Page 108 of Aftertaste

“M-Maura.” He sucked back tears, his snot salty and hot, the words jumbling. “Maur, I—I love you. I’m s-sorry. Ibelieveyou.”

He leaned close to her face, touched her hair. He wept harder, his stomach a stone. Had she taken poison? A bottle of pills? He pressed the call button on his phone, waiting for the operator, wondering what to say when they picked up. Whether it might still be possible to save her.

But then the body on the floor gave a sudden jolt.

“Nine-One-One, what’s your emergency?”

A huge gasp.

An intake of air.

And Maura Elizabeth Struk opened her eyes, her soul flooding back into her body after an Afterlife trip she hadn’t planned to take.

“Wrong number,” he stammered, and hung up.

She blinked at him. “Konstantin?”

And though the world was on fire, his restaurant in shambles, a portal to the Afterlife open in the Financial District and no real plan to stop it except some hunch from Maura’s dead kid sister, Kostya pulled Maura into his arms and kissed her the kind of kiss you get once in a lifetime, maybe, if you’re lucky.

It said everything.

I’m sorry, andI was wrong, and an idiot, andForgive me.

Let’s fix this, andI love you, andThereisa we, of course there is.

I believe you, andI trust you, andI’m sorry I doubted.

I won’t ever lose you again.

She kissed him back, held on, and it would have been so easy to lose themselves in it, to shut out everything they’d caused and stay wrapped up in each other’s arms.

Instead, they pulled apart, the same thought hitting them at once.

“We really fucked up,” Kostya said, pressing his forehead against hers.

“Told you so.” Maura gave a weak smile.

And then she told him where she’d been.

SHE’D DIED AGAINlast night, after DUH. After she’d taken his recipes.

“It’s stupid how easy it is to get what’ll kill you,” she explained. “Penicillin from an Urgent Care. A forged prescription for an EpiPen.”

She’d had them prepped for weeks, since she first slipped through the veil without meaning to. She took the penicillin, all four pills, and waited for the allergic reaction, the anaphylaxis, the EpiPen needle already in her thigh, her thumb waiting until her very last moment of consciousness to administer the medication. The time it took the adrenaline to make it through her system—that was her window in the Afterlife.

Kostya scrubbed his face, trying not to think about what could have happened if she’d been a moment too late.

“What was your plan?” he asked.

“Ev said the ghosts were all tied to you because of the aftertastes, and that they needed to be tied to the Afterlife instead. That they could follow their food home. So I borrowed your recipes and went back to the tour. To another chef I know. One who’s already dead.”

Kostya blinked at her. “Frankie?”

Maura nodded. “He was at DUH with a crowd, waiting on the other side of the veil for you to open your doors. I told him everything, and he agreed to try to cook your food. See if we couldn’t pull one of Ev’s ghosts back through. But it didn’t work. He couldn’t get the dish right.”

Kostya nodded grimly.

“Yeah. We tried it here, a bunch of times. The aftertastes have to be exact. Precise. He’d have to taste them himself to make them right. But—you stayedthat longin the Afterlife? Long enough to watch him cook?”

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