The Secret Truth of Time: A Time Travel / Supernatural Suspense Novel
Page 6
Her mom had envisioned that she might be murdered, but if she caught the man early, her daughter would survive. The letter stated that the watch Bernadette carried on the night of her death would come into Ann's possession, and she would meet with her full-grown daughter accompanied by a middle-aged Win Win. A flood of light would fall on them as Ann handed the watch to Alma and then the letter.
Alma stopped and replayed the scene earlier in the evening. The headlights. That's why Professor Cassidy was so stunned by the headlights. Her mother had predicted the scene on the sidewalk outside the bookstore! No wonder the professor had wanted to buy the watch in the shoe repair shop. She'd thought she was supposed to have it.
Dazed, Alma turned over the photo and read her mother's inscription: To my daughter, Alma, with hopes that this will not be our only photo together. Love, Mom
Alma stared at the words. Her mother's hope had not come true. She'd died saving Alma.
A desperate urge to see her mother overwhelmed Alma. She dug the watch out of her purse, held it tight, closed her eyes, and tried to remember how she'd gotten into that bathroom.
With eyes still closed, Alma's mind conjured up the image of the hole in the wall and how it looked like a spider. A vision of another spider flashed into Alma's imagination. This spider looked real, and he scuttled into a crack. She rushed to follow it. Wind whipped by Alma's face. Her gut jumped into her throat as if she were in an elevator cut loose from its cables and dropping fifty stories.
Darkness.
Alma blinked and spotted the leg of the spider as it wiggled in the crack of the sidewalk and scuttled out of sight. Her body felt heavy and bloated. She put her hand on her pregnant stomach, and her mind jumbled with alien thoughts and memories. A dog barked. She squinted to see it through the fence. She'd foreseen this. Wait! A panic swept through Alma. What is happening? Who was she?
Astonishment stunned Alma. A flash of clarity struck her. She was Bernadette again, like she'd been in the bathroom, but this time she'd retained Alma, too.
Forward.
The thought seemed as if it were spoken directly to Alma. Could her mother sense her presence? Alma began to think and searched her memory. But her mind wasn't her own. Her memories were muddled with her mother's. Alma's brain couldn't get a clear picture. A thought popped into Alma's head that her mother's memories had been muddied deliberately. But why?
As she turned the corner, it dawned on Alma that the man with the cigarette was going to kill her on the front lawn. She looked down at her watch. The same watch!
Forward.
It was ten minutes to eleven as she crossed the street to surprise her murderer.
No!
She needed to stop her mother from crossing the street. Wind whipped by Alma's face as she was engulfed by darkness.
Alma found herself standing in the center of her apartment, her hands balled into fists, still holding the watch. Sweat drenched her shirt.
Alma collapsed into a heap onto her bed and cried. No thoughts or words entered her mind as chest-wrenching sobs of grief poured out of her. Tears she'd never shed for her mother or her father flooded down her face. She cried until she couldn't breathe and then staggered to the bathroom for tissues to blow her nose.
The dread she'd experienced earlier heightened to a near-panic. The lights in the bathroom seemed to dim, and, like in her nightmare, a purple fog surrounded her. Alma's legs turned weak. She grabbed the bathroom sink to steady herself. Her throat felt as if a large hand had tightened around it. Alma gasped for air.
Alma told herself to calm down. This had to be a panic attack. The room began to turn almost purple, and she felt as if she might pass out. An image of a hand around her throat flashed into her thoughts, and she told herself that she could make it open. She imagined each finger loosening one by one and took a deep breath.
The room seemed like it was filled with violet smoke. Alma blinked, and it evaporated.
Alma stared at her face in the mirror. Her round face, dark hair, even the slight gap between her teeth looked like her mother. She marveled at how many more features she'd had in common with her mother over her father. The eerie dread threatened to grow, and she splashed water on her face.
A thought shot into Alma's mind. What she'd experienced wasn't a vision like the one her mother had written about in that letter. Alma knew, even though it defied reason, that she had been there on that sidewalk with her mom. She was her mom. Questions flooded Alma's thoughts.
Was all this possible or was she experiencing some kind of psychotic break?
Her stomach turned, and her knees weakened again. Dread crept into Alma's consciousness.
She pushed the feeling away, forced herself to stand tall, and dried her face. Despite her growing uneasiness, the idea that she might in any way get to know her real mother spurred Alma into action. And there was one place she could look that didn't involve falling into darkness. Alma marched downstairs and opened the side door to the garage. There they were. The boxes containing the last of her father's things. He had to have tucked away something to do with Mom.
Doug gave up on sleep and got out of bed. It wasn't even half past seven yet, but his mind swirled with thoughts of Alma. She'd finally showed signs of being some kind of paramortal, even if he couldn't figure out what kind. But he hated to admit to himself the real reason he couldn't stop thinking about her. Her date with that Haniel guy.
Doug shuffled across the shag carpet of his bedroom to the adjoining bathroom to take a clichéd cold shower. They'd talked about the possibility of a new outfit for her date. Shopping would be a good excuse to call her. He liked shopping with Alma because she looked so cute trying on clothes.
He lingered in the cold water and chastised himself for not keeping a professional distance. There was no hope for a future with Alma other than as her Witness. He needed to focus on his job and keep her safe.
He dressed and ate breakfast trying to occupy his time until it wasn't too early to call her. At half past eight, he couldn't wait any longer. He needed to hear her voice.
Doug sat down at his wooden roll top desk and reached for the receiver of his Sports Illustrated sneaker phone. It had been left behind by a previous tenant, and Doug vowed to himself to buy a new phone. He untangled the cord and then dialed Alma. He'd expected to wake her up, but her line was busy.
His mind jumped to Haniel. That Romeo had gotten her number last night. Doug burned with jealousy. He waited a few minutes and called again. Still busy. He slammed down the sneaker phone.
He sat at his desk with his arms folded and stewed with anger until it struck him that he had another important call to make. The fact that his jealousy had clouded his mind so much he'd neglected his duties amplified Doug's shame.
So unprofessional. Downright pitiful.
He grabbed the ridiculous sneaker phone again, dialed The Observatory headquarters, and glanced at his watch. It was a little after four in the afternoon in London.
"Taylor here," his supervisor said.
"Doug Wyland reporting."
"Good of you to call at a reasonable hour. I trust you've more news."
Doug had been calling later in the afternoons and leaving messages, which was bad form. His mind hadn't been on his assignment.
"Alma Davis and her aunt, Winifred Fernandez, went to the Third Eye Bookstore to meet Professor Ann Cassidy."
"And this was deliberate? Not a chance meeting like before?" Taylor asked.
"Win Win set it up." Taylor cleared his throat, and Doug realized his error in calling Alma's aunt by her nickname. It hinted that he didn't have the emotional distance required for his job. Doug exhaled with relief noting that Taylor hadn't mentioned Doug's slip.
"Did Fernandez give a reason for their attendance?" Taylor asked.
"She said that it couldn't have been a coincidence that the professor had a book event slated for the night after Alma's incident."
"Were you able to get details on that?"
Doug hoped Taylor would comment on this. In all of his research, he hadn't come across any phenomena that resembled what Alma had described to him.
Taylor remained silent, which disturbed Doug. He was accustomed to his supervisor asking questions in rapid succession.
"Listen," Taylor said. "You've been a great in your role as a Witness, but you're a tad young."
"I'm twenty-six," Doug interrupted. "My cover is that I'm twenty-two."
"Yes, of course. I didn't mean to insult you. It's just we hadn't anticipated that Davis would ever be in play again. You were originally assigned to the aunt, who seems to have opted for a life sans any paramortal activity, except maybe enhancing her position as a doctor. You asked to be reassigned to the niece, and we agreed thinking she was even less likely to be in play considering her father."
"You don't think I'm qualified."
"I think you're in danger of losing your professional distance and perhaps even mortal danger. You're aware the mother was murdered?"
"Yes," Doug said, not knowing what to say about his boss's accurate perception of "professional distance." He'd been screwing up a lot more than he'd thought.
"The murder was brutal, and it's not the first one like it."
"I didn't get any intel about that," Doug said, surprised.
Silence. Doug refused to break it. He wanted to know what his boss knew.
"This is the kind of thing we don't have in our traditional records. I'd been wanting to tell you this for some time, but you've been calling in your reports so late in the day."
Doug's muscles tensed with anger at himself. "Do you think Alma might be in danger?"
"There is a possibility Davis might be," Taylor answered, pointedly using Alma's last name. "We think this person killing BEIs may have some connection to The Observatory."
"A Witness?"
"A possible relative of a former Witness. We're not sure. Are you familiar with the work of Leo Upton?"
"From the archives, and Cassidy spoke about his work last night," Doug said.
"Things are moving forward quicker than we'd thought," Taylor said. "I'm on a plane today, and I'll be there very late your time. Do be available for my call at your number."
Doug's jaw dropped. He'd never even met Taylor, nor anyone from the London office before. Whatever was happening was more serious than he'd thought. If Alma was the next Being of Interest targeted by the killer—
"No need to be alarmed," Taylor said in response to the silence from Doug. "An old friend called me and I said I'd visit. I'll have a place to stay nearby."
His reassurance helped a little, but Doug cursed himself for not checking in with his boss more often.
"One more thing, Wyland," his boss added. "Do work harder to keep your distance. I can understand the pull of someone like Alma Davis. Stuart Davis certainly did. But just remember, the consequences can be great, and not just professionally," Taylor said and hung up.
Doug set down the phone. The weight of the situation hit him. His boss was coming to town, and the man knew his professional distance with his subject was compromised.
And Alma was in danger. He couldn't trust another Witness to keep her safe. The Observatory mandate limited how much a Witness could interfere.
Doug dialed Alma's number again. Still busy. He imagined her phone knocked over, and Alma lying dead next to it. Calm down, Doug. He needed to keep his wits about him. He grabbed his gun out of his desk drawer, snagged his keys and wallet, and rushed to Alma's place.
Chapter Eight
The coffee pot sputtered and filled Alma's apartment with its reassuring aroma. She needed to wake up and continue her research, and she'd run out of her usual instant coffee.
The smell triggered a memory of mornings with her father. He'd always be up reading at his computer well before sunrise. They were one of the first households on the block to have a PC. Alma smiled to herself. She could almost see her father pushing up his glasses as they slid down on his nose while he read. She couldn't remember a day of her life when she'd woken up first.
Her father's things were scattered across her apartment. She'd unearthed a box of notebooks, his computer, a dot matrix printer, and an envelope containing every one of her report cards. He'd saved them all—even the ones from her senior year of high school when he was undergoing chemo.
A few tears slid down Alma's face. She'd been up all night looking for clues about her mother's life and sifting through memories of her dad. She was glad Tita Win hadn't thrown it all away.
Alma wiped her tears and poured herself a cup of coffee. In addition to her own memories, fragments of what she believed were her mother's memories popped into Alma's mind. A few seconds of her father laughing with her mom in the small kitchen of her old rented house—or rather her mother and Tita Win's old house. Alma smiled. It was similar to her and Doug. But was it real?
Despite going through most of the boxes, Alma hadn't found anything of her mother's. No photographs of her mother. Nothing that might have been her mom's. If her father's notebooks had any information about her mom, Alma wouldn't have known. Every page was written in a foreign language Alma didn't recognize.
At around two in the morning, she'd taken a break from the boxes and took to her father's old computer to research Leo Upton and The Infinite Truth. She'd burned through half of the free ten hours she'd gotten from an AOL promotional CD and was disappointed to have only found out that Upton had died in the seventies.
Alma heard Tita Win exiting from the main house. She darted down the wooden stairs, but stumbled when she was distracted by a spider web caught on her face again. Alma gripped the railing as her ankle slid between the open space in between two steps. She managed to pull her ankle free before doing any serious damage, but got scraped up a bit in the process.
"Aye! Alma!" Win shouted. "Are you okay?"
"I'm okay, Tita Win," she said as she righted herself and wiped the cobwebs off of her face.
"Why are you up so early?" Win asked.
"I wanted to ask you a favor," Alma said. Despite her newfound surety in her mother's memories, a part of Alma still worried if she was undergoing some kind of identity crisis or brain malfunction triggered by her fall in the shoe repair shop.
Win looked at Alma and waited. Her aunt had a great poker face. There was no way of knowing what she was thinking.
"I want to get a brain scan," Alma said.
Win laughed. "Your brain is fine."
"I have health insurance through work, but I think if I went to a doctor they'd probably refer me to a psychiatrist and put me on medication."
Tita Win frowned. "There's nothing wrong with your brain."
"Then the scan will turn up normal. Can you arrange it?"
"You're saying if I don't you'll go to a doctor and go on medication," Win said. "I don't think you'll do that."
Alma sighed. Tita Win couldn't be manipulated. "Tita Win Win. I'd feel better—I'd sleep better, if I just knew for sure that I wasn't out of my mind."
Win paused to think about it. Then it struck her that she knew the perfect person to help Alma. "Give me a few days, and I'll take care of it," she said, stepping closer and giving her a hug. "And don't tell anybody about all this stuff. People don't like it."
"I already told Doug," Alma said.
Win laughed again. "That's fine. He probably asked about it," she said and then left for work.
Alma never understood what Win Win found funny, but she headed back upstairs, glad to have convinced her aunt to arrange to get her brain checked. A part of Alma hoped there was some kind of operable anomaly in her brain so she could avoid—
Alma paused outside her apartment and tried to figure out what she wanted to avoid.
Change.
She'd hated how her father's death uprooted everything familiar to her. An
d whatever this was, it was already shaking Alma's mind to its very core. She wasn't even sure who she was anymore.
And yet the allure of knowing more about her mother—even if she risked losing her own sense of self and the world—pulled at Alma like a tractor beam. She shook off her uncertainty and headed back inside. Having stepped out for a moment gave her fresh perspective, and she realized in her manic quest for information, she'd trashed her apartment.
Alma moved the bigger boxes to the corner, and stacked the smaller boxes on top. A little square of white cardboard fell from one of the boxes. She reached down to pick up the errant paper.
It was a white matchbook with pink polka dots on it with the words Sands Las Vegas emblazoned on it. Alma opened it. Two matches remained.
The obvious wear on the match heads and creases of the cover showed its age. She wondered how it had gotten into her father's stuff. He'd never taken any trips without her. Had he gone before she was born?
She flipped the matchbook over and looked at the logo again. The logo had that hip late-sixties early-seventies look to it. It had to be around twenty-five years old. Had her mom and dad gone to Vegas together?
Alma smiled at the idea of her folks going out to see the Rat Pack. She searched her memories for any sign her mom and dad had taken a trip.
The light dimmed. Alma assumed a cloud had blocked the sun for a moment, but then she remembered she was in her apartment and her blinds were closed. The room darkened and the light took on a purple hue. Alma blinked, and the room was normal again. But when she blinked again, it was dark. She closed her eyes, and even the black of her own shut-off vision seemed tinted with violet.
The falling sensation engulfed her again, but instead of air on her face, Alma felt as if she were falling into a void. She attempted to calm herself by telling herself she might see her mother again. Her stomach roiled as if she'd eaten something spoiled. An urge to gag overwhelmed her, but she couldn't swallow or move any part of her body. She panicked, thinking she might choke to death.