As bad as I hated to do it – I didn’t want to give him any more clues than I had to – I asked, “Does your screen bring up pictures?”

“Yes, it does.” She swung the screen around to me. “This is Nicole Foster.”

Nicole Foster was a tall redhead with a lot of miles on her. “No, that’s not her.”

“Okay.” She tapped a few more keys. “This is Nicole Schwab.”

This one was younger, but she was a blonde with freckles and glasses. “Darn. That’s not her, either.”

“You know, we do have a Nicolette.” She turned the screen back toward her and tapped again. “What about her?”

When she turned it around again, I nodded. “That’s her.”

“Okay, well, Nicolette Lemay works in post-op. Third floor.” She flashed a smile at the captain. “I’m glad I could be of help.”

“Thank you,” I said, and looked over my shoulder at the captain. I had never realized it, but he was an alarmingly handsome man. Okay, I’d buy her interest as genuine. Many women were attracted to the uniform and little else.

I took off toward the elevators. Captain Eckert followed. “I can take it from here,” I said to him, then gestured toward the receptionist. “You know, if you want to get her number.”

He raised his brows in surprise. “I’m good, thanks.”

The captain was a widower. His wife had died of cancer a couple of years earlier, and I felt like that was one reason my approval for a consultant position with APD went through so seamlessly. He was mourning his wife. I doubt he would have noticed if Uncle Bob asked for an elephant in the break room. I stayed as far away from the man as I possibly could back then. His grief was suffocating. It enveloped me and pushed the oxygen from my lungs and I could hardly look at him without feeling an overwhelming sense of loss. Even now I associated him with that feeling of extreme discomfort. It made him genuine and honorable, but my knee-jerk reaction to him was to run the other direction.

Still, I’d had a soft spot for him ever since I met him. A soft spot that was full of wary reverence. The guy was sharp, and now that he was on my trail, I’d have to be careful. He’d just never paid much attention to the goings-on of Ubie and me. We solved cases and that was good enough for him. But after my last fiasco, which involved me solving four cases in one day, including one of a serial killer… well, okay, I could understand his sudden interest.

We walked to the elevator and I pressed the third floor. Nothing screamed awkward like being in an elevator with someone who sucked the oxygen from the room.

“So, how’s crime been treating you?” I asked to get my mind off the lack of ventilation. My red blood cells were screaming for air.

He only looked at me.

Okay. I rocked back onto my heels and found a fascinating panel of buttons to look at. After a thousand years of agony, the doors opened. I tried not to gasp for air aloud.

We stepped out onto the third floor and I walked to the nurses’ station, pretending like the cap’n wasn’t stalking me. I flashed my PI license. “Hi, I was wondering if I could ask you a few questions about Nicole Lemay.”

Of the three nurses who sat behind it, only one didn’t look up right away, clearly too busy to answer any questions.

“Nicole?” one asked me. She had wiry brown hair and gold-rimmed glasses.

“Yes, I was wondering when you last saw her.”

The nurse stared at me, her expression blank. She checked her watch. “I guess about five minutes ago.”

“No,” I said, shifting on my feet. “Nicole Lemay. I’m sorry, Nicolette?”

The other nurse spoke up then, a pretty blonde with an affinity for carbs. “You’re right,” she said, checking the clock on the wall. “We haven’t seen Nicolette in about twenty minutes.”

The first nurse laughed. “Right. Time flies when you’re having fun.”

“I told you not to get near Mrs. Watson. She likes her bubble.”

“I had to get her vitals.”

“Oh, there she is.” One of them pointed.

“I’m Nicolette.”

I turned around and came face-to-face with my departed woman. Only she wasn’t departed anymore. She was alive. And, well, breathing. It was a miracle!

“Um, Nicolette Lemay?”

“My whole life.” She was busy cleaning out her pockets, relieving them of syringe wrappers and stray wads of tape. “Sadly,” she added. “If I don’t get a marriage proposal soon, my mother is going to take out an ad.”

“Oh, well, I was just —”

“You look familiar,” she said. She paused and looked me over, then focused on my sidekick.

“Right, sorry. I’m Charley and this is Captain Eckert of the Albuquerque Police Department.”

She straightened, growing alarmed. “Did something happen?”

“No, no, not at all,” I jumped to assure her. “It’s just that – Um —” I stood there completely tongue-tied. I’d never had a departed woman show up, tell me where to find her body, then show up later completely alive. She was just so corporeal. Not a hair out of place. No wonder we couldn’t find her body. She’d moved it.

“Have you ever been to the old railroad bridge on 57?”

“I have no idea where that is.”

“Oh. Do you, by chance, have an identical twin?” I asked her, realizing how inane I probably sounded.