“I don’t know what you mean,” Jerry says. “You had my stuff?”

“When we bought the house, it came with all the furniture.”

Jerry nods. He is Understanding Jerry. “It’s not furniture I’m after. It’s something hidden in the office.”

“We’re hoping you’ll let Jerry take a look to see if it’s still there,” Nurse Hamilton says.

“Of course! Of course,” Terrance says. “I hope it’s no bother, but . . . but since you’re here, would it be okay if you signed my books? It would be an honor, it really would be.”

“I’m not so sure we have that much time,” Nurse Hamilton says, reminding Jerry that the police have been called. Would there be any urgency? After all, what could Mrs. Smith have said other than he was sitting in a car parked on the street? It seems unlikely the Armed Offenders Squad will be showing up, but it does seem likely he’s breaking some violation by being here—he was committed to a nursing home, he shouldn’t be out and about. Best to get out of here as soon as they can, but one thing he’s never done is say no to a fan wanting their books signed, and he’s not going to start saying no now.

“I’m sure we can take the extra couple of minutes for Gary,” he says.

“It’s Terry,” Terrance says.

“Terry. I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay, don’t worry about it.”

Terrance opens the office door. “This is where the magic happened. I’m hoping some of that will rub off on me,” he says, then laughs again in the same self-deprecating way from earlier before the laugh abruptly ends and becomes a sneeze.

Jerry steps into his office, and that’s what it is—his office. It’s his desk, and his couch, and his framed prints on the wall. It’s his office chair, his bookcase, his potted plant on the table, his stereo, his phone, his lamp. The house came with more than just pieces of furniture. The only thing that isn’t his is the computer. It feels like he’s stepped back in time. That he’s home. That Sandra will be somewhere in the house, or at work, or maybe out shopping.

“It’s almost just how you left it,” Terrance says.

“It’s my office,” Jerry says, somewhat disturbed Terry would have kept it the same way. Like a shrine. “This is my office.”

“Just like you left it,” Terrance says.

“My home,” Jerry says.

Nurse Hamilton puts a hand on his shoulder. “This isn’t your home anymore,” she says, and she sounds unhappy with the development. “This isn’t your office. I think it might have been a mistake bringing you here. If I had known it still looked like this,” she says, but doesn’t finish the thought.

Jerry walks over to the bookshelf. All the books he owned, at least they’re gone, replaced by books that Terry has bought, including a whole shelf of Henry Cutter bestsellers, some titles he recognizes, some he doesn’t. Also on the shelves are trinkets from his life. When he used to travel, he always collected something from every country. There’s a miniature Eiffel Tower next to a bracelet he picked up in Turkey next to a small bobblehead Mozart he picked up in Austria.

“My wife thinks it’s stupid keeping the office this way,” Terrance says, as Jerry picks up a small, plushy King Kong he bought from the Empire State Building. He can remember standing in the queue, and the cold frigid wind eighty-six stories up, his shoulders hunched as he looked over the city with Sandra, a city more alive than any other he’s seen. He can remember that, but not what happened to her.

“But I’m such a big fan of the books,” Terrance adds, carrying on, “and you must have had so many good ideas in here and . . . and hey, I know it’s stupid, and maybe weird, but sometimes stupid works out, right?”

Jerry puts down the toy. He walks over to his desk and runs his fingers along the edge of it. The desk is backing onto the window so the view outside wouldn’t distract him. He looks at the couch.

“You once said in an interview the couch was the best thing you ever put into your office and also the worst,” Terrance says. “Some of the best ideas came to you on that couch, but you also lost a lot of hours on that thing.”

Jerry nods. He feels nostalgic. He feels like lying on the couch and soaking in the memories of this room. On the wall is the line from Fahrenheit 451. He walks over and touches the frame holding it. “It took some man a lifetime maybe to put some of his thoughts down, looking around at the world and life, and then I came along in two minutes and boom! It’s all over.”

“Is that what you wanted?” Terrance asks. “The Ray Bradbury quote?”

Jerry shakes his head. He can remember printing it out and framing it. He can remember the sorrow on Sandra’s face when he explained it to her.

“It’s about reviewers, right?” Terrance asks. “You pour your life and soul into a novel, and somebody can dissect it in all sorts of cruel ways in such a short time.”

“It’s not about reviewers,” Jerry says, and when he doesn’t offer any further explanation, Terrance repeats his offer of getting them a drink.

“We’re fine,” Nurse Hamilton says. “Where is the floorboard, Jerry?”

“There’s a loose floorboard?” Terrance asks.

“It’s here,” Jerry says, and turns and points to the bottom of the desk. “But we need to slide the desk back and we need something to pry it up. I used to use a screwdriver. There should be one in the desk.”

Terrance shakes his head. “The drawers were empty when we moved in, but I have a screwdriver in the kitchen. Wait, wait, is the gun under there?” he asks, pointing at the floor. “Is that what you’re looking for?”

Jerry shakes his head. “There’s a journal,” he says. He didn’t know the gun wasn’t recovered. Maybe it is under there too. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m happy for you to reach under for it,” he says, but then that doesn’t make him feel any better. He has the image of this guy finding the gun and holding them hostage while forcing Jerry to write the next book for him, then the gun goes back under the floorboards, hidden there along with Carol Hamilton, Nurse, and Jerry Grey, Crime Writer.

“Sure, sure, of course. How about I grab the screwdriver and you sign some books while I’m gone?” Terrance says, sounding hopeful.

“No problem.”

“And if there’s time, I was wondering, could I bounce some ideas off you? I’m working on—”

“Please, we really are in a hurry,” Nurse Hamilton says.

“Of course, of course,” Terrance says, looking like a ten-year-old boy just told off for talking loudly in class. “Here, the books are just here,” he says, and he strips them away from the top shelf of the bookcase and puts them on the desk, the thirteen of them forming two piles, thirteen plots and thirteen sets of characters Jerry can barely remember, the thirteenth of which he barely wrote. He picks it up. It’s called Fire Time, which is a title, Jerry remembers, he didn’t come up with but the ghostwriter. He can’t remember what he wanted to call it. He can remember it was about an arsonist, but has no idea what it’s about now. He hasn’t read it or, if he has, he can’t remember it.

“Just make them out to Terry,” Terry says, bringing Jerry back to the moment. “Just sign whatever you feel like signing.”

Terrance disappears. Jerry picks up a pen and wonders if it was one of his pens too. He sits behind the desk. He puts his hands on it and closes his eyes, hoping when he opens them he’ll be back in time, that coming here has been a doorway into his past not just in memory but in reality. It doesn’t work out that way. They can hear Terrance sneezing from the other end of the house. Jerry starts signing the books. Book signings are easy when you’re signing just one book per person, he thinks, but complicated when that one person owns many of the novels. He’s always felt like he needed to sign a different message in every book. He signs To Gary, thanks for being a good sport in the first one. To Gary, thanks for being a fan. To Gary, I like what you’ve done with the place.