by Jill Cooper
“Umm-hmm. You remember him, don’t you?”
His eyebrows furrow severely. “Of course, I remember him. How could I forget—but Lara…” Donovan rubs his face. I’m not sure what he’s about to say but it’s bad. Real bad. My breath catches in my chest.
“What is it, Don?”
“Lara,” Donovan’s voice drops as his hand squeezes my shoulder. “Lara, honey, you’re dad’s dead.”
Chapter Sixteen
I back up from Donovan as if I’ve been struck. My hand rips away and my voice shakes. “What?” When he moves to speak, I interrupt him. “We were just with him tonight. You came over. You brought me the—dress.”
Donovan speaks low and slow as if I’m a child. “I picked you up at your mom’s. You were having cocoa with Jax.”
That wasn’t how it happened. I struggle to breathe, vomit rises in my throat, but then an image flashes in my mind and I grasp my temples. The pain is so intense, my knees clench tightly together, and I fight the urge to fold right over.
In the memory, I’m sitting in Mom’s old house. The one we shared with Jax—the one she sold after the divorce, only now, there was no divorce. Jax leans back in a chair and two mugs of cocoa sit between us on the table. On his finger, a golden wedding band.
When the doorbell rings, I jump. “What am I going to say to him?”
“Be honest, give it time. Just like with your mom and me. Sometimes, time is the only thing that can make a situation right.”
The memory fades as the limo slowly pieces itself back together in my mind. Donovan is staring at me with a look of desperation and all I can think of is my dad. How can he be dead? I just saw him. I just saved him. I know what the truth is.
And where does that truth lead? Exactly where I might expect.
It leads to the answer; Cassidy changed time. She’s gone into the past and ripped my dad from me.
“Lara,” Donovan leans forward, “you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”
“Get us to apartment 27. Tremont Street.”
His eyes widen. “Your dad’s old apartment?” He sighs and shakes his head. “Lara…”
“Just do it!” The edge of the world slips out from beneath me in that familiar way. Soon, it’s going to spiral into a whirlpool I can’t escape. “Please.”
God, please.
Donovan signals the driver and we deviate from our current path. I know he thinks I’m crazy. I know to him, my dad’s gone and buried. Everyone accepts this as fact, but for me, it’s not. I remember the other timeline when no one else does.
I have to make it right.
When we get there, the apartment is all wrong. Donovan pays the new occupant, a lonely old woman, to stand out in the hall so I can have a moment alone. Even he doesn’t follow me all the way in but hangs back in the threshold of the front door. His eyes are on me and I can feel his worry circling around me.
Everything about it is wrong. The table is a bad knockoff, the sofa is angled wrong, and the kitchen decor is all roosters and chickens. Something I’m sure my Dad would’ve laughed at or joked about…if he was there. If he was alive.
Images flash in my mind. I remember helping my dad move in. Donovan was there, too. Dad carried in the big boxes and teased Donovan for being more of a manager than a heavy lifter. Then we sat around, ate pizza, and drank soda. It was a good day.
Such a good day.
My memories roll over into a new ones and it sucks me in as if it is the present. I stand in the kitchen, with my hand on the counter. I’m in a form fitting black skirt and my heart is so heavy, it’s being torn in two. My eyes are sore and I’m so tired, it’s as if I haven’t slept in days. Against my fingers, a letter in my dad’s handwriting.
I’m sorry, Lara. I tried to move past it all… I tried to build a life without your Mom.
No, no. No. Dad wouldn’t have taken his own life. He wouldn’t have survived ten years in prison to just give up.
Tears fall to the page and I turn to Donovan. “How could he just leave me? After everything I did to get him back?”
But he didn’t. I wouldn’t.
With a gasp, I’m back in the present and the memory trail lingers. I can feel the heat from Donovan’s body as he creeps up behind me. “When did he…kill himself?” The words revolt coming up my throat, but I force myself to say them. Need to embrace them if I’m going to learn enough to fix this.
Catch Cassidy before she destroys anything else.
“Three years ago. Right after grad. He tried, Lara. It was just—.”
I refuse to look at him. “Where?” I bark out the word, chewing on my inner lip, desperate to stay ahead of the pain. But it’s clamoring. It’s running for me and I don’t know if I can.
“He was found in the back of the alley. Shot himself.”
Not ‘an’ alley. The alley. Did that mean what I think it did? The same alley where my mother—.”
“Yeah,” Donovan says sadly. “I know, it’s ironic, but maybe that place meant something to him.”
It wasn’t ironic. It was mean. A message delivered straight from Rex and Cassidy. They were practically mocking and laughing at me. “And no one saw?”
“Lara,” Donovan sighs. “Why don’t you remember any of this? What’s going on? If it was anyone else but you…”
Thank God for Donovan’s faith in me, in every timeline I’ve ever been in. “Before I passed out tonight, he was alive. He was alive, and now he’s not. And I’m the only one who can make this go away. Fix it.”
“But the system…if someone was traveling in time, the TTPA would know, wouldn’t they?”
“They didn’t when that stock information was stolen for you.” A pained expression rolls over his face as I say it, but it needs to be said and I don’t have the time to coddle him. “The TTPA system was designed on my frequency, but someone else…well, she’s running on a different frequency.”
“She?” Donovan’s words cut off as the old woman from the hall comes in. Her hair is done up in tight pink rollers and she’s in a purple nightgown. It’s her place, but I feel like she’s intruding and I glower as she opens a cabinet and pulls out a small wooden box.
“When I first rented this place, I was told you’d come, Ms. Montgomery. I always thought it was a joke.” The old woman extends the box to me as if I should take it.
Instead, I only gawk at it. Cassidy is two steps ahead of me and now it’s time to catch up to her.
Stick her in her own damn cage.
****
We take the box home to the penthouse suit. I sit on the sofa while Donovan sits on the ottoman in front of me. His face is drawn and we both watch the box on my lap as if it’s a ticking bomb. I’m thankful he doesn’t think I’m crazy or making this all up.
I flip the box open and the inside is lined with crushed velvet. Cushioned on top lays a simple letter. “You want to stop me, you’re going to have to come back and get me.” Under that is Dad’s obituary from the Boston Globe, but instead of a smiling photo, they used his mug shot. My hand covers my mouth as I read it, dissect it, and memorize every word.
It comes back to me, all at once, in a tidal wave.
Mom arriving at the college campus to tell me about Dad. She’s crumbling and in despair.
I lean on Donovan and it brings us closer together than ever.
Watching Mom and Jax forging a new bond as he helps us go through Dad’s things. Helps us clear out the apartment, and, on the day of the funeral…
Squeezing my eyes shut, I block the rest of the memories. I can’t face them anymore. I won’t. This is all temporary.
“You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” Donovan asks with a twinge of anger. “You’re going to go and save him.”
My eyes widen, amazed he’d pick now to fight me on this. “Like I have a choice. She’s messing with the timeline to mess with me. She’s started with Dad. Who knows who will be next.”
“Exactly. She wants you. It’s a trap, Lara.”
“And then what?” Donovan asks with narrow eyes.
I’m frustrated he won’t drop this. “Then I beat her at her own game. My game. She shouldn’t even be here.” I put the letter back into the box and then slam it shut. Sliding it onto the sofa I hurry into the kitchen. Donovan follows me.
“You’ll get caught. The system is designed to catch you.”
I pull the fridge open and grab the corked bottle of wine. Nothing would make me happier than to drown my sorrows in a glass, but I need to stay clear-headed. So, I put the bottle back with a sigh.
“Lara, you’ll get caught.” Donovan’s words are more forceful.
“They’ll need to catch me to stop me.”
Donovan shakes his head. “You’re playing a dangerous game.”
“I’m going to finish the game, but I didn’t start it. You did, the second you took that stock information. So, either help me or get out of my way, Don. If we’re going to be married, if we’re going to be together, we need to support each other. So, are we a team or are we nothing?”
He pales and his eyes fix on the floor. “Just tell me what it is you want me to do.”
****
My duffle bag, the same one I’ve had since the beginning of all this, is packed. The weight of it is heavy as I slip it over my shoulder. The fancy clothes of who I’ve become are gone. Now I’m wearing jeans and a blue hoodie just like I used to before I changed the past.
If I’m going to do this, I want to do it soon. I don’t want to linger in a timeline where my dad is dead. One in which John Crane committed suicide? My skin itches just being here.
Donovan and I hang together in the living room. “I didn’t mean to come at you so hard earlier.” The apology isn’t easy for me, but it’s one I need to make. “I’m sorry.”
He just shakes his head. “He’s your dad. I know what he means to you, I’m just…scared. I thought this part of our life was over.”
“And if it’s never really over? Do I still have you?” My chest tightens and I’m afraid of the answer.
Donovan’s eyes are sad. “Live like this forever? I don’t know if I can, Lara.” He shrugs his shoulders and I see the beginning of tears in his eyes. “I just don’t know.”
We might as well be standing worlds apart. There’s so much grief drowning me, that I barely hear the doorbell.
Donovan ushers Marcus inside and after the usual chitchat Marcus leans against our mantle. “You’re going to have to hang in there a little longer. Cameron is still at the TTPA. I don’t know what he’s doing there so late—.”
“Then I’ll take my chances.” I have to move and it has to be now.
Donovan and Marcus exchange a glance and I know that’s not good. “If they catch you, you’ll be harnessed and arrested, Lara. You won’t get another chance.”
“You said yourself,” Donovan says, “that since you’ve retapped into your power, you can’t control it. If you rush it, you don’t know where you’ll end up. Or if it’ll work at all.”
“Look what happened earlier tonight. The cage. Rex. If you skip into the wrong timeline…” Marcus says to try to talk me down off the ledge, but I won’t be reasoned with.
I hold up my hand. “I get it.” Listening to them makes me nauseous. “I can’t take listening anymore. I get it, but there has to be something you can do.” I swallow and think hard, trying to come up with a plan. “Donovan could call Cameron. Arrange a meeting with him. They have a history together.”
Donovan’s eyes narrow as I get close to revealing his secret but I hold firm. I won’t tell Marcus more than he needs to know.
“When he does that, you can go in and deactivate the system. Then I’ll travel back in time and hope that no one catches me on the other side.”
Marcus sighs and Donovan wipes his mouth. “Okay,” Donovan says gently. “Okay.”
“This might not work. We might all end up behind bars.”
I smile sadly. “Your political connections can get you off, but if you rather not involve yourself…well, I understand.”
Marcus takes my hand and I avoid his gaze. “I know how much he means to you. And I will always do whatever I can to help you. Just remember, they want you to time travel, they’ve been pushing you toward this for days. You need to find out why. Outsmart them. Use your gifts wisely.”
Donovan watches us. “I’ll call Cameron. Pull him out to meet me in half an hour.”
Marcus nods. “I’ll get into position. You too, Lara, but please…”
“Careful. I got it.” My fingers wiggle at him in a final greeting. I hope, that one day soon, none of this will be necessary. That no one but me will even remember this happened.
He says goodnight, but I can’t find anything to say. All I can do is sulk and gaze across the way at the mantel. Donovan shows him out, when he returns, his arm slips around me. Inside, I stew. He set a lot of this in motion, but even he was manipulated by Cameron. I can’t hold it against him, but parts of me want to.
He pulls out his cell phone, still holding me as he brings Cameron’s number up on speed dial. Our eyes talk to each other the entire time. Both of us with so much to say.
It’s time for this to end, but I fear it’s only the beginning.
When it’s done, we both prepare to head out. The spoken…and unspoken, angst between us festers, but still, I watch him, longing cementing in my chest. “Be careful, Don.”
As he slips on his jacket, his eyes darken. “You too.”
There’s nothing else to say. He moves toward the door, but at the last second, changes his mind and we embrace for a final time. I cling to him in a way I haven’t in a long time and I stroke his cheek.
“We’ll turn out on top.”
His eyes aren’t so sure. “Will you fight for us?”
My lips press tight into a thin line and we share a kiss. “Always.”
Even if I have to fight against all my doubts and myself, always.
Chapter Seventeen
With a deep breath, I ring the doorbell at Mom’s townhouse. A moment later, she answers with surprise. Her mouth drops open and her eyes widen. They crinkle in that way they always do when she’s tired and I do my best to smile.
How had she taken Dad’s suicide? It must’ve been harder on her than most. Even more than me.
“Lara?” She tightens the strap of her bathrobe around her waist. “Is everything okay? Come in.”
She backs away from the door. I smile at her and gaze past her into the living room. Jax is sitting on the sofa with the newspaper laid out in front of him. It’s just as I remember from when they were happy and together. I’m about to destroy that all again by changing the past.
There’s always grief. Every decision unravels another, but I have to save my dad’s life. This isn’t how things are supposed to be, but for destroying their happiness, I’m sorry. I have to stop Cameron before something is changed that I can’t fix.
Jax waves and steps from the living room to greet me. “Hey! I didn’t know we’d see you again tonight.”
“It was a long night. I was wondering if I could spend the night here? If my old room is still available.”
“Always, honey.” Mom fusses with my hair. She straightens it and runs her fingers through it as if they’re a comb. “Is everything okay with you and Don?”
I tense, but Jax shakes his head at her. “Miranda, come on.”
“Well, the wedding is in just a few days, Jax.” Mom huffs, but smiles for me. “I mean, if something’s wrong you can tell your mother. That’s all I’m saying here. I’ll go get your bed made up. It’ll be like you never left.”
I watch her hurry off while Jax and I fall into an uncomfortable silence. It’s on my part because of everything I know. Everything I’m about to do.
“If someone comes for me tonight, Jax, I’m not here. You never saw me.”
�
��Something is going on.” Jax places his hand on my shoulder. “What is it? You know you can trust me. I hope out of everything, you know that.”
“I do, but it’s better for you, Mom, and the kids… Where are they anyway?”
“They’re upstairs. Molly will be happy to see you. She was asking about you when we got home.”
“I’ll say goodnight to her before I turn in. See you tomorrow, Jax.” I swallow my little white lie as I climb the stairs.
“Is it about that speech Cameron made tonight? Lara—.”
“Good night, Jax.” The less he knows, the better. And that was the honest truth.
Upstairs, I can hear the twins arguing, but that’s nothing new. “Molly,” Mike’s voice strains with anger, “you’re not making any sense.”
Molly’s been crying, there’s a warble in her voice. “I know they wouldn’t believe me, but I thought you would. Mike, you’re my twin. You feel what I feel. You are what I am!”
“Not like this. Sorry, Molly, but not like this. You’re freaking me out!”
I cringe and move down the hall so the kids can have their private conversation. As I approach my room, I can hear Mom humming. It’s nice to hear her happy, no matter the timeline I happen to be in. I watch her fluff my pillows. “Thanks, Mom. For everything. I know…I wasn’t an easy teenager to raise.”
She laughs as she comes over. “No, but you’ve always been worth it.” She kisses my cheek. “Let’s talk tomorrow morning, okay? Whatever is happening between you and Don…”
I nod. “Promise. Good night.” She heads back downstairs. Before I head into my room, Molly pulls her bedroom door open. She looks like a typical thirteen-year-old girl in her purple pajamas. Her top has a picture of an electric guitar rather than fluffy bunnies and princesses. I’m struck by how fast she’s growing up.
In a few years, she’ll be the same age I was when I first traveled in time. I can’t even fathom or imagine her taking on so much, or risking her life like that.
Molly holds a tissue to her nose. “Lara!” She crushes me with a hug. “I’m so glad you’re here.” She squeezes me so tightly it hurts to breathe. There’s a ton of distress in her voice and I wonder what’s the matter.
