Chapter 4

The countdown to the wedding stood at fifty-nine hours.

Ann's voice came from inside.

"Does she know?"

David kept his voice low.

"No way."

"She already asked you about your brother."

"Someone told her something."

"What if that person came back?"

"Shut up."

I turned on the recorder and stayed outside the door.

Ann said through her sobs, "Why are you taking it out on me? The baby's yours. Do you actually want to marry her?"

"The wedding is happening."

"Why?"

"That patent license in her name. Only a spouse can take it over."

"And if she won't agree?"

"After the wedding there'll be plenty of ways."

"Your mother said, once the insurance kicks in, then—"

The room went quiet.

I pushed the door open.

"Then what?"

Ann shot up off the couch.

David faltered for only a second, then went calm again.

"When did you get back?"

"Right in time for the insurance."

I set my bag down. "How much did you take out on me?"

"Vivi, you've got it wrong."

"Ten million? Twenty?"

"Buying insurance before a wedding is perfectly normal."

"Who's the beneficiary?"

David walked over to me.

"Me, of course."

I was one second short of holding his gaze for the full three.

At two seconds, a hand suddenly reached in from outside the door and covered my eyes.

The man pressed close behind me, his breath against my ear.

"Don't look."

David's face went whiter than if he'd seen a ghost.

"Who are you?"

Through the thin fabric, I could feel his heart pounding hard.

"Head down."

The man kicked over the coffee table, his other hand still over my eyes.

Ann's scream tore through the room.

David swore.

"Richard Abbott, you actually dared to come back!"

Richard.

David's brother, dead more than twenty years.

"You heard that?"

"Yeah."

"Are you scared?"

"Take your hand away first."

"No."

"Why not?"

"You'll look at me."

"I can't look at you?"

"If you see my last words, you'll never be able to shake me off."

David charged.

Richard let go of me and slammed a fist into his face.

Mid-thirties, short hair, a faint scar over his brow.

Three parts like David.

He wore a plain black jacket, and the scar on the web of his right hand ran all the way to his wrist bone.

David wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth.

"What are you, that you think you can touch my fiancée?"

Richard let out a short laugh.

"When you were sleeping with her sister, did you remember she was your fiancée?"

Ann clutched her belly.

"You're lying!"

"Ten weeks pregnant. The night of June seventeenth, Room 1906 at the Grandview Hotel."

Richard turned his head to look at her.

"Want me to send the sheets in for testing?"

Ann stepped back.

David swung again.

Richard slipped to the side and pinned him against the wall.

"Don't make me kill you this time."

"This time?"

David gasped for breath, then suddenly laughed.

"So you really are still in the loop."

Richard's arm tightened.

"You know?"

"I've known all along."

David tilted his face toward me.

"Martha, did you really think you'd just come into some superpower?"

"Haven't I?"

"He gave it to you."

"Every time you died, he traded his own lifespan to turn back time. But it happened too many times. Time's broken now."

"And the captions?"

"Also cracks."

"Why did they show up on me?"

"Because on the hundred and twenty-sixth loop, you fired the shot that went through his heart."

I looked at Richard.

"I killed you?"

"No."

"He says I fired the shot that went through your heart."

"You did fire the gun."

Richard let go of David and turned to stand between him and me.

"But the one holding your hand was me."