The lights were off, but beams of sun spilled in. It looked nothing like the show. The furniture was low and Scandinavian, light colors and graceful curves resting on a rug that looked expensive. The room radiated emptiness, a sixth-sense feeling that no one was home. But someone lived here. Scratch that. He lived here.

He walked to the front door. Through cut glass insets he could see an end table, a marble floor, framed photographs on the wall. He reached for the handle. Locked.

Daniel reached into his pocket and pulled out the ring of keys. The BMW alarm fob, one small key he’d mangled unscrewing license plates, and three others. The second one slid into the deadbolt, snapped it back with oiled ease. He put a hand on the handle, fingers sweaty.

I am Daniel Hayes. This is my house.

So why am I terrified?

He twisted the handle. The door swung open without a sound.

With one last backward glance, he stepped inside.

5

Nothing happened. No trumpets or explosions or gaping holes in reality. He took one step and then another, sneakers squeaking on the marble. The air tasted stale.

The hallway was bright and broad, with an archway leading to the living room, and another at the end of the hall. A staircase of polished wood supported by metal framework rose so that each step seemed to hang in the air. There was a faint patina of dust on the end table by the door, and a beaten copper bowl that held loose change, a receipt, sunglasses. He had an urge to pull out his keys and money and drop them there. “Hello?”

He closed the door— click—walked to the wall with the photographs. There were three of them, black-and-white shots, professionally matted and framed.

All Emily Sweet.

It looked like they had been shot at the same time. All three showed her in a white tee against a white wall, shirt blending so that her features and hair and the skin of her arms seemed summoned forth from light. In the first she was turned to the side, dark hair draped soft over her features, arm pulling the shirt up enough to show the curve of her breast; in another she faced forward but looked away, the barest hint of a smile teasing her lips. The third, the most sensual, had her pressed face-first to the wall, one hand up, her head tipped slightly back, as though caught in a daydream. They were beautiful but not quite professional, the contrast not perfect, the lighting a little off, as though they had been taken by a journeyman photographer. But the look on her face, the trust in the poses, they gave the images power. These photos had been taken by someone who loved her.

Is this what it feels like to go mad?

But he didn’t believe it. Somehow he knew better, knew from that part of himself that had vanished. Knew, even as he walked through the arch into the cluttered living room, that there would be other photographs.

There were. And not just of her.

A collection of frames sat on the mantel. Emily and a man in ski wear squinting into the camera against the intense light of an alpine slope. Emily and a man dancing, her caught in the middle of a laugh, his hand in the small of her back. Another taken at arm’s length, Emily and a man in a restaurant, the two of them leaning against each other in the booth, cheeks touching, both smiling a luminous, careless smile. Emily and a man sprawled across the hood of a gray BMW, holding up the title papers.

A gray BMW like the one he had driven here.

And a man who looked just like him.

Daniel floated. The real him was a balloon tethered three feet up and back from his head. He could see himself moving around the living room. His living room. See himself leaning in to look at the photos more closely. Emily arms-deep in a pumpkin, newspapers spread out to catch seeds and orange goop. In one photo a man who looked just like a younger version of him had a cigarette in one hand, and with the other gave the camera the finger. There was Emily in a makeup chair, graceful shoulders bare, someone fiddling with her hair. And here was a man who looked just like him wearing a tuxedo, standing in the ocean with her, the water up to his knees but not quite reaching her white gown.

Daniel reached for the picture. His hands were shaking, and he knocked it backward, managed to grab it before it hit. He lifted it closer, unsteady hands making their wedding photograph tremble.

Jesus Christ.

Their wedding photo.

He could hear his heart, actually hear it, the whooshing thump of the pulse in his neck, his ears. The woman in the photograph, that was his wife. Emily Sweet.

No, you stupid son of a bitch. Don’t you dare. The ice you’re on is too thin to play.

Not Emily Sweet. Laney Thayer. The actress. And that beach, he knew it. It was lonely and desolate and rocky. He’d woken there, naked and half-dead, just days ago.

So then . . .

His obsession with the TV show, with her, it had been about the woman he loved. The real-life woman, not the character from the show. He was married to Laney Thayer. That explained why he knew what time her show was on, why he’d been so eager to catch it. He’d been desperate to see her. His brain had been trying to guide him back home after all. More literally than he realized.

Okay, he thought. Breathe. Just breathe. And concentrate.

He took the picture to the couch, shoved aside a throw pillow. Now that he was home, now that he knew the truth, everything should resolve itself.

There was a date calligraphied in the corner of the mat, 05/23/03. The couple in the photograph looked like the American Dream. Young, beautiful, successful, and lit by love. The kind of people who got married on a beach and then walked into the surf, laughing, and screw their formal wear. It was all there—everything everyone wanted.

So why—

He took a breath, closed his eyes, opened them again.

why can’t I—

Easy, he had to go easy. It would come, it would come, it would come.

remember?

He jammed his eyes shut as hard as he could, ground his fists into them until he could see stars and comets, until the jelly shifted under his knuckles. He felt like screaming, like throwing the picture across the room, like grabbing a chair and hurling it through the window in a sparkling rain of glass. He felt . . . he felt so . . . so . . .

Helpless.

Relax. Relax. It will come back. You can feel it, all of it, so close. Just stay loose. Be calm.

Get a drink.

Daniel opened his eyes. Stood up, set the picture back on the mantel. Walked through the living room, the dining room—a showpiece table surrounded by antique chairs, all looking very expensive— to the kitchen. The air changed as he did, a sweet smell of rot.