The bed was undone. The blanket lay on the floor, the sheets tangled. That wasn’t how I’d left it. The maid had done the room long ago, and I hadn’t slept since then. When I’d left to see Eve Brier, I was certain that the blanket had been folded into crisp corners.
Someone had been here. In my room.
It was like a macabre joke: Who’s been sleeping in my bed?
Slowly, my eyes filled in the details. I saw an empty bottle of Jim Beam on the window ledge, reflecting the lights of the city outside. That was the bottle I’d opened earlier. I’d had three glasses myself. Or was it four? Regardless, the bottle was empty now, and there were two lowball glasses beside it. I went to take a look at the glasses and saw water in the bottom. Melted ice.
Ice? I never put ice in my drink.
I picked up the second glass and saw a red smear on the rim. Lipstick. Two people had been here, a man and a woman.
I examined the room again. This time, I spotted clothes scattered near the bed. Women’s clothes. A beaded, multicolored dress lay pooled in layers like an accordion, as if it had dropped straight down over bare shoulders and hips. Near it was a lacy bra. Lavender bikini panties. Black high heels, kicked off.
The sweetness I’d smelled wafted like a freshly opened flower from the clothes and the bed. I recognized the perfume now. Obsession.
Then the rattle of a doorknob startled me. I wasn’t alone. I glanced at the bathroom door and saw a bright light go off under the crack of the frame. When the door opened, Tai emerged into the darkness of the hotel room. Chicago’s glow through the window lit up her naked body, which had a sheen of dampness from the shower. She had a towel in her hands, drying her long hair, her face obscured. I could see the prominent swell of her collarbone, her narrow hips and bony legs, and everything else, too. Chocolate-brown erect nipples dotted her shallow breasts. The triangular thatch between her legs was black and full.
She dropped the towel and noticed me. Her bright-red lips made a sexy smile, and her dark eyes devoured me.
“Oh, hi. I thought you had to go. I’m glad you stayed.”
I didn’t have time to ask her what was happening. She crossed the space between us, laced her fingers through my hair, and molded her lips against mine. Her nude body pressed against me, soft and sensuous.
“You’re cold,” she murmured. “Did you go out and come back?”
I still couldn’t find any words.
“Let me warm you up,” she said, her hand traveling down my body, slipping inside my pants. As much as my hormones didn’t want her to stop, I separated myself from her and backed away. She gave me a confused look.
“What’s wrong?”
“I can’t do this.”
She smiled at me again. “Oh, I bet you can. I could already feel things waking up.”
“Tai, it’s not that.”
“Then, what is it?” She tried to read my face, and something about my expression must have made her feel very naked. She sat down on the bed and wrapped the rumpled sheet around herself. Her smile fell away. “Ah. I get it. You feel guilty. You’re sorry we did it, aren’t you?”
I studied the bed, which looked and smelled of sex. Tai and I had made love here. In some part of my memory, I could feel her beneath me, feel her legs tightly wrapped around my back, feel myself deep inside her. But it wasn’t really my memory. It wasn’t me.
“It’s okay,” Tai went on. “I said no strings, and I meant it. I’m still glad you called. You turned to me when you needed someone, and that’s what I wanted. But I know you’re dealing with a lot of pain right now.”
“Tai, I’m sorry—” I began.
“Don’t apologize. I’ll go. When you told me you needed to leave, to clear your head, I should have guessed.”
I sat on the bed next to her and tried to figure out what to say. What she’d told me, what I saw in this room, was making my head spin.
“Tai, this will sound crazy, but I need you to tell me exactly what happened between us tonight.”
“I don’t understand. Why?”
“Please. Humor me. Did I call you?”
“Are you saying you don’t remember?” she asked, with an irritated frown.
“Actually, that’s exactly what I’m saying.”
“Are you kidding? You don’t remember what we just did?”
“I wish I could explain it to you, but I can’t.”
Her expression turned to concern. “Are you okay?”
“I have no idea. I just need to know what happened.”
She hesitated. “All right. Yes, you called me.”
“What time?”
“I don’t know. Sometime after midnight, I guess. I wasn’t asleep yet. I know it was one in the morning when I got here.”
“One o’clock?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure about that?”
“Yes.”
I shook my head. “Is there any possible way you made a mistake?”
“Dylan, I saw the clock in the lobby. I’m telling you, I got here at one o’clock.”
I checked my watch and then the clock on the nightstand. There was no mistake. Everything matched.
One in the morning. That simply wasn’t possible.
I was meeting Eve Brier at the fountain in the park at exactly one in the morning. At the very same time, I was also having a rendezvous with Tai back at the hotel.
“What did I say when I called you?”
“You said you were lonely, upset. You didn’t want to be alone. You asked if I’d come over. I said sure. I mean, we both knew what you wanted. We both knew what was going to happen. I dressed accordingly.”
“You came to the hotel room?”
“Of course.”
“And I was here.”
“Well, obviously.”
“So did we—?”
“Yes. We had sex. Twice, in fact, if you need the details. You don’t remember that, either? Is this some kind of game to make yourself feel better? Are you trying to pretend it never happened?”
I didn’t answer. “Tai, please, just go on. Then what?”
“We fell asleep. When I woke up, you were already awake. Dressed. You were staring out the window. I asked you to come back to bed, but you said you needed to go. Right away. And you left. So I went into the shower, and when I got out, you were back here again. That’s all, Dylan. It was like ten minutes ago. You’re freaking me out if you really don’t remember any of this.”
“I’m sorry.”
I thought about what Tai had told me, but I had no way to explain it. Nothing made sense.
This was not a delusion.
Not a missing memory or a split personality.
No matter what games my mind was playing with me, I couldn’t be in two places at the same time, and yet I’d been in the hotel room with Tai at the same time that I was in the park with Eve Brier and then in Wilmette with Karly’s mother.
I could only come to an impossible conclusion.
Two.
There were two of us. I wasn’t hallucinating. My doppelgänger was real.
There was a Dylan Moran out there stealing his way into my life. It was as if this other Dylan had decided to follow every hidden impulse in my head and unleash my darker soul. Kill Scotty. Sleep with Tai. He was my id come to life.
This Dylan Moran was not me, but even so, we were connected by some kind of shadowy line. Echoes of his memories, of what he’d done, were in my own brain, like ghost images in a photograph. I suspected that he could sense me, too. He’d felt that I was coming back to the hotel, and that was why he’d made a fast exit.