Page 54

Greer’s gaze sank to her feet.

“Your kids are fine. It was always your husband.”

“Yeah.”

“Why?”

That pulled her focus back to his face.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” A forest of roots grew from each word, increasingly dense and insurmountable. Whatever Greer said in reply would require a chainsaw to clear through, but he couldn’t stop himself. Nothing seemed to matter anymore, so why should this?

“I needed you, Jack.”

That alone would have been enough to bring Jack back to life once. It should have freed a swarm of butterflies in his stomach. It should have set his mind racing. It should have turned his knees to Jell-O. But it didn’t, because it couldn’t, because he was too empty for there to be anything left inside to respond to that sentence.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said again. Then, “About him.”

“I just…”

“All those years ago, when you got married, why didn’t you tell me?”

The question seemed to catch Greer off guard.

“What?” she said at last.

“I had to hear it from Eli.”

Greer gave her head a shake and all Jack could see was the brazen teenager in a sundress and combat boots. “There was a lot going on, Jack. There was too much.”

“So you decided to add an elopement to it all?”

“That was a million years ago.”

“Why?”

“Jack.”

He looked down from the top of the highest oak, braced to fall. “Why did you marry him?”

Greer shook her head again. A wet rim lined her hazel eyes before they flicked away from him. “Look, I just wanted to clear the air about what you heard at Ian’s, but…I should go.”

“Greer.” He moved forward, but the gesture sent her stepping back, further away, further from him than she’d ever been before.

“I should go,” she said again, and then she was gone.

• • •

Work seemed especially pointless the next morning. Jack couldn’t bring himself to pursue any more leads on the Master List after everything that had happened the night before. Instead, he found himself coasting mindlessly through the motions of his job: tapping words on his keyboard, driving to addresses listed in the files on his desk, dropping souls off to whatever passed for the great beyond.

He’d only sought out the Master List in the first place in order to reclaim his rightful place in the world and in Greer’s life as Jack McCoy. But as he sat at this desk that wasn’t his, hips stiff and fingers aching with arthritis, he could feel Jack McCoy fading away again. It felt like death, the kind you couldn’t scheme your way back from.

Lunch hour snuck up on him, heralded by shuffling feet and squeaking desk chairs. Jack rose and stretched, eyes strained from a morning spent staring at a glowing screen. He made his way to the edge of the cubicle just as The Eagle’s sharp features appeared above the wall dividing their adjoining workspaces. Jack stopped in his tracks, trying to remember how to act casual. He was midway through positioning himself into a nonchalant lean when he realized he actually wasn’t doing anything questionable for once. He straightened, shaking off his evasive reflexes, and was about to carry on toward the break room when The Eagle hissed at him.

“Psst, you there.”

Jack just stared back blankly, at a loss.

“Come with me,” whispered The Eagle.