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(then): When Mrs. Holloway reentered her classroom half an hour after the final bell rang, she found Carter by the door, pulling her attention away from Eli, who was crouched beneath the teacher’s desk, clutching the answer sheet to his chest.

(now): When Greta reached the archives, she found Greer and Eli by the door, pulling her attention away from Jack, who was crouched behind the standing desk, and Carter, who clutched the box of cockroaches to his chest.

(then): Carter told Mrs. Holloway he was sure he’d left his jacket in class that afternoon, prompting Mrs. Holloway to lead him to the back of the class, where she kept a lost-and-found box overflowing with water bottles and at least one inexplicably forgotten shoe.

(now): Greer told Greta they’d found the source of the cockroach infestation and led her to the back of the archives, where nothing particularly infestation-related waited for them.

(then): With the teacher distracted, Eli raced for the open window and handed the answer sheet off to Jack, who waited in the bushes just below. Jack then handed the sheet to Dale, who ran it across campus to ensure no one would be caught red-handed with the evidence. As soon as the coast was clear, Eli flung himself out the same window and he and Jack rounded the school to meet Carter, who came sauntering out the front with a newly acquired jacket.

(now): With Greta distracted, Jack snapped a picture of the spreadsheet on his phone and logged out of the computer as Carter handed the shoebox off to Eli, who was hovering by the door. As soon as the logout was completed, Jack raced over to the stairwell and grabbed the box from Eli before barreling up the stairs as fast as his elderly legs would take him.

Back upstairs, he paused for a second at the top of the stairwell to catch his breath. From below, he could hear a puzzled Greta trying to make sense of this crew of exterminators who’d gone into an infested area without any equipment and yet still seemed to have succeeded in their mission. Part two of the Dickens Protocol—confuse—often lingered on into part three. Jack allowed himself a smile before making his way out into the office lobby and then out onto the pavement beyond the glass double doors. A few moments later the others joined him, still in their marshmallow suits, as Jack crouched as low to the ground as he was able to, releasing the shoebox’s residents into the concrete wilderness.

“Well?” he asked, easing himself back upright.

“She seemed a bit suspicious, but it’s hard to argue with our efficiency,” said Carter.

“You found the names?” Greer asked.

Jack held up the photo of the computer screen on his phone. “I’ve got a pickup in an hour and then I’ll head home. Since this Cook woman was the last one in the Room of Records, we’ll start with her. Can someone stop by Margaret’s place and let Dale know where we’re at with everything? I always feel bad when I have to leave him home alone for a full day.”

“He’s not a dog, you know,” said Greer.

“I know,” said Jack. “Plus I always make sure to leave him with lots of enrichment activities.”

“I’ll go,” said Eli.

“Thanks,” said Jack. “See you all there at around six?”

Everyone nodded their agreement and dispersed to the van as Jack turned to make his way back inside, but something caught his eye, forcing him to pause. A silhouette in the window, watching the events unfolding just beyond: ramrod straight and sharp as an exclamation mark.

23

Murder was exhausting. The souls his department collected were always the least cooperative and most full of complaints:

“It wasn’t supposed to happen like that.”

“I need revenge on that motherfucker.”

“A ladle is such an embarrassing thing to be killed with.”

Just once, Jack would have loved a simple car accident or heart attack, something without much to complain about. But it was not to be. That afternoon it was a drunken stabbing, and the spirit was still too wasted to make for an easy collection. Jack had to explain the situation no fewer than seven times before the man understood that the body he kept jokingly air humping was his own. That sobered him up enough to elicit a slew of expletives aimed at someone called “Dirty Steve,” and a repeated complaint about how his butt looked from the angle he’d fallen.

By the time Jack parked Margaret’s Mercedes in her driveway, he wanted nothing more than to crack open a beer and watch the latest episode of Love Island, but his car wasn’t the only one in front of the house. The other You Agains were already waiting for him inside, snapping Jack back into his own life.

Everyone gathered around the kitchen island as Jack air-dropped the photo he’d taken from his phone to his laptop. The branch directors’ names were scattered around the top of the spreadsheet, interspersed with details like other branches they were affiliated with and their ratio of in-person versus work-from-home days. Jack had to zoom in on the sheet, in part because his eyesight was currently that of an eighty-something, but mostly because the amount of information on the page meant the text was frustratingly small. Still, it didn’t take him long to find Pamela Cook, and with her full name finally known to the group, Eli took over and searched for her online.

It took sifting through the Facebook pages and LinkedIn profiles of a surprising number of middle-aged blond women before Eli tracked down the correct middle-aged blond woman through an entry on her LinkedIn for a job as director of a transportation firm, 1998–present. “Transportation” had been used as code in the soul-ferrying industry for decades, and in many ways it was a pretty accurate assessment of the gig. After all, most of Jack’s newfound job was just driving essences around, like a cab driver without the tips.

Pamela lived in an apartment in the same upscale neighborhood as Margaret, with her husband, Barry, and two Maltese dogs, according to a thorough review of her social media accounts. She looked to be pushing sixty, which made her practically a youth by Margaret’s standards. They’d have to approach her accordingly, which likely meant leaving Carter and his biceps and Eli and his attitude behind. Not taking Dale was a given. If Pamela was a higher-up at S.C.Y.T.H.E., she’d be able to see him, and since he wasn’t supposed to be still wafting around days after his death, that would only end badly.

That meant it would just be Jack and Greer going to sniff Pamela out, which Jack had no complaints about. It also meant they’d need a convincing backstory to get access to Pamela’s apartment, and the only backstory he could dream up to fit the bill was one he absolutely did have complaints about; enough complaints to put any drunk stabbing victim to shame. As he and Greer made their way to his car, he looked up at her, half in quiet reverence and half in dread of the words he was about to utter.

“So, you’re my daughter,” he said, swallowing a gag.

• • •

Wisteria Lofts pierced the sky like a white brick needle, each unit jutting a small cement balcony into the ether, the collection of which encircled the building in loosely connected rings. The lawn leading to the main entrance boasted well-tended shrubs in geometric shapes, a few bunches of pastel flowers artfully scattered between them. The building doors stood locked. Jack moved to press a random buzzer on the wall beside the doors when a man no more than six months younger than Margaret walked up behind them, key in hand. Jack gave a well-honed bat of his lashes at the man, who may have blushed, though his cheeks were too hollow to be sure. The man propped the door open with spindly arms and ushered Jack and Greer in ahead of him, knocking one problem off Jack’s list.