Ross laughs.
“We sure did.” He salutes me with a high five, slapping my open palm with enough force to make it tingle. His eyes are shining.
“We’re unbeatable together, Alex. The perfect partnership.”
I laugh, a bark of pure joy that bounces off the plain white walls. Ross takes the envelope from my hand and very carefully slides the painting back inside.
“Why would he keep that?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” Ross says. “Too well-known to fence? As a souvenir, maybe? This is the guy who chose impervious as his password.”
“Is it enough for you to make an arrest?”
“It certainly makes a strong case for him as a thief,” Ross says. “Not necessarily as a murderer. And I’m starting to think there might be a twist there. In the email I was reading it sounds like …”
His body stiffens. I don’t have to ask why because I’ve heard it too. Someone just opened the bar’s front door.
12
“QUICK,” ROSS HISSES, “FREEZE.”
I rip the gloves from my hands, reaching for his arm at the same instant I snatch up the time strands. The paper I just picked up flutters to the ground as time slams to a halt.
“Let’s go,” I say.
Ross turns toward the computer screen.
“Wait,” he says. “I want to read the rest of that email chain.”
“You can’t scroll through email in frozen time. There’s no electricity.”
“I know that.” He crosses to the desk. “But I think the information in it is critical. I only need five more minutes.”
I slide my gloves back on. The thin leather sticks against my sweaty palms.
“Whoever is outside will be here in two.”
Ross shakes the useless mouse. He’s staring at the computer like he’s trying to will it into giving up its secrets. I twist my fingers together to push the gloves more firmly over my hands. The new freeze is making my headache worse.
“Alex.” Ross looks at me, his expression pleading. “Do you think you could stall him?”
“Stall Sikes?” Jason Torino’s limp body flashes before my eyes, followed by the imagined corpse of Sal floating in the green waters of the Willamette. I shudder.
“I … I’m not a good liar. What if he suspects something?”
“I wouldn’t ask if it weren’t important. Just try. If it doesn’t work, freeze time and we’ll get out of here. I promise.”
Everything in my gut tells me to run. Our being here is completely illegal. Ross will lose his job if he gets caught. I’ll probably get pulled from time work. Any evidence we found about Sikes will be instantly disallowed. On the other hand … I press my fingers together, stretching out the taut muscles. We’ve come so far. Who knows if we’ll get this chance again? As I know all too well, life is short.
“OK,” I say, starting to put the safe’s contents back in place, “let me just think of a way to distract him.”
Ten minutes later I’m outside, sheltered behind a car a few feet from Tom’s Bar. I’ve covered my regulation CIC top with a green Oregon Ducks sweatshirt I borrowed from the secondhand store next to the bar, and I’m holding a clipboard I found on a shelf in the back room. Matt is standing at the bar’s entrance. He’s holding a cup of coffee in one hand and is leaning into the door, which he’s pushed open about six inches. A set of keys dangles from his fingers. I check my surroundings one more time, taking careful note of the windows on both sides of the street. As far as I can tell, no one is watching. I straighten the clipboard and take a deep breath. Time moves forward. The keys in Matt’s hand jingle. I stand up.
“Mr. Thompson?”
Matt turns around. Or Sikes does. My brain can’t quite hold both thoughts at the same time. This is the man who’s eluded capture for a decade. The man who’s killed to keep his secret. I shake my head. For right now, I’d rather think of him as plain old Matt.
“Hi.” I hope he doesn’t notice my hands are trembling. “I’m Jane Maxwell, a student at Grant High School. Could I have a few minutes of your time?”
Matt hesitates. Except for the denseness of his body, he looks exactly like he did in the rewind. Same tidy hair and tight jeans. Today, he’s swapped the T-shirt for a leather jacket, beneath which I can see the collar of a plaid button-down. For a dangerous criminal, he’s disappointingly bland.
“I’m actually kind of busy,” he says, pushing the door open wider.
“Wait!” I scramble over the sidewalk to reach him. “Please? I’ll be quick.”
Matt frowns. “What’s this about?”
“I was hoping you’d agree to a short interview. I’m taking a journalism class and we’re writing a piece about revitalizing inner Southeast neighborhoods. As a business owner, your opinions would be really helpful.”
The speech rolls off my tongue so fast it’s nearly unintelligible. I clutch the clipboard against my chest. Even a normal girl would feel nervous approaching a stranger on the street, wouldn’t she?
“Sounds interesting.” Matt takes a step inside. “But like I said, I’m busy. Maybe some other day.”
My heartbeat ratchets up a notch. There’s no way Ross has had time to read more than a few sentences. I consider shouting I know who you are but decide that might end badly.
“Another day would work.” I push myself forward, catching the door before it can close against me. “Could we schedule a time now? The guy down the street said your bar really adds to the neighborhood’s ambiance.”
I can tell he’s waffling. He’s jingling his keys and focusing over my head, probably conjuring a list of possible excuses. I channel Shannon and open my eyes really wide, going for an earnest, innocent look.
“All right,” he sighs. “Let me check my calendar.”
He moves further inside. For a moment I’m afraid his calendar is in his office, but he only goes as far as the bar, setting down his coffee and taking a cell phone from his pocket.
“I really appreciate this,” I say, tripping over the doorstep in my rush to follow him. Matt starts offering times, and I make a pretense of consulting a blank sheet of paper on my clipboard to check my own “schedule.” I stretch out our negotiation as long as I dare without annoying him, then sneak a glance at the clock over the bar. How is it possible only two minutes have passed? It’s like my skills have morphed from freezing time to just slowing it down.
Matt puts away his phone and picks up his belongings.
“Well, Jane, I guess I’ll see you on Wednesday.”
He gives me a you-can-go-now look that I pretend not to recognize. Instead I turn my head in an ostentatious study of the room around us.
“This is a really cool bar,” I gush.
“Thanks.”
He waits for me to leave. I glance at the door and realize I’ve made a massive tactical error. Panic flutters in my chest. Matt can reach his office in about three seconds. I, however, have to leave the bar, then find somewhere to hide before I can freeze time. By then he will have his office door open and Ross will be exposed. My chest squeezes so hard it hurts. Would he kill Ross on the spot?
I search the bar for anything I can use to lure Matt away from the hall. Besides the stacked chairs there’s not much here. A wall of liquor lined up on shelves behind the bar. Two video poker games stuffed in a corner. The unlit neon cluttering the windows. Matt flicks on a light in the back hallway. The flash reflects against something on the wall at the far end of the bar. It’s something in a frame, glassed in. I lunge toward it.
“Mr. Thompson?”
“What?”
He’s definitely annoyed now. I scurry across the room, trying to think of anything I know about art that I can use to express my fascination with this discovered treasure.
“It’s your picture. Can you tell me something about it? It’s so …”
I reach the wall. The object is not a work of art. It’s a framed certificate from the fire marshal. My death grip on the clipboard rams th
e wood into my palm. I catch a distant humming sound. The engine of a passing car? Or the whir of illicit printing? I turn around. Matt’s eyes are narrowed.
“I think it’s time for you to leave,” he says.
I walk slowly, circling the chairs in the longest route I can manage to reach the door. Matt watches me without moving one step farther from his office. His suspicion worries me less than the fact I don’t know how to protect Ross. As soon as I reach the front door Matt will head into his office. Sweat beads my upper lip. Through the neon-crusted windows I can see that the street, so conveniently empty when I entered the bar, now hosts a line of cars, all stopped dead while they wait out the light on the corner. The woman in the car closest to the bar is only a few feet away. She’ll see me if I freeze time right outside the bar.
Matt clears his throat. I inch another step toward the door. Sikes wouldn’t kill Ross immediately, would he? I can run and hide. Freeze time and come back for him. No one would believe Matt if he said Ross just disappeared. Except Sikes would know Ross was onto him after that. He’d hunt him down, just like he did to Sal … My toe drags across the floor, and the nasty beer slime catches the tip of my sneaker. I snatch at a chair to keep from falling when an idea explodes fully formed into my brain. Quick as thought, I lean toward my off-balance foot.
“Oops,” I say, and let myself crumple, stopping time the instant I hit the ground.
The concrete floor is hard and dirty and smelly. A wad of long-abandoned gum lies by my cheek, its surface mashed so flat it’s barely distinguishable from the dark floor. Moving my body as little as possible, I scout my surroundings. Matt is completely blocked by the tall bar and, from this angle, I can’t see the cars at all.
I scramble to my feet and head to the office. My whole body is shaking, both my knees hurt from my fall, and everything about me feels dirty. I want to go back to the Center, hear the click of the many locks, then climb into the shower and scrub myself clean.
Matt takes up half the hallway. I press myself against the wall in order to slide past without touching him. The office door opens under my hand, revealing Ross standing at the copy machine, caught in the act of lifting a small stack of freshly printed sheets. I wrap my hand around his bare wrist, releasing the time strands for the instant it takes to bring him into a new freeze with me.
“We have to go,” I say, even before he’s registered my presence.
“Alex!” He holds up the papers in his hand and gives me a brilliant smile. “I found it.”
I pull on his arm. Even in frozen time, the knowledge that Matt is standing only a few feet away makes me want to throw up.
“Tell me later. Let’s go.”
Ross waves the sheets at me, making the crisp paper snap loudly in the quiet room.
“I have it, Alex,” he says. “I have him.”
I tamp down my panic enough to focus on the man standing in front of me. His smile carries enough wattage to light the room. It’s not happiness oozing out of him so much as it is triumph. My hand slips from his arm.
“You found more evidence Matt Thompson is Sikes?”
Ross shakes his head. “Sikes isn’t the one we’re looking for anymore.”
The room tilts, everything seems out of focus. I steady myself against the bookcase.
“He’s not?”
Ross’s blue eyes shine in the frozen room, like chips of ice within the flatness of a painting.
“Matt has a partner. I found the name of the man who killed Sal.”
13
“A PARTNER?” I ECHO. “I THOUGHT SIKES WORKED alone.”
“So did I.” Ross shoves the printed sheets into his pocket. “This changes everything.”
He looks at me. He’s wearing the expression of someone who just realized they’re holding a winning lottery ticket, stunned and only half-believing. He shakes his head.
“Let’s get out of here,” he says. “We can talk in the car.”
Minutes later, Ross and I are zooming toward our “real” mission. I’ve said my hasty good-byes to Matt and returned the purloined clothing, and Ross has my leash set on the console between us so I can snap it back on as soon as we near our destination. Ross also handed me one of those caffeine-packed energy drinks. It tastes as nasty as the grape-flavored cough medicine Yolly pours down our throats when we get the sniffles, but I chug some anyway.
“So what did you find?” I ask him.
“A whole string of emails between Matt and a guy named Austin Shea. They’re not completely explicit, but reading between the lines it’s pretty clear what they’re plotting. Plus, all their communication lines up with known robberies: dates, locations, everything.”
“And the murders?”
“I couldn’t scroll back far enough to get to Sal’s death, but the one about Torino was pretty clear. The day Jason died, there’s an email from Matt to Austin. It’s only two words: Franz Meats.”
“I thought Karl Wagner killed Torino?”
Ross shrugs. “Hired thug. Our guys didn’t want to get their hands dirty.”
We turn onto the highway. Ross flicks his flashers on, and the cars in front of us melt out of our way. “It makes sense when you think about it,” he says. “One guy with a vision, another who can make it happen.”
“Which one is Matt?” I ask.
“Oh, he’s Sikes, all right. He’s the mastermind. But he couldn’t do any of it without Shea.”
I unroll the window, leaning my face into the rushing air. Its wildness fills the space left by my receding fear. We did it.
“There’s enough evidence in the room to prove Matt is Sikes,” I say, “so if you get a search warrant …”
“No.” Ross shakes his head. “Sikes doesn’t matter right now. It’s Shea we have to get.”
My hair is tangling into a hopeless mess. I pull my face back inside, pushing the wind-whipped strands out of my eyes.
“But I thought …”
“Sikes is a thief. Shea is a killer. There may be enough evidence in there to nail Sikes, but not Shea. And he’s dangerous. If we arrest Matt before we deal with him, they could both slip through our fingers.” Ross swerves around a car dawdling in the fast lane. “You and I are going to have to go out on another mission. Soon. We have to stop Austin Shea.”
I smile out the window. Another mission means another day like this one: Ross and I working as partners to solve the biggest case in city history. Will they still let us work together if Ross becomes chief of police? Chief Carson Ross. I roll the name around on my tongue, along with the icky caffeine-fueled dreck. Everything I ever dreamed about suddenly feels within reach. Even Ross’s medicine is working, I’m certain of it. I feel perfectly healthy. Strong. We’ll catch Sikes and Shea and advance science. Dr. Kroger will have to tweak the medicine so everyone doesn’t get this side effect, but if it works to extend spinner lives, everything I hid from the Center—and KJ—will be justified. The rushing wind fills my ears with a roaring that sounds like applause.
The car careens to the right as we exit the freeway, and Ross blasts his siren so we can blow through a red light. I toss back the last of the energy drink. Revolting flavor aside, it has made my headache fade enough that I’m not dreading another rewind. I drop the bottle on the floor and snap my leash back on just as Ross pulls in behind two other police cars parked in front of a 7-Eleven.
“Sorry we’re late,” Ross says, stepping out onto the asphalt. “I thought it would be faster to take surface streets. Big mistake.”
Yolly tracks me down the next day in the cafeteria where KJ, Shannon, Yuki, and I are eating lunch, to tell me that Barnard has approved a day pass for me.
“It’s for today, and you can take the friend of your choice,” she says. “Mr. Ross requested it, because you’ve worked so hard lately.”
I swallow the bite of my sandwich so suddenly it hurts my throat.
“A pass? Really?”
Yolly beams at me. Shannon lets out a squeal.
�
�I’m so jealous. I haven’t been out for like three months.”
“That’s ’cause last time we were half an hour late getting back,” Yuki reminds her. I notice she is tactfully not mentioning that they were late because the two of them were talking with some boys in a coffee shop.
“I assume you’re taking KJ,” Shannon says, “and not your very favorite roommate?”
I look over at KJ. Ever since I got home yesterday, I’ve been hoping for an opportunity to talk to him. Yesterday’s success has made me so happy that I’m eager to heal the rift between us. This pass is the perfect chance.
“What do you think?” I ask KJ.
He’s focused on his fruit salad, trying to impale a lone grape lost in a sea of melon chunks, and for a split second I’m afraid he’s going to refuse, but instead he raises his head and says, “Sure.”
A huge grin erupts over my face. The edges of KJ’s mouth twitch upwards.
“All right,” Yolly says. “I’ll let Charlie know. You’ll be excused at twelve thirty and have exactly two hours.”
“You don’t care that she’s going out with your boyfriend?” Yuki asks Shannon, after Yolly shuffles off. Her voice is light, teasing, but I feel the color rise in my cheeks. Shannon tosses her head.
“Worry about those two?” She laughs. “They’re like brother and sister.”
KJ drops his eyes and goes back to picking at his salad with great concentration.
Shannon leans her head on his shoulder. “Will you bring me back a present?”
“Guess it depends where Alex wants to go,” he mumbles around a mouthful of fruit.
Yuki spends the rest of our half-hour lunch telling us all the best stores at the downtown mall. I half-listen. KJ and I usually spend our time just walking around. I love feeling like one anonymous person among thousands cramming the streets. Yuki rolls her eyes when I tell her this. Shannon claims the pass is wasted on me, though she seems consoled when I promise to help KJ find her a gift.
At 12:15, people start trickling out of the cafeteria, heading to their afternoon activities. Five minutes later, KJ and I are the only ones left. I wipe my hands with a paper napkin, cleaning both sides of each finger with studious attention. I can’t remember ever being in the cafeteria practically alone, or if I have, I never noticed how cavernous it is. KJ stabs his fork repeatedly into a stray piece of melon. I watch him, trying to think of something appropriately casual—or maybe witty?—to say. Nothing comes to mind. Over our heads, the wall clock ticks softly as the second hand makes its way around the dial.
Rewind Page 13
