“You’re a hero, too,” I told him, and I meant it.

“Is he here again?” Tucker wanted to know. “Your dead ex-husband?”

He still had his knee in Geoff’s back, and my brother the serial killer was sobbing now, like a terrified kid.

“Yes,” I said. Apparently, I had seen one Nick, but Geoff had seen entirely another. And just as Chester had used up his vital forces to save me from Heather, Nick had spent some serious ghost-juice putting on enough of a horror show to scare a homicidal maniac into blithering submission. “He’s here.” I paused, and my voice got small. “But not for long, right, Nick?”

“Right,” he said softly.

Tears filled my eyes. “Thanks,” I said.

He gave a little salute. I thought he’d say something corny, like, “I’ve got a train to catch,” but he didn’t.

He simply disappeared.

And I knew I would never see him again.

“I forgive you,” I whispered.

Tucker was on his cell phone, calling the cops, but he rubbed my back with one hand while he spoke. Geoff turned his head and lay there, staring at me with a blank focus that froze my blood.

“Mess with me,” I said, “and see where it gets you.”

Chapter Twenty

CHAPTER TWENTY

JOLIE AND GREER arrived at the apartment at the same time as Andy Crowley and the usual crew of uniforms and crime scene techs. Greer had a fresh cast on her left arm, and deep shadows lay like swipes of soot under her haunted eyes.

I gasped. Forgot, for the moment, how close I’d come to being dissected on my living room floor.

“Did Alex do that?” I demanded, pointing at Greer’s cast.

She bit her lower lip, shook her head and stared at Geoff, lying inert on the floor, handcuffed. Her mouth moved, but she seemed to have lost the use of her vocal cords.

I could identify.

“Christ,” Jolie whispered.

“Far from it,” I replied.

“What happened this time?” Crowley wanted to know.

I glanced at Tucker, hoping he’d explain, but it wasn’t his story to tell, it was mine.

I started with the coffee, and how I got sleepy after drinking it.

Crowley dispatched one of the crime scene techs to collect my java supply, along with the things I’d stirred in.

I told the gathering how I’d awakened, put my feet on the floor and been grabbed around the ankles.

A tic moved under Crowley’s right eye. He’d been a kid once, unlikely as it seemed, and probably remembered his own version of the old monster-hiding-under-the-bed routine. Or maybe he was just impatient, wanting me to get on with it.

I related the rest of the tale, leaving out the part about Nick.

Two officers hoisted Geoff to his feet and ushered him out of my apartment, none too soon as far as I was concerned.