Time Thief

by Jill Cooper

  I try talking to him. “Mike—” My words don’t reach him before he disappears and just like that it’s over, but I don’t feel good about it. Inside I’m reeling. How could it be that easy? Where was Rex and why hadn’t he revealed himself yet?

  “Molly!” Miranda hurries over to her and John isn’t too far behind. The music has stopped and I rush over to the band as the Montgomery and Crane family work on coming to grips with whatever had just happened.

  I don’t want to be part of it. I still feel like an outsider looking in, and maybe that’s the way it’ll always be. But inside, my heart is crushed. “Keep playing,” I order them. “Something upbeat. We need to put this behind us.”

  The band nods and goes back to playing a lively dance tune. When I turn back to the group, Miranda is crying on the ground, rocking Molly back and forth. John and Jax both have a lost look in their eye and Donovan stands far enough away so he’s not really with anyone. That’s when it hits me.

  They all remember. We all remember the changes Mike made to the timeline. How is that possible?

  Lara looks at me while I rush over to her and there’s something unfamiliar in her eyes. “Mike’s power is different than mine. Different than Molly. He can rearrange the timeline, delete people’s memories. He doesn’t go back like I do. Somehow, the knowledge they have of what he did,” Lara shrugs, hopeless, “it’s still there.”

  I swallow hard and try to avoid Donovan’s gaze. He pulls further away, his eyes on the floor, and I’m not sure who he’s trying to avoid more. Me or Lara.

  “We’re okay now,” Lara says. “We just need to get past this and start…healing. We’ll be okay.” She leaves us and goes over to embrace her mother, then her father. There’s a longing and pain on her face I don’t recognize and it catches my breath. I’ve never seen Lara look so heartbroken.

  Donovan gazes at me and finally meets my gaze for a split second before tearing his eyes away. “I’m…I don’t know what to say.”

  “It’s not your fault. Nothing was anyone’s fault.” A pat answer. Or was it just truth? Mike did this to us, no one chose what had happened to us.

  He raises his eyebrows. “I sided with Patricia against you. Molly. I didn’t even remember Lara. I…” Donovan runs his hand through his hair and is so distraught, I want to take his pain away. I touch his chest and realizing what I’ve done, pull my hand away. The feelings from the other timeline are still there.

  I need to get away.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” I whisper to him, my emotions already betraying me.

  “Don’t run away because of me. I’ll leave.”

  “It’s your wedding,” I choke on the words and push past him.

  When Miranda speaks, it freezes me in my tracks. “Where’s Mike? Where’s our boy?”

  “I’m right here, Mom.” Fifteen-year-old Mike smiles as Miranda crushes him in a hug and Jax too wraps his arms around them both. He kisses the top of Mike’s head and holds him so close, he must be choking the boy.

  In the altered timeline, he hadn’t been anywhere. He hadn’t been in the hospital and no one had had any memory of him. So, where the hell had he been the whole time?

  ****

  No one is in the mood for my rumor and speculation. Not even Molly. The party is subdued as it goes on, but it is a celebration. After another hour, Miranda, John and Jax get the twins ready to leave. Everything is more cordial between the adults than I’ve seen in some time. Molly strains her head to look back at me. “I need to talk to Cassidy, Mom. Please.”

  What does she have to say? I step forward, but Miranda shields her from me.

  “You can’t talk to her right now,” Miranda’s voice is rich with resentment and pain. She gazes at me unkindly, like somehow what’s happened is my fault. I own that pain, I take it. She’s right. I messed things up long before now.

  Before long it’s just me and Donovan with Lara standing beside him. His suit jacket is over her small frame and her body language is cool, not like her at all. It hits me all at once that she knows what Mike did. He’d made me love Donovan, and vice versa. Lara probably doesn’t want to hold it against us, but how can she not?

  “Lara.” I want to beg her to forgive me, but her eyes are on the floor. When I gaze at Donovan, he won’t meet my eyes either. Rex has torn us apart worse than ever and I don’t know if we’ll ever be okay again.

  “Please,” I strain. “We’re…you’re all I have.” I can’t keep my voice from cracking.

  “We need to make sure Rex doesn’t come back. Can you do that for me? Head to the bridge?” Lara’s lips twist to the side, but she looks anywhere but at me.

  I nod. “Sure. Whatever you need.”

  “I’m going to take her home,” Donovan says, his hand resting on the bottom of Lara’s neck and slowly guides her away. I stare after them, so despondent, I almost miss how Lara shrugs Donovan off, almost like she’s a different person.

  God. She knows, and it’s going to end things. It’s going to be the end of what we’ve worked so hard for…right on her wedding day.

  Chapter Thirty-Three: Donovan James

  I take Lara home to our apartment in Somerville and she doesn’t speak on the drive there. She won’t even look at me, and instead gazes out the window as if she’s a million miles away. I can’t remember the last time I’ve felt so shut out from her.

  My own stomach lurches and does somersaults. I can’t get the images of kissing Cassidy out of my head and the images of us making love are far worse. Working for my mother? Conspiring to help her gain the power she craved through illegal means? None of it had really happened. None of it had been real, but I remember it as if it was real. Lara reset the timeline as she always does. I had never been shot. I had never kissed Cassidy, had never slept with her.

  But I remember the feel of her body. I remember wanting to control her, and at the same time wanting to ravage her, and those memories gnaw at me.

  We park the car in the cement garage and head on up to our apartment. Inside, our home is as we left it, but it feels like days ago. Lara gazes around and I guess she must be feeling the same way. It’s like she’s seeing our living room for the first time. She stops by the fireplace and picks up the photos of us from our engagement shoot.

  Then she puts it down and picks up a picture of her mother. I take off my tie and lean against the wall. “First time I’ve seen you smile since this thing started.”

  Her smile falls and she puts the picture back. “Just worried. You know. Things were tough in the other timeline. It makes being back here hard.” She rubs her arms as if she’s cold.

  “It’ll get easier. The memories will fade with time.” I’m not sure if I’m talking to her or myself. “You save us all every day and I love you, Lara. I really do.”

  My voice sounds tortured but I’ve never meant the words more. Just standing there with her, thinking she might realize what a bastard I’ve been, is enough to tear me up. I need Lara, but most of all I want her. I need our life together more than I’ve ever needed anything.

  Her look says she feels sad for me. Lara reaches out and touches my chin. “You’re sweet,” she says.

  It doesn’t leave me with the warm fuzzies like she normally does, but she might’ve been put through worse than I’d been and for that, I’ll always be sorry. “So, what’s up with that hair and your scar? Is that permanent?”

  She touches her scar and flinches. “Guess I forgot about that. The other Lara, it was her scar from childhood and she liked her hair short. I guess I’m stuck with it now. You think it’s all right?”

  “I still think you’re beautiful,” I whisper.

  Lara gives a short burst of laughter and kisses my lips quickly. “You deserve a lot more than that.”

  “What was she like? The other version of you?” I hope if she can talk about it, maybe I can, too. Should I tell her about Cassidy and what had happened between us? Should I leave it all on the cutting room floor? Maybe. But I don’t
know how to do that. I never have when it comes to her. My heart wants to bleed and beg forgiveness at her feet.

  Lara thinks, her lips twisting to the side. “She never changed time. Never got her powers. Instead she lived with Rick, and they were going to get married. The apartment was a drafty dump, but they were happy I guess.” Lara shrugs, in a non-committal way.

  “Rick,” I can’t keep the edge out of my voice, “so you and him…”

  “We’ve been playing house for the last few days. I didn’t do anything, though. Except a quick kiss. I’d never be unfaithful.” Her eyes widen. “I hope you believe me.”

  “Of course, I do.” I feel uncomfortable as the topic’s broached. I clear my throat and shift from one foot to the other.

  Lara doesn’t seem to notice. “I’d never do anything that’d put us in jeopardy. I hope you realize that.” She runs her hands up my chest and then pulls me in for a kiss without warning. She wants to be close, reconnect, and God that’s all I want. It’s all I crave.

  I forget about Cassidy. I push her out of my mind as I pick Lara up and she snuggles against my chest, tight. She gazes into my eyes and I carry her over the threshold of our bedroom and lay her down onto the mattress.

  “You’re beautiful, no matter the scars you carry with you, James.”

  She smiles and for the first time since our nightmare has ended, it reaches her eye. “Prove it.” Her hand strokes the back of my head as she pushes me down and our lips seek each other out. We’re ready to meld and become one.

  We make love and it’s different than ever before. She’s aggressive and takes control, taking me to places we’ve never been together. When she rolls on top, I grip the back of her head and bring her down for another breathless kiss. She’s groaning, reading to climax and I can think of only one thing as my fingers tangle in her short hair.

  The port on the back of her head is missing.

  ****

  I grab grapes, cheese, and wine for our wedding night celebration but I can’t shake the feeling that something is wrong. Not right. Lara’s not acting herself and her port is missing. If she doesn’t have a port it’s because the body she’s in, isn’t used to time travel. So how had she come back and saved us all?

  In the bedroom, Lara’s put on one of her favorite pink satin night gowns. When she sees the foods, she shimmies across the bed on her knees and takes the tray from me. “This looks good.” She smiles. “You’re too good to me.”

  Sliding onto the bed, I watch her eat. From the way she pops grapes into her mouth, I figure she must be starving. “Hey, Lar, I noticed when we were in bed together….”

  Lara wiggles her eyebrows. “That was fun.”

  I blush at her statement and don’t know why. She’s my wife. I’ve been with Lara for years, I shouldn’t have to blush, but part of me feels like I’m dealing with a stranger. Her body felt the same, but it didn’t respond the same. Even the rush of her breath was different than I was used to. “I noticed the port on the back of your head is missing.”

  Lara touches the back of her head and strokes it. “This Lara doesn’t have a port. She wasn’t a time traveler like me.”

  “I know. I get that, but if you were in another timeline and now you’re here, you’ll carry the knowledge of both those timelines, right?”

  She nods. “What are you getting at?”

  “The headaches. The only way you were ever able to survive multiple time jumps, was because of that port and the experiments Rex did on you. Much as I hate to say it, he saved your life just as much as he stole from it.”

  “What are you saying? My brain is going to reduce to mush or something?” Lara stops eating and pushes the tray toward me as if she can’t stomach the idea of eating again.

  “You tell me. Did you have headaches in the other timeline?”

  “I…” Lara’s face falters. “I guess I did, but they weren’t bad. I just popped a few aspirin.”

  “These aren’t usually pop-a-few-aspirin type of pains.” I study her. “I watched you suffer with the headaches before we graduated. Your power was changing, speeding time and fast forwarding. You couldn’t control it. The only way you managed was that restraint device that Xavier Daniels equipped you with.”

  Lara’s face is blank and then she smiles. “Right. Of course. Well, I’m sure I’ll be fine. I mean, I feel fine. I feel great.”

  Her behavior sent alarm bells off in my head. Why hadn’t I seen it before? Her behavior, the things she says are different and I was so distracted by my feelings for Cassidy, that I missed it. I missed how different my wife is acting.

  “You have no idea what I’m talking about.”

  Lara’s eyes widen. “Of course, I do. I was there with you, Don. I remember. You used to trust me.”

  She’s right. I’ve always trusted her, but alarm bells are going off in my head. I don’t trust her now and if I don’t, that means there’s something amiss. Every which way I think about it, it all leads me to the same place.

  She’s not my Lara. She’s an imposter and I had just slept with and made love with some other timeline version of my wife.

  “You believe me, don’t you?” Lara tilts her head to the side and her eyes open wide. It’s a look I’ve seen before, but her eyes are more conniving. There’s no innocence. She’s playing me and I have to find out why. If she knows where my Lara is, I can’t let her know I’m onto her.

  “Sure,” I crack a smile. “It’s been a rough few days, even if you fixed all that.”

  She grins and relief spreads over her face. “It’s what I do, right? Fix all that crazy wibbly time travel nonsense. I’m Lara Crane.”

  “James,” I correct her.

  “Sorry.” Lara cringes. “It’s new. Maybe tomorrow we can visit my parents? I’d love to make sure they’re doing okay.”

  “Sure. We could stop by before work.”

  “Work. Right. Guess I forgot about that too in all the excitement.”

  “I’ll order us some dinner. You feel like pizza or Chinese?”

  “Surprise me,” Lara says as she slips further down on the bed and reaches for the television remote, like she doesn’t have a care in the world.

  I creep out into the kitchen and pick my cell phone off the counter. Instead of dialing a restaurant I dial Cassidy. It rings four times and then dumps to voicemail. If she’s on the bridge, if Lara sent her away where I can’t reach her, then she won’t be able to check her messages until she gets back.

  “Hey, Cass. We have a problem,” I whisper. “A real big problem.”

  Chapter Thirty-Four: Molly Montgomery

  The timeline skews. It ebbs, it’s broken, but I can’t pinpoint where the angst comes from. At home, I pour myself a glass of milk in the kitchen, replaying what had happened at the wedding. I gulp my milk back, frustrated, unable to find what’s wrong. What we’ve all been through sucks. It’s crap, but we’ll get over it with time. We have each other and that’s what’s important.

  So why do I feel like things are so broken?

  Maybe it’s time to leave well enough alone. I’m home with Mom and Mike; Lara’s with Donovan and Cassidy—oh, poor Cass. Maybe I should seek her out and make sure she’s doing okay. Maybe that’s what the problem is.

  I stand in the doorway of the living room. Mike’s sitting on the sofa and Mom is doting on after him like he’s a baby. I haven’t seen him look that happy in a while and I have questions, big questions.

  Dad heads over as John takes his place on the sofa. “You going to be okay, kid?”

  I nod as I lean into him for a big hug. Things have been hard for him. “Can I come over and spend the night tomorrow?”

  “Sure thing. Your room is always waiting for you. Just make sure your mom is okay.” Dad gives Mom a long glance filled with love. I wish things between them could be fixed, but all the paths lead toward John Crane, at least for now.

  It hasn’t always been this way.

  “Bye, Dad.” I show him out and when
I return to the living room, Mike’s walking up the stairs to his room. He looks back at me and there’s a look in his eye that I don’t like. “I’m going to go up to bed.”

  Mom holds her face in her hand and John stands to give me a kiss good-night. I pull him in for a moment and whisper in his ear, “Don’t leave her tonight.”

  The surprise on his face only lasts a moment, but then he nods. “Have a good sleep, Moll.”

  I grab Mom’s hand as I walk past. “You’ll be okay, Mom.” But when I touch her, I see so much of what’s unsaid and the paths that haven’t been walked. Her turmoil over losing Lara. It must’ve been hard to lose Lara when she was just a child, even though it had never happened, Mom still has those memories.

  The image comes at me harder than most. I’m on bended knee in front of Mom as she sobs on the sofa. I take both of her hands in mine and whisper to her. “I’m sorry I couldn’t save Lara, Mom, but she left us to save us. She’s…gone.”

  She lives in the stream now.

  That can’t be true. Lara’s fine. She saved us, she’s with Donovan on her wedding night. She’ll be happy but…Donovan suspects things he shouldn’t. It’ll lead him down a path of destruction and danger. Every way he turns desperately in his hunt for the truth leads to heartbreak. And Cassidy begins to self-destruct, consumed by her anger and her need to fit in.

  I’m upstairs now, even though I barely remember moving. Mike is leaning against the wall beside the bathroom with a toothbrush in his mouth. “You okay?” he asks, eyes serious, morbid.

  “Mike.” His name rolls off the tongue. He’s my twin and he’s happy. He’s received the attention he’s been desperate for, but the fifteen-year-old version of him isn’t innocent of what’s happened.

  He knew. He was complicit.

  “Where were you?” I demand and step up to him.

  “Brushing my teeth.” He goes back into the bathroom to spit into the sink.

  He knows that’s not what I mean. “I was locked in the hospital and being sedated, drugged. But no one ever saw you. So, where were you?”