Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

GRETA

“ W hy are you here again?” Bernadette burst out of her back door and scowled at Imogen, completely ignoring me.

I’d assumed it would be difficult to find her, that she was hiding away from her home to avoid us. But here she was, and she was pissed.

“We need to talk,” Imogen said.

“What do you think we’re currently doing?” Bernadette asked. “I said words. You said words. Get to the point of what you want so I can be rid of you for good.”

“So no tea then?” I said.

Imogen chuckled. Bernadette scowled.

“You took a train from Piccadilly to Nevermore on October twenty-third,” I said. “The same train as Nie.”

“Lots of people ride trains. I don’t know who this Nie person is.”

“She’s my clone.” I was her clone, actually. “She’s dead.”

“And because I’m a reaper, you want to know if I killed your clone?” Bernadette asked.

“Yes,” Imogen said.

“I didn’t. I’ve honored my word, and I’d appreciate it if you’d honor yours as well and leave me alone.”

“Why were you on the train?” I asked. “Why come to Nevermore?”

“I live here.” She swept her arm in a grand gesture of this is my house, you idiots.

“If you didn’t kill Nie, why were you hiding from us?” I asked.

Bernadette crossed her arms. “Do I look like I’m hiding?”

“You disappeared when we tried to talk to you before, and you haven’t been here since. So it does seem like you’re avoiding us,” Imogen said. “With all due respect.”

“I’m death. I’m busy, obviously.”

And even if she had been avoiding us before, which it definitely seemed like she was, she’d chosen not to now, which was interesting. Maybe she’d grown weary of hiding and figured it’d be better to get this interaction over with so we’d leave her alone for good.

I needed to ask every single question I could think of.

“Are you the cat?” I asked.

Bernadette turned her sneer in my direction. “What are you talking about?”

“The cat that I saw jumping over your fence and rolling around in your living room,” I said. “Was that your playful way of taunting us when you knew we needed to speak with you?”

“I do not own a cat. I have never pretended to be one. This is ludicrous. I have better things to do than taunt you. And now you’re wasting what precious little off time I have before someone else dies.”

I didn’t get the sense that she was lying.

“Is it true that Halloween’s a big thing here, and lots of people come to celebrate?” Imogen asked. “Because I heard that, but I didn’t see any parades or trick-or-treaters.”

“I don’t engage in festivities. I wouldn’t know.”

“You don’t know if there’s more people in town?” Imogen asked.

Bernadette didn’t respond, but Imogen shivered under the weight of her glare.

“Do you know why the trains are shut down or how long that’s going to last?” I asked, hoping for any glimmer of new information.

“I’m not a conductor,” Bernadette said.

“Death is your realm,” I said, feeling like I might just have the right line of questioning this time.

“Obviously.”

“So you know everything related to the deaths around Nevermore, is that right?” I asked.

“No. I don’t burden myself with unnecessary details.”

“All right, but you know some things, some necessary details that you could pass on to us,” I said, and then, to cinch it, I risked poking the bear. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be doing your job.”

Imogen snapped her attention to me, eyes as wide as the moon.

But I hadn’t made a mistake. If I had, Bernadette would have killed me where I stood. She hadn’t.

Instead, Bernadette dropped her arms. “I could be watching my stories right now.”

“We’ll let you get back to it soon, I promise,” Imogen said.

Bernadette’s scowl lessened until her face returned to an ageless, pale mask once more. “There may be something of interest to you.”

“We’ll take anything,” I said.

“If I show you, this is our final interaction. You will not return to my home or speak to me again. Understand?”

“Yep.” Imogen grinned. “Thank you so much in advance. I knew you were a good person.”

Bernadette sighed and looked at me, clearly waiting for me to agree to her terms.

“I will not return to your home,” I said.

“Or seek me out elsewhere,” she said.

“I agree to never see you again anywhere,” I said.

She chuckled. “Now you’re pushing your luck.”

“Because it sounds like you think you’ll never die,” Imogen said to me, with a grin that suggested she was pleased to help with what she’d assumed was my dim-witted lack of understanding.

“This way.” Bernadette led us across her small backyard to the freestanding garage.

Apparently, she meant to show us her golf cart. I couldn’t imagine how that, or anything else she kept inside, could possibly aid in our search for the truth.

As the electric doors slowly lifted, a room was revealed. It wasn’t a garage, but an actual room, decorated like a cozy den that belonged inside of a home.

“This is nice,” Imogen said.

Bernadette grumbled something I couldn't make out.

There was a large desk that bore multiple computer monitors. A large sofa and a couple of bean bag chairs completed the furnishings.

“Why put your desk out here instead of inside the house?” Imogen asked.

My attention was still stuck on the bean bag chairs, which belonged only in a college dorm room.

“My design choices aren’t relevant to your query.” Bernadette wiggled the computer mouse, and the screens lit up.

The screens were sectioned into squares, each with black and white video running. It appeared the images were taken from security cameras all around Nevermore.

Frustration struck me first, the innate feeling of discomfort knowing someone had been watching my movements ever since I’d set foot in Nevermore.

“What is this?” I asked.

“These are my stories,” Bernadette said. “You may see what you wish, and then you will leave me to enjoy them in peace.”

Not only did Bernadette have access to all of my movements, but everyone’s, including Nie’s. So much for Bernadette not “burdening herself with the unnecessary details” of other peoples’ lives.

“Are they your cameras?” I asked. “Did you plant them all over town?”

“No,” Bernadette said.

“How did you gain access, then?” I asked.

Bernadette didn’t answer.

“We need to find Nie,” Imogen said. “We have to see everything that happened to her.”

Bernadette pressed her lips together. “Fine. But if you screw anything up, I will kill you.”

A shiver carried down my spine in a way that was only possible under the damning tone of a reaper’s threat.

“Gulp.” Imogen actually said the word instead of simply doing so. “We’ll be respectful, right, Greta?”

“Sure.”

Bernadette showed me how to work her set-up. As we worked, she watched us for a while, stamping her foot with increasing agitation.

We couldn’t leave until we’d uncovered every possible nugget of information.

I found myself with Imogen walking all around town. I found myself with Levi, back when I was still a part of Mar. And I found the two of them after.

I watched as the pair of them stood in an alley, beside a wall of vines, watching a cat. A sickening feeling spread through my chest as they stepped closer to each other.

He was going to kiss her.

It was evident from the way he looked at her.

She’d want him to kiss her. How could she not?

Imogen brushed against my shoulder as she inspected one of the other screens. Bernadette lingered behind us, her irritation palpable in the air.

Both of them began to feel distant as dread crept up my spine and down my limbs through every finger and toe. Each second stretched longer than the last as I watched, unable to tear my eyes away.

Finally, the inevitable happened.

A hollow pit formed in my stomach.

I wasn’t supposed to see this. It shouldn’t hurt. Mar and I were the same person.

Yet she hadn’t shared the memory with me.

And it didn’t feel like he was kissing me.

Watching them felt like a dagger dragged across my torso, shredding everything inside of me.

I had no right to feel like this, but it didn’t matter.

Bernadette waved her watch between me and the screen.

I tapped the button to change the feed to something unrelated, somewhere completely different.

But the kiss still seared itself across my vision, unwilling to fade.

Bernadette said, “Gah. I have to leave, which means you have to leave.”

Her voice sounded distant even though she was right next to me.

“We haven’t found Nie yet,” Imogen said.

“So if I make you go now, you’ll simply return later to harass me again.” Bernadette began to pace.

I could hardly think beyond the blood rushing in my head and the pounding of my heart.

I couldn’t find words. Fortunately for me, Imogen could.

With an apologetic tone, she said. “Pretty much.”

“Fine,” Bernadette said. Then again, deeper, “Fine. Stay. Lock the garage when you leave. If you screw anything up?—”

“We know,” Imogen said with a smile. “You’ll kill us.”

“In the most painful way possible,” she said.

And with that, she disappeared.

“Are you all right, Greta?” Imogen asked.

“Fine,” I lied, in my practiced flat affect.

“You look pale.”

“Did you find any footage of Nie yet?”

“Not yet, but I’ll keep looking.” She turned her attention away from me and back to our task.

I focused on taking one breath at a time, taking one moment at a time, and tried to focus, too.

Hours passed before we caught the first glimpse of Nie. Afternoon turned to early evening.

We found Nie going in and out of the general store. We found her at the hotel. Finally, I saw her talking to a man in an alley I recognized.

This was where Nie had died.

I grabbed Imogen’s wrist. “This is it.”

We watched on bated breath as Nie spoke to a man with pale hair. He looked distraught.

Nie turned.

The man said something.

“I’m so sorry,” Imogen said. “That’s what he said. He’s apologizing.”

When Nie’s back was to him, he swung the knife right through Nie’s neck.

She collapsed to the ground. I could feel the rightness in all of these actions, all which were so wrong it hurt. I could feel that this was what had happened, even though I hadn’t been able to revive these memories.

I fought the instinct to close my eyes.

I made myself watch as the man ran away, leaving her there.

Imogen reached to turn it off.

I stopped her, knowing that there was something more.

Moments stretched in agonizing stillness and silence, until finally a small creature trotted into the frame—a fox wearing a tiara.

“Noodles!” Imogen said. “It was Noodles the whole time.”

I should have felt relief or joy at finding the information I’d been so desperately searching for, but my nerves felt raw. My brain felt numb.

We locked up and headed back toward the Mournmore as night fell.

I needed a shower in real water that wasn’t orange, and a real bed to curl up in that didn’t feel like it was filled with rocks.

Mar was in our room when we returned, without Levi.

“Where’s Levi?” Imogen asked.

“He’s picking up dinner for everyone,” Mar said.

A touch of pink crept over her cheeks.

She’d done more than kiss him. She felt more than I did for him, because of the alone time they’d spent together.

None of that mattered. We had our answers. We had our killer. I had to tell her everything.

“We found these in a room behind the door with the carvings,” Mar said, spreading out photographs on the floor. “The scarabs acted as a key. We got stuck for a while, but eventually we found a hidden button on the wall that let us out.”

I spotted a number of familiar faces—the alchemist’s, the gorilla man, and my own.

Then I saw the murderer.

My heart dropped.

“That’s him.” I pointed. “That’s the guy who killed Nie.”

Mar’s face went white. “That’s Otis, Levi’s best friend.”