* * *
“Who were they?” Rachel asked curiously, walking up to Brooke.
Brooke frowned. “Natalie—my best friend once upon a time—and her daughter, Haley.”
Rachel looked again as Natalie and Haley exited the store. She remembered seeing Natalie at the mall that day Brooke was—or would have been—abducted. Brooke would have been Natalie’s age now and probably have children of her own, had fate not intervened. In the process, Rachel had lost her older sister and Brooke had lost her best friend.
* * *
The man watched as Natalie and Haley departed the store. They headed towards him, Natalie’s attention focused on the little girl. He waited until Natalie became aware of him and looked her right in the eye.
When they were scant inches apart, the man tilted his face, put his arms around her waist, and kissed Natalie on the mouth.
She didn’t resist.
He pulled away, sporting a half smile. “I’ve been looking all over for you and Haley.”
Natalie removed a stray hair from her face. “So now you found us.”
The man looked down at Haley. “Give your daddy a big kiss!” He lifted her easily into his arms and turned his cheek in time for Haley to plant her lips there. “That’s my girl.”
He kissed her forehead and fixed his gaze on Natalie. “Ready to head home now?”
“Sure am,” she answered. “Where did you park the car?”
“Not far.”
The man put his arm around Natalie and they walked back past the department store. He glanced inside and saw Brooke Crane and the other girl heading out. Brooke seemed to look at him, but abruptly turned away.
He wondered if it was possible that she could have recognized him. It seemed pretty unlikely, since he had changed somewhat over the past decade.
Whereas Brooke still looked remarkably the same. As did the girl who had intervened on her behalf outside this very mall ten years ago. He could only imagine the story behind that. Maybe they could share it with him some time. Before it was too late.
You’ll get what’s coming to you, Brooke Crane—it’s long overdue. And so will the girl you’re with.
He turned his attention to his unsuspecting wife and daughter. While they should have been enough to fulfill his life, he needed more.
The type of sustenance that only came from killing.
Brooke’s pretty image filled his mind like a magnificent work of art. He intended to destroy it once and for all.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
Duncan joined Rachel and Brooke at Round The Clock Pizza, happy to spend every moment he could with Rachel. Brooke also intrigued him. Who wouldn’t be intrigued? She was a time traveler who no one knew about other than him, Rachel, and her grandmother. Even if Duncan hadn’t been sworn to secrecy for now, he was in no hurry to share the news with his parents and friends. It suited him just fine to keep this quirk of nature to himself. Besides, if he kept his mouth shut, maybe the Sisters of Time would let him go along for the adventure of a lifetime if any future trips were in the works.
After all that had happened, Rachel still had to pinch herself to believe it was real. Sitting across from Brooke brought back fresh memories of the first time she’d saved her sister’s life. Rachel wasn’t sure if it was the discovery of the bottled water by Brooke or the mysterious powers of the clockwatch that were ultimately responsible for making it possible to change destiny. Either way, she was glad this worked out as it had—not counting the part about Brooke losing her history along the way.
Brooke was preoccupied with her own thoughts. She remembered Rachel telling her about this place back when it was a deli. Now here they were hanging out as though just an average day. Only no days were average for her. Not when she was legally ten years older than she appeared. Given the circumstances, she considered herself lucky to have been given a new lease on life and wanted to try and make the most of it.
“And Nana thinks we don’t eat enough,” Rachel said as she lifted her second slice of pizza loaded with sausage and pepperoni. “Maybe we should take a picture of this for her peace of mind.”
“Grandmothers never think anyone eats enough,” cracked Duncan, sipping Pepsi. “You should see what my grandma loads up on the table. Talk about a heart attack in the making.”
Brooke laughed, still trying to get through her first pizza slice. Her appetite had not accompanied her to the future. Maybe when she was more settled it would come back.
Food aside, Brooke was happy Nana somehow was able to retain the memory of her and didn’t question why she hadn’t aged over the years, as though inconsequential. It was just one more strange part of the equation in her time travel experience that she couldn’t quite wrap her mind around.
Rachel’s friend Tracey Landon ran up to the table.
Rachel smiled. “Hey, you.”
“Your grandmother told me you were here.” Tracey sought to catch her breath as if she had jogged all the way there.
Rachel introduced Brooke as her cousin like they had agreed to. “So what’s up?” She sensed something was on Tracey’s mind.
“Have you heard the news?”
“What news?” Rachel asked.
Tracey sighed. “About Priscilla Fletcher—”
Duncan looked up, concerned she might have been in an accident. “Priscilla...”
“She’s dead!” Tracey choked back the words.
“Dead?” Rachel’s heart skipped a beat. “What are you talking about?”
“Her body was found near Wilson’s Creek this afternoon. They said she’d been...bludgeoned to death—”
“Oh no—that can’t be true.” Rachel wanted to believe it hadn’t happened, but knew Tracey would never joke about something so serious.
“Priscilla’s mother reported her missing yesterday, but the cops just treated it like another runaway case. And now...Priscilla’s dead—”
Tracey began to cry. Rachel stood and embraced her. She couldn’t imagine who would have wanted to kill Priscilla. Her girlfriend didn’t deserve to die that way.
Brooke trembled at the thought someone close to Rachel had been murdered the same way she was supposed to have been ten years ago. Coincidence? She could only hope so.
Duncan shared that thought, his mind racing while considering a bizarre possibility.
* * *
That night Duncan repeated the news to his mom and dad, who knew Priscilla’s parents.
“That poor girl,” his mother said mournfully.
Duncan’s father frowned. “I hope they get whoever did this before someone else dies.”
“Maybe the cops will and maybe they won’t,” Duncan said musingly.
In his room, he closed the door and logged into his computer.
Searching the online newspaper archives, Duncan typed in July 4, 2001. He found the article on Stacy Fuentes, the seventeen-year-old who was bludgeoned to death on the night Brooke was to have died the second time around. A fluke? Or was there some symmetry?
Duncan began a search from 2000 to 2011 for female teenagers who had been abducted and murdered in and around Lake Melrose, in which the murder had not been solved. He came up with six local girls between Stacy and Priscilla over that span who fit the bill...
Jackie Cornwell, fifteen, kidnapped from her home on November 3, 2000. Her badly beaten body was recovered three days later in a wooded area.
Annette Zachary, seventeen, disappeared after school on March 18, 2002. Her remains were found a month later.
Nora Romano, sixteen, abducted from a store parking lot on June 23, 2005. Her dead body was found a week later.
Fran Nielsen, fourteen, never came home after babysitting for a neighbor on February 12, 2007. Four days later, her remains were discovered in the lake.
Kimberly Winchester, sixteen, a runaway, vanished on August 22, 2008. Her body was found in a marsh a month later.
Carlotta Murphy, fifteen, disappeared after a camping trip on September 5, 2010. Her
bludgeoned body was discovered in the woods three months later.
Duncan noted that a seventh girl, seventeen-year-old Megan Evans, vanished without a trace on April 14, 2011. Her body had not been found, but the police strongly suspected foul play.
And now Priscilla had been murdered in a similar fashion. He wondered if the murders were the work of one person.
A serial killer?
If so, Brooke’s would-be killer from ten years ago could still be around and on the prowl today. Duncan stiffened at the thought.
Brooke could once again become a target. And maybe Rachel by association.
He had to warn them.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
Brooke sat in the gazebo and listened intently while Rachel tearfully talked about her adventures with Priscilla. It reminded Brooke so much of her friendship with Natalie that it was eerie. Their friendship had died too, albeit in a different way, now that Natalie had aged ten years and didn’t even recognize Brooke.
“I’m really sorry about Priscilla,” Brooke said.
In that moment, Rachel appreciated even more that Brooke was alive and well, instead of being dealt the same fate as Priscilla.
“So am I,” Rachel said pensively. “But you’re here and that’s something to cherish.”
“Yeah.” Brooke gave her a hug. “Maybe you could use the clockwatch to save Priscilla the way you saved me?”
Don’t think I haven’t thought of that. Rachel twisted her lips.
“It doesn’t really work that way,” she said with regret. “The watch seems to more or less act on its own—through the commands of the Sisters of Time. I haven’t exactly figured out how they control it. Seems like we’ve been chosen, for whatever reason, to be a part of history being changed. But not any history that we choose.”
“Yeah, I figured that, but had to ask,” Brooke said glumly. “So what else do you think Octavia and Angelina want from us? Or maybe I don’t want to know.”
“To be honest, I’m almost afraid to find out,” Rachel confessed. “I haven’t even looked at the clockwatch since putting it away, for fear it might end up sending me to Timbuktu or something.”
“Maybe both our journeys end here,” Brooke suggested. “We were brought together again as sisters, which could be enough in itself to satisfy the ones who made it possible.”
“I hope so.” Rachel smiled at the thought, even as she wondered if their crisscrossing through time, changing the past or future, had only just begun.
* * *
When Duncan came over and Nana left them alone, Rachel and Brooke listened with interest and concern as he related his research and theories.
“Do you really think a serial killer has been on the loose in Lake Melrose for all these years killing teenage girls?” The notion frightened Rachel in more ways than one. She hated to think she might be responsible for unleashing a murderer in their city through no fault of her own.
“I don’t know,” Duncan admitted, “but it makes sense. Maybe the guy just planned to kill one time. But when he didn’t get caught, he kept doing it again and again...and he’s still getting away with it—”
“Are you saying the guy who abducted me and—” Brooke couldn’t bring herself to finish the sentence. She looked at Rachel. “Could Travis Pickett possibly be the one responsible for these murders?”
A chill ran up and down Rachel’s spine. She wondered if saving Brooke from a would-be killer had resulted in another girl taking her place. Would the Sisters of Time have been so cruel as to orchestrate this?
Or maybe they were attempting to right wrongs that began even before Brooke was targeted. And continued to this day...
“Anything’s apparently possible when you mess with time,” Rachel said uneasily. The two of them had proven that.
“Who’s Travis Pickett?” Duncan asked her.
“Travis was our next door neighbor. He may have tried to abduct Brooke ten years ago.”
“But I was going with him voluntarily,” Brooke pointed out. “I really don’t believe Travis planned to kill me. If so, he certainly had other chances without having to kidnap me from a mall in broad daylight with plenty of people around.”
“If Travis did go after you, it wasn’t the first time he grabbed a girl,” Duncan said. “The unsolved cases of girls being abducted and killed goes back at least a year before you were targeted.”
“Really?” Brooke’s lashes fluttered.
“Yeah. So you can’t be blamed for creating a monster because of your time travel, if that’s what you thought.”
Duncan’s eyes met Rachel’s and she breathed a sigh of relief. She had truly believed that a possible serial killer terrorizing the town was set in motion by her originally preventing Brooke from being hit by a car. Apparently it had only made Brooke a target of someone who was already abducting and murdering young females.
“I’m glad,” Rachel said, though still pained that the person who had once killed Brooke and tried again may have been behind Priscilla’s death. “But a killer is still on the loose.”
Duncan looked at Brooke. “Was there anyone else you knew who could have wanted you dead at the time?”
One person immediately came to Brooke’s mind. “There was this one guy I liked and then he started to scare me. Dennis Farrell. I was with him just before Travis came along that day. Dennis could be a real jerk and probably a lot worse. But abducting and killing girls like a hobby? It doesn’t seem likely.” She hated to think her judge of character could have been that horribly off.
“The killer may not have been anyone you knew personally,” Duncan suggested. “And these other killings could’ve been committed by different people. From what I’ve read, though, if they were committed by one person, he probably wasn’t a total stranger to you.”
“Even if I knew this person ten years ago, it doesn’t mean he would know me now,” Brooke said. “Remember, no one in this time even recognizes me as Brooke Crane other than Rachel and Nana. Meaning my secret is safe from this killer, whoever he is.”
“We don’t know that,” Duncan said hesitantly. “Time hopping doesn’t necessarily affect all people involved the same way. I remember everything Rachel told me about you, including the car accident and murder. I even gained a memory when I saw Rachel and your mom at the mall that day. The man who tried to kill you could have also retained his memories over the years. If so, you could still be in danger, especially if he knew where you lived then...and now—”
Brooke quavered. “If you’re trying to scare me, you’re doing a really good job of it.”
Duncan swallowed. “I’m just putting all the possibilities on the table. Now that Rachel and the Sisters of Time have gone through the trouble of saving you and bringing you here to the future, I don’t want to see history repeat itself.”
While he didn’t want to say it, Duncan was also worried Rachel might be in danger. He couldn’t sit back and wait for a psycho serial killer to come after his girlfriend.
Rachel eyed him. “How can we prevent it from happening again, short of keeping Brooke locked up like a prisoner, when we don’t even know for sure who we’re looking for? Or who may be looking for her...”
The last thing she wanted was for Brooke to end up like Priscilla, thereby defeating the purpose of rescuing her sister from death. But Rachel wasn’t sure what the next move should be. She couldn’t talk to her dad or stepmom about it, even if they were around. After all, Brooke didn’t even exist to them as her flesh and blood sister. And the Sisters of Time had not given her a means to contact them directly or even indirectly through the clockwatch.
“We go to the police,” Duncan said flatly.
Brooke rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right, and tell them what? That the man—maybe Travis Pickett or Dennis Farrell—who killed me once, before it was prevented through time travel, may come after me again. Oh, and by the way, he’s also responsible for killing other girls over the years. What are the chances they’d believe us?”
Duncan cracked a humorless grin in seeing her point, but was undeterred. “We simply find out where they are in their investigation of Priscilla’s death,” he said. “Maybe they’re already looking into the possibility that it’s the work of a serial killer. They could even have composites or mug shots of suspects—someone you might recognize—”
“I think we should do it,” Rachel said, siding with her boyfriend as the most logical move to make at this point. “If we can help identify Priscilla’s killer...and maybe the man who tried to kill you ten years ago, linking him to some other unsolved murders, the police could have enough to make an arrest before he kills again.”
Brooke arched a brow as she gazed at the two of them. “But wouldn’t I risk exposing the fact that I can’t account for my existence over the past decade?”
“The thing is, you do exist here now, Brooke,” Rachel uttered. “Certainly no one could prove you came from the past with the aide of an antique clockwatch. If you don’t recognize any of the suspects the police have, at least we will have given it a shot.”
Though leery, Brooke wanted to do her part trying to solve the murder of Rachel’s friend, especially if it was actually the same man who would’ve killed her had fate not lent a helping hand.
* * *
Rachel walked Duncan to the door.
“Is Brooke going to be able to handle this?” he asked.
“I think so,” Rachel said. “She’s already had to make a difficult adjustment, to say the least. But she’s still my big sister and neither of us wants to see someone take that away again.”
Duncan flashed a half grin. “Well, it looks like we’re all in this together, like it or not.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” she admitted.
“You can’t get rid of me very easily.” He pulled her closer for a kiss. “I’ve missed that lately.”
“Me, too.”
Rachel kissed him again and let it linger, savoring his taste and touch before moving away. She loved kissing Duncan and could have done so nonstop for hours, but not when Nana was practically looking over her shoulder.
Danger in Time Page 14
