“I’m sure you would’ve been fine standing in the middle of the hallway,” Amie said. “But thatisscary.”
Elena seemed pleased that Amie understood the gravity of the situation. “But then I peeked through the door, andBennywas right on the other side, sitting on the floor.” She whispered thename, as if saying it too loudly might summon the man. “He did not look well. Very discombobulated. He said, ‘What’s wrong, Elena?’ And I said, ‘I heard yelling. Is everything okay?’ And he said, ‘Everything’s fine. I was just looking for something.’ ”
“What was he looking for?” Amie asked eagerly.
“I just assumed Savannah had taken one of his packages,” Elena said, shrugging. “We’ve all been there. But I don’t know what he was doing sitting on the floor, looking like someone had died.”
She frowned. “Though, I guess someonehasdied. I just didn’t think Benny cared that much about Savannah.”
Amie nodded in agreement. “He seemed okay at her memorial. His appetite wasn’t affected, at least,” she added, recalling how much time the man had spent near the refreshments.
“Anyway,” Elena continued, “I asked him if he wanted help looking for his package. Just as a kindness, you know?”
“Sure,” Amie said drily. She knew Elena would never pass up the opportunity to snoop around someone else’s apartment. “Did you find it?”
Elena shook her head. “Didn’t even make it inside. He just stood up, said”—she deepened her voice to a rough growl—“ ‘Doesn’t matter anymore.’ ” She returned to her regular speaking voice. “Then he pushed past me and closed the door.”
Tapping the side of her nose, the woman said, “Now, you’ll notice that he didn’t comment on the yelling. So I said, ‘Did you hear the yelling?’ And he said, ‘No, I didn’t hear anything.’ Well, I knew that was a lie, since I’d heard it all the way from down the hall. But I couldn’t just call the man a liar to his face, so I left to go call him a liar behind his back. And here we are.”
“Hang on,” Amie said. “If this was all several minutes ago, how did you end up outside of the building trying to get back in?”
A coy smile inched onto Elena’s face. “All right,” she admitted. “Maybe I saw you and Ziya out my window and thought I’d come say hi. Is that a crime?”
Amie rolled her eyes good-naturedly as they continued up the stairs. “Do you think Benny was really at the Harlows’ apartment to look for a package?” she asked.
Elena grimaced. “Well, he certainly wasn’t there to do any landlording. I find it hard to believe he’s finally discovered a work ethic in his mid-forties.”
They reached the landing for the second floor.
“Who was he yelling at?” Amie asked softly, almost to herself.
“Oh, Benny wasn’t the one yelling,” Elena said, once again realizing she hadn’t finished her story. “The voice was much higher.”
“You think it was the person you heard in the stairwell?” Amie asked.
“That’s right,” Elena confirmed. “My hearing isn’t what it used to be, so I couldn’t make out what all the yelling was about. But I was able to catch one thing.”
“What?”
Elena lifted a hand, pointing a finger at Amie menacingly. “ ‘You did it.’ ”
Amie stared at the blank document open on her laptop. The longer she looked at it, the faster the cursor seemed to blink. She’d thought that stepping back from work to recover a bit from the time loop would be a good idea. However, until she figured out how to explain her situation to a therapist without immediately getting referred to a psychiatrist, Amie didn’t really know what to do while she “recovered.” Opening a new document was her way of trying to jumpstart any sort of productivity, but it really only gave her a new thing to look at as she once again got lost in her thoughts.
It was unlikely she’d be able to figure out who’d murdered Savannah. If Amie had known about Savannah’s death during the time loop, that would have been a different story. She was almost positive she could have prevented it. Hidden in the back room right before the store closed. Watched Savannah do inventory orpack up a delivery as someone came in through the back door. Then she’d …
… tackle them?
Amie wasn’t exactly sure how she would have incapacitated the murderer. She supposed, given the nature of the time loop, she would’ve had the opportunity to learn from trial and error if she didn’t get it right on the first attempt.
But she hadn’t even gotten that far. She hadn’t even known Savannah was murdered. If Amie had been put in the time loop to stop Savannah’s death, the universe must have eventually lost patience with her and just given up.
She probably couldn’t solve this murder. But she had to at leasttry.
Amie checked her phone. She’d messaged Ziya after her stairwell conversation with Elena, updating her on what the woman had shared about Benny.
She hadn’t noticed how easy texting her ex-girlfriend had been until the initial messages were sent. During the months after the breakup and before the time loop, any texts sent to Ziya had been written, then rewritten, then deleted entirely, then written again with only slightly different wording than the rewrite. None of them had been sent. At the time, it had felt like one wrong word could destroy any possibility of the two of them reconciling.
But after the past twenty-four hours, that fear had all but vanished. Its ominous drumbeat of warning was drowned out by a university marching band performing the instrumental version of a song called “Talk to Ziya! (feat. Serotonin).”
