Chapter 8
Beep. Beep. Beep. Beep.
The pulsating ring of my alarm clock syncs perfectly with the big band swing music still swimming in my head.
I open my eyes. Stuck between two worlds, still blended and both fuzzy.
It’s dark out.
I roll my head to the side and squint. My alarm clock reads 6:30 a.m. I reach out to hit snooze, needing a few more minutes to reorient. But in my uncoordinated morning sleep haze, I miss my alarm clock completely, my hand landing on a book with a hard smack.
Kitty’s diary.
All at once, my dream comes flooding back.
Usually, when I wake, any details of a dream will fade away to nothing but a vague narrative I can only half remember. But this one—the dance hall and Kitty—feels so vivid and real. It’s like it actually happened.
My head rushes as I sit up too quickly. Then it clears, and I pick up the diary and flip it open to where I left off yesterday. As the pages flutter, something falls into my lap.
A note.
My heart beats hard. A steady boom boom boom as I recognize the square of folded paper, although this one is yellowed with age.
Nope. It can’t be. It’s simply not possible.
Setting the diary back down, I pick up the note and unfold it carefully before lifting it to read.
Dear Kitty,
I’d be honored to share the next dance and any more if you’ll have me. Meet me at the entrance to the dance floor. I’ll be the one holding the rope.
Yours,
Knots
My fingers tremble as I read the note a second time and my brain searches for a rational answer.
I must have read this part in Kitty’s diary last night.
Yes. That’s it. I read it and then somehow forgot.
I’m already half doubting myself as I reach for the diary again, hoping it holds an answer.
But there is no mention of Knots in the entry I read last night.
Kitty must have told me this story then. A mention, in passing, as I was tidying her things or helping her with her hair, and then reading the diary last night triggered that subconscious memory, which wormed its way into my dreams.
Except Kitty didn’t talk much about her past.
“Never look in the rearview mirror”—another one of her favorite sayings—“unless, of course, you’re checking your lipstick.”
Still, it’s the only other rational possibility.
I get out of bed, ignoring the cold floor and how my body feels jittery and off.
“It was just a dream,” I tell my wide eyes and wild hair as I brush my teeth and get dressed, determined to push all thoughts about Kitty and the dance hall away and replace them with the monotony of my morning routine.
“It was just a dream,” I repeat as I pull on my coat, ready for work a full forty-five minutes earlier than I need to be.
“Nothing weird is happening,” I say out loud, hoping maybe if I say it enough times, I’ll finally start to believe it.
But when I flick off the light to my apartment and grab for my keys from the seashell-shaped dish on the shelf, my hand knocks something beside it, which falls to the floor with an unnaturally hard clang.
“It’s just a hammer.” I eye the bright pink handle. I took it out a few days ago to fix a loose coat hook and never put it away.
I don’t see it as a sign or as anything other than the fallout from a clumsy flick of my wrist and my never-ending to-do list, but it does give me an idea.
Niles James told me not to spend my inheritance just yet.
He didn’t tell me I couldn’t check it out.
Besides, I need to confirm that last night’s dream came from nowhere else but my wild imagination.
My rational brain knows I really shouldn’t, yet I still reach for the handle and toss the hammer into my purse.
It’s not breaking and entering.
Technically.