15 Minutes- The Complete Saga Boxset

by Jill Cooper

  He takes my hand and gives it a squeeze. “I know,” he says the words, but his heart isn’t in it. I fear that whatever comes next might put a wedge between us.

  “The TTPA isn’t Rewind.” How many times have I reminded him of that? Reminded myself?

  “I know that too, but they make me feel the same. Like I’m walking through green sludge.”

  My lips part and I breathe deeply. “Can you support me on this?”

  His eyes soften as he takes me into his arms. “Lar, I’ll support you on anything you choose to do. Now until eternity. If that’s with the TTPA, I’ll find a way to deal with that. For you. I just wish you knew that.”

  “I do,” a small smile graces my lips as gently I kiss him, “It’s just nice to hear it sometimes. Sometimes my head doesn’t know what my heart does.”

  “And what’s that?”

  “That you’re devoted to me.”

  Donovan chuckles despite the circumstances and kisses my hand. “There’s nothing truer than that.”

  “Ms. Montgomery? One more round of questions and then you’re free to go home with Mr. James.” A police officer stands with his hands clasped and I notice the left hand has a big mole beneath his thumb.

  Don and I share a parting kiss and then I follow the officer toward the rear of the banquet room. We go out the double-wide doors. Inside the halls of the hotel, the carpet cushions my sore feet. Whoever said heels were the perfect complement to an outfit was lying.

  At least where murder investigations are involved.

  He ushers me into a small administrative office. There’s nothing remarkable about it except for the sweeping window overlooking the city. The cramped space smells faintly of an apple-cinnamon candle, long burned out. “Commissioner Lance will be right with you. If you don’t mind waiting…”

  I hold up my hand to stop him. Waiting seems like the perfect thing; I need to collect my breath. As I stroll over to the window, the door latches behind me. A few years ago, it would’ve unnerved me, but now I’m calm. I lean on the window and gaze out at the city’s blinking lights. Everything out there seems so simple. In here, I don’t even know why Lance wants to see me again. I had thought all the questions were already cleared up.

  My clutch purse vibrates. I pull out the phone and see a text from Mom and a separate one from Dad. Bad news travels fast in our family. The fact they had both texted me in the span of a minute makes me wonder if they’re together. A date? Something else?

  Something more?

  I’ve always said Mom’s life was complicated. I try to stay out of her love life. Dad and Jax; my heart needs them both, so I do my best not to pick sides. Something my mom excels at, and to survive sometimes I have to be distant.

  Fiddling with my keypad, I text them both that I’m fine. Let them know I’ll catch them both up on the details later. Something zaps me from behind and I smell an electrical charge.

  The hair on the back of my neck rise up as I catch the reflection of someone standing behind me. It’s a woman in a black leather suit, her face hidden by a blue helmet. Only her lips are visible, but it’s easy to make out the two electrical sticks she’s carrying. They’re crisscrossed over her head as she charges straight at me.

  Blue electricity dances between the rods. She means to hurt me, or kill me. I don’t want to find out which.

  I grab the plastic box of papers on the ledge beside me and fling it backward. It conks my assailant in the head. To avoid being hit, I fling my body to the ground and roll away. The electrical charge travels through the room and hits the window instead of me. My heart pounds and my mind fills with fear as I spring up onto my feet the very moment she pivots on the heel of her platform boot.

  Her body is fit, muscular in all the right places, and she’s coming right at me. I wheel an office chair at her. With my next breath, I grab whatever I can find on the desk—a lamp—and fling it at her, backing up as I go.

  She twirls the batons in her hands as if she’s done this all before. Blond hair sticks out beneath her helmet, barely reaching her shoulders. Baring her teeth, she screams and lunges for me. I can’t let her electrocute me. It’d be game over, so my eyes sweep through the room. If ever there was a moment I wanted to freeze time, it was now, but I grab the golf club leaning against the wall.

  Careful not to get hit, I spear it against her belly, to drive her back. She groans and folds onto it in a giant V. Her body falls against the desk. My hair is out of place as the door behind me opens. Whoever it is, might have just saved my life.

  The helmeted girl snarls, raising her lip and speaks in a rough, way-too-low speaking voice. “Next time, Crane.”

  She disappears in a flash of blue smoke. It pixelates and dissolves, one particle at a time except for one of her electrical sticks. The one I had knocked from her hand is left behind. As I nudge it with my foot, a small surge pulses up my fashion pumps straight into my flesh.

  I shudder back, as two officers surround me. “Ms. Montgomery, are you all right?”

  My spine races with cold. They had called me Montgomery, just as everyone else does. But her? The time travel assassin had called me Crane.

  Chapter Five

  She had called me Crane.

  In the timeline that is now my home, Jax Montgomery had adopted me when I’d been a small child. No one calls me Crane. Even I stopped calling myself a Crane over the last several years. Only someone who knew my history would call me that. Or someone from the past. Or, maybe, a different version of the future?

  It’s all a tangled web. Lies, deceit. It’s been part of my life for so long, I should be more comfortable with it. But my stomach turns on itself when I tell the police I just tripped. When I ask where Commissioner Lance is, they shrug.

  “We came looking for you, miss. Mr. James said he hadn’t seen you since the police came looking for you, but it wasn’t us. No one sent for you.”

  No one. That means I was set up. By two people who were working as a team. What they want, I don’t know and I had been helpless to defend myself. I don’t have any fighting skills—not really—and no power to speak of.

  My ability to travel through time is so dormant, I couldn’t time travel through an open door right now.

  I don’t know if I should work on getting it back, or just let it go.

  Donovan and I ride in silence all the way back to the penthouse. The rain splatters against the windows in harmony and it’s my constant companion as our car arrives at our building. We ride up the elevator side by side, but it’s like we’re in our own personal hell.

  In the entryway of our grand foyer, I slip my heels off and hobble into the living room. I slip my toes into the white fluffy rug and sink down into the white leather sofa. Donovan, standing by the wall closest to the bedroom and flicks on the gas fireplace and turns on some quiet music.

  It’s instrumental piano with a light horn in the background. Soothing, and much different from what I listened to growing up in the ghetto apartment block with my father.

  Donovan grips the mantel, then turns to me and settles into a wide stance. “What do we do?”

  I lay my head back on the pillow and feel my mind beginning to drift away. “Call out for ice cream? Double chocolate, double cookie crunch?”

  “Lara…” Donovan’s voice mirrors my own exasperation.

  “I know, but I can work it off before I have to fit into the wedding dress.”

  “This is serious.” Donovan’s eyes narrow as he regards me. “Someone lured you away tonight. They could’ve hurt you and for what? We don’t even know.”

  “It’s like I told the police,” I sit up straighter and brace my arms against the cushions, “I just tripped in that office.”

  Donovan crosses his arms and holds himself rigid. “Tell that to someone who doesn’t know you, Lar. Someone was in there with you. I just don’t know why you’re lying. Are you protecting someone? It can’t be someone in the family, so…”

  My gaze sweeps out to the
window. The stars twinkling in the night sky seem so vast. I wish I could get lost in them right now. “I don’t know who she was, but she disappeared. Into a cloud of pixelated dust.”

  “Pixelated dust?” Donovan’s eyes darken. “Time travel. Are you saying she was a time traveler?” His voice rises to an uncomfortable level.

  “Please, don’t freak out. I’m upset enough by all this.” I bite my lip and wait for his reaction.

  He rubs his face clean and looks to have aged years right in front of me as the worry creeps over his face. “The TTPA didn’t catch this?”

  “Maybe they did. Maybe that’s why she left. She could’ve killed me before the police barged in. So, either she wants something other than my death or she was yanked out by something...or someone.”

  Donovan massages his neck. “I don’t like it. This thing—whatever Delilah was into—we can’t let you get dragged into it.”

  “Whatever Delilah was in to? What is that supposed to mean? She might not have been into anything.”

  “But we don’t know. That’s my point. I know Marcus wants you there tomorrow. I know you feel like you have to be there, but…” Donovan sighs and goes on bended knee. He takes both my hands in his and implores me with his big blue eyes. “Let’s just go away. Vegas. An island. Hell, I’ll buy you an island, Montgomery. Let’s elope and just go.”

  “I don’t run away, Donovan.” I pull my hands away, even though I can appreciate where he’s coming from. The fear runs deep and sometimes the urge to flee is too strong, even for me.

  “Are you implying I can’t handle this? Because it’s you I’m worried about, Lara. Not myself. I want to protect you. Why is that so bad?”

  I caress his cheek. I think back to the version of an older adult Don I had once seen. The future in which I disappeared?

  He’d fallen apart, had been a drunk, and desperate for something he no longer had. That man had been weak and it was a secret I’d take to my grave. He didn’t need to know how he’d failed when people had needed him the most.

  “Then we handle it together. For better or worse, right?” I show him my engagement ring to remind him, “I wouldn’t have said yes if I didn’t mean it, Don.”

  “Oh, Lar,” his voice is soft as his eyes gaze into mine, “I’m not questioning your love or dedication to us. I’m just…. Look, can we agree on one thing? Time travel does nothing but disrupt the future. Can you promise not to try to fix this, whatever it is?”

  I nod. “I can’t anyway. Last time I tried….” The color drains out of Don’s face and I realize I’ve said too much. “Well, try is probably too strong a word. It was more like, a reflex. I saw Delilah lying there,” my nose scrunches, “in her own blood and…”

  “You tried to go back in time? Tried to fix this? Even after you promised.” He looks like I’ve betrayed him.

  I’m quick to apologize, maybe a little too quick. “It was a reflex. She was my friend and then she was dead. Just like that, Don.” I speak softly and bite my lip. The image of Delilah’s body flashes into my mind and puts tears in my eyes. “If I can save someone I love, why wouldn’t I try? Wouldn’t you?”

  Donovan shook his head. “Don’t make this about you. You can’t save everyone all the time. You’re not God. What happened to Delilah…”

  “It’s already about me.” I’m on the edge. Ready to whip out the card from the scene, but I hold it back. I grip my knees and just wait for the feeling to pass. Donovan’s not ready to go tripping down the rabbit hole with me. Somehow, I have to protect him from the madness that’s my life, even though I’m ready to take his name.

  “We have to let the police do their job. You can’t save everyone this time, Lara. You’re just like the rest of us.”

  The truth of those words stings me. A regular person. No longer a time traveler? The anxiety mounts in my chest. Maybe I don’t want to be a regular person. It sounds nice, but when it comes right down to it…

  Donovan strokes my hair back and I lean against him as he kisses the side of my head.

  I hate our fights. He wants the best for me…I know that…but my heart wishes sometimes he’d stand beside me rather than fight me.

  “But I’ll protect you. Be here for you. We’ve always faced these things together and this time won’t be any different.”

  His words are nice, but they aren’t true. This time was going to be a lot different. Without time travel, one mistake might be my last.

  ****

  Later that night, we lie atop the bed’s warm comforters, a fire raging in the master suite’s hearth as rain echoes against the windows. Both of us need a little something from the other. A reminder, something to hang onto that proves we’re going to make it through this crazy life. My lips search his body as his hand grips my hair.

  We moan in time and I cling to him, bury my face against his shoulder. He grips my legs closer to his body, and each time we fall deeper in love with each other than the last. Finally, we lie gasping for air, perspiration covering bodies entangled with each other like mottled spider webs. It’s at once perfect, and desperate. When I gaze up at his sleeping face, I’m overcome with love. The type that rips my heart open.

  There’s nothing I want more than to marry him. Love him. But if having a normal life means friends die and the world suffers, how can I be happy?

  None of it sits right with me.

  Tracing his chin with my finger, my skin grazes over his lips and I hope one day he can see fit to forgive me. Maybe find a way to look past my shortcomings and love me anyway.

  Gathering the sheet around my body, I hurry into our bathroom. The tub is big enough to be a swimming pool, and on the edge of it is my clutch from the party. Pulling out the golden card, I stare at the saliva splatters along the edges.

  Anger and pent-up despair swirl in my belly and race to the top. The card makes me emotional. Makes me alive with fury. If ever there is a secret to time travel, this is it. After four years, I’m not as angry as I once was. I have my mother, father. Donovan. Everything my heart has ever craved, but with the loss of Delilah, maybe I can find that raw anger I need.

  The anger that had once driven me from day to day. The key that had propelled me through time.

  The room swirls and I gasp for breath as the mirror spins toward me. I grip the edge of the sink and wait for everything to fall away, to pixelate. In retrospect, I wish I had gotten dressed, but like a car hitting a brick wall, I jolt inside my own skin.

  My mind never leaves, and instead, a headache crashes onto me and blood trails from my nose. I dab it up with toilet paper and squeeze my nose tight.

  A normal life? Seems as if Donovan might get his wish.

  Chapter Six

  In the morning, I dress more casually. A tight, pink sweater over a white collared shirt paired with a relaxed jeans. I slip comfortable flats onto my feet and I’m off for the day. Donovan rides with me in the car over to TTPA headquarters in Boston then heads on to his office. In the back of the limo, we share a quick bite to eat and two steaming cups of coffee.

  Just outside the sprawling TTPA headquarters, he kisses my nose. “Send for the car when you’re done. If there’s some sicko out there, I don’t want you walking the streets.”

  I smile sheepishly. “Got it.”

  But nothing is safe. Not if I’m dealing with a time traveler. For all I know, I’m being monitored and they know when I’ll show up before I do. Somehow, I must beat them at their own game.

  Entering through the revolving door, I’m dumped directly into the lobby. Security greets me as warmly as can be expected and they go through my bag. I pass through the scanner and collect my laptop and belongings on the other side. All that’s left is to take the glass elevator up to the third floor. Should be simple enough.

  I break into a smile when I see Marcus standing by the elevator waiting for me. “Marcus, did you already have your Wheaties?”

  He chuckles and takes my hand as he always does when we’re alone. I don�
�t know why I allow the closeness between us to remain. It’s hard to let go of that fondness, even when you are marrying someone else. Plus, he’s thirty-odd years my senior. If something were to happen between us, it was in the past.

  Literally.

  “I thought a friendly face might make this easier.” Marcus calls the elevator, and when it arrives, we step in.

  “Oh, it does.” I play with the idea of telling him about the card and the assassin, but I pass on both for the time being. “Any information on who the board thinks might be a good fit?”

  “Only one and she’s in this elevator with me.” Marcus gives me a pointed look and inwardly, I groan.

  My stomach rolls and for a moment, the elevator spins. “I appreciate—.”

  “Do you?” Marcus asks as the elevator door opens, “Do you really appreciate how badly the TTPA needs strong leadership? Someone with the drive and passion both you and Delilah had? Have.” Marcus raises his eyebrows as he ushers me through the hall.

  It's lined with closed-door offices one way and the other branches off to the tech department. He opens the door to the empty conference room and we choose a place around the huge table. Already at each seat are folders embossed with the swirling logo of the TTPA. Marcus leans back in his chair. “I know, Lara, how you feel about the day-to-day operations here, but can you honestly say anyone is going to care about time travel and all its complexities more than you do?”

  “My mother then. Jax. Someone that isn’t me.”

  Marcus smirks. “Is that you talking? Or Donovan James?”

  My heart skips. “That’s not fair. I wanted to be done with time travel just as much as he did. Maybe more. I’m the one whose life was on the line. Time and time again.”

  His eyes soften and he rubs his hands together. “You needed time away. To gather strength. Recharge. No one is saying time off is a bad thing, Lara, but TTPA needs you. And I think you need it.”

  I shrug with no words left to say. “I don’t know anything about running an agency. I can barely get to class on time.”