Killing Time

by Linda Howard

  11

  Knox was so angry he could barely contain himself, but none of what had happened was Nikita’s fault, so it wouldn’t have been fair for him to take it out on her. He was angry at finding himself in the position of having to lie to the people he worked with, who trusted him; to Sheriff Cutler, who was just about the best boss Knox could imagine. He was angry at having to break the law that so far he’d spent his adult life upholding, but he didn’t see any way around it.

  If he told the truth, not only would no one believe him and Nikita, but they would both likely be arrested for murder, not to mention that she would be charged with impersonating an FBI officer even though she really was a federal agent—just not right now.

  He didn’t want to believe what he’d seen. An old joke ran through his mind: A cheating husband, caught red-handed, says, “Honey, who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes?” Almost more than anything, Knox wanted to believe his eyes were lying to him. Almost. Because he had seen it, and curiosity was eating him alive. Under his anger was a powerful need; he could barely contain his impatience to get Nikita home and pepper her with questions.

  They were almost back to town when he glanced over at her. She’d been completely silent since getting into the car, either lost in her own thoughts or letting him stew—maybe a little bit of both. Killing that guy had shaken her, bad, but she’d held together and done what was necessary. If she hadn’t been so shaken, he’d have already been asking the questions that burned on his tongue, but he thought she needed a little more recovery time.

  She was in serious danger. That made twice, in just one day, that someone had tried to kill her. He agreed with her assessment that whoever had shot at her that morning was very likely someone from his time, meaning here and now—but who could have known she was coming, and where she would be? The most likely explanation was that it was a random attempt, some crazy with a rifle taking a shot at a stranger . . . which wasn’t all that likely. Pekesville just didn’t have that many crazies and between the sheriff’s department and the Pekesville police force, pretty well all of them were known. About the only violence that wasn’t drug or alcohol related was domestic violence, and those parameters didn’t fit.

  So the unknown traveler who had come through time to kill Taylor Allen had, for some reason, enlisted some local help. Great. Just what he needed.

  “Do you have anything you need to get from your motel room?” he asked.

  She jumped a little at the sound of his voice. “What? Oh—sorry. My thoughts were wandering. What did you say?”

  “Do you have any things at the motel?”

  “A small suitcase. Are we going there to get it?”

  “No, I don’t want you anywhere near there in case whoever shot at you is hanging around waiting for another chance. I’ll send one of the deputies to get it. Does anything need packing?”

  “I put everything in the suitcase this morning before I left, and locked it.”

  “More future stuff, huh?”

  “My clothing, some other things.”

  “What does your clothing look like? Does everyone run around in silver metallic jumpsuits the way they do in the movies?”

  She hesitated. “Jump suits? You have suits that jump?”

  He chuckled. “I think the term originally meant the one-piece suits parachutists wore to jump out of planes, but it basically means a one-piece outfit.”

  “I see. That makes sense. But, no, we don’t.”

  “So what do you wear?” Despite his best intentions he was already doing it, he realized, throwing question after question at her.

  “Normal clothing. When you think about it, there are only two basic types of clothing: skirted, and nonskirted. The skirt lengths go up and down, the pants may have wide legs or narrow legs, but that’s all just variations on the basic themes.”

  “Zippers?”

  Now she chuckled. “Zippers are still around, as are buttons. Think about it. How many hundreds of years have buttons existed in this time? Why would they completely disappear in just two hundred years? Zippers and buttons work. They’re efficient.”

  “Are cars still the same?”

  “No, internal combustion engines exist now only in a few museums and one or two antiques collections.”

  “No cars,” he said, scandalized. He couldn’t imagine a world without NASCAR. “Were they done away with because of global warming?”

  “Um, no. Something better came along. But that wasn’t until about a hundred years ago.”

  “Something better than cars?” He’d like to see that.

  “I didn’t say there were no cars; I said there were no internal combustion engines.”

  Okay, he’d pursue this at length later on; reluctantly he turned to a more immediately important subject. He glanced over at her. Some of the strain had faded from her face, so maybe what she needed was to be distracted. “How many changes of clothing do you have? Will you need to do some shopping?”

  “I have what I wore here, what I have on now, and one other change of clothing. I do have currency for buying clothing, though; my mission allowed for that contingency.”

  “Is the money real?” he asked wryly. “Or is it forged like everything else?”

  “No, it’s real. By the late twenty-first century all developed nations had completely switched over to credit and debit cards, so the majority of currency was put in a secure underground vault.”

  “Why not just burn it?” In his mind’s eye he saw billions of dollars of bills going up in smoke and felt his whole body tighten in rejection. That just wasn’t right, but it was still a logical solution.

  “For one thing, it has great historical value. For another, even in my time, there are still undeveloped nations that don’t have the computer capability for a totally digitalized economy. They use cash, barter, any means available.”

  Two hundred years, he thought, and some things still hadn’t changed much. He was relieved to know cash hadn’t been completely done away with, though. He was something of a dinosaur when it came to banking: he preferred to write checks. He did use his bank’s ATM to withdraw cash when he needed it, but something retro in him was horrified at the idea of paying his bills by computer.

  Nikita would probably get a big laugh out of that, but no matter how much she needed cheering up, he didn’t think he’d tell her. He didn’t want her thinking of him as just a few steps out of the cave.

  Five minutes later he pulled into his driveway. His house was on the smallish side, a two-bedroom Craftsman style, with a front porch that went all the way across the front of the house and a small enclosed porch on the back. He parked in back, pulling around next to the door. Tall, mature hedges separated his backyard from those of his neighbors, while giant oak trees grew close enough together to cloak almost the entire yard and half the house in cool shade.

  His house was over sixty years old but well maintained, and had been modernized several times over the years, so it was very livable. He’d bought it when he and Rebecca got engaged, thinking it would do for a starter house until the second baby came along and they would need more space. Rebecca had even picked out the kitchen appliances. But then she died, and there weren’t any babies and he’d never needed more space. His life hadn’t stopped when Rebecca died, but it had stagnated.

  As he got out of the car he realized he was worried now not about any stagnation but whether there was any dirty underwear lying on the floor in the one bathroom. The time for a woman to see his dirty socks and shorts was after they’d made love, not before.

  What felt like a small electrical shock ran up his spine and exploded in his brain. For the first time in seven years, he wanted a woman: not just sex, but the woman herself. He wanted Nikita in particular. He wanted to spend time with her, get to know her, find out what she liked and didn’t like, if she was afraid of mice and spiders and snakes, if a little bug could make her squeal like a girl. He wanted to know if she slept on her stomach, back, or si
de, if she snored, if she liked showers or baths.

  He wanted her.

  It was a revelation. He’d forgotten how energizing that kick of chemistry was, like downing a pot of coffee, forgotten how it was to be so intensely focused on one person. The shape of her hand as she shut the car door, the way she absently pushed a strand of hair away from her eyes, the quick, questioning glance she threw at him—he noticed all of that, with a clarity that engraved those little things in his memory.

  The big question was whether she’d be willing to indulge in what wasn’t quite casual sex but was far from ever being a long-term relationship. Assuming she was interested, any affair was limited by the duration of her stay in this time. She might be here two weeks, or two days. They had no way of knowing what was going on in her time, whether anyone there would figure out someone on the team was playing dirty and send reinforcements or a SAR team.

  She was waiting for him at the porch, a questioning look in her eyes, as if she was wondering why he was just standing there by the car instead of unlocking the door so they could go inside. Thinking about how long she’d be here made him look at her presence from another angle, and he asked, “How long do you have here before they’ll come looking for you? There has to be a time limit, or they’d never know if someone was dead, injured, their links fried, or even in jail. There has to be a rescue procedure in place.”

  “We didn’t know the exact parameters of this case,” she said, “so a really long time limit was set.”

  “How long is ‘really long’?”

  “A month.”

  That was long, longer than he’d expected. Most murder cases either were closed within a week or eventually became cold cases; either the leads were there or they weren’t. Maybe something else was going on that he didn’t know about. He didn’t like that thought; what she’d sprung on him already would probably give him nightmares.

  He opened the screen door, and they went up on the back porch; then he unlocked the door to the house and let them into the kitchen. Nikita stopped and looked around and Knox did, too, trying to see it through her eyes.

  To the left was his tiny laundry cubicle, just large enough for a washer and dryer. The kitchen was an eat-in, with old cabinets that he’d stripped down to the original wood and stained. The tile on the floor looked like golden stone, and he’d splurged on the countertops, putting in solid surfacing because that was what Rebecca wanted. She had never cooked a meal here, never slept a night here. Whenever they’d spent the night together, he’d been at her place because it was just easier, he didn’t have to cart around all the paraphernalia women needed to get ready for work in the mornings, all the hair and face stuff. A lot of what he’d done in the house had been for Rebecca, but in her absence the house had become completely his.

  Nikita walked slowly to the big gas stove and ever so lightly trailed her fingertips over it, much as she had done with the things in his office. To her, he realized, everything in here, in his office, was a priceless antique. Some she had probably read about but never seen before.

  “What does this do?” she asked, pointing at the electric can opener.

  “It opens cans.”

  She actually leaned down and studied the way the can opener worked, pulling the little lever down and frowning in disappointment when nothing happened.

  “Like this.” He grabbed a can of chicken noodle soup from his pantry, showed her how the little magnet held the can in place, and let her press down on the lever. The can whirled around, and her face lit like a child’s.

  “There are so many details of everyday life we’ve lost,” she murmured.

  He leaned against the cabinet and crossed one ankle over the other. “How do you open cans?”

  “We don’t have cans.”

  “What does food come in, then?”

  “Most food comes in clear containers that are edible themselves, and melt when heated. They’re very nutritious.”

  He made a face at the idea of eating the packaging. “Yeah, but how do they taste?”

  “Like whatever food they contain, of course.”

  “What if it’s a food that isn’t supposed to be heated, like ice cream?”

  She looked amused. “There are other things, such as plastic cartons. Fresh produce is still fresh produce. I don’t suppose the food itself is very different, just the containers and maybe preparation have changed.” She took the can of chicken noodle soup and sniffed. “What do we do with this now?”

  He pulled a small saucepan out of the cabinet and set it on one of the stove eyes, turned it on, and dumped the soup into it. “We eat it.”

  She played with the knobs, turning a burner on and off and watching the blue flame jump. Since she’d obviously never seen a gas stove before, he asked, “How do you heat your food?”

  “Molecular agitation.”

  He laughed, thinking of his own molecules that were currently agitated. “Sounds like a microwave oven to me.”

  “A variation. So much of what we have was invented during this era,” she said with an undertone of pure bliss, and abruptly he realized how much she was enjoying this part of her trip. Parts of it so far sucked, but this, the technology part, delighted her.

  “Like what?”

  “Oh, space travel, computers, lasers, things like that.”

  “Space travel” caught his attention, and he realized he could stand here talking to her until they collapsed from exhaustion. They had things to do—or he did, rather—but he didn’t want to do any of them.

  “That’s really why I’m here,” she said ruefully. “This time fascinates me, and I’ve studied it in great depth. I begged for this assignment.”

  “Be careful what you ask for,” he said wryly.

  She laughed, her brown eyes sparkling. “Exactly.” Then she sobered as her thoughts turned to the people who had died, and all the complications that had arisen. Reading her mind, Knox touched her briefly on the arm in sympathy.

  “Come on, I’ll show you where you’ll be sleeping.” Which wasn’t in his bed, unfortunately—at least not yet. He turned the heat down under the soup and led her through the house.

  The house was small, with a living room–dining room combination, except he used the dining room for his home office and what few meals he had here he ate in the kitchen. The two bedrooms led off the short hall, one on the left and one on the right, with the bathroom between them. The front bedroom, the larger one, was his; the back bedroom was nothing extra, just a bedroom, with the requisite furniture. He showed her where the linen closet was, for fresh towels when she showered, then left her to take care of whatever needed taking care of while he went into the living room.

  Instead of using his home phone, because he didn’t want anyone to know where he was, he took out his radio and called in, passing along the request to have Nikita’s suitcase picked up at the motel and taken to his office. He’d go in later tonight, when only dispatch was working, and retrieve it. He had to do something about her rental car, too.

  An idea struck and he picked up his home phone and called his dad. Kelvin answered on the first ring. “Hardware store.”

  “Dad, is it all right if I stash a car in your barn for a while?”

  “Sure. Whose car is it?”

  “A rental. I don’t want it seen.”

  “I can take a tarp home with me tonight if you want to cover it up, just to be on the safe side.”

  “That’s a good idea. Thanks.”

  “When will you bring it?”

  “After dark sometime. I’ll call you.”

  “Okay. See you then.”

  That was another problem taken care of, Knox thought, if he could just get her car moved without being followed. He’d have to drive it, of course; no one else was going to get a shot at her if he could help it.

  She came out of the bathroom, and he noticed how tired she looked. Today had been a hell of a day, for both of them, and it wasn’t over yet.

  “Let’s have s
ome soup,” he said, taking her arm and turning her toward the kitchen. “Chicken noodle soup makes everything better.”

  “In that case,” she said, “you should open another can.”

  12

  Nikita wasn’t hungry but the soup was comforting, and the air-conditioning in the house was set slightly too cool for her, so the hot liquid was doubly welcome. They sat at the scarred wooden kitchen table and silently spooned the rich broth and noodles—with a few tiny bits of chicken in the broth to justify the name—out of matching blue bowls. He had almost finished his when his radio crackled to life.

  With a resigned expression he listened to the code, then picked up his bowl and spoon and took them to the sink, dumping the soup down the disposal, then turning on the water and flipping the switch. “I have to go,” he said unnecessarily. “Stay inside and don’t answer the phone, unless I’m the one calling.” He scribbled his number on a pad of paper and pushed it toward her. “If that number isn’t what shows up in the ID window on the phone, don’t answer.”

  “All right,” Nikita said. The technology was very similar to that in her own time.

  He paused on his way out the door and looked back at her. “Will you still be here when I get back?”

  “Of course,” she said steadily, tamping down the spurt of resentment that he felt he had to ask that particular question. “I still have a mission to accomplish, and I need your help to do that.”

  He nodded and started out the door again, only to pause once more. “Shit,” he said under his breath, striding back to her. Startled, she wondered if he intended to stuff her into the trunk of his car, or maybe handcuff her to a bed frame; she dropped her spoon and scraped her chair back, half rising, ready to fight.

  Instead he bent down, propping his left hand on the table and cupping the back of her head in his right, and closed his mouth over hers.

  Well, she thought in dim surprise. Then: Oh.

  He was slow, very slow, and thorough—very thorough. His tongue curled into her mouth like an old friend, sure of his welcome. She put her hand over his on the table and he turned his palm up, capturing hers, lacing their fingers together.