He remembered how I liked it. How I really liked it.
“Like I said. You’re being weird.”
“I’m fine.”
“Did Prescott say something to you?”
I snorted. “Nothing more than he usually does.”
“Was it Leo?”
“Maybe it’s you,” I countered. “Maybe I think you ask too many questions.”
He made a small pish noise. “You love my questions.”
I love you, I thought, the words burning in my chest, eating up my insides. I should just say it. I should say it now, so I still got to keep that moment.
But it wasn’t the same. Him quizzing me over coffee wasn’t our time. Our time might never come again. Maybe that was really how this payment worked. We all got one chance for a perfect moment, and I’d had mine. Life doesn’t go around handing out moments like that.
If I never got another chance, if he never knew, maybe it was enough that I had the memory of it. Even if it never actually happened. Would it become a dream, then?
I sighed and sipped my drink. It was too hot, but at least it tasted right.
“Why don’t you tell me what’s bothering you?” He was standing in my way, keeping me from moving.
“I swear, I’m fine. I didn’t sleep well last night. It’s making me cranky.”
“Cranky isn’t the right word. Cranky would be normal.”
I slapped him on the chest, and he smiled. Balance restored. “Go to your stupid session. I’ll see you at dinner.”
“Fine.”
“Fine,” I shot back.
He made his way past the stage, walking over the place where Prescott had ended Sunny’s life. Where Sawyer’s body had bled out. He didn’t even flinch. They were only tiles on the lobby floor to him.
I wondered then, in a moment of sudden clarity, what Sunny dying meant for my deal with Charon. She had died. I had technically delivered her to him. That Imelda had reversed time wasn’t my fault.
I somehow doubted Charon would see the bargain as being fulfilled, and now was the wrong time to worry about it, but the thought lingered, nevertheless.
“Fuck it,” I grumbled.
I threw my full coffee in the trash and went hunting.
Chapter Forty-Two
None of the Luxor staff knew who I was talking about when I described the vaguely chubby blond man I had seen. I knew his face. It was scarred into my memory. I’d never forget it as long as I lived.
Yet no one could remember seeing him.
He was boring and forgettable, precisely the kind of man who could disappear in plain sight because no one would think to look twice at him.
After I’d scoured the main floor, speaking to every bellhop, concierge, and maid I could find, I decided I would start from the ground up, searching every single room and corridor until I found some trace of him.
It was already one in the afternoon, and time was winding down. I was starting to lose patience and energy, exhausted from everything I’d been through. I was running on almost pure adrenaline. But this asshole was here somewhere, and I was going to find him.
My first clue was in the employee locker rooms on one of the subbasement levels beneath the hotel. I waited for a brief lull between staff members coming and going, then ducked into the men’s locker room. I started going through the open lockers one by one, but aside from some baseball equipment, there was nothing really noteworthy.