Malcolm stood up and put his tools back in his messenger bag. He adjusted it around to his hip. “Never going to happen,” he said. “I only agreed to come meet you because I’ve seen your name in my boss’s notes. You’re listed as an ally with some people I trust. I don’t care that you’re with the FBI or what kind of case you guys need to solve. It doesn’t matter now. The people with the answers you need are gone. I have no idea when they’ll be back.”
“Your boss said he knows me?” Stella asked. “What’s his name? Have I met him?”
“You’ll have to figure that out yourself,” Malcolm said. “I’m not going to reveal his identity without his say so. I need to go.” Malcolm picked up his helmet from the bench and began walking down the grassy embankment to his scooter.
Stella got up to pursue him. “Hold up a minute. There are still so many questions I need to ask you about this.” She followed him down the embankment to the street.
Malcolm donned his helmet and climbed aboard the scooter, rocking it forward off its kickstand. “I probably shouldn’t have told you as much as I have. You’re going to try to get answers but let me save you the trouble. Soon, none of this will matter.”
“I don’t understand,” Stella said. “This is the biggest case the Bureau has ever had. How can it not matter?”
“Because I’m going to clean it all up. I’ll do my job. And tomorrow the world will go right back to thinking that there’s no such thing as time travel.”
10 Unbelievable
Stella had a lot to think about as she walked the streets of Saint Petersburg and made her way to the scene of the building fire on Ninth Street. The Crown Victoria had a parking ticket wedged under the driver’s side windshield wiper. She tucked it into her pocket and stared up at the side of the burned building. Smoke and flames had stained the center windows black.
She glanced down the alleyway that ran alongside the building but wasn’t tempted to return to the scene where she had passed out. Her head was aching enough already.
The streetlights were on by the time she made it back to Detective Briggs’s house. The door was unlocked and when she entered the living room, she was met with the scent of baking bread. She slid out of her jacket and laid it on the arm of the couch. There were a couple of candles lit and the dining room table was set for two. She moved around the corner to the kitchen.
“Wondered when you’d make it back,” Danny said, looking up from a pot of boiling water on the stove. “Hoped I’d see you.”
Stella leaned against the kitchen door frame and stuck her hands in her pockets. “Didn’t know you baked, Detective.”
“I can manage the basics when the occasion calls for it.” He wiped his hands on a towel. “Can I get you a glass of wine?”
“I could actually go for a beer,” Stella said.
“Michelob or Budweiser?”
“Whatever’s coldest.”
Danny opened the refrigerator and pulled two silver cans from the back. He popped the top on one and handed it to Stella.
She waited until he opened his and then held hers aloft. “Here’s to the weirdest case I’ve ever worked.”
Danny tapped his can to hers and took a sip. “And let’s hope it’s the best inter-agency cooperation you’ve ever done. With any luck, we’ll solve this thing.”
Stella wiped a drop of condensation from her chin with the back of her hand. “So, I may have actually solved it tonight, but I doubt it’s ever going to get resolved the way we think.”
Danny pulled the bread from the oven and set it atop the stove to cool. “Solved it? What are you talking about?”
Stella gave him a brief account of her meeting with Malcolm in the park, watching Danny’s expression as she did so. By the time she reached the part about the law student and prosecutor, his mouth was tight and he was shaking his head.
“Come on,” Danny said. “He wants you to believe this? That he somehow knows the future? The thing about the van being an unknown model is strange, and I get that his story matches the registration sticker, but time travel? He’s clearly got a screw loose. He watched that time car film too many times. The one from the billboard. Now he thinks he’s Marty McFiggs.”
“McFly,” Stella said. “Yeah. I thought the same thing at first, but even though it’s crazy, this actually explains what happened. You saw the undamaged power pole. It’s because the van didn’t hit the pole here. It hit it in the future! And the freeway? I know what I saw, Danny. That truck going under the overpass and knocking that guy into traffic wasn’t something I can forget.”
Danny shifted his feet and turned to dump the now boiled pasta into a colander. He sighed audibly.
“What?” Stella asked. “You know something else?”
“I don’t know what I know,” Danny replied.
“Where did you really go today?” Stella asked. “This afternoon. Were you looking into the accident?”
Danny turned to face her and leaned against the counter. “I talked to everyone I thought could have been involved. There was no accident on I-275 that night. Nobody had any idea what I was talking about.”
“Then that’s more proof that what this guy is saying is true! I know what I saw, and if it was some kind of shift in time that I was too close to like this guy says, then I have to believe it. It’s the only explanation that matches up with what I know is true. Elton Stenger is dead.”
Danny frowned. “Come on. People from different times? He expects you to believe that there are a bunch of other versions of us out there doing different things and people from the future running around offing people for things they haven’t even done yet?”
“It’s not science we understand now, but apparently someone will in 2009.”
“But are you even listening to yourself? What kind of sense does that make? In some other version of our lives I made a choice to make you pizza instead of pasta and now there’s an alternate reality where we’re chewing pepperoni in the dining room?”
“I don’t know how it works, Danny. I’m not an astrophysicist. But I know what happened to me and I saw the perp from the gas station fire get killed by an overpass on the freeway. I checked his body myself. If you don’t believe me, I don’t know what to tell you.”
Danny took a few steps closer and took her hand. “I know you’ve been through a lot in the last couple of days. I’m not saying you’re making it up, I just think there has to be another explanation.”
“Like what? What else would explain what I saw?”
Danny rubbed her shoulder. “When those firefighters found you in the alley they said you might have suffered some smoke inhalation. What if something in that fire wasn’t what we thought? What if you breathed in some kind of chemical?”
“It wasn’t smoke inhalation,” Stella said.
“But it could have happened while you were unconscious. It made you pass out, right? What if this whole car accident thing was a really vivid—”
“Hallucination?” Stella finished his sentence. She jerked her hand from his. “I knew you wouldn’t believe me. I was stupid to think you would.” She pushed him away and slid back through the doorway. “I’m not crazy, Danny.”
“I’m not saying you’re crazy,” Danny replied. “I just think you might not be remembering things as accurately as you think. It happens all the time with victims of trauma. You know that. They said they found some strange stuff going on in that building once they put out the fire. If you were exposed to some unknown fumes from this place, who knows what it could have done to you?”
Stella walked to the couch and snatched up her jacket.
“Where are you going?” Danny asked. “Dinner’s almost ready.” He took a few steps toward her. “I thought tonight would be . . . romantic.”
“You thought you’d make me dinner and take me to bed, and never mind that you think I’m crazy?”
“Well . . .”
“Goodbye, Danny.” Stella flung the front door open and strode down the une
ven walkway to the street. She was at the car by the time Danny reached the porch. She paused when she had the driver’s door open, looking across the roof of the car to where Danny stood illuminated by the porch light. He didn’t pursue her. He lingered on the steps with his hand up and his mouth open. Stella locked eyes with him, and for a moment she thought he was going to say something, but then he slid his hands into his pockets and shut his mouth.
Stella sank into the seat of the Ford and started the engine.
She didn’t look back as she pulled away.
By the time she reached the motel, her stomach was growling its displeasure. Would have been nice if the argument had come after dinner . . .
Why couldn’t he open his mind? There was clearly more going on here than a normal case. Stella parked the Crown Victoria in the motel parking lot and stared at the faded door of her room.
She saw Stenger die. She wasn’t crazy.
She got out of the car and made her way toward the doorway, searching for the motel key on her keychain. As she approached the door, someone spoke from behind her.
“You’ve had a call.”
Stella spun around to find the hotel manager standing in the parking lot. She was a plump woman with square proportions and thick ankles that protruded beneath a floral mumu. The ankles terminated in wide feet stuffed into pink, fuzzy bunny slippers. She lifted a cigarette to her mouth, then exhaled the smoke from her nostrils as she spoke. “Here’s your message.” The manager held up a torn slip of paper.
Stella walked over and took the paper. The manager crossed one arm under her other elbow and held the cigarette aloft, observing.
Stella recognized the number of her field office even before she deciphered the name scrawled on the slip. Special Agent MacGregor.
“He sounded like he had a stick up his ass,” the manager said.
“He always sounds like that.”
The woman cocked her head. “You really an FBI Agent?”
Stella crumbled the piece of paper and stuffed it into her jacket pocket. “It’s not as glamorous as it sounds.”
“Never said it was.” The woman took one last drag on the cigarette before dropping the stub to the pavement and squishing it beneath her slipper. “Checkout’s at ten. No exceptions.” She turned and shuffled her way back toward the office, letting out a rasping cough as she went.
Stella unlocked the door to her motel room to find that there had been no room service. The bed was still unmade. She deposited her jacket on the solitary chair and lifted the phone from its spot on the bedside table. She cradled the receiver in the crook of her neck and dialed the numbers as she carried the phone over to the table. It was late. There was likely no one left in the office, but she could at least leave a message with the night secretary.
The phone rang several times before a woman picked up. “Jacksonville Field Office.”
“This is Special Agent Stella York.” Stella went through the process of validating her identity and asked to leave a message for Special Agent MacGregor.
“I think Agent MacGregor is actually still in the office,” the secretary said. “He passed by a few minutes ago. Do you want me to connect you?”
Stella hesitated briefly. “He’s still working?”
“He’s been in a meeting with SAC Renfroe, but I think they’ve been expecting your call. Hold please.”
Stella waited for approximately twenty seconds before MacGregor picked up.
“York? What the hell have you been doing down there? I got a report you were in the hospital last night?”
Stella sighed. “I’m okay. They kept me overnight as a precaution.”
“I’ve been on the phone with the Saint Petersburg chief of police. What’s this about you claiming to have been in a car accident that never happened? According to him you’ve been keeping other officers from their duties and making them run down apparitions.”
“What? Who told you that?” Stella said.
“Your handling of this case is making us the laughingstock of the station.”
Stella clenched her jaw. What had Danny been saying today? The idea of him laughing it up with other officers at her expense made her nauseated. She sank into the chair.
“Renfroe’s bringing you in and reassigning this case to another agent,” MacGregor said. “Your ability to liaise with local law enforcement is clearly inadequate.”
“I’ve finally gotten a major break,” Stella objected. “If you pull me from the case now, you’re never going to solve this thing.”
“We have more experienced agents we can assign. Your performance has raised serious questions about your ability to work the field at all. I told you when we first started. You had one job. Don’t make me look bad. You couldn’t even manage that. Pack your bags and get on the road first thing. Renfroe expects you back in the office tomorrow with your report. Don’t keep him waiting.”
When Stella hung up the phone, it felt like the blood was draining from her body. She lacked the energy to even be angry.
To hell with this job.
To hell with MacGregor and Renfroe and the entire bureau.
Stella pulled her badge from her pocket and hurled it at the far wall. It thudded against the plaster and dropped to the dingy carpet.
She shouldn’t be surprised. The entire system was rigged against her. They had assumed she’d fail before she even started.
Leaning forward, she buried her face in her hands.
She set her jaw. She wasn’t going to cry. She wouldn’t let herself sink to that level. If they broke her, that just meant they won.
With her eyes closed, images from the past few days ran wild through her mind. The crashed van that hadn’t damaged the telephone pole. The young man, Ben, vanishing into thin air before Elton Stenger got hit by an overpass. Malcolm Longines and his blinking box analyzing a bench in a softball field dugout. It was all still there. It wasn’t going away.
Stella pulled her hands from her face and placed them on her knees, pushing herself up from her chair. She walked the few feet to the carpet where her badge had fallen and picked it back up. The white edge of a photograph was protruding from behind the badge. She pulled it out and stared at it.
Her father’s mustached face looked out at her from the black-and-white image, medals on his chest and a smile on his face.
“I’m letting you down, Dad,” she muttered to the photograph. “I know you said I could be anything I set my mind to in this life, but I don’t think you had an accurate count on all the assholes I’d get to deal with.”
She stared at the photograph a little longer, then tucked it back into the fabric pocket behind her badge.
Stella stood in front of the hotel mirror and studied her own reflection. She looked tired. Defeated.
Without the job, what was she doing with her life?
She held the badge up to her reflection. Special Agent Stella York.
She lowered the badge again.
No. It didn’t matter.
Badge or no badge, one way or another, she was going to figure this case out. She was going to do it for herself.
She just needed more time.
11 Ultimatum
When Stella checked out of the motel in the morning, the manager barely said a word. The woman rasped out something about long distance phone charges and looked like she might be expecting an argument, but Stella merely signed the credit card receipt and left.
She might be leaving, but she wasn’t done with St. Petersburg yet.
After she climbed into the Crown Victoria and started the engine, she reached into her jacket pocket and extracted the sheet of paper she had taken from Danny Briggs’s house—the note containing the address for a Mr. Robert Cameron.
She studied the address one more time, then shifted into gear.
In less than fifteen minutes, Stella had located the old Spanish-style house and parked out front, taking a few minutes to size up the home. It was an unassuming neighborhood and quiet. Not t
he type of place one would expect to find members of a shadowy underworld conspiracy. But Stella had been wrong before.
She crossed the street and approached the house, lingering briefly on the porch. She knocked on the door and took a step back.
A dog barked.
Somewhere on the other side of the door, her knock had stirred up a commotion. The dog continued to bark and Stella heard several squawks that might be from birds. Finally a person opened the door, prying it open cautiously so as not to let the dog out. The red-haired man that greeted her was familiar. Carson.
“Uh, hi,” he said when he finally extricated himself from the door and shut it behind him. He glanced down and caught sight of the pistol at her hip. “What’s going on?”
Stella moved her jacket to cover the gun and pulled her badge from her pocket. “I’m Special Agent Stella York with the FBI. We met a few nights ago, do you remember?”
“Yeah, definitely,” Carson replied. “Stella. Lover of mysteries. I’m sorry we didn’t get to enjoy that beer together longer.” He smiled at her. “FBI, huh? That’s badass.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”
“Maybe you need a Mulder to your Scully,” Carson said.
Stella cocked her head. Sometimes it was like this group was speaking their own language. Carson seemed to sense her confusion.
“Sorry. Just a joke. You’ll think it’s funny in another ten years or so.”
“Because it’s a joke from the future?” Stella asked.
Carson crossed his arms and leaned against the doorframe. “I’m just messing around. What’s going on?”
“I came here looking for your friend,” Stella said. “Ben? The one you were singing with the other night? I was hoping to talk to him about some unusual circumstances he’s been involved in.”
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