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

by Jay J. Falconer

  Derek gave her a friendly excuse-me wave.

  She looked at him and responded with a single head nod, never breaking from her conversation.

  He crossed the pavement, dodging shoppers and cars, then veered inside a Bookman’s bookstore that anchored the midpoint of the center. He passed the checkout counter and sliced through a family of readers standing in front of a prominent book display featuring a series of novels called The Narrows of Time.

  He worked his way through the maze of book stacks and found the door to the stockroom. Derek kept his head down and feet moving as he ducked through the employee-only entrance and found the rear door of the store only thirty feet away. Once outside and standing in the back alleyway, he took a quick survey of the area.

  To his left, a well-built uniformed man was standing at the back of his delivery truck, pulling the rolling door down with his right hand. A metal clipboard was in his left, but that’s not what caught Derek’s eye. It was the black, cylindrical pouch strapped to the right side of his beltline. Derek worried that it might be a can of mace or some other item that could be used as a defensive weapon.

  To his right, a shiny, four-passenger Polaris Razor four-wheeler sat facing him. It was parked at a slight angle in front of the central garbage collection area of the mall. A clear plastic bag was lying in front of the middle dumpster, half-full of crushed aluminum cans. Just then, three cans flew over the lip from inside the container and landed by the trash bag.

  Derek took off at top speed, reaching the ATV in seconds. He jumped into the driver’s seat and found the keys in the ignition. He started the engine.

  An elderly man’s head popped up from inside the metal dumpster. “Hey! Stop! That’s mine! Somebody help! Somebody stop him!”

  Derek pulled a quick U-turn and stomped on the gas before the balding, gray-haired old-timer, who was wearing a pair of ski goggles and an orange jumpsuit, could climb out.

  Derek zipped to the far end of the service drive and made a sharp left, skidding his way around the corner.

  “Now I’m styling,” he said, as the agile Razor carried him to freedom.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Ten minutes earlier . . .

  Emily tore across the movie theater’s side parking lot, avoiding the front of the building where she figured additional squad cars would still be arriving on the scene.

  She made it undetected to a dilapidated building across the street that had only one tenant remaining: a neon-yellow pawn shop with security bars covering its doors and windows. All four of the building’s adjacent retail spaces were vacant with FOR LEASE signs covering their windows.

  She walked another two blocks before she ran into a boisterous crowd of at least three dozen protestors who were armed with signs and banners ripping their employer over the lack of benefits.

  An anorexic-looking white woman with a lumpy nose and cherry-red lipstick was standing in front of the mob on a stepstool. She raised a megaphone and announced that the transport bus would arrive in ten minutes. Someone else in the pack mentioned they were being escorted to a union-sponsored free lunch near Glassford Park. Emily decided to join their movement and tag along.

  The private charter arrived on schedule, delivering the next shift of streetwalkers. Emily waited in line with the departing group and was the last to step onto the bus.

  She shuffled her feet down the middle aisle, passing row after row of weary demonstrators sitting in cloth-covered seats. The material’s intricate blue and yellow crisscross pattern made her dizzy. She tried to get a read on some of the people she passed, but none of them would make eye contact with her.

  The back section of the bus was unoccupied and she wasn’t surprised. “Amateurs,” she mumbled, eying the wet floor in front of the toilet. She took a seat in the last row, knowing she’d have plenty of privacy, given that the air was filled with a pungent odor seeping from the commode next to her.

  “I’ve slept in worse places than this,” she quipped, turning her body away from the smell.

  She pressed her left shoulder into the seat back, allowing her to gaze out the window during the fifteen-minute crawl through downtown traffic. Her shoulders rocked with the gentle sway of the bus, and her eyes danced with the chaotic flashes of city life beaming off the window. The endless shower of colors and shapes were both hypnotic and soothing, almost as if she were sitting in a Midwest forest, admiring the changing of the leaves like she’d seen people do in magazines at the library.

  She wished she could live somewhere else other than Phoenix, but her condition wouldn’t let her leave. She’d tried to run away before, but learned that Phoenix was her cosmic anchor point, transcending time and space. Each time she left town, the next jump would bring her back to this sweltering cesspool of humanity known as the Valley of the Sun.

  A few minutes later, her eyelids became heavy and closed on their own, sending her into a floating, carefree state, disconnected from the world around her. Her mind and her heart joined forces, trying to imagine what it would feel like to hold hands with Derek and walk through Glassford Park on a brisk autumn day. She waited for the imagery to come alive and flood her with pleasure, but it never did. All she could feel was panic, driven deep inside her by the constant onslaught of worry.

  She opened her eyes and sat forward in the seat. She sighed, realizing she couldn’t relax. It had been too long, and too much had happened since the night of The Taking. She hated those ugly beings, not only for ripping away her mom, her friends, and her future, but also for destroying her ability to dream wondrous thoughts.

  They had ruined her, tearing out a chunk that she could never get back. She knew that no matter how hard she tried, she would never fill that hole. It was too wide and too deep, leaving her a broken portion of her former self. She wasn’t the same Emily. That girl was gone. All that was left was the Glassford Girl. The town freak.

  She fought back a tear when her mind flashed a scene from long ago. It happened a few nights before the evil ship came and took her and her mom from the desert clearing. Life was good back then; she just didn’t realize or appreciate it at the time.

  She remembered that her mom was standing in front of the freestanding oval mirror in her bedroom, fiddling with a new dress that she’d just purchased from the discount rack at JCPenney. Candi turned and looked at Emily, giving her a prideful smile before asking if the dress looked good on her.

  Emily couldn’t remember the actual words she used, only that she snapped at her mother, cutting her deeply with a horrible remark. Emily felt awful at the time, but didn’t bother to apologize, figuring she’d have plenty of time to make it right. If she’d only known that every second with her mom would be so very precious.

  At that instant, sitting in the last row of the smelly bus, Emily realized something. Her biggest problem wasn’t the cops, the gangs, or the painful time jumping; it was the absence of simplicity. Those tiny, insignificant moments when time stands still and lets you breathe. Truly breathe.

  “Never again,” she said, vowing to appreciate those rare, harmonious times when everything around her felt warm and comforting, like her mother’s two-armed hug after a turbulent day at school.

  Normal people had no clue how good they had it; never having to worry about blinking out of existence simply because some random creeper touches you.

  She thought about her BFF Stacy and her self-absorbed friends. She wondered if any of them could have survived a single night on the street. Would they have been able to sleep, or even breathe, knowing that evil lurked around every corner? She decided that the answer was a resounding no. Not a chance. They would’ve totally spazzed out. Wouldn’t have lasted a day.

  Deep down, she was proud of her accomplishments and her resolve, but that wouldn’t make her life any easier, especially now that Junie and Derek were involved.

  “Time to get moving, Em. Only two more blocks,” she heard a woman say. It was her mother’s voice, breaking through the edgeless darknes
s, chilling her heart.

  She stood up and walked to the front aisle and held onto the vertical grab bar while standing next to the portly Italian driver. The three-hundred-pound man was wearing a set of ear buds and signing along to his music in Italian.

  She giggled at the black toupee sitting a bit off-center on his head. “Shroedy would love that,” she mumbled, thinking of her tabby cat playing with his cheap hairdo on the floor. It was all she could do to not snatch it from his head and shake it in front of his face.

  He can’t possibly think that looks natural, can he? What a ‘tard.

  She paused to gain control of her emotions, then tapped him on the shoulder and waited for the private chauffeur to look at her. He did, unplugging the right ear bud. He adjusted the hairpiece and gave her one of those “Oh shit” looks, then he grinned as if nothing had happened.

  She tried to get a read on him, but couldn’t for some reason. He was empty inside, or else something was blocking her. She decided that it wasn’t that important, so she let the question go.

  “Can you drop me off here?” she asked in her most playful voice, fighting back a chuckle that wanted to burst free from her lips. She swayed her hips and batted her eyelashes, hoping to soften him up. It worked.

  He checked the side mirror, then pulled the oversized vehicle into the recessed area along the sidewalk that was normally reserved for public transportation. He hit the brakes and then plopped the door open.

  “Thank you, mister,” she said, hopping down the steps like the teenager that she was. She stood on the sidewalk and spun around on her toes.

  He waved at her, then closed the door and drove off, leaving a cloud of smelly diesel smoke in his wake.

  She turned to face away from the driver so he couldn’t see her in his mirror. She couldn’t stop thinking of that ridiculous rug perched on his head, and the embarrassed look on his face when he tried to level it. She starting laughing.

  Just then, something occurred to her. After she’d come out of her last jump, in the middle of the Saks Fifth Avenue store, she hadn’t gone through her typical post-jump checklist. This revelation was rather disturbing, because her checklist was what had kept her safe, kept her alive, and kept her sane for the past two years.

  Focus, Em, she told herself. Post-jump checklist: Clothes, food, place to stay.

  She erased the clothes from the top position of her to-do list, thanks to Duane’s earlier donation of forty bucks and her subsequent light-speed shopping spree inside the Goodwill store.

  Next up, food.

  When she concentrated on her belly, something else occurred to her: the last jump had not made her crazy hungry, like usual. Weird. Not only that, but she’d only felt sick for a minute or two, and wasn’t in too much pain when she came out of it. Even more strange.

  She walked along the street, wondering what was different. Something was causing the pre- and post-jump protocols to change, and she needed to figure out what it was.

  Maybe it had something to do with Derek. Maybe it had to do with the fact that something awesome—a kiss—had triggered the jump, instead of something awful, like being shot at by a gang of street crawlers.

  She decided to handle item number three on her checklist later, because for now, she needed to turn her focus to the most pressing matter at hand: grabbing a hotdog for herself, then snatch a sweet treat for her friend, Sheldon.

  A grin blossomed on her lips when she thought about one of her favorite places in the whole world: Barton Barr Central Library.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  September 27, 2014

  5:01 p.m.

  Detective Joseph Alison got in his unmarked Ford sedan, slammed the door shut, and banged the heels of his fists against the steering wheel, wanting to let out a long string of curse words, but held them back. He was livid, and it wasn’t because the car he was driving was the ugliest shade of puke green imaginable.

  Somehow, the kids had gotten away. He had no idea how they’d slipped through his fingers, but they had. The boy, Derek Morgan, and The Glassford Girl, whose name no one seemed to know, were an embarrassment to both him and the department. Eventually, it would be plastered all over the news. Then heads would have to roll.

  To top it off his good friend, Jim Miller, was in on it somehow. He was sure of it. Things weren’t adding up. They were only little things, but collectively they mattered. Like Jim’s comments. His facial expressions. Misaligned facts. Too many coincidences. His obvious spin control.

  Alison had spent enough time in strip clubs to know when he was being gently worked and maneuvered to fulfill someone else’s agenda. Usually it was by a stunning beauty in a skimpy outfit, not some puss-producing ex-marine.

  Yet, he couldn’t arrest Miller because even though Jim probably helped the kids, he had no way to prove it. Plus, he didn’t want to slap the cuffs on the man who’d saved his life. He needed to give Millsy the benefit of the doubt, until the evidence left him no other choice.

  “Duty, honor, country,” he mumbled, trying to work through the dilemma. Then another phrase echoed inside his memory. “Trust, but verify.”

  He knew what he must do. He took out his phone, hit the second number on the speed dial list, and started the car. He pulled out of the front parking area of Saint Joseph’s Hospital, where he’d gone back to after the debacle at the movie theatre.

  Turning west on Thomas, then south on North Seventh Avenue, he headed toward the Evans Churchill neighborhood.

  “Yeah, Marie, Alison here. Listen, I need a search warrant on 333 North Glassford Street. Residence of one James Miller . . . yeah, you’re right, that one . . . I know, I know. He might be mixed up in this Glassford Girl thing somehow . . . obstruction. Maybe. But nothing concrete yet. Have a uniform meet me there. I’m heading over there now . . . I know it’s Saturday! Get Judge Sandoval on the phone. He owes me big-time, from that hooker sting operation last year.”

  ***

  September 27, 2014

  5:03 p.m.

  Emily snuck past the main entrance of Barton Barr Central Library and headed for Sheldon’s computer area while the attendant at the front desk was busy checking in a family of four: a demanding dad, a complaining mom, and two loud kids under age five. Toddlers can be quite the distraction. She knew this from experience, having snuck into Barton Barr so many times that she’d lost count, which was odd given the fact that making lists and keeping count were her thing.

  Only so much room inside the brain, she decided. The hard drive is getting full. Gotta prioritize, Em.

  On her way to the library, she had decided to change out of her Goodwill clothes in case the cops from the theater had a bead on her. She was able to sneak into one of those giant two-story workout places where only the finest people pretended to get their sweat on. All she had to do was wait until the muscle-bound freak at the service counter was busy flirting with two girly-girls dressed in designer workout gear, then she slipped right in.

  The power of pretty, she decided, watching the two girls. Or like the disgusting street dwellers called it, the power of the pussy.

  Emily had been an uninvited guest of LA Fitness a few times, but its clientele never ceased to amaze her. How can women wear that much pink? And who the hell puts on all that makeup before a workout? What a waste of money. Not just the clothes and makeup, but their monthly fees. Everyone around her appeared to be in their twenties and already in perfect shape, and seemed more interested in using the place as a social club instead of an exercise facility. She wanted to grab the two chatty girls by their ponytails and scream at them to try living on the streets for a while, but she didn’t.

  It’s not their fault they’re pretty and rich, she told herself.

  Anyway, she had gone straight to the women’s locker room, where she ducked around the corner and waited until she was alone. It only took a few minutes to pop open a few unsecured lockers and find what she was looking for. She changed clothes, leaving her previous ensemble as tra
de with the unsuspecting girl who would soon open her locker and find that her clothes were gone, replaced by some rags from the Goodwill store.

  She made her way through the stacks of the library, looking forward to seeing Sheldon, and catching a little peace and quiet at her familiar computer station. She could finally be herself for a while, even if her stolen green shorts and Lenny Kravitz t-shirt didn’t match the simple pair of blue sneakers she was wearing. What did it matter? Clothes are clothes, and she couldn’t care less what anyone else thought of her outfit.

  “Hiya, Sheldon,” Emily said, crinkling the plastic on the package of Twinkies in her hand. She’d purchased them on the way to the library from a mom-and-pop grocery store with the money Derek had jammed into her hand at the theater.

  Sheldon looked at her with his bright-blue eyes and let out a powerful, high-corner smile like the cartoon character Mr. Grinch. A second later, his eyes were glued to the Twinkies. Typical. But that didn’t matter to her. They had a mutually beneficial relationship: she brought him sweets, and he let her use the computers in the back and stay after hours if she wanted. Of course, it never hurt to flirt with him.

  Brownie points, she told herself.

  “Hey there, Red,” he said, eyeing the sponge cakes. “Mmmmmm. You really know how to make a guy feel special.”

  “Only the best for my Sheldee,” she said, giving him a seductive shimmy, peeling and unwrapping the package like how she imagined a striptease dancer would work a banana on stage.

  Sheldon’s eyes went wide.

  Emily stopped her seductive dance. “Just messing with you, sweetie.” She tossed the package on the desk in front of him. “Do you mind if I—”

  “Station 9,” he said, snatching the snack off the surface. “Now get out of here, before you get me in trouble.”

  “Thanks, stud.”

  “I wish . . .”

  Emily walked the row of semi-private cubicles. Sheldon always gave her one of the two furthest in the back. They were the most secluded, which she liked. It kept the creepers’ eyes in check and let her catch a nap, if needed. She sat down in front of a terminal and was hit by a wave of fatigue. She didn’t bother to flip the computer on. Instead, she pushed the keyboard out of the way, put her head down on the table, and fell asleep two heartbeats later.