What I found was a brass button. I picked it up and rubbed the metal to clean it, and then I used my phone to light up the button in my hand. The insignia showed a small crown and shield, with the initials HSM underneath. I knew that those initials stood for Hart Schaffner Marx, because that was the brand of navy blazer I’d been wearing yesterday, and my coat had identical buttons on the cuffs.

The Dylan who lived here, Tai’s husband, owned the same blazer. I didn’t think that was a coincidence.

I stared at the dark riverbank where the rat had disappeared. The weeds beside the trail grew particularly high here. Between the brush and the trees clustered tightly together, I couldn’t even see the rusted fence on the riverbank. I looked up and down the trail to make sure I was still alone, and then I plunged into the weeds. When I reached the fence, I didn’t even need to climb it. The mesh had been cut away from the post, leaving a gap where I could squeeze to the other side. Only a few feet separated me from the river at the bottom of the slope. A dense web of green branches leaned over the water. I heard the low slurp of the current. Birds chattered loudly, as if warning me away.

It was still night in here, dark and deep. Using my phone again, I lit up a small patch of the woods around me, watching a cloud of insects flock to the glow. When I turned the light to the ground, I caused a stir, as half a dozen more rats scattered from where they’d been feeding. When I looked at what they’d left behind, my stomach lurched. I held in the urge to vomit. I squeezed my eyes shut and took several deep breaths. Then I steeled myself to see what was below me.

A body.

A body with no face. That was partly because of the rats eating away what was left of the corpse and partly because someone had used a shovel or club to bash the man’s face to a pulp. He was completely unrecognizable, but he was wearing a Hart Schaffner Marx navy blazer identical to the one I owned. I checked the cuff and saw a missing button, and below the cuff, the body was missing something else. His hand had been cut off. I checked and found that the other hand was missing, too.

No fingerprints.

It was an eerie feeling, staring at myself, dead. Because I knew this was Dylan Moran. Tai’s Dylan Moran, who was never coming home to her. No one was likely to identify him in his current state, and that was assuming his body was found at all before the rats skeletonized him and gnawed away what was left of the bones. He’d simply ooze away into the ground.

What did I do next? I did nothing.

I left him there. I definitely wasn’t going to call the police.

When I was sure no one else was nearby, I slipped through the fence again and headed toward home. His home. No one would be looking for him, no one would wonder if the body was his, because Dylan Moran wasn’t missing. He was right where he was supposed to be. I was here in his place.

I had a strange, disorienting realization about what this all meant.

If I wanted it, this man’s life was mine.

Eve Brier had already warned me. You might be tempted to stay.

Roscoe had feared the same thing. They were both right.

I’d come to this world to stop a killer, but now that I was here, I found myself wondering: What if I really could find Karly?

Could we be together again?

Could I have what I’d lost?

I’d be lying if I said I didn’t want that, but it gave me a sick feeling to think about rebuilding my life over the decomposing body of another Dylan Moran.

I didn’t know what to do. I needed Eve’s help. I needed to find out more about the Many Worlds and what would happen to me if I stayed.

She’d given me her business card when we first met. It listed the address of her office in the tapering black tower that Chicagoans would always call the Hancock Center. Her psychiatry practice was lucrative enough to afford her exclusive space along the Magnificent Mile.

I drove downtown, parked a couple of blocks away, and joined the morning chaos on Michigan Avenue. It felt normal to be here, as if nothing in my world had changed. I could head south to my favorite lunch places, and they would recognize me. I could walk into my office at the LaSalle Plaza and go to work, and no one would find anything strange about it.

This was Dylan Moran’s Chicago.

I entered the building through the doors on Chestnut Street along with a sea of commuters. Inside the lobby, I found myself mesmerized by the sculpture that dominated the space. Called Lucent, it was a globe formed by thousands of blue lights designed to emulate the stars of the night sky. With a mirrored ceiling above it and a black pool of water beneath, the endless reflections made me think of the parallel worlds in which I was caught. Somehow, I didn’t think that was an accident. Eve had picked this place for a reason, as if the artwork were the first step in opening a patient’s mind to limitless possibilities.

I gave the guard at the security desk my name and the number of Eve’s office on the twenty-ninth floor. While he tapped on his keyboard, I thought about what I needed to say to her. As far as I knew, she and I were strangers in this world, but she was also my ally, my coconspirator. She was the one who’d delivered me here, so it made sense that she could help me decide what to do next.

“Sir?”

The guard interrupted my thoughts. I watched a frown furrow his face.

“I’m sorry, sir, but that office isn’t registered to Eve Brier.”

I tried to focus on what he was telling me. “Who does have the space? Maybe she’s part of a larger practice.”

“Actually, no one’s in that office right now,” he replied. “The suite is vacant.”

“Do you know for how long?”

“Almost a year.”

“Was Eve Brier the previous tenant?” I asked. “Is it possible she moved?”

“Not according to my records. I ran the name, and there’s no Eve Brier in any other space inside the building. It doesn’t look like there ever was. I’m sorry, sir. She’s not here.”

I thanked him and walked away. Eve had no phone; she had no office in Hancock Center. I should have expected that her world had changed, just as everyone else’s had, but I was genuinely shocked to realize that she wasn’t here. Not just shocked—afraid. I was under the spell of her therapy, and she was gone.

I sat down in one of the lobby chairs and used my phone to run searches for Eve Brier.

For her psychiatric practice.

For her medical school and degree.

For her lectures.

For her bestselling book about Many Worlds and Many Minds.

For Eve Brier herself, with her swirls of highlighted brown hair and her distinctive, hypnotic eyes. If she wasn’t in Chicago, where was she? If she wasn’t living her life, what was she doing?

She had to be out there somewhere, but I found nothing. There was no record of Eve Brier, doctor, psychiatrist, philosopher, author. There was no record of Eve Brier anywhere, no one who even looked like her. She’d left no footprints in this world.

As far as I could tell, she didn’t exist.

I got up from where I was sitting. As I stood in the lobby, the Lucent sculpture engulfed me again. I found myself lost in its thousands of lights and endless reflections, and then my eyes focused on a single star among the many. That was me, one insignificant point of light, lost somewhere in an infinite number of universes.

Infinite.

I heard the word in my head.

All I had to do was say it. That was my way out. Roscoe had told me it would be better if I just went home, but I hadn’t finished what I’d come here to do. There was a Dylan Moran in this city who had already killed twice. Karly was alive and in his sights, and I had to save her.

Eve Brier couldn’t help me.

I was going to have to navigate this world on my own.

CHAPTER 20

From downtown, I drove back to Northwestern.

I retraced my steps in the light of day to the residence hall where Karly lived, but like last night, I stopped before going inside. This wasn’t the way to approach a stranger. All I would do was alarm her. Instead, I needed a meeting with her that was innocent and accidental.

I noticed a young man in shorts and sunglasses, reading an economics textbook on the building’s back porch. It wasn’t even eleven in the morning, but he already had an empty beer can tipped on its side and another one in his hand. Ah, college days.

“Hey, do you know where I can find Karly Chance?” I called to him. “I need her signature to add a class in the fall.”

He didn’t even look up from his book. “Try Norris. She hangs out there.”

“Thanks.”

Norris was the university’s student center and gathering place. It was only about a ten-minute walk from where I was, and the path took me past a quiet inner lake formed by fill land that blocked the waves of Lake Michigan. Sunshine beat down on my head, but the breeze off the water was cool. I entered Norris in the dining area and checked the tables to see if Karly was there. She wasn’t, but the building was a large space with several floors, and she could be anywhere. I strolled around the sprawling center, and everywhere I looked, I expected to see her. I tensed for that moment.