Chapter 2

Vivian left the police station and drove straight toward her university lab.

Then the hospital called.

"What?" Her brows drew together. "Ethan missed today's follow-up?"

About six months ago, he'd suddenly insisted she stop coming with him. His condition had been stable for years, so she hadn't argued.

But why would he miss the appointment entirely?

Her fingers rested on the steering wheel. After a moment she flipped on her signal and turned the car toward home.

At the next intersection, her yellow sports car stopped hard.

Vivian looked up at the enormous screen above the plaza and couldn't believe what she was seeing.

Noah.

The black silhouette of a pianist cut through the stage lights, and beneath it:

[INTERNATIONALLY ACCLAIMED PIANIST NOAH SHAW RETURNS HOME--TONIGHT ONLY AT SYMPHONY HALL]

An hour later, Vivian's car was parked outside the concert hall after all.

Ethan's ghost sat in the back seat, colorless.

He didn't know why.

Since his death, his spirit had followed her everywhere, and he couldn't stop it.

He remembered hearing once that the dead only linger when something is left unfinished, and that they stay near the person they can't let go of.

He lowered his head and laughed at himself, without a sound.

So in the end, he still couldn't let her go.

Of course he couldn't. How could he?

He looked up and watched Vivian get out of the car and meet her best friend, Tessa Grant.

Tessa shoved a bouquet of lilies of the valley into her arms, already complaining.

"You are impossible. Noah turns up out of nowhere, and suddenly you have to have his favorite flowers. They're out of season, Vivian. Do you have any idea what I went through to find these?"

Ethan lowered his eyes. There was nothing to do but laugh at it.

Six years of marriage, and Vivian had never once given him anything. When he brought her flowers, she barely glanced at them before saying, coldly, that she didn't like them.

Every meeting with his brother got this much thought.

In the end, Vivian was too late.

The performance had already ended when they got inside.

She walked up through the applause and handed Noah the bouquet that had cost Tessa two days of calls.

Noah's whole face lit up.

"Vivian!" He gathered the flowers against his chest. "You remembered lilies of the valley are my favorite?"

Tessa couldn't help herself. "She remembers a lot more than that. She even remembers the date you two first--"

"Tessa."

The cold in Vivian's voice shut her up instantly.

When she turned back to Noah, all of it was gone, replaced by something impossibly gentle.

"Why didn't you tell me you were coming home?"

Noah's smile faded.

"I told Ethan," he said quietly. "He said he'd meet me at the airport. I thought that meant he'd finally forgiven me. I waited three hours last night and he never came."

He looked up, and the smile he managed had something broken in it.

"Do you think my brother still hasn't forgiven me?"

Ten years ago, the Shaw brothers' father died in a car accident, and the family's finances collapsed overnight. Their mother had planned to send both sons abroad to study music. Now she could only afford one.

In the end, she emptied her savings and sent Noah to the Curtis Institute of Music in Philadelphia. Ethan stayed in Chicago and worked his way through a conservatory here.

It was the regret Ethan carried the rest of his life, and the splinter lodged between the two brothers.

The warmth went out of Vivian's eyes. "He left you standing there for three hours?"

Noah's eyes went red at the rims, but he forced the smile back. "It's fine. It really wasn't that long."

Vivian's hand tightened around nothing. She had never been good at comfort. In the end she just pulled out her phone and held it in front of him.

"This is for you."

Noah looked down at the video on the screen and his head came up. "Is this last night's meteor shower? Vivian, how did you know I wanted to see it?"

Tessa jumped in again. "He posted two days ago that he wanted to watch it and couldn't, because he wasn't in the country. So this madwoman dragged me up a mountain last night to film it for him."

She was warming to it now.

"You have no idea how stubborn she is. Our camera died, so she shot the whole thing on her phone. And then Ethan started calling, over and over, like he'd lost his mind.

"Vivian was terrified she'd miss it, so she hung up on him twenty-five times, and finally just switched to airplane mode so she could get you the whole shower start to finish."

Everything in Ethan went still.

So that was it.

All those calls she wouldn't answer last night--she'd been filming a meteor shower for his brother.

His spirit shook, and the dark came flooding back.

Last night he'd driven to the airport to pick Noah up.

In the underground garage, someone came up behind him and put a knife into his back ten times.

He didn't die right away.

The man threw him into a car trunk. Blood soaked the whole compartment, and there wasn't an ounce of strength left in him.

Half-suffocated, with his face wet and sticky where the blood had run over it, he had only one thought.

Twilight.

The ring he'd meant to give her. He carried it everywhere, waiting for the next time he'd see her.

What if the man who did this took it?

That ring was the one thing in the world Vivian wanted.

He dragged his phone out of his pocket. With his hands and feet bound he couldn't dial emergency services, so he pressed the one number he had on speed dial.

Vivian.

The call was cut off immediately.

He called again. And again.

If it were only his own life, then fine--let him die. But he couldn't let Twilight be destroyed in all that blood.

So he held on and called, and called.

The second call was rejected. The third. Every one after that.

And then her phone went to airplane mode, and there was nothing left to reach.

Ethan had assumed she was working. That was all. She was working, and she couldn't pick up.

She'd been filming a meteor shower to make his brother smile.

For that, his dying call for help, his last hope, the last surprise he had left in his hands--all of it ground into nothing.

He remembered the pain of the blade taking his hands and feet.

He remembered choking with his face buried under his own blood.

He remembered the ring rolling under the car, and the moment he threw himself over it.

That despair. That pain.

Even with no body left to feel it, his spirit shook.

Tears no living person could see slid down his face. He looked up and saw his wife watching his brother with a tenderness he had never in his life been given.

"Didn't you say you wanted to make a wish?" she said softly. "It's only a video, but you can still wish on it."

Noah pressed his palms together and murmured, "I wish my brother would forgive me and come to my final encore tomorrow night."

He opened his eyes and looked at her, hopeful.

"Vivian, do you think it'll come true?"

Every trace of ice in her expression melted.

"Yes."

She said it quietly, and then, unable to stop herself, reached out and smoothed the hem of his jacket.

"If it's something you want, I'll make it happen."