But Geoff slammed me back to the floor again, even harder than before, and I struck my head. Saw stars. The drive-through hamburger I’d eaten on the way out of Cactus Bend hit the back of my throat in a glob. I was on my stomach now, and Geoff pulled my wrists together behind my back. I heard the sound of tape peeling off the roll.

My heart hammered.

And then I saw shoes.

Nick’s shoes.

Like he was going to be of any help, I thought. I was the only one who could see him.

I turned my head, looked up at my ex-husband’s ghost.

“Not to worry,” he said.

Not to worry?

I was alone with a psychopath who intended to swathe me in duct tape and cut me up—slowly—with a box cutter. And I wasn’t supposed to worry?

Geoff shoved me onto my side.

I stared up at Nick. He’d probably come to escort me to the train station, but the time before my ticket got punched could be a real bitch to get through. At the moment, I was a candidate for a segment on Forensic Files. I’d be the one with the chalk outline drawn around her mutilated body.

The rest of the room receded. All I saw was Nick, standing there in his dapper burial suit, raising both hands like claws and making a face.

Geoff must have seen something entirely different, because he let out a bloodcurdling shriek and dropped to his knees.

I screamed too—I guess it was pent-up fear, or maybe I was just getting into the spirit of the thing.

Nick stepped over me, still doing the Frankenstein bit.

If it hadn’t been for the predicament I was in, I would have thought it was funny. I mean, it was the kind of thing you do when you’re a kid, playing monster in the backyard.

Geoff screamed again, from some primal, subhuman place inside himself, and rocked on his knees, covering his head with both hands.

“This is ridiculous,” I said.

“Don’t break my concentration,” Nick replied.

The outside door crashed against the wall.

Geoff didn’t even seem to hear it. He was still screaming.

“The boyfriend’s here,” Nick said, with a little sigh.

Tucker boiled into the room like muddy floodwaters taking out a levee. He slammed Geoff’s face to the floor, jammed a knee in the middle of his back and handcuffed him, all in one long, fluid motion.

I gotta say, I was impressed.

You didn’t learn stuff like that in a Damn Fool’s Guide.

“How did you know?” I asked.

Tucker pulled the duct tape off my wrists. It stung, but it was the kind of pain that calls for celebration. It was I-am-alive pain. “I heard you scream,” he said.

“Your hero,” said Nick, folding his arms.