Robert stopped by Hope House on his way out and returned to the empty wing where he had been staying, then packed up his things. It took all of three minutes.
He headed out of his room, duffel over his shoulder, and wondered whether to go back to Katie—or Janeal, however that worked—after his visit to Las Vegas. He supposed his decision would depend in part on where Sanso led him from here.
He wondered if he should call Janeal but put it off. How exactly could he pose the question of whether she and Katie were the same person? Even if it was true, would she know it?
The truth was, he didn’t want to leave Katie. A few minutes of honest thought made it clear that what he really desired was for things to be the way they were, with him and Katie in their self-contained world of possibility and Janeal and Sanso firmly locked away in a separate compartment. An entirely other universe.
Instead, he and Katie had been sucked into a black hole of confusion right alongside those two. The mystery of how it had happened was so far beyond his ability to solve that Robert didn’t see the point in applying his mind to it.
Which was one reason to leave and go back to his life and career as if the past week had never taken place.
He didn’t want to hurt Katie.
He couldn’t think of her as anyone but Katie, no matter how he turned it over in his mind.
He poked his head into Lucille’s office on the way out.
“You able to look in on Katie tonight?” he asked.
“What’s that about? Isn’t that for you to do?”
“I have to take care of some business.”
“I can’t do it tonight, Robert. I’ll go get her tomorrow afternoon, but tonight you’re it.” She frowned at him. “You two didn’t have some stupid fight, did you?”
“Nothing like that.”
“Good thing for you. If she comes back from Taos worse than when she went up, I’m going to have to rethink my open-door policy where you’re concerned.”
“Got it. You recover the Kia yet?”
“Oh, it’ll turn up eventually. I filed a report as soon as I got back and figured out what happened. If Janice is still here in New Mexico, our officers will find it.”
Salazar Sanso covered up the bloody seat in the Miata with a dry cleaner’s bag from the hotel, then prepared to return to Taos. It had taken him a few hours to arrange Callista’s transportation. It was no easy feat in the middle of the day, no easier than bandaging his bicep single-handedly with his teeth. But he’d done it.
He made arrangements for Callista’s body to be sent home to Mexico with his chief operator—the man he appointed chief operator in Callista’s place. The guy was not incompetent. At Sanso’s request he quickly acquired a twenty-pound tank of medical-grade nitrous oxide from a connected physician and loaded it into the back of the Miata. He also provided the extra gas cans Sanso would need. Still, Sanso would have to think through whether to make the appointment permanent or allow Janeal to fill Callista’s shoes after he’d secured Janeal’s companionship. Now that Robert was certainly up to speed on Janeal’s latest identities, the woman might have to give up her glamorous New York job.
He’d certainly give her a more attractive employment package than she’d received from anyone else.
The thought of working side by side with Janeal for the rest of her life brought the first smile of the day to his face. He picked up his phone. He needed to talk with her.