“Because in this world, you did go,” Roscoe told me. “The two of you went out to some dance club, and she didn’t like you. There was no chemistry. That was it. The two of you never went out again. Maybe it’s just a coincidence, but so far, there don’t seem to be a lot of coincidences in your worlds, Dylan. The thing is, I remember the woman’s name, even after all this time. It was Karly.”

CHAPTER 18

CHAPTER 18

I drove to the north side of the city, where Karly’s parents had their house. When I got to their upscale neighborhood in Wilmette, it was obvious that they’d never lived there. There was no dollhouse in the back of the estate where Karly had nursed me back to health after the accident. The mansion itself was unchanged, but it was no longer a testament to the real estate empire built by Susannah Chance. The woman who answered the door was a stranger who had never heard of the Chance family and who had owned the house since the 1980s.

When I did research on my phone, I learned that Chance Properties didn’t exist. In fact, I couldn’t find any indication that it ever had. Whatever Karly’s mother had done with her life, she wasn’t in the local real estate market. I searched for Karly herself, but I got listings for different women all over the country, and nothing gave me a clue about how to find the Karly I wanted. I didn’t know where she was living or working or whether she was still in Chicago at all. In fact, I didn’t even know whether Karly Chance actually existed in this world. The blind date I’d had ten years ago might have been with a different person who just happened to have the same first name.

But I didn’t think so. I thought Roscoe was right. Fate had a way of making our lives converge across different worlds.

Finally, I called Roscoe’s friend Sarah, the Northwestern alum who’d originally suggested I meet Karly. She was now a homeschool mom living in Elgin. As I dialed her number, I tried to think of a way to explain my interest in finding a woman with whom I’d had a single disastrous date nearly a decade earlier. The truth was clearly not an option.

When Sarah answered the phone, we exchanged pleasantries, which didn’t take long. Roscoe was the only thing we had in common, so we talked about him and his parish work for a minute or two, and when that well ran dry, I explained the reason for my call. I hoped she’d believe the lie.