Daring Hearts: Fearless Fourteen Boxed Set

by Box Set

  “Kind of, but that’s not the problem.” I paced the narrow area beside my bed, where the blue rug had worn out to a dirty gray. “The problem is, we got back to the present, but everything’s changed.”

  “How so?”

  “Boston University is shut down, my parents are split up, and I live with my mom in an old apartment building. My best friend and I aren’t friends. It just goes on, Adeline. It’s like we caused a local economic collapse.”

  “Oh, Casey.”

  “You’re sure nothing has changed in California?”

  “Not that I can tell.”

  “I hope the changes we caused are restricted to this area, then. Still…”

  Adeline finished for me. “It’s bad news. I haven’t travelled back to 1929 since you left. Does this mean I could change the order of things if I do?”

  Oh, man! Does this mean we might keep changing the timeline now, every single time we travel? That would be catastrophic. Nate and I had been gone only one day and look at the damage we’d done!

  “You have to be really careful,” I said. “Try to hole up somewhere and stay out of trouble.”

  “I’m guessing you didn’t stay out of trouble.”

  “Not exactly. Sheldon Vance was there.”

  “He’s out of prison?”

  “Yes. And he saw me. Nate and I had to run.”

  “He chased you? Why did he do that?”

  “Well, I obviously wasn’t in jail in California. He managed to get released and maybe he thought I was a threat to him getting thrown back in?”

  “Oh, Casey! So what happened next?”

  “He and Nate got into a scuffle.” I decided to leave out the part about the gun. No need to freak her out more than I already had.

  “Do you think meeting up with Sheldon again caused your timeline to change?”

  “It’s possible, I guess.” I groaned loudly. “Oh, this is such a mess. And on an even more personal note, Nate is freezing me out.”

  “Ah, you told him about the kiss.”

  “I didn’t have a chance. Someone’s been posting pictures!”

  “Pictures? As in more than one?”

  “Three so far.”

  “Yikes. Sounds like someone’s after your man.”

  “And he’s angry about my new loop, not to mention the fact that he’s no longer at BU.”

  “That’s a lot of stuff, Casey. I’m really sorry about you and Nate, but as hard as it is, it’s your second-priority problem. You need to get back to 1929 and undo whatever it is you did and hope you can straighten things out. Just because I can’t see any obvious changes around me, doesn’t mean there aren’t any. I haven’t been following the news lately.”

  “I know. I’ll have to try to trigger a trip back somehow. Nate’s coming to get me soon. We’ll figure it out.”

  “Keep me posted.”

  “Will do!” Since Adeline was officially the only friend I currently had on the planet, it was a promise I knew I would keep.

  * * *

  Nate called me later that night as promised.

  “Apparently, I don’t go to university anywhere.” He sounded disgusted. “I work at a car parts shop.”

  “Yeah, well, Lucinda and I aren’t even friends. I have no idea who my friends are here. Mom expects me to go to school tomorrow, but I’m certain that will be a disaster.”

  “We should go back to the library again,” Nate said. “We need to find out what happened to change everything. Then we need to go back and fix this.”

  “I agree,” I said, “but I don’t think you should come to the door. Mom seemed overly suspicious of you.”

  Nate chuckled. “I’m an older guy with no prospects. She has reason to be wary.”

  I wanted to laugh, but I couldn’t muster it. “I’ll meet you at the corner by the deli,” I said. “Seven-thirty.”

  Eating breakfast with Mom the next morning was a little awkward. There was so much I was supposed to know that I didn’t. I needed to dig for answers without making her think I fell on my head or something.

  I went through a couple cupboards before finding the cereal, a bowl and a spoon. At least the milk was easy to locate in the fridge.

  “Ah, when is Tim coming to see us?” I asked. Mom’s eyes peeked out from behind her coffee mug. “Next weekend. I thought you were going to a concert together.”

  “Oh, yeah, right.”

  There was a newspaper opened to Mom’s right and she was circling ads.

  “Are you looking to buy something?” I asked.

  She huffed. “No money to buy stuff, Casey. You know that. I’m looking for job leads.”

  “But…don’t you want to work from home?”

  She cut me a look like I wasn’t making sense. This was harder than I thought it’d be.

  “Bretton Wiles wants me in the office where he can breathe over my shoulder. I can’t leave Bretton Wiles Interiors until I find something new.” She sighed. “The economy is so bad, I should just be thankful I have anything at all. ”

  “What’s wrong with Bretton Wiles?”

  “He’s an idiot. Casey, you’re acting like you haven’t heard the stories. Working for Wiles is a nightmare.” Mom checked the time and nodded to me. “You better get going. You’re going to be late for school.”

  I’d showered earlier and put on fresh clothes. All I had to do was brush my teeth and add a little makeup.

  I guess I didn’t need to do that last part. Nate had seen me without makeup tons of times, but I wanted to look my best, or at least a close second. Nate had cooled toward me by several degrees. It made my heart sting, and I wasn’t sure, when this was all over, if we’d survive as a couple. I hoped so. I really, really hoped so.

  My stomach squeezed a little when I saw him sitting in his old BMW at the curb on the corner.

  “Hey,” I said as I got in.

  “Hey.”

  I leaned in slightly, hoping he’d meet me halfway for a kiss, but he just signaled and turned onto the road. I sighed and did up my seatbelt.

  “How was your night?” I asked, trying to keep my voice light.

  “Interesting. My brother John is dead, killed in Iraq. My mother is a borderline alcoholic and my dad is a jerk.”

  “Oh, Nate. I’m so sorry. We’ll figure out a way to fix this.”

  “I sure hope so.”

  “What did we do in 1929 that could’ve triggered these changes?” I said. “And why are some things affected and not others? Why Boston U and not Harvard? Why do I live in an apartment while your family remains in the same house?”

  “All good questions.”

  “Was it Sheldon Vance?” I asked. My voice dropped a tone. “He was still alive when we left him, wasn’t he?”

  “Yes, he was.”

  “How can we be sure he didn’t die in the street?”

  “I didn’t hit him that hard, Casey. He wasn’t bleeding from the back of the head or anything. Just a blow to the jaw.”

  “Then it had to be Marlene. Maybe she followed your advice and sold her stocks before the crash?”

  Nate shook his head. “Even if she did, why would that change so many things? How could that result in the closing down of BU?”

  I shrugged. “I don’t know. It does seem like a big leap.”

  Nate used his library card to get access to the computers. We had to wait in line since there were only two. We could’ve used our own, but we didn’t want to spend the time at each other’s places with our moms around, and we didn’t have any money to spend at a coffee shop. It would be easier to concentrate in the quiet of the library anyway.

  Once the guy in front of us finally left, Nate signed on and immediately began looking up the Vance brothers and Sheldon Vance in particular. “Sheldon Vance was the second son of the notorious Vance brothers, a crime family who ran liquor runs during prohibition. He died along with his brother Spenser in a bank robbery gone wrong in 1931.”

  “So, he did survive our encou
nter,” I said. “Check Marlene Charter.”

  Nate entered her name in the search.

  “Marlene Esposito, Nee, Charter - made her fortune in the stock market in the twenties as a young woman while working as a dancer in the speakeasies of Boston during the prohibition era. When most people were buying stock in large quantities, she inexplicably sold her shares at the end of September, one month before the crash that turned hundreds of millionaires into paupers overnight.”

  Nate shot me a nervous glance. “She went on to invest in several successful businesses, and while many of those prospered, her involvement on the board of directors of Boston University…” Nate’s green eyes cut to me before continuing to read, “caused immense controversy.”

  I leaned in to peer over his shoulder. “What kind of controversy?”

  “Looks like it has something to do with the 2008 Wall Street crash. Her grandson, William Bledoe was the CEO of Grand Central Bank and encouraged the unscrupulous lending of mortgages to people who were under-qualified. She pressured the board of BU to re-mortgage the university property and expand beyond their financial capabilities. When Wall Street crashed, the university had to forfeit its loans. It was the only university in America to go bankrupt in the history of American universities.”

  “I wonder if my parents got into a bad mortgage? Maybe that’s why we don’t live in a house anymore.” And why my parents gave up on their marriage.

  Nate looked at me with remorse. “I should’ve kept my big mouth shut.”

  “You couldn’t have known. You just wanted to help one girl who was helping us.”

  “Instead, I created a monster.” He dragged his hands through his hair. “The question is what do we do now?”

  “We have to find a way back. Convince her to leave her money in stocks,” I said.

  Nate frowned. “She’ll go bankrupt. What will happen to her then?”

  “Whatever was supposed to happen,” I snapped. I hated how he sounded concerned about her. I softened my tone. “She’s obviously a resourceful girl. I’m sure she’ll figure something out.”

  Nate sat back and studied me. “The question is, how do we get back?”

  I bit my lip as I considered this. Stress was my trigger. Making out with Nate use to be enough to send me back in time, but that stopped happening a while ago, which ultimately was a good thing. It once happened with impromptu public speaking, but I seemed to adapt to certain stressful situations. What worked once, doesn’t always work twice. Sometimes stress needs to build, like a long boil, and sometimes it can flick the switch quickly.

  “I don’t know.”

  Nate rubbed his forehead like he was trying to erase the lines that had formed there. “We have to do something together.” His eyes locked with mine. “We have to go back together.”

  “I totally agree!” Nate was referencing a time when I pulled my hand away so that I’d trip without him, and that turned into a big disaster. I wasn’t about to pull that stunt again. “But what?” I added.

  “Something where our feet remain firmly on the ground,” he said.

  I nodded. No bungee jumping or roller coaster rides. That could be tragic.

  “Some kind of pseudo stress,” he continued. “Where you feel like you’re endangered, but you’re really not.”

  “Play chicken?”

  Nate shook his head sharply. “Too dangerous.”

  “But, it could work. We jump onto the tracks and hop off just before the train reaches us.”

  “Casey! Do you have a death wish?”

  “You said endangered!”

  “But not real danger. Besides, if it didn’t work, we’d get arrested, then what?”

  I folded my arms frustrated at being shot down. “It’s just an idea. Do you have a better one?”

  “We could jump off a building.”

  “Now who has a death wish?”

  “Just a couple floors, into a garbage bin full of something soft.”

  “Like fabric?”

  “Yeah, like fabric.”

  Nate did a search for textile factories in the area and came up with a name and address. Not the one in Boston, which was now an empty closed-down building that had been a trendy coffee shop in our old timeline, but one on the outskirts of Cambridge. I’d found some cash in my bedroom earlier, so catching a bus wasn’t an issue. We left the library and caught the next bus.

  We hopped off a block and a half away from the two-story factory warehouse. Metal steps zigzagged from the roof to the ground as a fire escape. The signage was undersized since it wasn’t a retail outlet, though there was a small discount store on the ground level. There was an employee parking lot at the back, and a number of industrial-sized trash containers, big enough that they required a truck to lift and dump them. Fortunately, for us, the bins were full.

  “Help me push one to the building,” Nate said. He unlocked the wheels beneath it and we rolled it up to the side of the warehouse. I helped to lock the wheels back into place and brushed the dirt off my hands. We moved quickly to the fire escape. We didn’t want to get caught—the sooner we jumped, the better.

  Nate glanced my way. “You ready for this?”

  As ready as I’ll ever be. “Uh-huh.”

  He motioned for me to go first. I grabbed the first rung and heaved myself up. Three minutes later, Nate and I were on the roof.

  Two stories might not sound like much, but when you’re standing on the roof staring down, it was enough to get the vertigo started. My knees trembled.

  We saw movement in the alley. A large man in overalls waved an arm. “Hey! What are you doing up there?”

  Nate took my hand and gave me an encouraging nod. “Let’s do this.”

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  I closed my eyes and we jumped. I couldn’t stop myself from screaming a little. We hit our target and tumbled about awkwardly in the mess of fabric and foam. Something poked me sharply, and I wondered if I’d just been jabbed with a sewing needle.

  Nate’s voice broke through the pulsing in my ears. “Are you okay?”

  “Did it work?” I’d been dizzy, but I didn’t notice the light. Could’ve been because I had my eyes closed, and I was too busy yelling.

  “I can’t tell from here,” Nate said.

  Nate hoisted himself out of the bin and then reached in to help me out. The building looked the same. The cars in the parking lot were contemporary models. I swallowed down my disappointment. “It didn’t work.”

  The maintenance man in orange overalls drew closer and he shouted, “Hey, you punks!” His stout body broke into a jog.

  We out ran him easily, jumped into Nate’s car and skidded away. Nate glanced at me with fear in his eyes. “Don’t you dare trip now!”

  I held my heart and took calming breaths. “I’m fine,” I said. “Not going anywhere.”

  Nate tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “We need a new plan.”

  “Maybe we need to take a night to think about it,” I said. I checked the time on the dashboard. It was almost four o’clock. “I better get back. Mom gets home from work soon, and if I’m not there, she’s going to ask questions.”

  Nate sighed, then I sighed. This was all just one big freaky mess, and I couldn’t even remember the last time Nate kissed me.

  He pulled up to the curb in front of my building. “Are we all right?” I asked. “I mean, it feels like we’ve broken up or something.”

  Nate let his chin fall. “Oh, Casey. Let’s just sort this out first, okay? Then we’ll deal with the other stuff.”

  His words were a heavy blow to my heart. He’d just put us on an official hiatus. There was nothing I could do but accept his decision. I smiled weakly and said good-bye.

  Mom was already home, which surprised me. But then again, it wasn’t like I actually knew her schedule. She stood by the living room window, the one that looked down on the street. She had one arm crossed over her chest and the other hand tugged at a tuft of hair by her ear.
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br />   “Who was that?” she asked.

  “Uh, Nate. He was here with me yesterday.”

  Her brows furrowed. “Are you dating?”

  I hesitated, then said, “Yeah.” I hoped it was still true.

  “Since when?”

  “Since… a while.”

  “Don’t you think you should’ve talked to me about this first? He’s too old for you.”

  I dropped my pack onto a kitchen chair and removed my jacket. “He’s only two years older.”

  “That’s a lot when you’re still in high school.”

  I stuck out my chin. “I’m graduating soon.”

  Mom huffed in defeat. “Fine. But bring him home for dinner tomorrow. I want to meet him.”

  “You did meet him.”

  She gave me a stern look. “You know what I mean. I’d like to get to know him.”

  “You mean you’d like to interrogate him.”

  She shrugged. “You say tomehto, I say tomahto.”

  “Funny.”

  I didn’t have any idea how to get back to 1929, but I did have an idea on how to make it easier on us when we did got back there. I did an online search for costume shops and was pleased to find one nearby that stayed open until six.

  I recovered my banking card on a previous search and used it to check my balance on line. Fortunately, I used the same password in this timeline as in my own. My balance was pretty dismal though, a lot lower than what I was used to, but enough to do what I needed.

  “I need to go out for a bit, Mom,” I called.

  “It’s almost supper,” she called back.

  “I won’t be long.” I took off before she could respond and force me to stay home.

  It took me about ten minutes of speed walking to get to the shop. I was heated up and out of breath when I entered. To save time, I went directly to the clerk and asked for late 1920s costumes.

  She pointed out the section, and I was happy to see I had a few choices. I picked out two flapper dresses, one green and one yellow, both shapeless with low waistbands. I tried on a snug black hat with a droopy rim, a fur shawl (hopefully faux fur!) with floppy fox-tail ends, and a pair of black shoes—clunky two-inch heels with a strap on top of the foot. I grabbed a pair of thick tights and a long strand of pearls. I also picked out some clothes for Nate.