I whirled from the sink, my face still dripping water from the frantic splashing, and there was Nick, in his funeral suit, leaning casually against the doorjamb.

“Y-you—”

Nick’s mouth quirked at one corner, and he nodded his head. “It’s me, all right.” He wasn’t glowing, I noticed fitfully. Must be a nighttime phenom.

“This cat—where—?”

“I found him wandering in the train station,” Nick said.

I stared at him, goggle-eyed. My stomach threatened more mayhem.

“What train station? What the hell are you talking about?”

Chester arrived on the scene, wound himself, purring, around Nick’s ankles.

“It’s a kind of cosmic clearinghouse,” Nick explained. “On the other side.”

“Right,” I agreed. “You just head for Platform 9 and 3⁄4 and catch the Hogwarts Express.”

Nick looked blank. He’d never been much of a reader.

“Forget it,” I said. I pushed past Nick, noting that he was neither cold nor nebulous. Maybe the bone-freeze was a night thing, too.

Maybe I was out of my freaking mind.

“He was your cat when you were a little girl,” Nick wheedled, following me. “I thought—”

I made it to the kitchen, wrenched open a cupboard door and ferreted around until I found a can of tuna with a fairly recent expiration date. “Do dead cats eat?” I asked, furious with confusion.

“I don’t know,” Nick said uncertainly. I jumped when I realized he was standing directly behind me, peering over my shoulder into the cupboard. “Are those Oreos?”

I grabbed the package of cookies off the shelf and thrust them at him. “Yes. They’re old, but what the hell. It’s not like you could be poisoned.”

“You could be a little kinder,” Nick pointed out, affronted. But he took the cookies.

“Excuse me,” I snapped.

He stuck his nose into the Oreos, sniffed with decadent appreciation. His eyes rolled closed in ecstasy, the way they used to do when we had serious sex.

“Delicious,” he said.

The can opener whirred jarringly as I opened the tuna. I dumped the contents onto a saucer, crumbled them with a fork and set the whole shooting match down on the floor.

Chester nosed the food with interest, but didn’t eat.

I looked up at Nick.

He was holding a cookie in one hand and staring at it as though it had just tried to bite him.

“Damn,” he muttered.

I glanced at the cat again, partly to make sure he was still there and partly to see if he would eat.

“Problem?” I asked, shifting my attention back to Nick.

“I bit into the thing, and nothing happened.”

“I’d like to see that,” I said. “Do it again, while I’m watching.”

Nick did his ironic look. “This is not a performance designed for your amusement,” he told me.

“Duh,” I shot back. “I am definitely not amused.”

Just then, a familiar knock sounded at the outside door.

Nick arched an eyebrow. “Company?”