“It will happen faster next time, Rhone,” she whispered. “If you go back out—if you claw your way through the whispers and nightmares again—the next set of aspects will degrade quickly. They’ll die within months. It happened to me.”
I winced, looking away, still holding her hand.
“It’s either stay here in peace,” Sandra said, “or go out there and suffer.”
False dichotomy.
“And is there no third option? A path between the two?”
“No.”
“You’re wrong.” I dropped her hand and turned to go.
“I didn’t leave because you were too needy,” she said. “Rhone? Stephen? I didn’t find you too needy or anything of the sort. I left because I was starting to fall apart, and I worried that if I stayed, I would somehow infect you.”
I turned back toward her, a woman sitting on the end of a wooden plank extending out into an endless ocean, corpses drifting lazily beneath her toes.
Then I stepped back up to her, leaned down, and … she kissed me. That old, familiar brush of the lips, followed by passion with her hand on my neck, pulling my face to hers. I let the emotion I’d guarded return, flood through me, the passion and even the pain. I pressed my lips to hers, let my skin touch hers, let my soul—briefly—touch hers.
I still loved her. That was real too.
She finally broke the kiss, pulling her head back an inch, staring into my eyes.
“You taught me,” I said, “that I need to have purpose in life. I tried solving cases, but a part of me knew all along they wouldn’t be enough.” I took her hand. “But now, in this moment, I have a real purpose. A goal.”
“What?”
“I’m going to find a way, Sandra. And when I do, I promise you, I’ll come back. I’ll do for you what you did for me. I’ll bring you answers.”
She shook her head. “Rhone…”
I squeezed her hand, then stood up and left her, taking the long walk back along the pier. It was so strange not to have a cluster of aspects around me, but I felt—already—the voices starting. The familiarity of the tones was fading away, becoming hisses and terrors.
I pushed back into the warehouse, feeling a dawning frustration and panic build inside me. How could I think to help her? I couldn’t help myself.
I closed the door. Whispers hissed at me. For now I ignored them, returning to the fallen bodies of Kyle and his employees. I secured their guns—unloaded them and left them in one of the desk drawers—then I turned off the hallucination device.
Kyle immediately sat up, holding his side—poking it tenderly. He shot me a glare.
“You’re going to leave me alone,” I told him. “Don’t contact me. Don’t watch me.” I walked toward the door. “But I intend to return, to visit a friend. When I do, you can study my brain—but only for the time I’m in the chamber with her. If you try to trap me again, there will be consequences.”
Kyle nodded. “I’m glad you’ve seen the advantages offered by our revolutionary new—”
“Oh, shut up.” I stepped out into the night, hands in my pockets, feeling wrung out. Most of me had died tonight. And I had no idea what to do with the parts that were left.
I was alone. Actually alone.
I found that I didn’t care for it. I walked down to the shadowy parking lot, then hesitated as I saw something moving nearby, hiding behind a bush. It looked like … a person.
“Jenny?” I said, shocked.
The aspect vanished the moment I saw her.
I sighed, but was a little surprised that one was actually left. I stood there until—unexpectedly—my limo pulled up beside me. Barb rolled down the window, and looked out. “We done here, sir?”
“I told you to leave.”
“Uncle Wilson warned me that you might occasionally be … difficult. I figured I couldn’t exactly abandon you, even if you were annoying.” She held up a thermos. “Lemonade?”
“I…” I wrapped my arms around myself. “Thank you.”
She hopped out and opened the door for me, but the back of the limo looked cavernous without the aspects. Intimidating and cold.
“Could I sit up front?” I asked.
“Oh!” She opened the front passenger door. “Sure, I guess. But what about all the—”
“Don’t worry about them,” I said, settling into the seat. “Drive me … drive me to the corner of Fifty-Third and Adams.”
“Isn’t that where—”
“Yes.”
I took the lemonade cup she poured, and it did taste a lot like Wilson’s. She pulled the limo out onto the street, and we drove through a dark city; it was past eleven, approaching midnight. But it wasn’t long before we pulled up beside the old building where I’d first met “Jenny” the reporter. I now saw it for what it was. An old abandoned building that might once have been an office structure.
“Park right there,” I said, pointing to the curb. “A little farther forward…”
I climbed out and into the back of the hollow car, fishing in a bag on the floor. I finally came out with the camera. Let’s see … what time was it.…
It took some fine-tuning to get it right. Barb had to pull the car forward a little, and I had to get the camera’s timing dial just right. But eventually I snapped a photo, and it developed into a shot inside this very car from earlier in the day.
It showed me, Tobias, J.C., and Ivy. Laughing at something dumb J.C. had said, Ivy holding to his arm, Tobias grinning. I felt tears in the corners of my eyes.
Barb peeked in, looking over my shoulder.
“What do you see?” I asked.
“You, by yourself.”
“I can still imagine them, in the right circumstances,” I said, resting my fingers on the picture. “They’re in my brain somewhere. How do I reach them?”
“You’re asking me?” she asked. Then she perked up. “Oh! I totally forgot. Here, this is for you. He said to give it to you when you finished tonight.” She reached into her pocket and took out a small envelope.
Inside was a small invitation to Wilson’s birthday/retirement party. At the bottom, it said, “Admits fifty-two.” With a smiley face.
“He said there’s no obligation,” she said. “But he wanted you to know you were welcome.”
I touched the tears on my cheeks, then checked the time. “Eleven forty-five? Will it even still be going?”
“I’ll bet it is,” she said. “You know Wilson and his fondness for nightcaps. He’ll be sitting with the family around the hearth, telling stories.” She eyed me. “Only a few are about you.”
You know Wilson. Did I? He’d just always been there, with lemonade.
“I can’t go,” I said. “I just…”
The objection died on my lips. She must have sensed that I didn’t mean it, because she went to the front, then drove to Wilson’s house. He had spent many nights at my mansion, sleeping there, but did have his own home. Or at least a room in his brother’s house where he stayed sometimes. I wasn’t sure who actually owned the place.
Barb pulled us into the driveway—the limo barely fit—and then led me in through the garage of the modest home. She entered, and true to her word I heard laughter inside. Saw the warm light of a fireplace burning, with people sitting around and chatting, drinking cider and lemonade—which was apparently a thing for them too.
I lingered on the threshold as Barb got some cake from the kitchen table, then tossed her coachman’s cap onto the counter and went over to the fireplace. She leaned down beside a chair there, and soon a familiar lanky figure unfolded itself from the seat.
Wilson seemed genuinely happy to see me. He rushed over. “Sir? Sir, please, come in! You remember Doris and Stanley? And little Bailey—well, not so little anymore, but we still say that. And…”
“I’m sorry,” I said, turning to go. “I shouldn’t be here, interrupting time with family.”
“Sir,” Wilson said, catching my arm. “Stephen? But you are family.”
r /> “I…”
“Don’t worry about the others!” he said, gesturing toward what—he imagined—must have been my aspects. “We have plenty of seats! Just let me know how many. Please, you’ve been so good to me over the years. It would be a pleasure to host you.”
“I’m alone tonight,” I whispered, feeling at my jacket pocket where I’d put the photo. “Just me.”
“Alone?” Wilson asked. “Sir, what happened?”
“Can we talk about it another time? I think … I think I might just want to have some cake.”
Wilson smiled, and soon I was sitting by the fire with his siblings, nieces, and nephew. Listening to him tell his version of the teleporting cat case, which was admittedly one of the better ones. I didn’t eat much cake, but I did enjoy the warmth, the laughter, and—well—the reality of it all.
All the things that matter in life are the things that you can’t measure.…
I found that I’d inadvertently lied to Wilson, because I wasn’t alone. I caught Jenny hovering in the kitchen, both my newest aspect and my last. She had her notepad out again, and was furiously writing.
EPILOGUE
I didn’t go back to the mansion that night.
I couldn’t go there and face that void. That … or worse. Madness, shadows coming to life to torment me. I just … I wanted a few more hours to recover.
Fortunately, Wilson’s family had a guest room, which they let me have for the night. I retired there once the stories ended, and turned on the room’s desktop computer. I did a little research, skimming pages on Wikipedia on basic topics I’d once known. To see if there was anything left in my brain.
I found the holes erratic. Most of it seemed to be gone, but then I’d touch on something online, and before I knew it my fingers would be typing out a string of words. When I sat back to study them, I couldn’t find the information in my brain—but I’d obviously typed it, so I had it somehow.