“How long have you been taking pictures?”
“Abi bought me my first camera when I was twelve. It was secondhand, but it had all the bells and whistles. I had a blast learning how to make it work.” A blip of sorrow.
“Why does thinking about it make you sad?”
“I’d started to forget things about my family. The house I lived in when I was little. Abi thought being able to keep a record of my life here would help me. So I’d never have to worry about forgetting anything again, and so I’d have a tangible memory.” She slid a little on a loose stone and I lightly touched my hand to her back to help her keep her balance. “Been taking pics ever since. I have a digital camera now, but I kept the original.”
“Your stuff is really impressive. You could have a gallery showing. Em pointed them out, on the walls at Murphy’s Law. Do you want to pursue photography professionally? When you’re older?”
“I’m pursing it professionally now.” Drive and determination.
“It looks like we’re in the clear,” I said, standing. I reached for Lily’s hand to help her up. “You sense anything?”
“No.” She held the Skroll close to her chest. “But maybe you should sniff around for some despair.”
We made it to the hotel without any further incidents. Neither of us paid attention to the duck parade that was taking place as we hurried through the lobby. We didn’t talk in the elevator.
Lily remembered our room number. We’d left without a key, so I had to knock. Waiting for someone to answer was torture. Finally, Michael opened the door and we stepped inside, barely dodging a flying Emerson.
“You scared us to death,” she said. “What the hell’s going on? Where have you been?”
“Calm down, Em,” I said.
“Don’t tell me to calm down. You take off in a strange town with my best friend and—”
“We’ve been with Teague.” My words made the impact I’d hoped for. Em sat down hard on the edge of the couch.
“Teague?” Michael joined Em.
“On the way back from getting your coffee, we saw Poe and followed him. He led us straight to Teague’s office in the Pyramid, which I’m assuming is also Chronos headquarters.” I pulled two different bottles of soda out of the minibar and held them out to Lily. She picked the non-caffeinated one.
“You randomly saw Poe on the street in downtown Memphis. He led you to an abandoned commercial building, and then you followed him inside?” Michael asked. “It could’ve been a trick.”
“It wasn’t.” I didn’t like the implication that I would’ve put Lily in a situation like that. “I’d have known if he was trying to trick us, and I’d have insisted that Lily come back to the room.”
“He tried to make me come back to the room, anyway, but I didn’t listen.” She untied the sleeves of my shirt and removed the silver rectangle. I took it. It was still warm from her skin. “If I had, we might not have made it out with this.”
“What is that?” Em popped up off the couch and plucked the Skroll from my hands.
“Dr. Turner called it a Skroll.”
“Wait. Dr. Turner was there, too?” Michael looked from me to Lily and back again. “Maybe you should start from the beginning.”
We explained everything, including the crowd of freaky rips.
“So now we have a device that we don’t know what to do with, and we still don’t have any leads on how to find Jack,” I said.
“Obviously, we have to go back to talk to Dr. Turner.” Em felt the edges of the Skroll, looking for a way to open it. “We’re taking this with us. First thing in the morning. And we aren’t leaving until we get answers.”
Chapter 26
E
arly the next morning, Em and I hurried across Bennett’s campus toward the science department. “Are you just going to plop it down on his desk and say, ‘Hey, my best friend stole this from the same office where you were seen with the head of Chronos. What’s that all about? And also, do you know how to open it?’”
Em had the silver case in her bag. “No. Maybe. I don’t know right now. But when I see him, I’m sure I will.”
We didn’t even have to go all the way to Dr. Turner’s office.
He was in front of the science building, holding his briefcase. A pink carnation was in the buttonhole of his vest.
“Dr. Turner,” Emerson called out.
When he heard his name, he turned to face us and smiled politely. “Good morning. How can I help you?”
He seemed a little formal after our encounter yesterday. I stepped close to him, hoping no one around would hear us. It was around nine, and people were rushing to classes all around us. “I took your advice and checked out the sights. The Pyramid? I saw some things I wanted to talk to you about.”
I expected shock, at the very least, surprise. But not confusion.
“I’m sorry, did I give you advice?” Dr. Turner pulled at the edge of his bow tie.
“Yes,” I answered, “in your office, yesterday …”
He had no idea what I was talking about.
“Dr. Turner, it’s me. Emerson.” She smiled and nodded, encouraging him to remember. “We were here yesterday morning.”
He leaned over to get a better look at her face. “Yesterday morning?”
“During your office hours.” She looked around before saying in a low voice, “We talked to you about Chronos.”
Distress coated his words. “I don’t … I wouldn’t … oh, hold on, my phone …” He fumbled around, touching each of his pockets before finally finding his cell. “Hello?”
He glanced at Em and me as he listened to the caller on the other end, his fear more pronounced by the second.
Em’s anxiety crashed into mine. “I don’t feel good about this.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“Could he be senile, have Alzheimer’s or something? Or does this mean what I think it does?”
“His memory is gone.” I nodded. “It has to be Jack.”
“But he disappeared off the map.” She fought her fear, denying the obvious truth. “Lily’s been checking every hour.”
“More like every half hour.”
“Then how could Jack have gotten here?”
“He could be hiding in veils. If he stays inside them, it could block Lily from being able to track the pocket watch. He would exist outside space and time.”
“Or he could be stuck. That could explain why the rips just keep getting worse. More screwing around with the continuum equals more consequences.” Em made a sound of frustration. “As if things weren’t bad enough already.”
“Actually, I don’t think Jack’s stuck. He paid the professor a visit, which would be impossible if he were stuck.”
“Why would he take Dr. Turner’s memory?” Em asked. “Specifically his memory of us?”
“I don’t know.” I just knew we were surrounded by enemies and uncertainties, and everything in me wanted to get the hell out of this town and back to Ivy Springs. “Maybe because Dr. Turner told us too much about Chronos.”
“He barely told us anything.”
I looked at Dr. Turner, paid attention to his appearance, and panic settled in my chest. “We have to go, Em.”
“We need to call someone. We can’t leave him like this.” She didn’t move. “Who knows how much of his memory Jack took?”
“Em, don’t.” I needed to get her back to the hotel. “There’s nothing we can do.”
Dr. Turner had hung up his phone, and he stood staring at the Gothic arches in front of the science building, frowning at them.
“Please, we have to at least take him to his office. He has grandkids, a family.” She pushed away from me. “We want to take you to your office, okay, Dr. Turner? We’ll explain once we get up there.”
“I’m afraid you can’t. I have to get to a meeting shortly.” He tucked his phone into the pocket beside the buttonhole that held the carnation. The bright pink, perfectly fresh carnation.
&nb
sp; “Don’t worry,” Emerson said. “We’ll be speedy. Just come with us.”
She reached out to take his hand.
He dissolved.
Denial came first. A white-hot burst of adrenaline in our chests that flooded out to our arms and legs, making us weak and dizzy.
Reality kicked in, the image outside reconciling with our brain. Panic sped up our breathing, broke us out in a sweat, made us shake.
I’d never felt another person’s emotion so strongly in my life.
“Dr. Turner?” Em turned to me. “Kaleb? Was he …”
“No,” I said, reaching out for her before she turned around. I knew where she was going.
“Rip.” Her breath heaved in her chest. “Dr. Turner was a rip. He was a rip, and he didn’t recognize us.”
“It could have been a future rip,” I said, trying to stall her, calm her down. Work out a way to stop what I knew was about to happen.
She shook her head in protest. “No. Michael and your dad said they haven’t seen any future rips since all this started.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“Kaleb, he was wearing the exact same thing he had on yesterday. He had the pink carnation in his buttonhole. It was fresh. He should have recognized us. Oh no.”
“Emerson, don’t.”
“Oh please, God, no.”
She didn’t wait for me, just took off running at top speed. My legs were longer, but she ran distance and had fear as a chaser. “Stop! You don’t know what happened up there—stop—Em!” She skidded through the entrance to the science building. I was two seconds behind because of the time it took to open the door she let slam behind her.
Her footsteps echoed up the stairwell. I heard her wrench open the door to the second floor. I caught it right before it closed.
The receptionist from yesterday sat at her desk, her mouth opening to ask us where we were going. We were too fast for her.
Em opened the door to Dr. Turner’s office and stood, frozen, just outside. I stopped in time to keep from running into her.
The fedora he’d worn to meet Teague was on the floor.
The pink carnation was wilted in the pencil holder.
The pipe was cold.
Dr. Turner lay facedown on his desk in a pool of blood, his throat slit from ear to ear.
Chapter 27
A
fter we’d found Dr. Turner, I’d called campus security, and then Michael and Lily. We split the day between the college and the police station, watching the coroner’s office employees enter and leave the building as they did their investigation, and then as the police brought in possible witnesses for questioning. The wound had been inflicted fourteen hours earlier, with a six-inch blade, from behind. The killer had slashed from left to right. The same way Poe cut Emerson.
There was no doubt in my mind he was the culprit.
I kept seeing the knife slice across her throat at the Phone Company, her lifeblood leaving her body. The next second, it was Dr. Turner, a man with grandchildren and a pink flower in his jacket, slumped over his desk, blood dripping to the floor.
Since the moment we’d found him, I hadn’t been able to get a grip on my own emotions. Guilt, fear—other things I couldn’t name. It all added up to something so out of control my heart kept skipping beats.
Em wasn’t any better. We’d returned to the Peabody, where she’d taken a forty-five-minute shower. Now she sat on the couch, wrapped in Michael’s arms, a complete wreck. Lily was in the shower, and I sat in a chair in the corner, trying to block everything out. Finally, I couldn’t take any more.
“Em.” I reached for her hand. She looked at me blankly. “Let me take it.”
“Take what?”
Her voice was loud, as if she’d forgotten how to modulate. I pointed at her heart.
“The pain. You want to take the pain.” Her words weren’t a question. More like an accusation. I didn’t expect the laughter that came next, or her short answer. “No.”
She was in no shape to handle her emotions on her own, especially when she didn’t have to.
“I feel it either way, whether I take them or not,” I said, attempting to persuade her.
“I’m sorry my pain is inconveniencing you.”
“You know that isn’t what I meant.” The words came out harsher than I intended. Michael sat forward in his seat. I needed to temper my response. “Don’t shut me out when I can make it better.”
The bathroom door opened, and Lily emerged with wet hair and pink cheeks. I didn’t want her to hear any of this.
“Taking my emotions won’t make it better, Kaleb.” Em acknowledged Lily but didn’t lower her voice. “If you don’t like them, get out. Go in the bedroom.”
“The bedroom isn’t far enough.” I’d be able to feel her on the opposite side of the equator. At least if I took her emotions, I’d be able to control them.
“Then go somewhere else. Leave. Go ahead!” Her shouting caught me completely off guard. The Em I knew was violent with her fists, not her words. I’d never seen her be irrational. Michael’s worry and his expression of concern told me he hadn’t, either. “Make me worry about you, as long as it makes you feel better.”
“How far away do you want me to go?” I asked. She was spinning like a top on the edge of a table.
“Oh, that’s right. You can leave the situation behind without even leaving the room, can’t you?” She cut her eyes in the direction of the minibar. “Just crack a few open. All kinds of teensy little bottles in there that should numb everything right up.”
Her refusal to let me help made me angry for reasons I couldn’t name. “I offered because I care.”
Michael tried to pacify me, “She’s just mad. You don’t need to take care of her. I will.”
“Like you take care of everything, right?” I asked. Something broke loose in my chest, and my rationality flew out the window, right behind Emerson’s. “You always swoop in and save the day. You saved my dad. I could have prevented his death if I’d been more in tune with Cat and Jack. If I had, my mom would be awake and healthy. And if I’d taken the files out of Dad’s safe when I was supposed to, Jack would have never known about Emerson. So it’s all my fault.”
From the other side of the room, I felt Lily weighing whether or not to intervene.
Michael stood up. “Don’t do this. Don’t make today about you.”
“Oh okay,” I scoffed. “Because that’s totally what I’m doing, Mike. No, wait. I wasn’t making it about me. You did that.”
“You did that all by yourself,” Michael said.
Our emotions reminded me of a hurricane that stayed in one place, churning up destruction and then churning it up again. But there was no eye in this storm.
“I know how Dr. Turner’s family feels,” I said. “He will never go home to them. He doesn’t have a second chance like my dad did. There’s no rewind or easy out for a slit throat. There was a body. A slit, bloody throat. Someone had to identify him. Someone had to claim him. And now someone has to bury him.” I laughed, but there wasn’t an ounce of mirth in it. “So, yeah, go ahead and say today is all about me.”
“Stop.” Em covered her ears. “Stop it. Listen to yourselves. You’re making it about both of you, and Kaleb’s right. A man is dead.” She burst into tears, sobbing like she’d never be whole again, and started to slide to the ground.
Michael caught her before she could hit.
Without another word, he scooped her up and carried her into the bedroom, kicking the door closed behind them with his foot.
I grabbed a key card from the table and ran.
Chapter 28
B
eale Street at night. A person could get away with murder in this kind of dark. The wind blew colder than it had that afternoon. Music rolled out of every open bar, neon lights in every color of the rainbow made everything seem celebratory, and the crowd ranged through every emotion. Lust to anger to tipsy joy.
My fake ID was soli
d. I needed it to work tonight. I was definitely in the market for some tipsy joy, and maybe a couple of college girls.
I wanted to forget Em’s rejection. The confusion I’d seen on Lily’s face.
I couldn’t even think of Michael’s disappointment without boiling the blood in my veins. I’d offered to lay myself open for the girl he loved, and he’d shoved it back in my face. For the first time in a while, I hadn’t had one selfish motive, and he’d blown the whole thing completely out of proportion.
I wondered what Dr. Turner’s family was doing tonight. What had his granddaughter thought when she heard that she wouldn’t be able to take her grandfather flowers anymore, except for the ones she left on his grave?
Turning in the direction of South Main, I walked toward the Orpheum Theatre. After the rip experience at Ivy Springs Cinema, I was glad to see the marquis advertising an upcoming concert by a modern band. It was nice to be firmly planted in my own reality.
Now I was ready to plow myself out of it.
I followed a crowd of frat boys into a bar called the Love Shack. Holding my ID up in front of the bouncer’s face as the line went through, I engaged the guy in front of me in conversation. Casual. Cool. Easy enough.
I plopped myself on a bar stool and ordered a gin and tonic. “Extra gin.”
The bartender, a ridiculously hot redhead with a name tag that read “Jen,” offered me a crooked smile. “Right, baby boy.”
“What do you mean, ‘right’?”
She scooped ice into a glass. “You aren’t old enough to drink.”
“I most certainly am.” Indignant was the perfect word to describe how I felt. Not one I’d use in everyday conversation, but still perfect. “I got in, didn’t I?”
“Where’s your stamp?” Opening a new bottle of grenadine, she poured some in the bottom of the glass, added two cherries, and topped it off with Coke.
“Stamp?”
She grinned wider. “Stay out of trouble, sugar. Come look me up when you’re legal.” She slid the cherry Coke across the counter and winked. “On the house.”
Timepiece: An Hourglass Novel Page 13
