You Had Me at Halo (20 page)

Holly wasn’t going to wait around a minute longer than she had to and so she pushed open the wardrobe door and hurried back down the stairs and outside.

Gemma was waiting for her around the corner with a pale face and half-chewed fingernails. “Did she see you?”

“Nope, clean get away,” Holly said.

“Oh thank God.” Gemma blew out a column of air in relief. “I had visions of her finding you and then using her stiletto to chop your body up into little pieces and then hiding it under the bed.”

Holly shook her head. “No room under there, and besides, I’m already dead. I think that would be like a double negative or something.”

“Oh.” Gemma paused for a minute to consider this. “Well, perhaps you should’ve told me that before and saved me all the worry. Anyway, don’t keep me in suspense. Did you find anything?”

“Not a sausage,” Vince was the one who answered. “Though she did seem to have a strange collection of stuffed teddy bears. Is that a crime?”

“It should be.” Holly tried to sound light-hearted but inside she was panicking. Not only did Vince probably think she had a one-track mind, but there had been no signs of any pills. She’d been so sure there would be as well. After all, every police movie she had ever watched ended like that. The out of favor detective would follow their instincts, no matter what, and it would always pay off.

Whoever said life wasn’t like the movies, sure wasn’t joking. It seemed as though the same went for dying.

“Don’t worry,” Gemma was saying now. “Holly, we’ve still got tonight and tomorrow.”

“I was just so certain—and what about the photocopied article she had in her office?” Holly wailed.

“It could’ve been because she really does get motion sickness,” Vince said in a soft voice and for the first time since Holly had landed in his body, she started to realize there was a good chance she could fail. The thought made her feel ill. It was bad enough dying, but to die and know that her parents were two levels above her was something she could hardly bear to think about. She had so much to tell them, so much to say.

“We still have time,” Gemma said firmly.

“You’re right.” Holly sucked in a lungful of air and tried to compose herself. “I just need to keep focused and work out what I’m going to say to Todd. I’m sure as long as I can get everything sorted with him, it will be okay.”

“That’s the attitude.” Gemma nodded her head in approval.

Vince coughed. “There’s just one problem.”

“Technically there’s two problems,” Holly corrected since as well as Todd, she still hoped to find out how she died. “But—”

“No,” Vince cut her off as he held out his arms. “This is a different problem. Where’s my satchel with all of your things in them.”

“Please tell me Gemma was minding it while we went into Rochelle’s?” Holly could feel her voice wobbling.

Gemma held her own hands up to show they were empty. “I don’t think you had it with you. I knew that drinking beer was a bad idea.”

Okay, so Holly was pretty sure she was about to have a breakdown. This was so not good. In fact it was very very bad, and if—

It will be alright,
Vince’s firm voice echoed in her head and before she could start to panic any more, he pulled his phone out of his pocket and made a call.

“Andrew, it’s me...”

“What’s he saying?” Gemma demanded the minute Vince started talking to the technician. “Is it there? Do they have it?”

Holly let out a sigh of relief as she heard Andrew confirm that the bag was underneath the bar where they had been standing earlier. If Holly wasn’t in Vince’s body she would’ve given that guy a kiss next time she saw him. In fact she would’ve kissed Vince as well. His zen-like calm was becoming more than a little addictive.

She gave Gemma the thumbs up and then waited until Vince finished the call before letting out a large whoop of joy. “Thank goodness that your friends know how to party. I was sure they would’ve left by now.”

“Actually, they are just about to head into town, so if we want to get it, we’d best get moving,” Vince added. “They said they’ll wait for us to show, but best not to keep them too long.”

“Let’s get going.”

Gemma hooked her workbag further up her shoulder. “I might just head...home to get ready for my date tonight. If that’s okay? I mean I know this about you and Todd, but I sort of want to look nice for Simon.”

“Oh, for some reason I thought we’d get ready together,” Holly tried to hide her disappointment before groaning. “Though on second thoughts, perhaps not.”

“I think that might push the weird factor a bit too high today,” Gemma agreed as she glanced at her watch and arranged to meet Holly outside The Pool Palace at quarter to nine.

Since Gemma was heading in the opposite direction they both walked toward the main road and hailed separate cabs. As theirs headed back in the direction of Baker Colwell and Bar One, Holly rubbed her head.

Talk about exhausting. Had it always been like this when she had been alive? Especially the mood swings. She wasn’t sure if it was Vince’s testosterone or her own blind panic, but it seemed like she’d spent most of the day on a wildly teetering see-saw. It really wasn’t good for the nerves.

Vince, who as normal seemed to pick up on her every thought, set a wave of reassurance through her as he paid the driver and they got out.

Are you okay?

I think.
She gulped.
I guess we just have to work on the assumption that nothing else could possibly go wrong?

Whenever they say that in the movies, it’s just a link to the next disaster.

This is hardly a movie,
Holly reminded him.
And it’s true. The day’s almost over and we’re back to the beginning, so how on earth could things possibly get worse?

Well, since that spiritual realigner guy of yours seems to be walking towards us, I’d say that was a good indication. I sure know my life takes a dive every time he’s around.

Holy felt sick as she realized Vince was right. Here came Dr. Hill. Oh great.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Holly stared at him. He still had the same ginger hair and chubby fingers, but he sort of looked different this time. Less fuzzy. And instead of the white garb, he was wearing a regular pair of Levi’s and a multicolored shirt, while in his hands were several familiar looking bags. Had he been shopping?

“What are you doing here?”

“I’ve come down to give you your mid-manual purging analysis, of course. Honestly Miss Evans, you could’ve at least brought the rulebook with you for a bit of light reading. Then you might be able to follow the state of play a bit better. It’s standard procedure.”

“My mid-manual purging? You’ve got to be joking.”

“I don’t think he’s joking,” Vince commented.

Dr. Hill pushed his two red eyebrows together in surprise. “Why would I come all the way down here to joke?”

“See.” Vince grinned.

“Same reason you’ve come down here to go shopping?” Holly pointed out.

“Oh.” His face turned red as he kicked the bags. “You mean these old things. They’re nothing.”

“Yeah right. I might be stuck in Vince’s body but I can still tell a designer-outlet-end-of-season-sale bag when I see one.”

Dr. Hill dropped down onto the nearby bench and raised his hands. “Okay, guilty as charged. So I like my clothes. Really if you had to do as much inter-dimensional travel as I do, you’d make the most of the perks as well.”

“Preaching to the converted,” Holly assured him. “You don’t need to tell me the joys of shopping. Just a pity I can’t exactly try anything on in this state.”

“I’m right here you know,” Vince reminded her.

“Ah yes.” Dr. Hill fumbled around in his pocket for a notebook and a pen. “So how are you both coping with the transition?”

“The transition has been fine, but trying to get anything done has been pretty much impossible. Just for the record I think it should be known as an oxymoron when you send a girl back in a guy’s body in order to sort out her issues, because I’m sure this experience is creating more problems than it’s solving.”

“I know it isn’t an ideal situation,” Dr. Hill admitted as he chewed at the end of his pen. “But it’s the best we can do. So, anyway, I guess we’d better get on with it then.” He reached down into one of the shopping bags and pulled out a small electronic device with a red laser light at one end.

Holly eyed the device. “Get on with what?”

“The mid-manual purging analysis of course.”

“I thought that’s what you were just doing. With the notebook and the questions.”

“Oh no, that’s for a sociological paper I’m writing on the side. These days if you don’t publish you don’t get promoted. The real test is with this machine. It measures the amount of negative and destructive thoughts in your mind and can tell how close you are to shedding your earthly issues.”

“You mean there’s a machine to do that?” Holly, who had spent her life cheating at the various magazine quizzes she’d done (from “Is that guy really into you?” up to “Are you ready to push through the glass ceiling?”), looked horrified. Even the Baker Colwell Potential Employee Personality Test had been a breeze to get through as long as you could recognize which were trick questions and which were legitimate qualifiers.

“It’s foolproof,” he agreed.

“But how does it work when there’s two of us in here?”

“Well, actually.” Dr. Hill pulled a strange looking needle out of his case. “That’s the first thing we need to talk about. In order for me to get an accurate reading, I need to make sure Mr. Murphy isn’t around.”

“I thought you said that couldn’t be done?” She narrowed her eyes. “So what’s changed all of a sudden?”

“I’m not taking him out of the body. I’m just going to put him to sleep for a few hours, so that he doesn’t interfere with the machine.”

“You want to give him that big needle and knock him out?” Holly demanded and when Dr. Hill agreed she gave a decisive shake of her head. “No way.”

“If I don’t do it then I can’t do the reading,” the doctor tried to explain but Holly just poked out her bottom lip in a mulish expression.

“Look, I might have deserved to be kicked out of heaven, but poor Vince here has been really good to me today and I’ve already messed up his life quite enough. He’s not having the needle.”

“What happens if we don’t do it?” Vince suddenly asked. “Will Holly get in trouble for not having this mid-purging analysis thing?”

Dr. Hill frowned. “She won’t get in trouble, but it’s designed to let her know how close she is to getting her issues sorted. Without it she’s more or less flying blind. It’s very haphazard.”

“I’ll chance it,” Holly said firmly.     

“Well, I won’t,” Vince retorted in a surprisingly alpha way. “You hated Level One so the sooner you’re out of there the better. Give me the needle.”

“No.” Holly shook her head “Vince, it’s really nice of you, but honestly you’ve done enough already.”

“If you don’t get your issues sorted you might never see your parents again.” Vince thrust out his right arm. “Now let’s just get this thing done.”

“I need your consent as well, Miss Evans.” Dr. Hill appeared to be studying her face.

Vince—

Just say yes, Holly. I mean it, I’ll be okay and this way you can make sure you see your dad again. Okay?

Holly sniffed as she reluctantly nodded at Dr. Hill. “Fine, but you better make sure this thing is one hundred and ten percent safe.”

“You have my word on it.”

She winced as the cool tip of the needle sunk into her arm. “How does it know where Vince is and where I am?” she tried not to notice that her voice was wobbly.

“It’s all part of the abracadabra stuff. Mystical medicine is the best way of summing it up.” Dr. Hill now put away the needle and picked up the machine.

Vince, are you okay?
she tentatively asked but she already knew he wasn’t there. After spending the day with him, it felt...odd, not to have him right with her.

He’s a nice guy by the way. You were lucky. Now, are you ready?

Holly held out her hand and the doctor slid a small steel ring over her knuckle. For a minute or so nothing happened before the machine started to make a beeping noise.

“What does that mean?”

“W-well.” He didn’t quite meet her eye. “It’s not great. You still seem to be struggling to get things resolved.”

“Yes, but I’m getting there,” Holly tried to nod her head in a positive fashion in case Dr. Hill was up for a bit of Jedi mind trick. “There was a bit of a setback with finding out who slipped me the pills, I was so certain it was Rochelle, but...well...Gemma and I will retrace my steps again and see what else we can come up with. As for Todd, I’m seeing him tonight. I have a feeling that’s going to go okay.”

“Of course.” The doctor gave a supportive smile. “It’s just you’ve really got to try and get everything sorted out. I can’t stress that enough.”