Glassford Girl: Boxed Set (Complete Series) (Time Jumper Series)

by Jay J. Falconer

  Emily felt the crowd of upscale women pushing in close to her. She swung her head around to make eye contact with them, hoping they’d get the message to back off. They didn’t. Each member of the crowd looked like a cloned variation of the woman with the screaming child: caked-on makeup, ostentatious jewelry, and ugly hairstyles that had been held in place with too much hairspray.

  “Oh my God!” one of the women yelled.

  “What’s she doing?” another one asked.

  “Mommy? Why is she naked?” the little girl asked with a sweet, inquisitive tone.

  “I don’t know, honey, but look away.”

  Emily struggled to her knees and covered her breasts with her arms, taking in the scene around her. Two of the women reached for Emily, probably thinking they needed to help. But she didn’t want it, swinging a fast elbow at the legs nearby, convincing them to back off.

  There were two rows of glass and chrome display cases filled with hundreds of items: lipstick, rouge, eyeliner, blush—in all the colors of the rainbow. Stools were placed at even intervals in front of circular mirrors on top of the display cases that had been marked as makeover stations.

  The customers and employees had stopped what they were doing; all of them staring at her with their mouths agape.

  A department store? No, with her luck, it’s probably a mall. “I hate malls,” she said, thinking of where she’d landed after her first jump in 1987—the blistering-hot parking lot of Metrocenter Mall in Phoenix.

  “Make way!” a male voice yelled from behind the crowd of women. “Biltmore security coming through! Make a hole, ladies!”

  “Oh, thank God you’re here! That awful girl over there just scared my ‘Kenzie half to death.”

  Emily saw racks of jeans and bedazzled T-shirts to her left.

  A forest of clothes. Good cover.

  She pushed to her feet just before the security guard made his way through the buzzing gaggle of ladies. A moment later, he grabbed Emily by the right arm and pulled her next to him.

  The guard used his radio. “Boss, I need you down here in cosmetics, quick! I’ve got a situation.”

  The man was standing too close for a full-on punch or roundhouse kick. That left Emily with only one option. She swung her left elbow up, catching the man firmly under the jaw. “Jailhouse Rock” was the term used by her kung fu teacher, Master Liu, to describe the inside move.

  Whatever it was called, it worked: the guard rocked backwards and fell into the gawking soccer moms, sending them screaming and running.

  She took off, sprinting between the clothing racks to her left, pulling them down as she went, sending clothes and hangers flying behind her. Emily ran another fifty feet before reaching a mauve-colored wall plastered with slinky lingerie advertising posters, then turned right and followed it until she ran into a set of escalators. She climbed the steps of the escalator, running into a dozen shoppers as she worked her way to the next floor.

  She took a quick look around when she made it to the top: rack after rack of designer women’s fashions in every direction except where the sales counter stood in front of her. This was the mother lode of swanky clothes for those pretentious Scottsdale types. High-end stuff.

  A raised-letter plaque attached to the front of the cash register told her where she was: Saks Fifth Avenue.

  “There’s a first time for everything,” she mumbled, before hearing a commotion behind her.

  She turned in a flash and looked down the escalator. A stocky security guard wearing his cap was just starting the climb, but his path appeared to be blocked by the people she’d knocked down with their bags full of purchases.

  A faint voice called out for her from the shadows. It was her mother. “Parking lot, Em. Hurry! There isn’t much time.”

  She could just make out a sign across the sales floor, on the far wall to her left. Exit To Parking Level 2.

  Perfect. Plenty of places to hide.

  She didn’t hang around another second, grabbing clothes as she went, snatching more than one of each item with the hope that she’d come up with something that fit. Skirts, blouses, and even two hats. Her hands and arms were almost full, but she had room for one more item—the most important item: shoes. A pair of brown riding boots to be exact. She scanned the pretty display and grabbed the pair she thought was closest to her size.

  She crashed through the exit door and ran onto a cement landing that led to the second floor of the parking lot. A staircase with yellow handrails was directly across from her. She zipped to it and started down, taking a quick glance back at the door—no sign of the rent-a-cop giving chase. She hustled down two flights of switchback stairs where she found the main parking level.

  Emily heard music in the distance and it was getting louder. Someone was coming. She threw herself against the wall, hiding behind a stack of blue and red vertical pipes. She waited. Seconds later, a vintage pink Cadillac drifted around the bend from the last row of cars and headed her way. It was cruising with its convertible top down and a song blaring on the radio. Seconds later, the car drove past Emily, revealing its driver—some Elvis-looking dude. He was singing along to the song, fully vested in the lyrics of “Heartbreak Hotel.”

  She checked the area again. No cars moving or people walking. She scrambled across the cement, making her way to the rear section where she decided to hide between the hood of a silver BMW sedan and the back of a midnight blue Honda Odyssey minivan. The van had a bumper sticker that proudly told the world that the driver’s kid was an honor student at Camelback High School.

  Above the bumper, she saw a string of those annoying avatar stickers on the rear window that depicted a happy family holding hands: two parents, five kids, two dogs and a cat. Some were partially faded and peeling away at the corners.

  Her mind flashed to a vision of her mom being tortured by the snake-like tentacles on the hovering medical table in the ship that took her.

  “Happy family? I’ll bet,” she said, setting the stolen clothes on the spotless hood of the BMW. She reached up and peeled the largest sticker from the window, tearing it from the grasp of the second adult. She crumpled it in her hand and tossed it aside, thinking about how her father had decided to abandon her. She moved to the clothes sitting on the BMW.

  “None of this would be happening, Dad, if you would’ve just worked things out with Mom. How could you do this to me? And Mom?” she said, sorting through the stolen garments.

  She put on one of the skirts—dark blue, knee-length, a little tight, but workable. She looked at the price tag. It said $194.95. A red stamp was printed above it that read Clearance.

  “Figures, Em. You grabbed the crap that nobody wanted.” She tucked the tag and its yellow antitheft security bar under the hem and out of sight. She felt a cold draft rise up beneath the skirt, tingling her uncovered crotch.

  “Better stay out of glass elevators,” she said with a smile on her lips. “Probably give an old creeper a heart attack if he ever looked up.”

  The first top that she tried on—a white silk sleeveless—was too small. But the second one fit nicely. She slipped her feet into the boots—a little big, but she didn’t care. Anything was better than bare feet.

  Finally, she put on one of the hats that she’d grabbed—grey felt with a wide, floppy brim. She tucked her hair under the hat, then stood to check her reflection in the tinted window of the minivan.

  She looked decidedly non-Emily. A little ridiculous. Fashionably ridiculous—but no more ridiculous than those women hovering over her in Saks, that’s for sure. She adjusted the hat by tilting it at an angle, hoping to show some flare to help sell the role.

  Her ensemble made her look like the unassuming hooker that Julia Roberts played in the movie Pretty Woman, especially with no bra. Her full breasts and sensitive nipples would give everyone a show through the sheer top, but the floppy brim of the hat was perfect. It covered her face, but didn’t look like she was trying to hide.

  She composed herself
and walked out from between the cars with the confidence of a young, slutty suburbanite on the way to the mall to max out her daddy’s credit card.

  Just then, the heavyset security guard ran out from the same stairwell that Emily had used for her escape. He stopped, looked around, and then pointed at her. “Miss! Excuse me, miss? I need you to stop right there!”

  Shit! Busted!

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  September 27, 2014

  1:43 p.m.

  Two days after his escape from custody, Derek walked into Best Buy with his head down and ball cap on, being careful to avoid the security cameras that he knew were mounted high in the four corners of the store. There was also another set hovering above the cashier area just inside the front door.

  He’d been off the grid ever since Emily had disappeared into thin air. He still couldn’t make sense of what had happened, but his heart didn’t care how or why she had disappeared, just that she had.

  He’d slept in an abandoned warehouse at the entrance to the alley behind Glassford Street on the first night, then snuck into his assigned group home late the second night. He knew the home monitors would turn him in if they saw him lurking around after lights out, so he waited until the early morning hours to grab some of his clothes, take a shower, and make tracks before anyone realized he was there.

  He made his way through the cavernous store to the computer and electronics section in the back, pretending to be browsing for laptops. He’d dressed as low-key as possible: Arizona Diamondbacks baseball cap, jeans, crew neck t-shirt, and his trusty low-cut Docs. Not that he had much of a choice. It was all he could find in his closet. Several items of his were missing, but there was little he could do about that. Not yet, anyway. He planned to take it up with the boys later.

  “May I help you?” one of the male blue-shirted employees asked. He was a plump college-age guy with short brown hair, pinched eyes, a horrible case of acne, and cherub cheeks. His shirt was stenciled with the phrase Geek Squad. His name tag said Sales Associate Jason.

  “Better than ‘Welcome to Wal-Mart,’” Derek whispered to himself, trying to keep from laughing. He did.

  He wasn’t sure why, but he removed his baseball hat and ran his fingers through his hair.

  The clerk eyed Derek’s spiked hair and forearms covered in tattoos, taking a step back with a concerned look on his face.

  Derek decided that he needed to diffuse the clerk’s suspicion and bait him with a quick sale. He put a hand on the guy’s shoulder.

  “My old man sent me here to pick out a new computer. Anything I want. I’m so over my old Dell POS. Damn thing is mind-numbingly slow.”

  The Geek Squaddie looked relieved.

  Derek could tell that he’d just changed his opinion of him from “biker dude” to “spoiled rich suburban kid with self-esteem issues.”

  “Looks like you have a little bit of everything,” Derek said, looking around as if he was overwhelmed. “But I’ll bet a sharp dude like you knows which one of these systems kicks ass. Am I right?”

  The salesman nodded. “Right down here. We have a brand-new MacBook set up.” He walked a few feet past the glass display case, pointing to a raised stand where a silver laptop sat affixed by a length of aircraft cable encased in plastic. “My name’s Paul. If you need anything, just let me know.”

  Derek flashed a smile, pointing at the guy’s nametag. “But it says Jason.”

  Paul shrugged, then lowered his voice as he spoke. “I lost mine, again. Boss made me wear this one today on account of Jason got fired yesterday. Sort of a punishment, I think. Or a threat. I’m never sure which.”

  “Your boss sounds like a total douche,” Derek said, pressing keys on the keyboard of the display unit.

  Paul rolled his eyes, then gave him a thin smile.

  Derek knew he had him. “So, Paul, is this connected to the Internet? I need to see how fast it is. I’m mostly going to use this to turn in my AP assignments online. They’re killing me this year. Especially Advanced Calculus. Physics, no problem. String theory is what I’m planning to study at Stanford.”

  Paul flared his eyebrows.

  Derek was starting to have fun, busting all of Paul’s preconceptions about him.

  Paul moved a step closer. “Yes, it’s all set up and connected to our in-store Wi-Fi. Today’s password is one word, all lowercase: bestbuyrocks.

  “I’m curious, what was it yesterday?”

  “Same,” Paul said with an embarrassed look on his face.

  “And last week?”

  Paul glanced over his shoulder and then leaned in close to Derek’s ear. “I shouldn’t be telling you this, but it never changes.”

  “Manager’s idea?”

  Paul nodded.

  “Figures,” Derek said, then grinned. “Thanks, dude. I got it from here.”

  Paul held up two fingers, showing a peace sign, and gave Derek a friendly nod before he walked away and greeted another customer waiting two aisles over.

  Derek watched Paul interact with the other customer for a few moments, knowing that he’d chosen the right place. If he were in an electronics store where the employees worked on commission, getting rid of a guy like Paul would have taken a flame thrower or a vial of Ebola. Derek cracked his knuckles then went to work on the Mac.

  He was greeted by the security screen and quickly entered the store’s password, then was taken to the desktop. The Safari browser icon was in the left corner and clicking on it filled the screen with the home screen on Best Buy’s website. He typed “GOOGLE” into the navigation bar and waited for the search screen to appear. It did.

  He entered “Jim Miller, writer, Marine, Glassford Street” and pressed the GO button.

  His jaw dropped when he read the lead story about the Fourth Street shootout and the naked redheaded girl who he now realized was Emily. He didn’t know anything about either of those two facts when he’d rolled up in the back of the police van two nights before.

  Derek didn’t see his name mentioned anywhere in the story, nor was there anything about a police van with a hole in its side, or his garbage can assault on a proud member of the donut-eating squad.

  He read more of the story beats and learned that Miller had fatally shot several gangbangers before taking fire himself.

  “Pretty badass,” Derek mumbled, thinking of Emily. She seemed enamored with the reporter, or maybe it was appreciation. Miller must have protected her, he decided. What else could it be?

  It only took Derek another minute of reading to determine which hospital they’d taken Miller to after he’d been gunned down. It was within walking distance. His luck was finally turning.

  He waved a good-bye to Paul on his way past the chubby tech who was busy pulling a sheet of paper from the outfeed tray of a laser printer. Paul gave it to the customer, then waved to Derek.

  Derek kept his head low and walked briskly out the front door of the store. He headed for St. Joseph’s Hospital to give Jim Miller a visit.

  ***

  Emily froze, watching the mall cop heading her way across the parking level. She took a moment to consider her options. The guard didn’t seem agitated or in a hurry. In fact, he barely made eye contact with her as his eyes scanned the area.

  She focused all her energy on him, trying to get a read, but couldn’t, not with his attention focused elsewhere. However, one thing was clear to her. His body language signaled this was a friendly encounter, so she decided to play it cool and not run. She was worried someone in the store had told the guard which clothes she’d snatched. If that were true, then he’d surely know who she was, especially with the grotesquely huge hat she was wearing. It was a giant sign that said, Here I Am.

  “Miss, sorry to bother you, but did you see a young woman run through here?”

  She let out the shallow breath she was holding in her lungs, thankful he didn’t know about the clothes. “No, sorry. I haven’t seen anyone.”

  “It would’ve been just a few minutes a
go. Red hair, no more than twenty.”

  She shook her head. “I just pulled up a minute ago.”

  “Are you sure?” he asked, now only ten feet away. “She would’ve been hard to miss. She’s . . . not wearing any clothes.”

  “No, I would’ve remembered something like that.”

  He stopped in front of her, still looking around for the girl he was chasing. The officer was in his early fifties, tall, with cocoa skin and kind eyes. He wore a typical mall security guard’s uniform: dark brown polyester pants and a light brown short-sleeved shirt with a fancy shield emblem stitched onto the sleeve that read Morris Security Services: Biltmore Division.

  He finally locked eyes on her. A moment later, his happy demeanor turned sour. He looked confused.

  Emily’s sixth sense kicked in and she flashed on him. Then she had it. She knew him. She couldn’t believe it—after all these years. Another mall, another parking lot. Same two people. It was Duane, the security guard with the weird little scooter who’d found her naked and dazed after her very first time jump in 1987.

  She ducked her head, trying to hide her eyes, but it was too late—he knew—she could sense his emotionally-charged thoughts.

  All at once, in a single, massive flash of information, she took in all he was thinking and feeling. She felt his kindness, his recognition, and most of all, his disbelief.

  His mind was trying to reconcile the impossibility of the situation: almost thirty years ago—in 1987—he’d discovered a naked, redheaded girl in the parking lot of Metrocenter Mall on his very first day on the job. She’d been in trouble, and he’d helped her out.

  Duane had only told one other person about the incident—his buddy, Jim Miller. And now, here she was. Different parking lot, different mall, different decade. Sure, she was wearing clothes this time, trying to conceal her eyes, but he never forgot a face. It was her. And she hadn’t aged a day.