An emergency vehicle went past, lights flashing but siren off, and she felt her past creep up behind her.
“He’s not your type,” Jack said, standing too close to be ignored.
Peeved, she turned and walked through him, muttering, “How would you know?”
She shuddered as she passed through the hallucination, the structured mental scaffold designed and implanted to keep her from going insane when two conflicting timelines had been left to fester in her mind. Whether Silas’s fix-on-the-fly had worked was debatable. After all, she was hallucinating. That the illusion was familiar was beside the point. That it took the form of her old partner, the one she’d put in jail for corruption before she went ghost, was a bad joke.
Illusion Jack had been present on and off for almost a year, the hallucination so complex and intricately tied to her intuition that it had developed a weird, independent intelligence of sorts, causing him to show up when she was stressed and searching for answers.
And it bugs the hell out of me he’s right most of the time, she thought, her motions abrupt as she rinsed the few pastry dishes before piling them in the bin to return to the restaurant next door. It wasn’t Simon she was lusting for. It was the scent of untried electronics, the whiff of exclusive perfume, the confidence a big bank account and a golden parachute bought. God help her, but she missed it.
Jack slipped up behind her, breathing in her ear to make the lingering scent from Simon and the sight of his and her hands together in the soapy bubbles bring back an unexpected memory. It was night; she had been feeling good. Jack had been especially clever. There’d been danger . . . soap on her fingers, a fast car, pulled shoulder, an adrenaline-fueled smile on Jack’s face, a folded printout in his hand—it was what they’d come for. She hadn’t cared what or why, only that they’d done something insanely cunning to get it.
Pulse fast, she rubbed the white porcelain with a cold rag as if she could wipe the images away. She’d made a memory knot of that to survive when everything else was gone. Why?
“Because you loved me,” Jack whispered. “And you don’t want to forget it. Ever. It’s what you are. Stop trying to be this small thing. We were unstoppable. Tell me it wasn’t good.”
She couldn’t say that, even to herself. Lips in a thin line, she rinsed her hands, wishing the guilt would sluice away with the cold. Jack was a crutch: the planner, her security net, a link to a life she wasn’t going to live again. She wouldn’t be the person she was good at being. The power and charisma were toxic. The status had been an illusion. Her life had been a lie, and it was too easy to use her and give her a shake to erase it all like a living Etch A Sketch.
Peri snapped a clean towel from the rack, and Jack dropped back to recline against the register. His face was suddenly clean-shaven now, and he was wearing something trendy and expensive that showed off his narrow waist. “Go away,” she muttered, glancing over the coffeehouse as rush-hour traffic began luring her clientele into the slushy streets. “No one needs you anymore.”
“You need me.” Jack followed her gaze to the buses and taxis. “Or I wouldn’t be here. Something is wrong, you just don’t know what yet.”
Carnac, the store’s cat, jumped onto the counter, and Peri absently fondled his ears as she sourly remembered her enthusiasm from her diary’s pages, eager for the chance to prove herself and use her skills to do something no one had done before. She had changed so much that it was like reading someone else’s thoughts.
“You look sexy when you bite your lower lip, you know that?”
Peri’s brow furrowed. “Go. Away.”
Jack blew her a kiss. “You don’t really want me to leave, or I’d be gone already. I’m bringing everything back, babe. So slow it hurts. You want to remember. It’s who you are, who you have to be. This?” He flicked a coffee mug. “This will kill you.”
She knew her face still held her anger when the door chimed a greeting and her attention went over Jack’s shoulder. Breath held, she turned away. Allen. Effin’ fantabulous. That’s why Jack is here.
Sighing, Jack pulled himself straight and turned to the door. “Son of a bitch. Just once I’d like to warn you that you’re in real danger, not that one of your old boyfriends is back.”
“Allen was never my boyfriend.” She was talking to herself, but she couldn’t stop.
“Whatever.”
Jack was gone when she looked up, and Allen had taken a seat at one of the window booths, the snow still on his shoulders. His back was to her to give her the illusion of control, but his neck showing from under his short haircut gave away his tension. She must have seen his silhouette or the car he drove earlier. And Jack, her intuition made real, had come to warn her. Thanks a hell of a lot, Silas. But it was unlikely Silas would have told Allen where she was.
Carnac stared at at the man, tail switching. He’d never liked Allen. Hands steady, she poured a cup of coffee, putting it in a to-go cup because Allen wasn’t staying. Light brew: the man was a wuss when it came to coffee. Damn it, if he was trailing trouble, she was going to be pissed.
“I should have opened a flower shop,” she muttered, weaving through the tables.
Her breath came in fast when a young woman suddenly stood, knocking the coffee. Both of them gasped, Peri from the surprise, the woman from twelve ounces of hot coffee down her pristine white blouse.
At the woman’s flash of pain and shock, instinct kicked in.