Wakening the Past: A Time Travel Romance (Medicine Stick Series Book 2)

by Barbara Bartholomew

  The evening was turning dark and, strange as it seemed, after three years of extreme drought, the air felt heavy with moisture as he got out of his car, stepping carefully to avoid skidding on the refreezing slush. A sheriff’s office car was parked on the street and two of his deputies stood outside, waiting for him.

  “Mark’s around back,” Joey spoke quietly as if afraid of being overheard. He was youngest and newest of the deputies, but the one from whom Alistair had the most hopes for real professionalism, considering he’d caught him early and was seeing he was properly trained.

  He nodded. Passersby had reported hearing an old man sneaking into the unoccupied building and the sheriff, sending deputies over at once, told them to stand guard until he’d arrived on the scene. He was hoping to get through this without anybody getting shot, not even the escaped prisoner.

  The building had been damaged in a fire late last year and most locals couldn’t see the point of having what they called the old junk shop restored, but the owner had insisted on plowing money back into the place, saying it had been a family business for years and she didn’t intend to be the first to give up on it.

  Most folks thought Mrs. Harris was being foolishly sentimental, but a local builder had been glad to give the low bid on the job and had rebuilt the damaged store and the loft apartment, though nobody seemed to think there was much of a future for either it or the Mountainside downtown.

  Alistair led his troops to the front door. “Got the keys from Cully down at the pizza place,” Joey Harding told him in a voice so low as to be almost a whisper. He waited for the younger man to open the door, then pulled his gun and with it leveled in front of him, went in through the new front door. “Police,” he advised loudly, but in what he hoped was a non-threatening tone. He didn’t want to push a frightened old man into unnecessary resistance, though he didn’t suppose Jeffers was even armed, unless he’d found an old weapon among the odds and ends of ancient furnishings, collectibles and such that rested undisturbed in Ye Old Antique Shop, better known locally as Mrs. Harris’ junk store.

  The store didn’t look the way he’d remembered it, not even before the fire that had done so much damage. It no longer smelled of smoke and the crowded arrangement of everything from old iceboxes to old rocking chairs and a huge assortment of glassware had been dusted, cleaned, polished. It was still a confusing mass of items, but no longer was the place festooned in spider webs. Even the antique farm equipment looked cleaned up, though the colors worn away in pioneer fields were still faded and worn.

  The place smelled of lemon furniture polish and bleach and looked as though it had been cleaned back into the most remote of corners.

  Even though he tried to walk quietly, it still seemed as though his footsteps echoed through the old building, as did those of the deputy following him.

  Lots of places to hide here. A man could be behind that old church organ or under the huge old desk in the corner. He and Joey were vulnerable if anyone wanted to shoot at them from such a hiding place and he listened for any sound and watched for any flash of movement, his tension heightening as he pushed his way through the accumulated debris of many people’s lives.

  He motioned Joey to remain where he was and found his way to the stairs in the back. Most of the bottom level of the store had remained reasonably intact, as had the collectibles. The worst damage was upstairs where the fire had been started in the apartment where his wife had once lived and what he found there was totally unfamiliar.

  It reeked with the scent of newness. The rug-covered floors were now newly polished hard wood, the walls painted neutral shades and the kitchen featuring a cabinet with a marble countertop. The rooms were not yet furnished, though the kitchen displayed a small range and refrigerator and was equipped with a dishwasher and twin stainless steel sinks.

  The apartment showed little resemblance to the cozy loft where he’d visited Hart in the days before the fire. Only the bedroom was scantily furnished with a modern-looking bed and the one piece of furniture from before, a small vanity with a mirror that had been distorted by the heat and smoke of the blaze.

  He almost forgot the man he was trying to find as he stared into that mirror, remembering the blue and white old-fashioned bedroom that had been here before.

  The bed was made up with sheets and pillows, covered with a deep purple coverlet that was pushed back to reveal the slightly sunk in pillows and tumbled sheets. Someone had been sleeping here. He searched the closet, finding it empty even of clothing, then went into the shiny new bathroom where a heap of orange clothing lay on the floor.

  He recognized those garments immediately. He should since he regularly saw hundreds of prisoners so clad. This was the jump suit Nolan Jeffers had been wearing when he escaped.

  He had been staying here.

  Calling for more deputies, he immediately instigated a thorough search of the building and its environs, but after hours of looking, his troops had to finally admit the obvious. Nolan Jeffers had been here, but he was gone.

  Hart awakened by a strange sound found that sometime during the night Alistair had come in and was asleep at her side. He must have been terribly late because she hadn’t even heard him enter the bedroom.

  She listened, trying to determine what had caused her to wake from sound sleep. Then she heard it again. Someone was crying and that someone had to be Bobbi.

  Surprised that the apparently brash teen would so indulge, she crept silently from her side of the bed, anxious not to disturb what little sleep her husband was managing to get and tiptoed from the room and down the short hall to the guest bedroom.

  Bobbi wasn’t merely crying, she was wailing so loudly that she could be heard even through the closed door. Turning the knob and pushing it open, she was surprised to see the girl lying in the light cast by the little reading lamp, her eyes closed as though she were soundly asleep. At the same time those terrible cries came out of her mouth.

  Even as Hart watched, she turned over and the wails turned to agonized murmurings, half smothered against her pillow.

  Poor baby. She looked a lot younger than her fourteen years, more like a little girl with her face swollen from crying and her hands scrambling against her sheets as though in some kind of desperation.

  “She’s going to shoot! She’s going to shoot! Run, Stacia, run.”

  The words were mumbled, but distinct. With horror, Hart realized she was reliving those moments when a killer had Stacia at gunpoint and Hart was rushing to her aid, sacrificing her own life for the other woman.

  For Stacia. For her. She touched the girl’s skinny arm lightly so as not to add to her distress. “Bobbi, it’s all right. It’s only a dream.”

  The child continued to mumble indistinguishable words and to toss wildly. “Hart,” she found herself saying the name she went by these days, though the soul inside her did not belong to that name. “It’s all right, Hart. It’s over.”

  Long lashed eyes flew open and Bobbi stared up at her in obvious bewilderment. If she’d been dreaming she was Hart, what was it like for her too look up and see the woman who seemed to be Hart standing near her.

  “It’s over. It’s not happening anymore,” Hart tried to comfort her, taking her into reassuring arms. “You’re Bobbi Lawrence and you’re at my house in Oklahoma. You came here because there was something you wanted to talk to me about.”

  The girl went silent as she collapsed, shivering, into Hart’s grasp.

  Chapter Eight

  Looking composed and slightly annoyed, Serena Hudson got out of her rental car in front of the Redhawks’ ranch house and strode forward. Hart couldn’t help being glad she wasn’t the runaway granddaughter in this case because auburn-haired Serena looked like she meant business.

  Hair probably colored at her age, Hart thought randomly, but it’s the same shade as Helen’s was. Well, Helen was her mother. It was always hard to remember that Helen was gone, as if each day she had to gradually absorb knowledge of the loss of he
r only sister.

  “Roberta Louise Lawrence,” she said, stopping in front of her granddaughter, who for once in her life looked almost scared. Hart was surprised; she’d only thought the things that happened to her in dreams frightened the girl, who seemed intimidated by few things in the real world.

  “Hi, Granny.” With a visible degree of caution, the fourteen-year-old reached up to kiss her grandmother’s cheek. “Hope you had a good trip.”

  “Roberta Louise,” Hart mused aloud. “I had no idea.”

  “Isn’t it hideous?” Bobbi asked plaintively, her round face troubled.

  “It’s a lovely name,” her grandmother countered. “Your father picked it out.”

  “You always say Daddy has no taste,” Bobbi said, grinning as though she felt the worst moment was past.

  “Roberta, I would never say such a thing.”

  “Well, it’s what you think anyway.”

  Serena ignored her granddaughter to greet Hart and thank her for looking after the wayward girl. Hart, who guessed the older woman was probably weary from the long journey and worrying about her granddaughter, invited her inside, than left the two alone while she went into the kitchen for iced tea.

  Surprisingly after the ice storm of only the day before, today was warm and spring-like and the idea of cold tea was refreshing. She refrained from heavily sweetening the drink, however, since her guest was not local, but put a sugar bowl and a container of artificial sweetener on the tray with the pitcher and glasses, wondering if she’d given them long enough to get through the first few rough moments.

  No such luck. They were in the midst of a spirited argument as she came in and she would have turned to walk right out if Serena Hudson hadn’t imperiously waved her into the room. “My apologies, Mrs. Redhawk,” she said once Hart had put her tray down on the coffee table and seated herself. “My granddaughter shouldn’t have drawn you into a family matter like this.”

  “I had to come here,” Bobbi protested, “I didn’t know where else to go. Besides, Hart and me, we have a connection.”

  Hart was afraid that was true. She didn’t want to be drawn into this matter, but remembering how she’d felt as a girl when people acted like she was weird when she tried to tell them the things that were happening to her, she knew she had no choice but to defend Bobbi.

  “I think she was resourceful, coming here on her own and all,” the words petered out as she faced Serena’s strong look. “Mrs. Hudson, she felt she could trust us.” She looked past the woman to the girl’s troubled face. “She can.”

  “All I know is that we will be leaving for the airport first thing in the morning. I’ve booked tickets home for both of us.”

  “No, Granny!” Bobbi protested.

  “Please give her some time here,” Hart added. “She’s troubled by what she’s experienced and needs time to work her feelings through.”

  She began to pour tea over the ice already in the glasses, handing one to each of her guests and offering sugar and lemon, which both refused.

  “You sound as though Bobbi has been through some sort of trauma,” Serena protested, putting her glass down on the table without so much as a sip.

  “I believe she has been troubled by the story of what happened to your aunt,” Hart suggested. “She had a terrible nightmare last night.”

  Serena frowned. “She has been having nightmares and that’s not like her. Bobbi is a resilient child, not given to imaginings.”

  That seemed to be true enough to Hart. Bobbi was a confident extrovert, nothing like the real Hart who had been sensitive, quiet and very imaginative. She couldn’t see her as a reborn version of Hart and yet something was seriously off with the girl.

  She couldn’t let Serena hustle her back to California where there would be nobody who had a chance of understanding what was happening to her.

  “Why don’t you stay here for a few days,” she suggested, managing a rather stiff smile. “Visit a little.”

  She heard the front door open, then familiar footsteps. Alistair was home and he would be furious with her since he’d made it so clear he wasn’t ready for visitors. As for herself, she’d be almost glad to have company in the house, standing between her and this strange, unspoken quarrel she was having with her husband.

  She looked around as he came into the room, his face tight with tension. Another bad day. “No luck with finding Mr. Jeffers?” she asked anxiously.

  He shook his head, looking past her to Serena Hudson. “I’m glad you’re here, Mrs. Hudson, so I can tell you in person. We got word today from the state. They’ve confirmed that the bones found in the lake matched your family’s DNA. It seems very likely that the murdered woman was your mother’s sister.”

  Serena’s face contorted with distress, but Hart quickly looked from her to Bobby. The girl gave a little cry, than fell in a dead faint.

  Alistair didn’t want to talk about anything weird. He was a practical man who believed in the reality around him and didn’t go in for spooks or spirits nor tales of either so he busied himself with starting a fire in the grill and beginning to cook hamburgers for supper. Certainly neither Serena or her granddaughter was in shape to drive on out to the lodge in the darkness and there was no other hostelry in the immediate area, so they were stuck with them as guests for the night.

  Hart slipped a frozen blackberry cobbler into the oven to bake for dessert and put together a salad to go with the hamburgers.

  Bobbi, seeming recovered from her fainting spell and unwilling to discuss the incident, ate two hamburgers, a pile of salad, and a large helping of cobbler with vanilla ice cream while her grandmother nibbled at her dinner. Having not taken time to eat all day, Alistair ate hungrily, but didn’t protest when the two women took over the dishes and cleanup, telling him he looked exhausted.

  He found himself in the living room with the television on to a cable news network and only Bobbi for company. “You all right?” he asked gruffly.

  She nodded, apparently intent on a news story that he was quite sure would have no interest for a girl her age.

  So she was going to ignore him. His debt to civilized behavior toward a guest in his home satisfied, he picked up the newspaper that had been published in Wichita today and read of the futile search of the junk shop, ending with the orange jump suit as the only bounty. Various townspeople were briefly interviewed to round out the story and expressed their fears that the escaped murderer offered a threat to the community.

  The story of that long ago murder was repeated. Jeffers, a friend of the victim’s teenaged son had gone into an irrational rage and, in front of the younger son, had beaten the disabled older Maxwell to death. It had been a brutal killing and, in those days, little ground was given for the youth of the attacker. Nolan Jeffers, the only child of a widowed mother who died of grief after his incarceration, had pleaded his innocence, but nobody believed him. The testimony of the Maxwell child had been heart-breakingly convincing.

  He supposed Hart had to know this latest happening, but he preferred to tell her himself and he wanted to spare her reading the cold hard facts of Jeffers’ original crime. She was fond of the old man. Crumpling the newspaper, he tossed it toward the fire and strode from the room.

  He didn’t see that behind him, a frowning Bobbi took the iron poker and fished the newspaper from the ashes. The ebbing fire was only beginning to crisp the edges and she laid it on the stones in front of the fireplace and blew out the fire. Then, giving it a couple of minutes to cool, she began to read the story that Alistair had tried to obliterate.

  Bobbi didn’t much like Alistair Redhawk; she didn’t know why. But if he was trying to keep a secret from Hart, then it was her job to know why.

  For some reason, she felt protective toward Hart, kind of like she was a sister or something. She brushed the idea aside, vaguely uncomfortable with the notion. This was all part of the strangeness that had become a part of her life lately.

  Though come on, Bobbi, she told herself.
You’ve always been strange. Up to now, you’ve just been good at hiding it.

  She glanced at the front page. The top story, left hand above the fold, was about a high school basketball game. The one on the right was about some old man who had walked away from prison.

  Didn’t seem to be anything in either one that Alistair would have been reluctant to have his wife see. Quickly she glanced through the rest of the page. Nothing much there. Mostly about meetings and school events.

  Her gaze went back to the escaped prisoner story. Sure enough, Alistair was mentioned in the first paragraph. He’d headed up an investigation after a tip that the escapee was seen at an unoccupied downtown building.

  That building was the old store where Hart had once lived in a loft. She’d gone by there after the fire to tell her goodbye.

  She read through the rest of the story. Ugh! She wouldn’t want to run into the old guy who had beaten someone to death. He’d be really creepy.

  But why wouldn’t Alistair want Hart to read this story? She didn’t trust him. She went into the kitchen and thrust the newspaper before Hart’s face.

  “What’s this?” Hart asked, putting the last of the dishes away. She wrinkled her nose at the scent of the scorched newspaper.

  “Read it,” Bobbi commanded, going over to sit at the kitchen table, putting the paper down on the table next to her.

  Granny glanced at it. “Basketball?” she asked in disbelief.

  Bobbi waited until Hart took the chair next to her. “Read this,” she said, placing a finger on the relevant news story. “Then tell me why your husband tried to burn the paper before you could read it.”

  Chapter Nine

  Alistair was years older than her and held a position of responsibility. She was accustomed to looking up to him. Maybe that was why it was so hard when, after she’d finished reading the news story Bobbi had pointed out to her, she had to confront him.

  Sometimes she still felt like the little girl who had been warned by her parents not to tell made-up stories about how she sometimes lived in another girl’s body, a girl called Hart.