“I’m sure my husband won’t object to any tests you want to run,” Tai said. “We both just want to find out what happened to him.”

I interrupted her politely but firmly. “Actually, Detective, I do object. Sorry. No warrant, no clothes. I’ve read about too many innocent people who got railroaded by the police while trying to do the right thing.”

“Dylan,” Tai said, her voice shocked.

Detective Bushing shrugged his bony shoulders as he got out of the chair. “That’s all right, Mrs. Moran. Your husband is within his rights. The fact is, we already have a DNA sample for Betsy Kern’s killer. He hit her while he was trying to subdue her, and he left some of his blood on her face. We’ll find a match.”

“He hit her?” Tai murmured, with an uncomfortable glance at my hand.

Detective Bushing curled his fingers into a fist and tapped it against his own chin. “Yup. Right in the jaw. You sure you don’t remember how you hurt yourself, Mr. Moran?”

I stared back at him without blinking. “I have no idea.”

I took a pounding shower to wash away days of dirt, but the water on my body was a kind of torture. Instead of clean, hot water from the tap, I imagined the slime of the river coating my skin like an oily film. When I closed my eyes, I was back in the blackness, assaulted by waves of debris whipped along by the swollen current. I held my breath as I dove to find Karly. Somewhere, lost in the river, was her voice. I swam hard, but her scream kept getting farther away.

Dylan, come back! I’m still here!

I shut off the water and crumpled into the shower wall. I pounded a fist against the tile in frustration, and the searing pain reminded me that my hand was probably fractured. The dripping water felt like cold fingers scraping down my back.

Outside the shower, I dried myself with a pink towel. Karly would have hated the idea of pink towels. I went back into the bedroom and stood in front of our open closet, which was now neatly organized to reflect Tai’s OCD tendencies. As I looked at the clothes, I was reminded of the fact that they weren’t mine. They belonged to someone else. Obviously, Tai had picked out my shirts, my ties, my pants. A few items matched things I’d bought in my single days, but Goodwill had apparently made out well after my marriage.

I wondered how long she and I had been married. How had I proposed? Where? What had led me to think that Tai was the one?

On my nightstand, I saw monogrammed cuff links, something I’d never owned. There was also a bottle of cologne, something I never wore. The Dylan who lived here had the same kind of computer tablet I had in my other life, but when I opened it and tapped in my pass code, it didn’t work. Of course not. My pass code had been Karly’s birth date, and there was no Karly in this life. However, I knew Tai’s birth date, and when I entered it, I found myself on the tablet home screen. I scrolled through a few photographs, staring at pictures of Tai, photos taken inside the LaSalle Plaza ballroom, and a few selfies of us near the lake. It was painfully obvious that the person in those pictures wasn’t me. The expressions weren’t the same: no joy, no anger, no life. There was a bland nothingness in my eyes.

I didn’t think I’d like this Dylan Moran. He seemed like a sanitized version of myself, someone who’d learned the wrong lessons from the death of his parents. Not that I was proud of the things I’d done, the drinking, the fighting. But at least I’d lived. I’d fallen in love, head over heels in love with Karly. Even if I’d made mistakes, even if I’d lost her in the river, I’d still had her in my life. I found it hard to imagine that this Dylan even knew what love was.

At the same time, I also wondered: Where is he?

This was his home. He lived here with Tai. He was the one who’d been missing for two days, not me. He’d gone into the park on the same night as Betsy Kern, and he’d never come back. I realized that any moment, he might return home, and it would be matter and antimatter meeting face to face.

“Dylan, what’s going on?”

I turned and saw Tai in the doorway. I was naked, and my first instinct was to cover myself. But she was my wife, so I let her see me that way.

“Nothing’s going on,” I said.

“I don’t believe you.”

“Tai, I wish I could explain, but I can’t.”

“Are you cheating on me? Is there someone else? Is that where you were?”

“I’m not cheating on you.”

She was silent for a while, and then she came and sat on our four-poster metal bed, which was covered by a frilly lavender comforter. “Did you hurt that woman?”

“Are you serious? How can you even ask me that? No.”

Tai shook her head. “You’re so closed off. Sometimes it makes me wonder what you’re hiding. You’re like a pressure cooker that’s ready to explode.”

“That’s not me,” I protested, but maybe it was me. The me who lived here.

“I just wish you’d open up, Dylan. You tell me you love me, you marry me, you sleep with me, but you never tell me anything. I’ve always accepted that you are who you are, and I loved you regardless. But now you’re making me feel like I don’t even know you.”

“I’m sorry. I’m not trying to make you feel that way.”

“Roscoe warned me about it, you know,” Tai went on. “He talked to me before the wedding. Just him and me. He told me if I wasn’t happy with who you were, I shouldn’t go through with it. He said if I thought that getting married would change you, I was going to get my heart broken. The thing is, I was willing to take that risk, because I loved you. Now you have to be honest with me. Was I wrong?”

This was one of those moments where a relationship teetered on the brink and could swing one way or another depending on what you said next. By not answering her, I was at risk of blowing up this other Dylan’s life with Tai. That was terribly unfair of me to do, but I couldn’t focus on anything other than the name she’d said.

“Roscoe.”

“I know he’s your friend, but he was trying to help me. Even so, I never doubted my decision about marrying you. That’s the truth.”

I grabbed clothes and began putting them on. A burgundy dress shirt that I left untucked. Black slacks. “Tai, I have to go.”

“Now? Dylan, no, don’t walk away from me.”

“I have to talk to Roscoe.”

“You can see him anytime. You need to talk to me.”

“I told you, it’s hard to explain, but I have to see him right now.”

I spotted car keys on the nightstand and put them in my pocket. I was on my way to the back door when I stopped at the noise behind me. Tai was crying. Her eyes were closed, her head down. I froze with indecision, then went and knelt in front of her. I caressed her cheek.

“I’m sorry,” I said again. “I know you want answers. I wish I could give them to you.”

“Do you love me?” she asked, looking up and wiping her face. “Have you ever loved me?”

I didn’t say anything, which was the worst thing I could do. I wanted to tell her what she needed to hear, but I couldn’t lie. In the silence, she hung her head again and kept crying.

“It’s not you, Tai,” I murmured. “It’s me. Believe me, I’ve never known who I am, either. But I’m trying to find out.”

CHAPTER 17

The South Side Catholic church where Roscoe served as a priest was a century-old redbrick building with a massive rose window built into its face. I’d been here many times to help him with raffles, book fairs, and food parties, but I hadn’t been back since the day of his funeral four years ago. I wasn’t a churchgoer anyway, and I found it hard to stand in the shadow of all those monuments to God after he had taken away my best friend.

It was early evening by the time I got there, with the summer sun barely hanging on above the trees. I let myself in through heavy double doors. The interior was cool, as it always was, and the tap of my shoes echoed from the high ceiling. As I walked down the center aisle, I was alone in this place, just me and the spectacle of the church. White columns soared over my head. The multicolored stained glass glowed darkly in the walls, and candles flickered in the shadows. Jesus was backlit on the altar, arms spread wide, welcoming me.

I took a seat in one of the pews near the crossing. This was where I’d been seated for the funeral, close enough that I could go up to the lectern under the watchful eyes of the saints and angels to give Roscoe’s eulogy. I was on crutches from the accident then. Karly had helped me. I could still remember the things I’d said through my tears, about the utterly selfless man Roscoe was, about the many ways he’d tried to save his best friend even when I had no interest in being saved.

I missed him so much. He’d left an emptiness behind in my life that I could never fill.