Mara spent twenty-eight minutes trying to obey Theodore Marlowe.
It was a personal record.
Sitting at the kitchen table, she kept the photograph in front of her and repeated that there was no reason to turn a sentence written eleven years ago into an order addressed to the woman she was now.
Don't look for the notebook.
Maybe Theodore wasn't the one who had written it.
The handwriting looked the same as the message on the back, but Mara didn't have enough samples for analysis. She could compare it with old documents, contracts, signatures. She would have to find some.
That was already a form of looking.
Mara realized it.
— Ridiculous.
She turned the photograph facedown.
It lasted four minutes.
Then she turned it over again.
In the picture, Theodore was still standing in front of the fireplace, one hand around a glass, apparently interested in whatever Mara was reading in the armchair beside him.
The black notebook rested on the table between them.
NAMES.
Mara couldn't stop looking at it.
Mercer had said Theodore remembered names.
Waiters. Drivers. People he had met once.
At the time, that could have been nothing more than a quirk.
Then Mara found the photograph.
And the instruction.
Don't look.
If Theodore had really known her, he should have known that writing that was practically the same as handing her a map.
Maybe he did know.
That thought was worse.
She grabbed her laptop.
The old Hampstead address was still saved.
The house that had belonged to the Marlowe family had been sold three years after Theodore's death. The public records were limited, but sufficient to confirm that the property had remained tied to a company called Marlowe & March Holdings for nearly two decades.
Mara searched for the company again.
Dissolved.
Former directors.
Edmund Marlowe.
Theodore Marlowe.
And a third name she hadn't noticed before.
Arthur Bellamy.
He wasn't a Marlowe.
Mara clicked.
Lawyer.
That caught her attention immediately.
Bellamy was seventy-four and had been a partner at a boutique private-wealth firm in London. His old biography mentioned estate planning, international trusts, family assets, and “high-complexity” clients.
In other words, rich people paying other people so no one would know exactly where the money was.
Mara opened the firm's website.
Arthur Bellamy had retired.
There was an institutional contact email.
She started typing.
Then stopped.
Theodore knew lawyers.
Maybe he had used Bellamy to structure the family company.
Maybe the man knew where personal belongings had gone after Theodore's death.
Maybe he knew about the notebook.
Mara typed:
Dear Mr. Bellamy,
She deleted it.
The phone was right beside her.
Much more efficient.
She found the firm's number.
Monday, 8:02 a.m.
Maybe too early.
She called anyway.
A receptionist answered.
— Bellamy, Cross & Wren. Good morning.
— Good morning. Mara Vale. I'd like to speak with Mr. Arthur Bellamy.
— Mr. Bellamy is retired.
— I know.
— Then—
— It's about Theodore Marlowe.
Silence.
Brief.
But Mara heard it.
— One moment.
The call was put on hold.
She straightened in her chair.
Forty seconds later, another voice answered.
Male.
Older.
— Miss Vale.
Mara hadn't given the receptionist her last name.
— Mr. Bellamy?
— It's been quite some time since anyone said that to me with such expectation.
— How do you know who I am?
— You started a call by giving your first name and mentioning Theodore Marlowe. There weren't many options.
Good answer.
Still insufficient.
— Can we talk?
— We are talking.
— In person.
— Why?
Mara looked at the photograph.
— I found something that belonged to Theodore.
Silence on the other end.
— What?
— I'd rather show you.
— That doesn't sound much like you.
Mara went still.
— Have we met?
Bellamy didn't answer immediately.
When he did, his tone was different.
— I don't know what the correct answer to that question is anymore.
A shiver ran through Mara.
— Explain.
— Not over the phone.
— You just used my own demand against me.
— Theodore would have appreciated that.
— Everyone who knew that man seems to find it amusing to annoy me.
A small laugh.
— I remember that too.
Mara tightened her grip on the phone.
— Where?
Bellamy gave her an address in Mayfair.
— Eleven-thirty.
— I'll be there.
— Miss Vale.
— Yes?
— Bring what you found.
Mara looked at the photograph.
— I intend to.
— And don't go to Hampstead before you speak with me.
Now all her attention was on the call.
— I didn't say anything about Hampstead.
— You didn't need to.
The call ended.
Mara stared at the phone.
— Of course.
At nine ten, she was at the office.
At nine twelve, Lucy appeared in her doorway with a file folder.
— Do you have a minute?
— Theoretically.
Lucy came in.
Mara closed her laptop before Lucy could see the digitized photograph.
— The Haversham contract.
— What about it?
— They added a new indemnity clause.
Mara took the file folder.
She read it.
Four pages.
She went back two.
— This isn't new.
Lucy hesitated.
— It is.
Mara read it again.
The structure looked familiar.
— I've seen this before.
— Where?
Good question.
Mara searched her memory.
Nothing.
Maybe another reality.
— In another contract.
— Which one?
— I don't remember.
Lucy raised an eyebrow.
Mara caught the irony.
— Don't say anything.
— I didn't.
— Your face did.
— I'm learning from you.
Mara went back to the clause.
There was a risk in it that Lucy had apparently noticed.
— What's your read?
Lucy explained.
Mara listened to the end.
She didn't interrupt.
When Lucy finished, she seemed to be waiting for a correction.
— I agree.
— With everything?
— Don't turn this into a historic event.
Lucy smiled.
— I just wanted to confirm.
Mara handed her the file folder.
— Draft the response and send it to me.
Lucy started to leave.
— Lucy.
She stopped.
— Yes?
Mara almost asked whether Lucy was afraid of her in this reality.
She didn't.
She had already done that in another life.
Maybe she shouldn't carry debts from versions of herself to people who hadn't lived them.
— Good work.
Lucy blinked.
— Thank you.
She left.
Mara stared at the door.
A simple compliment.
Nothing exploded.
Interesting.
Her phone vibrated.
A message from her sister.
Mom has decided Theodore is French.
Mara replied:
Why?
Because the name sounds like “a man who destroys your life during a European summer.”
Mara closed her eyes.
He's not French.
Three dots appeared immediately.
THEN YOU KNOW MORE THINGS.
Mara put the phone away without replying.
Normalcy was becoming dangerous.
The longer she stayed in this world, the more things started to feel like hers.
That made the idea of the next death unbearable.
And she still had no vision.
None.
Mara didn't know whether she should be grateful or worried.
Arthur Bellamy received Mara at a private club that seemed to exist specifically to keep young people from feeling comfortable.
Dark wood.
Antique armchairs.
Men reading printed newspapers.
Not a computer in sight.
An employee led her to a room on the second floor.
Bellamy was standing by the window.
Gray hair, an immaculate blue suit, and a cane resting against the chair beside him, though he didn't appear to need it at that moment.
When Mara entered, he didn't smile.
He looked at her.
For a long time.
— This is getting tiresome — Mara said.
— What is?
— People looking at me as if they expect to recognize another woman.
Bellamy took a moment.
— Sit down.
She sat.
He did the same.
— Coffee?
— No.
— Theodore always said you refused coffee when you were nervous.
Mara felt immediate irritation.
— Did Theodore talk about me with everyone?
— No.
— It's starting to seem that way.
— The people you're talking to are precisely the people he talked to.
Fair point.
Mara took the photograph from the file folder and placed it on the table.
Bellamy didn't touch it.
The color drained from his face, almost imperceptibly.
— Where did you find it?
— Elias Mercer.
— Of course.
— You know Elias?
— I knew him.
— He gave me an envelope Theodore left for me before he died.
Bellamy looked at the back.
— May I?
Mara handed it over.
He read the first sentence.
Then the second.
Don't look for the notebook.
Bellamy exhaled through his nose.
— Idiot.
Mara leaned forward.
— Theodore?
— Obviously.
— Finally, someone.
Bellamy handed the photograph back.
— If he really wanted you not to look, he wouldn't have written this.
Mara went still.
— That's exactly what I thought.
— That was predictable too.
— You seem to know our behavioral patterns pretty well.
— I was Theodore's lawyer for seventeen years.
— Personal or professional?
— Was there a difference with him?
Mara almost smiled.
— What was the notebook?
Bellamy glanced at the door.
Then at Mara.
— I don't know.
— I don't believe you.
— That doesn't change the answer.
— You managed his affairs.
— Some of them.
— The company.
— Yes.
— The assets.
— Parts of them.
— The estate?
The pause was brief.
— Yes.
Mara rested her arms on the table.
— So after he died, you had access to his personal belongings.
— To the inventoried belongings.
— And there was a black notebook called NAMES?
Bellamy didn't answer.
Mara noticed.
— There was.
— I didn't say that.
— You didn't need to.
— Were you always this tiresome?
— According to several independent witnesses.
Bellamy leaned back.
— There were several notebooks.
— How many?
— I didn't count.
— Black?
— Many of them.
— With names?
Bellamy held her gaze.
— Theodore wrote constantly.
— What did he write?
— People. Places. Conversations. Dates. Stories someone told him at an airport. The name of a chef in Naples. A driver in Prague. The woman who sold flowers near a station in Vienna.
Mara remembered Mercer.
— Why?
— I never asked.
— Everyone says that.
— Because Theodore created the impression that asking anything too personal would result in a forty-minute answer about someone else.
That seemed perfectly compatible with the man Mara had known for fifteen minutes between worlds.
— Was the notebook in the photograph different?
Bellamy looked at it again.
— Maybe.
— Why?
— The others didn't usually have titles.
Mara felt a small victory.
— So you never saw this one.
— I didn't say that.
— Arthur.
He raised an eyebrow.
— Are we using first names?
— It makes interrogation easier.
— Theodore said the same thing.
Mara decided to ignore that.
— Did you see it or not?
Bellamy placed his hand on the cane.
— I saw a notebook with that word on it once.
Mara didn't move.
— When?
— Shortly before his death.
— Where?
— Hampstead.
The same house.
— What was inside?
— I didn't open it.
— Of course.
— Some people still respect private property.
— You managed an estate.
— After he died.
— So you opened it afterward.
Bellamy fell silent.
Mara leaned forward.
— You opened it.
— It was empty.
The unexpected answer took her a moment to process.
— What?
— The notebook I found had every page blank.
— Impossible.
— Paper tends to do that when no one writes on it.
— Theodore kept a notebook called “Names” with no names?
— That's what I found.
Mara picked up the photograph.
There it was.
Closed.
There was no way to know whether it had been used.
— Maybe it was another one.
— Maybe.
— Where is it now?
Bellamy looked at her.
— I don't know.
— You were the executor.
— And he was Theodore Marlowe.
That seemed like a sufficient explanation to Bellamy.
Not to Mara.
— What does that mean?
— It means the inventory listed three watches, and I found five. It said there were four document boxes, and there were six. Certain books disappeared before the appraisal. A painting listed as hanging on one wall had been replaced with another that was worthless. Theodore spent the months before his own death moving things around.
— Where to?
— If I had known, I would have corrected the inventory.
— He was preparing.
Bellamy nodded.
— Yes.
— To die.
Another pause.
— Yes.
Mara felt the information gain weight.
Mercer had said the same thing.
Now Bellamy.
Two witnesses.
— How did he die?
Bellamy looked at her for a long moment.
— You don't know.
— No.
— Really.
— Really.
He took off his glasses, though he hadn't been wearing any.
He noticed the gesture and seemed annoyed with himself.
— I never thought I'd see this day.
— Which day?
— You asking.
— Why should I know?
Bellamy looked back at her.
— Because you were there.
Mara stopped breathing.
The room continued to exist around her.
Someone laughed in the hallway.
A cup touched a saucer somewhere in the distance.
— Where?
— The night Theodore died.
Mara felt her fingers tighten around the photograph.
— Elias said I had disappeared from his life before that.
— For almost everyone, yes.
— But I was in Hampstead.
Bellamy didn't answer.
— Arthur.
— Yes.
The word fell heavily.
Mara tried to organize her thoughts.
— Did you see me?
— Not that night.
— Then how do you know?
— Theodore called me.
— When?
— Shortly before midnight.
— What did he say?
Bellamy looked away.
Mara recognized the hesitation.
— What did he say?
— That you were there.
Her heart sped up.
— Anything else?
— Yes.
— Then tell me.
Bellamy stayed silent long enough to irritate her.
When he answered, every word seemed carefully chosen.
— He asked me not to go to the house, no matter what happened.
— Why?
— He didn't explain.
— And you simply accepted that?
— No. I took the car keys.
— Then?
— He told me that if I went, I would make things worse for you.
Mara went still.
— For me.
— Yes.
— How?
— I don't know.
— You never asked afterward?
Bellamy let out a small, humorless laugh.
— Afterward, Theodore was dead.
Mara lowered the photograph.
— And me?
— Gone.
— Gone how?
— Your phone didn't work. Your apartment was empty.
— For how long?
— Three days.
Mara frowned.
— And afterward?
— Then you appeared.
— Where?
— At the office.
— My office?
— Yes.
— And what did I say?
Bellamy seemed reluctant to continue.
That only made it worse.
— You didn't remember me.
Mara felt her stomach drop.
— What?
— Or Theodore.
Neither of them spoke.
Mara heard her own heart.
— That happened eleven years ago?
— No.
— When?
— Four years ago. After his death.
Mara looked at the photograph.
The message on the back.
For when the evidence seems more reliable than memory.
Its meaning changed.
Theodore hadn't been predicting something distant.
He might have already seen it happen.
— I lost my memory.
— That's what we thought.
— Who did?
— Me. Elias. A few other people.
— My family?
— They didn't know about Theodore.
— Cloe?
Bellamy's expression went blank.
— Who?
Mara stopped.
A slow chill climbed her spine.
— Cloe.
— I don't know her.
— My best friend.
— I don't remember her.
Maybe that was normal.
There was no reason for Theodore's lawyer to know Cloe.
Still, hearing the question produced a bad feeling.
— What did I say about those three days?
— Nothing.
— Nothing?
— You insisted there was nothing to say.
Mara let out a bitter laugh.
— That sounds like me.
— Very much.
— And no one investigated?
— You did.
— I did?
— For several weeks.
Mara leaned forward.
— What?
— Theodore's death.
— Then I found something.
— I don't know.
— Why not?
— Because you stopped.
— Just like that?
— One day you were determined to prove that the death hadn't been an accident. The next week, you asked me never to mention Theodore Marlowe again.
Mara felt the world narrow around her.
— Did I say why?
— No.
— Did something happen between those weeks?
— Probably. You simply didn't tell me.
Mara stood.
She needed to move.
She went to the window.
Outside, London continued functioning.
Taxis.
Pedestrians.
A bicycle courier.
Her own story had apparently broken apart in that city four years earlier, and no one on the street seemed to consider that inconvenient.
— What kind of accident?
Bellamy didn't answer.
Mara turned around.
— How did he die?
— Fire.
The word struck some region of her mind.
Fireplace.
Smoke.
Blood on a shirt.
Mara gripped the edge of the window.
— Did the house burn down?
— Part of it.
— Body?
— Found.
— Identified?
— Yes.
— By whom?
Bellamy immediately noticed her professional tone.
— The proper authorities.
— Dental records? DNA?
— Mara.
— I want to know how they confirmed it.
— DNA.
— Family?
— There were sufficient prior samples.
— So he died.
— Yes.
Mara thought of Theodore holding her hand between worlds.
— Not exactly.
Bellamy heard her.
— What does that mean?
Mara looked at him.
For the first time since she arrived, she realized Bellamy didn't know everything.
Not even close.
He knew Theodore alive.
He knew the death.
He knew part of Mara's past.
But that space between realities?
The deaths?
Cloe, who had never known her?
Nothing in his expression suggested he knew.
Mara decided not to give up the advantage.
— It means there are inconsistencies.
Bellamy smiled.
— Definitely you.
— I want the estate documents.
— No.
— Fire reports.
— Public, in part.
— The private ones.
— No.
— Company records.
— Some are protected by confidentiality.
— Theodore is dead.
— Confidentiality doesn't necessarily end.
— I was involved.
— That doesn't give you automatic access.
Mara looked at him.
— Are you going to make me get a court order?
— It would be entertaining.
She almost liked him.
Almost.
— And the house?
— What about it?
— I want to go inside.
— It was sold.
— I know.
— Then speak with the owners.
— I want to know what was there before.
Bellamy became serious.
— Don't go.
— Theodore wrote for me not to look for the notebook. You told me not to go to Hampstead. This is starting to work against you.
— I'm not trying to awaken your curiosity.
— Then explain.
— I don't know enough to explain.
— Tell me what you do know.
Bellamy took a deep breath.
— After the fire, some rooms remained intact. Theodore had an office on the lower floor. The fire never reached it.
— And?
— When I entered three days later, someone had already been in the room.
— The police.
— After the police.
Mara straightened.
— How do you know?
— A cabinet I'd seen closed was open. Some boxes had disappeared.
— The notebook.
— Maybe.
— And you called the police?
— There was no evidence of theft. The house was already in chaos.
— Who had access?
Bellamy looked directly at her.
Mara understood.
— Me.
— You had a key.
Her breathing slowed.
— I went back to the house after Theodore's death.
— I don't know.
— But I could have.
— Yes.
— And then I appeared without remembering him.
— Yes.
Mara looked at the photograph again.
Don't look for the notebook.
Maybe Theodore hadn't been trying to stop her from discovering something.
Maybe he had been trying to stop her from repeating something she'd already done.
— I want the key.
Bellamy exhaled.
— It doesn't exist anymore.
— A copy?
— No.
— Code?
— The house has new owners.
— Old blueprints?
— What for?
Mara was already picking up her bag.
— Because I'm going to find out what happened in that office.
Bellamy stood.
— Mara.
She stopped.
It was the first time he had used only her name.
— If you found a photograph Marlowe left for you, don't assume the point is to take you back to the house.
— What else would it be?
— Theodore rarely pointed directly at what he wanted someone to find.
— Then this could be a distraction.
— It could.
— Or a test.
— That too.
Mara almost reached the door.
— What if I told you there was another reason not to go?
She turned.
Bellamy was pale.
— What reason?
— Because you were the last person Theodore Marlowe asked to keep away from that house.
Mara didn't like the wording.
— Asked whom?
Bellamy hesitated.
— Me.
— You already said that.
— Not that night.
Mara waited.
— Afterward.
Silence.
— Theodore died that night.
— I know.
— So he couldn't ask you afterward.
— Not over the phone.
A cold pressure settled at the back of Mara's neck.
Bellamy walked to a nearby cabinet.
He opened a drawer.
Then removed a small envelope.
Much newer than Mercer's.
— This arrived at my office eleven days after the funeral.
Mara didn't move.
— From whom?
Bellamy placed the envelope on the table.
There was no name on the return address.
Only an old address.
The Hampstead house.
— Impossible.
— We've agreed on that from the beginning.
Mara approached.
— What was inside?
Bellamy removed a folded sheet of paper.
He handed it to her.
The handwriting was the same.
Mara recognized it before reading.
Theodore.
The message had three lines.
Arthur,
if Miss Vale starts asking questions, keep her away from the house.
In particular, don't let her look for the notebook.
Mara read it again.
Eleven days after the funeral.
A message written by a dead man.
— Did you have it analyzed?
— Three times.
— The result?
— Paper from the house. Ink consistent with a pen he used. The handwriting was deemed authentic by two experts.
— Date it was written?
— Impossible to determine precisely.
— So he wrote it beforehand.
— Maybe.
— And scheduled it to be sent.
— Maybe.
Mara handed it back.
— This doesn't prove he was alive.
— I never said it did.
— Then why hide it from me?
Bellamy stared at her.
— Because four years ago, you read this same letter.
Mara stopped.
— I've seen it before?
— Yes.
— And?
— You became exactly as you are now.
— Then I went to the house?
— I don't know.
— Then I started investigating Theodore.
— Yes.
— Then I stopped.
— Yes.
Mara felt a different kind of fear.
It wasn't fear of the supernatural.
It was fear of herself.
Of an earlier version who had already traveled partway down that road.
— Arthur.
— Yes?
— The last time I asked these questions... did I look for the notebook?
Bellamy looked at the photograph she was carrying.
Then at Mara.
— Three weeks later, you showed up at my office with blood on your hands.
Mara couldn't answer.
— Your blood?
— You said it wasn't.
— Whose was it?
— You never told me.
— And the notebook?
Bellamy took his time.
— You had it with you.
The air seemed to leave the room.
— I brought it?
— Yes.
— And it was empty?
Bellamy shook his head.
— No.
Mara felt her pulse beat in her throat.
— What was inside?
The man looked at her with something close to fear.
— Names.
Mara waited.
— How many?
— Hundreds.
— Whose?
— I don't know.
— You didn't read them?
— I read some.
— And?
Bellamy moved closer to the table.
His voice dropped.
— People I knew.
— Clients?
— Some of them.
— Did Theodore know them?
— Probably.
— What's the problem?
Bellamy didn't answer immediately.
When he did, it was almost a whisper.
— I couldn't remember who they were.
Mara went still.
— You just said you knew them.
— I knew that I knew them.
— That doesn't make sense.
— I had their cards. Emails. Photographs. One of them had been my secretary for six years.
Mara felt cold.
— Name?
Bellamy opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
His expression changed.
He tried again.
— I...
Mara watched as the color drained from his face.
— Arthur?
He raised a hand to his forehead.
— I can't.
— Can't what?
— Say her name.
Mara moved closer.
— Are you forgetting it now?
— No. I never remembered it again.
Silence.
Bellamy closed his eyes.
— Her name was in that notebook. I read it. I knew I should recognize it. I had proof that the woman had worked for me for six years.
He opened his eyes.
— But I couldn't remember her face.
Mara thought of Cloe.
Photographs without Cloe.
Rewritten trips.
A best friend turned into a stranger.
— Where is the notebook?
— You took it.
— Where?
— I don't know.
— After that?
— I never saw it again.
Mara felt an almost childish impulse to open her bag and check whether, by some impossibility, the object might be waiting for her inside.
It wasn't.
— And that day with blood on my hands?
— That was the last time we talked about Theodore.
— What did I say?
Bellamy took his time.
— You came in. Put the notebook on my desk. Asked whether I still remembered Theodore.
Mara felt her breath stop.
— Did you?
— Yes.
— What did I say?
Bellamy looked directly at her.
— You said, “Then we still have time.”
A shiver ran through Mara's entire body.
— Time for what?
— That's what I asked.
— And?
— You picked up the notebook and left.
Mara tightened her grip on her bag's strap.
— That was four years ago.
— Yes.
— And I never spoke to you about it again.
— No.
— I never asked about Theodore again.
— No.
— Until today.
Bellamy nodded.
Mara turned toward the window.
Four years.
A version of her had already found the notebook.
Had already investigated the death.
Already knew that the names belonged to people someone had stopped remembering.
And for some reason, she had abandoned everything.
Or had been forced to abandon it.
— I need to go.
Bellamy didn't try to stop her.
Mara reached the door.
— Miss Vale.
She turned.
— There's something I haven't told you.
Mara was already tired of that sentence.
— Of course there is.
Bellamy ignored her.
— When you brought the notebook, there was a bookmark between the pages.
— What?
— A photograph.
Her heart sped up.
— Of whom?
— You.
— With Theodore?
— No.
— Then?
Bellamy seemed to search for the least awful way to say it.
He didn't find one.
— It was a photograph of you as a child.
Mara felt the floor become less trustworthy.
— Theodore knew me when I was a child?
— I don't know.
— How old?
— Maybe eight.
— Where?
— A park.
— Alone?
Mara waited.
— Who was with me?
Bellamy breathed in.
— Theodore.
Silence.
Mara almost laughed.
— That's impossible.
— I know.
— Eleven years ago, he was barely in his twenties. If I was eight...
She did the math.
Stopped.
— He would have been a teenager.
Bellamy nodded.
— Was he?
— No.
Mara went still.
— What do you mean?
— In the photograph, he looked exactly as he had on the night he died.
Neither of them spoke.
Theodore Marlowe.
In the photograph from Paris, eleven years earlier.
At the memorial, four years earlier.
On the Tube.
At the office.
At the bar.
Between worlds.
And now in a photograph taken when Mara was eight.
With the same face.
The same age.
The same appearance.
Mara opened the door.
— Where is that photograph?
— It was in the notebook.
— Then I need to find it.
Bellamy closed his eyes.
— That's exactly what you said last time.
Mara left.
In the taxi, she didn't search for anything.
She didn't open her laptop.
She didn't call anyone.
She sat watching London pass beyond the window.
Theodore hadn't aged.
Not in the normal way.
Or the photograph was wrong.
Or Bellamy was.
Or the dates.
Or the entire premise on which Mara had built her life since the first Tube ride.
She needed evidence.
Again.
Always evidence.
The phone vibrated.
Mara almost ignored it.
It was her sister.
She answered.
— Hey.
— You sound weird.
— You can't even see me.
— Then imagine what your voice sounds like.
Mara rested her head against the seat.
— I'm tired.
— Mom wants dinner.
— Tonight?
— Yes.
The automatic answer nearly came:
I can't.
She had a house in Hampstead to investigate.
A missing notebook.
An impossible photograph.
Four years of missing memory.
Theodore.
Always Theodore.
Mara looked out the window.
Maybe this was exactly how her life began disappearing before the worlds even did the work.
— What time?
Her sister hesitated.
— You're coming?
— Yes.
— Seven-thirty.
— I'll be there.
— No laptop.
— This is turning into harassment.
— No laptop.
Mara smiled wearily.
— Okay.
— You just agreed?
— Don't push it.
She hung up.
The taxi stopped at a traffic light.
Mara saw her reflection in the glass.
For a moment, she almost expected to see another version.
Nothing.
Still her.
Her phone vibrated again.
This time it wasn't family.
Unknown number.
A message.
No introduction.
Arthur talked too much.
Mara went completely still.
The light changed.
The car started moving.
Another message arrived.
Don't go to the house.
She looked at the number.
Typed:
Who is this?
The reply appeared immediately.
You know.
Mara felt her heart speed up.
No.
It was impossible.
She typed:
Theodore?
Three dots appeared.
Disappeared.
Returned.
Mara tightened her grip on the phone.
The reply arrived.
Good afternoon, Miss Vale.