Rift (Rift Walkers #1)

by Elana Johnson

  I release her and step away. “Fix test scores?” I ask, retreating to my chair.

  “Sometimes.”

  “What else?”

  Cascade sighs in a very defeated way, as if the air in her lungs has disappointed her. She flops onto her bed. “I don’t like it, okay? It’s not like I grew up wanting to be a rift-walker. But yes, I’ve altered test scores. Those jobs come cheap, and Guy puts his walkers on those when they’re first starting out. Common stuff, you know?” She adjusts her pillows so they prop her up a bit more. Her dark eyes usually mesmerize me. Tonight, though, I’m only looking for truth.

  My mind races through the “common stuff” people would want to go back and change about their lives. Saying yes to a dance. Losing their wedding ring. Not telling someone a secret they should have. We all have one mistake we want to fix.

  “Then what?” I ask.

  “Then we do bigger jobs. You know, business things and political ventures.” She won’t look at me anymore, and I’m glad. I don’t want her to see the disgust in my eyes.

  “You’ve done that. Jobs like that.” Business things. Political ventures.

  “I have a contract with your dad,” she says, staring up at the ceiling.

  “Tell me,” I say. “I need to know about your ‘things’ and ‘ventures’.”

  “Price—”

  “Tell me.” My voice is harsh, unforgiving. I don’t care. I want to hear her admit what she’s done.

  “I made sure a specific man got elected Governor of California,” she says quietly.

  “How?”

  “I deleted the opponent’s application to Stanford. He didn’t get accepted, and ended up going into law instead of politics.” She has the decency to sound ashamed. She sits up and swings her legs over the edge of the bed so her back is to me.

  “You—you—” She altered someone’s life! The entire path they took, who they could’ve met and married, everything. My blood feels so hot in my veins. “What else?”

  A long pause causes me to bore my eyes into the back of her head. I want her to turn and face me, but she doesn’t. Her shoulders are limp, her head bowed. “I delayed someone so he wouldn’t go to a club.”

  “Sounds so innocent,” I say sarcastically. “What did that do? Ensure the President of the United States would win the primary’s?”

  “It erased a life,” she whispers.

  The breath leaves my body, leaving the horror and disgust to grow unchecked.

  “A twenty-five-year-old who found out who his real father was, and needed money,” she says.

  “Cas—”

  “One day he was alive. The next, poof.” Her spine straightens. “He wasn’t.”

  “Okay—”

  “No, it’s not okay.” She stands deliberately, and the quiet rage she harbors is evident in her expression when she faces me. “Nothing I’ve done as a rift-walker is okay.” She takes a deep breath, and it shudders in her chest. “He wasn’t the only one I’ve erased. I’ve lost count of how many of those kinds of ‘mistakes’ I’ve fixed, or how many ‘chance meetings’ I’ve arranged.” With every word her eyes burn brighter, her shoulders get tighter.

  “I’ve even gone back in time to assist in surgery,” she says. “Because the idiot who flubbed it up also paid us to make sure he tested well in med school. That woman—” She stops, tears brimming and falling down her cheeks. “I had to fix that. I couldn’t stand to see that woman lying in bed, unable to move. He realized what he should’ve done during the procedure. I made sure he did it.”

  She sinks back onto her bed as if her confessions weigh her down. Maybe they do. She’s usually so stoic, so tough-as-steel. I don’t know what to say, because while what she’s admitted makes me sick, I also feel sorry for her. My fingers twitch, partially because I want to reach out and comfort her, and partly because I want to make a fist and punch something.

  Her chest rises and falls as she breathes in deep and lets the air out. “I’d quit if I could.”

  “Really, Cascade? Would you really?” Suddenly my mouth is full of words. “Why did you come here?”

  She doesn’t answer, and I’m not in the mood to drop this. “Who are you?”

  She sweeps her hair out of her eyes so I can see the ice within. This is the Cascade I’m accustomed to. “I’m Cascade Kaufman,” she says. “But I used to be someone else. Someone who did everything her mother said exactly when she said it, who kept detailed notes in black notebooks.”

  My eyes widen. “That was your notebook?”

  “I took a lot of things when I left,” she says. “And I gave them all to your dad.”

  I hold up my hand so she’ll stop, so I can have a minute to process what she’s saying. I focus on the ground, hearing what Heath said about Cooper being a normal person, remembering that Dad said rift-walkers were dangerous.

  Maybe for him, I think. Maybe because his rift-walkers could expose him for what he really is, what he’s really doing.

  Finally, Cascade kneels in front of me. “Ask me,” she whispers. “Ask me again.”

  “Who are you?” I match my tone to hers, hushed and breathy, but I can’t look at her yet.

  “I used to be called Chloe Phillips,” she says. “And I came here to save a friend of mine who was in a bad situation. Her name was Eliza Davidson, but now she goes by Soda Harris.”

  Saige

  MOM KNOWS ABOUT THE RIFT. She knows. Maybe she’s responsible for it!

  The rift hasn’t been compromised.

  My body feels so light and the argument Mom’s having with the cops echoes around me. I see her grab one of them by the elbow and tow him into the foyer. The second man follows, scribbling furiously in his notebook.

  I need to know what Mom’s been researching. I need to know everything about her job, her laser theories, and how long she’s been working on time travel or time rifts. I need to know if Chloe’s disappearance happened before or after Mom knew about the rift. I murmur my thoughts, causing Sarah Jane to lean closer.

  “What’s that, Saige?” she asks, laying one hand on my knee. Such a small gesture shouldn’t make me feel so much. I’m glad she’s here, and that she’s listening.

  “She’s alive,” I say. “She’s alive, but not here.” Alive, but not here. It makes sense inside my head, but I’m not sure that counts.

  “Who?” Sarah Jane asks at the same time Shep says, “Where?”

  Who who who?

  Where where where?

  Time rift time rift time rift.

  I press my eyes shut and wait for the reverberations to stop. In contrast to the lightness in my limbs, my mind feels heavy with thoughts.

  “Who?” Sarah Jane asks again, and I realize that Shep should’ve asked the same question. But he’d asked “Where?” as if he already knew I meant Chloe.

  Chloe is alive. Next time that rift opens, I need to go through it. Find Cascade Kaufman and demand to know everything she does.

  I open my eyes. Shep watches me with panic under the surface of his glare. “I don’t know,” I say, and it answers everyone’s questions.

  The front door slams and Mom strides into the living room. Her face is blotched with rage, and she looks like she’s about to start yelling when she sees Sarah Jane. She stops herself, sets her mouth in a straight line and makes her shoulders tall and boxy. She glares at me and then Shep before striding down the hall and into her office. The door slams and the lock clicks, leaving me and Shep to figure things out on our own.

  Shep frowns like he’s trying to make a square puzzle piece fit into a round hole. I stand up. “Well, Mom’s obviously not going to tell us anything tonight.” I think of sleeping upstairs in my bed—in the same room as the rift, where anyone can walk in from any time.

  “I can’t sleep here,” I say. “Can I stay over at your house, Sarah Jane?”

  “Absolutely,” she says. “Let me call my mom.” She casts a worried look at Shep before going into the kitchen.

  “
You should come too,” I tell my brother. “I don’t trust Mom.”

  Shep swallows hard. “You really think Chloe’s alive?”

  “Yes,” I say, “And I think Mom knows it. Did you hear what she said about the rift not being compromised?”

  “What are we going to do?” Shep whispers.

  “We’re going to find out what she’s been researching at NovaRad, and for how long. If it has anything to do with time, or rifts…. Well, we’ll go from there.”

  Shep nods and stands up. “Mom left your printout on the counter. That’s how I knew you’d been researching time rifts,” he says. “I swear I wasn’t snooping.”

  “It’s okay,” I say. “She’s hiding something, and we can figure it out together.” I look toward her office, imagining what evidence I might find inside.

  “Will Sarah Jane’s parents care if I crash on their couch?” he asks. “And do they have a laptop I can borrow? We’ll start by searching online. Maybe Mom’s listed in some scientific journals or something.”

  “Good idea,” I say. Mom’s been featured in professional journals for her laser technology developments in the past. She’s always said that scientists document everything—it’s how they prove their findings and gain the recognition they work years to receive.

  If Mom’s discovered how to time travel, it will be documented. And if it’s online, Shep will find it.

  The only sound in Sarah Jane’s bedroom is the tapping of keys as Shep’s fingers fly across the laptop keyboard. He mutters to himself every few seconds, and while I can’t tell exactly what he’s looking at, I know he’s not finding what he wants.

  “No journals,” he says. “She hasn’t had any significant findings in ten years.” His voice breaks the silence, and it sounds like truth. “I swear she told us about something a couple of years ago.” He closes his eyes and stretches away from the computer. “Remember when that reporter came to the house?”

  I think back to the man who’d stood on our front step. Mom had waited in her office, wearing her most expensive navy pantsuit that she’d pressed into crisp lines. She’d made me answer the door and play hostess for ten minutes to “give the appearance of importance.”

  The reporter had worn a fancy, black suit. Dark sunglasses—which he didn’t take off until I’d seated him in the formal living room. When I’d returned with his coffee, his eyes looked semi-reflective. I gasp, drawing Shep’s attention.

  “What?” Sarah Jane asks. I feel bad for her; she’s been drawn into our family drama before knowing what she was getting into.

  “I think that reporter was from the future,” I say, each word dragging on the one before it. “I think he was like those guys who came today.” I explain why I think so, and Shep and Sarah Jane agree.

  “So she hasn’t had anything published in ten years,” Sarah Jane says. “And she has people from the future checking in on her research.”

  “Exactly. I think it’s safe to say that Mom’s been researching time rifts for a decade,” I say.

  Shep nods before I finish speaking. “I think so. Otherwise, she’d have some accolades for the work she’s completed. She doesn’t. Which means she hasn’t finished anything yet.”

  I lock eyes with my younger brother. I don’t want to ask my next question, but I do anyway. “Do you think she sent Chloe through the rift?”

  “As an experiment?” he asks.

  “Yeah.”

  Fear takes root in his eyes. “I don’t know. How could she?”

  I know Shep doesn’t view Mom the same way I do. She doesn’t hound him about how long he’s practiced the piano, or if he’s eaten his five servings of fruits and vegetables, or if he has homework he should be doing before playing video games.

  “I think she could have,” I say, “if she were desperate enough.” I wonder what would make her send away her own daughter.

  I can’t sleep, though Sarah Jane’s house is quiet. It’s almost too peaceful, and after tossing and turning for two hours, I get up. Sarah Jane slumbers in her bed, and Shep’s soft breathing comes from the couch when I tiptoe by. We didn’t tell Mom where we were going, and she hasn’t called. I don’t know if she’s home, asleep, or gone.

  I don’t care. I’m not staring at Sarah Jane’s ceiling for another minute, not when there’s information to be found. And I know just where to start: Mom’s computer. It occurs to me as I drive the few miles to my house that Mom’s office might be locked. She might be awake. I might gain nothing but the loss of sleep.

  “I have to try,” I tell myself as I pull into our driveway and cut the engine. I go around the house and into the backyard so I don’t have to open the automatic garage door. I pause in the mudroom, my fingers still on the doorknob and my ears straining to hear every sound.

  I hear nothing. I cross through the kitchen and peer up the stairs. Nothing. The foyer is empty; the living room dark. The hallway leading to Mom’s office seems to take on a new level of blackness, and I’ve taken one step toward it when a hiss sounds behind me.

  I spin, my hands automatically coming up to protect my face. I look around wildly while the sound—a steady current of water—continues and then snips to a stop. My heart battles against my throat. I see no one, and suddenly realize it was the icemaker in the fridge. I release the breath I’ve been holding and turn back to the hallway.

  Outside Mom’s office, I take another deep breath. I’ve never done anything like this before, but I feel invincible. Surprisingly, the door is unlocked. I slip inside and gently ease the door closed soundlessly. I press into the door and wait for my eyes to adjust to the absolute blackness.

  Someone’s breathing, and it reminds me so much of two nights ago when I heard Price’s exhalations through the rift. I glance at the couch, and sure enough, Mom is sleeping there. I close my eyes, unwilling to back out now.

  Every nerve in my body is tense, which makes moving to the desk like walking on a tightrope. I feel stretched, and strained, and like simply blinking will alert my mother to my presence.

  I carefully rotate the computer screen away from the couch and wake the machine with the mouse. I hold down the brightness adjustment button on the keyboard until it’s so dim I can barely see anything.

  Mom’s desktop is stark. Not a single folder or file—only the hard drive. I double-click on that, and find she has an entire filing system. Lists and lists of folders—no files. Mom is meticulous in her organization. I take my time, reading each label to determine what’s inside. They’re all related to work with names like “Lab Results February 2013” and “Hypothesis to Energy Fluctuation.”

  There’s a single folder called “Personal.” I click there, but I’m disappointed by spreadsheets detailing our monthly budget, how much it would cost to paint the kitchen cabinets ourselves, and multiple downloads of school progress reports for me and Shep. There’s nothing that remotely suggests time travel or anything Chloe-related.

  I close the files and open her Internet browser. I don’t think for a minute she’d leave her email open, and sure enough, when I navigate to her client, it wants a username and password. The username I know; Mom’s emailed me a few times, mostly forwards about my occasional missing assignments.

  I key it in as quietly as I can, shooting a glance to the couch. Looking away from the computer screen, though dim, and trying to focus in the dark is like looking into a deep well. I pause to listen for Mom’s steady breathing. It comes, soft yet sure.

  I focus on the computer again, riddling through options for a password. After the first three have failed, I swallow hard to calm the clenching in my gut. I close my eyes, desperate to remember a conversation, a snippet, anything that will help me.

  My eyes fly open. I try t-i-m-e— I stop when a drop down option appears. I click on it, and hit Login. A loading bar signals my success, but I can’t get a proper breath. I almost wish I hadn’t been able to crack her password—or that it didn’t begin with the word time.

  I take a deep breath, st
rengthening my resolve. Mom’s email is as organized as her desktop files. She has three new emails that have come after midnight, and they’re all for department store sales. On the left side, she’s created five folders. Funding, Personal, Research, Ryerson, Work.

  My heart leaps at “Ryerson.” I click there and find hundreds of emails between Mom and a man named Harlem Ryerson. The newest one is about two years old, and ends with Mom consenting to a meeting where she signed an agreement. What the contract is about, this particular email doesn’t say.

  An hour later, I’ve learned a lot. Harlem Ryerson is the chief financier of Mom’s research. Her laser-enhanced, time travel research. My mouth feels sticky from my shallow breathing, and my heart hasn’t calmed since I read the email confirming Mom’s knowledge of, and experimentation with, time travel.

  Harlem’s contributed millions to Mom’s research, as he claims in one email. You must document your findings in full since the initiation of The Project, beginning November 15, 2002 until today’s date, August 28, 2008. Failure to do so will result in action I do not wish to take, Ms. Phillips.

  Mom didn’t respond to that message. I read that email a few times. Mom hadn’t disclosed her research to those paying for it—and Chloe disappeared less than a month later.

  After her disappearance, Mom sent an email to Harlem, demanding that he return Chloe. He denied everything, of course, claiming that he did not take Chloe, and that he still expects her research findings to be turned over to Hyperion Labs in a timely manner.

  I lean away from the computer, ignoring the squeak from Mom’s desk chair. I feel sick to my stomach. Mom wouldn’t disclose her findings, and Chloe paid the price. Fury surges through me, both at my mother and my sister. They were in this together, and never once did they tell me anything.

  Funding, Personal, Research, Ryerson, Work. Mom’s life fits so neatly into five folders. I know what I’ll find in Funding, Research, and Work. More evidence of time rifts and time travel. More evidence that Price’s family funded all my mother’s research and she wouldn’t disclose her discoveries.