She’d understand. If he could explain in person, at least Danny would get it. And even if she didn’t, she was probably out tonight and wouldn’t see the message until the morning anyway. Eli had at least six more hours to magically come up with nine thousand dollars.

Sure, he’d read fantasy books with less fantastical premises. But Eli wasn’t giving up yet.

Eventually, the hammer would come down on Eli. But right now, he’d go for a walk and he’d figure this out. He had six hours and he could do this—he could.

Because Eli knew that eventually wasn’t some undefined date in the future.

Eventually was very likely tomorrow morning.

WEDNESDAY MORNING

8:00 a.m.—11:59 a.m.

1

A Variety of Beginnings

8:17 A.M., Wednesday

Daniella

Daniella pulled up to the parking lot of Wild Nights Bookstore and Emporium with her music as loud as she could possibly take before nine in the morning.

Daniella was not, as a rule, a morning person.

It hadn’t helped that she had gotten a message from Eli the night before while she was out, and, in the aftermath, had gone from sociably drinking to basically annihilated by tequila.

Wild Nights Bookstore and Emporium was closing.

She parked on a street that was three blocks back from the store, because she liked that walk from her car to the door. The distance between her own space and her work life. She didn’t like to park close. She liked to transition, to ease into the role. It didn’t matter to Daniella that the air was sticky with early-morning humidity; she took her time gathering her stuff out of her passenger seat. She drove an old Mustang from the seventies that she’d managed to pick up from a graduating senior girl for a song. She didn’t even need more than liability insurance on the thing because it was made of solid Detroit steel and either she was going to go out in a blaze of glory or she was going to take out whatever car she hit like a tank.

She’d been teaching herself how to fix up the old boy. It had vinyl seats and a big boat wheel. The radio was a dial with buttons that jumped the red notch down the line when she selected one of the preprogrammed buttons. The engine rumbled as she drove, and the whomping mess of a car made her feel like she had a space that was hers and that would always be hers.