Chapter 43

After more than two orgasms and another full breakfast, Grant flies me to Zagreus Hart’s headquarters.

“Hey there, Dennis,” he says cheerily to the grotesque skull.

I don’t think I’ll ever fully understand optimists. For my part, I avoid direct eye-contact with the ghastly cliff face, lest it steal my soul.

When we get to the balcony to Reinhold’s office, Grant sets me down. He hovers protectively, holding onto my hand without showing any signs of letting it go.

“Be careful,” he warns, like we’re not in a time loop and he’s not going to be a second away if anything goes awry.

“Oh, don’t worry. Reinhold’s a big ole softy once you get to know him,” I tease. “Just like your skull friend.”

Grant narrows his eyes. Apparently, I’ve triggered his inner-beast mode. Shame to waste it when we don’t have any time for another quickie.

“Just be careful,” he rumbles.

There’s a part of me that’s seriously worried that this will awaken something in me. Am I going to have to take up skydiving or lion taming for the killer sex that will undoubtedly come afterwards?

I guess if we stay in the time loop—maybe?

I shudder. I’d better get this all sorted out. I do not have the stomach for skydiving.

I go to walk inside Reinhold’s office, but Grant is still holding my hand. He flexes his big hand, watching the two of ours twine together, before folding his fingers around mine once again.

“Hailey, I love you.”

It’s not the first time he’s said it. It’s not even the first time I’ve fully believed it. Still, his words fill me with a warmth I’m not used to feeling.

For a second, I want to say it back to him. I haven’t said it yet, and I feel like this is the moment for it.

But I don’t.

Instead, it occurs to me that there’s something better I can say.

I lean forward and kiss him with everything I’ve got. “I know,” I reply, with a roguish wink.

Grant pauses and eyes me over to fully grasp my meaning. Finally, placing two hands over his heart, he keels over and falls away and out of sight from the balcony. Out of sight, but definitely not gone.

No, Grant is never going anywhere. I know that.

He’ll always be right there after I’m done slaying the beast.

With a confident turn, I barge into Reinhold’s office, throwing the doors open (with a bit of extra oomph from Grant, I suspect). I also suspect that he’s responsible for my hair blowing back dramatically in the non-existent wind. I’d like to think that I look like some sort of avenging angel, crashing through the gates of hell to rain down justice.

Although, I guess it doesn’t really matter what I look like, since the office is completely empty.

What a waste of an entrance.

I wander around Reinhold’s office, poking into the odds and ends of his office. There is something so cathartic about snooping. Although, as I get up and close to a painting of soldiers who have appeared to have been vivisected by a bayonet, I second guess that assertion.

I wonder what kind of mood board he gave his decorator—serial killer chic? Modernly murderous? Cottage-gore?

I walk over to where the musket and the painting are, and flip open the painting. Sure enough, there’s a safe behind it. Part of me is a little disappointed. I was expecting either an antique safe or an ultra high-tech one. Maybe one that immediately scanned my eyeballs.

“Hey Grant,” I say, certain that he’s listening. “Since my old pal isn’t around, how about you go ahead and rip off the door to this safe.”

Wisely, I step to the side just before the cover rips off with an ear-splitting crack. The sound is followed almost instantaneously by a blaring alarm that screeches through the office.

It takes every part of my experience under pressure to take a deep breath and not care. Let the alarm ring. Let the people come. That’s exactly what I want.

In the meantime, I take out the very ordinary brown envelope and take it to Reinhold’s desk. With my feet on his desk, I try to settle into his supremely uncomfortable chair.

What is it with lawyers and uncomfortable chairs?

Every single piece of furniture in Grant’s house is supremely comfortable. I could take a nap on his ottoman if I wanted to.

Not that Reinhold’s choice of furniture is what’s important here. What’s important is what’s in this envelope. What was so important that he put it behind a safe? That could make him blanch at the thought of someone reading it?

Unfortunately, I don’t get the time to find out.

“Who are you and how did you get into my office?” From the doorway, Reinhold stares me down with a reddened face and ragged breath. I’m guessing he ran all the way up here.

I’m also guessing that his evil doings don’t leave a lot of time for cardio, based on how heavily he’s breathing.

Not really helping with his whole aloof psychopath persona he goes for. No, right now, he’s striking me more of a ‘weird uncle who accidentally found himself in the middle of a 5k race and couldn’t figure out how to get off the course’ feel.

Behind him are the same beefy guards who advanced on me yesterday/today. They look tired, but still menacing. Clearly, they hit the company gym more than Reinhold does.

“No,” I say simply, sliding the documents out of the folder from his safe.

It’s a thick report. The cover page bears only the words: The Jump Ahead.

“N-no what?” he sputters back.

Exasperated, I sigh. “The whole back-and-forth question exchange for the upper hand. We’ve been there. Done that. Spoilers: I come out on top.”

Reinhold opens and closes his mouth, sputtering like a fish out of water. Remember when I thought he was intimidating?

“Who are you?” he repeats.

I roll my eyes. Some people just can’t get out of their old habits.

“I’m Hailey Cox. I work for Felton amp; Nichols. You would know that if you had bothered to do more than a cursory background investigation on Dominic before bringing him in on your scheme to blow up a building.” I stop and give him the same look my mom gave me when she found me pre-reading for my college classes during my sweet sixteen party. “I know it’s not really my place, but I’m disappointed in your lack of thoroughness.”

“Felton amp; Nichols…” Reinhold hems the words over.

“The company that started investigating yours after the reports of environmental pollution, so you blew up our office? Yes, that’s us.”

“Is that what you think happened?”

Seriously? This guy and his questions. I’ll have to double check the information I gathered on him, but I’m relatively certain his parents were a sphinx and the Riddler.

“I’ve learned a lot in this little time loop of yours. Namely, that I was right about coincidences—”

“What did you say?” he asks, his voice an ice blade that runs up my spine. Even red-faced and gassed, he can still turn on his villainic pheromones when need be.

“Coincidences are just the happy bedtime story people tell themselves to feel better about their lack of mental fortitude.”

“The other thing,” he says. I guess that means he’s serious if he’s saying something instead of asking questions in circles.

I look him dead in the eye. “The time loop? Your godforsaken time loop that’s had me spinning my wheels for ages.”

Reinhold takes a deep breath and turns towards his enforcers. Before I can call out for Grant, Reinhold waves them away.

“Leave us.”

He doesn’t even watch to see that they listen. He just moves to another painting, opens it, and pulls out two cigars from the cavity within.

“Cuban?” he asks.

For the first time on this today, I’m thrown off guard. I was pretty sure I was going to be hauled away and beaten. Instead, I’m finally getting invited to one of the boys-only lawyer cigar parties.

This is the weirdest thing to happen in the time loop since that thing with Grant in the bathroom at the opera.

“No, thank you,” I say. In another life, I would’ve been all over smoking it and pretending that it was better than oxygen. Now? I’m over kissing ass. The Reinholds and Dominics of the world can all kiss mine.

Reinhold stares at me. I’m guessing he wants his spot back. Too bad. It’s mine.

“You seem very comfortable in my office,” he muses. “Most people find it… off-putting.”

I shrug. “Not my first time in here.”

He raises an eyebrow. “In the interest of being more thorough, I have some questions for you.”

What a surprise—Reinhold has questions.

“Then it would seem we’re ready to deal because I have some of my own.”

I answer about a million of his. They’re all basic variations of ‘how many days have I been in the time loop?’ He takes notes furiously as I speak, despite the fact that he’s recording on his phone.

“And the loop starts precisely at midnight?” he asks, again.

“Precisely.”

“And each time, your body is just as it was?”

“Even after I died, I was back exactly as I was.”

Reinhold’s eyes flick up to mine. This is the first time I mentioned that I died during one of the loops. “Fascinating.”

What a psychopath.

“Were you ever carrying anything when the time loop reset? Was it carried back with you?”

His last question makes me realize that, despite the fact that I have my feet up on his desk, he’s playing me. He’s not interested in my experiences, except in a guinea pig sort of way. He’s debriefing me like I was the first trial run in something.

“Enough with your questions,” I snap. “Onto my own. Like, was it worth it?”

“Define ‘it’?”

“Blowing up the building to protect your company from an environmental investigation. A girl died in there, I hope you know. Well, she usually dies in there.”

Reinhold freezes. Like does not move a muscle for several seconds, even though I can see the processing that’s happening behind his eyes.

“You seem very adamant that Hart Link Incorporated, the gold standard of environmental practices, has something to hide. We don’t. There is nothing more important to Mr. Hart than the environment.”

I roll my eyes. Pointedly.

“We’ve both read the DFO report on the fish populations surrounding your island.”

Every-so-slightly, his brows furrow. His fingers fly to his phone.

“They’re classified documents,” I say, annoyed that I don’t have them on me. Although, really, I haven’t consistently had them on me since the first time I was fired.

Reinhold doesn’t listen to me. He continues to swipe and prod at his phone. Then, he stops and reads. He reads with the stillness of a statue in the dead of winter. Only his eyes blur back and forth as he soaks in every detail of the report.

When Reinhold finishes reading, he exhales slowly out of his nose.

“It appears you were right to be disappointed in my lack of thoroughness,” he says.

“Is that really the ploy you’re going for? You didn’t know? Everything that’s happened since, including the building getting destroyed, is just coincidence?”

Reinhold laughs an imitation of a laugh. “Flies, they buzz around with their own internal dramas, never realizing the truth.”

God, if this is his attempt at a normal conversation, I’ll go back to the questions, thank you very much.

“And what’s that?”

He runs his pinky down the length of his scar while he eyes me over. “That they’re flies.”

“You expect me to believe that none of this has anything to do with my firm, with me getting a bit too close to whatever it is that you’re up to?”

He leans casually, half-sitting on his gargantuan desk.

“While you are admirable in your determination, Miss Cox, you are not a threat to Mr. Hart. You could argue the case of your life and get Mr. Hart convicted of the largest environmental indiscretions you could imagine, and he could make it all go away with his proverbial money in the couch cushions. No, Mr. Hart does not respond to threats because there is no one alive who could threaten him. He acts only to further his own plans. If something stands in his way, he moves it. He never reacts. Rather, he anticipates.”

In that moment, it’s painfully obvious that this is the truth.

I am a fly.

“What are his plans?”

I don’t know what I expected. I should’ve expected what I get. Reinhold doesn’t answer me, he just stares me down with his unwavering gaze.

“The death. In the building,” he says finally. “You say she usually dies. Did she today?”

“No. For the first time, I was able to save her.”

Reinhold nods. “And has anything gone terribly awry today?”

“No,” I say, hesitantly. This feels like a big moment, though I’m not sure why.

Then, Reinhold smiles. It’s a wolf’s grin of a smile that doesn’t even begin to meet his eyes.

“I would suggest you keep it that way. After all, happily-ever-after convention would indicate that the loop would probably be solved when you save the girl.”

He doesn’t believe what he’s saying and neither do I.

But I do believe the intent.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m giving you the same advice my great-grandfather got in the war: live every day like it’s your last.” He walks over to one of the more modern paintings and gazes as the sight of soldiers cowering and dying amid artillery shelling. He reaches up to stroke the painting. “Make sure you make today a good day, Miss Cox.”

Even though he just gave me the super villain version of ‘live, laugh, love’, I’ve never been more terrified in my life. I would be markedly less terrified if he told me he was going to pluck out my eyeballs for an after-cigar snack.

“Very well,” I say, recognizing a dismissal when I hear one. “This isn’t over, though.”

Reinhold nods, settling back into his chair. “Not yet,” he affirms.

With as much composure as I can maintain, I walk out onto his balcony and jump. In the background, I can hear his surprised cry and his footsteps racing out towards the balcony.

“Go, go, go!” I hiss as Grant catches me in his arms.

We’re already gone by the time Reinhold gets to the balcony, but we’re not so far that his echoing, impressed laugh doesn’t reach us. It booms out in the crisp, ocean air, punctuated only by the sound of a slow clap.

See, Reinhold doesn’t have a monopoly on dramatic flair just because he has a scary scar and his office was decorated by Demonic Depot.

“What now?” Grant asks, holding me flush against his body.

“Home,” I answer. “We have some loose ends to tie up.”