I woke up the next morning sore and exhausted. How did I even go to sleep after what I saw? The impossible. The inconceivable. Even though I was pretty sure physics wasn’t my strong suit, I knew that what he did defied the laws of… everything. Nature. Science. Man. Did that mean that everything we knew about the world around us was a lie?

My mind spun with all the possibilities. With all the implications.

When I dragged myself into the shower, I tried not to think of it.

I failed.

Since I’d run home without Reyes’s, I had no jacket to walk to work in. As with many things in life, layering was the answer. I pulled on a T-shirt, then a button-down, then a thin sweater, and to top off my layer cake ensemble, I found the biggest, bulkiest sweater in my admittedly sparse closet and wiggled into it.

If this didn’t do the trick, nothing would.

I grabbed my bag, said good-bye to the crew, and stepped out into a world of glittering ice. And there on my porch, hanging from a hook that had once held a wind chime, was Reyes’s jacket. He’d brought it to me. I wrapped it tightly around myself. He couldn’t be that mad if he was concerned enough to leave his jacket.

With breath visible, I hurried down the steps, almost biting it on the last one, then crunched across my yard and to the café.

Mable peeked out her screen door and waved at me.

“Good morning, Mable!”

She seemed different. Upset, perhaps. Her wave wasn’t so much a greeting as a device to get my attention. I glanced around, then walked up her steps.

“Is everything okay?” I asked her.

She nodded, then gestured for me to enter. Mable walked the fine line between being a messy housekeeper and a hoarder. Piles of mail and magazines sat on every available surface. Plastic bins of items she was saving for this grandkid or that cousin lined the walls. And a collection of old dolls sat in a glass hutch that hadn’t been dusted in probably twelve years. She wasn’t gross, just cluttered. And a little dusty.

I waited for her to put in her teeth, then questioned her with a quirked brow.

“Laryngitis,” she whispered, a slight wheeze to her voice.

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

She waved off my concern. “Doesn’t hurt a bit. I just had to tell you the latest. Have you met Jeremiah Kubrick? He’s Dixie’s ex-father-in-law. Lives down the street near the Denton house?”

“Sorry,” I said with a shrug. I had no idea what the Denton house was.

“Well, we were texting this morning” – I swallowed back my surprise that she and an elderly man were texting – “and he likes to keep an eye on the neighborhood. Has a telescope and everything. Anyway, he said he saw someone in your house last night.”

I let my surprise shine through that time.

“And the night before. But you weren’t home either time, so he thought you should know.”

“Did he get a look at who it was?” I asked from between teeth that had cemented together.

“Sure did. That Jeffries boy. The one who became a cop.”

I knew it. He must’ve made more than one key. “I’m so stupid.”

“You most certainly are not.” She gave my shoulder a chastising whack. “That boy has leaned a little off center since the day his mama brought him into the world. Force must’ve been desperate to hire the likes of him.”

“Thank you so much for telling me.” I had started to leave when the deeper implication sank in. “So this Jeremiah was watching my house with a telescope?”

“No,” she said, chuckling. “He was just seeing if you were home. You know, to try to catch you walking around in your skivvies.”

A horrified yelp squeaked out of me involuntarily. “He’s a peeping Tom?”

“Certainly not! A peeping Tom sneaks around houses and looks in windows. Jeremiah looks in windows from a distance.”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or press charges. Not that I really would have. Pressed charges. I now knew who was breaking into my house, and I had an eyewitness. Jeremiah Kubrick had just given me the proof I needed to report Ian to his superiors.

I had to be careful, though. He was clearly unstable. The best I could hope for would be formal charges for breaking and entering filed against him. But there was a chance he could just lose his job. Then I’d have an even angrier unstable man with a license to carry on my ass.

“Thank you, Mable. I knew someone was breaking in. I just didn’t know who.”

“Well, now you know. And Jeremiah has pictures.”

“No way.” I fought the urge to fist-pump. “Those will help. Can I get a copy?”

“Course.”

“Thanks, Mable. I have to get to work, but —”

When I stopped midsentence, she asked, “What’s wrong?”

“He has pictures?”

“Yes.”

“Does – Does he have pictures of me?”

She laughed. “Where do you think his new wallpaper came from? You look good in that bronze bra and underwear set, by the way. It’s his favorite.”

That was so wrong. So, so wrong. Time to invest in shades. But first, Ian.

Seething to the very depths of my soul, I walked out without even asking if I could get her anything.

How dare Ian. The gall. I felt utterly violated, and he’d never touched me. Well, he had, but not in that way.

Bobert had been a detective. He could advise me on how to proceed. Filing a complaint was one thing. Filing a complaint against a crazy man who also happened to be a cop was another beast entirely.

I strode to work without feeling the cold, I was so mad. Also, I was layered out the ass, a fact that became supremely evident when I had to de-layer in the storeroom.

When I’d first walked in through the back door, I was met with the scent of heaven. Literally. One word hit me. A word I may or may not have worshiped in my previous life. A word that meant the difference between a life filled with meaning and joy and a life vexed with doldrums and thoughts of suicide.

Chile.

Having shed most of my outer coating, I started toward the prep station to get the coffee going. Cookie wasn’t in yet or it would already be done.

As I passed, Reyes stepped out of the kitchen and settled his weight against the doorjamb, his lean body holding the swinging door back.

I stiffened and glanced at him only because it would have been more awkward not to.

He was wiping his hands on a towel. “Feeling suicidal today?” he asked, anger shimmering in his eyes.

“Maybe.” Seriously, I had the best comebacks.

“At least I can remember my name.”

I inhaled, appalled that he would use retrograde amnesia to score such a cheap shot. I stepped closer. “Oh, yeah? At least I’m human.” I probably should have taken note of our surroundings before saying something like that, but he didn’t seem to care.

We were in the middle of a bona fide staredown when he reached into the kitchen and handed me a plate. “Merry Christmas.”

He’d made eggs and enchiladas, with both red and green chile. Christmas style. My mouth flooded so fast, I almost drooled.

“Thank you,” I said, feeling sheepish.

“Oh, and this, too.” He reached back in and handed me a steak knife.

I frowned. I didn’t need a knife to eat enchiladas.