by C. M. Murphy
The Secret Truth of Time
C.M. Murphy
Copyright © 2017 by C.M. Murphy
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover design by Priscilla Pantin.
Editing by Jersey Devil Editing
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To my family:
Mom and Dad, Edie, David, David & Diana, Darwin, Jason, Anthony, and Ana
With special thanks to you, Bud!
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
A Note from the Author
Chapter One
August 29, 1974
Children played kickball in the street, rode bikes without a helmet, and partook in the unattended and pseudo-dangerous activities afforded kids in the 1970s. But the joyous vibe of the neighborhood had evaporated into the silent, late night. Each crack in the sidewalk wouldn't break an imaginary mother's back, but instead threatened to topple one soon-to-be mother.
Bernadette Fernandez rushed as fast as she could negotiate the bumpy sidewalk in the dark. Her walk converted into a waddle by her heavy belly. The baby had grown big and strong in the last month, a comforting thought amidst the fear tornado-ing in her mind.
Two goals consumed Bernadette: reaching the blue post office box on the corner in time, and keeping one thought at the forefront of her mind: forward. Any hope for the future rested with that.
But the fear that her tormentor would come for her early threatened to derail Bernadette's plan. She couldn't help but recall the times her premonitions had been wrong. Visions with strong emotional elements were the likeliest to be inaccurate.
She chanted in her mind. Forward. Keep moving forward.
As she neared the corner, Bernadette peeked around to see if anyone was following her. All clear. She darted across the suburban street to the mailbox. A strong surge of déjà vu shivered through her, a good sign. She slipped her letter in, careful to hold on to the metal handle of the door to keep it from clanging shut. It squeaked closed.
Done.
She took a deep breath, returned to the other side of the street, and headed back home. Her mind drifted to her earlier phone call with Stu, her Witness. If her vision held true, he wouldn't be a Witness after tonight. He'd be a father.
A dog barked from inside his gated yard, his little black and brown body barely visible in the moonlight. Yes! She'd envisioned this exact moment. Something tickled at the edge of Bernadette's awareness. She smiled.
Forward.
The barking dwindled as Bernadette continued down the street. It was odd to realize that the little mutt would be the last dog she'd ever see. But souls lived on, didn't they? Bernadette hadn't been the type who remembered past lives. She didn't know if she would even have the gift of sight when she came back, but her soul would live on. Her baby would survive.
Bernadette slowed as she spotted him leaning against her green Pontiac in the driveway, the orange glint of his cigarette moving up to his lips.
To Bernadette, he looked like a calm, lethal killer, coolly having a smoke before continuing with his violent plan. But in truth, he was frightened. He'd stopped to steel himself with one last Winston before going into the house.
But it wouldn't happen inside the house.
Bernadette reached into the pocket of her maternity dress and pulled out her watch, a gift from her mother. Ten minutes to midnight. Right on time for her murder.
Forward.
July 20, 1994
Alma Davis squatted as she spoke on the phone. The short, tangled cord didn't stretch far enough for her to stand. "I'll come by after work," she said and scribbled the man's address on the back of that week's Valley Classified.
"If you're as cute as you sound, I'll have to find more music boxes," he said.
The man's flirtation sent a zing of excitement through Alma, but she wasn't a fool. "I mentioned I'm not coming alone, right?"
He chuckled. "My nonthreatening charm might not be working over the telephone."
"That's fine," Alma said. "My mace doesn't work over the phone, either."
The man laughed again. Alma wrapped the call, hid the telephone under a cardboard box, and headed to meet her best friend, Doug.
She'd found the telephone in a drawer, and Doug had discovered the working phone jack in one of the building's many abandoned offices. They used it to make personal calls at work. It was the nineties. Cell phones existed, but they hadn't proliferated.
Alma sneaked across the hall to the makeshift breakroom. In the publishing company's more profitable days, the breakroom had been a reception area. But the other magazines had gone under and Valley Classified, a freebie ad rag given out at convenience stores and sidewalk boxes, was all that remained from the high-rolling eighties.
The area behind the old reception desk housed a folding table and chairs. A generic soda dispenser was plugged into the wall and the desk itself was home to a microwave and portable refrigerator. Two tattered recliners, one of which held a napping Doug, took up the space that formerly was the waiting area.
Alma smiled at the sight of Doug snoozing. She still hadn't gotten over how good-looking he was. He had the whole dirty-blond hair, broad shoulders, and square-jawed thing going on. When they'd first met, she'd been surprised he'd struck up a conversation with her. Then she found out he was gay, and her crush was cured. An easy friendship formed.
"All set," she said as she took a seat in the recliner next to Doug.
"You think you might strike gold with this one?" Doug asked. "Striking gold" was a term they'd coined for finding an object in a classified ad that was worth more than advertised.
"Seems promising."
Yolanda, their coworker, entered the breakroom. "You guys are gonna get in trouble with Rick for those," she said, pointing to their recliners.
"The big boss helped us carry them in here," Doug said, referring to the general manager of Valley Classified, who rarely came to the office to do actual work. "He even sprayed them with that disinfectant they use in bowling shoes."
"That's so gross," Yolanda said, shaking her head. She fed two quarters into the dilapidated soda machine and hit the button labeled Ginger Ale. A generic grape soda shot out. Yolanda swore under her breath and grabbed it. "Rick th
e Prick is gonna hate you two even more when he finds out about those chairs," she said and went back to work.
"Does Rick really hate us?" Alma asked Doug in a hushed tone.
"Like we care," Doug said, with full knowledge that Alma cared. He changed the subject. "Where are we going to check out the music box?"
"North Hollywood. Near Tony's Pizza. I said we'd be there between five thirty and six."
Dog nodded and closed his recliner. "Gotta get back."
The two returned to work on the "floor," the still-functioning part of the office that held ten half-empty ad-taking stations, and the supervisor's desk. Doug and Alma sat at their neighboring stations. Dingy yellow cubicle walls separated them, each wall covered with scripted answers for the callers. Three calls in, Alma found herself trapped on the line with an odd man from Encino.
"But livestock is for eatin'!" the man yelled into the phone for the third time.
"I'm sorry, sir," Alma said after explaining to the man his ad couldn't be placed in the pets section, because his ostrich weighed over one hundred pounds. The caller vacillated between blubbering tears and incoherent rage. His erratic nature made Alma's hands shake with adrenaline. She hated confrontation.
"Let me put you in touch with my supervisor," Alma said and placed the caller on hold.
"Rick!" she called to her boss without getting up. "I need assistance."
Rick strode over to Alma's cube. "Alma," Rick said, "you need to learn to handle caller disputes on your own. Listen and learn." He plugged his headset into her phone without bothering to ask about the situation.
"What's that caller screaming?" Doug asked, leaning back in his rolling chair to see around the cubicle wall.
"Livestock is for eating," Alma said trying to appear calm.
"He's selling a cow?"
"A 180-pound ostrich he's been raising in his one-bedroom in Encino," she said.
Doug laughed and went back to work. Minutes later Rick told the man it was settled and disconnected the call.
"Livestock?" Alma asked.
"Pets." Before she could argue, Rick said, "I'll need you to stay late tonight," and walked away. Alma knew Rick was mad because he lost the argument with the ostrich guy. She wished she'd just handled it herself. Now she was being punished.
The next call in the queue rang through. Alma answered as if she were on autopilot. Her mind was consumed with disappointment. If she stayed late, she wouldn't be able to see the man about the music box tonight. His ad would be out in the new issue tomorrow. Good deals were snatched up fast.
Alma tried to tell herself that it was stupid to be attached to something so small. But as much as she tried to keep herself from being disappointed, her sadness prevailed. It wasn't just the music box. She kind of liked the guy on the telephone. Her brain spiraled into sad self-talk about her silly daydreams, ridiculous crush on a person she'd never met, and how she'd caused herself to miss out on this great deal by being a coward.
Haniel Hanker walked to the front of the shoe repair shop eager to find his father. His dad had bought this place as a cover, but Haniel liked it better than their old house. He found running the shop fun and preferred the cozy living quarters in the back of the store to the sterile, museum-like home of his childhood.
"Dad!" Haniel said as he entered the storefront through the swinging door.
"James," the woman said turning to Haniel's dad, "is this your son? I thought he'd be a young boy. You look like brothers!"
Haniel spotted the muted anger in his father's fake smile.
"You flatter me," James said to the woman.
"I have a daughter about your age," the middle-aged woman said, turning to Haniel. He took this as his opportunity to make things right.
"Is she as beautiful as her mother?" Haniel asked, staring into the woman's dull, brown eyes with his blue ones.
The woman giggled and babbled about her daughter, distracted from her original observation. Women of all ages had made a fuss over Haniel ever since his childhood. Back then, it was no problem calling his father "Dad." But now that Haniel was twenty-six years old and his father's aging had stalled with each "acquisition," Haniel needed to be more careful.
The woman tired of her own talk soon enough. James gave her a ticket for her shoes and told her they would be ready next week. She left, beaming from all the flirty attention.
"You're never supposed to call me Dad in front of people," his father scolded.
"I'm sorry, Dad—" His father glared. "I mean, James. It's just... I was excited, and we rarely have customers," Haniel said.
"You're the one who took out the Yellow Pages ad and put up signs at the local dry cleaners. We have plenty of money. This is a front for crying out loud!"
Haniel did not want to get into that argument again and was glad to have good news to distract his dad. "A girl called about the music box. I think it's her."
His father's eyes snapped to his son's. "So soon?"
"Her name is Alma. She works at that free classified place. She called before the ad even came out."
"My vision was true," James said.
Haniel wanted to point out that it was only somewhat true. His father's vision hadn't told them that the daughter worked at Valley Classified or even how or when precisely they would meet. But his father was touchy about his fuzzy psychic abilities. They weren't as extensive as he'd hoped, but all that would change if this was the girl.
"She's coming by the shop tonight after work."
"Good job, son," James said. Haniel basked in the rare praise and his father's use of the word "son." "I'll get going so I'm not here when she arrives. We only have between now and her birthday—maybe six months."
"Dad, I can handle it."
His father nodded, but he sensed his old man didn't believe he could do the job. Haniel resolved that he would earn the girl's trust and prove his worthiness.
Chapter Two
Rick performed his late afternoon "walk-through." Nobody, including the man himself, understood what he was looking for. Rick neared Alma's station. She figured she'd try to get him to reconsider her working late.
"I have an appointment after work, and Doug and I—"
Rick cut her off. "You're welcome to use the company phone to reschedule, this time," he said and then took off down the hall to the bathroom. All the operators except Yolanda logged off.
Doug leaned back in his chair. "One of these days I'm going to go in there," Doug said gesturing toward the bathroom, "and find out what he's doing for twenty minutes."
"Remember the big guy with the shaved head who stopped showing up?"
"He scared Rick. I liked that big guy," Doug said.
"He told me Rick reads the newspaper in there."
Doug shook his head. "No one should be that comfortable with their business at work."
Yolanda yelled from her station two rows over. "Alma, did you get overtime today?"
"Yeah," Alma said, not hiding her lack of enthusiasm.
"How come I never get overtime? You can't even take ads in Spanish!"
"I'd give you the hours if he'd let me," Alma yelled back.
"Rick really is a prick," Yolanda said and then snapped up the next call. Yolanda lived to take all the calls, and when Rick left the room, the other employees were happy to let her.
Alma sighed and turned back to her best friend. "Maybe I can see the music box by myself after I'm done."
Doug shot her a look. "We carpooled."
"I'll drop you off and then go to the shoe repair place where he works. It's public."
"Those shops are always deserted. Who knows what's in there?"
"Broken shoes?"
Doug rolled his eyes. "Do you really believe people are what they seem?"
As much as she tried to pretend otherwise, Alma had always been distrustful of people. It took her a long time to even trust Doug. Alma glanced up at the digital "on hold" counter on the wall. There were two people in the queue. It was an unspoke
n rule that if the number got to three callers, they would log on to help. Yolanda would get mad if they jumped in too early.
Alma stared at a spot on the wall of her cubicle. The floaty sensation she'd gotten since she was a kid descended on her. It signaled the start of a daydream or her mind just wandering like it wasn't connected to her body.
Alma enjoyed that spacey feeling. It was like mini vacation from being herself—her boring, ordinary self. In her relaxed state, Alma's mind returned to Yolanda never getting overtime. Yolanda was the best ad-taker, and she wanted more hours. "If I didn't know better, I'd say Rick was racist," Alma heard herself say. Her own words surprised her.
Doug turned to her with a big smile and wide eyes.
"No," she said.
"You have all these interesting thoughts, but you never act on them," Doug said. "You dreamed up the idea turning the old reception area into a breakroom. That worked out great even if I had to force you."
Alma appreciated that Doug loved to stir things up, but accusing their supervisor of being racist might be too much. "Rick's not."
"Are you sure? Yolanda deserves that extra money. She has a kid to support," Doug said.
A pang of guilt hit Alma. Yolanda kept the picture of her two-year-old son right on her desk "for motivation." Yolanda deserved the overtime. She was the best salesperson.
"I'm saying something," Doug said.
Alma stared at Doug, trying to decide if he'd made an idle threat. "He can't be."
"You and I are the only ones who get overtime, and we're the only white workers."
