Killing Time

by Linda Howard

  “You’re a very well-toned eight, edging slightly toward a ten. Slim, but not skinny. Basically, I lucked out—because there isn’t a uniform size standard. You’ll need to try things on. Or you can buy them now, try them on tonight, and we’ll bring back what doesn’t fit.”

  “You can do that?”

  “Yeah, we can.” He grinned at her astonishment.

  “I’ll do that, then. Size eight, you said.” She returned to the racks, choosing four pairs of pants and four tops that she really liked. One even had sequins on it. From there she went to the underwear, where, to her dismay, the sizing was completely different.

  “This makes no sense,” she complained in frustration.

  “Size five,” he said, choosing a pair of minuscule black lace underwear and extending it to her.

  She eyed the small garment, then shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

  “How about these?” Returning the black underwear to the rack, he pulled out a pair of red ones that looked even smaller than the black ones.

  “Definitely not.” The back was nothing but a small strip, and she knew exactly where the strip would have to go.

  Regretfully he returned his chosen item to the rack.

  She decided on a six-pack of “natural cotton,” tossed it into the cart, and moved on to the socks and shoes. Knox told her what size, she decided on a pair of sandals that looked forgiving about the shape of the foot, and finally they moved toward the front of the store and the hair section. Unfortunately, before they reached the hair section, they passed the makeup and lotion aisles, and Nikita found herself sidetracked again. She had to have a lipstick from this time.

  She had just turned to Knox with a tube in her hand, saying, “What do you think about this color?” when a woman behind him said, “Knox?”

  He looked around, and an expression she couldn’t decipher changed his face. “Ruth,” he said in that gentle tone he could do so well. He released the cart to hug the woman. “You’re out early.”

  “I could say the same for you, except I know you’re always out early—and late. When do you sleep?”

  “Sometimes I don’t.” His arm still around her, he turned toward Nikita. “Ruth, this is Tina. Tina, Ruth Lacey. Ruth is Rebecca’s mother.”

  Tina? Well, he couldn’t very well introduce her using her real name, since she was supposed to have left town. She extended her hand. “I’m very pleased to meet you.”

  Ruth shook her hand, all the while sharply studying her. The older woman was pretty and neat, with a good figure and light makeup artfully applied. Because she was a woman, she also noticed what items were in the shopping cart. “Have you been dating long?” she asked.

  “A while,” Knox lied easily.

  “I’m glad for you,” she said in a soft tone. “It’s been a long time.” Still, there was a lost expression in her eyes. She hugged Knox, and said, “I really need to be going. Y’all have a nice day.”

  She swiftly left the aisle, and when she was out of earshot, Nikita looked at Knox and raised her eyebrows. “Tina?”

  “I couldn’t remember your middle name. I knew it started with a T, though.”

  “That’s okay. Tina it is. My middle name would be too unusual here.” She dropped her chosen lipstick into the cart on top of her clothing, and they moved on to the aisle with the hair products. She chose a small pack of multicolored bands for her hair, then was ready to check out.

  “I felt sorry for her,” she said.

  Knox didn’t have to ask whom she was talking about. “I know. I think it really hurt her, seeing me with you. When Rebecca died, Ruth told me to go on with my life, but I don’t think she’s managed to do that herself.”

  “No,” said Nikita, her gaze turning inward. “Mothers never do.”

  18

  At the library they went into a small, narrow room with three microfiche machines lined up side by side. The room was dim, but the microfiche files were outside in the library’s main room, watched over by a bored young girl who made certain they signed their names on a list, along with which number microfiche they had. Evidently people had just been walking out with the microfiche sheets, though why anyone would unless they had one of the viewers, too, was a mystery.

  Knox and Nikita hadn’t had to hunt through file after file of microfiche film; Knox knew exactly which issue of the newspaper he wanted: January 1, 1985. They pulled chairs close together in front of one machine as he moved the slide around looking for the article he remembered. Nikita had to lean in to read the screen, putting her so close to him their shoulders bumped together. He put off enough body heat that she felt almost scorched, burning her even where they weren’t touching. She could bear it only a moment before she had to move away.

  He gave her a questioning glance, and she said, “The position was hurting my neck.”

  “You’re lying,” he said equably, turning back to the screen. “You want me but you’re still mad at me, so you don’t want to want me, and touching me is too much of a temptation. Do I have it about right?”

  “Fairly close,” she said, without expression.

  “That’s good to know,” he said, and winked at her. “Now, slide back in here so you can read what I’m reading.”

  “There’s no point. Just read off the list of items, and I’ll write them down, as well as the people who were there that you can remember or recognize.” She had his notebook, the one he made his investigative notes in, and he’d instructed her not to use her private shorthand.

  “Coward.”

  “ ‘Discretion is the better part of valor.’ ”

  “A coward said that.”

  “Would you find the damn article!” she exclaimed, then looked guiltily around to see if she had disturbed anyone. It was doubtful; there were only a handful of people in the library, and she and Knox were the only people in the microfiche room. Still, she felt herself go hot with embarrassment; she had spent a lifetime very determinedly not drawing attention to herself. She was distressed both because she had almost shouted in a public place and because he didn’t seem to realize the depth of her distress. No, how could he? She would have to tell him about herself before he would understand, and that was something she had never done. From childhood she had been cautioned by her parents not to talk about her origins, or her legal status.

  “Here we go,” Knox said softly. “Max Browning wrote the article. He still works for the newspaper, too. We can ask him some questions. Let’s see . . . the items slated to go into the time capsule include the 1984 yearbook from Pekesville High School, a cassette tape of the Top Ten in music along with a cassette player—smart thinking on someone’s part—photographs and a written history of Peke County, a copy of the articles of incorporation—though why in hell they thought anyone would be interested in that in a hundred years, I don’t know. There was also a copy of the local newspaper. That’s it.”

  “That’s seven,” she said.

  “That’s all it lists. The article says, ‘The mayor and others will place twelve items in the time capsule, including—’ then it lists the things I just read. It doesn’t itemize the other five. Shit,” he swore softly in frustration.

  “Who was there?”

  “The mayor, of course, Harlan Forbes. Taylor Allen. The football coach, Howard Easley. Edie Proctor, the school superintendent. City councilmen Lester Bailey and Alfred ‘Sonny’ Akins. That’s all it lists by name.”

  “Do you remember anyone else?”

  “Max Browning, of course. The former sheriff, Randolph Sledge. He retired a year or so after this, and died about ten years ago. The probate judge was there. I can’t remember his name . . . somebody Clement. He’s dead, too. There were a bunch of businessmen, my dad included, the police chief, the county commissioners. I don’t know their names, but all of that would be on record at the courthouse, and city hall will have the information about who was chief back then.”

  “Where do we go next?”

  “I don�
�t want you going to the courthouse, period. Cops are too good at recognizing people, especially if they’re in the same place where they saw them before. Someone else may have been studying your ass.”

  “I was in your office, sitting on it.”

  “You were at the Taylor Allen site for a good two hours, plus they watched you walk into my office and they watched you walk out. Trust me.”

  “I refuse to believe that my buttocks are such an identifying feature,” she snapped, disgruntled. It wasn’t that she wanted to go to the courthouse; it was as if he thought her bottom was somehow so weirdly and differently shaped that people could recognize her by it.

  “That’s because you aren’t a man. We men like to look at women’s asses. In fact, we stare.”

  “Thank you for the explanation; I feel so much better.”

  He looked past her to make certain they were still alone. “C’mon. You can’t tell me things have changed so much in two hundred years that men don’t care about women’s asses anymore. They still stare, don’t they?”

  She thought a moment, taking the question seriously. “Not on the job, they don’t,” she finally said. That was where she had spent most of the past eight years, she thought, either on the job, or in training, or studying. The agents with whom she trained and worked, male and female alike, had shared her circumstances, in that they were so busy in their chosen career they hadn’t had much time for outside pursuits. Some agents, when they were off duty, had formed relationships with other agents, of course—and had promptly been separated. Not fired, but one or the other would be posted to another city. They were then free to conduct their relationship as they saw fit, but they couldn’t work certain postings together. Research, teaching, laboratory—yes. Field work—no.

  Nikita hadn’t had much off-duty time in the past eight years. She had chosen to specialize, and the study had required hours of extra work tacked onto her regular duties. What free time she’d had, she had spent with her family, except for one relationship four or five years ago that for a while she had thought would be the final one, but it had faded away, too. No drama, no fireworks, just a gradual shift of affection.

  That was just like the rest of her life—no drama, no fireworks. No heat, no passion, no raised voices, nothing but a strict adherence to the rules and the law.

  “Hey,” he said, putting his hand on her knee. “Don’t look so upset. If men don’t look at your ass at home, whenever you feel the need, you just come here and we’ll take care of the problem. Scratch that—I’ll take care of the problem.”

  She removed his hand. “Thank you, but I was thinking of something else. Now, what was it you wanted scratched?”

  He burst out laughing, and she sat back, chagrined that evidently she had once again run afoul of some silly idiom.

  “It means ‘mark that out,’ ” he explained. “Like this.” He took the pad from her, wrote a word, then quickly marked through it several times. “See? This was scratched out.”

  “I understand,” she said with dignity. “I should have known that one, because pens and paper were invented long before the late-twentieth-century gap in our records.”

  “Personally, I’m surprised you speak colloquial English as well as you do. Say something in your normal accent.”

  “I’m not a monkey performing for your amusement,” she said in her normal rapid speech, slurring the words together.

  He blinked. “Wow. That was fast. You sounded like an auctioneer. Does everyone talk that fast?”

  “No, of course not. Some speak faster, some speak slower. To me, the cadence of your speech sounds very slow and measured, almost formal.”

  “Well, you are in eastern Kentucky; that accounts for the slow part. I don’t know about the ‘formal.’ ”

  Feeling as if their conversation had veered off course, as it so often did, Nikita tapped the pad with her fingernail. “I think we should concentrate on our plan of action. You don’t want me at the courthouse. I don’t necessarily agree with your logic, but since you’re a man, I’ll take your word for it. Perhaps I could research the city councilmen’s names, if you’ll take me to city hall.”

  “You must have distracted me, because now that I’m thinking clearly, I remember where we are. We’re in a library.”

  “Yes, I know,” she said, bewildered. When had he forgotten where they were?

  “All we have to do is look in the newspaper editions that came out the day after elections. Okay, let me think; elections are held in even-numbered years, and we didn’t have any city elections last year so that means the last election was in 2002. Counting backwards, that means the city election we’re looking for was held in 1982, and since the city and county elections are staggered, the county election was in 1984. Our city elections are held in June, so we need the June of 1982 newspapers, and November of 1984 for the county commissioners. Sorry I don’t remember the exact dates.”

  “I don’t think I’ll be able to manage, with so little information to go on,” she said drily, and he chuckled. Before he could reply, his radio beeped, and a voice called out a series of codes. He hooked the radio off his belt and called in, and that was when Nikita realized it was a combination radio and cell phone. She looked at it with more interest, wondering if he would let her examine it. This must be one of the first-generation dual-communicators.

  “I have to go,” he said, standing. He frowned as he looked down at her. “Will you be all right here by yourself?”

  She rolled her eyes. “No, I’m just five years old instead of thirty; I don’t know how I can possibly manage.”

  “You don’t have to be sarcastic.”

  “Evidently I did.”

  “I just feel like you’re in a foreign country, or something.”

  “I’m not, I’m in my country. I have money, I have your phone number, and I’m certain I can manage to make a call if necessary.”

  “All right, all right.” He bent down and dropped a kiss on top of her head. “Is that cell phone of yours a real one, or is it just made to look like one of ours?”

  She felt as if she should say something about the kiss, but at the same time it was so casual that mentioning it would almost be making too much over nothing. “I’m afraid it’s fake. It looks like yours, but we no longer use the technology and none of the ones from now still exist.”

  “Okay, I’ll get a real one for you. I want to be able to reach you at all times. Stay here until I get back.”

  “Are you serious? This is my idea of heaven, to be in a library. Just think of the research I can do!”

  He paused on the verge of walking away, curiosity lighting his face. “I’ve wondered about something. To fill in the gaps where so much data was lost, why haven’t your people just traveled back here and taken CDs and things like that back with you?”

  “For one thing, your technology won’t transit. We tried it. Books, somewhat, though they’re damaged in the process. Your computers and discs—no. Anything organic transits best. We had to develop special fabric for our clothing, because natural fibers are so rare and expensive in my time.”

  His head tilted. “You mean someone wearing polyester wouldn’t transit?”

  “Oh, he would, but his clothing wouldn’t.”

  A big grin split his face. “You mean he’d arrive stark naked.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Like the Terminator.”

  At her blank look, he explained, “That was a movie, where this assassin from the future arrived without any clothes.”

  “Then, yes, just like the Terminator. But you see why filling in those gaps is so difficult. I can research while I’m here, take photos—which most travelers have done, by the way—but there was just so much that was lost. And if this UT succeeds, then it’ll be lost forever.”

  “He won’t. We’ll figure this out eventually. I’ll be back as soon as I can,” he said, and left.

  Nikita moved to the chair he had exited. She wasn’t exactly stranded—after al
l, her feet still worked—but without a vehicle of her own, she was limited in movement. But the library was a great place to be; not only could she research to her heart’s content, she felt safe here. In fact, now that Knox’s disturbing presence was no longer distracting her, her heart was racing with anticipation. A library! The research possibilities were endless. More excited than she could remember ever being before, she settled down to work.

  “What’s wrong?” Byron asked softly, lifting himself on his elbow beside her. His warm hand rested on her bare stomach, in a touch that was both possessive and comforting.

  Ruth Lacey looked at the face of her lover. She still couldn’t believe what she was doing, that after all these years she was actually being as unfaithful to her husband as he was to her. No, that wasn’t true; one lover in thirty-something years didn’t compare to dozens, perhaps even hundreds. She hadn’t let Edward touch her in years, not since shortly after Rebecca’s birth, because she was too afraid he’d give her a venereal disease. Later, there had been the risk of AIDS, which had completely destroyed the slight chance that she would ever resume sexual relations with him. She supposed he had somehow stayed disease free all these years, but she wasn’t interested enough to ask.

  She should have divorced him. She should have made a better life for herself and Rebecca. But she had kept putting it off, wanting to wait until she was certain Rebecca was settled; then her daughter had died, and so had any incentive Ruth might have had for moving on.

  She sighed. There was no point in denying her melancholy. “I saw my daughter’s fiancé this morning, with another woman.”

  Byron looked confused. “I thought you said your daughter has been gone for seven years.”

  “She has, but I still thought of Knox as hers. Logically, I know very few men would have waited this long before settling into another relationship, and, really, I love Knox and want him to be happy, but—but emotionally, I feel as if he’s cheating on her.”

  “Ah. I see. How would Rebecca feel?”

  That was what she loved most about Byron, the fact that he listened to her and didn’t discount her feelings. Since Rebecca’s death, she had lived in such an emotional desert that the attention he paid her was like water being poured on parched skin; she soaked it up, reveled in it, bloomed in his presence, and when she was away from him, he was all she could think about.