Timescape

by Robert Liparulo

CHAPTER

  forty - three

  THURSDAY, 3:07 P.M

  David closed his locker and saw Xander heading for him, weaving around kids. He pushed his backpack strap over his shoulder. “Xander, what’s—?”

  Xander grabbed his arm. He turned around and pulled David back the way he’d come. “Follow me.” He released his grip.

  “What’s up?” David said.

  Xander said nothing, just walked.

  “Xander,” David said. “What’s going on?”

  “He’s here.”

  “Who?”

  Xander stopped, turned, and whispered, “Taksidian.”

  David’s throat tightened. “Where?” He looked up and down the hall, out the window that ran the length of the hall, opposite the lockers and classrooms. Cars were circling through the pickup lanes. People moving everywhere.

  “Come on,” Xander said. “He’s been here awhile. I saw him before my last class.”

  They reached the end of the hall. Turning left would take them into another short corridor. It was the home of locker 119—the one that teleported people to the Kings’ linen closet. Straight ahead were the double doors that opened into the cafeteria.

  Xander grabbed David’s arm again and led him to the corner, where the windows met the cafeteria wall.

  “Okay,” Xander said. “Look.” He pointed, keeping his hand close to his chest.

  “Where?”

  The school was L-shaped. The administrative offices occupied the end of the shorter wing. Looking diagonally across the courtyard, David could see Dad’s office windows. A driveway ran past the end of that wing to another parking lot behind the admin offices. Across the drive from the offices was another, smaller building. David thought the school used it for storage. It was also where the auto shop classes were held. It had a big roll-up door.

  “Garage door,” Xander said.

  There he was, leaning against the door frame. The spot he’d chosen was shadowed from the sun. He was wearing that black slicker David remembered from all the other times he’d seen the man.

  “Who stands outside a school like that?” David said. “Why aren’t people chasing him away?”

  “He’s a friend of the town, remember?”

  “You think he’s waiting for us?” David said.

  “He’s not here for a PTA meeting.”

  “But why? He knows where we live.”

  “Maybe he’s hoping to catch one of us alone,” Xander said. “Or he’s just spooking us.”

  “Okay, so we go home with Dad,” David said. “If that’s how he wants to spend his time, so what? He won’t find us alone, and we already know he’s a creepy bad guy.”

  “No, listen,” Xander whispered. “Here’s our chance.”

  “For what?”

  “To find out something about him, to turn the tables.”

  “How?”

  “We follow him,” Xander said.

  “To where?” David said. “He’s probably going to follow Dad back home.”

  “What if he doesn’t? What if he goes to his house? Then we’ll know where he lives. What if he meets with someone?

  We’ll get an idea of what he’s up to.”

  “Yeah, and he could go grocery shopping, grab some fast food, get his car serviced—a hundred nothing things at a hundred nothing places.”

  “Cops follow people, Dae,” Xander said. “Sometimes it pays off, sometimes it doesn’t. You take your chances.”

  David let out a long breath. “So we’re going to follow him to his car and then watch him drive off ? We don’t have wheels, Xander. Are we going to run?”

  Xander jangled a set of keys in front of his face.

  “What’re those?” David said.

  “Car keys.”

  “Whose?” David said. “How’d you get them?”

  “A friend, okay. You ask too many questions.”

  “What friend? You don’t have any friends here yet.”

  Xander rolled his eyes. “Dan. He’s a school friend who wanted fifty bucks and a full tank of gas.”

  “And you’re going to drive? Without a license? Again?”

  “I thought we’d been over all this when I went to see Dad in jail and to the store for cameras,” Xander said. “What’s worse, a ticket . . . or him?”

  David scanned the hallways. They’d cleared out fast. “What about Dad?” he said. “He’ll want to take us right home.”

  “I’ll go talk to him.”

  “And say what?”

  “I’ll think of something,” Xander said. “You up for it?”

  “I guess,” David said. In for a penny, in for a pound.

  “All right,” Xander said. “Go out the back door, where the track is. Meet me in the student parking lot. It’s on the side, over this way.” He hitched his thumb at the cafeteria. “And don’t let him see you.”

  CHAPTER

  forty - four

  THURSDAY, 3:33 P.M.

  There were more than a dozen cars in the lot, most of them bangers. David guessed all but one of them belonged to the athletes who were practicing their various sports on the track and football field. The lot was situated down a short hill from the school. He couldn’t see the front courtyard or pickup lanes, let alone the building by which Taksidian had been standing.

  And that means he can’t see me, David thought. Unless Taksidian moved. But David believed he knew why the creep had positioned himself where he had: it was the only place where you could see both the front entrance and the faculty parking lot behind the offices. He wanted to spot the Kings regardless of how they left the school.

  Back door didn’t cross your mind, did it?

  A chill tingled the back of his neck. He rubbed it and looked around, certain he would see Taksidian or one of his goons. He’d be grinning and wiggling his fingers at David: Hello . . . and gotcha! But he saw no one, only some athletes in the distance.

  And Xander. He was coming down the concrete steps from the rear of the school to the parking lot. He jogged toward David, sweeping his gaze over the cars as he did. He pointed at one. “It’s this one.”

  Xander was unlocking the driver’s door of a VW Beetle—not one of the cool new ones; this one was ancient, missing most of its chrome trim, and appeared to have barely survived a stint on the demolition derby circuit: Herbie the Love Bug gone very, very bad. The parts that weren’t rusted were painted either washed-out baby blue or primer gray.

  David said, “You paid fifty bucks to borrow this? You could have bought it for that.”

  “I didn’t pay to borrow the car,” Xander said. “I paid to find out more about Taksidian.”

  Behind Xander, a man was skipping down the concrete steps from the school—fast. David jumped, realized it was Dad, and jumped again. “It’s Dad!” he said.

  “Yeah,” Xander said. “He’s tagging along.”

  “What? I thought—”

  Xander shrugged. “By the time I got to his office, I had a long story all worked out. Then I saw him . . . something about how tired he looked, worn-out. He’s aged five years in a week. I decided I couldn’t lie to him.”

  David narrowed his eyes.

  “Not then, anyway,” Xander said. He flashed a big grin. “I told him the plan, and he said, ‘When do we go?’ ”

  “What about Toria?” David said.

  “Keal’s picking her up. Dad called her school, made sure it was cool.”

  Speaking of cool, David thought, watching Dad trot over to them.

  Dad smiled at David. To Xander, he said, “Is he still there?”

  “I think so,” Xander said.

  Dad held out his hand. “Keys?”

  Xander looked injured. He said, “I got my permit. It’s legal, with you in the car.”

  “You’re right.” Dad held up a finger. “But can you drive a strange car safely and tail somebody without being seen? All at the same time?”

  Doubt crinkled Xander’s brow, but he said, “Sure. We’ll swit
ch if I have trouble.”

  “Okay,” Dad said.

  Xander dropped into the driver’s seat. As Dad came around the rear of the car, he gave David a what-have-I-done? face.

  David opened the passenger door. A smell like gym socks and old French fries wafted out at him. He reeled back, waving his hand under his nose. “What is that?”

  “Ah,” Dad said, leaning in. “The smell of teenager’s car.” He pulled the seat-back forward and stepped aside for David.

  “There’s no room for me,” David said. He was staring at a backseat loaded down with empty soda cans, potato chip bags, homework papers, crumpled fast-food bags, a crusty T-shirt, and at least six loose rolls of toilet paper.

  Disgusted, David pushed the trash away. By the time he could make out the disintegrating yellow foam of the seat cushion—no covering—the pile on the far side of the seat was bigger than he was. He stepped in and sat down slowly, careful not to cause an avalanche.

  Dad pushed David’s backpack into the front footwell. He said, “I’m going to have a look.” He closed the door and ran to a grassy incline by the lot’s entrance. He lay down and climbed the hill on elbows and knees.

  “Like a pro,” David said. “What if we found out Dad’s really an international spy, like in Spy Kids?”

  Xander looked over his shoulder at him. “Really?”

  Dad raised his head and looked around, reminding David of a meerkat show on Animal Planet. It was clear he hadn’t spotted Taksidian.

  “Oh, no,” Xander said. “He must’ve left.”

  Dad’s head swiveled slowly, then he jerked it down.

  “Found him,” David interpreted.

  After holding his position for a while, Dad gestured for Xander to pull forward.

  David said, “If this thing smokes”—and how could it not?—“we may as well go tell Taksidian we’re tailing him.”

  Xander cranked the key. The Bug purred to life, a fast, deep-throated rumble.

  David nodded appreciatively.

  “Yeah,” Xander said. “Dan knows what’s important.” He put it in gear and pulled up to the sloping drive.

  Dad crouched low and hurried over. He plopped in, pulled the door shut. He said, “He’s walking down the street.”

  “Great,” David said. “He’s the one on foot, and we’re driving. That won’t be obvious.”

  “This town is pretty spread out,” Dad said. “He needs a car. Let’s follow and see.”

  Xander said, “Fasten your seat belts. It’s going to be a bumpy night.”

  “Bette Davis,” Dad said. “All About Eve.”

  Xander smiled at him. “There’s hope for you yet.”

  “Please,” David said, coughing, “could you roll down the windows?”

  CHAPTER

  forty - five

  THURSDAY, 3:54 P.M.

  Dad was out of the car again. He stood on the shoulder of the street that led away from the school. After sloping down a long hill, it banked left, where it became a frontage road beside Pinedale’s Main Street. David and Xander waited in the car at the top of the hill.

  Dad signaled to them: Come. Hurry.

  Xander popped the clutch. The tires chirped, the Bug sprang forward, and David jerked back. The top foot of trash next to him tumbled into his lap. He slapped it away.

  Dad climbed in. “There,” he said. “That Mercedes.”

  A black sedan drove away from them on the frontage road. It signaled to make a turn, which would bring it to Main Street.

  “It was at the fire station,” Dad said.

  “Why?” David said. “Why didn’t he park at the school?”

  “I can’t figure that guy out,” Dad said. “And maybe that’s part of it. It serves him well to be creepy and mysterious. All the easier to scare people into doing what he wants. Maybe he thinks appearing at his destination on foot adds something to his aura of mystery.”

  “Or he doesn’t want people messing with his car,” Xander said. “You know, disabling it, so he can’t follow them.”

  “I know,” David said. “If he commits a crime, his car won’t be reported as having been in the area.”

  Dad nodded. “The only flaw in that sentence is the word if.”

  Xander put to good use all the knowledge of tailing a suspect he’d learned from countless cop shows and movies. He kept his distance without losing sight of the Mercedes. He allowed other cars to pull in between them. He drove past the stores Taksidian pulled into, then circled back to wait among other parked cars.

  Taksidian seemed to be going about the business of an average guy doing average things. He stopped at the market and came out with a bag and a gallon of milk. He swung into the same drive-in diner where the Kings had ordered ice cream after the first day of school.

  “I’m starving,” David said, watching the servers carry trays of food out to the cars.

  Xander said, “We’re not picking up drive-through, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Didn’t you get lunch, Dae?” Dad asked.

  “I did, but I didn’t eat it.”

  Dad frowned back at him. “When we’re done with this, we’ll get something special.”

  While they watched Taksidian at the gas station, David started feeling uneasy. Something wasn’t right. There was something familiar about all of this, a déjà vu feeling, but his mind wouldn’t lock in on what it was.

  Taksidian talked to the mechanic, who lifted the Mercedes’ hood. A minute later, he slammed it down and rubbed his hands on a rag hanging from his belt. He nodded, shook Taksidian’s hand, and vanished into the garage. Taksidian pulled out onto Main Street.

  “Okay,” Dad said. “He’s heading out of town.”

  They passed the park rangers’ headquarters on the right, the last true building in town. After that, only a few vegetable stands, souvenir shops, a bed-and-breakfast, and another gas station interrupted the parade of trees.

  Xander said, “At least he’s not heading to our house.” Theirs was on the other side of town.

  “National Forest land, up this way,” Dad said.

  The road became a series of endless curves. They caught glimpses of Taksidian’s sedan only a couple times a minute. Xander would have had to practically hitch the Bug to the Mercedes to see him better.

  “If he pulls off the road, we’ll lose him,” David said.

  Dad said, “We can only do what we can do.”

  David said, “Whoa! I saw it through the trees. Around the next hairpin. I think he stopped.”

  Xander braked hard, and they all leaned into their shoulder belts.

  David checked behind them. No cars.

  “Go slowly,” Dad instructed.

  Xander navigated the Bug around a tight curve.

  “Just ahead,” David said. “It looked like it was pulled over.

  And I saw the brake lights.”

  They puttered along, looking into the fortresslike shield of trees.

  Xander said, “If you’re wrong, Dae, we’ll never catch up.”

  David strained his eyes to penetrate the dark forest.

  “Look there,” Dad said. On the right, two ruts ran from the road into the trees.

  “A service road?” Xander said. He pulled the Bug to the shoulder directly over the ruts. Grass grew on either side and between them. Trees crowded in tight.

  “Hardly wide enough for a car to pass,” Dad said.

  “I’ll bet Taksidian likes it that way,” David observed.

  Xander reversed, shifted gears, and pulled the car’s tires into the ruts. Shadows enfolded them like a black fist as they broke the sanctity of the forest.

  “Like all those movies,” Xander said, “where the unsuspecting campers trudge into the wilderness, never to be seen again.” He glanced back at David, a sly grin on his face.

  David didn’t see anything to smile about.

  CHAPTER

  forty - six

  THURSDAY, 4:43 P.M.

  The Bug shook t
hem like dice in a cup. The ruts led them up hills, down into streambeds, around boulders the size of houses. After about five minutes, Xander nosed around a bend and braked. The ruts ran straight to a clearing. The trees leading to it prevented David from seeing more than one corner of a house. The black sedan squatted out front like a guard dog.

  Dad opened his door. “I’ll find a place to pull out of sight.”

  David put his hand on Dad’s shoulder. He said, “We know where he lives now. Let’s go home.”

  “We don’t know he lives here,” Xander said.

  Dad winked at David. “Let’s snoop a little more, huh, Dae?”

  David nodded. After all, his own home wasn’t exactly a bastion of security.

  Dad moved off, and Xander rolled the car back a few feet.

  “Do you think he lives here?” David said.

  “It’s big-time Taksidianish,” Xander said. “We’ve come this far. May as well be sure.”

  Dad opened the door. “Back ten yards. We can get it completely off the road and cover it up.”

  David, Dad, and Xander lay on pine needles and peat and watched the house. The forest here was even heavier than it was around their house. The sun was a lonely stranger to the forest floor, as evidenced by the damp sponginess, mushrooms, and strange, ground-hugging plants. David felt the earth’s coldness through his shirt and pants.

  They were behind bushes so thick that to see the house, they had to part the leaves with both hands.

  “It looks more ordinary than I expected,” David whispered. And it was: a standard brick ranch, with a bay window to the left of the front door and a cement porch. To the right of the door, between it and a single garage door, was a place where a smaller window once looked out onto the small front yard; it had been covered with bricks that didn’t quite match the rest of the house.

  Dad said, “Probably an old residence for a forest worker or game warden.”

  “Or it was built to only look that way,” Xander said.

  “Why build something so small and ugly if you can afford better?” David said, keeping his eyes on the place.

  “Deception,” Xander said. “The more ordinary and mundane, the easier it is for bad guys to move around unnoticed.”