“Okay, so here’s the plan,” Holly announced the next morning as she tapped her pen against the kitchen counter. “I’m up against the clock, so everything needs to be prioritized. Since Tina is a dead end, the most important thing is to retrace my steps until we get another clue. Then I can explain everything to Todd and apologize for our stupid fight.”
Holly was proud of how organized she sounded. Especially since she’d stayed awake for half the night panicking. Thankfully she then remembered the trick was to pretend she was focused and confident, even if she wasn’t. That’s how she’d managed to get her promotion after all.
“So, what do you think?” she double-checked with Vince, who still hadn’t answered her.
“Great,” Vince mumbled as he rubbed his eyes. “Now can I have some coffee?”
Holly put down her pen and let Vince flick the kettle on. Perhaps she wasn’t quite as organized as she thought “Sorry, about that. I’m still getting used to this body sharing thing.”
“Yes, I’m having some problems with that myself. So what are your thoughts on having a shower?”
Holly looked down at his pajama-clad body and wrinkled her nose. For going to the bathroom and getting changed, she had merely squeezed her eyes shut and sung as loudly as possibly to distract herself from what was going on. But a shower would require full nudity and to be honest she wasn’t quite sure she had room in her head for any more nightmares right now.
“How about we just have a thorough wash instead?”
“Good idea” Vince sounded almost as relieved as she felt, and as he busied himself pouring the coffee, she tried not to think about what it would be like if he did take all of his clothes off? No, scratch that thought. She wasn’t ready to look down anyone else’s trousers yet. Especially not Vince Murphy’s.
“This is so strange that I’m getting ready for work and not putting on any make-up,” Holly said twenty minutes later as she admired the way Vince carefully shaved the contours of his chiseled jaw. He definitely looked better without stubble.
Vince held the razor away from his face. “You know it’s easier to do when you’re not talking.”
Sorry, Holly mentally apologized. I don’t think I’m ever going to get used to this.
Me either. It’s certainly not something I ever thought would happen. I’m still trying to adjust to the fact you work for Baker Colwell, let alone now live in my body.
What’s that meant to mean? She bristled. Not that she cared what he thought, of course, but it was irritating the way he kept trying to make out like he knew her. When she first started working there he had even asked her out on a date—to catch up on old times he had said. Yeah right. As if Holly had wanted to do that.
He shrugged as he washed the razor under the tap and splashed some aftershave on his face. Holly winced at the sting. “I don’t know,” he said aloud. “I guess when we were at school I always had you pegged as doing something a bit more creative.”
“That shows how much you know about me. I’ve always wanted to join Baker Colwell. My dad used to work there as a senior analyst, so I guess I’m following in his footsteps.”
“If I followed in my father’s footsteps I’d be in prison for robbery.”
“Oh.” Holly widened her eyes in surprise. Wow. Prison for robbery. “I didn’t know that.”
“It’s no biggie.” Vince roughly ran his hand through his hair and then turned for the door. “Anyway, if we have a hope in hell of getting through the day, we should probably leave already.”
“Sure,” Holly said as an awkward silence enveloped them. She wanted to say to him she was sorry for acting surprised, but she could tell by the set of his mouth that he didn’t want to talk about it. Which was crazy.
Just because his father was in prison, it didn’t mean Vince had done anything wrong. In fact, from what Holly had seen, the opposite was true. He had a good job, a nice apartment, and when he wasn’t being annoying, he was an okay guy.
Holly glanced at her watch. She’d arranged to meet Gemma in the reception area before the weekly staff meeting, but there was still no sign of her, which was a nuisance since some of her “last steps” had involved the ladies room, and there was no way she could recreate them without Gemma’s help.
Vince seemed unnaturally quiet as they watched everyone hurrying past them, and Holly could only guess he was finding this just as hard. Once, at Todd’s bequest, she’d worn some skimpy lingerie underneath her black suit. It had felt sexy and exciting in equal measures to be walking around with such a secret on underneath, but nothing prepared her for how it felt to be walking around with a secret like this.
“Sorry I’m late.” Gemma panted as she careened to a halt in front of them, and Holly was grateful to be jolted from her thoughts. Thinking of skimpy underwear and Vince Murphy in the same sentence was just disturbing.
“I was wondering where you’d got to,” Holly told her friend.
“I had a rotten sleep last night.”
“I know the feeling,” Holly agreed.
“You poor thing.” Gemma flushed as she reached out to give Holly’s hand a squeeze. “How are you feeling?”
“Okay, I guess. Considering I’m back from the dead in someone else’s body.”
“Oh yes.” Gemma quickly pulled her hand away and scrutinized them. “By the way, who am I speaking to? Is it Holly-Vince or Vince-Vince?”
“It’s Holly, you idiot.” It was obvious that despite staying on the phone for an extra half hour last night to try and explain the new situation, Gemma was still having problems making sense of it.
“Hey, that’s a bit unfair calling me an idiot when you’re the one that managed to get herself into someone else’s body,” her friend complained.
“My point exactly,” Vince piped in. “And for the record Gemma, I promise I had nothing to do with Holly trying to hit on you at the funeral yesterday.”
Gemma giggled and Holly rolled her eyes. “Please, don’t encourage him. And Vince, don’t you have something else to do while we talk?”
“Sure, I’ll just go over and grab a cup of coffee. Oh no wait. I can’t move.”
“Ignore him,” Holly advised Gemma. “Because we can’t afford to waste any more time and—Oh…there’s Todd…”
Holly sighed as she looked over to where he was striding through the foyer with a paper under one arm and a coffee in his other hand—a decaf skinny cappuccino, not that he ever let on, but Holly knew he was secretly worried about his weight. Probably wanted to look good for their wedding. She sighed again.
“Great, and things just keep getting better and better,” Vince growled but Holly didn’t pay him any attention.
“Look at how gorgeous he is. I love they way his hair goes all tousled…see…like that.”
Vince squinted. “It’s sort of a weird color if you ask me. Does he dye it?”
“Oh, well I guess he gets a few tones and highlights, but there’s nothing wrong with male grooming. In fact some of your colleagues would do very well to take a leaf out of Todd’s book.”
“I’ll be sure to pass that little tip along,” Vince said in a dry voice.
Holly continued to stare in Todd’s direction. “This is so annoying. I mean he’s my boyfriend and I can’t even go over there and tell him how much I love him. And what’s she doing?”
“Who?” Gemma spun around to see what was going on.
“Rochelle Jackson,” Holly said in disdain as she stared at Todd, who was paying an awful lot of attention to the stupid girl. “She is so unbelievable. I feel like going over there and giving that slut a piece of my mind.”
Gemma’s hand shot out and grabbed Holly’s arm. “Don’t be stupid,” she hissed. “You’re only Holly on the inside. On the outside you’re—”
“Vince Murphy,” Holly muttered. “Yeah and don’t I know it. I mean what’s the point of them sending me back here to sort out my issues if I’m stuck in this body? It’s driving me crazy.”
“Ah, finally we have something in common,” Vince retorted.
“You know it’s starting to become quite obvious why you have no friends,” Holly replied. “And is Rochelle Jackson touching Todd’s butt?”
“Okay, Holly, don’t freak out,” Gemma said tentatively, as if she were about to reveal some more information.
“Don’t freak out about what?” she said in a dangerously low voice.
Gemma let out a muffled sigh. “I didn’t want to tell you before but Rochelle’s been making a play for Todd ever since you died.”
“But I’ve only been dead two weeks. What kind of person would go after a dead girl’s boyfriend like that?”
“I know, right,” Gemma immediately agreed. “But the thing is, Todd isn’t remotely interested. Holly, he’s really upset about you dying. It’s totally thrown him.”
“Well, so it should. I mean we were meant to be…oh.” Holly broke off with a start as something occurred to her. “It was Rochelle who gave me the pills! You were so right when you said that it couldn’t have been Tina. Because what would be the point of only knocking me out for one night? But with Rochelle it’s different. She wanted to knock me out so she could have Todd all to herself at the ball.”
For a moment Gemma was quiet before she finally nodded her head. “We both know that Rochelle doesn’t stop at anything to get what she wants, so making you fall asleep for the night certainly wouldn’t be beyond her. Unbelievable.”
“I’ll say. That girl does not know how to take no for an answer. And she definitely has boundary issues. And why is she still touching him?”
“Well, that’s about to change,” Gemma said firmly. “As soon as we get proof, then she’s history. I think we should start with her office.”
“Her and her stupid office,” Holly growled. Rochelle liked to mention it at every opportunity since the rest of last year’s graduates were still stuck in cubicles. Word on the street, though, was that she hadn’t earned that office at all, she’d only gotten it because she was friendly with the CEO. Real friendly.
And now she had stopped Todd from proposing on the night of the ball. Well the pills may have worked, but there was no way Holly was going to stand by and let her get away with stealing her fiancé as well. This was war.
Holly could feel the determination rising up through her. Finally they were getting somewhere. At this rate they would catch Rochelle, convince Todd of the truth and still have time to watch the latest episode of The Rich and the Restless before she went back to heaven. Perfect.
Gemma nodded. “That girl is toast. We’re going to take her down.”
Vince folded his arms and Holly could tell by the way his lips were turning that he was about to frown. “Before you go pointing fingers, shouldn’t we be working out how she managed to do it?”
“Oh.” Gemma paused. “I hadn’t thought of that. I guess we’d better retrace your steps first.”
Holly pulled out a piece of paper from Vince’s pocket. “I do have this. It’s a list of all the things I remembered doing on Friday. According to the Internet the tablets could still keep working for up to eight hours, so I’ve gone back as far as ten in the morning.”
Gemma peered over and chewed her lip as she studied it. “You only had one cup of coffee in work and that was made by Tina, so Rochelle couldn’t have spiked your drink. Are you sure you didn’t go somewhere for lunch? Perhaps she did it then?”
“No.” Holly reluctantly agreed. She’d been particularly busy that day trying to get her presentation all ready for Monday so she hadn’t even left the building for a break. “I brown bagged it and ate at my desk.”
“Did you put it in the staff room fridge?” Vince wondered but Gemma gave a dismissive shake of her head.
“They work on different floors.”
Holly stabbed at the piece of paper. “But our fridge was on the blink, so I did go up to fourth floor to put mine in there. I remember because I had chicken in my sandwich and I was worried about salmonella poisoning.” For a moment Holly was struck by the irony since it wasn’t the salmonella she should’ve been worrying about. On a brighter note. At least it was a start.
“Okay, so what are we waiting for? Let’s go,” she said but Vince’s feet weren’t moving anywhere. If she could’ve glared at him, she would’ve. “What? We’ve got motive, we’ve got opportunity, now we just need to find means.”
“Yes, well I hate to break up this little Law and Order episode, but aren’t you forgetting something?”
Holly wrinkled her nose as she lifted up her fingers to start mentally ticking things off. “I don’t think so. What do you mean?”
Gemma groaned as she nodded in the same direction as Vince. “He means we’ve got the company meeting which is about to start right about now.”