Chapter 9 #2
“She was just stopping by to get her—” Amie fell silent.
When she began speaking, she’d been planning on saying that Ziya had returned to pick up her clothes from the night before.
Two thoughts that she wished had come to her before she began that sentence were that Ziya wasn’t holding any clothes, and that informing Elena that Ziya had stayed over the night before was not the direction Amie wanted this conversation to take.
“Purse,” Ziya finished, holding up her clutch. She’d apparently recovered from her bout of embarrassment. “Amie borrowed it a while ago, and I needed it for tonight.”
“Sure, sure,” Elena said mildly, flapping her mail at them. “Any excuse you can find, I get it.”
“Great seeing you as always, Elena,” Amie said hurriedly, gesturing for Ziya to follow as she headed for the front door. “Goodnight!”
As they exited the building, Amie took Ziya by the elbow and pulled her over to one side of the door.
“She’s absolutely going up to her window to spy on us,” Amie explained to a wide-eyed Ziya. “She won’t have a good line of sight if we stand here.”
“Oh,” Ziya breathed, her face relaxing. “Got it. Makes sense.”
“Sorry about her.”
“Pfft. It’s fine. She’s fun.”
“That’s one word for it.” Amie looked up, just in case Elena was leaning out the window to get a better view of them. “I forgot I still have your clothes. I can run up and grab them.”
“No, don’t worry about it. I’ll get them eventually.”
Amie’s heart lifted at the promise of eventually.
Ziya glanced up, then pressed closer to speak in Amie’s ear.
“Let me know if you get any new leads,” she murmured.
Amie didn’t think they needed to be that close to keep Elena from overhearing, but she wasn’t complaining.
“And give me a little more warning the next time you’re gonna do some detective work.
” Ziya nudged Amie’s foot with hers, which was clad in a black four-inch chunky heel.
“I knew I should’ve worn my ratty bar sneakers tonight. ”
Amie swallowed, feeling her ears prickle with heat. “You got it.”
“Good.”
Amie’s pulse quickened as Ziya’s breath slid across her skin, its warmth having an almost intoxicating effect as it soaked into her body. Her head instinctively tipped away, leaving her neck open for—
—Ziya to step away. She cleared her throat, fingers dancing restlessly on her thighs. “Okay. Goodnight!”
Amie rubbed her neck as if all along she’d been trying to work out a painful muscle. “Yep, ’night.”
She watched as Ziya descended the stairs and walked down the sidewalk. Her car’s headlights flashed as she unlocked it, and Amie waited until she was safely inside before heading for the door of her building.
Turning around again, she walked halfway down the stairs, looking up to see Elena peering out through a stairwell window. The woman waved as Amie crossed her arms, then disappeared from view.
Rolling her eyes good-naturedly (she was in too good a mood to roll her eyes in any other way), Amie unlocked the door and returned inside.
2:09 AM
Amie blinked sleepily at the time on her phone. She was lying in bed, the sheets kicked to one side from the frustration of not being able to fall asleep.
The logical part of her brain had been pleading with the rest of her body for hours, desperately trying to convince herself that she wasn’t going to wake up in a time loop again.
She knew she should have just gone to sleep on the couch, since that had worked so well the night before.
But Amie knew that if she started depending on the couch to get any rest, she was never going to sleep in her bed again.
Plus, her massage bills would be through the roof.
(Besides, she had a strong suspicion that Ziya’s presence in the other room had also contributed greatly to Amie being able to easily fall asleep the night before.)
She’d drank two cups of tea, taken a melatonin tablet, listened to rain sounds, gotten up to pee three times, finally turned off the rain sounds because they kept making her need to pee, and still, come two AM, she was awake. Sleepy, but unable to sleep.
In fact, as two AM rolled around, her anxiety kicked things up a notch.
During the time loop, Amie had never been able to stay awake past 2:22 AM.
Several times she’d tried to last the night, hoping that was her means of escape.
Eventually, she was able to gather that no matter how awake she was, and no matter how hard she stared at the clock, she could never make it past 2:22 AM.
Her last memory would be seeing the clock flip from 2:21 to 2:22, and then it would be morning.
Amie had even tried changing her phone’s clock to Pacific time, as if time could be fooled by a quick settings change.
(She’d be embarrassed to admit that she really thought she’d cracked it with that idea.) But as soon as the clock hit 11:22, Amie found herself once again opening her eyes on September 17, her phone reset to Eastern time and her mood reset to crestfallen.
And now here she was, actually trying to fall asleep but instead being kept awake by every cell in her body urgently insisting that something was wrong and she was in danger and she had to pee again.
Groaning, Amie rolled out of bed and went to use the bathroom for the fourth time that night. Returning to bed, she checked the time. 2:12.
What if I do get sent back? she thought.
It was the kind of thought she’d been trying to keep at bay for the past few hours, hoping that if she didn’t give it any attention it would go away.
But as 2:22 AM neared, the unwelcome thoughts began to squeeze through her mental dam—first a trickle, then a stream, then a full-fledged torrent of what ifs.
What if I’m not working fast enough to solve Savannah’s murder? she thought. What if I’m supposed to be doing more, and if I can’t figure it out, I’ll get sent back to the 17th until I do?
What if that’s for the best?
The sheer force of the thought sent her into an upright position. I could catch the killer. Maybe even prevent the murder. And then I’d be free again.
The thought of returning to the time loop, even with a possible end in sight, made her feel nauseous. But if she was able to prevent someone from dying, shouldn’t she? Shouldn’t she want to go back and fix it? Actually make use of her time in the loop, instead of just waiting for it to end?
2:15.
As the minutes passed, Amie became more and more convinced that this was what needed to happen.
She was giving the universe permission for this to happen.
At 2:22, she would wake up again the morning of the 17th.
She would find some kind of weapon, hide in the back of the bookshop at closing time, and try to stop the murderer.
And she’d keep trying until she was successful.
Now that she knew what she needed to do, she could finally make the best use of her time.
With this newfound confidence, a wave of calm passed over Amie’s body, followed by a rush of excitement.
2:20.
She would tell David about the time loop, tell him Genevieve said hi, tell him she needed his help stopping a murderer.
She’d text Ziya to postpone their date—or, hell, maybe she’d tell Ziya about the time loop.
Prove it to her so she’d actually believe Amie once it all ended.
Amie had been so scared to do so during the time loop, to say anything that might risk Ziya giving her that sad look again, even if it was only temporary.
But now she knew Ziya wouldn’t leave. She might laugh, tease a bit, not really believe, but she wasn’t going away.
And in the time loop, Amie could prove it to her. Then Ziya could help her stop the murder. She could understand what Amie had been through. She’d know how long it had really been for Amie since their breakup, and how even after all that time Amie still—
2:23.
Amie did a double take as she stared at her phone. She’d become so engrossed in her thoughts that she hadn’t seen 2:22 come and go.
“Oh,” she said out loud. Her body suddenly felt very heavy as she came down from the sudden adrenaline rush of the past few minutes.
Her mind reached for emotions that collided with one another as she tried them all on at once: disappointment, relief, vexation, confusion.
Her throat began to tighten, and hot tears stung her eyes.
She was back where she’d been before—having absolutely no idea what she was supposed to do next.
THUMP.
Amie looked up, startled by the loud noise above her. She was used to hearing heavy footsteps and the occasional vacuuming from the Harlows’ apartment, but this sounded like someone had fallen.
She thought of Andrew Harlow alone in his apartment as she listened for any other sounds that might indicate movement above. All was silent.
Amie rubbed her fists over her eyes to clear away any excess moisture, then climbed out of bed and donned her robe. She stepped into a pair of flip-flops, grabbed her keys, and exited her apartment.
As she padded down the hall, it began to sink in that this was the first instance in a very long time (in her own timeline, at least) that Amie was awake after 2:22 AM.
After entering the stairwell and reaching the first landing, she paused to look out the window, as if the world might look vastly different during this time she’d become so unfamiliar with.
To her mild disappointment, everything looked pretty much the same. This seemed to Amie like it should have been a moment of great import, but try as she might, she was having trouble mustering up strong feelings while wearing flip-flops and a robe.
Resuming her quest, she made her way up to the third floor and down the hall to apartment 3B. Amie knocked gently, pressing her ear to the door to listen for a response.
To her relief, there was a shuffling sound inside. At least she knew Andrew hadn’t been knocked unconscious.