"Now that's the Sarah that I know. Why don't you go get Foster, and I'll get the transponder room ready."
She shook her head. "Not Foster, just me. I can't lose more people that I care about."
She could tell Andrew was thinking the information over. She should've known that it wouldn't be that easy.
"You aren't going anywhere without me, princess."
Foster stepped into the room and laced his fingers with hers. "If you're ready to go, I know exactly where he can send us where we can wait things out."
"Where are you taking her?" Andrew asked.
“You can send us to December 30th to our high-rise at the aurora borealis. Sarah loves that place best.”
She smiled even as Andrew huffed. "If you're ready to go, I can send you there."
Weston Compound, Unknown Year
Chapter 16
Andrew led them through a communal living area where everyone seated stared as they passed. No matter what happened, it was these people Sarah didn’t want to forget. No amount of time or space could make her forget.
She stilled her hand from patting the family picture tucked away in her jean pocket. She’d always have proof that she’d been there.
“Where to now?” Ziggy asked, only then reminding her that he was watching everything that transpired.
“Home,” Sarah whispered, earning a glance from Foster.
She pointed to her contact and earpiece and shrugged.
The others followed them into the transponder room. The female of the group, whose name Sarah had yet to figure out, stared at her while nibbling her bottom lip.
"Where is she going?"
"I'm going back to 2018."
She turned her gaze on Andrew and narrowed her eyes. She had the same look that Sarah would give somebody who was pissing her off. "And do you think that's a good idea?"
“He doesn't get to pick and choose. I do." Sarah patted the woman's hand.
The woman folded her arms across her chest. Anger seeped from her eyes as Danny stepped into the transponder room.
He took Sarah’s wrist, pressed something similar to the dialect translator into her arm, and pressed the trigger. The shot briefly stung, and she rubbed at the wrist. "What was that?"
"A time release of your medication. It should help with your migraines."
Her gaze softened on Danny trying to imagine what he’d be like for her to raise when younger. Sarah turned her gaze to the girl. She was her exact replica. Sarah could easily see herself in the young woman’s eyes.
Danny strapped a biofeed watch to her wrist. It was very similar to the one she used.
"How is it that I come to find this place?"
"That is something she has to find out for herself," Andrew said into the speaker.
Danny shrugged before pulling Sarah into a hug. "You’ll learn soon enough."
“Danny, you weren't supposed to tell her that," Andrew said.
"I didn’t tell her how or why."
Andrew waited for everybody to leave the room. He shut the transponder door.
"One day you’re going to lie to me and tell me that I love it here.”
Andrew smiled seconds before he pushed the button. The blue electrical lightning around them rapidly intensified until they both dropped to their knees. When they opened their eyes, they were in a familiar place.
Foster's home near the aurora borealis. Sarah had spent an hour in this home with Foster, and that seemed like only days ago, even though almost a full year had already passed.
The floor-to-ceiling curtains covering the windows were open, giving Sarah an excellent view of the beauty outside. "One day I'm going to figure out what caused that to disappear and save the ocean."
"I believe you,” Foster said, coming to stand behind her. He wrapped his arms around her body like they’d done this on numerous occasions. Maybe, in his time, they had, but in her time, he was still somewhat of a stranger who she still couldn’t decide if she wanted to shoot or kiss.
She turned in his arms. "So we have kids?"
"Yeah. How about we get started on that right now?"
She stepped out of his arms. "You wish. How about we figure out what Steeds up to. Don’t you think it’s about time for you to report in?”
Foster pulled her against his body and rested his forehead against hers. “I’d rather stay here with you and make babies.”
“I haven’t decided to keep you around yet. You’re still at the top of my ten most wanted criminals list.”
“And you’re at the top of mine.” He grinned seductively and lifted Sarah in his arms and carried her to the bedroom.
Her heart quickened as it warred with her head that this was a very bad idea.
If she were going to get stuck in another time, or die here, she’d be the one making the decisions about how to spend her time.
He slid her down so her feet touched the ground. She kissed him with all the pent-up passion and aggravation he’d instilled in her for the last several months, and he returned it in kind.
Chapter 17
Both Sarah and Foster lay in bed staring up at the ceiling. They’d created their own sparks for the stars in the hours that had passed. Foster rolled to face her and rested his palm on her stomach.
“We should have skipped all the other stuff and started with that.”
She lolled her head in his direction and smiled. “The games and the chasing were all foreplay.”
He leaned in and kissed her again. “You’re going to leave me soon, and I’m not going to see you for another year.”
“In that case,” she said, pulling him to rest over her body, “maybe I should give you a reason to remember me.”
“Indeed.” He devoured her once again before they both fell fast asleep.
They’d returned the day before New Year’s Eve. They had less than twenty-four hours to figure out what Steed was up to, and yet all she could do was fall fast asleep in Foster’s arms.
****
“Sarah.” Ziggy’s voice called to her in the darkness. “Sarah, open your eyes.”
Her eyes flew open, and she turned toward Foster’s side of the bed to find him gone. She rested her arm over her eyes. “What’s up, Ziggy?”
“You have to get back here,” he said in a whisper. “It’s like the Nakatomi Building all over again; only it’s not the cop’s wife in danger. Steed has Foster.”
Sarah shot up in bed. “That’s not possible.”
She climbed out of the bed and ran through the house, calling Foster’s name.
“I think they lured him into a trap. He got a call while you were sleeping. I overheard the whole thing.”
Sarah paused. “Please tell me you didn’t listen to us…”
“Ewe, no. Just afterward,” Ziggy answered. “Stay focused, Sarah. They’ve got the firepower to blow this building up.”
“Where are you?” she asked while getting dressed.
“I’m in the basement with Diana, Jonathan, and Ritter. We’ve barricaded the door.”
At least Ziggy and Diana were with Jonathan and Ritter. Jonathan knew how to shoot, and Ritter could make a gun out of just about anything laying around his lab.
“I’ll be there in minutes,” Sarah said, sliding her shoes on her feet.
Sarah glanced around the room, looking for her biofeed to set the coordinates for STEM Corp’s basement. "I remember I put it here." She walked over to the dresser where she had placed it, along with her earrings.
The top of the dresser was empty other than her earrings and a single folded note. She unfolded the note. It was from Foster.
I'm sorry Sarah, but this was the only way I could keep you out of it. You aren't ready for what he has planned.
Love you with every fiber,
Foster
"Ziggy, did you read that?" Sarah asked.
"You sure know how to pick them, Sarah. We’re stuck in the basement, and we have no way to come get you since I can't get a lock on your loca
tion. Where are you?"
Sarah had no idea where she was. She’d only been to this place twice. She hurried through the room, trying to fight back the anger that Foster had left her stranded to keep her safe. He had no idea who he was dealing with. She clicked the button on the floor-to-ceiling windows, and the curtains opened, gifting her with another view of the aurora borealis.
She opened the glass doors then stepped outside onto the patio. Confusion clouded her as she glanced down at the parking lot below. The air was warm and suffocating. She wasn't anywhere near where the aurora borealis should even be. She reached out, and when she did, the image around her rippled just like the simulation on the beach house in 2130.
“This is all an illusion. Remind me to kill him,” Sarah growled.
“You’ll have to take a number,” Ziggy said.
2018
Chapter 18
"I can't believe he did this." Sarah tore back into the house, leaving the glass door open as she made her way to the front door. She grabbed the handle and jiggled it. Son of a… “I'm locked in, and the locks are on backward. I need a key to get out."
"Sounds like he has you trapped in a cage. Maybe he’s not working for Steed but he’s working for the Time Enforcement Board. Didn’t they want to contain you too?"
Foster did have her trapped in a cage. One of her own making. "Dammit, I'm so stupid. I bet that place and those kids weren't even mine."
It was hard to deny the fact those adults shared her eyes and his dimples. Still, Foster had been one step ahead this entire time. What if it were all just an elaborate ruse?
"Ziggy, I need a way out. I don’t have my transponder and can't get there to help you."
“He had to have left some way for you to leave. What happens if something happened to him and he was killed and he left you there? There has to be another way out you're just not seeing."
Ziggy was right. There had to be a way in and out. He’d have a backup plan. How did she know? Because she would have too. If she and Foster were actually an item in the future, he would have known that. The exit wasn’t going to be obvious. Nothing simple. Nothing about Foster would ever be simple.
She started rummaging through the house and the drawers in the kitchen. She couldn’t find anything that would help her escape. There was no extra key lying around, no extra transponder watch, nothing.
The only option out was if she knew how to fly. Sarah stepped back out onto the patio, and instead of looking at the pretty lights, she looked down. The parking lot was only three floors down.
"Unless you grew wings, I don't suggest you go that way," Ziggy said.
"I don't have much of a choice.”
"Sarah, wait. I think between you and the three of us, we can pinpoint your location by using that chip in your eye and your earpiece. Stay put while we try to triangulate your location. If we can get a bead on you, then we might be able to use one of our watches to come and get you."
"While you're doing that, I’m going to shred all of his linens and start tying them together. If I can make a rope, I can lower myself to the ground. If I can get to the ground, I can find the address and give you guys a way to find me, and then you can come get me.”
Sarah hurried back inside and tossed open the linen closet door. It was stacked with towels. There wasn't much of use in there. So she continued looking and found the supply closet where he kept extra bed linens. She grabbed all of them that she could and started tying them together, hoping and praying that they would hold her weight and be long enough to reach the ground. He had four.
She laid them out lengthwise along the floor of the townhouse to see how far it was going to get her. Even with those four, it still looked like she might have to jump. "I can make it almost all the way down."
"Almost isn’t enough, Sarah. Stay put while we triangulate your location."
"I'm running out of time. That building is going to blow by midnight."
"How can you believe what you saw was the truth? You don’t know those people. Heck, you don’t even know where you are. They could all be a part of Foster’s master plan to get you to trust him. You don’t even know that what you saw was real, and even if it was, that building could have exploded in other time. You're putting your trust in people you don't even know."
And that was part of the problem. It was time she stopped doing that.
She tied the bed sheet to the railing, using a knot her mother had shown her years ago. She didn't need it to hold for long, just long enough so that she could ease her way down to the point where she could jump.
"Sarah, we missed you. We must be pinging off somebody else's location. Don't use the sheets. You might fall, and then you'll really be of no use to us," Ziggy said.
She ignored him and continued sliding her legs over the railing. She twisted her legs around the sheets for purchase.
"Here, talk some sense into her," Ziggy said.
"Sarah, what are you doing?" Diana asked.
"I'm saving myself."
"Ziggy, she's going to do it regardless. Find her fast before she kills herself."
Sarah smiled for the first time in a long time. For once the people who know her best knew what she was capable of. She tightened her grip around the sheet and started to inch her way off the balcony ledge. She couldn't help but look down as she slowly inched farther down so she wouldn’t lose her grip. She was between floors when the sheet gave a little tug, dropping her several inches.
"It's coming loose."
"Ziggy, you need to hurry," Diana called out.
Sarah had just reached the second balcony and was almost past it when the knot released slipping free. Sarah grabbed the concrete of the balcony floor to stop her fall. She dangled in midair. The drop below her was at least twelve feet. Above her was a second-floor balcony railing, and she had no idea who owned it. Sweat slicked her fingers. She was almost out of options.
"I can't hold out much longer."
Blue and white lights flashed around her, jolting currents through her body making her cringe. The pain too much to handle. Her fingers slipped just as another hand grabbed her wrist, holding her in place.
Jonathan stared down at her. A look of relief flashed on Jonathan’s face. "I've got you."
"Took you long enough."
"I had to stop a couple of Steed’s thugs trying to get into the basement before I could help. You're welcome."
Jonathan pulled her up and over the balcony ledge. The curtains behind them were thankfully closed.
Jonathan attached a new transponder to her wrist, sliding his finger over her pulse.
“This has to be your worst one-night stand ever, huh?"
Jonathan and Sarah would need to have a talk, sooner rather than later at a more opportune time. Sarah sighed. "Jonathan, I’ve seen the future. He's important to me."
Jonathan held her gaze. "I thought I was too.”
"You are, but we're going to have to table this. The building is going to blow by midnight."
"How do you know?"
"I've seen the future."
“Things could change, Sarah,” Jonathan offered.
He was right; things were going to change. She was going to give her future baby daddy a black eye. No wonder it took her a year to go looking for him. She was the queen at holding grudges, and she’d probably stayed pissed that whole time.
Her eyes widened, and she lifted her palm to rest on her stomach. Oh Lord. Am I…
2018
Chapter 19
Pregnant?
The thought finished in her mind at the same time a time slip opened up for them. “That’s not the basement.”
Sarah recognized the room immediately; it was her room at the compound. Relief swamped her body as she ran into the bedroom and pulled out one of her drawers. She pulled out a box with another watch latched inside. She strapped that one around her ankle. She’d never go anywhere without two watches ever again.
She pressed several buttons until it calib
rated with her DNA and then set a destination and time for Francesca’s time period. It all started with her mother, and it needed to end with her mother. She just needed to get there to warn the woman that Steed might try to kill her…again.
She turned to find Jonathan standing in the doorway.
"You might want to find a gun or two."
He had a point. This wasn't just a rescue; this was a defending-our-house countermeasure, and no one came into her house without permission.
She flipped the bedspread up and pulled out her gun case she kept beneath the bed. Unlocking it with her fingerprint and the combination, she opened the lid.
Sarah tossed two of her guns from the case onto the bed before running to the closet and changing into another pair of jeans and her body armor latex suit that Mackenzie Chase had sent her after their first year working together.
She stepped back into the bedroom, slipping the arm straps of one holster up her arms. She bent and attached a second holster to the ankle without the watch. She slid the guns into their spots. She would not be outgunned in this battle.
“Think you have enough?" Jonathan teased.
"Some girls collect shoes; I collect guns.” She adjusted the earpiece. "Ziggy?"
She was met with silence for the first time, making her brows dip.
“I’m here,” he answered as gunfire sounded through the earpiece.
“We’ve got to go,” Sarah said, using her watch to open a time slip to the basement.
She and Jonathan stepped through just as man pointed his gun at Ziggy’s head.
Sarah shot first.
The gun went flying from the intruder’s hand as he dropped to his knees and started screaming. The hole in his hand was bleeding profusely.
Diana grabbed Ziggy by the back of his shirt to help him scurry away from the man. “Why didn’t you kill him?”
Sarah pointed her gun at the guy and stepped around him, pulling an earpiece from his ear. She grabbed his walkie-talkie, too, and clipped it to her belt. “You’ve got one shot to tell me the truth. How many of you are in the compound?”
Time Keepers Page 8