“I was driving home. Talking to my financial adviser. There was a …” The sun—no, not the sun—the truck’s headlights. “I think I swerved off the road.” That explained it. His car was damaged, and it being the middle of the night, she must have offered for him to stay here until he could sort things out in the morning. “Do you know if they picked up my car already?”
“Your—Simon, no.” She bit her lip, then gestured to a chair. “Sit, please. Will you have some coffee?”
He only nodded as he followed her directions. She seemed pleasant enough, so he was no longer worried about his safety. But his meeting …Oh, shit. He’d probably missed it already. “Could I borrow your phone? I have to call my company.”
“I think you should drink the coffee first,” she said gently. She set the cup in front of him, onto a wooden coaster painted with flowers, then sat across. Closer to her working space, he noticed the crochet work was actually wires—very fine, almost hair-thin wires, intricately woven into pendant-sized symbols. The one she was working on was a symbol of three spirals meeting in the middle, made out of silver and metallic green wire.
“There’s a small problem,” Shanna said, redirecting his attention.
Oh, he saw where this was going. “Whatever damage I caused, I can pay—”
“Simon.” She reached out her hand, as if wanting to touch his, but stopped herself. “Your car accident wasn’t yesterday. It was three years ago.”
He coughed out his coffee. “What kind of joke is this?”
“You truly remember nothing? Not even the past few days?”
“The past few days were in Vegas. We had a conference, and I remember perfectly fine …” As he said it, another memory burst into his mind. Not of Vegas, but of a darkened room, shelves full of books, herbal bouquets hanging from the walls, the heavy smell of incense filling his nostrils—or, so he thought, but was he really the one smelling it?
He sat at a round table covered with a purple velvet cloth. His vision was woozy, blurred at the corners, and across from him … sat himself.
Simon was no longer in his own body—because another man had taken it.
“Tomorrow, we’re doing a ritual that will save you,” the man in Simon’s body explained.
Jolting himself out of the memory, Simon grabbed his chest. A cold spread through his lungs, and just like that, was gone.
“Three years ago, you died as a result of that car crash.” Shanna’s expression was solemn, with a dash of pity. “When you were in the hospital, I performed a ritual to draw your soul back into your body, but I made a small mistake and drew another soul into it, while yours got sucked in here.” She pulled out a tacky, heart-shaped golden locket. “I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened, because I wasn’t physically present at the scene. I thought you were fine, but I couldn’t get in contact with you. It was only a week ago that I found out what the problem was, and with the help of the man in possession of your body and his girlfriend, we fixed it.” Her expression cleared. “So now you’re fine. You’re you again.”
This was absolutely insane and made absolutely no sense—except that when he listened to her and thought about it, more memories came flooding back. The man who took over his body. The man he was speaking with, in that darkened room across that round table. The name returned, certain and easy.Raleigh.And Simon knew, to the bottom of his oh-so-precious soul, that this random woman had tried so hard to save—it was all true.
“I died,” he repeated.
“But you’re fine now.”
He stretched out his fingers like starfishes. He rounded his shoulders and cracked his neck. Mind—working. Body—working. Mind-to-body connection … finally complete, it seemed. “What happened?”
“In the crash? I’m not sure. I never got the details.”
“Afterward.”Oh, no. That impostor!“My company! That idiot—Raleigh, or whatever his name is—was pretending to be me. He led my company!” Simon scrambled to his feet. “I need to call them. I need to set everything back in order.” If there was a single thing wrong with Aries, he was going to hunt down that miserable piece of shit and make him pay. In a normal or paranormal way, whichever hurt more.
“Wait.” Shanna rose. “Calm down. You must still be weak from the ritual that returned you to your body. Don’t overexert yourself. And your company is fine, I promise. I’ve been checking on it frequently. Your CFO …”
“Everett.”
“Yes! He’s still there. I saw him on the news recently. Had some big, exciting projects to share.”
Simon brought down his rapid breathing.Good.If Everett was still there, Aries was fine. Even if the impostor had tried to do something strange, Everett would have stopped him. It didn’t put Simon completely at ease, but it was enough for now. Enough until he acquired better clothes, a phone, and transportation back to San Francisco. Speaking of which … “Uh, where are we?”
“In my house.” Shanna frowned. “Oh! Montana.”
“Mont—aah. Why?”
“I like the scenery? It’s very peaceful, too.”
“Sure. Fine. Is there a town nearby?”
“Five minutes with the car.”
