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Devere sat behind the counter, his nose buried in a book, just as he had been when I’d returned to Minerva after fifteen years away.
He hadn’t heard the bell. He didn’t know I was here. I stared, dumbfounded, struck silent. My heart pounded in my chest and thumped inside my head.
He wore the same gray clothes. His hair was the same too, tucked behind his ear, so I could see the harsh line of his jaw and straight nose.
“Devere?” I started forward, gaining momentum. “You’re all right!”
He looked up, blinked, scowled, and slammed his book closed. “I was perfectly all right, sir, until your arrival.”
“What?” I slowed. Something was wrong. His beautiful eyes were cold with indifference. “Devere, your store! Isn’t it wonderful!”
His scowl sharpened. He set his book aside and stood, casting a cursory glance around the store, then leveled his gaze on me. He’d always been stoic, always difficult to read, but this was different. His behavior was odd, even for him. His store was fine. It hadn’t burned down. Wasn’t he surprised or even pleased? And why did he look down his nose at me as though we were strangers?
“Devere—” I reached across the counter, but he snatched his hand back, almost recoiling.
“Sir, you need to leave,” he said.
Sir? What was this? I laughed. “Devere, it’s me. Don’t you recognize me?” Had something happened to him? “It’s been weeks since the fire, I know, but—”
“Weeks?” He blinked long lashes. “It’s beenyears, Valentine. Fifteen to be exact. And I’m no more pleased to see you now than I was then. Leave. There’s the door. Use it.” He picked up his book, sat back down, and resumed reading.
I closed my mouth. Something was happening here, something… unusual. The store hadn’t burned down, and Devere was back behind its counter, as he should be, as though the past few weeks hadn’t happened. But theyhadhappened. So what trickery was this? “No, you see? We’ve already done this.”
We had already been here. I distinctly recalled this scene, almost exactly as it was happening now.
He stared at his book’s pages.
I laughed again. Did my laughter sound as thin to his ears as it did to mine? “I came back. Rochefort hired me to—”
“Rochefort hired you to do what?” he asked, his tone dangerously sharp.
I reached inside my coat. My fingers skimmed cool paper. There it was, the eviction notice. Exactly where it had been before. I withdrew it from my coat pocket and stared at it, there, in my hands. Again. “This is… No, this is… wrong. I—You see—We’ve already done this.” I tossed the letter onto the counter and braced my hands next to it. “Devere, listen to me. This isn’t right. Something has happened. I’ve done this. We’ve done this. Rochefort paid me to come here—not for this eviction letter, although I agreed to hand it over.” I pushed the letter across the countertop toward him, but instead of reaching for it, his hand dove under the counter, pulled out a pistol, and pointed it between my eyes.
“Leave. Now. You’re not welcome.”
Gulping, I raised my hands, but instead of doing as he demanded, I smiled. “You don’t shoot me. You didn’t then and you won’t now.” My heart thumped, trying to escape its cage. “Listen, I know this sounds unhinged, but we’ve done this before, or I’m experiencing the most elaborate and vivid sense of déjà vu.” I licked my lips and blinked too fast. “No, this is real. This is happening.This happened!”
“Get out, Mr. Anzio.”
“You don’t understand. I’m here to help find your father’s killer. He was found dead in the town square by you. Yes?”
He cocked the pistol’s hammer. “You appear to be having some kind of episode. This pistol in my hand suggests you need to have it elsewhere.”
I laughed and lowered my arms. “Devere, I’m not here to condemn you. I’m here to save you. Forget that letter. It doesn’t matter.”
“This store is my life. It matters to me, Valentine.” The way he said my name, his teeth flashing behind a sneer, told me he wasn’t jesting. This was real to him. “And any friend of Rochefort is no friend of mine.”
“Rochefort, yes. He…” I swallowed again and tried to think of a way to make him believe without getting shot. “Rochefort made advances on you, didn’t he?”
Devere’s eyes widened.
“He does—did—the same to me. The man is a rake and a bastard who believes he owns this entire town. You refused him, so he’s made it his personal mission to ruin you? Correct?”
Devere tilted his head. “Hetoldyou this?”
“No, Russo told me—”
“Constable Russoknows?”
