I was about to say yes—but then I realized that I had no idea who this man was. We’d never met. I’d never seen him before. And yet he knew me.

“Why did you think I was looking for Karly Chance?” I asked, but the twisting sensation in my gut told me why.

His face screwed up with confusion. He squinted, looking at me again. “Didn’t we meet last night? I could swear you were the man who asked me about Karly Chance. Sorry, it must have been someone who looked like you. These old eyes of mine aren’t what they used to be. My mistake.”

“No problem,” I said, walking away.

I wanted to tell him his eyes were fine. He hadn’t made a mistake.

My doppelgänger was still here. Still hunting. I couldn’t leave this world until I’d found him.

CHAPTER 21

CHAPTER 21

I spent the day consumed by thoughts of Karly. I didn’t go to work, because the job at the hotel wasn’t really my job. I didn’t go home, because Tai wasn’t really my wife.

But Karly? I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

I went to the Bohemian National Cemetery, which is a couple of miles west of our apartment. That’s where I go when I need to think. I usually visit one particular sculpture. Its true name is The Pilgrim, but people call it by other names. Death. Walking Death. The Grim Reaper. It shows an old woman covered by a cloak, walking with a staff toward a nearby mausoleum. Unless you get up close and look under the cloak, her face is invisible, just black shadow. However, the legend says that if you look at her face, you’ll see a vision of how you’re going to die. I’d never looked. It never seemed worth the risk. That day I was tempted enough that I stole a peek, but all I saw was the pilgrim mother’s serene expression as she stared at the ground. She didn’t give me any clues about what was coming next.

I spent the afternoon there, lingering even after the cemetery gates closed. I sat on the steps of the mausoleum, and I reread Karly’s book of poems over and over. It wasn’t just that I wanted to know the woman she was now, in this world. I wanted to know who she’d been. The wife I’d lost. The more I read, the more I fell in love with her all over again, as if I’d discovered an entirely new person. It killed me that we couldn’t be together.

Eventually, the cemetery caretaker kicked me out. I had nowhere else to go, so the only thing I could do was head home to the apartment. When I got there, things got even worse.