Paradox Lost

by Libby Drew

  Speechless, Marty stared at it.

  The card, given to Saul over a year ago, had frayed around the edges, and a dark brown stain eclipsed one corner. But the single name and phone number stood out in stark black ink, unmarred. “Ever seen one of these?”

  Marty’s hand jerked, and a discordant note slipped into the previously flawless piece. His gaze bore into Saul’s, intense. “Maybe. Once or twice.”

  Bingo. “Did you give one to Silvia?” He waited through a long silence. “Come on, Marty. You know if I’ve got this card, I’m one of the good guys, right?”

  Reegan pushed against him from behind, craning his neck to stare at the card. “What is that?”

  Saul shushed him. “Marty?”

  “Yeah. Okay.” Shifting around on the stool, Marty darted a look around the room. The small tables in front of the stage had filled. So had the stools ringing the bar. The noise level rose with the incoming tide of people, but Marty still leaned close, speaking in low tones. “I gave her one, but that’s all I’m telling you.”

  “That’s all I need.” Saul replaced the card in his wallet and stuck out his hand.

  Gaze measured, Marty took it. “Take care of her. She’s a sweet girl. Got a voice like a fallen angel.”

  A passing waitress plucked up Marty’s empty glass and replaced it with a full one, reaching under Saul’s nose to set it on the coaster. More bourbon over rocks. He licked his lips and tried to back away, but Reegan blocked him from behind.

  “She does, doesn’t she?” Reegan grinned and leaned closer, pinning Saul against the piano, inches from the glass of alcohol. “Did she sing for you?”

  Marty bobbed his head. “Ain’t never going to forget it, either.” They shared a crooked smile.

  “No, you won’t.” Reegan tipped his hat. “Thanks again.”

  The warm weight against Saul’s back disappeared, but the room had closed in around him, and his lungs wouldn’t fill. Breathing fast, he turned toward the door, weaving through a dense crowd that hadn’t been there twenty minutes before, but every route he tried was jammed with bodies. Throat swollen, he wheezed for air, shoving the next person who tried to cut off his escape. He heard an affronted “Hey!” Something wet splashed across his sleeve, and the smell of beer engulfed him.

  “Watch where the hell you’re going?” a woman yelled in his ear.

  “Sorry,” he choked, plowing toward freedom. He had a rule about being in a bar this time of night. A rule he’d set for a reason. Glass glinted at him from every direction as people carried their drinks from the bar to the tables. A fountain of beer poured from the tap as the bartenders filled pitcher after pitcher. A petite waitress, tray loaded with vodka shots, bobbed by, then stopped a few feet away to wait out a passing group of revelers. The tray hovered in front of his nose.

  He could take one and she would never know. No one would.

  His hand twitched.

  An image came to mind. Reegan, sweeping up shards of glass from a shattered bottle of vodka. And another, flashing on the heels of the first. Reegan standing shirtless in his office, looking lost and alone. Are you thinking about a drink?

  No. This was temptation he didn’t need and couldn’t afford. He shoved his hands in his pockets and barreled through the bodies until he reached the door, then jogged up the stairs to the street. It wasn’t until he was standing on the sidewalk gulping air that he realized he’d left Reegan behind.

  He glanced back. Bodies streamed into the bar, not out, while two burly bouncers struggled to keep the line organized. Saul craned his neck for a glimpse of Reegan’s hat.

  Please don’t let me have to go back in.

  Like an angel escaping purgatory, Reegan appeared, elbowing against the mass of bodies to join Saul on the street.

  Saul pasted on a weak smile. “Sorry. I thought you were—” His voice failed, body still too oxygen starved to manage more. The street took on a slight tilt, then listed even further. Christ, he was going to pass out.

  Blindly, he reached out, and a strong hand took his. A steadying arm snuck around his waist. The world right itself, and the sickening sideways pull of gravity stopped. Saul blinked through the sweat dripping into his eyes, feeling calmer in a matter of heartbeats. It was okay. Reegan had him.

  Face grim, Reegan steered him down the street to the small park they’d visited earlier in the day.

  Wrong way, Saul tried to say. They needed to get back to the car. He knew where Silvia was hiding. But the words wouldn’t come, his mouth too arid for speech, and Reegan’s firm grip didn’t loosen when Saul tried to alter their course.

  Strides long and sure, Reegan steered him into the little park and to the closest stone bench. Frigid concrete leached through his pants to his skin, and Saul hissed at the sting, but Reegan’s body, pressed close, felt just as cold. It was his own body that had grown superheated. He heard a persistent, low-pitched drone, and beneath that, the rapid clip of his heartbeat.

  Beside him, Reegan sat without speaking, breathing deep and steady. In and out, the rhythm so exact that Saul couldn’t help but be caught up in it. He slowed his inhalations, trying not to panic when his brain screamed for more air or when Reegan’s hand settled on his knee. “Don’t rush it. It’s fine.”

  The nonjudgmental acceptance helped. The anxiety eased, and cool night air rushed into his starved lungs.

  “Slowly,” Reegan said. “No rush.”

  There was a rush. Saul knew where to find Silvia. It was simply a matter of getting there, although going anywhere with Reegan was dangerous, the way the man attracted trouble. He’d explained that, though. The time-traveling thing. Saul choked on a laugh.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine,” he repeated when the first statement held the embarrassed uncertainty of a question. An anxiety attack. That hadn’t happened in months, so of course it had to hit him now, in front of a person who trusted him to be strong and capable.

  “Don’t worry about it. Believe me I’ve had my share.”

  “Yeah?”

  “You don’t have a corner on the market.” Reegan reclined against the bench and crossed one foot over the other. Mouth twisted, he seemed to struggle with himself before speaking. “I screwed up about a year ago, and someone got hurt. It’s been haunting me in more ways than one.”

  Saul captured another breath of air. “How’d you screw up?”

  “I told you about my tour groups.”

  Saul remembered. How much he believed was still up for determination. He’d be curious to hear what Silvia had to say on the subject when they found her.

  Full night had fallen during their chat with Marty, bringing a chill to the air. The cherry blossoms wouldn’t be out for a few weeks, but other less obvious signs of spring touched the night. Lavender crocuses dotted the planting beds, their scent hovering close to the ground. Path lighting showcased key areas of the tiny park. A few bulbs reflected upward, giving Reegan’s face an eerie glow.

  Fairy lights hung in the cherry trees’ branches, and soft-colored flood lamps illuminated the building to either side. At any other time, Saul would have called it magical, but he felt too raw to appreciate magic tonight. Notwithstanding the magic Reegan was working on him. The hand on Saul’s knee squeezed gently, thumb sliding back and forth in no particular pattern. Saul concentrated on that, calming further with every stroke. “What about your tour groups?”

  Reegan got his explanation going after two false starts. “I lost someone. Kind of how I lost Silvia, but worse. This woman wasn’t running away. She just got distracted. But I was distracted too. Caught up by where we were. And when. By the time I noticed she was missing, it was too late. She got hurt.”

  Saul considered the story from all sides. “It could have happened to anybody.”

  “But it didn’t. It happened to me.”

  “Hurt badly?”

  Reegan pulled in a deep breath. “Have you ever seen a 12-pounder howitzer?”

  “I’m…not sure. At the Gettysburg M
emorial, maybe.”

  Reegan nodded. “They’re light and maneuverable. Fire shots at relatively short ranges but at high elevations. Operate with small powder charges.”

  “Gunpowder.”

  “Right. And they typically fired case shot, which is really just lead balls and shrapnel. Deadly stuff, though.”

  Years-old memories surfaced. Pictures from old textbooks. “It was a brutal war.”

  “All wars are brutal. This was 1864. Battle of Fort Stevens. Long story short—I thought we were in a safe place. We weren’t. Maxie, my boss, chose an abandoned house as our destination point. Maybe seventeen hundred yards past the breastworks. Far past the normal range of a howitzer. She wandered fifty yards closer to the fort than she should’ve. The howitzer carried its shot a hundred yards farther than it should’ve. She lost a leg. An eye. Carries scars to this day from the shrapnel.”

  “You couldn’t have known all those factors would come together and cause that kind of tragedy.”

  “Doesn’t matter. She was my responsibility.”

  It was a universal story. Universal heartache. It was Saul’s story, his tragedy. His life.

  “For a long time,” Reegan continued, “I couldn’t work. I wanted to. No one said I couldn’t. Nobody blamed me. Except me. And Maxie. His reputation took a hit. And his bank account. We eventually settled out of court, all parties satisfied. But after that, every time I stepped into the portal, my throat closed up. There was no fighting through it. The harder I tried, the worse it was. I thought I was through with time travel. With Blast in the Past, Maxie and everything I’d worked for. Then one morning I woke up and realized the dreams hadn’t been as bad the night before. And that day the panic didn’t hit quite as hard when I walked through the door to the jaunt room.”

  For Reegan, it had gotten better. The memories had faded. If only Saul could be so lucky. “Glad it went away.”

  “It never went away. It just got tolerable. The scales tipped. The good started to outweigh the bad, and I moved on. But I never forgot.”

  “It’s not really the same situation.” A shadow moved at the entrance to the park, and Saul tracked it until it disappeared, blending with the others.

  “It is the same. Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s not. Especially yourself. You can survive this. You just have to want to.”

  A strong arm came around Saul’s shoulders, pulled him close. Saul surprised himself by accepting the comfort. He turned his face into Reegan’s neck, breathing in the other man’s scent. You just have to want to. Leave it to Reegan to burrow to the center of the issue. Even after all this time, Saul couldn’t decide if that was something he wanted.

  “How are you feeling?”

  More dusky shadows shifted at the park’s entrance. People passing on the street maybe. The low-wattage lights along the paths and in the trees were great for ambiance, but not much for picking out detail.

  “Saul?”

  “Better.” He eased out of Reegan’s arms. “Thank you.”

  “You ready to tell me what the deal is with that card you showed Marty?”

  Saul stood, surprised to find that his knees held him without a problem. A few strides up and down the path did much for his equilibrium. “We got lucky. Real lucky. There’s a safe house a couple of miles from here.” He rattled off the address from memory.

  “A safe house?”

  “For battered women. That card I showed Marty? It was given to me by the director there. Cards like that aren’t given out to men very often. It says a lot about Marty’s character that he had one. And even though he did, it doesn’t mean he knows where the house is. Its location is kept secret for obvious reasons. Not even the neighbors on either side understand what goes on behind the walls.”

  “Why do you have a card? Because you were with the police?”

  “No. This place isn’t affiliated with the police force or any government agency. It’s all privately funded, mostly by women who once used it.”

  “But you know where it is. How?”

  This next part would be hard. Harder than walking through a bar at happy hour. He hadn’t planned to ever broach the subject of Lisa with Reegan. “Someone gave a card like this to my sister, and I took her there.”

  Reegan leaned over his knees and rubbed his palms together. “Is she still there?”

  “No. She hasn’t been there for a long time.” He turned to a gnarled oak and rested his palms against the bark while he swallowed over and over again, fighting nausea.

  Reegan came up behind him, silent on the dewy grass. “I’m sorry.”

  A bead of sweat rolled down his face and dripped to the ground, but Reegan’s strong, capable aura eased his roiling stomach. Christ, he was a mess. That Reegan hadn’t abandoned him to search out a more capable private investigator was a miracle. He wouldn’t need one soon anyway, if they found Silvia where Saul suspected. “If Silvia went to the shelter and presented Marty’s card, they would’ve taken her in, no questions asked. That was only last night. She should still be there.”

  He glanced over his shoulder, but Reegan wasn’t watching him. A figure standing at the head of the path had caught his eye. One very similar in stature to the man who had been watching them from across the street earlier in the day.

  “Shit.” Reegan dragged a hand across his mouth. “Here comes trouble.”

  Saul’s system rebooted, shutting down emotions that would slow him down in a fight. Two steps put him between Reegan and the threat. “It’s the same guy from this morning, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Who is he?”

  “Pigtail. One of Silvia’s bodyguards.”

  One of the men who had known to look for them at Saul’s office, or so Reegan had implied. “What does he want?”

  “I thought maybe only to keep an eye on me. Now I’m not so sure.”

  The concern was warranted. If all this clown wanted to do was keep tabs on Reegan, he didn’t need to do it from his quarry’s front pocket. The thought that they might have been overheard alarmed him. If this whole crazy story of Reegan’s were true—hell, if only half of it were true—then Reegan’s usefulness had expired the moment Saul said he knew where to find the girl.

  He threw an arm out when Reegan tried to pass. “Stay behind me.”

  “Maybe he just wants to talk.”

  Fifteen feet away, white teeth flashed, the man grinning at them.

  “What do you want?” Saul asked. Those were the last words he managed before a second attacker rushed out of the gloom and tackled him. The impact pushed precious air from lungs that had just begun to cooperate again. Fuming at his weakness, he lay with his cheek pressed to the grass and watched as a third man caught Reegan by surprise, sweeping his feet out from under him. Reegan landed with a pained oomph on the lawn beside him.

  “That’s better,” a voice said from above. “Down on the ground where you belong.”

  Saul buried everything but the responses his training demanded. The boot on his back pressed him tight to the spongy lawn, but little by little, his ability to breathe improved. “What the fuck do you want?”

  “I’ll get to that in a minute. First I need to take care of the good doctor.”

  “What the hell for?” Reegan struggled onto his elbows, wheezing. “I’m trying to help you, Emilio.”

  “You’ve helped enough.” One of the men, the largest of the three, pointed at Saul. “This one knows where Mrs. D’arco is, and that’s all the information we need.”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake. Why didn’t you just come yourselves then? Why send me back?”

  Emilio delivered a vicious kick to Reegan’s ribs. Saul winced.

  “Mr. D’arco didn’t like the way you were talking about his wife. He’d prefer it if you stayed here. Indefinitely.”

  A silence followed. Reegan appeared to be scrambling for words. Or maybe the breath to utter them. “What do you mean the way I talked to her? You mean when I called her intelligent
? Capable of caring for herself?”

  “You spoke fondly of her.” Emilio leaned down, his expression close to sympathetic. “Mr. D’arco doesn’t like when other men notice his wife.”

  “He married the wrong woman, then.”

  Emilio’s lips twitched, a hint of agreement. “It’s not good to question the boss.”

  Reegan sputtered his amusement. “Sycophant. That attitude explains a lot.”

  Throughout the exchange, Saul assessed, measuring how a counterattack could do the most damage. Unfortunately, he had no idea of Reegan’s defensive skills.

  Reegan waved a finger between the three bodyguards. “Do you ask permission to wipe too? Wait, can Mrs. D’arco approve that, or do you have to go over her head for ass hygiene?”

  The man antagonized like a pro. If he could hold his own in a one-on-one, they’d be golden. Saul could take the other two now that his strength was flowing back.

  A sharp crack and a high-pitched squeak stopped him just as he tensed his muscles to throw the guy off his back. The squeak grew deeper, developing into a several more loud cracks, and then the stars above his head began to shift.

  No, not the stars. Something massive and much closer.

  The squeaks blended into a roar, then reached a crescendo just as Emilio cried out. “The tree’s coming down! Watch out!”

  The rock solid sentinel Saul had been leaning against just a few minutes before? Impossible. His eyes told him a different story. Near the ground, the trunk disintegrated, sending sharp splinters shooting into the night, and the bulk above began to sway. The tree was tall enough that Saul couldn’t be sure whether it would hit the ground or get hung up on a nearby building. He didn’t want to make that gamble.

  The weight on his back disappeared as his attacker fled, and he rolled toward Reegan, hauling him up by one arm. “Get up!”

  Reegan moved with alacrity, not questioning the order. Together, they dashed toward the park entrance. A mighty crash shook the ground, knocking Saul off his feet, but Reegan caught him before he went down. A branch clipped his shoulder. Saul absorbed the impact with a grunt, throwing them both atop a cluster of crocuses. They came to rest against the base of the fenced gate.