A bus took me downtown. When I got off, I stopped at a twenty-four-hour convenience store to clean myself up. I assumed it wasn’t safe to use any of my credit cards, but fortunately, my wallet was flush with cash. I shaved and washed my hair and sponged off the sweat. I bought a pair of sunglasses, but the whole effect didn’t make for much of a disguise. From there, with my head down and my mind spinning, I walked the empty streets to the pier.

I’d been waiting for an hour now. I was getting nervous about staying in one place for so long. I’d called Eve Brier, but I didn’t know if she would come, or whether she’d send the police after me instead. But when I glanced down the pier, I saw her heading my way, her steps quick and determined.

She wore a knee-length navy-blue dress, which the fierce wind was playing with, plus the same dark trench coat she’d worn when we met in Grant Park. She had a beret tugged low on her forehead, and she had to keep it in place with one hand while her long hair swirled around her face. She sat down on the bench a couple of feet away from me, as if we were strangers, which we still were. At least to me. Her eyes were lost in the lake, but then she turned to stare at me with a passionate intensity.

“Tell me again what you said on the phone.”

“Because you don’t believe it?” I asked.

“That’s right. I don’t believe it, because it’s impossible.”

“Think that if you want, but there are two of me. Two Dylan Morans in the same world, sharing the same space. You brought him here.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because he used your safe word to get away. Infinite.”

“My treatment couldn’t possibly make that happen.”

“I think you’re wrong. I think your therapy opened the door, and somehow another Dylan Moran walked through it. He’s a killer. The police showed me photographs of the women he killed. Four of them—all of them look just like Karly. Now he’s gone somewhere else to do it again.”

She reached out her long arm to stroke my hair, invading my personal space as if I were a pet. “I know you don’t want to hear this, but maybe it’s all you.”

“I’m not a killer. I’m many things, but I’m not that. Not in this world.”

Eve took away her hand and looked off at the lake again. “If you’re right about this, the implications are . . . disturbing.”

“Why are you surprised? You said the whole point of this therapy was to create a bridge to other worlds.”

“Yes, of course, but what you’re talking about—”