Page 20 of Death and Do-Overs

I’d never cared much for it.

Ticket Guy mooned over Rose, leaning forward with an eager look of desperate approval. The man had turned from competent attendant to lovesick puppy in an instant. Why?

“Of course,” he said.

I was missing something. Rose was charming, and I was not. But Ticket Guy had seemed set on following the rules. It wasn’t like she’d offered to flash him or anything.

I turned to Rose in disbelief. “I didn’t expect him to comply.”

“Revenant influence,” she said.

“Of course,” I said, having forgotten that part of her powers. Rose’s ridiculous superstrength wasn’t limited to the physical. She could break a person’s will as easily as their neck. “Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Lie like you did,” she answered without hesitation. “The my-sister-stole-your-credit-card bit was really convincing.”

I almost chuckled at that. Even if I’d delivered a plausible lie, I hadn’t swayed Ticket Guy an inch.

I told Rose, “I’m glad you’re here.”

“Me, too.” She cracked a warm and genuine smile.

This wasn’t like me, sharing feelings.

I blamed Nie.

Ticket Guy poked his screen. “There it is. Margaret Abernathy. Three thirty p.m. October twenty-third from Piccadilly, Pennsylvania to Nevermore, New Jersey.”

Nevermore? I’d never heard of it. Nothing against the Garden State, but with an entire world to explore, why would Nie choose New Jersey?

“What else do you want from this guy?” Rose asked me. “Are we done with him?”

“Is there security footage?” I asked.

Ticket Guy stared blankly at Rose.

“Answer her,” Rose said.

“Yes,” he said.

“Show us,” Rose commanded.

Ticket Guy clacked away at his keyboard, then turned his monitor around for us. The screen was split into four. People mulled about in each frame, approaching the ticket stand, heading across the lobby, to and from train platforms.

“There.” Rose pointed a finger at the screen at the exact moment I spotted Nie in the upper left corner of the screen.

Nie walked up to the counter to purchase a ticket. Then she left the frame. She picked up in the next walking toward an empty bench.

Minutes passed.

Knowing these were some of Nie’s final moments made my heart beat harder and faster in my chest. Something on this footagehadto be a clue.

Nie rose from her seat and entered one of the trains.

Moments later, a figure in a long, dark cloak entered after her.

My attention lingered on the screen after the figure had entered the train. There was nothing else to see, as Nie was gone. The person in the cloak wasn’t doing anything out of the ordinary that I could pinpoint, but something about him made me wary.

Maybe it was the fact that I couldn’t see his face, or even his hair beneath the hood. Maybe it was because of the way he held his shoulders that I couldn’t tell how tall he was. Or maybe it was his slow, deliberate gait.

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