Chapter 7 #2
Tapping the side of her nose, the woman said, “Now, you’ll notice that he didn’t comment on the yelling.
So I said, ‘Did you hear the yelling?’ And he said, ‘No, I didn’t hear anything.
’ Well, I knew that was a lie, since I’d heard it all the way from down the hall.
But I couldn’t just call the man a liar to his face, so I left to go call him a liar behind his back. And here we are.”
“Hang on,” Amie said. “If this was all several minutes ago, how did you end up outside of the building trying to get back in?”
A coy smile inched onto Elena’s face. “All right,” she admitted. “Maybe I saw you and Ziya out my window and thought I’d come say hi. Is that a crime?”
Amie rolled her eyes good-naturedly as they continued up the stairs. “Do you think Benny was really at the Harlows’ apartment to look for a package?” she asked.
Elena grimaced. “Well, he certainly wasn’t there to do any landlording. I find it hard to believe he’s finally discovered a work ethic in his mid-forties.”
They reached the landing for the second floor.
“Who was he yelling at?” Amie asked softly, almost to herself.
“Oh, Benny wasn’t the one yelling,” Elena said, once again realizing she hadn’t finished her story. “The voice was much higher.”
“You think it was the person you heard in the stairwell?” Amie asked.
“That’s right,” Elena confirmed. “My hearing isn’t what it used to be, so I couldn’t make out what all the yelling was about. But I was able to catch one thing.”
“What?”
Elena lifted a hand, pointing a finger at Amie menacingly. “ ‘You did it.’ ”
Amie stared at the blank document open on her laptop.
The longer she looked at it, the faster the cursor seemed to blink.
She’d thought that stepping back from work to recover a bit from the time loop would be a good idea.
However, until she figured out how to explain her situation to a therapist without immediately getting referred to a psychiatrist, Amie didn’t really know what to do while she “recovered.” Opening a new document was her way of trying to jumpstart any sort of productivity, but it really only gave her a new thing to look at as she once again got lost in her thoughts.
It was unlikely she’d be able to figure out who’d murdered Savannah.
If Amie had known about Savannah’s death during the time loop, that would have been a different story.
She was almost positive she could have prevented it.
Hidden in the back room right before the store closed.
Watched Savannah do inventory or pack up a delivery as someone came in through the back door. Then she’d …
… tackle them?
Amie wasn’t exactly sure how she would have incapacitated the murderer. She supposed, given the nature of the time loop, she would’ve had the opportunity to learn from trial and error if she didn’t get it right on the first attempt.
But she hadn’t even gotten that far. She hadn’t even known Savannah was murdered. If Amie had been put in the time loop to stop Savannah’s death, the universe must have eventually lost patience with her and just given up.
She probably couldn’t solve this murder. But she had to at least try.
Amie checked her phone. She’d messaged Ziya after her stairwell conversation with Elena, updating her on what the woman had shared about Benny.
She hadn’t noticed how easy texting her ex-girlfriend had been until the initial messages were sent.
During the months after the breakup and before the time loop, any texts sent to Ziya had been written, then rewritten, then deleted entirely, then written again with only slightly different wording than the rewrite.
None of them had been sent. At the time, it had felt like one wrong word could destroy any possibility of the two of them reconciling.
But after the past twenty-four hours, that fear had all but vanished. Its ominous drumbeat of warning was drowned out by a university marching band performing the instrumental version of a song called “Talk to Ziya! (feat. Serotonin).”
Benny was turned away while trying to get into the back room at the bookstore, was Amie’s final text of the updates. He said he was looking for the bathroom, but now I’m wondering if he was looking for something else.
That makes SO much sense, Ziya replied. When he couldn’t look in the store, he went to look in Savannah’s apartment. SUSPICIOUS!!!!
Then again, Amie texted, it could just be that Savannah stole one of Benny’s packages. Like, that’s probably a more likely scenario than Benny murdering Savannah.
Or maybe he murdered her for stealing one of his packages, Ziya countered.
Must’ve been a pretty important package if that’s true.
Amie watched the three dots appear as Ziya began typing, then added, Don’t say anything about Benny’s important package.
The dots disappeared, then returned. You know me too well.
The university marching band hit a triumphant chord as Amie smiled to herself.
Halftime ended soon after when Ziya said her class was about to start. Amie was granted a final marimba trill when Ziya signed off with, I’ll text you later!
That had been several hours ago. There had been no new texts from Ziya in the interim. Amie wasn’t overthinking it.
Knock knock. Knock. Knock knock knock.
“Come i—”
“What would you define ‘later’ as?” Amie asked, barging into the apartment before David could finish granting her entry.
“I’ll need more context than that. Also, hello.” David was sitting cross-legged under his work table, setting up a ramp between two of the legs.
“Hi.” Amie knelt next to the table, grimacing as her left knee throbbed with pain. A bruise had begun to develop where she’d slammed it into the table the day before.
Once, during the time loop, Amie had badly sliced her hand while opening a can of chickpeas.
She’d cleaned the wound, bandaged it up, and by the next day, there had been no sign of any injury.
The rest of the day she kept touching the palm of her hand, having difficulty processing how something so painful could have disappeared so swiftly and completely.
It’d been a while since her body had been given enough time to develop a bruise or scar from an injury. She couldn’t honestly say she’d missed it.
Shifting into a squat, she said, “If someone says they’ll text you later, when would you assume that to be? Four hours later? Five? Six? Stop me when I get there. Seven? Whenever you’re ready. Eight? Please stop me.”
“Did you drink seven cups of coffee?” David asked. “You sound unwell.”
“Ziya said she’d text me later, but I don’t know when that is. Am I allowed to text her first?”
“By whose rules?” David countered.
“I don’t know!” Amie wobbled, trying to keep her balance. “Society’s! How much time should I let pass before I can text her again?”
“What do you want to text her about?”
“Oh my god.” Her legs were beginning to ache, so Amie sat down on the floor. “Can you answer any of my questions not in the form of another question?”
“Would that make you feel better?”
“Now you’re just doing it on purpose.”
David chuckled, ripping a piece of duct tape off a roll. “You shouldn’t have to wait to text her. If you have something to say, just say it.” He handed her the roll of tape. “Rip off five more pieces for me, will you?”
Amie accepted the roll, frowning. “I don’t have anything specific to say,” she said, picking at the tape with her fingernail. “I just feel like we’re in a really good place right now, and I don’t want to lose that if she gets too busy and forgets about me.”
David snorted. “Yeah, okay.”
“What?”
“Tape.”
Amie dutifully ripped off a piece of tape and passed it over.
“Why don’t you ask her if she wants to get dinner tonight?” David suggested, working to unstick the tape from his fingers.
“No, no no no,” Amie said, shaking her head. “That’s too soon.”
“Why?”
“Because,” Amie explained, “it’s too eager. I don’t want her to think I’m trying to get back together with her.”
“That’s ridiculous,” David said flatly. “Who’d ever assume that?”
Amie chose not to respond to the clearly sarcastic comment. “Besides, she’s busy tonight. She’s going to the opening of some jazz-funk club because Lil Screw might be there.”
“Who?” David asked, holding his hand out for another piece of tape.
“He’s a rapper.” Amie ripped off another piece and stuck it to his outstretched hand. “She doesn’t really like him, or jazz, but …”
“That’s Ziya,” David said, finishing her sentence. “Always doing something.”
“Yeah.” Amie was quiet for a moment. “It’s strange to know her so well.”
“What do you mean?”
Amie spoke slowly as thoughts that had been lurking in the depths of her brain floated up to the surface.
“It’s just strange that you can build a relationship with someone, get to know them intimately, and feel like no one in the world knows you as well as they do.
And then you break up, and then there’s just this person who you spent so much time getting to know, and now you have to live your life with that person out there who you know so well but can’t be with because you’ve ended that relationship. ”
Amie sucked in a deep breath, looking at David expectantly. David, in turn, was staring back at her, eyebrows raised.
“Was there a question in there?”
Amie flexed her fingers, as if trying to physically hold the question as she struggled to compose it. “How can you feel so close to a person, know them so well, and just … be friends?”
David returned to taping the ramp. “I think you know me pretty well,” he said. “And we’re just friends.”
“Yeah, but I don’t want to kiss you on the mouth.”
“Aha!” David pointed a section of the ramp at her. “So you admit that you still have feelings for Ziya!”
“Ughhhh,” Amie said in response, falling back to lie on the floor. “And I don’t know you that well. I still don’t know the titles of any of your books.”
“I can’t believe Ziya let that slip,” David grumbled, retrieving the duct tape from the supine Amie.