Page 79 of One Second After Another

It was strange for the man to be so soft-spoken ... so unsure.

“Luca—”

He swallowed hard, his fingers wrapping the leather of the steering wheel until his knuckles turned white from the pressure. When was that light going to turn green? “Keys.”

“The bounty’s been collected, man. The bounty for the white ghost. It was just announced on a vanishing forum with digital proof—for a cost, of course.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“Luca—”

“What does that mean?”

“It’s a sealed file of a single photograph—it’s her; if she wasn’t dead, she would have been pretty soon after. Confirmed by a second witness on a another vanishing forum. The bounty is claimed—it’s been paid. She’s dead.”

He had a lot of questions. Details he would never have. A horn blared behind him because the light was finally green, it seemed.

His vision was blurry as wet lines made tracks down his cheeks to his clenched jaw. He really only wanted to know one thing more than anything else.

Why.

That wouldn’t be answered, either.

• • •

THERE WAS A STILLNESS in the darkness that Luca appreciated. The quiet looming of shadows when the sun finally started to fall beyond a treeline was one of his favorite sights to see. He tried to show respect to the end of every day by taking a moment to watch it go because it meant he would soon be given the gift of seeing another start anew.

Except he didn’t find the usual solace at the end of a day as he stared over the rear property of his family’s home. He wasn’t sure why Zeke and Katya’s home was where everyone—from Naz and Roz to even Cross and his wife, Catherine—gathered, but they did. Food was cooked as calls were made and hushed tones turned to angry yells. Between friends, fathers and sons ... shit, Luca even wanted to rage at himself.

They looked for her.

All of them tried—every man who had a contact they could pull tried to find her. Hospitals, morgues, organizations, and even walk-in clinics were called and given the same questions. None had seen the blonde, blue-eyed woman they asked about—Penny was a ghost all over again.

“Still nothing,” Naz said when he stepped out onto the rear veranda of Luca’s parents’ home. In the wicker rocking chair, Cross finally glanced away from the cigar he had been working on lighting while Luca was lost in his thoughts and the oncoming night. “A new day is coming—let it be a restart.”

Luca didn’t even look the man’s way when he muttered, “A restart to what?”

Because for him, life looked a little too dark now. How was he supposed to restart anything when he had barely even been able to begin in the first place?

He’d not been really living until he found Penny again ... and now he didn’t have her at all.

“Dad,” Naz murmured, making Luca realize he still wasn’t alone despite how he kept falling back into his thoughts. “Leave it alone. I think you’ve done enough.”

Cross sighed, shaking his head and repeating, “Let it be a restart.”

22.

Penny

“THEY certainly make doing our job ... difficult.”

“Quite aware,” came the murmur of another voice. “But as they have reminded this hospital time and time again, they also have a job to do.”

“They could make a better effort not to impede ours. And how many times are you going to tell them she’s non-responsive? Cop after cop can come into this room and ask her questions, but clearly she isn’t answering them, Carter.”

“They think she’s ... someone.”

“Someone?”