Jared

by Lori Wilde

  “I failed him,” he said, regret filling his voice. “My mind wandered, and because of that momentary lapse, a nice college boy suffered a hard life and became a bitter old man.”

  He released her hand and rubbed his palms against the knees of his jeans. He seemed agitated, and Kimber worried that he might be going over the edge.

  “Believe me, Kimber, I won’t fail you. This time, I’m going to do whatever it takes to get my job done right.”

  “Because you want your wings,” she prompted, humoring him.

  He leaned toward her. “You still don’t believe me, do you?”

  Before she knew what was happening, he was kissing her. It was a long, tender kiss, full of feeling and promises. Kimber found herself returning the sentiment with matching enthusiasm.

  When he finally broke the embrace, he continued to hold her face in his large hand. “You’re so beautiful,” he told her. “It’s against regulations, but I’ve fallen head over heels in love with you.” Brushing his thumb against the corner of her lips, he asked, “Do you know how I know I’m in love with you?”

  She didn’t, but she wondered if he had the same sick, scary feeling in the pit of his stomach that she had in hers.

  “When I set aside all the facts and all the shoulds, and I listen to the quiet voice that’s speaking to me from deep down inside, I know.”

  She watched, and his eyes seemed to deepen until they were almost green in color.

  “Listen carefully to your spirit as it speaks to you,” he said, “and you’ll know that all I’ve told you is true. You’ll know that the man who has just professed his love to you, and who wants to keep you safe, is not Gerald.”

  She tried to speak, tried to tell him that this whole conversation was an overreaction to the car plunging into the lake. But he wouldn’t heed her words.

  “When you hear it,” he emphasized, “you will know.”

  Chapter Sixteen

  Kimber didn’t know why she had let him talk her into coming to the office tonight. She supposed she must have been hearing voices after all. What other explanation could there be for rummaging through desk drawers and files, searching for clues that could help Jerry prevent the early “emptying” of her “hourglass”?

  Besides, it was hard trying to concentrate on the task at hand when her thoughts kept going back to his profession of love.

  Idly, she allowed her fingers to trace the outline of the tiny gold angel pin she’d fastened above her heart earlier when she’d changed into the simple cotton top.

  His words were sweet and sincere, and they carried far more impact than Gerald’s meaningless declarations that had been accompanied by wine, roses, or chocolates.

  “Maybe we should just go home,” she suggested. They weren’t having any luck, so they might as well get some sleep.

  Jerry took one last look around and nodded his agreement.

  After they’d locked up and gone back to the Neidermeyers’ SUV, Jerry suddenly turned toward her.

  “What about the factory?” he suggested. “Maybe we’ll find something there.”

  Kimber slumped wearily over the steering wheel. “It’s the middle of the night. Besides, no one’s there for us to question. We don’t run a midnight shift anymore.” She didn’t bother to mention that the merger plans called for a return to twenty-four-hour production.

  “All the better.” Jerry smiled. “We can look around to our hearts’ content without having to explain our presence to anyone.”

  She sighed heavily and steered the car down deserted Broadnax Street, leaving the city’s tall buildings behind as she headed for the sprawling factory-and-warehouse district that lay on the other side of the river. After parking beside the curb in front of the Barnett’s Bakery plant, she unlocked the main door and let them in.

  Jerry switched on lights as they made their way through the empty building to the shift manager’s office.

  The utilitarian metal desk that stood in the center of the cluttered office was covered with papers that seemed to be stacked in some sort of order. He started flipping through the papers, taking care not to get them out of sequence.

  “Nothing but job orders here.”

  “Jerry, I feel funny about searching an employee’s office.”

  “I won’t look at anything personal,” he promised. Then he flipped through the desk calendar but appeared not to find anything of interest. Next were the desk drawers: a box of Barnett’s doughnuts in the top, which he ignored, and a girlie magazine in the bottom. He extracted the magazine and rifled through the pages. It fell open to the centerfold.

  His eyebrows shot up, and his jaw dropped. He snapped it shut, quickly laid one hand over the picture, and shut the pages with the other.

  “Heavens!” he declared and dropped the magazine in the trash can beside the desk.

  Kimber laughed out loud at his response. “Maybe we should go now.”

  Jerry was wiping his hands on his pants legs, as if to rid himself of whatever contamination he may have picked up. “No, let’s take a look at the production line first.”

  She started to argue. Since she had the car keys, it would have taken nothing more than a threat to leave by herself to make him come with her.

  He shivered as if he’d seen a ghost. “Something is telling me your time is very near.”

  “We’re both being silly,” Kimber said. “Now we’re scaring ourselves with all this cloak and dagger stuff.”

  He shook his head sadly. “I wish you were right, but there’s no mistaking this feeling. We have to find our answers tonight.”

  Reluctantly, she went along, following him to a large room filled with vats and mixers. Maybe a quick look would convince him there was nothing to be found here. At least, she hoped so.

  It was eerily quiet. When in operation, the machines rumbled loudly, filling the room with their noise and vibrations. Tonight, they sat ominously silent, dwarfing Jerry and Kimber with their massive size.

  Kimber thought she heard a noise. Although she knew it was probably nothing more than the usual creaking associated with old buildings, she felt the tiny hairs rise on her arms.

  “Jerry, nothing here is going to answer the questions we have. I’m going home. Now.”

  Another click. Only this time it was right behind her. Jerry heard it, too, and he turned with her at the sound.

  Alison blocked their exit from between the dough vats. Both hands firmly gripped a large handgun, which was pointed straight at them.

  Kimber didn’t know much about guns, but it certainly looked deadly to her. Although she knew Alison’s motives probably weren’t so innocent, she pretended to misunderstand.

  “It’s just us,” she said as lightly as she could manage under the circumstances. “You can put that away now.”

  The gun barrel didn’t waver. Nor did Alison’s steely glare. “You have questions? Try asking me.”

  Kimber’s heart pounded against her ribs, and she felt Jerry tense beside her.

  “You can forget about trying to do the hero thing,” Alison told him and directed the gun at Kimber’s chest. “If you make me nervous, I might just accidentally shoot her.”

  Jerry didn’t move, but his voice was hard when he spoke. “You’re the one who tried to kill Kimber.”

  “And you’re the one who kept her from getting ‘the shaft,’” Alison sneered. “I thought for sure the elevator trick would do the job.”

  “And since it didn’t,” Jerry prodded, “you decided that tampering with her brakes would finish her off.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kimber said, breaking through the fear that had paralyzed her a moment earlier.

  “It’s quite simple, really,” Alison said as casually as if they were having a dinnertime conversation. “I wanted to own the company.”

  Now Kimber was really confused. “But you’re already part owner, by virtue of being married to my father.”

  “I wanted more,” her stepmother said sincerely. “And
I got tired of waiting around for the old coot to die of natural causes. Besides, if he went first, you would become the majority owner in the company, and I’d be no better off than I am now. Probably worse.” She jabbed the gun toward Kimber. “But with you neatly out of the way before he croaks, I’ll get everything...lock, stock, and barrel.”

  Alison laughed at her own joke.

  Kimber felt Jerry touch her arm reassuringly. “But that doesn’t explain why you and Gerald monkeyed with the merger process.”

  “My first choice was to achieve my goal without getting my hands dirty with your blood. The original plan was to arrange the deal so that I could become majority owner and maybe eventually the sole owner. Just as I instructed, Gerald set the paperwork in action, having been promised a fair reward for his assistance. The problem was”—she turned to scowl at him—“I recently discovered he got greedy and tried to cut himself in and me out.”

  Alison’s hands shook, and for the first time, Kimber realized her stepmother was not as calm as she pretended to be.

  “Which is why I loosened the steering pin in his car. But that failed, too. So now”—she alternately pointed the gun at Kimber, then Jerry—“it looks like I’m going to have to get my hands dirty after all. When the shift manager opens up in a couple of hours, he’ll find your bodies here and the petty cash missing. Naturally, the police will assume it’s a homicide motivated by robbery.”

  Jerry stepped forward, but the muzzle of the gun stopped him in his tracks.

  “You may have survived the car crash,” Alison told him, “but you won’t be so lucky this time. After I dispatch my stepdaughter, the next bullet is for you.”

  “No!”'

  Stunned, Kimber watched the crazed woman move the gun back toward her. Her stepmother’s finger tightened against the trigger, and Kimber knew she was a goner.

  A shot was fired, but before Kimber could react, Jerry leaped toward her and pushed her out of the way. Pain flared up her arm where she fell against the concrete floor. When she looked up, she saw Jerry facing off with Alison.

  Blood stained the center of his shirt, but he seemed unaware of anything other than removing the gun from Alison’s deadly grasp. He lunged at her, struggling with her as his strength quickly waned, trying to keep her from firing again.

  Despite the pain in her arm, Kimber rose to her feet, determined to help Jerry subdue her stepmother. But she was too late.

  The gun went off again, this time seriously wounding Alison. Dropping the weapon, Alison clutched her bleeding side and stumbled out of the building.

  Jerry fell to the floor, and Kimber felt her heart sink. She knelt beside him, taking care not to cause him more pain as she cradled his head in her lap. His breathing came with difficulty.

  She started to move, but he reached up and gripped her hand with amazing strength.

  “I won’t leave you,” she promised, “but I have to call for an ambulance for you and Alison.”

  His grip remained firm. “Right about now, she should be meeting with a fatal accident.” Jerry looked up at her, his eyes filled with a pain that came from more than his wound. “Her hourglass is almost empty. I could feel it just before the gun went off the second time.”

  Just the way he had felt that Kimber’s hours were limited? “But I have to get help for you,” she insisted.

  Tires screeched outside, lending credence to his words. And although Alison had shown herself to be a horrible, self-centered person driven by greed, Kimber couldn’t help feeling sorry about her demise. Most of all, she hurt for the loss her father would feel upon learning of his wife’s death. She prayed that his frail heart would be able to withstand the shock.

  “No need for an ambulance,” Jerry said. The urgency in his tone stopped her cold. “My mission is complete. I’m being called back home.”

  Kimber’s eyes filled with tears. Her vision blurred.

  “Don’t cry for me,” he said softly. “For I am the one who has been enriched by the time I’ve spent with you. I love you, Kimber.”

  She felt his fingers loosen their hold on her hand, and she gripped them tightly, as if the gesture was enough to keep him from leaving her.

  “Please,” she begged, her voice tight with emotion. “Please don’t go.”

  Her fingers touched the gold pin on her shirt, and she recalled what he’d told her about his desire to protect her.

  It might have been crazy, and it might have been illogical, but somewhere deep down inside, something spoke to her. It was as if a tiny voice was assuring her he had been telling the truth all along. And for the first time, she believed.

  But why couldn’t she have heard this inner voice sooner? Why couldn’t she have spent the short time she’d had with him more meaningfully? She had come to love him deeply. How could she not have loved him? To have him torn away from her now, just when she had recognized how much he meant in her life, seemed so needlessly cruel.

  But she was being selfish, thinking of her own loss at a time like this. She wiped the tears from her cheeks and noticed Jerry’s eyelids slowly close.

  “You finally earned your wings.” And Kimber was certain he would wear them well.

  His eyes fluttered open again, and he fixed his clouded gaze on her. “I’d trade them in a second for one more day with you.”

  When he closed his eyes again, his body went limp in her arms. Kimber’s tears flowed harder as the anguish of her loss filled her soul.

  In the next instant, the room filled with an eerie glow that rose from his body and lingered for a second near the ceiling before disappearing.

  A knowledge filled her being, reminding her that she would see him again in fifty or more years, and she knew in the recesses of her heart that this knowledge was a message from Jerry. But, sadly, it was of little comfort to her now.

  Kimber’s cry came out in a scream of despair.

  “CONGRATULATIONS, JARED.” Nahum lifted himself and his massive wings from his ivy-covered chair and extended a hand. “You have reason to be proud.”

  Jerry returned the gesture, but he wasn’t as enthused as he had anticipated. His victory felt empty and meaningless when he thought of going on without Kimber. He remembered his earlier comment about fifty years passing in the blink of an eye, and he realized even that would be too long to wait to see her again.

  “However,” Nahum continued, “you were only supposed to save her, not sacrifice yourself for her.”

  Jerry didn’t respond. His mind—and heart—were elsewhere.

  “Never mind that,” his superior said magnanimously. “I suggest you go straightaway to be fitted for your wings. Because of your dedication to your mission, the promotion committee and I have decided that you’ve earned the right to bypass the beginner stage. You are hereby officially an intermediate level protectorate.”

  Nahum beamed broadly.

  He should have thanked him. Should have been more excited about this fantastic upturn in his career. He knew that if Nahum was disappointed by his poor response to the good news, then he would certainly be shocked by Jerry’s request.

  “I’d like to trade my wings for fifty more years with Kimber,” he announced.

  “Your protectee?” Just as he’d expected, Nahum was clearly stunned by the unexpected change in Jerry’s attitude. “This is highly irregular,” he insisted. “In fact, it’s against the rules.”

  Jerry was respectful but firm when he countered, “You know I’ve never been one for following rules.”

  An anguished wail reached their ears. Nahum walked over to a large box and clicked it on.

  “Hey, I thought only the Chairman of the Board had one of those,” Jerry said.

  “When He received the report of your assignment,” Nahum explained, “He insisted that I get one to monitor your activities.”

  The picture showed a lovely dark-haired woman weeping over the body Jerry had formerly inhabited. She lifted her face, reddened and streaked with tears, and Jerry felt her grief as
well as his own.

  “Please don’t take him from me,” Kimber pleaded as she aimlessly rocked the lifeless body in her arms. “I love him.”

  If it were within his ability, Jerry would be back with her that instant. But he was powerless to go to her or even to communicate with her. Restlessly, he paced the floor.

  Her quiet, plaintive voice once again emanated from the viewing box. “Please don’t do this to us.”

  Nahum, clearly affected by the display of heart-rending emotion, snapped the picture off. After he had composed himself, the supervisor commented, “As you said before you left for your assignment, fifty years will pass in the blink of an eye.” With a wink, he added, “Surely you won’t be missed for such a short time.”

  Startled, Jerry searched his supervisor’s face. When he had suggested trading the wings for more time with Kimber, he knew such a thing had never been done before. Even so, he knew he had to try. Nahum wasn’t inclined to joke, and he hoped he hadn’t chosen now to start. If this was for real, Jerry knew the price of a pair of wings was minor compared to what he’d gain from spending the next five decades with the woman he had come to love.

  “There’s no need to give up your wings,” Nahum decreed. “You earned them, Jared, and you should have them.”

  The supervisor clasped his hands together, and they disappeared beneath his billowing white sleeves. Jerry noticed a new row of gold braid adorning the robe. The risk Nahum had taken in handing Jerry this assignment had been rewarded by a promotion of his own.

  “Your new wings can be put in storage while you return to Earth to finish the life you began in Gerald’s body.”

  This was even better than he had imagined possible. He wanted to whoop with joy and throw his arms around his stodgy-but-kindly boss. But an unfinished piece of business—a promise he had made—momentarily stilled his rejoicing.

  “Before I forget,” Jerry said, “I’d like to put in a good word for Gerald’s aunt, Rowena.”