Rockwell Agency: Boxset

by Dee Bridgnorth

  And it seemed he had.

  Whitney didn’t say anything at all for a long moment, and she turned her head, looking out the window. He could see her tension in the way her jaw clenched, and her throat worked overtime.

  He could also feel Lydia’s tension, and he purposely didn’t look over at her, knowing that he had not followed the plan by divulging all of that to Whitney at once.

  “I don’t know what you expect me to say to that,” Whitney said, as Quentin merged onto the interstate. “That’s a great deal of information to take in, and I’m not sure I even understand it or believe it. For all I know, my husband partied too hard.”

  “I saw him this morning,” Lydia said. “He didn’t know me, Whitney. He ran from me. He doesn’t know where he is. And Quentin saw the portal himself.”

  “Saw the portal,” Whitney repeated. “What do you mean he saw the portal?”

  “Only I saw it,” Quentin said. “As you pointed out, I have certain …abilities. The portal was visible to me, but not to Lydia. I saw it, and I saw the canister that contained it explode in flames.”

  Lydia turned around to look at Whitney. “I know that it’s hard to believe, and that you’ve never been into this stuff as much as Jack and I have, but I promise you that it’s true. All I can think is that he did some sort of experiment or got involved with someone as part of his own research and got himself in over his head. But we have to find him, Whitney, or he’s in trouble.”

  Whitney pressed her lips together, creating a fine line of tension. “This all sounds completely impossible …” She started to say more, but Quentin’s phone rang.

  He snatched it up, swiping to answer. He only briefly saw that the caller was Barrett. “Yeah?” Quentin said. “We’re on our way in now. Maybe twenty minutes away.”

  “I’ve got him.”

  Both women gasped, and Quentin felt his own heart thud against the wall of his chest, adrenaline rushing through him. “No way. Seriously?”

  “Yeah—not because we found him. The police picked him up for stumbling around. He’s disoriented. They’re holding him there, but because Hannah had made a call about him earlier today, they called me when he said his name. They’re going to let us take him.”

  “Oh my God!” Lydia gasped, lifting both hands to cover her mouth. “Really?”

  “Really,” Barrett said, hearing her hopeful voice. “I’m on my way to him right now.”

  Lydia closed her eyes, squeezing them shut and dropping her head into her hands. “Oh, thank God.”

  Quentin glanced back at Whitney, pleased to see that she was also leaning forward, intently. She had a pained expression on her face that looked as though she might be holding back her true emotions, and Quentin reminded himself once again that he shouldn’t judge her too harshly just because she tended to be more reserved with her feelings.

  He thanked Barrett and resolved to keep a more open mind about Whitney. And he pressed down hard on the gas pedal, eager to get Lydia to her friend as quickly as possible.

  Chapter 26

  Lydia

  Lydia knew that when Jack arrived, she had to keep her cool and not overwhelm him. Barrett had called back and said that Jack was highly disoriented, and afraid, and not at all happy to have been taken into police custody or about the prospect of being handed off to people he didn’t know. The mention of Whitney’s name had given Jack reason to believe that these people did know who he was, but apparently in the world that this version of Jack occupied, he and Whitney were in the middle of a nasty divorce. So, Whitney’s presence was not going to be altogether helpful. Jack didn’t know Lydia at all.

  It was going to be difficult, though, making sure that she didn’t run to him and throw her arms around him. She had been so worried for so many hours now that something terrible had happened to him—and something terrible had, of course. But once they got him back, they would fix it. She just had to believe that.

  Lydia couldn’t stop pacing the main entrance of the Rockwell Agency, moving back and forth across the room while Quentin leaned up against the far wall, and Whitney sat perfectly still in a chair. All of them were staring at the door, though, waiting for Barrett to walk in after picking up Jack.

  “There’s a car pulling in,” Quentin said, breaking the silence. “This will be them.”

  Lydia took a deep breath, shaking her hands out in an attempt to steady herself. When she looked through the glass door of the agency, she could see a car parking, and then she saw Barrett get out and round to the passenger side of the car, open the door, and then step back to let his passenger stand up.

  The sight of Jack’s face was such a relief, even though she knew he wouldn’t know her. He looked disgruntled and angry as Barrett walked him in, his hand on Jack’s arm. When the door opened and the cool air from outside rushed in ahead of Barrett and Jack, Lydia stepped forward, but then remembered to let Whitney greet her husband first.

  Whitney stood and walked over to Jack, who was eying all of them warily. Lydia could see the recognition in his eyes when he looked at Whitney, and she was glad that he at least had some anchor in his life, even if it wasn’t one that this version of Jack particularly cared for.

  “Sweetheart,” Whitney said, holding her arms out for Jack. “We’ve been so worried.”

  Jack let her hug him, but he didn’t return her hug. “Something has happened to me,” he whispered to her, still darting his eyes around the room. “Something is wrong. Don’t trust these people. Don’t trust anyone.”

  Easing back, Whitney took Jack’s arm and led him to a chair. He sat down, pressing his back up against the chair, and the chair up against the wall, as though trying to prevent anyone from sneaking up behind him.

  “Jack,” Whitney said, crouching in front of him. “You’re right. Something has happened to you. These people are trying to help you fix it. I know that you don’t understand where you are or what is happening to you right now. I know you don’t recognize Lydia, but I promise you that she’s one of your dearest friends.”

  “I stopped trusting you a long time ago,” Jack told Whitney. “I’m not going to start up again now. For all I know, you’ve done something to me—something horrible. Something like you did to Patrick.”

  Whitney frowned, glancing back at Lydia and Quentin. Lydia had no idea who Patrick was or what Jack might be referring to, but it was clear that this version of Jack thought very little of Whitney.

  “You know I wouldn’t have done anything to you,” Whitney said, her voice soothing. “I know you’re confused about us, but we’re married, Jack, and we love each other and we have a happy life together with our children.”

  “Just like you had a happy marriage and children with Patrick,” Jack said, pushing Whitney’s hand off his leg. “Don’t touch me.”

  Lydia could see that Whitney’s presence wasn’t going to be nearly as helpful as she’d hoped. Jack recognized her, but he had only negative feelings associated with her. Maybe a clean slate was better.

  Approaching slowly, Lydia pulled a chair near to Jack and sat down across from him. She gave him a tentative smile, trying to hold back her own emotions that he wouldn’t understand. “Jack, my name is Lydia, and I know that you don’t know me, but in another life, I guess, we were friends. The best of friends. We shared the same hobbies, and we enjoyed spending time together. In fact, it wasn’t long ago that we went on a trip to New Orleans together and we went on ghost tours and drank too much beer. We had a great time.”

  Jack looked at her. “You chased me this morning.”

  “I did, because I’m worried about you,” Lydia said, resisting the urge to reach for Jack’s hand and press his fingers. “You’re right that something has happened to you, and it’s nothing that’s your fault. I just want to help you. Your memories are different now. You don’t know me, and you don’t know about your life here. I know that must be scary. Really, really scary.”

  Jack was watching her, listening. He didn’t respond
to her, but he wasn’t actively resisting her either.

  “See, Jack,” Lydia said, allowing her to put a hand on the arm of his chair, just to reach out to him a little bit. “Someone did something to you that split you into two worlds. This world and another world. I’m in this world, and you—you’re from the other world. You’re the other version of you. Somehow the two versions of you got swapped, and we have to un-swap you so that you can go back to your world, and our Jack can come home. Our Jack is married to Whitney, and he’s the father to beautiful kids, and he’s my best friend. I really want him back, and I want you to have your life back.”

  “It’s her,” Jack said, pointing at Whitney. “If someone did something to me, it’s her. She does things to people. She’s evil.”

  Whitney frowned, taking Jack’s hand. “Sweetheart, don’t say that. The version of me that you know may be, but this version of me—the one that’s right here—loves you more than anything and would never hurt you.”

  Jack pulled his hand away from hers. “You told Patrick you loved him, too. Look where that got him.”

  Lydia looked at Whitney, and Whitney looked back at her, both women puzzled by what Jack was talking about. Whitney shook her head, and Lydia felt sorry for the woman who looked so sad and lost. Lydia knew that Whitney always liked to be in control. To be capable. Now she likely felt like she was neither of those things, but Lydia wanted to help her.

  But she didn’t know how.

  “I don’t think we’re going to get through to him,” Lydia said, standing up and walking back towards Quentin, who had been giving the two women space to reunite with Jack—or this version of Jack anyway. “He doesn’t understand, and he doesn’t trust us.”

  Quentin nodded, reaching out to touch Lydia’s arm. He drew her closer to him, pressing her fingers and looking down into her face. “I don’t think you will, no. I’m sorry.”

  “What do we do then?” Lydia asked, holding his hand tightly. “We don’t even know how to create the portal again. I don’t know how to help him, Quentin.”

  “I have an idea,” Quentin said, “but you have to trust me, Lydia. Do you?”

  “Of course,” Lydia said. “I trust you completely.”

  Quentin smiled at her. “Good. Then I need you to let me speak to Jack alone. Without you there. Without Whitney there. Just me and just him. Can you do that?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Of course.”

  “You need to understand that I’m going to invade his privacy,” Quentin said, keeping his voice low. Barrett was standing beside Jack, keeping him in his chair, and Whitney was still standing beside him. “I’m going to try to tap into a part of his mind using some techniques that I know. I’m going to try to at least find out how this happened to him. If any part of his mind knows, then I’ll find it. And once we know who did this to him, then we’ll know who to get to make us another portal. Because whoever did this, didn’t want the two bodies swapped between worlds. That’ll only end up killing his experiment, or whatever it is he’s doing. We can get him to help us swap them back.”

  “And then?”

  “Then we figure out if there’s a way to undo what has already been done,” Quentin said. “One step at a time.”

  Lydia nodded, looking back at Jack, who was sitting there glaring at all of them. “Just try to help him … Please.”

  Quentin brushed his lips against her temple, sending a warm whisper of comfort through her, as he released her hand and moved towards Jack. He reached down and took Jack’s arm, bringing him to his feet and nodding towards the hall. “Come on, let’s talk in my office.”

  Jack protested, but there was nothing he could do as Quentin powerfully led him away, unperturbed by Jack’s struggling.

  Lydia watched, shaking her head and hugging her arms to her chest. “God, I hate this.” She went to Whitney, and the two women wrapped their arms around each other, offering comfort. Lydia glanced towards Barrett, wondering if he would give them some privacy to talk, and he quickly took the hint.

  “I have some things to do,” Barrett said, heading for the door. “I’ll be on call if you need me.”

  Lydia nodded gratefully, and for a moment her amazement over the fact that she could have such casual interactions with dragon shifters surfaced, delighting her all over again. But the happy feeling quickly faded back behind the dread she felt over Jack’s situation, and she guided Whitney to two chairs that were close to each other. The receptionist who had been in earlier that day was gone, so it was just the two of them, and Lydia sat forward in her chair, clasping Whitney’s hands.

  “How are you holding up?” Lydia asked, searching Whitney’s face and finding a weary woman.

  “I don’t know how to deal with any of this,” Whitney said. “I know I seem cold and aloof, and I know that I brushed you off when you said he was missing. It must seem like I don’t care, but I just don’t know how to look at him this way. I have to protect my heart, or it hurts too much.”

  Lydia was relieved to hear her friend be more vulnerable, and she hugged Whitney hard. “Oh honey, I know. I know how hard it is. If it’s hard for me … I can’t imagine how you feel.”

  “I wish that I had taken you more seriously last night,” Whitney said, hugging Lydia and then leaning back in her chair. “Maybe you would have found him faster. Maybe that would have helped. I just …I wasn’t lying when I said that he does just disappear, and I don’t know why. He doesn’t do it all the time, of course, but sometimes he just doesn’t come home from work, and I won’t see him until the next morning. I don’t like it, but a man needs to blow off steam now and then, doesn’t he?”

  “Of course,” Lydia said, understanding why Whitney wouldn’t be too upset about such a thing occurring if it was within the context of an otherwise healthy and loving marriage. Put that way, it just seemed like a man who needed some space from his obligations now and then. Of course, Lydia still found it odd that Whitney might think that Jack would have done that to her, here in Baton Rouge, last night, while in the middle of cooking dinner. But it wasn’t unreasonable. It wasn’t something to get hung up on now, by any means. “If we had looked for him last night, all it would have done was give us a few extra hours,” Lydia said, trying to reassure Whitney. “It wouldn’t mean that he wasn’t still dealing with this problem—this schism that he has. Somehow the portal appeared last night, and the two versions of Jack switched. He freaked out and ran. None of that would have happened any differently.”

  Whitney reached for Lydia’s hand and pressed it again. “Thank you. I can always count on you. I’m glad that you’re here with us, while we deal with this.”

  Touched, Lydia smiled at the woman. “Of course. You and Jack are my closest friends. I would do anything for you, and I’m going to help both of you through this. I swear. You can always count on me.”

  “Yes. I can always count on you to be interfering but generally gullible,” Whitney said, her expression changing in an instant.

  Lydia tried to pull away from Whitney’s grasp, but she realized she couldn’t move, and she started to panic. None of her muscles would respond to her commands. She tried to speak, but she couldn’t do that either. She could do nothing other than stare into the ice-cold hate in Whitney’s eyes and realize with brutal clarity that she had read everything so very wrong.

  Chapter 27

  Quentin

  Quentin sat Jack down in a chair in his office and positioned himself in another chair, making sure that he was directly between Jack and the door. He had whisked Jack away under the pretense of being able to pull back some of the layers of confusion that the man was operating under, and he did intend to do that, but he also needed to be able to get information from Jack without his wife or Lydia looking on.

  “Hi, Jack,” Quentin said, sitting down and getting comfortable, his legs sitting apart and his hands resting comfortably in his pockets as he watched the man across from him. “My name is Quentin. You might already know that, but now we
get a chance to officially meet and talk.”

  “I don’t want to talk.”

  “Well, I don’t much care what you want,” Quentin said, keeping his tone light and conversational. “I don’t say that to be rude—it’s just that your life is on the line, and you don’t have all the information that I have. I’m trying to save your life here, man, so we’re going to do things my way for a while.”

  Jack didn’t seem to know what to say that, and Quentin contemplated his first line of questioning. He had been thinking while Lydia and Whitney talked to Jack, and he realized that they were assuming that their world’s Jack was the real Jack—the original, true Jack that existed before the schism—and that this Jack was the one created by the spell.

  But there was no reason for that assumption. Either one of them might be the original Jack, and if it was this man sitting in front of him then he very well might know how the schism had been created in the first place. He certainly seemed to have a rocky relationship with his own version of Whitney, in his world, and Quentin wanted to know more.

  “Why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?” Quentin asked. “Lydia and Whitney think they know who you are, but I don’t have any preconceptions. So, tell me what I need to know about you.”

  Jack seemed unconvinced, but he also appeared to know that he couldn’t get out of the room, and he had no other solutions up his sleeve. “I’m a programmer. I was married to that bitch of a woman out there for ten years. No kids. Divorce was ugly. But so was her first one.”

  “Tell me about her first one,” Quentin said.

  “God—poor Patrick,” Jack muttered, staring out the window. He seemed to have momentarily forgotten his angst at being here in this room in favor of spilling the beans about something that was clearly upsetting to him. “I never realized it at the time. I was involved with her while she was still going through the divorce. She spun this whole story about how terrible Patrick was to her and how desperate she was to get away from him. I was young, and stupid, and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker. I was convinced she was the victim. I found out later that she’d been manipulating him for years—and you don’t even have any idea how she can manipulate people, trust me. I’m not talking mind games. I’m talking mind control.”