by Julie Cross
She nodded. “It’s kinda like daydreaming, isn’t it?”
“Exactly. Something you do when you don’t want to face the real world.” I stood again, very slowly, and she put her arms around my waist. “I love you, Courtney.”
“I love you, too, even if I never tell you,” she whispered.
I could feel myself going back, but not by choice. One second she was in my arms, and just like that, cold air replaced the warmth of her body.
Courtney would never have left Holly there dying. She was the brave one. Always did the right thing. And if nobility counted for anything, I would be the one buried under the ground, not my sister. But not only am I still alive, I’m the twin that got handed the time-traveling superpower.
Just as the darkness swept over me, a short stocky man about my age came running up behind Courtney, followed by my dad. I tried my best to memorize his face. Focused on it for as long as my body would let me.
“There she is!” I heard the man shout.
“Don’t shoot him!” Courtney screamed. But then they were all gone. Or I was gone. Back to purgatory.
CHAPTER TWELVE
SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 9, 2007, 9:20 P.M.
“Hey! Are you all right?” a man’s voice shouted into my ear.
“He was gonna run out of here without paying, then I saw him just pass out,” the waitress said.
“How long has he been unconscious?” someone else asked.
“About ten minutes,” the waitress said.
Great. I’d never be able to show my face here again. I stared straight up at the ceiling, willing myself to get off the floor. It was a slow process, but I eventually managed to stand, with the help of the manager.
“Sorry, just a little light-headed … um, low blood sugar,” I mumbled.
The manager stepped in front of me. “Maybe we should call an ambulance instead of the police?”
Police? Damn!
The waitress was tapping her foot again, holding up my wallet. “His credit card was declined. I think it’s a fake or a copy of some kind.”
Uh-oh. “Actually, I’ve got another one and some cash.”
“Yeah, two dollars. And I tried the other cards. All declined,” the waitress said.
I glanced around her shoulder, looking for my Spanish teacher, Miss Ramsey. She’d get me out of this mess. But an older couple was now seated at her table. Must have been a short date. “Just let me call … my dad.”
A police officer was already strolling inside with another one following. He snatched the wallet from the waitress’s hand and pulled out my license. “Issued in 2008? Interesting. And these look like the real deal. Professional.”
That’s because they are real. And when did I run out of cash?
The officer holding my wallet glared at me, then looked over at the manager. “We’ll take care of this. Probably drugs.”
“It usually is,” the manager said, shaking his head.
“And with the looks of this wallet full of false documents, I’d guess addict and dealer,” the officer said.
The sneer on his face really pissed me off and I opened my mouth again. “Yeah, because drug dealers find it helpful to make false documents that only work a year from now.”
“Smart-ass,” he muttered under his breath.
I tried to move away from them, but the cop not holding my wallet blocked my way while the other grabbed my arms and put handcuffs around my wrists. Anger bubbled up in me and I started to wiggle away.
Don’t make this worse, I told myself. And don’t bother with jumping. I’d just end up right back here and my vegetable state would probably make me look even more like a drug addict.
Every single patron in this place stared as I was led out of the restaurant and into the back of a squad car. Seriously, could my life get any worse right now?
Yes, it could. Now I’d have to call my dad to bail me out of jail. My dad, who almost killed me in 2003. This should be a freakin’ blast.
* * *
“Hey, Meyer, someone’s here to see you,” the police officer said.
I rubbed the blurriness out of my eyes and sat up from the bench I had passed out on in the cell. My jail cell. Because I’m a badass criminal. Or a really irresponsible time traveler who fails to collect proper and authentic documentation.
The footsteps echoed down the hall, growing louder. My stomach flipped over and over. I didn’t know how I’d react to seeing my dad again. Even without the CIA thing and the trying-to-kill-me part, I’d have been nervous to have Kevin Meyer, the CEO, come bail me out of jail. Especially when I wasn’t the right me. Would he know the difference?
“If it’s all right, I’d like to have a word with the kid before you let him go,” a female voice rang from down the hall.
Not my dad. That’s for sure.
“Whatever you want,” the officer said, then he stepped closer and unlocked the door.
The first part I saw of the woman was her boots. Tall black boots, going up her leg, almost to her knee. She had a short black dress on and caramel-colored skin. Maybe she was a lawyer? Except she didn’t look much older than me. Too young to be a lawyer.
She didn’t smile or give me any kind of a friendly greeting as her boots tapped their way into my cell. She just stood in front of me, arms crossed, waiting for the police officer to walk away. “Listen up, junior. Here’s the plan. I’m getting you the hell out of here and then we’re going back to your apartment, where you will explain your recent behavior. I have a long list of questions. But not a word about anything inside this establishment, understood?”
“Um … who are you?” I asked.
“Miss Stewart,” she said with a smug expression.
“Miss Stewart? How old are you, like, twenty?” She didn’t even look twenty. Eighteen or nineteen, maybe. Something wasn’t right and I had no reason to trust anyone at this point. Even if it meant staying on this bench in jail. Like it mattered. 2007 was already a prison.
“I don’t like to tell people my first name.”
“Where’s my father? I left a message for him.”
She dug through her purse and pulled out a slip of paper, then handed it to me. It was a fax, but definitely my dad’s writing.
Jackson,
Please do exactly what Miss Stewart tells you to do or you’ll only make things worse. She works for me and has extensive knowledge in handling confidential situations without getting media outlets involved. We will be talking later.
Dad
“What do you do for my father?” I asked.
“Secretary,” she said.
“Really?” I shook my head and stood up. “Whatever.”
She walked out of the jail cell and didn’t even wait to see if I followed. Like she just knew any halfway sane guy would tail her anywhere. Too bad for her, I wasn’t even close to halfway sane. But I couldn’t ignore my dad’s note.
I sighed and trudged down the hall behind the clanking stilettos, feeling the lead in my legs along with the grief in the pit of my stomach. One of the officers nodded and tipped his hat toward me as we walked past the front desk. “Incredibly sorry for the misunderstanding, Mr. Meyer,” he said.
I opened my mouth to respond politely, but Miss Stewart hissed in my ear, “Don’t answer him.” Then she stomped toward the door, calling over her shoulder, “He’ll be expecting a formal letter of apology. As well as the other conditions we discussed.”
Other conditions?
I started to turn around and say something nice to them, but my dad’s “secretary” grabbed my arm and pulled me out the door into the cool night air.
“That was rude. They were just trying to—”
She stuck a hand in front of my face. “Did I not give you very specific directions?”
I rolled my eyes and followed her toward a car parked outside the police station. My car. Well, the one Cal, our driver, used, anyway. Just as we approached the door to the car, I debated running from this woman, but then decided
it wasn’t wise right in front of the police station after being bailed out. Neither of us said a word all the way to my place.
I was too distracted by the idea that I was really going home. But a 2007 version of my home. In reality, I was never actually in my apartment on this day, the first time I lived in 2007. I was in Spain. I’m still in Spain. The other me. Except I was here, too.
Being this younger me was totally weird. The Jackson in Spain wasn’t even legal yet. He couldn’t vote, didn’t know for sure where he was going to college. This was a completely different experience. And so far, not a pleasant one.
But the hardest concept to grasp was the fact that I might be staying here awhile.
When we got to the apartment, Miss “bitchy secretary” jumped right out of the car after me and I spun around to face her. This was already weird enough without the strange chick following me. “I don’t need you to come in. I’ll wait for my dad to get home. I appreciate your help.”
“Aren’t you adorable?” She shoved past me. “Sorry, I’m following orders. Besides, your father’s been detained for several hours.”
Orders? Like CIA agents telling you what to do? Or just a bossy CEO? And detained? It was eleven o’clock at night. What pharmaceutical company situation couldn’t wait a few minutes for a phone call, at least?
I caught Henry, the doorman, staring at me as he walked closer to open the door.
“Mr. Meyer, we weren’t expecting you today. Is everything all right?” Henry looked me over carefully, then glanced at Miss Stewart.
I forced a smile. “Yeah, I’m home early. From Spain…”
He opened the door for me. “Good to see you again.”
Miss Stewart grabbed my arm and yanked me inside the building. “Let’s go, junior. Don’t you have a bedtime? Or a curfew?”
I jerked my arm out of her grip and walked quickly ahead, hoping I could get in the elevator before her. Maybe close it in her face. But, of course, the elevator attendant heard her boots coming a mile away and turned to me before saying, “Should we wait for the lady?”
“Yeah,” I mumbled.
I have to admit, seeing the inside of my home, the familiar furniture, it brought a small amount of comfort. I collapsed onto the couch wishing I were in better condition to argue. Miss Stewart seated herself in the big armchair and lifted her long legs up to the footrest. “So, how’d you do it?”
“What? Get arrested?” I asked.
She shrugged. “Sure, let’s start with that and move on to the bigger question.”
I racked my brain for excuses. What I needed was a role, and the best one was usually arrogant, inconsiderate, spoiled rich kid. I lifted my feet onto the coffee table and kicked off a tennis shoe before tossing it across the room, toward the mat in front of the door. “Well … I have a friend who does a little side business and he made me some fake IDs, credit cards, that kinda shit, as a joke. All the years were messed up on purpose, and he must have switched them into my wallet.”
“Are you on drugs?” she asked me.
I wasn’t sure how to answer this without ending up in rehab or throwing out a good excuse by denying it. “Maybe … maybe not.”
“The police seem to think you are. Said you lied about being a diabetic to get out of trouble.”
“I’m not going to tell you anything I didn’t tell them.”
She leaned forward, dropping her feet back to the floor, and stared straight at me. “How the fuck did you leave a foreign country with no luggage, no passport, no money, and virtually no identification?”
I sucked in a breath and held it for several seconds. Maybe the other me isn’t there. In Spain. Keep it together, I reminded myself. Don’t let her see you sweat. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Her face tightened. “Yes, you do. The manager of your apartment in Spain said you disappeared early yesterday morning, without taking a single possession. He thought you were dead. So did your father. He’s been worried sick. Until you called from the police station.”
I rarely went anywhere in Europe without telling someone, getting permission. I was known in 2009 for pulling some stories out of my ass to cover up time-travel experiments, to lie to Holly, but this would have to be the ultimate story. The passport thing would be really difficult to get around. “My buddy in Spain, the one that makes fake IDs—”
“Is he American?” she interrupted.
I shook my head. “No … uh … British.”
Her forehead wrinkled. “I wasn’t aware of any UK foreign exchange students within a twenty-mile radius of your location.”
Okay, that’s a little weird.
“He’s not a student … just some dude I met. Actually, I think he got kicked out of his own country. His visa’s probably not even legal.”
She relaxed back in her chair again. “Sounds like you keep good company.”
“I try to. Anyway, I offered to test out one of his products. A fake EU pass. So I could go through the EU line at the airport. It’s a lot faster than the other line.” I stared at her stone-cold face and stalled a little before adding on to my story. “An EU passport. That’s just a passport for people in Europe.”
“I know what an EU pass is,” she snapped. “If you weren’t an American citizen, what were you?”
“French,” I said.
She laughed a humorless laugh. “Nobody would have believed you.”
I smirked at her and recited the French declaration of rights with the best accent I could muster. This was something else I had to learn in high school that I actually put to use.
Her eyes narrowed at me. “Not bad. Go on.”
“So, me and my friend, I’ll call him Sam, made it to London with his fake passport. Then we got really wasted in this pub and I told him I could get on a flight home without a U.S. passport. As Pierre, the French exchange student. He bet me ten thousand dollars. I wasn’t sure I could pull off this big of a scam, but luckily I had just met these chicks who worked for Delta. I talked them into giving me a free ticket to New York.”
“And it worked?” she asked. “You actually came here as a French citizen?”
“Obviously,” I said, holding out my arms.
“Where is this French passport?” she asked.
“I burned it after going through customs.”
“So, you’re trying to tell me that a straight-A student, with 1970 on his SATs, educated enough to be fluent in two foreign languages, no previous criminal record, not even so much as a traffic ticket, decides to get drunk and not only break a few federal laws, but foreign ones as well. In some countries, you could be hung for something like that.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
She leaned forward again. “Wanna bet? I’ll send you a list of every single country that would have your head, literally, for such an infraction. I’ll even include the exact clauses that spell out your imminent death.”
“Pretty smart for a secretary.” I waited for a second to get some kind of reaction from that, but she didn’t even flinch. “Believe what you want, I don’t really give a shit. I was there and now I’m here. Just like magic.”
She groaned and stood up before pacing the room in long strides. “Cocky-ass seventeen-year-olds,” she muttered.
“Aren’t clerical workers supposed to be polite? Good customer service and all that shit.” I grinned at her and it didn’t go over well.
She glared so hard it was like laser beams shooting at me. “You should consider showering before your father gets back. You stink worse than the bums outside this building.”
I had no doubt she was right. I’d been rained on several times and was wearing the same clothes for the equivalent of three days. With no shower.
I got up and walked to my room without looking at her again. As soon as I shut the door, I leaned against it, letting my heart and my brain catch up to the rest of me. I had a feeling I’d be doing this a lot if I stuck around 2007, and I didn’t seem to have a choice.
&nbs
p; And based on the facts from the conversation I’d just had, it seemed like my younger self completely vanished around the time that I landed in 2007. None of it made sense. None of it went along with the data Adam and I had gathered. Knowing the other me was gone made me feel like I was sinking deeper into this year, this home base, like quicksand.
My room looked nearly the same as it did in 2009, but all my jeans were two inches short. The only clothes that fit were a pair of gym shorts and a T-shirt.
After showering, I went back to the living room. Miss Stewart was on the phone, but she stopped talking as soon as she saw me.
“Your father would like to speak to you.” She stuck the phone in my hand.
I tried to look the part of rebellious teenager who didn’t care what his parents thought, but my legs were already shaking. “Yeah, Dad.”
“What the hell were you thinking, Jackson!”
I pulled the phone away from my ear a little and turned my back on Miss Stewart. “Um … well—”
“Do you have any idea how many laws you’ve broken?! Or the hoops I had to jump through to get your ass out of this mess?”
He didn’t wait for me to answer, but instead rambled on for at least five minutes and then fell silent, waiting for my great excuse.
“I’m sorry, I just…”
I just want to know if you’re in the freakin’ CIA. And if you’re going to lock me up in a cage.
“You know what, Jackson? I can’t discuss this now,” Dad said, and I could hear him letting out an angry breath. “I’m replacing your lost documents as we speak. Miss Stewart should be able to get you on a flight back to Madrid by tomorrow afternoon. Assuming you can behave yourself.”
Not really the response I was looking for. “Um … actually, I don’t want to go back to Spain.”
“And why not?”
I glanced over at Miss Stewart, who now was sitting down again and filing her nails. “Personal reasons that I’d rather not discuss in front of the company you forced on me.”
“Oh … kay,” he said slowly. “I’ll call Loyola in the morning.”
I was resigned to sticking around 2007 until I could figure out a way back to 2009, but I wasn’t about to go to high school again.