Traveling Town Cozy Mystery Box Set

by Ami Diane

  “As my work progressed, I told them only what was necessary. I never told them that I was close to a breakthrough.”

  “Of course,” Ella said. “You were brought here from Germany just after the war as part of Operation Paperclip. At least, that’s what it came to be called in my time.” She explained to Will and Chapman, “It was a secret program to sneak out over a thousand scientists and engineers from Germany and work on projects in the U.S.”

  “During my time, they called it Operation Overcast,” the professor said.

  “Overcast, Paperclip…” Ella made a weighing motion with her hands. “Tomato, potato.”

  “That’s not how the saying goes,” Will interjected.

  “Meh, potato, tomato.”

  “Still wrong.”

  Chapman cleared his throat and indicated for Dr. Kaufman to continue. When he spoke next, the older man’s voice broke. “Shortly after moving here, my wife was killed while walking down Main Street. Drunk driver, the sheriff at the time said. Hit and run. He never found the person responsible, and I got the impression that he didn’t look too hard.”

  Chapman stiffened. “I remember him. That man had no business wearing the badge.”

  “She was my universe. I didn’t know how to continue on without her. I tried to end it all, but found I lacked the fortitude. So, I did the next best thing, the only way for us to be together again. I continued my research, doubling my efforts.” The professor’s eyes were ever roaming, never looking at them. He ran a hand through his shock of white hair, standing it at attention.

  “I wasted away, but I finally hit my breakthrough. I added a gravity field manipulator which allowed me to fold this reality on itself via a wormhole, using the fifth dimension as… for a lack of a better term, inter-dimensional fluid.”

  Ella tapped her chin, nodding knowingly. “Yes, I see. That makes perfect sense. Could you maybe repeat that in case some of us are confused?”

  “What part do you want repeated?”

  “All of it.” She understood the words themselves, especially articles such as “the” and “a” but couldn’t make sense of them all jumbled together. “I’m afraid Will doesn’t get what you mean.” She spoke out of the side of her mouth in a loud whisper. “He’s from the 1920s, you know.”

  Beside her, the inventor raised his eyebrows. “Ignore her. Please continue, Professor.”

  “I worked out the calculations ages ago, but finally had the means to prove my theory.” His frail hand pointed at a nondescript control panel. “I’d even found a way of manipulating the gravity field to control how far back to go. Preliminary tests on the device worked. I was able to send a pigeon through five minutes into the future, and several subsequent tests repeated the same result.” Slowly, his eyes settled on the box and remained there. “So, on August 21, 1951, I flipped the switch to send myself back in time to save my wife.”

  Chapter 27

  “I ONLY INTENDED to make a small inter-dimensional field, so to speak,” the professor continued. “Just large enough to encompass my house. At first, it worked. The field or bubble drew the enormous energy required to create the bridge from the fifth dimension itself and folded space-time.

  “But then something went wrong. Horribly, horribly wrong. The bubble expanded. It kept growing, drawing more and more power from the fifth dimension. I shut off the machine, but it was of no use. The field had become independent of the device.

  “Eventually, the bubble stabilized. From what I can tell, we’re stuck in an inter-dimensional, space-time feedback loop.” His eyes glistened. “All I wanted to do was go back to that night Charlotte died. Before she walked down the road. I thought if I could just stop her from getting hit, she’d still be alive. I never meant for any of this to happen.”

  The room fell silent for some time. An extra light bobbed beside Ella, revealing Flo and Wink had returned. At what point during the professor’s exposition they’d come back, she couldn’t be certain.

  All along, she had anticipated this moment. The moment she would know why the town jumped. She had thought finally having an answer would feel like a breakthrough, a light flipped on. Instead, all she felt was hollow, as hollow as the professor’s haunted eyes.

  He was a broken ship, wrecked on the rocks of his own device. Her heart broke for him, wanting to comfort him, yet in the same breath, she wanted to scream at him. His inability to weather life’s squall, to crawl when he couldn’t walk, to keep moving forward, had affected an entire town, and subsequently humans throughout history. Who knew the consequence—the ripple effect—of his actions?

  “What about the gravity field?” Will asked, breaking the thick atmosphere. “Can you at least manipulate it still so we can control where we flash to?”

  The professor shook his head. “As I said, the bubble exists independently of the device. It does not respond to these controls.”

  Ella swallowed the growing lump in her throat. “So, that’s it then? We’re stuck in an infinite loop of jumping through space-time at random?” That couldn’t be all. There had to be a way of breaking the cycle, of collapsing the field.

  “I really am sorry. I’ve tried everything.” Dr. Kaufman’s voice broke, a tear trailing down his cheek.

  “Did you really?” Flo said, her tone acerbic. “Something tells me you’re holding back.”

  At that moment, the metal box vibrated. It hummed despite the lack of electrical power.

  “What’s happening?” Chapman asked.

  The professor’s face was a mask, void of emotion. “We’re jumping again.”

  “Fan-freaking-tastic.” Ella waved a hand at the room. “Do we need to worry about radiation of some kind?”

  Both Dr. Kaufman and Will turned to her with amused expressions.

  “Well, what do I know?” Since they hadn’t answered her question, she tilted away from the device, shielding the important bits of her body just to be certain.

  “Answer this question, Doc.” Flo took a step closer to the man with an air of surprising menace. “If, say, you figured out a way to stop the jumps, would you do it?”

  “Of course, I would.” But a micro-hesitation had delayed his response.

  The gravitational waves increased in frequency until they coalesced. It felt not unlike standing next to a car with its bass turned up on max. An invisible wave went through Ella’s body, then the air settled once again.

  They’d jumped.

  “She’s right, isn’t she?” She faced the device again. Radiation or not, she wanted answers. “If we’re jumping around, the probability of us returning to a time before Charlotte died is small but possible. Like ten million to one—”

  Will held up a hand in protest, no doubt at the estimation she’d pulled out of thin air, but she forged ahead.

  “I don’t know. I’m not a mathematician. But what I do know is if you do manage to collapse the bubble or whatever verb is accurate to describe breaking it—popping maybe? Anyway, there’s a strong chance you wouldn’t be able to get it going again, hereby ensuring the probability of seeing your wife ever again is zero.” She licked her lips, warming to the accusation. “Yeah, you like your odds if you left the field intact.”

  He didn’t say anything, but she could tell she’d hit the nail on the head. Chapman noticed too because he told the professor to turn around. He was placing him under arrest.

  “For what?” Dr. Kaufman pleaded.

  Ella wasn’t sure of what law there was against forcing people to time travel against their will, but she was sure the sheriff’s loose interpretation would let him lock up the man indefinitely, if for no other reason than he was pissed off because the man had stranded him.

  The sheriff’s hands searched his own trouser pockets then his belt, in search of something. Ella guessed it was a pair of handcuffs because when he failed to produce manacles, he pulled out his revolver, instructing Dr. Kaufman to walk outside.

  The rest of the group followed. When Ella climbed the base
ment steps, instead of the darkness of night like she’d been expecting, a bright sun beat down on them. For a moment, it had slipped her mind that they had jumped. A mosquito the size of Fluffy landed on her arm, and she swatted it away.

  Flo swore, the humidity of their environment causing her beehive to practically ooze down like honey. Nearby, Horse’s tail swished at a swarm of flies and mosquitos.

  Suddenly, the professor jerked away from Chapman, quicker than Ella would’ve thought the old man capable of. The sheriff’s gun flashed as he pulled the trigger. The shot went wide.

  Dodging and weaving through trees, Dr. Kaufman sprinted down the hill. Quick as a circus performer, Chapman vaulted Horse and galloped after the man. Rider and horse were slowed by thick underbrush and boughs slapping at them. Chapman hunched over the horn of his saddle, his spurs encouraging Horse to gallop faster, as he yelled after the professor.

  Meanwhile, Ella sprinted towards Will’s pickup. “Crap, he’s getting away!”

  The inventor was already sliding in behind the steering wheel. A moment later, the engine fired to life. She had just enough time to hop into the passenger seat and for Wink and Flo to scramble into the bed before gravel spat out from under the tires as the vehicle tore out of the driveway.

  He took the turns sharply. Ella gripped the seat for dear life, her eyes scanning the blurred surroundings in hopes they’d cut the professor off.

  She chanced a glance behind her to see both her friends tumbling around in the back like shoes in a dryer.

  “Maybe we should slow down?” she suggested.

  Will’s eyes flicked to the rearview mirror. “They’ll be a bit banged up, but okay. We can’t let the professor get away. He’s our only hope of ever getting home.”

  “But he’ll stay in town, right? I mean, he’s not going to risk getting stranded by crossing the boundary.” Doubt was evident in her tone. She knew Will was thinking the same thing she was. Even if Dr. Kaufman stayed within the confines of the bubble, he could still hide. Diego had done it for years.

  Already, the swampy weather of their new location was getting to her. Ella rolled down the window, the resulting breeze little relief from the swelter.

  They reached the bottom of the hill, and Will cranked the pickup to the right. The back tires skidded for purchase, gravel spewing out as they barreled onto Main Street and headed away from town.

  “You think he’s running for the border?”

  “I think it more likely that he’s running for the forest.”

  She bit her lip, stopping herself from questioning his choice to go north rather than hit Lake Drive and reach the crescent-shaped forest that way.

  Behind them came two thunks as both women hit the front of the bed. Ella winced.

  “You realize after this Wink probably won’t let you into the diner for weeks and Flo is plotting your demise as we speak, right?”

  “I do. And if we can get the professor, it’ll all be worth it.” The corners of his mouth turned down. “I think.”

  “I can work on Wink, but with Flo, you’re on your own.”

  The greenhouses flew by on her right in a plexiglass blur. Beyond them, the Keystone forest began, hugging the back side of the hills where it expanded and curved around the lake, ending at the park south of town.

  She pointed behind her. “The forest was back that way.”

  “I just want to head him off if he goes for the border, then we can backtrack.”

  “Like a net. Once we get out, we should probably fan out.”

  Ahead, where minutes before an ocean had stretched to the horizon was now a towering rainforest. It reminded her very much of the jungle they’d jumped to shortly after she and Will had stranded the previous mayor in the desert after he’d tried to kill her.

  This looked like that jungle but on steroids. She had to tilt her head back to glimpse the canopy above, her mouth dropping. It was as if the vehicle and its occupants had shrunk. That was how massive the trees and vegetation appeared.

  Will, who’d also been craning his head up through the windshield, suddenly slammed on the brake. The pickup skidded to an abrupt halt, tires squealing. The smell of burnt rubber reached her nose at the same time two thumps sounded at her back.

  They’d reached the end of the road. Ella jumped out of the car. The moment, she heard Will’s door close, a litany of swear words barraged him. She ignored Flo, leaving Will to contend with the lunatic.

  A glance at her boss told her Wink was more or less in one piece, so she abandoned them to jog to the edge. Off to her right, a horse neighed, a sound contrasting with the cacophony of wildlife issuing from the rainforest. Layered with the symphony of bird song and the buzz of insects were the occasional strange animalistic noises she couldn’t place.

  All of this, she took in with a single, sweeping gaze, then she focused on Horse who stood several yards off to her right, munching at the grass on Keystone’s side of the border.

  Chapman had dismounted. One hand lingered on his holster, his eyes laser-focused on the new rainforest.

  Ella approached. Her shoeless foot stepped on a twig. The resulting snap caused Chapman to flinch in a rare display of nerves.

  She sidled next to him, staring into the same space. “He ran into the forest?”

  He nodded, his boots whispering in the grass as he fidgeted. “He’ll be back. He won’t want to risk getting stranded.”

  It surprised her that the physicist had risked it in the first place. Perhaps he planned to flank them, then he would cut back over the border into the Keystone forest. For everybody’s sake, she hoped Chapman was right and that the man would return.

  After splitting up, they stationed themselves around the border as sentries, hoping to catch the professor sneaking back in.

  For the time being, they finally knew the answer as to how and why the town had started jumping. But that was only part of the equation, the beginning step. Now, they needed to figure out how to stop it—if it could be stopped at all. The professor had said it couldn’t, but Ella wasn’t ready to accept that. Not when they’d come this far.

  Part of her wondered if that was hope or simply her inability to let go. Was she turning into Dr. Kaufman, blind to moving on? That was an answer for another day and a future Ella. Whatever would come, she wasn’t alone anymore. Four other people knew the truth along with her. And all of them had chased the man responsible for this mess.

  “Yeah,” she whispered. “He’ll be back.”

  Chapter 28

  ELLA HAD RUN a quarter of the way around the lake where the park met the forest before she had to stop and walk. Her clothes were drenched in sweat. This weather was not ideal for runners—or any humans, for that matter.

  She untied the sweatshirt at her waist and used it to mop up some of the sweat dripping into her eyes. The rest of her glistening skin was a lost cause. She’d only grabbed the zip-up hoodie out of habit, instantly regretting it the moment she’d stepped off of the terrace, but she quickly grew to appreciate its newfound purpose as a sweat rag.

  It was Saturday morning, the day for her short, afternoon shift. Shortly after the town jumped the evening before and the professor had fled, the sun had set in their new location. Therefore, the time difference seemed to be a couple of hours, negligible enough that they didn’t change clocks.

  While catching her breath, she stared into Keystone’s dark forest, the ancient, overgrown jungle of their new location obscured by Keystone’s pine and fir trees. Someplace deep in those shadows, Diego had escaped discovery for years. Was the professor in there too?

  Foliage crunched beneath her shoes as she took a tentative step toward the tree line, the mystery of what lay within drawing her like a magnet. She’d been amongst the giants of bark before, once to visit Leif’s cabin. Another time at Flo’s shooting range.

  Ella tilted her head. Flo’s shooting range. The memory triggered the woman’s words from a few days prior when she claimed to have seen Diego’s ghost and
shot him. She’d mentioned when she spotted him creeping near her range that he had been toting a shovel. Why carry a shovel around in the forest?

  Her hand flew to her mouth. Holy Pirates of the Caribbean.

  She marched to the break in the trees and to the path she’d taken once months prior, shortly after her arrival in the village. The air wicked at her skin, cooler, but somehow muggier.

  The thought of buried treasure spurred her on. After power-walking a quarter of a mile along the trail, she spotted a familiar tree and diverged from the beaten path onto a faint one that could’ve passed for a deer run.

  Several minutes later, she was stepping into the clearing that was Flo’s gun range—or as Ella preferred to call it, the Clearing of Doom. Several stumps dotted the space, no doubt the results of exotic weapons testing. Scorch marks marred the ground, and very few plants grew along the surface.

  Ella turned a slow circle. Nearby, two stumps held up a thick log where the crazy tenant tended to stand behind, either to steady a weapon she was aiming or to duck behind for cover.

  Striding over, she stood behind it, pointed a finger gun across the clearing, then her eyes scanned the surroundings visible in her purview. Picking a careful path back across the clearing, she slowly walked the perimeter of what had been visible. Next, she plunged into the woods, walking in a pattern that expanded out from the range.

  Her eyes fell on a long, thin wooden handle, covered in smears of dried blood the color of rust. Kneeling, Ella picked it up, inspecting it. This must be Diego’s blood from when Flo shot him. Standing, she scanned the trunks of the surrounding trees. Sure enough, a few yards from the shovel, she spotted what she’d been searching for.

  Bark splintered and had been ripped from a pine tree. One of Flo’s shots had gone wide while shooting at the phantom.