When I wake up for real, the shadows are heavy outside, and my first thought is this is the longest I’ve ever made it, so maybe the solution was that it was Jasper who needed to die after all. The idea makes my throat tighten. I can’t sit with that reality. It can’t be the answer. There has to be a solution where we both survive.
Downstairs, a door slams, and I’m contemplating burying my head under my pillow when Ezekiel calls my name.
“Morgan? Morgan, are you here?”
His voice has a nervous edge to it I don’t recognize, and it’s enough to pull me out of bed. I put Jasper’s clean T-shirt on, along with a pair of jeans.
“Ezekiel?” I say as I come down the stairs. He’s standing in the front hall, still dressed from work, and his shoulders slump when he sees me.
“Oh, thank god. I was really starting to worry about you.”
“I’m fine.” I’m anything but fine. Even after all that sleep, I’m still exhausted. I feel stretched too thin and the sensation gets worse as I try to figure out what I can tell Ezekiel.
“You didn’t come to work. You weren’t answering your phone. Clarissa tried calling you too. She said you had some kind of date last night. I thought—” He frowns when I laugh.
“You thought I went on a date with an axe murderer?” It’s so far from the truth and yet so close I can’t help my laughter. What’s the worst-case scenario most people would think of for a blind date? I guarantee it’s not sixty-four straight days of death and destruction with zero explanation.
“Are you sick?” He’s still watching me like I might keel over at any second, which, given my disheveled appearance and my uncontrolled giggling, is probably not an unreasonable concern.
“I’m fine,” I say. “I’m fine. I—” I... don’t have a good way to explain what’s happened, but maybe it’s time to stop keeping secrets. I let out a hiccupping sigh. “Jasper died.”
Ezekiel frowns. “Who?”
“Jasper. The guy... the one from my date. You met him, remember? We came to your office.”
But Ezekiel shakes his head. “When did you come to my office?”
“Last night, we—” Oh, I must still be asleep after all, because that wasn’t last night. That was before. The thought that Jasper has ceased to exist in Ezekiel’s version of reality is crushing. This is what Jasper meant, isn’t it? That being stuck in this loop by yourself is fucking lonely. Anyone you try to explain it to will automatically assume you’re off your gourd, which means it’s easier to tell no one and suffer alone.
“Sorry, I didn’t sleep well.” I run a tired hand over my face.
As we walk to the living room, he gives me another worried glance. “Have you been asleep all day?”
“Notallday.” I should tell him he’s lucky I showered, but instead I slump to the sofa, then pop up again, because it’s leather like the one at Wolfe’s penthouse and I justcan’twith that.
“Morgan.” He looks really worried now. If I don’t pull it together, he’s going to start calling reinforcements. Either Clarissa or our doctor, and neither of those will be good for me.
“No. No it’s nothing. I’m okay.” But I’m obviously not, because I’m pacing on the organic Afghan goat’s wool rug and fluttering my hands by my face, trying to get the tears to dry before they tumble down my cheeks.
“Sit,” Ezekiel reaches for me, pulling me gently back down. I perch at the edge of the cushions, ignoring the itch in my palms that says I could send the leather subzero if I wanted to. I don’t know what’s happening to me. Why now? There’s been nothing more than a spark my whole life. What changed? And how am I going to explain it to Ezekiel?
“Sorry.” I sigh, rubbing my hands together. “It’s been... I had a long night.”
Ezekiel’s face is all soft compassion, and I’m having terrible déjà vu from so many conversations we had here after Mother died, but then again, my life is all déjà vu these days, so why should this be anything different?
“Something happened to your friend?” he says.
I pull on the neck of the T-shirt. A puff of Jasper’s sawdust scent wafts up to my face, making it hard to breathe evenly.
“Not my friend. He...” Not my boyfriend either. Partner in crime? Sidekick to my sidekick? If you need henching... “We met a couple months ago,” I say. “He was a really good person, but he was working for some bad people, and...” I can’t say it. Not all of it. Jasper’s secrets aren’t mine to tell, even now. And I can’t stand the thought of Ezekiel making the same wrong assumptions I did, so I skip over the details.“It caught up with him. They caught up with him. And now he’s dead.” On the last sentence, I pull the shirt up around my nose, inhaling slowly to keep the panic at bay. Doesn’t stop the memories, though. The way Jasper gasped in my arms as he died. His uneven grin and that one annoyingly imperfect tooth that made him charming. Who am I kidding? He didn’t even need the tooth. He was charming from minute one.
“Do you need to call the police?” Ezekiel asks.
I shake my head. “They can’t help.”
But he won’t be put off. “Do we need to call our lawyer? Are you in some kind of trouble?”
Talking about this in mundane steps is comforting. Police. Lawyers. Like the world makes sense and if we follow the procedures, we’ll get predictable and reproducible results.
