Hope flashed across Marc’s face. “So you’re saying there can be two of you?”
“It was just a theory. She wasn’t me. She was Doris.”
“A theory that almost got you killed.”
“Yeah.”
Marc went quiet. Then he asked the question I’d been expecting: “Okay, what changed your mind? In that basement.”
“The entry wound on Jane’s skull was close to her right temple. Tribe was about to shoot me in the left side of my head.”
He was thoughtful. “So … the future actually saved you.”
“Or I saved it. What about your gun? What will you tell them?”
“That it was stolen from the cabin while I was out fishing. I’ll make the report to the state police and give a copy to my boss. He’ll give me hell, and they’ll issue me a new weapon.”
I was quiet.
“What are you thinking?” Marc asked.
“We need to plan. We have less than a year.”
“I wish you’d stop reminding me of that.”
“We both need to be strong, but you need to be stronger. For a long time.”
“I know.” His voice sounded steady, but I knew it was a struggle.
“Have you started copying files?”
“I’ve filled a Bankers Box. It’s in my apartment.”
“Has anyone noticed?”
“Not yet. I’ll take my time. You said I’ve got a year.”
“You told me you resigned in April of ’79, but because of accumulated leave time, you actually left the job sometime in March. You didn’t tell me the date.”
“I’m still trying to get used to the way you talk. You say I told you something that I haven’t told you yet, and I’m supposed to nod wisely and file that away so I can remember to tell you thirty years from now.”
“All I know is that it did happen, so it will happen.”
“I think you should write it down. All of it. Not just for me. For Rebecca. How will I ever explain it to her? She’ll think I’m deluded!”
He was right, but he didn’t know I was one step ahead of him.
“I already have.”
“What?”
“The manuscript’s in your desk.”
He looked shaken.
“I’ll keep writing,” I added. “You’re going to need it.”
He let out a breath. “Because I’m going to need a script.”
I kissed him. “Yes, my love. You’re going to need a script.”
“Make sure it’s all there. From the beginning.”
“Which beginning?”
“The courtroom one, when I dropped into your life.”
“Instead of the hospital one, when I crash-landed in yours?”
He managed a desolate smile.
“Rebecca will need time. Time to take it all in. Time to adjust to the impossible. You’ll need to prepare her long before you come to sit in the back of my courtroom.”
“Why?”
“Because she’ll be driving you around in a white SUV.”
“A what?”
“A ‘sport-utility vehicle’—like a Bronco, or a Blazer. Pretty soon there’ll be one in every driveway.” I hesitated, distracted. Something was lurking on the ragged edges of my memory.
Realization slammed home.
“Oh God!”
“What?”
“One day Rebecca will stop me outside the courthouse and ask for directions. I didn’t know her!” I felt my throat constrict. “Marc! I didn’t know my own daughter!”
He took me in his arms.
“She was beautiful! She was beautiful and she didn’t even know it.”
“That’s the best kind. She’ll be just like her mother.” He held me tight for long seconds.
But when he released me, I could see something was bothering him.“What is it?”
“Where will Rebecca be while I—” His voice caught. “—while I watch you grow up?”
“You’ll just be visiting. Maybe she’ll be with a nanny. Or your wife.”
“I have a wife. And I’ll soon have the papers to prove it.”
“Thirty years is a long time.”
“There won’t be another wife.” His voice was adamant.
“Okay,” I said. “Then, what about money?”
“I’ve been meaning to ask you about that.”
“Let’s analyze it. You quit the police and moved away so you could raise Rebecca somewhere where no one knows you. If you stayed here, people might start asking questions. But raising a child will cost money. According to Lipinski, you quit before your pension locked in. You never mentioned where you went or what you did for a living. All I know is that when you showed up in my life, money wasn’t a problem.”
“Then I must have found another job.”
I thought for a moment. “The answer is staring us in the face.”
“What do you mean?”
“Where am I from?”
His eyes narrowed. “The future. Two thousand and—”
“—eleven! Right! Do you own any stocks?”
“No.”
“There are certain names you should know. I’ll write them down for you.”
“What kind of names?”
“Names like Steve Jobs … Bill Gates … Warren Buffet. Geniuses who made themselves and a lot of other people very rich. I’ll start racking my memory, and you start learning about investing.”
55
I gave birth to Rebecca Claire Hastings on November 28, 1978.
Which meant she was almost a year older than me.
Marc and I had obtained a backdated certificate of marriage, and I had a wallet full of ID. Everyone in The Yearling knew, or thought they knew, that I had been Marc’s “top secret wife”—as Nonie put it—since October 1977.
Before my pregnancy began to show, I arranged for one of my workmates at The Yearling to take a Polaroid photograph of Marc and me sitting at the bar. That night, I dutifully cut the photo in half and explained to him what use he would make of my side of the picture in the future.
Around the same time, I persuaded Marc to take some time off and drive us to Mexico Beach. With its red board-and-batten siding, pine furniture, and cedar paneling, the Driftwood looked a lot different from its successor hostelry of later decades, but we spent an idyllic time reading, walking the beach, and making love—just as we had on our first visit.
At least … on my first visit.
By the time Rebecca was born, strikes and demonstrations were paralyzing Iran. The revolution had begun—and Marc and I were the only two people in the world who knew exactly what would happen at the U.S. Embassy in Tehran on my birthday eleven months later. It was painful knowledge that I regretted sharing with him, because in the end, as we both knew, he could do nothing. I told him only because he remembered what I’d said in the police car on our first day, and he had questioned me about it.
By then, we had already agreed that he and Rebecca would leave the country after I was gone, and Marc had quietly bought a house in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley, not far from Vancouver.
And by then, I had persuaded him to take me to see Gertie Hopkins.
* * *
I was heavily pregnant when we made the trip back to Palatka in late September. I had forced myself to wait until then because I wanted my condition to be glaringly noticeable. I was tying up a loose end, but I was also being prudent.
I wanted to deter retaliation.
We parked near the side entrance to Putnam Community Hospital. It seemed like a lifetime ago that Marc had driven me out of this parking lot.
I asked him to wait in the car.
“Why?”
“I don’t want any witnesses. Especially police witnesses.”
“Are you planning to commit a crime?”
“Yes.”
He blinked.
I kissed him. “Don’t worry. It’ll never go to trial.”
“Will I need to bail you out?”
&nbs
p; “I’m not sure. If a sheriff’s car arrives before I return, come looking.”
I got out and walked into the hospital.
I had called ahead, without giving a name, so I knew Gertie was on shift. It wasn’t hard to find her. She was rushing out of a patient’s room on the medical ward and almost ran me over.
“Oh! I’m so sorry!” She stopped and stared at my face. “Butterfly tattoo!”
“That’s not my name, Gertie.”
“Right, right, right! Claire … Claire Talbot! How are you doing?” She gaped. “Look at you! When are you due?”
“In two months.”
“Wow! What a comeback!”
“Yeah … I was pretty messed up back then. Do you have a minute? I need to talk to you. In private.”
“Well, I’m due for my break soon, but first I’ve got to take care of something for a patient.”
“I can wait.”
She pointed. “There’s a playroom down the end, on the right. There are no kids on the ward right now. There’s a couch.”
“I’ll see you there.”
I waited in the playroom. I was standing in front of the couch when Gertie showed up five minutes later.
“Gosh, Claire! You’re allowed to sit down!”
I checked for witnesses. There was no one in sight.
I slapped Gertie across the face as hard as I could. She stumbled back and landed on the couch. She stared up at me in utter shock.
“I thought I’d wait for you to sit first,” I said as I settled beside her. “I hope that didn’t leave a mark.”
“What was that for?” Her voice was a high-pitched squeak, and her eyes were big with tears.
I took her by the hand. She yanked it away and tried to get up. I held her by the arm. “I slapped you so you would always remember this conversation.”
“What conversation? I’m not having one with you! You’re crazy! I’m calling the police!”
“He’s waiting outside.”
“Who?”
“The detective who came for me that day.”
“You came to assault me, and you brought a policeman with you?”
“He’s my husband.”
“What? What is this?”
“Gertie, please listen to me, and never forget what I’m about to tell you. Your life depends on it.”
She gingerly felt her cheek, which was still red where I’d hit her. Her face hardened. “My life? What are you talking about?”
“How old are you?”
“I’ll be thirty next month. What’s that got to do with—?”
I held up my hand. She shut up. “Two things: First of all, you will live to the age of sixty-two. Second, you will not live past the age of sixty-two unless you do exactly as I say!”
“I don’t believe in horoscopes!”
I ignored her and kept going. “A few months after your sixty-second birthday, you will get on a train. And on that train you will see me. When you do, you will remember the day I came here and slapped your face. And then you will remember what I told you.”
“You haven’t told me anything! You’re talking in riddles!” She tried to get up again.
I sank my fingers into her arm.
She winced. “You’re hurting me!”
“I’m hurting you so you will remember I told you to get off that train!”
“Get off the train? Why?”
“Because if you don’t, you will die.”
I released her arm. I stood up. “I’m sorry I hit you. Just remember what I said. I’ll see you in thirty years.”
I could feel her eyes boring into my back as I left the room.
I had paid my dues.
56
Soon I will be gone.
Becky sleeps in the crook of my arm while I attempt these final lines. In a few days, I will lose my little angel forever.
It is more than I can bear.
Across the room, Marc tosses and moans. The remorseless torment that has dogged our paths all these months never grants him a moment’s rest. He knows what is coming. He tries to prepare himself, but I know his soul is filled with dread.
I have managed to keep my sanity. Marc never stops reminding me of this apparent miracle. But for me it has only been a year, and there were times, as he and I both know, when I barely held on.
As the final days have slouched toward us, Marc has tried to keep the talk hopeful. But hope is not the same thing as optimism, and just as I am dying, so is he. And, just as Old Marc did during my final weeks in the future, Young Marc has become quieter.
And quieter …
It is a cruel thing to know the date of my death. But it is a crueler thing still for the man who loves me beyond all reasoning, and who would gladly barter away his life for mine, to know that date as well.
He holds me. He prays. He weeps until he’s exhausted.
But I can offer no solace.
* * *
My dear husband—
The thought of what you now face torments me. My life has been short, but my fate more merciful, and that is the cruelest twist of all.
Watch over me and love me until our day returns, and I can love you again.
This is my testament.
And your guide.
REBECCA
57
August 10, 2008
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
The detectives were on their way to interview a witness, but a dropped 911 call from a screaming child trumps last week’s jewelry heist every time.
“Delta Five, you’re the closest unit!”
Mattis responded. “Delta Five. Repeat that address!” His partner wrote it down. When his hand reached for the console, she grabbed his sleeve.
“Silent approach, John!”
He gave a quick nod. His partner had a sixth sense, and she was usually right. He braked and took the cutoff onto Grange Street. They cleared traffic with their lights and the occasional quick burp on the yelper. The Crown Vic burned down Grange and took the corner at Barker in a four-wheel slide. Mattis was ex–Unit B Traffic and it showed. He handled the big car like it was part of his body.
His partner already had the map up on her screen. She pointed. “It’s the gray one!”
They were angled to the curb and out of the car in seconds.
The house was a run-down leftover from the 1940s, with asphalt siding and a daylight basement. “Check the back!” Mattis whispered as he double-timed for the steps leading up to the front door.
She wove past a pair of garbage cans, ducked under the boughs of a mature cedar, and stepped onto a strip of weed-choked lawn. Halfway along the side of the house, she came to a door with an overhanging porch light. The door was ajar a few inches.
She saw the back of someone’s head on the floor inside the door.
She heard Mattis knock on the upstairs door and call, “Police!”
She drew her weapon.
Cautiously, she pushed on the door. The gap widened, revealing a ground-floor apartment.
The head belonged to a woman. But there was no body attached.
She took a horrified step back. After a few seconds of frozen shock, her training kicked in. “John!” she yelled. “Down here!”
Then she heard it.
A cry.
It was a child’s voice.
She pushed the door open and stepped into a scene from hell.
The woman’s body lay in a spreading lake of blood a few feet from her head. Next to it was an overturned coffee table, and beyond that, on a ratty couch, lay the body of a young girl. She was maybe ten or eleven years old. She was sprawled like a rag doll, and her throat was a gaping, bloody mess.
The cry came again. It rose to a wail and then ended, cut off abruptly.
She ran, clearing every doorway, every room, as she went. She reached the final bedroom. The door was shut. She kicked it open and came in low.
A wild-eyed, unshaven man was squatting in a corner with the child’s small body po
sitioned directly in front of him. He held a bloody hand across the girl’s mouth and a vicious, blood-streaked blade pressed to her throat.
“Let her go!”
“She’s coming with me!” he hissed. “We’re a family!”
She looked into the little girl’s eyes and saw terror in its purest form.
“Release her! NOW!”
“No!”
She saw his elbow rise.
She saw the blade change angle.
RCMP Sergeant Rebecca Hastings shot Wayde Patrick Elgin, estranged husband of Jacqueline Anne Elgin and father of two, in the precise center in his labium superius oris, one millimeter below his nose. The 147-grain hollow-point slug tore through his head, destroyed his brain stem, and blasted gore and bone fragments across the wallpaper behind him.
The knife dropped from boneless fingers, and the girl ran shrieking into Rebecca’s arms.
When Mattis found her, she was still cradling a horrified six-year-old. He took in the scene at a glance. He put a gentle hand on Rebecca’s shoulder. “At least you saved one.”
Tears coursed down Rebecca’s face as she caressed the shuddering child.
“I’m not sure I did,” she replied.
* * *
Three months later, Rebecca was sitting in a witness box at the provincial courthouse in Vancouver. All seven members of a coroner’s jury were leaning forward in their seats, rapt with horror, as she described those final moments in that basement suite. Two jurors and a number of members of the packed public gallery were in tears.
The coroner held up a hand, interrupting her testimony. “Excuse me … a moment, please.” The coroner faced the jury. She spoke in a gentle tone. “Mr. Foreman, does the jury need a break?”
The man swiveled in his seat, scanning faces. Almost in unison, the panel members shook their heads. One of the more visibly distraught jurors replied in a loud whisper: “No! Please just let her finish.”
The foreman rose to his feet. “Madam Coroner, the jury would like to continue.”
“All right. Thank you.” She turned to Rebecca. “Please continue, Sergeant.”
Rebecca resumed her testimony. A few minutes later, the public entrance opened and a tall man stepped into the courtroom. At first she didn’t notice him. But as a row of spectators shifted to make room for the latecomer, the rustling sound drew her attention.
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