“Not to be judgmental,” he said, heart pounding as Carla crossed her arms and fumed. “But don’t those things kind of go hand-in-hand?”
“Not necessarily,” said Carla. She sighed and put her head in her hands. “You know what? Never mind. You’re right. Most of them are assholes.” Another sigh. “That’s just men in general, though.”
Unsure what to say to that, Jack folded his hands in his lap and looked away.
“Nobody’s going to kill you,” Carla exclaimed. “Exceptmaybe Ronnie, but only if I break up with him again. And I’m not gonna do that.”
There was something about the expression on her face that ate at him. Some sort of helpless misery beneath a shroud of resentment. “Did he hurt you?”
“I mean, definehurt. Nothing the police might’ve helped with. Not that they would’ve come here in the first place.” She scrunched her nose. “He just shoved me up against a wall and yelled a lot. Didn’t have any fucking idea in the morning.” She shrugged, too nonchalant. One of her eyelids twitched.
“Shoved you up against a wall?” Jack repeated, tamping down a flare of anger. It was hard to imagine fiery Carla in that kind of situation, but when he looked at her now, he saw a petite woman comprised mostly of hair and lipstick. Anyone could push her around if they wanted to.
“Yeah, listen, I don’t want to talk about it, OK? It was a bad idea. I fucked up.”
“Does he always do that to you?”
“Ronnie?” She scoffed. “No. Normally he’s a nice guy. By which, I mean, he’s nice tome. I wouldn’t wanna be his enemy.”
Jack tried not to think about that too much. “So, you’re gonna break up with him when this is over?”
Her laugh echoed off the walls and down the hallway. “Hell, no. I’m gonna leave his ass, is what I’m gonna do. I’m gonna leave a note and he can chase me down if he really wants to.”
“Would that work?”
“No,” she snapped. “But I’m done here. I’ve been done a long time.”
“Do you, uh, want to take a break?” Jack asked, because he had no idea how to proceed after a confession like that. Theyshouldwork on the list, but he hated to force Carla to focus when it looked like she probably needed a drink instead. “We could grab a snack?—”
“No,” Carla groaned, slouching forward. “We gotta work on the list. Tell me more about what you’ve tried so far.”
“Um,” said Jack slowly, trying to think of literallyanythingelse. After a long silence in which his brain refused to cooperate with him, he admitted, “I tried to dig up a body?”
“Youwhat?!”
“OK,”said Carla, head in her hands again. “Let me get this straight. You convinced the hotel manager to help you dig up a body because you thought it was the right thing to do. And you think doing the right thing is gonna get you out of this time loop?”
Jack blushed. “It was a theory. Obviously not a good one.”
“I just can’t understand why you thoughtdigging up a bodywas the correct and moral thing to do here, Jack.”
“Well, I thought there might be a missing persons’ report somewhere, and I could, I don’t know, identify the person if I saw their face? And then the police would take me seriously and solve the murder.”
“Yeah,” she said, rolling her eyes. “There’s a lot of missing people around here, dipshit. The police don’t meddle. Ronnie pays ‘em to keep their noses outta his business.”
He nodded. “I realize that now. Look, it was just a theory. I’m desperate.”
“Yeah,” she said. She pinched the bridge of her nose. Long lashes fluttered as she closed her eyes. “Jesus, I’m getting a headache.”
“We can take a break.”
“That’s not gonna help,” she snapped. “This whole situation is giving me a headache. A break won’t change that.”
“I mean, itmight.”
“No. We’re finishing this list if it kills us, alright? We take a break when we’re dead. You can rest in your coffin.”
Jack snorted. “Yeah, alright, fine. Are you done judging me?”
