The senator’s calm demeanor slipped just the tiniest bit. “Let me remind you that we’re in this together now. Once I show you this gun, you will be an accessory to theft.” He stopped to let that sink in. “And if you ever reveal my family’s secrets, you and I will keep each other company on the way down.”
Dr. Brightman nodded once.
Herndon undid the clasp and swung the box open. The interior was lined in maroon velvet. From my perch in the balcony, I caught a glimpse of the gun inside, so tiny and yet so deadly.
“An original case,” Dr. Brightman said. “What a lovely touch.”
“Do you need to take a closer look?”
“I believe I will.” He pushed his sunglasses up on top of his head. “Do you mind if I remove my gloves?”
“Do I have a choice?” Senator Herndon asked.
Dr. Brightman slid off his right glove, dropping it to the floor.
I was running out of time. There was still no sign of Eric or Mrs. Herndon, and in a matter of seconds, this entire exchange would be over. Senator Herndon would disappear, and with him, all the evidence of his crimes. I leaned forward, not sure exactly what to do.
Dr. Brightman took off the other glove and dropped it carelessly beside the first. I covered my face with one hand, peeking through my fingers. I wasn’t sure what would happen to him when he touched the derringer, but if it was bad, I was pretty sure the senator wouldn’t be sticking around to help out.
His fingers stretched toward the gun, and before he could touch it, I stood and called out, “Dr. Brightman!”
Both men jerked their heads toward the balcony. The senator snapped the box shut. Even from where I stood, I could see the glint of confusion in Dr. Brightman’s eyes.
“Megan, what are you doing here?”
“Friend of yours?” the senator asked him.
“I’m Megan Brown,” I called out. And then, before I could stop myself: “I know what you did to my brother.”
CHAPTER 20
THE AIR CRACKLED, AS THOUGH A BOLT OF LIGHTNING had shot through the room. I could almost smell the tang of ozone. “Matty,” the senator said, “perhaps Miss Brown would like to join us.”
After a moment’s hesitation, Matty trotted up the aisle of the theater, heading my way.
For a split second, I considered running away. But I needed to keep them talking until Mrs. Herndon arrived. And even if all else failed, if I couldn’t reveal what the senator had done and get justice for my brother, I still wanted to touch that gun.
So when Matty appeared at the top of the second balcony, I didn’t argue. I didn’t even look him in the face. I simply followed him down the stairs.
As we pushed through the door into the lobby, I lost my balance in the unfamiliar high heels. I caught myself, resting one gloved hand on the outside wall of the theater.
A shock of blinding light fell around me like a glowing curtain, but the pain it brought was secondary to the inferno of noise that accompanied it. People were screaming—hundreds of people. Groans and curses surrounded me, and I flattened myself against the wall to avoid the panicked, thronging crowd.
“Hang him!” someone was yelling.
“Shoot him!” screamed another. “Lynch him!”
Beside me, a small door marked Box Office flew open, and I could see four men inside. Their backs were to me as they peered through a window into the chaos that was the theater itself.
“My god, then, is John Booth crazy?” one of the men asked, turning so I could see his massive mutton-chop sideburns and sparse mustache. Two others pushed past him and ran out into the lobby. I could almost feel the air move as they rushed by me, leaving Mutton Chop behind with an older, distinguished-looking gentleman. The two shared a look. Then they started snatching money out of the box office drawers and shoving it into a cash box—and into their pockets.
The mood of the crowd in the lobby grew darker and more frightening. “Burn the place down!” one man shouted, his face twisted into a mask of fury. The men around him picked up the chant. “Burn it down! Burn it down!”
I pulled away from the wall, but nothing changed. I wasn’t touching anything, but I still couldn’t escape the vision. As the noise of the desperate crowd grew louder and louder, the sound seemed to take on color and shape. Bright brushstrokes streaked across my field of vision, covering the world in gold ocher and permanent green. I crouched low to the ground, screwing my eyes shut and covering my head with both arms until finally, blessedly, the darkness consumed me.
And then Nathan was there, cradling my head and shoulders and looking searchingly into my eyes. He’d been waiting in the lobby, watching for Brightman and Herndon, and he must have seen me collapse.
“How long was I out?” I whispered.
“Only a few seconds.”
“That’s good.” I looked up, glassy-eyed, to see Matty standing above us, more than a little freaked out.
“What’s wrong with her?” he asked.
“She’s got . . . a condition,” Nathan said. “She needs a minute.”
Matty glanced instinctively toward the doors to the theater. For the first time, I could see the beads of sweat on his forehead, the knot of tension in his jaw. “Can you . . .” He lowered his voice, his eyes overly bright. “Can you please hurry?”
Nathan helped me sit up, and I fought through a wave of nausea and disorientation.
“I’ll be okay,” I reassured him. “That one wasn’t so bad.”
“But Megan . . .” His face was grave. “You’re still wearing the gloves.”
I looked down at my hands. Worse than any physical pain was the sinking, inescapable fear that consumed me. The visions were getting worse, breaking through all the barriers I’d put in place to keep them out. Tears burned in my eyes, and I fought to keep my breathing steady. If the only way to put an end to all this was to touch the derringer, I had to do it. No matter what the risk.
“Come on,” Matty said. “Let’s go.”
I looked into Nathan’s face. What if these were the last few moments I’d ever spend with him? What if our “us,” all the time we would ever have, had been this tiny window between Tyler’s death and my own? I slid my hands beneath his tuxedo jacket, wrapping my arms around his warm body. He held me close, his open jacket falling like a screen around me.
“You told me nothing would go wrong,” I murmured.
“Clearly I had no idea what I was talking about.”
I pulled back a few inches so I could see his face. “Are you my boyfriend?”
He laughed gently. “You want to have the talk? Right now?”
“Everyone keeps calling you that tonight. And . . .” I swallowed hard. “I don’t know what’s going to happen to me when we go into that theater. I might not get another chance to ask.”
His arms tightened around me, and pain slashed across his face. “I’m whatever you want me to be,” he said.
I pulled him close and kissed him, pouring all my dreams for what we could have been into this one moment.
“Okay,” Matty said, his voice strained. “That’s enough.”
Nathan broke the kiss and looked at me. Then he smiled. “More of that later. I promise.”
Together we struggled to our feet. Nathan supported me with one arm, and we started walking toward the theater.
“Not you.” Matty gestured to Nathan. “You’re staying here.”
Nathan shook his head. “I’m not leaving her.”
Matty looked around nervously.
“Senator Herndon is in that theater with a stolen artifact,” Nathan continued. “Either I come in with you, or I walk out those doors and go straight to the police.”
After a moment, Matty gestured for Nathan to go ahead.
“Dr. Brightman’s sunglasses,” Nathan whispered in my ear. “Where are they?”
“In my backpack.”
He paused to retrieve them. As Matty led us into the theater, Nathan looked them over, pushing a small button on th
e frame before settling them carefully on my face. Seeing the world as an image in a viewfinder was dizzying, disorienting. I felt like the main character in a video-game version of my own life. I made my way unsteadily down the theater aisle with Nathan at my shoulder.
Senator Herndon and Dr. Brightman had moved up onto the stage, where they stood beside a large wooden podium emblazoned with the Ford’s Theatre logo. Matty motioned for me to join them. The senator was all stony control, impossible to read, but Dr. Brightman watched me with dread etched across his face.
“Did you bring her here?’” the senator asked. “Who else knows about this?”
“I promise you, I didn’t breathe a word to anyone.” Dr. Brightman turned to me. “You have my glasses.”
“You did say I could use them,” I choked out.
“You’re getting worse, aren’t you?” He breathed out a bitter laugh. “I’m sorry. It’s like looking in a mirror.”
Senator Herndon stared pointedly at Nathan. “Matty, you seem to have acquired some additional baggage.”
“He’s her boyfriend,” Matty said.
Nathan gave me a sideways smile, and despite our surroundings, my heart did a flip.
“Megan, is it?” Herndon asked. “You’re clearly confused. Your grief has gotten the better of you.”
I ignored him and spoke to Dr. Brightman. “You would let a man get away with murder for this?” I gestured to the box in Senator Herndon’s hands.
“I have no choice.” Dr. Brightman’s jaw clenched, and he ground out his words with great effort. “I need to be able to forget.”
I lifted my chin. “Well, I don’t want to forget.”
“Just wait.” His gaze met mine, eyes full of sorrow. “You will.”
Senator Herndon cut us off. “If you keep throwing around words like ‘murder,’ you’ll be looking at the wrong end of a lawsuit.”
“I saw it.” I clutched the straps of my backpack. “I saw everything that you did. You and Matty. And Emma.”
The senator took one threatening step toward me, but Dr. Brightman stopped him.
“She’s just a kid, Gary,” he said. “She’s not a threat to you. And we’re running out of time. Let me examine the derringer, and you can deal with her when we get out of here.” Dr. Brightman gestured for the senator to put the box on the podium beside them, and the senator complied.
“Open it, please,” Dr. Brightman said, and he did.
Up close, I could see how cozily the derringer rested in its velvet nest. The box had a second compartment, clearly designed to hold a partner gun, but it lay empty. Arranged around the derringer was a variety of tools that looked like something you’d see at a dentist’s office—in a horror film.
Dr. Brightman looked up at him in surprise. “You’ve got powder here. And blasting caps.”
Herndon raised his eyebrows. “We fired it. Once. A poetic gesture, my father said. To mark the passing of the legacy from him to me.” Dr. Brightman looked faintly aghast, and Herndon snorted out a laugh. “Come on, David. You clearly understand the power of a poetic gesture.” He waved an arm at the theater around us.
Dr. Brightman ran a hand across his face, thinking hard. Then he pierced Herndon with a look. “I want to load it.”
Even through the viewfinder of the glasses I wore, Dr. Brightman’s face chilled me. In a flash, I understood his plan. If the derringer didn’t work as he hoped, if it didn’t kill his visions, he was going to use it the old-fashioned way. On himself. He was, as the senator had pointed out, a fan of the grand poetic gesture.
Senator Herndon hesitated. “This room will be swarming with theater staff again in a matter of minutes.”
“I’m not talking about firing it. Just loading it.” When Herndon paused, Dr. Brightman patted the papers in his pocket. “Or I can just send these to a friend of mine at the Washington Post.”
Herndon nodded once.
I flinched as Herndon’s fingers curled around the handle, afraid the derringer might have some violent effect on anyone who dared to touch it with their bare hands, but his expression didn’t change.
He pulled the hammer back and used a bronze tube, about the same diameter as a ballpoint pen, to pour a few grains of black powder into the barrel of the gun. Then he dug through a side compartment of the case. “Sorry to disappoint you, David, but I don’t seem to have any bullets.”
“Ah,” Dr. Brightman said. “But Megan might.” He held out a hand to me. “Don’t make me go through your bag,” he said.
I’d had them in my pocket, I realized, the first time I’d visited his house. I’d showed them to him, and he knew I’d been carrying them around with me. Unsure what else to do, I dug around at the bottom of my backpack until I found one of the antique bullets Tyler had taken from Senator Herndon’s study. I handed it to the senator, who looked at it suspiciously before he finished loading the gun. Maybe he recognized it as one of his own. When he was done, he returned the derringer to its case and backed away from it.
“Very good,” Dr. Brightman said. He ran his bare hands down both cheeks, his eyes never leaving the gun. Then he rubbed his hands together.
With a painfully slow movement, he reached for the derringer.
My mind raced. Part of me wanted to see what would happen—to use Dr. Brightman as a test case to see if the derringer would work for me too. But once he had the gun in his hand, he was going to use it one way or the other. Could I really watch him shoot himself?
Dr. Brightman stood between me and the podium—there was no way I could get to the gun first. I could try to push the whole thing to the ground, but the gun was loaded. What if it went off and hurt someone?
Then I remembered how Dr. Brightman had knocked me flat with that deck of tarot cards and the memories they held. My mind flashed instantly to the keys in my backpack . . . the ones I’d taken from his office, on the Abraham Lincoln key chain. They were the only thing in his sterile home that had looked like an artifact from his former life, and they’d buzzed when I’d touched them. Did they hold a strong enough memory to stop him now?
And if they did, could I help him find it?
As quickly as I could, I stripped away everything I was using to protect myself. I pushed the sunglasses on top of my head. I yanked off the gloves. Then I grabbed the keys out of my bag and stepped forward. And before Dr. Brightman could touch the gun, I slipped the keys into his outstretched hand and held on tight.
The pain was different this time, heavy and compressing, pushing down on my chest so I couldn’t breathe. Even the light felt weighty, like I was drowning in it. When my eyes adjusted, Ford’s Theatre was completely gone. Instead, Dr. Brightman and I were sitting in the backseat of a moving car. Beside us was a car seat with a little boy in it, maybe two or three years old. He was asleep. In the front, another Dr. Brightman was driving, and an elegant woman sat in the passenger seat, her long brown hair twisted up into a knot on the back of her head. She turned toward him, laughing at something he said.
Beside me, my Dr. Brightman began to panic. Oh, god, I thought, his family was killed in a car accident. He tried to free his hand from mine, but I clamped down harder. This artifact might not have changed the course of a nation, but if it held the memories I thought it did, then maybe it could still give him what he was looking for.
Outside the car windows, the twilight faded quickly into darkness. We were on the Fourteenth Street Bridge, driving across the Potomac River, heading from DC into Virginia. The trees on the riverbank, leafless and bare, shivered in the wind, and where the moonlight hit the river, its serene surface broke into ripples.
With a violent blast of sound and movement, the driver’s side of the car blew inward. Glass flew toward me, a sudden shower of crystal, and the ground under my feet fell away. The car careened to the left and ran up onto the concrete barricade, two wheels off the ground, teetering. Time froze for an instant. Then another car hit us from behind. It pushed us up and over the edge of the bridge, and we bega
n to fall toward the river below. Fear shot through my veins, a rush of pure ice. I covered my face with my free hand and braced myself.
But nothing came. No shock of impact, no wrenching pain as my body came apart. I looked up. Dr. Brightman and I were no longer in the car. My eyesight was murky, and everything was brown and distorted. In a flash, I realized we were underwater. My chest heaved with panicked breaths. It’s not real, I thought, forcing slow air into my lungs, trying not to hyperventilate. Beside me, Dr. Brightman had lost all emotion. His face was a blank mask, his eyes hollow.
About twenty feet away from us, I saw the car, moving slowly and inexorably toward the bottom of the river. The entire passenger side had collapsed, but on the driver’s side, the other Dr. Brightman began to move. He was trying to free his family from the vehicle, his movements slow but desperate. Eventually he opened his door and swam around to the other side, where he pulled uselessly on the twisted metal, as though his mere strength could unbend, unbreak, uninjure. Gradually his movements slowed and then stopped completely. His lifeless body floated toward the surface of the water, arms and legs extended in a slow-motion farewell to the car below.
I felt Dr. Brightman’s hand slip from my own. The keys clattered to the wooden floor of the stage, and I heard a thud as Dr. Brightman’s body followed them. This time, I didn’t lose consciousness. Instead, in a blink, Ford’s Theatre rushed around me again, and I stumbled to my knees.
Nathan crouched down beside me. “Are you all right?”
I nodded.
“What in the hell just happened?” Senator Herndon said.
Dr. Brightman’s face was pale and shocked. Tears ran down his cheeks. “I didn’t know,” he said. “I couldn’t remember what happened. I never knew how I got out of the car, or why I survived when they didn’t.” He looked me in the eye. “I fought for them.”
“Of course you did,” I whispered.
Dr. Brightman reached gingerly for the keys. He touched them briefly, as though they might be hot. Then he picked them up, weighing them in his hand. “Nothing,” he said. “I don’t know how long it will last, but I see nothing.”
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