Ian nodded.

"And just recently, she was nearly buried by a collapsing house?"

"She just got a gash from that. It didn't cover her or anything."

"Her body's immune system may simply be struggling to maintain itself after the two events" The doctor tapped his pen on the clipboard. "We'll keep working on her. I'm not giving up."

Me neither.

A call out of *Doctor' left Ian alone again.

Love couldn't be the reason he wanted to stay. He didn't know Taylor long enough to love her. Yet, something inside him compelled him to be at her side, and with each pa.s.sing hour, that connection grew stronger, even as she failed to heal.

His cell buzzed. Ian reached for it, pressed against his eyelids and said, "Hi, Michael."

"Oh, my G.o.d, Ian. You are not going to believe this."

He wanted to say, *Try me', but fatigue and stress ruined his sense of humor.

"I talked to Janie-that's the girl who's in the library-the one I was telling you about."

"Yeah, yeah," Ian said. "I remember."

"So, get this. She's working on a *Six degrees of separation' thesis, trying to prove that everyone is related."

Ian waved a hand through the air to speed up his brother, forgetting for a moment they were in different cities. "Got it. Move on."

"Yeah, so I'm telling her about you and blondie, and she says, *Well, why don't you just Google it and see what comes up?' So, I sat next to her at the table, you know, feeling her out a little. She's hot in that nerdy, I-know-more-than-you way."

"Michael, please. My head can't take it."

"Oh, yeah. Sorry, bro. So, we're talking, and she flips open her laptop. A few clicks later, she's at a website that traces people's ancestry back for ... ages. And, since she's working on this project, they've given her free access. So, she types in George and Marge's names. Gets Marge's parents as Loren and Amelia, finds out they lived on Weaton Farm-"

Ian shivered at the name of the farm.

"-which is in North Carolina. Turns out it's about three miles from Lexi and Tripp's. Anyway, they were a big sharecropping farm way back when. It's a ma.s.sive, five thousand home neighborhood now, but the original structure is still there."

Ian would have stopped Michael since he knew that part of the story, thanks to Sherril, though the relational location to Taylor's home unnerved him.

"So, she takes a few more clicks and finds out Weaton Farm is connected to an unsolved murder from the eighteen hundreds."

Ian dropped into a chair in the lounge, but his body stayed tense.

"I mean, man, she gets all this from a simple Google search. I didn't even know they still keep data on crimes, murders and crazy s.h.i.t like that from way back when." Michael's breathing increased as if he'd been walking up a flight of stairs.

A tremor ran the length of Ian's form as a screech accompanied a slam of a door through the phone. "Where are you, Michael?"

"Taking a walk back toward the Genetics Lab. Been on my way since I called."

"Did they find something new?"

Another squeal. "I don't know, but I said I'd check in. Hey, Marcie," Michael said.

Ian kept the phone at his ear but dropped his elbows to the table.

"It gets better, too. The case is about a local girl. She disappeared one night. Poofed into nothingness. Fingers were pointed straight at one of the local farmers. He, on the other hand, had not disappeared and was tried-" Michael snorted. "-Tried, my a.s.s, and hanged for her murder despite never finding the body. Typical of the day, but geez. That bites."

"So, okay, last bit before I let you go. According to good ole search engine number one, the farmer was Jack Howard Mchanga, and the girl was Isabella Claire, last name T-A-I-L-O-R."

Taylor Claire Marsh.

"She was apparently the local tailor's daughter, and he was ... apparently nothing but a farmer."

A farmer.

Shuffling filled the earpiece. "You know ... if a white girl and one of us were shacking up back then ... boy, that would've been ... I can't even say it out loud. I looked *em up, too. The info I found listed her birthday as June twelfth, eighteen sixty-five, and the day she went missing as May thirty-first, eighteen eighty-five-"

Nineteen years old.

"-and his birthday wasn't noted, but his date of death was November seventeenth, eighteen eighty-five."

My birthday. s.h.i.t. s.h.i.t. s.h.i.t.

"Skin color did dangerous things back then," Michael said.

A bone that matches Taylor's DNA. A photo that looks like us. A murder. Who killed her? Me, because we couldn't be together? Is that why she's seen my face? Aw, s.h.i.t. This can't be good.

Ian jumped from his seat, whipped open the door and started for Taylor's room, intent on grabbing her wallet for a look at her license. People continued to go in and out. He spun toward the nurse's station, his breath coming in fits, and a mounting worry tickling the base of his skull.

Maryanne, one of those who'd befriended him, tilted up from her computer. "What can I do for you, Ian?"

"Really weird question-"

"Ian?" Michael's voice came through the phone's speaker.

"Let me call you back." With the close of his phone, Ian took a deep breath. The nurses on the unit all thought him the greatest fiance ever, not knowing he had no formal connection to Taylor. "This is going to sound weird, but ..." He sucked in more air. "Could you tell me Taylor's birthday?"

Maryanne c.o.c.ked her head. "You don't remember her birthday? Typical male." She waved him away but typed on the keyboard. "Ah ... June 12-"

s.h.i.t. He held up the phone. "I gotta-I gotta go make a phone call." He walked away without another look back.

These people are us.

And I killed her.

21.

Heart pounding, Ian raced toward the hospital exit, desperate for sunshine and a lack of coincidences. He hit send on the phone as he reached the doors, his palm slapping his forehead on his burst outside. "Well, s.h.i.t."

Twilight engulfed the front courtyard. The entire day had pa.s.sed, and he hadn't even noticed.

"Hey, man," Tripp answered on the second ring. "How's-"

"It's official ... we've been reincarnated. And, something happened to us last time that ended up with me dead and her missing." Having spewed out the words faster than he'd expected to, Ian dropped to the bench. He breathed in the night air. Crickets or cicadas chirped behind him as cars rushed by on a road he couldn't see, thanks to buildings blocking his view.

"What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?"

Ian leaned his head down to knee level. "Her DNA matches that bone we took."

"I know. You called me yesterday. We said we'd keep looking."

"And, Michael did some genealogy digging. Turns out her disappearance is still floating around the Internet. From a hundred years ago!"

"Okay, but how do you know it's you and her?"

"Current girl is Taylor Claire Marsh. The girl Michael found was Isabella Claire Tailor."

"That's not-"

"Current boy is me. Past boy was Jack Harold Mchanga."

Tripp chuckled. "Your middle name is Harold."

"Exactly. And Jack is another word for John, and that for Ian. And she yells *John' in her sleep sometimes."

"All coinciden-"

"No." Ian shook his head, sucking in air. "Mchanga is Swahili for *sands'. Ian Harold Sands. We are those people in the picture, Tripp. He was hanged November seventeenth-"

"Your birthday."

"And her birthday is June twelfth, which is also actually her birthday." Ian stood, paced toward the small fountain and back. "It all fits. I know it. I feel it." Just like I feel the tie-in with her. "There is no question. Sherrill said her grandparents saw the two people from the photo together. They couldn't be together. Cla.s.s and skin color would have prevented it. Then ... she disappeared. Someone pointed a finger at him, the town said it was me ... and he-I-he was hanged. Rightly so if he-me-I killed her."

"Well, if that's the case, be happy you aren't them, then. You're you ... today. Without race and cla.s.s restrictions. Sounds to me like you're getting a second chance. Or, in your case, a fourth."

Ian nodded to no one. "Exactly what I think. d.a.m.n finger tattoo. But this is ridiculous, you know? This doesn't happen to normal people." I wouldn't kill someone.

Tripp laughed. "Like what Lexi and I can do? Or Taylor?"

"You never said anything about what she could do."

"Did you think I would?"

Ian shook his head. "Of course not."

"Good. So, maybe it's all connected. You know, me, Lex, Sherrill, Marge, George, you, Taylor."

"I'm not Zeus's p.a.w.n, Tripp. This isn't a game. You knew what you had to deal with. That was a game. It can't be when the rules aren't obvious or clear or even defined. Zeus wasn't that mad."

"Think again." Tripp chuckled again. "No one ever said Zeus didn't stick things to people, Ian. So ... what're you going to do?"

Ian ran a hand over his head, digging his fingers into his scalp. "I have no f.u.c.king idea."

"Think through this logically. If what you said is true ... and you are them from before, and you did-though I'm not saying you did-kill her before, and this is try number four, maybe this time you're supposed to find a way not to do it. Maybe you're not the Romeo and Juliet type this time around, but you're the kick a.s.s and take names."

"This is not a game."

"Okay. Okay, man. We'll go with that theory for now. How is Taylor, by the way?"

"f.u.c.ked up." Ian went on to fill Tripp in.

Would a G.o.d pit two people against each other who also might love each other? What kind of sickness is that?

"You sound tired, Ian."

"I'm exhausted. Have you ever tried to sleep on a guest chair for anything other than a nap?"

Tripp's mirth diffused more of Ian's tension. "No, and I hope I never have to. But try to get some sleep. A few hours, at least."

"Yeah. I need to. Maybe I'll crash on a couch in the lobby." Ian traipsed back into the brightness of the hospital, to the zing of antiseptic and night cleaning routine. A buffer whizzed and spun to the right, so Ian went left.

Lexi's voice calling for ice cream overruled Tripp's. "Gotta go. Get some rest. If there's one thing I've learned about being a p.a.w.n to Zeus, it's that I work better when well rested. Or after lots of s.e.x."

Ian snorted a chuckle-the first of the night-and hung up. As he walked the hall, the signs for *Blood Bank' and *Donation Center' gave him another idea. He slowed as he approached the double doors.

"Ian?"

He turned at the female voice. The woman walking toward him made him want to give Taylor up or consider a threesome. A moment of recognition hit him, but he couldn't place her face with the Asian-set, green eyes, toned skin, the clipped back, long, black hair or beautiful smile.

As he stared, a flood of memories. .h.i.t him.

Of the bratty girl-next-door who followed Michael around like a lovesick puppy. The same girl he wanted to not see, though Ian had to guess Michael hadn't gotten a good look at her in a few years. He'd have changed his mind for sure if he had.

"Uh ... Jessie?" Ian hadn't seen her since she'd been twelve, so he could have been wrong, but he didn't think so.

"Yeah." She stepped to him, offered him a short hug and let go. "How are you? What are you doing here? I thought you lived in the big city." Her hands wiggled in the air like he'd seen dancers do on stage.

That and the contrast with the white lab coat sent a wave of confusion through his overtired brain. Jessie'd been Michael's tag-along, the younger sibling he never had and never wanted. She couldn't have been more than twenty-three to Michael's twenty-five. The firmed figure, braces-less teeth and smooth skin would have appealed to anyone. Ian kept all his comments and thoughts to himself, realizing he'd been staring for far too long.

"Uh ... Ian? What are you doing here?" She ran a hand along his arm.