by C. B. Lewis
“I bet you can take a pretty good guess,” he countered, grinning. He looked over at Crawford, who was standing beside the door. “Ma’am, thank you for letting me be here to see the end of it. I know you didn’t have to—”
The DCI stepped forward. “Don’t get sentimental on me, Ofori,” she said, then held out a hand. “You did a damned good job on this case. We couldn’t have closed it without you.”
He shook her hand. “Thank you, ma’am.”
She smiled. “Now, get your arse out of here and go up and clear out your office before anyone wonders what you’re doing in the building.”
He nodded at once, striding past her.
“And Ofori….”
“Ma’am?”
She leaned out into the hall to look at him. “Try not to look too excited until Temple comes up and makes the announcement.”
He tried to school his expression into a more serious one. “Yes, ma’am.”
Chapter 54
IT WASN’T a proper funeral.
You couldn’t really have a proper funeral without a body or a grave.
It was more like a memorial service in the garden where a stone had been laid for Olivia Sanders years before. Tom’s name had been added to the stone, and people stepped forward, spoke well of him, then stepped back.
Kit was standing close to the back of the crowd of mourners. The only comfort he could take was Jacob’s hand around his. On the periphery of his vision, he could see the bloody reporters with their cameras, held in place by the police cordon.
“You okay?” Jacob asked quietly, as yet another person stepped forward to speak.
Kit shook his head. “This is all wrong. None of this should have happened.” He felt raw, all the memories and horrific thoughts of the last few weeks flooding back.
“It shouldn’t.” Jacob pulled on his hand gently. “You don’t need to stay. Come on.”
They weren’t the only ones to drift away from the group. Mariam was sitting on a bench a hundred meters away, with Ben beside her. He was clinging to her, crying. Kit’s heart ached for the boy. Both parents killed in action, no bodies in their graves, no family to go to.
The gravel crunched underfoot and Ben lifted his head, startled.
Kit felt the way Jacob’s hand tensed against his.
Fat tears rolled down Ben’s pale face. “You said you’d find him. You said.”
Jacob released Kit’s hand to crouch down by the bench. “I know,” he said, so gently. “I tried my best, Ben, but I was too late. I’m so sorry I couldn’t bring him back.”
“But you said.” Ben’s voice broke.
Jacob lowered his head. “I know. I was wrong.”
Mariam put her arm around Ben’s shoulder. “Mr. Ofori found the man who did all of this,” she said softly. “He won’t hurt anybody else.”
Ben whimpered, then slid down off the bench and wrapped his arms around Jacob, hugging him tightly. Jacob fell down onto his knees on the path and hugged the boy. Kit could hear Ben’s shaking sobs, muffled against Jacob’s shoulder.
Kit met Mariam’s eyes. She smiled sadly as she got to her feet.
It had been a rough few weeks since the TRI went public. Decisions were still being made. Their business was being debated across the globe. As the new head, she was the focus of their attentions, and she was the one expected to answer all their questions. It couldn’t be easy, raising her own family, taking in Ben, and doing everything else on top of it.
“If you need some help,” Kit offered, “Ben can come and stay with us for a bit. We have plenty of rooms in the flat.”
He didn’t know quite when the flat had gone from being his flat to their flat. Jacob didn’t stay every night, but he was there so often that it was starting to feel right when Kit came home from work and found him on the couch.
They tried not to meet up at work. Jacob had laid that ground rule, because he knew how he was likely to be viewed. He was right as well. Many people gave him a wide berth, but things were getting better. Janos would regularly join him for meals, which seemed to give the green light to others. Jacob was starting to be accepted as part of the TRI, and that was all Kit needed to know.
Work was work. What they had together, they kept for outside.
Mariam looked down at Jacob. He was rubbing his hand in circles on Ben’s back. “Maybe,” she agreed. “I’ll talk to him about it.” She touched Ben’s shoulder. “Ben, do you want to go home just now?”
Ben straightened up, nodding. He rubbed at his eyes with his fist and said unsteadily, “Thank you for catching the bad man.”
Jacob only nodded, lowering his head. Kit reached down to squeeze his shoulder as Ben and Mariam took each other’s hands and walked away along the path.
“You okay?” Kit asked quietly.
Jacob shook his head as he got back to his feet.
Kit pulled him around gently, then stepped closer, wrapping his arms around Jacob. “I’m here.” Jacob’s breath was hot and rapid against Kit’s throat, and he held on to Kit tightly. Kit stroked the back of his neck and rubbed his back, trying to offer what comfort he could. “You did everything you could. You caught Harper. You know you did all you could.”
“Yeah.”
Kit drew back to look at him. “That doesn’t help, does it?”
“Not when he’s left without his parents.” Jacob looked in the direction of the retreating figures of Mariam and Ben. “She’ll take good care of him, I know, but it’s not the same. Not when he loved his dad so much.”
There was so much going unsaid, and Kit couldn’t help remembering everything Jacob had told him about his own family. He took Jacob’s hand. “Want to go home?”
Jacob nodded, lifting his other hand to wipe at his cheek. “Yeah.”
The gravel crunched as they walked.
“Maybe you can call Luke,” Kit suggested quietly.
Jacob didn’t look at him, but he held Kit’s hand a little tighter. “I think,” he said quietly, “it’s the right time for me to call my parents.”
Kit glanced at him. “You want to?”
Jacob nodded and smiled sadly at him. “Yeah. At least I still have the chance.”
Kit stepped closer to kiss him. “And no matter what happens, I’ll be right there with you.”
Jacob nodded, and this time, when he smiled, it reached his eyes.
More from C.B. Lewis
An Out of Time Novel
Badly wounded and on the run from his WWII Hungarian brigade, Janos Nagy stumbles through a temporal gateway to the future. Suddenly stranded in Manchester, England, 2041, Janos wants answers about a crazy world he doesn’t recognize.
Dieter Schmidt, flamboyant historian/linguist for the Temporal Research Institution has those answers, but the TRI is a neutral entity, set up to verify historical events under a strict code of noninterference. That doesn’t stop Dieter from taking Janos under his protection. Trust doesn’t come easy to Janos, who came from a time when revealing his secrets could get him killed, but the two men slowly build a tentative friendship with a possibility for more. But Janos’s continued presence in the future and Dieter’s persistence raise questions about the limits of the noninterference policy.
Since the rules have been bent once, one agent sees no reason why he can’t push them further, and he travels back to 1914 to make a few changes of his own. Under Janos’s guidance, Dieter must leap back in time to stop the rogue agent from changing the past and risking everyone’s future—if he can survive history.
C.B. LEWIS is small and Scottish and can often be spotted perched around historical monuments with her notepad and pen. She has been writing and telling tales for almost as long as she can remember and has a brain that constantly fizzes with an abundance of ideas. If she’s not working on half a dozen things at once, it should be considered a slow day.
She loves to travel and just has one continent left to complete her travel bingo card. A lot of the travel has also been research-based, a
nd if pointed at any historical event, she will research it vociferously, just because she can.
Normally she is based in Edinburgh, where she tends toward the hermit lifestyle, needing nothing but a kettle, a constant supply of tea, and—of course—the Internet. There are no cats, no puppies, no significant others, only a lot of ideas and an awful lot of typing. And occasionally, cake. Never forget the cake.
By C.B. Lewis
Man’s Best Friend
OUT OF TIME
Time Waits
Time Lost
Published by DREAMSPINNER PRESS
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
Published by
DREAMSPINNER PRESS
5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886 USA
www.dreamspinnerpress.com
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of author imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Time Lost
© 2016 C.B. Lewis.
Cover Art
© 2016 Catt Ford.
Cover content is for illustrative purposes only and any person depicted on the cover is a model.
All rights reserved. This book is licensed to the original purchaser only. Duplication or distribution via any means is illegal and a violation of international copyright law, subject to criminal prosecution and upon conviction, fines, and/or imprisonment. Any eBook format cannot be legally loaned or given to others. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and all other inquiries, contact Dreamspinner Press, 5032 Capital Circle SW, Suite 2, PMB# 279, Tallahassee, FL 32305-7886, USA, or www.dreamspinnerpress.com.
ISBN: 978-1-63477-264-8
Digital ISBN: 978-1-63477-265-5
Library of Congress Control Number: 2016902767
Published July 2016
v. 1.0
Printed in the United States of America
