Time's Edge

by Rysa Walker

  Jody starts off toward the cars. Kiernan stops and hands me the truck key, then pulls me close so that he can stick his pistol into the pocket of my skirt.

  “Go to the cabin, and get some cash—under my mattress, up in the loft. You may need to bail me out. Maybe both of us. I’d rather not use my key unless I have to, and this will give me a chance to talk to Abel. You work on Delia and Grant.” He leans down and kisses me on the cheek.

  “Boy?” Mitchell is staring at him. “This ain’t the time.”

  “Sorry, sir. She’s with me. I had to give her the keys to my truck. Didn’t want her stranded out here alone.”

  Mitchell glances at me, and there’s a touch of sympathy in his blue eyes. “Can you drive, miss? If not, I can give you a lift into town. You’d have to sit next to Jody, but . . .”

  My first thought is that I’d much rather ride in the back with Kiernan and Abel than up front with the jerk who hit him, but I shake my head. “I think I can handle it, sir.”

  I’m actually pretty positive that I can’t handle it, given that I’ve never driven a car, let alone anything with a clutch, but Kiernan’s right—I need to talk to Delia and Grant.

  Mitchell looks around, scanning the area on both sides of the street. Everyone else is near their vehicles, about half of which have already pulled away. He rubs the bridge of his nose and huffs out a long breath.

  “Dear Lord, what a mess,” Mitchell says, more to himself than to me. He starts off toward his truck and then turns back. “You friends with the woman that fool Willis injured?”

  I decide to go with the truth. “I know her, but not very well.”

  “I’m guessing that other fella took her into Athens to get her nose looked at. If you see ’em, tell her that they’re gonna need to come back into Watkinsville and give a statement. Otherwise things could go a lot worse for her driver. Your young man should be out by nightfall, or tomorrow at the latest, dependin’ on how annoyed the judge is at havin’ to deal with all this. He got family around here? Anyone who can vouch for him aside from you?”

  “His family is up in Boston, but his dad owns a farm over near Bogart. He has some friends over there.”

  “Well, all I can say is you both shoulda kept out of it. Yeah, I saw you stomp Willis’s hand, but I’m gonna do you a favor and forget it. There’s a fine line between brave and stupid, young lady. It ain’t ever a good idea to get in the middle of these things.”

  I don’t say anything, but I guess he can tell from my expression that I don’t agree, and to his credit, he looks a little embarrassed. “I didn’t say what Willis did was right. Not by a long shot. He’s about as big an idiot as they come, and ever’body in town knows it. I’m just sayin’ that it don’t pay to interfere, especially when you ain’t from around here.”

  I give him a curt nod but don’t respond.

  “Tell your friend to come on down to the jailhouse if you see her, okay?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  When I turn back toward the road, Delia’s car is no longer there, and I have no idea where they’ve gone. I climb into the cab of Kiernan’s truck and lean my head back against the seat, taking a few deep breaths to settle my nerves. After about a minute, Mitchell pulls up beside me.

  “You okay?” he asks, leaning across the guy he called Jody, who I’m delighted to see has a busted lip and rapidly swelling eye.

  “Yes, sir,” I respond. “Just need a minute to catch my breath.”

  He nods and drives away, pausing at the intersection as a couple of cars pass. Abel is sitting up now, propped against the corner of the truck bed. Kiernan waves as they pass, glancing at the spot where Abel and Delia’s car had been. I just shrug, and then the truck turns right and disappears down the highway.

  I wait until the last car pulls away, because I don’t want an audience when I try to start this thing. I really wish I’d paid closer attention to what Kiernan was doing when he was driving. I stick the key into the ignition, scooching forward on the seat to reach the pedals, which are odd-looking round things rather than the type I’m used to seeing.

  Nothing happens the first time I turn the key. I think it’s because the seat is too far back and I can’t push down hard enough, so I crouch down to search for the lever to adjust the seat.

  “You’ll need to use the clutch, love.”

  I jump at the voice, my head banging against the steering column.

  “Holy crap, Kiernan. Could you give me a little warning next time?”

  He’s standing outside the truck in a clean shirt. His face has been washed, and the cut on his face is bandaged. He looks angry.

  “Give me my gun back.”

  “Why? When . . . are you coming from?”

  “Because I need it, and tonight around ten.”

  I hand him the gun. “Do I want to know why you need it?”

  “Probably not.” He sighs, and some of the anger seems to evaporate. “I don’t want to screw things up worse than they already are by making you second-guess yourself. Just go with your instincts.” He shoves the gun into his pocket. “And Kate?”

  “Yes?”

  “This other thing—with Pru. It’s business.” He reaches inside and tilts my chin toward him so that I can’t look away. “Unpleasant business, but I’d do it again, even knowing the mistrust in your eyes. Just know that I have only ever loved one girl, and that girl is you. Past, present, future, this timeline or some other—still you.”

  And then he kisses me.

  I don’t kiss him back. Part of me wants to, but my rational side has a secret weapon now. All it has to do is toss up the visual of him with Prudence.

  But I still can’t quite bring myself to push him away.

  “You said you weren’t going to do that again without permission,” I say when he pulls back.

  “No. I said I’d try.” Something apparently catches his eye at that point, because he grabs his CHRONOS key and blinks out.

  Seconds later, Grant pulls up next to me in the blue car. I suspect he saw Kiernan, but it’s hard to read his expression with his right eye swollen half-shut. I don’t see Delia, so she must be lying down in the back.

  That assumption is shattered as soon as Grant shuts off the engine and I hear the thumping inside the trunk.

  Grant is still sitting behind the wheel when I tap on his window.

  He rolls it down and I ask, “Why on earth did you put her in the trunk?”

  “I didn’t want to, but it’s the only way I could keep her from running back over there. Abel is—”

  “Her husband. Yes.”

  He looks across the street to where the cars were earlier. “Where is he?”

  “Abel was arrested. So was the guy with me. Help me get Delia out of the trunk.”

  His expression borders on horror.

  “Well, you knew you’d have to let her out eventually when you put her in there, didn’t you?”

  “Yes. But there weren’t any alternatives. And she has a temper.” His hand goes up to his swollen eye, so I’m guessing that’s Delia’s handiwork rather than something won in the fight.

  We walk around to the rear of the car, and I knock on the trunk. “Delia? My name is Kate. You know my grandmother, Katherine Shaw. Grant is going to open the trunk now, and he’s really very sorry for putting you in there. We’re all on the same side, so no hitting anybody, okay? We need to focus on how to get Abel and Kiernan out of jail.”

  Grant eases the trunk open, and Delia props herself up, glaring first at me and then at him. Her face is a wreck, and her nose is very clearly broken. The skin on the bridge is split open, and the entire center of her face is beginning to discolor. Her sleeveless white blouse is now nearly as red as her skirt, and her face and arms are streaked with blood and tears.

  “I don’t know you,” she says as she drags her feet over the edge of the trunk, one shoe missing. Her voice sounds like she has a really bad cold, which is hardly a surprise given the extent of the damage. “Where’s
Abel?”

  “Abel and my friend Kiernan are on their way to the county jail. One of the guys here seems to have been a police officer of some sort. And like I said, you knew my grandmother at CHRONOS. Katherine Shaw?”

  I pull out my phone.

  “Looks like there’ve been some changes at CHRONOS,” Delia says, her voice flat. “A lot of changes, if they’re letting you carry that on a jump.”

  “I’m not exactly CHRONOS.”

  I click to play the recording of Katherine. It’s a slight variation on the one I played for Timothy and Evelyn, the one I played for Adrienne at Port Darwin, and the one I would have played for Moehler if he hadn’t been shot.

  I watch Grant when Katherine reaches the part about Saul. His eyebrows go up a bit, and then a look of resignation settles on his face.

  Katherine tossed in a comment about a training mission she was on with Delia and something about Abel and a sandwich. It doesn’t make sense to me, but Delia’s mouth twitches the slightest bit when Katherine says it. It’s more of an about-to-cry twitch than an about-to-smile twitch, but I can tell Delia believes that it’s really Katherine. Whether she believes what Katherine told her is another question.

  “Well, that’s interesting,” Delia says. She reaches back into the corner, fishes out her other shoe, tugs it on, and starts climbing out of the trunk. Grant tries to help her, but she pushes him away. That’s a mistake, because she’s obviously light-headed. Grant props her back up when she stumbles, and she rewards him with a foul look before staggering over to the driver’s side.

  Grant says, “Maybe you should let me drive?”

  Delia stands there for a minute and then says, “Have it your way.” She works her way around to the passenger side, holding on to the front of the car as she goes.

  I slide into the backseat. Delia mutters something about not inviting me, but I think Grant is relieved to have me along.

  “Until we get Abel and Kiernan out, we need to stick together,” I say, deciding to omit the part about me being unable to drive the truck.

  She doesn’t respond, just leans her head back against the seat as Grant starts the car. “Take a right at the intersection.”

  “We should find you a doctor first,” Grant says. “You’re still bleeding—”

  “If Abel’s in police custody, that’s where we’re going. This can wait.”

  “Delia,” I say softly, “you’re speaking as Abel’s wife. But they assume you’re his employer, and I’m pretty sure our chances of getting him out of this are much better if they keep on thinking he’s your driver. That might be more believable if you get your face taken care of and change into fresh clothes before we talk to the judge or sheriff or whoever’s in charge.”

  I can tell Delia really, really wants to disagree with me, but she knows I’m right. She slumps down in the seat, and Grant takes the left turn toward Athens.

  “There’s a hospital near the boardinghouse,” he says. “On Milledge, I think—St. Mary’s or something like that.”

  “Fine,” Delia says. “But go to the stable point first. I want to try to pull up HQ. No offense, Kate—oh, hell, I don’t care whether you take offense or not. I’m not buying your story, and I’d much prefer having CHRONOS Med patch up my face than some nun with a needle. And when they’re done, Angelo can help me figure out a way to get my crew home safely.”

  I start to tell her that Angelo is dead—Katherine seems to have forgotten to mention that part this time around. But I decide that can wait. Delia is having a bad enough day, and the fact that her boss is dead in 2305 is truly a moot point when she’s stuck here in 1938.

  Grant sinks down next to me on the wooden bench, which looks like a repurposed church pew. He’s holding the compress that the nurse gave him against his swollen eye with one hand and a small paper cup of water in the other. The room is empty, aside from an elderly man slumped in a chair at the far end of the narrow waiting area, who’s snoring loudly. I can understand why he’s asleep. The heat makes you want to close your eyes and melt. The only thing the fan in the window seems to be accomplishing is sucking in more hot, humid air.

  I waited in the car, on Delia’s orders, while she and Grant tried their keys at a stable point located inside this odd, octagonal-shaped brick chapel next to a women’s dormitory. They were gone maybe five minutes, and when they returned to the car, it was as if they’d switched roles. Grant led Delia back and helped her into the passenger seat. Neither said a word on the short drive to the hospital.

  Delia found her voice as soon as we arrived at the hospital, however. The nurse, a very patient woman, who identified herself as Sister Sara, practically had to drag her into the examination room. Delia kept glancing back over her shoulder at us, all the way down the hall.

  “Is Delia always this afraid of doctors?” I ask Grant, mostly to have something to say. The only thing he has uttered since leaving the stable point was a short, not-very-convincing promise to Delia that everything would be okay.

  “I don’t think she considers them doctors,” he says. “Would you trust medical personnel from a few hundred years ago? Back when they still used leeches? I mean, they seem nice, and I’m sure they wouldn’t hurt her intentionally, but . . .” He shrugs. “Now that Delia’s not here, you want to tell me why that other guy was with you when we pulled up?”

  So he had seen Kiernan jump away. “Kiernan had to get something he’d left with me. He was jumping back from later today—tonight, actually.”

  “Did he say where Abel was?”

  “No. He was kind of cryptic.”

  He opens his mouth to say something else, but I interrupt him. “You trained with Saul, right?”

  “Yeah,” he says, his hazel eyes growing wary. “Only once, two jumps before this one. No offense, since he’s your grandfather and all, but he’s a total ass.”

  “No offense taken. Did you come to that conclusion before or after hearing my grandmother in the video?”

  “Before.” He gives me a worried look. “You swear you’re not with CHRONOS?”

  Something in his tone of voice makes me smile. I was predisposed to dislike him, but he seems like a decent guy. “Cross my heart, hope to die. Pinky-swear, if you’d like.”

  “I’m not familiar with that last one, but I’ll take your word. Let’s just say Saul screwed me over on the training jump.”

  “What did he do?”

  He gives me a long look again, like he’s trying to decide whether to trust me, and then sighs. “Our jump was to Atlanta—September 1911. Some religious conference. I’m not a religious historian. I do nineteenth- and twentieth-century legal history. There was this string of murders in Atlanta—some two dozen black women were murdered in the last half of 1911. The papers dubbed the killer the Atlanta Ripper, and the cases were never solved. I wondered if they tried very hard, given the state of race relations at the time, so Angelo decides I should tag along with Saul and see if I could get an answer to that research question.”

  Grant drinks the last bit from the cup and then crushes it. “Apparently, he didn’t ask Saul’s opinion on the matter, because Saul was completely whizzed off to be stuck with a trainee. We get there, and Saul attends maybe one session at the conference, then says he’s got a side trip planned. Claims a lot of the historians do it and tells me to hang out in Atlanta until he gets back. But I said no way. It was only my second jump, and I wasn’t supposed to be left on my own for more than an hour, tops. So he says fine, I can come with—he’s studying some small cult about two hours from Atlanta. It may even have been in this direction. I’m thinking a few counties over?”

  “So . . . what happened?”

  “We get there, and it’s not much at all. An old lady runs the place, sort of like a collective farm. She was super friendly, offered to let us stay overnight, since it was late when we arrived.” He shakes his head. “You ask me, it was all about some girl. She was half his age, too. Pretty enough, but . . . I’d even have considered
her too young. Maybe Saul just gets off on breaking rules.”

  “That’s a pretty safe bet.”

  “Anyway,” Grant continues, “I got horribly sick that night. Saul says I was drunk, but I only had one glass of this homemade wine the old guy we were staying with gave us. He gave some to the girl, too, so I don’t think it was very strong. Hell, I didn’t even finish the glass—it was too sweet for me. Next thing I remember, it’s the next day, and we’re in the truck, halfway back to Atlanta. Saul tells me if I breathe a word to Angelo about the side trip, he’ll say I took off and he found me trashed in a bar. But if I play along, he’ll tell them I got food poisoning and that’s why I came back with almost nothing for my research.”

  He tosses the cup into a wicker basket next to the bench. “CHRONOS Med checked me out pretty thoroughly when we got back, however, since Saul said I’d been sick. They never actually questioned the food-poisoning story, but I don’t think they bought it. Or maybe I’m just a crappy liar. Anyway, the next jump, I’m scheduled with Delia, the most by-the-book trainer of the bunch. They must have told her something about the Atlanta jump, because she lectured me for a good hour before we left—said I was to watch and observe, and limit my interactions as much as possible without looking out of place. And what happens? Just by standing there, I manage to whizz off the biggest jerk in the crowd and get Abel arrested.”

  “Well, you can hardly be blamed for that.”

  “I should have punched the idiot myself. I really, really wanted to. But I held back, because I kept hearing Delia harping on about staying in the background. I already had one black mark on my record from the jump with Saul. I didn’t want to add another.”

  A woman walks in, one child in front of her and two others trailing behind. The child in front is cradling her arm and looks a bit woozy. The woman leads her over to the reception desk and shoos the other kids to the waiting area, where they take the bench opposite us.