Paradox Lost
Page 28
“Nothing like that. This was something else.” Saul lifted the envelope from the side table where he’d set it earlier and handed it to Reegan.
“It’s a paper document? Did you open it?” Reegan peered at the package and its official-looking seal.
“Not yet.” Saul yanked it back when Reegan made a grab. “I was waiting for you.”
“Who’s it from?”
Saul took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. “Cammie.” He finally relented, handing the package to Reegan so he could fondle the envelope and examine the writing on the outside. Reegan slid his finger inside the seal, but didn’t crack it.
“Why did it come with a lawyer?”
“Technically, a lawyer came with it. Cammie wrote it, but the man couldn’t tell me exactly when. It’s bounced around from firm to firm over the years. When one closed, they’d pass the document to someone else until it was due to be delivered. That day was today.”
Reegan racked his brain for the significance. “Today’s date?
“Yes.”
“Is it your birthday or something?”
Saul stroked a finger across the thick, ivory stock. “It’s the date we left 2020. March 29.”
They’d done some research upon their return. Not immediately. First there’d been Saul’s quarantine, then the flurry of activity surrounding Silvia’s crusade to take her husband’s council seat. They spent weeks feeling each other out in an environment they never expected to share. In time, after their lives settled into a routine, Reegan logged Saul onto Maxie’s computer and they went digging.
Kildare Consulting had indeed folded less than a year after Saul disappeared. How it had even lasted that long they’d never discerned, but Saul insisted Cammie must have played a role. Her name appeared in Saul’s missing person’s inquest, then she disappeared.
For two years, nothing. Not a blip on the radar. Then in late 2022, a book titled Paradox Lost hit the New York Times Bestseller list and its author, Camela Martin, rocketed to instant fame. She’d changed their names. Set the book in Chicago. Gave Reegan an Australian accent (a detail that still made Saul dissolve into hysterical laughter) and made Silvia a painter. But the heart of the story hadn’t changed. Every so often, late at night while Reegan slept against him, Saul would pull the book up on his tablet and reread his favorite parts. Some scenes were true enough to reality to make his heart pound and his mouth go dry. Her ending mirrored the actual events to a frightening degree. On each of those nights, after putting the book aside, he’d feel compelled to hold Reegan against him until morning.
Reegan reached over and tapped the envelope, shaking Saul from his reverie. “Open it.”
After another long pause, Saul did, slicing open the delicate paper with his fingertip and extracting the one-page letter inside. “Want me to read it out loud?”
“Only if you want to.”
He wanted to, but after the first line, his throat grew too tight to speak.
Reegan shifted closer, working his fingers into the hair at the nape of Saul’s neck, but kept his gaze averted. The paper crinkled under Saul’s grip as he read, dissolving at the edges into dozens of tiny tears. For all the work spent keeping track of the letter over the years, no one had thought to try to preserve it. The one page barely held together.
When he felt capable, he read it aloud, voice trembling with emotion.
Saul,
There are some things I want you to know.
I never believed you dead, only gone. To where and when I can only imagine, but if you’re with Reegan, then I know I have nothing to fear. Some of us don’t belong where fate puts us. You were always one of those people, out of step with those around you. I hope you’ve found your place. And time.
I thought long and hard about what to put in this letter. Each time I sat down to write it, I was transported back to the night it all started for you. The night of President McAfee’s speech. I knew you didn’t want to go. That watching that man fed every inadequate thought about yourself you’d ever had. Then Reegan came, and Silvia, and the chance to tell you why I wanted you to see the speech never came.
I’m going to tell you now, because what happened after that proved what I’ve always known.
You’re a hero, Saul.
You’re every bit a hero as that man you served with. The one who became president. He’s a different man, not a better man. This is what you need to understand. Your past isn’t a string of bad choices. Your mistakes don’t weaken you. And a person doesn’t have to save thousands of people to be a hero. He can save two. Or one. He can save himself, and that might be the hardest, bravest task of all.
You were Lisa’s hero, and you were mine as well.
May you find happiness and love. In accordance with my optimistic attitude, I’m putting this letter in the hands of a capable attorney, who has promised me it will reach the year 2146 safely. I’ll be long gone before then, so consider this my farewell. I’ve enclosed a newspaper clipping you might find interesting. Do with it as you wish.
Yours,
Cammie
Folded inside the envelope sat a faded screen print. Saul unfolded it, scanned the picture and the words beneath it, then handed it to Reegan, swallowing his surprise at what he spied in the photograph. He wondered how Reegan would react. The timing of their previous conversation seemed fated suddenly.
According to the caption, the article concerned the shooting of Adel Hamdi at the 2035 World Hunger Summit.
“Do you know anything about this event?” Saul asked.
“Sure. The 2035 hunger talks were groundbreaking. Attended by all but seven nations. The meetings paved the way for the global standardization of the organic matter we use to produce food. I’ve never made the jaunt, although other guides have.” He pointed to the picture. Grainy and faded, it depicted the keynote speaker. “This man, Adel Hamdi, was assassinated on the last day of the summit. See him on the ground there? The panicked crowd, and the soldiers storming the stage? His death fueled weeks of riots in Egypt, his home country, and in other places around the world. Really brought the subject to the forefront of current policymaking.” Reegan studied the picture for a moment. “I’m not sure why she would have sent this photograph in particular.”
Saul leaned to tap his finger against the corner of the picture, where the crowd looked on, horror and fear on their faces. Reegan went still.
Just behind the web of lasers that separated the crowd from the stage and podium, Saul stood, straining forward, mouth open as though shouting a warning. Reegan was beside him, arm thrown across Saul’s chest. His faithful hat hid most of his features from the camera. The two of them appeared to be rushing toward the chaos. Not away.
Reegan traced the two figures with his finger. “I’ll be damned.”
The date on the article spoke of an argument already won. “Looks like I will be jaunting with you.”
“We’ll talk about it.”
“Apparently we already did.”
Lips pressed tight, Reegan refolded the letter, sliding it with great care into its envelope. His hesitation had understandable merit. But Saul still thought him overcautious on the idea, and he wasn’t going to back down. If Reegan insisted on jaunting, Saul would be going along to keep an eye on him.
He cupped Reegan’s neck and turned his head for a kiss. “Don’t look so worried. This could be the start of a beautiful partnership.”
“I thought we already had that.”
Saul threw a leg over Reegan’s knees and straddled him. Strong hands gathered him close, curling around his hips, and Saul melted into the embrace. “We do. Shall I demonstrate?”
*
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To give their future a chance, they both must fight being trapped in the past.
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Libby glimpsed her true calling when her first story, a Winnie the Pooh/Shakespeare crossover, won the grand prize in her elementary school’s fiction contest. Her parents explained that writers were quirky, poor and often talked to themselves in supermarket checkout lines. They implored her to be practical, a request she took to heart for twenty years, earning two degrees, a white-collar job and an ulcer, before realizing that practical was absolutely no fun.
Today she lives with her husband and four children in an old, impractical house and writes stories about redemption, the supernatural and love at first sight, all of which do exist. She happens to know from experience.
Libby’s first novel, State of Mind, received rave reviews for being fast, clever and relentless. It was the Top Pick for March 2010 at Dark Diva Reviews and went on to be nominated for a Bookie Award by Authors After Dark for Best M/M Novel of 2010.
An avid supporter of gay rights, Libby donates her time and writing talents to both the Trevor Project and other organizations working to repeal California’s Proposition 8.
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ISBN-13: 9781426897832
PARADOX LOST
Copyright © 2014 by Libby Drew
Edited by Deborah Nemeth
All rights reserved. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher, Harlequin Enterprises Limited, 225 Duncan Mill Road, Don Mills, Ontario, Canada M3B 3K9.
All characters in this book have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.
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