“This is a total fluke, Sarah. You may not be able to help me, but you’re my only lead. I’m the events manager at the LaSalle Plaza Hotel, and my assistant took a call today from a woman named Karly Chance who was interested in booking our ballroom for an event next spring. Unfortunately, my assistant must have gotten the number wrong, because my calls won’t go through. The thing is, I remembered that you set me up on a blind date with a woman named Karly Chance a long time ago. I have no idea whether it’s the same person, but I figured it was worth a try. If you were still in touch with her, I thought you might know how I could reach her.”

Sarah had no problem believing my story, but she didn’t have much information to offer. “I’m sorry, Dylan. Karly and I lost touch after college. I haven’t talked to her in years. I’m afraid I have no idea how to get hold of her.”

“Sure. I understand. Am I right about the name of your friend, though? It was Karly Chance?”

“Yes, that was her.”

“Do you know if she stayed in Chicago after school?”

“Well, if I remember correctly, she was planning to continue at Northwestern and do graduate work in English. I don’t know if she did, but you could probably check with the university. They might have a way to track her down.”

“I appreciate it, Sarah. I’ll let you go. Roscoe says hi.”

I hung up the phone. I did another online search—this time adding the word Northwestern to the name Karly Chance—and not only did I find a record for her, I discovered that she was a junior member of the Northwestern faculty. The idea of Karly teaching English didn’t seem far fetched to me. Her father had been a poet and high school teacher, so it seemed as if she’d followed in his footsteps in this world rather than in the footsteps of her mother.

The online biography didn’t include a photograph, but the website listed her office location on the third floor of University Hall. That was only about five minutes away from where I was.

I could feel my heart racing as I drove to the campus. It was late, but being so close, I couldn’t wait until tomorrow to get an answer. My instincts all told me it was her. My Karly. My wife. She was leading a different life here, and for all I knew, she was married to someone else. The one time we’d met in this world had gone poorly. But none of that mattered. I needed to see her again.

At night, I had no trouble parking. I walked along Chicago Avenue toward Sheridan, and I shivered a little in my thin red shirt, because the lake breeze had cooled the air. The serene stone buildings of the university surrounded me. I crossed under the black arch that led into the heart of the campus and saw the clock tower of University Hall down the path in front of me. The closer I got, the harder it was to breathe. Just by seeing her, even for a moment, I felt as if I could get a little bit of my life back.

The doors of the white, rough-stone building were unlocked. Inside, I heard muffled voices. From somewhere nearby came the acrid smell of an illicit cigarette. The building stairs were ahead of me, and I climbed to the third floor. In the corridor, I passed a long lineup of offices, a few with doors cracked open. I could see a couple of faculty members tapping at their keyboards. Otherwise, the hallway was empty and museum quiet.

I found the room number listed on her online bio. The door was closed and locked. There was no window to see inside. But there was her name. Karly Chance. She’d posted no photograph on the door, but it was her. I saw a handwritten listing of her office hours pinned to a bulletin board, and the handwriting was unmistakably Karly’s. I’d found her. She came and went day by day down this same hall. She worked on the other side of this door. I thought about breaking in, just so I could smell the fragrance inside, because I knew it would smell like her.

“May I help you?”

I turned around and saw a slight Indian man studying me suspiciously from behind a pair of red glasses. He was one of the faculty members I’d seen working in his office.

My mind was getting accustomed to lying. “Oh, I was supposed to meet Karly here, but we must have gotten our signals crossed. I tried texting her, but my messages aren’t going through.”

“Are you a student?” the man asked, even though I obviously wasn’t.

“No, no, I’m her cousin. I’m in town from Seattle on business, and I was supposed to take her out for a late dinner. Do you know Karly?”

“Of course.”

I took a chance that the world had only changed so much.

“I’ve been looking forward to seeing her,” I went on, inventing a new story. “I don’t get out this way very often. Her dad is my favorite uncle. I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree. Tom’s a teacher, Karly’s a teacher. I used to really like Tom’s poetry, too. I loved listening to him read his poems when they’d come out to Washington for Christmas dinner.”

The faculty member visibly relaxed. He was obviously protective of his colleague, but I’d passed the test by talking about her family. “Yes, Tom is an accomplished poet. As is Karly, of course.”

“Yes, she’s incredibly talented.”

“Great trauma can bring that out in a person,” he added.

I stuttered with surprise. “Yes.”

Trauma.

It scared me to hear that word, and I wondered what it meant. He assumed I knew something about Karly that I obviously didn’t. Something terrible. I realized that the more I said, the more it would become clear that I didn’t actually know her. Not in this world.

“Well, there’s not much I can do but head back to my hotel,” I said. “Nice talking to you. I’m sorry I missed Karly. Hopefully she’ll check her phone soon.”

“You know, she doesn’t live far away. She’s the faculty rep in Goodrich.”

“Goodrich? Is that one of the dorms?”

“Yes, it’s just a few minutes’ walk up Sheridan. If you go up there, one of the students can probably let her know you’re outside.”

“I’ll do that. Thanks a lot.”

I left the building and went back to the street. The wind whipped through the trees, and I shoved my hands in my pockets as I took the sidewalk north. As excited as I was at the idea that Karly was close by, I also found myself confronting an unhappy truth. I was trying to find a stranger. More than that, I was trying to find a stranger who’d gone through something dark in her past. Trauma.

In my mind, I couldn’t escape the idea that Karly knew me. I’d see her, and she’d be my wife, and she’d be in love with me. But none of that was true. If I simply showed up at her door, a man who’d met her once on an awful blind date years earlier, she’d wonder why I was there and what I wanted.

What did I want?

Honestly, I had no idea. I needed to protect her, but I didn’t know how to warn her of the danger from someone who was actually me.

When I got to the residence hall, I hesitated at the alley. A few lights were on inside the building, and I could see a handful of summer students through the open curtains and hear music through their windows. I debated whether to stay or just leave. What would I say if I found her?

Then, not far away, a door opened. A woman emerged from inside the dorm, lingered briefly under the lights, and then turned away toward the gardens in back. She was visible for only a moment, and all I could see was a hint of blond hair and the curve of her jaw.

The woman looked like Karly, but I couldn’t be sure. Maybe I just wanted it to be her.

Even so, I followed. I took the alley to the back of the building, where the dormitories and fraternities came together in a kind of quad. It was almost impossible to see in the darkness back here. Trees crowded the open lawns and blocked my view. Ivy-covered walls butted up to the cobblestoned sidewalks. I didn’t see Karly—if it really was Karly—but she couldn’t have gone far. I heard the tap of her heels on stone, but the noise bounced between the walls and made it hard to tell where she was.

I crossed beside a building with Greek letters engraved over its doorway. Bike racks were crowded near the rear door, and I smelled weed through one of the windows. I stopped by the dense, overgrown hedges and listened again, hearing no footsteps this time. Then, on the far side of the lawn, I spotted a flash of her blond hair as she passed under the glow of a lamppost. She disappeared into a narrow corridor between two buildings. I changed direction to go after her, navigating between the trees. The branches dangled low to the ground, scraping my face as I hurried through the damp grass.

When I was halfway across the lawn, I stopped.

A stab of horror ran through my body. Ahead of me, a silhouette detached itself from the thick trunk of an elm tree. It was a man. He stood on the fringe of the grass, framed in darkness by the lamppost. I recognized the outline of his body, because I’d seen it in photographs throughout my life. That was how I looked, with my lean, small frame, with my shock of wavy hair. It was me. It was him. He headed after the blond woman with a determined stride, and as he crossed under the light of the lamppost, I saw the dirty leather of his coat. My father’s coat. I also saw a glinting reflection of something metal in his hand.

A knife.

He was carrying a knife.

I tried to run, but the slick mud under my feet slowed me down. When I got to the walkway between the buildings, the corridor was already empty. I sprinted to the far side and found myself in a wooded area where four sidewalks met in a cross, with more ivy-covered walls on every side. My doppelg?nger was gone. So was Karly.

Was it Karly?