“You mean aside from me somehow altering the past in nineteen forty-four.”
He gives me a look. “Obviously.”
I grin at him. Now that we’re out of the Center, I feel like I can breathe again. And despite the fact that I’m not sure what’s going on with Wes, I’m in a surprisingly good mood.
“And all we have to go on is his address.” I look up at the sky. There is only a small stretch of blue visible, the rest taken up by buildings and trees. “Thirty-two New Street. Apartment . . . Fourteen B?”
“Fourteen D.”
“What would I ever do without you?” I say, only half joking.
Wes flashes his dimple at me. “What has gotten into you?”
“I’m happy.” I shrug. “You’re alive. I’m alive. And we have six whole days together.”
“Five now.” He sounds serious, but his eyes crinkle at the corners and I know he’s amused.
“Five days! That’s a lot of time to figure out how to get you away . . .” But I don’t finish the sentence as I see his face darken. He starts walking a little more quickly, and I hurry to catch up with him.
“Wes, wait. I’m sorry.” I touch his arm and he stops. “I don’t know what’s going on. I thought you wanted to be free of them. Isn’t that why I’m here? Isn’t that why you brought me?”
He goes still for a moment, his head turned away. Finally he looks at me, and his expression softens. “I’m sorry. I know I’m not . . . this is just hard for me.”
“I get it. I do.” I drop my hand. “Let’s concentrate on McGregor right now, okay? We can deal with the rest later.”
“Yeah, okay.” His lips tip up, though the smile never reaches his eyes. “Let’s check out that address.”
We step out of the subway and into the heart of the Financial District.
“I didn’t think anyone even lived down here,” I say as I stare at the men and women walking quickly down the sidewalk, briefcases by their sides. “I thought it was just office buildings.”
A balding man knocks into me, but I catch myself before I stumble. “What time is it, eight? Everyone must be heading for work.”
Wes frowns. “Let’s hope McGregor is too.” We push through the crowd until we find a space between two buildings. Thirty-two New is right across the street, and I look up at the fourteenth floor. I can’t see anything but row after row of mirrored windows.
“We need a plan,” Wes says.
“Let’s go up there, knock on his door. If he’s there, we say we’re Jehovah Witnesses and leave. Wait till he’s gone again. If he’s not there, we break in and see what we can find.”
“Pretty simple.”
“You got a better idea?”
Wes shakes his head. “Remember, we’re trying to have as little contact as possible with him. We don’t want to alter the time line further.”
“What happens if we do, by accident or something?”
“Time can always be changed again. As long as I can prove it wasn’t deliberate, then they won’t punish me. But I’d have to tell General Walker in my debrief, and they would send another recruit back to this exact moment to stop us.”
I glance back and forth, but no recruit materializes out of the sea of briefcases. “Looks like we’re good.”
There is no lobby or doorman in McGregor’s building, just a locked front door. I start to pull a pin from my hair so I can open it, but Wes stops me. “Hang on,” he says. “That will take too long.” He pulls out his Swiss Army knife.
I watch, fascinated, as he covertly opens one end, like he’s taking the cap off a pen. Underneath are a bunch of pins sticking straight up. Wes pushes them into the lock. Some collapse while the rest mold to the keyhole. I hear a clicking noise, and then Wes turns the knife like it’s a key. The door opens.
“I want one of those,” I say as we enter the building.
“You could have gotten one in Weaponry.”
“Don’t tell me that now, it’s just mean.”
He laughs softly and I smile. I love making Wes laugh; he does it so rarely.
We take the elevator up to the fourteenth floor. The hallway outside McGregor’s apartment has dingy carpet and dull yellow lighting. It’s not where I would have expected a politician to live.
When we reach 14D, Wes knocks twice. There’s no answer. I put my ear to the wood, but I can’t hear anything moving in there. “I don’t think he’s home,” I whisper.
“Let’s find out.”
Wes pushes the pins into the lock. It clicks a few times, and I slowly turn the door handle.
It opens into a studio apartment. There’s no way McGregor is home; there’s no place to hide in here.
“I’ll take the desk,” I say quietly.
Wes walks over to a file cabinet near McGregor’s bed and opens it with a creak.
I glance around the small, masculine space. It’s as though he just moved in: only one chair sits near the counter in the tiny kitchenette area. His bed is covered with a faded red blanket. Nothing hangs on the walls except for a blue sports banner.
I walk over to look at the pennant more closely. It says EAGLES in white letters. There is something familiar about it that I can’t quite place.
I leave it and move to examine his desk. A black leather notebook sits on one side. I open it and flip through the pages. It’s a datebook.
“Wes, look at this.”
He comes over to join me near the desk. “It’s all of his appointments for the week.” I angle it toward him.
“Where is he now?”
I find Wednesday, August 9. “Right now he’s . . .” I trail off.
Wes leans over me. “Visiting Bellevue Hospital.” He steps back and rubs at the corner of his jaw. “Lydia, do you think—?”
But I don’t answer, because I have finally realized why that pennant looks so familiar. It matches one that was hanging on the wall in Dean’s room in 1944. The Eagles. My East Hampton High School football team.
“John McGregor is from Montauk.” I pronounce each word slowly. “Wes, do you know how old he was?”
He shakes his head. “I was looking for a birth certificate, but it’s not here.”
“It doesn’t matter.” I sit down on McGregor’s bed, holding his datebook close to my chest. “They stopped making those pennants ages ago. He had to have known my grandfather. Maybe even Dean.” I look up, my eyes wild. “Wes, you know what this means. McGregor’s loss could be connected to my grandfather.”
“Or we could have affected his fate somehow when we were in nineteen forty-four. If he was in Montauk then, it’s possible.” He comes to kneel in front of me. “You don’t know your grandfather is involved.”
I squeeze the datebook tight. “He must be. John McGregor is visiting someone in Bellevue right now. I’m betting it’s him.”
Wes suddenly goes tense. His eyes dart over to the door. “Lydia, we have to leave.” He jumps to his feet and tugs me across the room. “Someone’s coming.”
I hear the sound of keys jingling in the hallway, and I throw the datebook back onto the neat wooden desk. It lands with a thud that I’m sure is noticeable, but I don’t have time to care. Wes has opened the tiny window in the kitchen, and he waves me through.
I duck down and out onto the fire escape. Wes is right behind me. We pull the window shut as the front door swings wide-open.
We both press against the side of the building, breathing hard. “Too close,” I whisper, and Wes nods. He starts to climb down the fire escape, but I stop him.
“Lydia . . .” Wes murmurs as I crawl under the dingy window ledge.
“Hang on a second.” I slowly lift my head until I can see into the apartment. McGregor has his back to me, and is roughly yanking off his tie. He turns slightly, and I duck, but not before I see his profile and the weary look on his lined face.
He’s a small man, with almost dainty shoulders and dirty-blond hair. But he’s broadly handsome in a way that reminds me of a Kennedy. No wonder
he went into politics.
“We should go,” Wes breathes, but I shake my head at him. I wait a beat, then peer into the window again. McGregor is lying on the bed with his feet planted on the floor. He has one hand pressed to his eyes, and the other is clenched in the red blanket beneath him. He looks completely crushed; I wouldn’t be surprised if he were crying.
I drop down and crawl back over to Wes. He gives me an exasperated look, and then swings his body onto the fire escape stairs. I follow him, but I can’t get the image of McGregor out of my mind. Whomever he was visiting at Bellevue left him devastated.
If it was my grandfather, then that means he’s somehow involved in this rift in time. And that means his connection to the Montauk Project runs deeper than I ever imagined.
CHAPTER 8
You know what the next step is, don’t you?”
I sigh. “We have to go to Bellevue and talk to my grandfather.” I must sound as defeated as I feel, because Wes turns to face me. I ignore him and stare out at the Statue of Liberty. The water around it is choppy and the waves peak on crests of white foam.
“I’m not sure I’m ready.”
Battery Park is practically deserted at nine in the morning on a Wednesday, though I spot the occasional tourist wearing a green foam Statue of Liberty crown. We are by the water, right where the ferryboats pull into the harbor. I find something soothing about the way the water splashes against the dock beneath us. Maybe it just reminds me of Montauk, of home.
Wes leans on the railing next to me, deceptively casual. “I think you are ready. I—” He stops.
“What is it?”
His mouth twists. “I think it’s part of why you wanted to come to this time period with me. So that you could find him.”
I straighten. “No! It’s not, I swear. I came for you.”
“I believe you, Lydia. But I also know you, and you’re not one to run away from the things that scare you. Maybe, deep down, you were hoping something like this would happen so it would force you to face your grandfather’s disappearance.”
I turn away from him and run my fingers violently through my hair. Some of the pins holding it in place scatter, making tiny pings as they hit the pavement.
Since when did Wes become a shrink?
But as much as I hate to admit it, I have been running away from the consequences of what happened in 1944, and it’s not like me. I do want to at least see my grandfather. I need to face the reality of this new time line I helped create.
And besides, I miss him.
“You’re right.” I look back at Wes. “Of course you are. I want to see him again. But I also want to help you get out, Wes. That is why I came.”
He faces away from me, staring out into the park. There’s a group of break-dancers setting up not far from us. A teenager drops his boom box on the concrete while another one flips over onto his hand, his legs at right angles in the air above his body. Wes seems absorbed in the scene, and I wonder if he even heard me. Finally he says, “We can’t abandon this mission. We have to keep looking into McGregor so I have information to bring to General Walker when this is all over.”
I don’t say what I’m thinking—that if we can get him out of the Project, then he’ll never have to be debriefed about what happened here. But I understand why he’s hesitant, why he feels the need to cover all of his bases in case we don’t succeed.
“I’ll help you however I can,” I say to him. “If that means we need to complete this mission, then I’m here for you. But—”
Before I can finish, he looks over at me. “Then it looks like we have to go talk to your grandfather. You can see him again, and we can find out the connection between him and McGregor.”
I nod, but then bury my face in my hands. “You’re right. I just wish I didn’t have to dump the Montauk Project on my grandfather’s doorstep again. I wanted to keep him out of it this time.”
“I think he’s already in it.” Wes sounds grim. “How soon does he disappear?”
I lower my hands, gripping the metal railing until it stings my palms. “On August fourteenth. In five days.”
“The same amount of time Walker gave us to complete our mission.”
“And now my grandfather is probably connected to an election that is somehow vital to the Montauk Project. That’s a lot of coincidences.”
“I don’t believe in coincidence,” Wes says. “Not anymore.”
We take the subway to 28th Street. Bellevue is almost all the way to the East River and we have to walk a few blocks before we reach it. The streets are teeming with people, and I concentrate on the back of Wes’s striped shirt as we navigate the busy sidewalks.
“Yo!” The shout pierces through the noise of the traffic and I lift my head. But it’s crowded out here, and I can’t see who yelled.
“Yo, man!”
It sounds even closer this time. Across the street an African-American boy is waving at . . . us?
“Hey! I see you, man!” He hops into the street, mindless of the oncoming traffic. A car blasts its horn and I see the driver throw up his hands. The boy is getting closer, and I stop walking. He looks about our age, and he’s wearing red shorts and a white T-shirt that’s covered in bright splashes of paint. Wes stops too, staring out into the street.
“Wait up!”
There’s a dark-haired girl standing on the sidewalk watching us. Suddenly she lifts her head and her whole body tenses.
“Yo, We—” But the boy is cut off by the girl’s shrill voice.
“Tag!” she shouts. He pauses in the middle of the street and turns back to look at her. “Cops! Let’s go!”
The boy wavers, glancing at us, then back at the girl. I see his chest rise and fall as he sighs, and then he runs over to her and grabs her hand. They disappear into the crowd just as a cop car pulls up. Two officers in dark blue uniforms spill out. I crane my head to see what happens, but Wes puts his hand on my back, urging me forward.
“What was that?” I ask him as we start walking again.
He shrugs, though I notice that he’s staring back at where the boy disappeared.
“Did you know him? Was he yelling at us?”
“No. Come on. We’re almost there.”
“Wes.” I stop walking and look up into his face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“I’m fine, Lydia.”
“It’s just that . . . your eye is twitching.”
He jerks his hand up and covers his eye. I watch as his face convulses, as though all his muscles just stop working at once.
“Are you okay?”
“I said I’m fine!” He snaps the words as he turns away from me.
I automatically take a step backward—Wes has never spoken to me like that, and I don’t know what to say. Finally he faces me again, slowly lowering his hand. His eye looks a little red, but otherwise he seems normal.
“Sorry,” he says quietly.
“I was just worried about you.” I sound defensive.
“I know. I’m sorry,” he repeats. “I really am fine.” He reaches down and grabs my hand. I let him hold it, and I don’t say anything when I notice he’s shaking.
Bellevue Hospital sprawls along the east side of the city. Over the years it has been added to and adapted and now it is a series of tall buildings made of glass, concrete, and red brick. A black wrought-iron fence still sections off the original buildings. There is something creepy about the dark metal juxtaposed against the modern glass structure.
Wes and I find the entrance and approach a wide front desk.
“We’re looking for the psychiatric ward,” I tell the young female receptionist. “My . . . uncle is a patient there.”
She doesn’t look up from her desk. Her hair is a teased, puffy blond cloud, and her nails are long and red. “Emergency room or committed.”
“Committed.”
The word makes her finally lift her head. “How long?”
“About four weeks now.”
“Psychos
is or drugs and alcohol related?”
I swallow. “Psychosis.”
“You want Unit Nineteen North.” Her voice is a little softer. She quickly gives us directions.
We walk through a few hallways until we reach an elevator. The car we get on is filled with people, and we have to squish together just to fit.
As soon as we get off on the psychiatric ward, the atmosphere changes. Instead of a busy hallway, with doctors and staff and patients teeming the halls, this place is quieter, more deserted. In the distance I hear someone shouting.
We approach a heavy metal door with a red button on it. I push the buzzer and hear someone fumble with a lock on the other side. The door opens a little, and a male nurse in pale blue scrubs sticks his head out. “Yes?” he asks.
“We came to see Peter Bentley,” I reply. “He’s a patient here?”
The man frowns. He is young, though the fluorescent light overhead bounces off the dark, shiny skin of his bald head. “Is he expecting you?”
I shake my head. “But he’s my uncle,” I add.
“It’s visiting hours, isn’t it?” Wes asks.
The man scratches his bushy eyebrow, then looks over his shoulder. I can only see a little of the room behind him. It has white walls and shiny beige floors. “Wait a second,” he says. The door shuts, and Wes and I are alone in the hallway.
After a minute the door opens again, and the nurse gestures us forward. “We don’t usually let visitors into this area,” he says. “But Bentley is a special case. We can’t move him right now. Keep your hands to yourself and don’t talk to any of the other patients.”
I exchange a glance with Wes before we step into the psychiatric ward. The nurse locks the door behind us with a key. We’re standing in a long, wide hallway. Directly across from us is an open entertainment room. I can hear a cartoon on the TV in the background, with loud, exaggerated sound effects. To our right is the main nurses’ office, with glass windows that look out onto the hallway.
There are a few patients roaming around, some accompanied by nurses, some alone. A woman with taped-up glasses and wild hair sees us hovering near the doorway. “I hate this place,” she says, her words slurring. “It doesn’t work. It doesn’t work.” Her voice is getting louder and louder. A nurse comes forward and takes her arm, steering her back down the hallway.
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