursed. The sooner she got Tina’s address, the sooner she could confront the girl and put a stop to the suicide rumors. Then tomorrow she could concentrate on clearing the air with Todd. Well, it wasn’t her typical to-do list, but then it wasn’t a typical day.
“In fact, it’s probably been the weirdest day of my life,” she muttered to herself as she drummed her fingers on the magazine.
“I’ll say,” a disembodied voice replied.
“What? Who said that?” Holly jumped back to her feet again and spun around, only to see nothing except an empty street and a candy wrapper blowing in the breeze. Well, that was strange. And why did she suddenly feel so…weird?
“What’s going on?” the same voice demanded.
“That’s what I’d like to know.” Holly tried to stay calm. After all, she was dead. Technically nothing bad could happen to her. Could it?
“Ideas would be welcome,” the voice said with a hint of impatience.
“Who are you?” Holly croaked as she clutched at her throat. It almost sounded like the words were coming from inside her. But that was just impossible.
“I’m Vince, who are you? And more importantly, what the hell are you doing in my body?”
“What do you mean you’re Vince? Vince is dead,” Holly said into the thin air, feeling more than just a little bit silly (and considering the past two weeks, that was really saying something).
“I’m dead?” the voice sounded surprised. “Are you sure? Because I don’t feel dead. Perhaps I’m just having some sort of weird dream? I get them sometimes.”
“No, you’re definitely dead.”
“Oh, so this is heaven? Because I’ve got to say, I expected more. This place looks like the bus stop outside Baker Colwell.”
“Of course it’s not heaven,” Holly scoffed. For a start there were no dead people around. Sort of a give away. Though she still wasn’t quite sure why she was having a conversation with Vince’s body.
“So it’s hell then?” the voice continued to probe. Was Vince’s body always this annoying in a conversation?
“No,” she explained. “It looks like the bus stop outside Baker Colwell because it is the bus stop outside Baker Colwell.”
“Right. So how did I get from the funeral to here?”
Wait. This was getting ridiculous. Surely she wasn’t really having this conversation. Perhaps if she closed her eyes, the voice would go away?
The problem was, not only did the voice make her feel weird, but something strange was happening to her leg as well. It felt…twitchy.
An uneasy feeling lodged itself in her stomach, which she tried to ignore. Surely this was just a side effect from Dr. Hill’s plan and no doubt if she’d read the rulebook she would know all about strange voices and twitchy feelings in her leg.
She gave her thigh a wriggle.
“Hey,” the voice said. “How did you do that?”
Holly started to sing the latest Coldplay song in her head. It had only come out a week before she died so she didn’t know all the words but at least it would stop this voice from talking.
Then her other leg wriggled. All by itself.
Holly stopped singing and clutched at her thigh. And now spasms? This was so not her day. “What’s going on?” she croaked as she found herself sitting back down on the bench.
“That’s what I want to know,” the voice said. “One minute I was at Holly’s funeral and the next minute I’m at the bus stop outside Baker Colwell. It doesn’t make sense. And why can I taste lipstick on my mouth?”
Holly felt her hand reach up to her lips and gulped as a thought too startling and dreadful for words entered her head.
No.
It wasn’t possible.
It couldn’t be happening.
“Actually it is,” another voice said and for a moment Holly clutched at her head.
“Don’t tell me there’s someone else inside here too, because I don’t think I’m going to handle it very well,” she said.
“Of course not.” Dr. Hill appeared from nowhere and sat next to her at the bus stop. “I’m right here.”
Holly let out a sigh of relief. “Boy, am I glad to see you. You won’t believe what’s just happened. For a moment I was starting to think Vince Murphy was still alive and in my body.”
Her leg shot out from under her and there was a growling noise from her throat. “Actually I think you’ll find it’s my body. And can someone please tell me what’s going on?”
“Of course.” The doctor gave a small cough. “It’s quite simple. Miss Evans, it appears that Mr. Murphy is in his body with you. At first it wasn’t obvious because he was in a catatonic state, which made us think he was dead, but well…the good news is he’s all better.”
“And the bad news?” Holly could now feel the disbelief oozing out of every pore in her body. Oh no, wait. Make that Vince Murphy’s body.
“I don’t think you’re going to like the bad news.” Dr. Hill let out a sigh as he started to explain what had happened.