“Does this Khan know who we are?” Halley asked. “And where to find us?”
“No,” replied Jillian. “Littlewood told me this Khan came straight here from 2001. He knows nothing about us. He can’t possibly have any interest in harming us. Plus, he’s in Florida, more than three thousand miles away.”
“So how the heck did you end up BFFs with Arthur Littlewood? Branson wouldn’t tell us where you were this morning.”
“Right,” said Jillian. She explained about being hauled off to jail straight from Khan’s basement. She explained about Littlewood getting her out in exchange for confessing she’d used the time machine.
“Huh,” said DaVinci. “Didn’t see any of that coming. Especially the part where Jillian Applegate drives off in the back seat of the sheriff’s car. But, wow, Jillian. This changes things.”
“We must speak with Littlewood,” said Edmund.
Jillian nodded. “That’s why I asked him to stay. But, um, I didn’t tell him about Everett. Only about Edmund. And only because I had to, to prove I knew what Littlewood had done bringing Khan with him from 2001. I don’t think we should let Littlewood get the idea we’re in the habit of bringing people back from the past.”
“We wouldn’t want to imply it’s DaVinci’s turn to get a hot boyfriend next or anything,” muttered DaVinci.
Jillian winced slightly.
DaVinci bounded to her side. “Kidding, kidding, kidding,” she said, hugging Jillian. “Mostly,” she added.
“Oh,” said Jillian, “and that reminds me. Littlewood is buying the time machine and taking it with him to Florida.” She glanced at DaVinci.
“Don’t look at me like that,” said DaVinci. “I’m single. I’m fine. Do I look like I’m not fine being single? Come on. Let’s go warn this Dr. Littlewood what he’s up against.”
“Up against?” asked Everett.
“Jules Khan, thief and murderer,” muttered DaVinci.
59
· KHAN ·
LAX, the Present
Jules Khan was not having a good day. His temporary debit card, which he explained to the rental car agent worked fine in an ATM, was being refused.
“We can only accept cards with embedded chips,” said the agent, repeating what two others had already told him.
Khan scowled at her. He needed a car. He had a meeting with Jesús Torres in Montecito in less than four hours.
Khan leaned in over the counter. “Are you sure you can’t take cash?” He exposed the stack of hundred-dollar bills in his wallet.
“I’m sorry, sir. Embedded chip credit cards only. You can try Avis,” suggested the agent behind the counter. “They may have a different policy.”
Khan turned away without thanking the agent. He’d already tried Avis. He’d tried three companies. No one, it seemed, would rent him a car. He considered his options. Something called “Uber,” or another flight. He dashed back up the escalators to ticketing. Half an hour later he was aboard a tiny prop plane, $326.47 poorer. He was going to have to be careful with his limited resources. He could only pull a few hundred a day from ATMs, and singularity devices were rather thin on the ground just now.
As he buckled his seatbelt, he consoled himself that while they might be thin on the ground, he was on his way to one now, wasn’t he? And no one knew he was coming. Well, Torres knew, but not Littlewood. He smiled.
A woman carrying a crying baby sat next to him. Khan glared at her and then turned his attention to the window. He was not having a good day.
60
· LITTLEWOOD ·
Montecito, the Present
Littlewood, seated in Jillian’s library, thought he might be sick after hearing this latest news about Jules Khan from Jillian’s friends.
“Khan didn’t actually murder anyone. He only tried to.” The girl called DaVinci said this as though it made all the difference.
Littlewood blanched as he thought about the retinal scan on his machine back in Florida. Tried not to think about a certain malevolent look he’d observed on Khan’s face.
“He is a dangerous man, however,” said the young man with dark eyes. Edward, maybe? Ed-something.
Littlewood exhaled slowly.
“The important thing,” said Jillian, “is that we secure the time machine. Khan, this Khan, is in Florida—”
Littlewood emitted something between a moan and a sigh.
“What?” demanded DaVinci.
Did he really want to involve this group in his troubles?
“Khan is in Florida, right?” asked the third girl. Halley. Like the astronomer.
“He’s on his way here,” admitted Littlewood. “I think he’s trying to claim his, er, the previous Khan’s estate as his own.”
Four of the young people looked completely stunned. The fifth, the boy with light eyes and the old-fashioned name, was occupied with turning a desk lamp on and off, on and off, and looking under the lampshade.
“We’ve got to talk to Khan’s lawyer,” said Jillian, the first to speak.
“And tell him what, exactly?” asked Littlewood.
No one spoke. Because really, what were they going to say to Torres?
61
· KHAN ·
Santa Barbara, the Present
“Can’t you go any faster?” Khan demanded. It was the fifth time he’d asked his Uber driver that same question. This time the driver ignored him. Khan was not tipping this guy.
The estimate on his phone had said twenty-three minutes to get from the Santa Barbara Airport to the estate in Montecito, and it was critical Khan arrive ahead of his lawyer. He needed to look like he belonged there. He needed as much familiarity with the surroundings as possible, which meant every minute counted.
“Listen,” said Khan. “If you get me there by nine forty-five, I will pay you an extra hundred dollars.”
The driver made eye contact in the rearview mirror. Khan had no idea if the man was interested in the offer. However, they pulled up to the gate of the estate at 9:45 exactly, and Khan peeled off an extra hundred from his dwindling stack.
As soon as the car had driven away, Khan took stock of his surroundings. An eight-foot stucco wall surrounded the property, running parallel to the road. Even the heavy oak gates offered no view to what was inside. He located a spot thirty feet down from the gate where he could scale the wall with the assistance of an overhanging tree limb or two. Hopefully it wouldn’t come to that. He was no longer wearing the sling from a week ago, but his shoulder still felt a little off. Possibly he ought to have followed advice and left the sling on another two weeks. He turned back to the gated entrance, locating a keypad. It wanted a seven-digit code. A smile formed on his face. That was easy. For seven-character passwords, he always used the phone number of his childhood neighbor—the old lady who’d given him huge slices of chocolate cake in exchange for listening to her stories of Johnny, her dead husband. Not that Khan had done much actual listening . . .
The gate swung open. Khan’s smile grew larger. This was too easy. He marched up the long drive covered in palm branches and some sort of smelly leaves that reminded him of UCSB. And some kind of tea one of his foster parents had made him drink when he had a sniffle. He kicked the leaves out of his path. And then he saw it. His house. It was a monstrosity. It went on for days. He ran forward. The getting familiar with “his” house was going to take longer than he’d thought.
The front door was locked. Khan frowned. He looked at the planters to either side of the entrance portico. The plants had all died long ago. His eye caught on something. A turtle, ceramic, nestled among the brown leaves of a dead plant. Of course. He reached for the turtle. This was child’s play. Grabbing the key secured to the turtle’s belly, he opened the front door.
“Home sweet home,” he murmured. There was a kitchen—huge—and a living room, reading room, office, basement, and a master suite with an absolutely embarrassing number of pillows scattered across the king-size bed. He grimaced. Evidently he he
ld within him the germs of seriously bad taste in decorating.
Shaking his head at himself, he returned to the office. The key to the basement (which had been locked) would probably be found in one of the desk drawers. The junk drawer, where Khan always kept spare keys. But when he sat at “his” desk, the drawers refused to open. After tugging at them and examining them for several minutes, he noticed something. A small depression in the center of the pencil drawer. On a hunch, he placed his thumb there. There was a slight snick, and the drawer opened.
“Ha!” He was jubilant. The top-left drawer held a box of Cuban cigars. Disgusting habit. The middle-left drawer held a rubber-band ball, scads of Post-it notes, a ring of spare keys, and . . . a gun.
He picked up the gun as a man might pick up a dead mouse. It was loaded. The safety was set.
“Safety first,” he muttered. He set it back down and grabbed the ring of keys, searching for one marked “Basement.” Finding one marked “Lab,” he smiled. And then, on an impulse, he picked the gun up again. Stood. Tucked it in the back of his trousers. Which was not nearly as effortless (or comfortable) as it looked on TV.
Striding out of the office, he took the stairs down to the basement. He had twenty minutes until Khan’s—his—lawyer was due to arrive, and he was rather curious to examine this time machine, er, singularity device of his.
“Minus ten points for Slytherin,” he muttered, inserting the key into the basement door.
62
· JILLIAN ·
Montecito, the Present
When Branson came into the library to ask Jillian if everyone would be needing lunch, she’d hesitated. She didn’t think she could eat anything at the moment. But they would all think better with something in their bellies. At least she hoped they would. So she’d said yes. She could hear Branson rummaging in the pantry. She wanted nothing more than to run off to the kitchen herself. But she couldn’t. They, along with Dr. Littlewood, had a problem to solve.
“The way I see it,” said DaVinci, “there’s no way we can call up Khan’s lawyer and tell him we have definitive proof the real Khan is dead, and . . .” She paused.
Jillian knew what she’d been about to say: “Buried.”
Halley was already mouthing, DaVinci! Fortunately, Littlewood seemed to be occupied with watching Everett, who was using a remote to raise and lower the shade covering the window at the far end of the library.
“How sure are you he’s dead?” asked Littlewood.
Jillian swallowed. Everyone except for Everett exchanged glances.
“We should tell him,” said Halley at last.
Littlewood sat up a little straighter. “Is this something that could be, ah, dangerous for me to know?”
DaVinci made a tiny snorting noise. “It could be dangerous not to know. If you have power outages in Florida, at least.”
“He must hear the truth,” Edmund said.
Jillian felt Everett take her hand again; she’d been fidgeting.
“Okay,” said Jillian.
DaVinci added a quiet, “Yeah.”
Halley told Littlewood how Khan had died following a power outage that left him traveling through four hundred years without the focus the machine provided.
“Good heavens,” murmured Littlewood. “What a terrible way to die.”
“Asphyxiation,” said Edmund. “He had planned to murder Halley and myself in the same manner.”
“Okay,” said Littlewood, as if he’d reached an important decision. “Okay. So here’s what we have to do. We’ve got to find a way to compel Khan to go back to 2001. I know I should have made him go back months ago. This is my fault. In fact, I think I should probably do this on my own . . .”
“Um, Dr. Littlewood?” said Jillian.
He shifted his gaze, meeting hers.
“It’s just . . . Khan’s first law of temporal inertia,” Jillian said.
Littlewood looked at her blankly and then repeated what she’d said. “Khan’s first law of temporal inertia?”
“Objects stay where they belong,” said Halley. “Also, return where they belong.”
“Or in this case, cannot be returned where they don’t belong,” said Jillian. “I can show you the paper written by, um, our Khan on the subject.”
“You’re saying Khan—my Khan, the one who has been in Florida—can’t go back to 2001?” asked Littlewood.
“When I traveled forward through time,” said Edmund, “it was because I was caught within the pocket or rift in space–time that called Halley back to her own time. But I also remained behind, in my original time, where I belonged. And for me, for this me, it is impossible to make a permanent return to that original time.”
Everett’s grip on Jillian’s hand tightened. She’d briefly mentioned he was “stuck” in her time, but what was he feeling now, hearing it again in so stark a manner? He remained silent, however, his eyes fixed on the far window.
Dr. Littlewood did not remain silent. “Good God,” he whispered. “What have I done?”
63
· JESÚS TORRES, JD ·
Montecito, the Present
Torres was unnerved, and it took a lot to unnerve a kid who’d survived a childhood in a part of Mexico City people spoke of in hushed tones. His madre had gotten them all out of there by his eleventh birthday, but he still hated fireworks and engines that backfired because they reminded him of the sound of gunfire he’d awoken to so many times as a kid.
He wasn’t sure what had him unnerved. If his client was really alive, well, this was great news, wasn’t it? And the voice on the phone had certainly sounded like Khan’s voice. But it was a little too strange, Khan turning up within days of his death certificate being issued. But then, very strange things happened when millions of dollars were at stake.
Reluctantly, Torres had decided to listen to his nerves. Reluctantly, he had strapped on his holster. He didn’t like to make use of his Concealed Carry Permit, but something told him today was not a good day to walk unarmed.
He pulled up to the now-familiar gate on Olivewood Way and punched in the seven-digit code. The gate swung open. There was no car visible beside the house, but then if Khan had really returned, he would have parked in the garage.
Torres turned off his car in front of the main house and glanced over his shoulder to the garage. When he turned back, he saw a man emerging from the house.
Khan. Jules Khan.
The man on the phone hadn’t been lying. This was unbelievable. After fifteen months of silence, his client was alive and well and back in Santa Barbara. Torres stepped out of his car, hand extended for Khan’s familiar, brief handshake.
64
· JILLIAN ·
Montecito, the Present
Jillian had selected several article-length pieces from Khan’s laptop for Littlewood’s perusal that, along with the lunch tray Branson had brought in, would keep him busy for an hour or more. And Jillian really, really wanted a moment alone with Everett.
She managed to communicate this to Halley, who suggested DaVinci probably wanted a change of clothes after having driven up from LA so early this morning without changing out of her sweats. It took DaVinci a minute to catch on, but then she agreed that yes, she did want to get out of her sweats and into something . . . just as comfortable but cleaner.
Halley hugged Jillian, whispering, “Half an hour to yourselves. After that, we stick together till we get this mess figured out.”
“Mm-hmm,” agreed Jillian.
And then she was alone with Everett. Alone with those piercing blue eyes, that fringe of mascara-black lashes.
“Want to take a walk?” she asked.
“A walk would be lovely, so long as it’s with you.” His smile made her woozy.
Walking. They were walking. Together. In her time.
She led him outside and to the bridle path that circled the estate.
Everett reached over and tucked a loose cluster of strands behind Jillian’s ear. She shivered. Where
his hand touched her ear, her skin seemed so alive. Was this how DaVinci felt with each new crush? Jillian had never had a crush before. Well, except for Branson when she’d been twelve, but she’d gotten over that pretty quickly. She’d definitely never had a boyfriend. What if she was no good at it?
Her brow pinching together, she glanced over to Everett. He was wearing his laziest smile. The dead sexy one. She flushed, but she didn’t turn away.
How was she supposed to think about anything except kissing when he looked at her like that?
Apparently he felt the same way. He took her face in his hands, running his fingers over her forehead, smoothing the creases.
“That’s better,” he said. “Whatever storm is coming, I have a belief we can weather it together.” The conviction in that deep, gravelly voice made her believe, too.
His smile softened. “Miss Applegate—Jillian, I would very much like to kiss you again. If you have nothing better to do.”
“I don’t,” she whispered.
His face drew closer, his eyes sliding down to her lips. His gaze rested there.
She couldn’t breathe. Her eyes dropped to his lips, to the soft curve of that mouth as it neared hers. Their lips touched. He ran one of his hands down the side of her face, down her neck, along her shoulders, and down her arms. She shivered again and then leaned into the kiss, into the lemony scent of him close, so close. A sigh escaped her throat, and Everett tightened his grasp on her waist, resting his hand on the waistband of her jeans.
“What are these called again?” he murmured, still half kissing her.
“Um, jeans?”
He pulled out of the kiss, looked over her shoulder and down at the backside of her jeans. He nodded slowly, approving. “I like them,” he said.
And then his attention turned to the sky.
At first Jillian didn’t see what he was looking at. And then she did.
“It’s an airplane,” she said.
“It’s so tiny. It must be very high. How far up there is it?”
A Flight in Time (Thief in Time Series Book 2) Page 23