A Time of Shadows (Out of Time #8)

by Monique Martin

  Jack nodded and slipped on the jacket. He made a show of admiring himself in the mirror, but what he was really doing was using it to keep an eye behind him.

  He was about to say no, when he saw the two officers’ reflection in the mirror. He stepped behind a display and pulled a hat off a rack.

  In the mirror, he saw the officers checking each store on the row. They stepped into the clothing store. One of them came deeper into the store while the other kept an eye on the road outside. Jack turned away and pretended to be going through a rack of jackets as the officer approached.

  The officer passed him and went to the back of the store. Jack’s heart beat a little faster. If Tess came out of the dressing room, they were sunk.

  The store owner came over to him.

  “They are quite intent on finding someone,” he said in a quiet, conversational tone.

  Jack nodded. He’d read about some police violence during recent protests, perhaps the animosity still ran deep. The owner hadn’t given them up yet, but it probably didn’t hurt to offer a little incentive.

  Slowly, Jack reached into his pocket and pulled out his money clip. He quickly slipped two large bills between the folds of two shirts.

  The officer called out to the owner, who turned and approached him. The two spoke briefly. The store owner was shaking his head. Finally, the officer frowned and started toward the front of the store.

  Jack felt him slow as he reached the small section he was in. He paused and Jack felt him staring.

  “Siz,” the officer said as he took a step closer.

  Jack’s heart beat faster and he frantically tried to think of a way out.

  He was about to turn around when a cry came from outside of the store.

  “He stole my wallet!” a man with an American accent bellowed. “Hey, you, police!”

  The officer’s partner called to him, and with one last look, the officer turned and left the store.

  Jack counted a few beats and kept looking at the rack of jackets. That was too close.

  “They are gone,” the store owner said.

  Jack exhaled and turned around and the owner picked up the shirts with the money tucked between them. Very deftly, he palmed the bills and put the shirts back, making a show of rearranging them.

  “Thank you,” Jack said.

  The owner smiled. “I love a good customer.”

  He looked down at Jack’s pant legs. They were covered with dirt.

  Then he added, “And I have the perfect pants that go with that jacket.”

  Jack laughed. “Sold.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  ELIZABETH WATCHED SIMON AS he sat at the small table in yet another hotel room, this one in Dallas near the airport as they waited for their flight in the morning.

  The burrito from room service sat like a lead ball in her stomach. Guacamole didn’t mix well with worry.

  Simon mumbled something to himself and Elizabeth turned her attention back to the article in Texas Monthly she’d been reading for the last half hour. She still hadn’t gotten past the first paragraph. How could she when Charlotte was out there, somewhere, and not here with them?

  It had been the right choice. She’d told herself that. Simon had told her that. But it didn’t change the way she felt. It was like part of her was just gone. In a way, part of her was, but she knew if she didn’t force herself to look ahead, she’d get run over by something while she stood looking back. And besides, she was pretty sure she’d run out of tears somewhere around Mesquite.

  From where she was, she couldn’t help Charlotte. She’d done all she could for the time being. But, she decided fiercely as she set her magazine aside, she could help Simon. He’d taken this harder than even she had. He hid it as best he could and tried to lose himself in solving what the clues were leading to, but he was suffering.

  He said something under his breath again and frowned even more deeply.

  The clue they’d found at River Run hadn’t taken them much effort to decipher.

  W76

  A snake with no fangs can still strike at a man’s heart.

  They’d come across thankfully few snakes in their travels, if she didn’t count people. In this case, she was fairly certain the snake wasn’t metaphorical. She’d had an unpleasant and memorable encounter with a cobra in Egypt. Its mouth had been sewn shut, but its bite certainly struck at her man’s heart. The memory of Simon’s expression when he’d thought she’d been bitten, and the anger he’d felt toward Henri when he’d thought he was to blame, were something she’d never forget.

  And now Simon was steeped in that same fear and anger, but there was no handy Frenchman to hit. No one to blame, no release. Since they’d left Shreveport, he’d slowly and quietly stewed.

  He’d taken her suggestion to look at the clues again, with hopes of finally recognizing a pattern. Even if he didn’t, it would do him good to occupy his mind. He’d always found refuge in research and analysis. Maybe spending some time doing that now would help ease his heart.

  “Idiot,” Simon muttered.

  Or not.

  He glared down at the pad of paper in front of him, shaking his head.

  “I’m a complete fool.”

  “Not complete,” Elizabeth said, hoping to lighten the mood, but Simon ignored the remark and waved her over.

  “Come take a look.”

  Elizabeth moved the magazine from her lap and got off the bed. She stood behind him and looked over his shoulder. A pile of crumpled discards littered the table. Simon pointed to the mostly clean sheet in front of him.

  On it were two rows of letters and numbers, the same ones from the clues, but they still didn’t mean anything to her.

  “What am I looking at?”

  “I should have seen it earlier. The pattern, it’s obvious.”

  “To you.”

  Simon turned around in his chair, and Elizabeth nearly cheered at the spark in his eyes. He just wasn’t Simon without it.

  “I’ve been working the numbers over in my head, but nothing came.”

  They’d burned the little slips that held the clues shortly after finding them. No reason to make it easier for the bad guys and committing the short clues and numbers to memory was easy enough.

  “Then I wrote them down and tried different arrangements. I thought they might be another layer of clues,” Simon continued, “but it’s much simpler than that.”

  Elizabeth looked at his scribbling again. Nothing. “Okay, now I just feel stupid.”

  Simon chuckled, took her hand and led her beside him. She sat down and scooted her chair closer.

  “You see, this was the first clue,” he said, pointing at a pair of numbers that were second in the row on the first line. “And this was the second.”

  He pointed to another pair on the line.

  “It was the moon that held the key,” he said. “No pun intended. He used eight phases of the moon.”

  He indicated the eight sets of numbers, with three blank lines for the ones they didn’t have yet.

  “While we got 13 first, the moon phase was the first quarter; that put it third in line. The clue from Hollywood had the old crescent—”

  “And that put it there,” Elizabeth said, touching the third set of numbers in the second row. “But why the rows? Why isn’t it a string straight across?”

  Simon held up a finger, a sure sign he was more himself. This was where he was most comfortable, solving problems and explaining them to the less logical.

  “I had a feeling, but wasn’t sure until we got the clue from Natchez.” He put his finger below the W76 from the River Run clue. “This W sealed it.”

  Elizabeth knew he enjoyed dangling the answer, making her work for it and so she obliged. “W is for…?”

  “West,” he said.

  She looked at the paper again and suddenly felt the rush of realization and the sting of knowing she should have seen it sooner. “They’re coordinates.”

  “Exactly. Latitude
and Longitude. Considering the moon phases he’s using, there should be eight clues. Eight sets of numbers. That threw me a little, until I realized that he was including hundredths of seconds. The 99 gave that away. Nothing if not precise, our Teddy.”

  And then he frowned. “At least, I hope that’s the case. But this just feels right.”

  Elizabeth didn’t comment on the always rational Simon Cross listening to his gut, and she definitely didn’t comment to ask him what it would mean if he were wrong. She knew the answer and, besides, she had faith in Simon’s gut even if he didn’t always.

  He ran his finger along the paper. “Degrees, minutes, seconds, hundredths of seconds.”

  N40 __ 13 34

  W76 __ __ 99

  “Okay, so where’s that?” Elizabeth asked. “Do we really need the minutes? Minutes don’t sound very important. And who needs seconds?”

  Simon shook his head. “We do. Well, we might be able to do without knowing the precise seconds, but the minutes….A variation of just one minute could put us off by a mile, give or take.”

  “We can totally cover a mile.”

  “Yes,” Simon said patiently, finding comfort in his role as professor. “If only it were just one mile, we could. But there are sixty minutes in a degree. That means we’ve narrowed it down to an area of roughly 3,600 square miles.”

  “Okay, that we cannot cover,” Elizabeth said.

  “No,” Simon agreed. “Which means we will have to find the rest of the clues before we can pinpoint the exact location.”

  Elizabeth looked down at the coordinates and marveled at Teddy’s ingenuity. “He’s a clever one.”

  Simon nodded thoughtfully.

  “And thank God for you,” she said. “I would have had us chasing our tails and swimming the English Channel or something.”

  “I doubt that,” Simon said and took her hand. “And as much as I appreciate the thought and did enjoy, embarrassingly, being the one to find the answer, you don’t ever have to make yourself less to make me feel like more.”

  Elizabeth squeezed his hand. She nodded and leaned in for a kiss. It was soft and wonderful and just what they both needed.

  Elizabeth looked over at the bed. “Maybe we should try to get some sleep. It’s going to be a long day tomorrow.”

  Simon nodded. “You go ahead. I’m going stay up a little longer.”

  She knew what that meant. He was going to stay up all night. And worry.

  Elizabeth waved her hand toward the bed. “Eh. Sleep’s overrated. I think I’ll just sit with you.”

  Simon nodded and then turned to look out at the Dallas skyline. She could tell from the look in his eyes that he was grateful for the company. She leaned her head onto his shoulder as his arm went around her waist. They watched the Texas day turn into night, both of their thoughts with Charlotte, hoping she forgave them and praying she was all right. Wherever she was.

  ~~~

  Victor kept his eyes on the road, but in his peripheral vision he could see her head leaning against the window glass, feel her grief.

  He clenched his jaw and ignored it; he had enough of his own. Her emotional state was not his problem. He was there to keep her alive, nothing more. If the girl wanted to cry the entire time, that was fine by him. As long as she did it quietly, he didn’t care what she did.

  His eyes slid over to her briefly. What a fool he was to have said yes. What the Crosses did, what messes they managed to create for themselves were not his problem. And yet, here he was, again.

  Cross he could have said no to. With pleasure even. But a mother’s plea for her child? Not even the failing ember he called a heart could ignore that. It had sparked to life in his chest with a sudden fire. A feeling he’d known all too well, and had never wanted to feel again.

  He shook his head. He was truly a fool. Not only had he let them pull him into their folly, but he’d let them saddle him with a ten-year-old girl.

  He glanced over at her again.

  Why did she have to be a girl?

  Memories of his own daughter came again, and the ever-present dull ache in his soul became a sharp pain again. He tightened his grip on the steering wheel and tried to crush the images that danced across his mind. One by one, they fell away, but he knew they weren’t really gone. They were just lurking, waiting for him to be weak again.

  Some men had demons like drink or drugs; he had the past. And when he gave in to it, when it came back, it overwhelmed him. He was lost to everything but the fantasy of what might have been and the horror of what had been.

  Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl lean back in her seat, boneless, listless. She turned her head toward him, gazing at him with sad eyes. She didn’t say anything, just studied him.

  He ignored her, hoping she’d tire of it, of him. The silent stare stretched on, but whatever questions she had she kept them to herself. Eventually, she turned her head away from him and looked out of the window again.

  The two drove on in silence, haunted by the past and the future.

  Chapter Nineteen

  NOTHING HAD CHANGED HERE, Victor thought as they drove up the country lane. The car struggled through the rutted dirt road. Limbs from bushes and trees reached out into the clearing, growing into the space. It had always struck him how alive the bayou was, how it was a living thing. Every inch of it, every waterway, every plant and animal grasping for more. If someone sat in one place long enough, the bayou would simply swallow them whole.

  Their car hit a deep hole and next to him the girl bounced off her seat. She looked at him with worried eyes, but set her mouth in a grim line and gripped the armrest tightly.

  When they reached the curve in the road, signaling that the house was near, Victor saw the abandoned car exactly where it had been years ago, the front end still crushed against the massive trunk of the Angel Oak. The long twisting tree branches still stuck out like snakes from Medusa’s head, frozen in time, but ready to strike.

  Vines and God only knew what had taken up residence in the rusting metal hunk. Like a scavenger eating a carcass, the bayou was slowly devouring the car.

  The girl sat up straighter and craned her neck to see it.

  “Wow,” she said softly.

  Victor pulled off to the side of the road where it widened slightly. He backed up and nudged the rear bumper into the undergrowth, giving him just enough space to turn around if they needed to leave in a hurry.

  He turned in his seat and looked toward the far end of the road. He could just make out the dilapidated old house an acquaintance had once let him use. It didn’t appear to be occupied, at least not by anything human.

  “Wait here,” he said.

  “But—”

  One glare silenced her.

  She flopped back in her seat, but she obeyed.

  Victor got out of the car and opened one of the back doors. From the car floor he took out a black canvas bag. After arming himself with two of the guns inside it, he zipped it back up and put it back on the floor.

  “Do not touch that,” he said and closed the door.

  Keeping to the edge of the road, Victor made his way toward the house. It still leaned a little to the left. With his luck, the whole damn thing would probably fall down around them.

  He moved without sound, the way he’d been trained to, but when his foot hit the first board of the outside steps, it creaked and cried out like a child.

  “Perfect,” he whispered to himself and hurried up the steps.

  The door was unlocked, but stuck. Carefully, he made his way around the porch and peered into the windows. Bits of curtain still hung there, but he could see inside. It didn’t appear to have been touched since he was last there.

  He made his way around the house to the back porch and the kitchen. It was clear. A sound came from above him and he froze. A knocking. There was a one room second story, a sort of dormer room. He waited a moment and listened, his heart beating faster, but he quickly restrained it. The sound came aga
in, but he recognized it this time and relaxed. A woodpecker was beating out a rhythm as it foraged for food.

  Letting out a calming breath, Victor opened the back door. It squeaked as it swung open. The kitchen was filthy, but usable. He carefully made his way across the peeling linoleum floor and searched the rest of the house. It was empty. No footprints in the dust. No one had been here for some time. Exactly as he needed it to be.

  He went back down the road to the car and was glad to see the girl still sitting there as instructed. He drove up to the small arcing turnaround and stopped by the front steps.

  She looked at the faded gray wood, peeling paint and broken windows, and then back to him.

  He got out of the car and she followed suit, standing at the bottom step and staring up at the house. Two small worry lines deepened between her eyes.

  Victor came around the car and opened the back door. He reached in and grabbed his black duffle bag. Slinging the strap over his shoulder he came to her side.

  “Is it haunted?” she asked.

  “Haunted?”

  Her eyes got bigger. “You know, ghosts.”

  There were plenty of ghosts there for him.

  “None that will harm you,” he said.

  She nodded as she studied the house, still unsure, and then turned back to him.

  “Do you think they’re all right?” she said.

  He didn’t have to ask who she meant. There would only be two people on her mind. He’d never met a pair more likely to find trouble than the Crosses. And from what they’d told him, there was plenty of it to be found.

  He stared down at her, searching for the right answer and knowing there wasn’t one. In the end, he answered honestly.

  “I do not know.”

  She thought about that for a moment and then nodded. He could see her steeling herself against her worries before she looked back up at the house.

  He cleared his throat and started up the steps. He paused at the top step and turned back around. She hadn’t moved.