I showed the napkin to Jason. “Where is this?”

  He tilted his head and frowned. “I think the question you need to ask is what is this?”

  I turned the napkin this way and that, trying to make out the drawing myself. “Damn it. I don’t know. I think it’s a bridge, maybe?”

  He stepped closer. “How is that a bridge?”

  “It looks like it could be one. See these pillar things?”

  “Pillar things?” he asked, unimpressed.

  Betty peeked around Jason’s shoulder. “That’s the Arkwright Building in Spokane.”

  We turned to her in unison.

  “Are you sure?” I asked, checking my watch. Forty-three minutes. How far was Spokane from here?

  “Yeah, it’s gorgeous. Very historic. Those are the columns out front,” she said, pointing to the pillar things. “And this part here? That’s the balcony on the second floor above the entrance if you’re looking up. But I don’t think it’s a real balcony,” she said to Jason then gazed at me in admiration. “The perspective is spot on, though. Good job.”

  If she only knew. Then again, with Jason spilling all my secrets to anyone within shouting distance, maybe she did know. “Thanks.” I took out my phone and entered the Arkwright Building into my maps app.

  “What’s going on?” Jason asked.

  “Remember how I told you I can tell the exact moment someone is going to die?”

  Three people close by swiveled their heads to gawk at me. It happened.

  “Zachary?” Jason asked, knowing the answer. The blood drained from his face.

  Betty looked concerned, too. “It makes sense. His dad works maintenance there.”

  I raked a hand through my hair. “So, he would have access to the roof.”

  “Absolutely.”

  I glanced at my watch again.

  “How much time do we have?” Jason asked.

  “We?”

  He nodded and dug into his pocket for another set of keys. “I’ll drive.”

  “You’ve been drinking,” Betty said, her expression soft but as hard as marble. There would be no arguments brooked on her watch.

  “I can drive you.”

  We all turned to see Halle standing there. She held up a twenty. “I forgot to pay so I came back.” Her gaze flitted to me then darted away just as quickly. “I haven’t had anything to drink. We can take my truck.”

  It looked like I had little choice. “Will it get me there in forty-two minutes?”

  The smug countenance that spread across her face almost doubled me over. She stole a line from one of my favorite movies and said, “Which floor?”

  Chapter Three

  It’s never as funny to the police as it is to us.

  —Meme

  Dominic Toretto had nothing on Halle Nordstrom. She weaved in and out of traffic like a street racer on speed. Unfortunately, we’d hit rush hour, so there was a lot of weaving.

  The first few minutes of the drive were utterly silent. I didn’t want to distract her, which was a great excuse to keep my mouth shut. I had no idea what to say anyway. But once she made it to the main highway, she relaxed and instigated the conversation herself.

  “So, this kid. He’s going to die soon?”

  I checked my watch yet again and tried to keep my adrenaline from spiraling out of control. “Yes. Very.”

  She nodded in thought, then asked, “Do you know how?”

  “Yes, and no. I don’t know if he’s going to jump or fall. It could be an accident. He had a lot to drink.”

  The quick look she cast my way was full of fear. “Should we call the cops?”

  I winced. The police and I didn’t always see eye to eye. They tended to complicate things. Asked questions like, “Where did you get this information?” and “How did you know she was going to be murdered with a hacksaw before it happened?” I learned early on not to rely on them.

  “They could beat us there,” she argued. “They could stop him if we don’t make it.”

  She was right, of course. I nodded. “We should try to get ahold of his dad, too.” I took out my phone to text Jason for the contact info while Halle talked to the cops.

  “I don’t know,” she said to dispatch, feigning hysterics. At least, I hoped she was feigning. “I just saw a kid on the roof like he was going to jump! Please hurry!” She hung up before they could ask her anything else.

  “You’ve had acting experience?”

  She smirked. “Haven’t we all?”

  Right again. “Think they’ll send someone?”

  “I hope so.”

  I studied her profile for a minute, like the alabaster statue of a wood sprite. My phone dinged, and I tore my gaze off her. “Jason’s been trying to get ahold of the dad. He’s not picking up.” I checked my watch. “How much longer?”

  “Ten minutes,” she said, swerving onto the shoulder to maneuver around a truck.

  My stomach clenched tighter with every second that passed.

  Once we were back on the actual highway, she tossed me an apologetic grin. “Make that nine.”

  “And you were a stunt driver in a past life?”

  “Sorry. I won’t do that unless I absolutely have to. It’s too risky. If we get pulled over now… Let me know if you see a cop.”

  “Will do,” I said, my voice suddenly hoarse. “I thought you didn’t believe me.”

  “I don’t, but I also don’t want to be responsible for someone’s death if I could’ve done something about it and didn’t.”

  “Welcome to my world,” I said with a breathy scoff. I’d never asked for any of this shit. Fucking demon.

  We exited the freeway and hit downtown Spokane at the height of rush hour. Bumper-to-bumper traffic brought us to a standstill, and my lungs fought for air.

  “I forgot about the hour.” She glanced around, looking for a quicker route before pulling half onto a sidewalk, throwing her truck into park, and pointing out the windshield. “That’s the building. It’s only a couple more blocks.” She turned the full force of an imploring gaze on me. “We have to run for it.”

  The fact that she wore a sundress and sandals did not escape me.

  Apparently, it didn’t escape her either. She opened her truck door, then looked back. “Don’t wait for me.”

  “You sure?” I asked over the hood once I got out.

  She nodded and gathered the folds of her skirt. “Go.”

  I took off and didn’t look back, wending through pedestrians and vehicles alike until I came to the exact spot I’d seen in Zachary’s last moment. I peered up. Seven stories never looked so high.

  “Here!” Halle said, rushing past me and into the building as the first drops of rain began to fall.

  “How the hell—?”

  “There’s an elevator!” She pointed and ran toward it.

  As though a gift from the gods, the doors were already open. We tumbled inside, both of us struggling to fill our lungs, and then I remembered. “That’s right. It was raining in his final moment.”

  She cast me a startled expression and pushed the button for the top floor. Our breaths synced, creating a rhythm in the quiet elevator.

  “You’re fast,” I said between gasps.

  She put a hand to her racing heart. “You’re faster. I could hardly keep up.”

  “But you did. I’m impressed.”

  “Those four years of track must’ve paid off.”

  Apparently.

  We bolted out of the elevator the second the doors opened and rushed up a set of stairs to the roof access. The steel door wasn’t locked, and I thanked the powers that be for small favors. When we burst through the door with guns blazing—metaphorically—we almost took out a uniformed cop.

  “Officer,” Halle said, stopping short in surprise.

  I checked my watch and ran past him. Three minutes.

  “Did you make the call?” he asked Halle.

  I didn’t hear her reply. I sprinted to the middle of the rooftop and did a three-sixty, but the only other person on the roof was a burly maintenance man, his gray shirt spotted with fresh raindrops.

  “Are you Eric?” he asked as he walked toward me. Clearly, Jason had gotten ahold of Zachary’s dad.

  “I am.”

  “I’m Bobby.” He took my hand. “I don’t know what’s going on, but Zachary isn’t here.”

  Fuck. Did he jump already? No way. He couldn’t have. The time thing was never wrong unless… Unless he jumped but didn’t die when he landed. If it took him a few minutes to pass, for his heart to stop beating, I wouldn’t see the actual jump. I would only see when his soul left his body.

  I turned back to Bobby. “Which side is the front of the building?”

  He pointed to my right. I rushed to the edge and looked over. A ledge capped the sixth level of the historic brick building with just enough depth for a person to walk on. No Zachary. And no body on the ground. I spun around, confused, then looked at my watch. Two minutes. What the hell?

  The cop’s voice broke through my panicked thoughts. “I don’t know what you saw, ma’am, but I have another call. Someone parked a pickup on the sidewalk a couple of blocks away, and apparently, the world’s gonna end.”

  Halle’s eyes rounded. She brushed a lock of damp blond hair off her face and stuck a chewed fingernail between her teeth again. “That’s so weird. Why would someone do that?”

  The cop handed her his card with a tip of his hat and a friendly smile. “If you need anything else, ma’am.” Too friendly.

  Was he flirting? At a time like this?

  Bobby looked over the edge, too, trying to figure out what was going on. “Did Zach say something to you? Jason didn’t really tell me much.”

  “Did you find him?” Halle asked. The cop left, and she walked over to us.

  I shook my head.

  She frowned and glanced around. “You saw him jump from here?”

  “Jump?” Bobby asked.

  “No.” I ground my teeth and did another three-sixty. “I see the last moment from the person’s perspective. It’s about a three-second window before and after the soul leaves the body. He was definitely falling. I saw windows above him, and the balcony and pillars right before everything went black.”

  Halle nodded. “Then that’s the only explanation, right?”

  “It has to be.” We sprinted to the other side, frantically searching for the kid.

  “I want to know what’s going on,” Bobby said, fear giving his baritone voice an unnatural quaver. “Who’s jumping?”

  “Bobby, does Zach ever come up here? You know, just to chill?”

  The man was out of breath and went into a slight state of shock when our words started to sink in. “He…he does, but he likes to climb over the ladder and sit on the ledge.”

  Halle looked at him in horror. “Who does that?”

  “He loves heights,” Bobby said as though that explained everything.

  One minute.

  The skies opened up, and raindrops began falling freely, the rooftop suddenly slick as I hurried to the other side and looked over. When I still didn’t see him, I closed my eyes and fought to remember Zach’s last moment once more. What was I missing?

  The windows.

  The balcony.

  The columns.

  And I got the feeling of movement like he was falling, but backward. For him to be able to see what he saw, he would’ve fallen backward. Who jumped off a roof backward?

  I felt a hand on my arm and lifted my lids to see Halle beside me, her face full of hope. “You can do this,” she said, and I realized she was shivering, her lips turning blue in the rain. She squinted against the icy drops as they pelted her face.

  The rain. The limited vision. I looked over the edge once more. The rush-hour traffic.

  The truth hit me like a midsection punch from Iron Mike. I was in the wrong place. I lifted my wrist and wiped rain off my watch. And I was out of time.

  Without another thought, I ran to the access door. I heard Halle behind me. I yelled, “Take the elevator!” as I bounded down the stairs in a single leap. Then I did the same to both sets of stairs per level until I hit the bottom floor.

  Praying no one was on the other side, I burst through the door, splintering the wood and breaking the handle. It slammed against the wall so hard the building vibrated as I ran through the business space on the bottom floor and shoved my way through glass doors onto the street.

  Knowing which direction Zachary would be coming from—the only direction he could, considering his last moment—I spotted him crossing the street instantly. I also saw the delivery truck, seconds away from running him down.

  I reacted without thinking. Later, I would come to regret that, but for now, my legs carried me with only one thought in mind: Get that kid out of harm’s way. I tackled him and turned just as the truck slammed into us. Me. While I’d pushed Zachary out of the truck’s path, I’d put myself in it, but I was apparently prepared for just such a scenario. I raised a hand and shoved off the fender, managing to avoid a head-on and getting a gentle, bone-rattling sideswipe instead.

  I didn’t feel a thing as the truck tossed me like a ragdoll in the opposite direction Zachary would have flown. Unfortunately, that was straight into more traffic. I barely registered screeching tires, horns, and a scream before the world went black.

  Half an hour later, I sat in the back of an ambulance, trying to convince the first responder I was okay.

  She was cute. And she really wanted my pants off.

  “They’re half-ripped off anyway,” she said, defending her position.

  They weren’t just half off. They were shredded, my Breaking Bad tee a sad homage to Walter’s last days, but my injuries weren’t that bad. Scrapes and bruises and possibly a mild concussion. Either that or Halle was really gazing at me with doe-like eyes full of both concern and gratitude. She sat beside the EMT, wringing her hands. And still shivering.

  “I really think you should go to the hospital,” the med-tech said.

  “Can I get a blanket?” I asked her.

  “Of course.” She rose to her feet and brought down a blue blanket wrapped in plastic. She unwrapped it and started to lay it over me, but I sat up, took it from her, and draped it over Halle’s shoulders.

  Halle fought me. Naturally. “I’m fine. You need this more than I do.”

  I tugged it tightly around her and held the ends in a clenched fist, daring her to get it off. She was soaked to the bone and had just saved a life. I wouldn’t have made it in time without her help. And her erratic driving. She deserved a warm blanket.

  “Is he okay?” the truck driver asked for the fiftieth time. “My damn defroster doesn’t work. I’ve told my company a dozen times.” He scraped a hand down his face and walked off when he got a call.

  “How did you get down there so fast?” Bobby asked. He was standing in the rain, holding onto his son with an arm over his shoulders. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Adrenaline?” I guessed. Though the long legs didn’t hurt.

  “You saved my life,” Zachary said, and I couldn’t be certain he wasn’t still drunk. His words were slightly slurred, either from the alcohol earlier or the cold. As warm as the day had been, the rain felt like an ice storm in January.

  I grinned at him. “Can I ask you something, kid?”

  He winced at my use of the word kid, but I had a decade on him, and I was going to use it.

  “Why were you drinking so much?”

  His eyes widened, and he cast a sideways glance at his dad before asking, “You mean at the bar?”

  I nodded as the EMT irrigated one of my deeper scrapes before placing a piece of gauze on top and wrapping it.

  “What are you talking about?” Bobby asked him. “How much did you drink?”

  Zachary cleared his throat. “A lot. I had something to tell you, and I didn’t know how.”

  Bobby eased his hold to face him. “What’s going on?”

  “First,” Zachary said, taking a cautionary step backward. This would be good. “Just know I’m going to finish college, okay? If it’s the last thing I do, I’ll get my degree.”

  “Okay,” his dad said, his voice and expression wary. “And second?”

  Zachary kicked a rock. “Second, Teresa’s pregnant.”

  Bobby’s jaw fell open as Zachary kicked another pebble and looked away. After taking a moment to absorb that bombshell, Bobby pressed his lips together and patted his son’s shoulder. “It’s okay.”

  “No, it’s not. Mom is gonna freak.”

  “True, but we’ll talk to her together.”

  Seeing their close bond warmed my heart. Not like…a lot, though. Maybe a twelfth of a degree.

  “Wait,” Bobby said, scratching his neck in thought. “I thought your girlfriend’s name was Lauren.”

  Zachary stuffed his hands into his pockets and said, “It is.”

  “Then who’s Teresa?”

  Zachary cleared his throat, then said softly, “Lauren’s sister.”

  Halle gasped then turned to me and patted my arm, pretending not to hear. “Maybe we should head back now.”

  “I think that’s a good idea.” I hustled off the gurney despite the EMT’s protests.

  “I don’t know how to thank you,” Zachary said.

  Finishing college would not be the last thing he did. I saw his new-and-improved last moment, and it would not happen for a very long time—though still too young in my book.

  “You could lay off the carbs,” I suggested.

  I waited a few seconds then looked again. Damn it. No one ever took dieting advice to heart. He would die in his late sixties of cardiac arrest. In his defense, most of the last moments I saw were practically cemented in stone, which was why I rarely tried to change history. Today’s outcome was unusual.

  “I still think you should go to the hospital,” the EMT said, adopting a childlike posture complete with crossed arms and a protruding lower lip.

  “It’s okay. I think we have a pickup to get out of impound.” I eased out of the ambulance and turned to help Halle down.

  “Oh, your blanket,” she said to the EMT, handing it back to her. “Thank you.”

  The woman accepted it with a deeper pout.