by Liana Brooks
Sam waited until the manager walked out back to evaluate the chaos before she attacked. Smiling, she walked into the arctic cool of the air-conditioned building. The bell overhead rang, and the clerk sneezed.
“No dogs!”
“Oh, he’s a comfort animal,” Sam said. “And I’ll just be here a minute. Someone said you need one of the cars moved to the other impound? I’m with the volunteers . . .”
The harried clerk sagged with relief. “Oh, thank you! We have been calling for hours. Someone said something about orientation today, and all the volunteers were busy?”
Sam shook her head. “I used to live down in San Diego, and I did the training down there. I told them I wouldn’t mind helping while I was up here visiting my grandpa.” She nodded, then looked at the ground and counted to ten. Pressing her lips together, she let the stress and fear of the last month show when she looked back up. “He’s not . . . he’s not okay. And his memory . . .” She shook her head and covered her mouth. “He probably only has a few weeks. This sounds so selfish. It’s just, when I’m there, all I do is cry. I need to get out for a few hours. Pretty please, can I help?”
“Yes,” the clerk said with a sympathetic smile. “That would be perfect. Ah . . . what are you comfortable driving?”
Asking for something that was fuel-efficient and nondescript might raise a few red flags. “Well, if there’s anything flashy, I’d love to drive a Sunburst.”
“No,” the clerk said. “We have pickups, a food truck, an ice-cream truck that was used for selling drugs, and a bunch of midrange cars.”
“In that case, I’ll take anything with working air conditioning,” Sam said.
The clerk looked through the computer. “An Alexian Gemini, dark blue, everything works but it’s been here for five months and needs to be driven before it goes bad. Did you give the chief your paperwork?”
“Mmmhmm, outside,” Sam lied, earning her another five Hail Marys. It was getting easier every time. At this point, her next confession would take over an hour, and penance would take a few days of constant prayer. “He said I should check in with you. Where am I delivering this one?”
“Long Beach is full. Bellflower is near capacity. Do you think you could go to Bell Gardens? I know it’s halfway to Vegas, but they have an empty lot since the auction was last week.”
Pretending to worry, Sam hemmed and hawed. Finally, she shrugged. “I guess. Does it need fuel?”
The clerk grabbed the keys and a fuel card. “Take it to any station around here. They’ll do a quick road check and make sure the water battery is running right.”
“I thought all the cars out here were on solar-capture cells?”
“They’re supposed to be,” the clerk said. “This one is from Oregon. We’re lucky it doesn’t run on goat cheese.”
Sam laughed obligingly at the joke, took the keys, and all but skipped out the door. A friendly nod to the chief, fifteen minutes getting the car checked, and she was on the highway.
Bosco sat in the front seat, scaring drivers as they passed.
“Don’t drool on the upholstery,” she told him. “This is genuine leather. And I’m pretty sure this is quartz decorating the steering column. We’re going to Vegas and selling this to the first shady dealer we find.” It was one of the advantages of grunt work at the CBI—she knew which rocks to flip over to find slime in every district in the Commonwealth. All she had to do was change her MO. Instead of watching the slime and arresting them when the big gangs were broken down, she’d make them work for her. And do so while staying under the radar and getting to Florida District 8 before Henry Troom blew himself to Kingdom Come.
CHAPTER 24
“The night was wild. The mountains echoed the thunder’s refrain: here are the forgotten, the children of pain.”
~ excerpt from A Wild Sea by Laya Zaffre I2–2036
Monday January 6, 2070
Florida District 8
Commonwealth of North America
Iteration 2
The Basilwood Apartments were exactly as soul-suckingly mundane as she remembered. The synthetic wood and lacy fringe were no better than her first trip through 2070. Possibly worse now that she had the condos of Airlie Beach to compare it to. Dry January grass added a level of despondency because the rain wasn’t there yet.
In a few weeks, the grass would be green, the birds would be nesting . . . and this place would be crawling with CBI agents looking for a clue of what would become a double homicide.
Sitting in the car outside Henry Troom’s apartment, she wiggled her wedding band off. It wasn’t the same black-opal-and-diamond engagement ring Mac had originally proposed to her with. That was safely tucked away in a safety-deposit box in Cannonvale, waiting for her return. This was the black metal, nonreflective ring Mac had given her last year on their anniversary. He’d called it a Field Ring . . . a sniper’s ring. Meant to be combat-ready because no light would bounce off it. On the inside was inscribed Mac’s favorite quote: Decisions Determine Destiny—T. S. Monson.
Four lives were riding on her choice today. Five, if she counted Mac’s.
“That’s the problem, isn’t it?” she muttered under her breath. “Do I want to save Mac more than I want to save Troom, Nealie, Donovan, and that other Sam?”
Bosco licked her face.
“I already did this once. I made the choice to have Troom build the machine before. So maybe it’s inevitable. Maybe I don’t have a choice at all.”
It was a terrifying thought.
With a heavy sigh, she rolled down the car windows. “Stay here,” she ordered Bosco as she locked the door. Then, reluctantly, she climbed the steps to Apartment 12B. She knocked.
Fake gunfire rattled around her head with the echoes of déjà vu. Her ears strained to catch the music of the video game. It wasn’t Wars of Wars, the beat was too arrhythmic for that. Whatever it was, it clearly had the attention of the player more than her knocking. She knocked again—louder this time—and inside she caught the unmistakable curse of Devon Bradet.
Staying here to save Henry and Nealie meant saving Bradet, too. That definitely put a point in the let-them-all-die column. Bradet had an uncanny ability to drive her crazy.
The door swung open, and Bradet swung into its place. He leaned against the doorframe, face thinner than she remembered and brown hair greasier. “What?”
“No comment about my stunning good looks?”
With exhausted, sunken eyes, he gave her a quick once-over. “Not my type. What?”
“I’m here to talk to Henry Troom?”
Bradet stood up, looking like a startled possum caught in the headlights. “I already talked to Officer Clemens and her boss. I didn’t know what he was doing.”
An unnatural chill dug into Sam’s bones. “Where’s Henry?”
“In jail!” Bradet shouted. “Right where the murdering bastard ought to be.”
The door slammed in her face before Sam could think of a reply. She turned and walked back to the car in a daze. Henry had never gone to jail. He’d never had any trouble with the law.
Bosco licked her face.
Time passed as she sat there, staring at the steering wheel and trying to find sense in the disaster of her life. Like a life raft tossed up on the stormy waves, her mind caught hold of one word: Clemens.
Did he mean Ivy Clemens?
She looked at Bosco. “How do I disguise myself from someone who has a poster of me in her apartment?”
The dog licked her face.
“I think it’s going to take more than makeup,” Sam said as she patted Bosco’s head. “But that’s a good place to start.”
The smell of bleach made Sam wrinkle her nose every five seconds, and her new contacts didn’t just itch, they looked ridiculously fake. She’d asked the technician at the sa
lon for a “California Look” and wound up looking like a tourist from Sydney with bottle-blond hair, Day-Glo-blue eyes, and shimmery bronzer smeared across her already bronzed skin. If anyone asked, she had the name of a great tanning salon on speed dial.
She tossed a stick of bright pink bubble gum in her mouth. Bosco crouched in the seat next to her, whimpering.
“It’s temporary,” she promised. “Just until I can get out of here. The absolute last thing I need is Clemens realizing I’m here, and in the CBI office downtown.” The clone had worshipped Sam when they’d first met. Which, she realized, with the familiar snake-pit feel of time travel biting into her, wasn’t going to happen for another month at the earliest.
Ivy wouldn’t approach the CBI until she found Nealie’s body on the shore.
Traveling like this felt like free fall.
Because it dawned on her that if she just saved Nealie, Ivy wouldn’t ever meet Young Sam. If Ivy and Sam never met, Sam would never give her a recommendation for the CBI Academy. It all came down to what the cost of a life was.
And it wasn’t a question she was prepared to answer.
Thoughts still turning upside down and inside out, she parked under a spreading oak tree in the corner of the Smyrna precinct building. She clipped Bosco into his harness, hung a Working Dog vest over him, and strutted into the building like she owned the place. Saint Michael and Saint George, forgive me the lies I’m about to tell. The automatic doors swung open, and the scent of cheap soap, sweat, and recycled air flowed out into the street.
Sam blew a bubble of bright pink gum.
The rookie sitting at the front desk was young enough that his eyes focused on her tight red crop top, not the baton at her hip or fake badge in her hand.
“Hiya, cutie.” Sam leaned against the counter to give rookie a good view of her cleavage. “I’m here to talk to whoever’s running the Lexie Muñoz case.” At the time Sam had left California, twenty-three-year-old Lexie had been the latest victim.
“Um . . .” The rookie blinked, looked at Bosco, then finally at her face. “Who are you?”
“Private investigator Lexie’s daddy hired to make sure the case wasn’t buried. Strictly helpful stuff.” She pulled a sheath of folded papers from the ten-dollar knockoff purse she’d bought from a boardwalk vendor and prayed no one actually wanted to investigate anything. The ID she was waving was real enough if no one did a computer check, but the papers were ones she’d grabbed from some college students promoting a sidewalk art fair. Even a boob-blinded rookie would know those weren’t real.
The rookie grimaced. “I don’t know if the chief would really want . . .”
Sam held up her hands and gave him her most innocent smile. “I’m not here to step on toes or steal a collar. I just brought some details. List of Lexie’s friends down here. Her family. Her ex. Her drug dealer . . .” She let that carrot dangle. “I don’t even need to ride along, but maybe you have someone in the department who can help me make my hourly wage here, right? A Shadow or someone in the doghouse. I sit, I chat with them, I bill Daddy Muñoz eight hundred an hour. Easy money.”
He wasn’t budging.
Sam leaned closer, pushing her breasts together a little more. “Maybe it could be you? I bet I’d make you look real good. Or real happy.” She winked.
He jumped like he’d been bit. “I . . . ah . . . right. Let me talk to someone.”
She watched him run through the series of locked doors and the metal detector like the devils of hell were on his heels. “Must be a Baptist,” she told Bosco. “Want to bet he confesses to sinful thoughts when he sees his pastor next?”
Bosco lay down on the cool tile floor without even a tail wag.
“Yeah, you’re right, I don’t think Baptists have confession, either.” Though she needed it right now. Not that she’d practiced Catholicism much since she lost the baby, but at times like this, she missed washing away the guilt. Mac always argued that a few prayers weren’t real repentance if you went and did the same thing the next week, but she figured God understood. Sure, this was a lie, but if it freed an innocent man and brought a killer to justice, surely God would forgive a little sin.
Wouldn’t He?
With a sigh, she peeked over at the desk. “Rookie was playing Downtown Race Fire on the computer,” she informed Bosco, as if the dog cared. “Left his post, left the computer open . . .”
She eyed the doors and wondered if she had enough time to log into the system for a quick peek before someone with authority to arrest her showed up. Probably not. “Why do I get the feeling that the rookie will be looking for a new job next week if his superiors ever find out about this?”
The rookie turned the corner, with Ivy Clemens hot on his heels. Ivy looked different than Sam remembered her. Paler, perhaps, less radiant. Ivy had always seemed to burn from within with a radioactive personality that threatened to overwhelm everyone she met. This Ivy looked beaten, sallow . . . dying.
Sam reached for Bosco, her fingers itching to touch someone for comfort. Bosco obligingly stood up and leaned against her leg. He was the first thing Ivy noticed.
“That’s a really big dog.”
“About 180 pounds,” Sam said, thankful for an easy opening gambit. “He can pull more than five hundred pounds on the sand track next to our house.”
Ivy stepped forward as the rookie retreated behind his desk, probably planning to fake work until they left.
“Markum here says you came out from California?”
“Yup,” Sam said.
“You’re a long way from the West Coast,” Ivy said. “What brings you here?”
“Lexie Muñoz. Her parents aren’t happy with the pace of the case, and they have money. They sent me with some details and some cash to help move things along.”
“I’m sorry you made the trip. The killer was arrested yesterday.”
“Henry Troom?” Sam pretended she was amused with the thought. “I bet you a milk shake he’s not the killer.”
Now she had Ivy’s full attention. Green eyes, brittle and biting as sea glass studied her. “What did you say your name was?”
“Rose.” Damn it! “MacKenzie. Rose MacKenzie. My mother had a thing for Highlanders. You should have seen her e-reader when I was a kid. I peeked once, and boy can I tell you that my senior trip to Scotland was a serious disappointment after that. Not a muscle-bound, kilt-clad lover to be found.” Her cheeks heated as the lies tumbled off her tongue. If Mac ever found out about this conversation, she would never hear the end of it. Although, Mac in a kilt was an idea worth considering.
“But you managed to marry a MacKenzie anyway.” Ivy’s smile held the baleful envy of someone who had heard of a prize but thought they could never touch it. “Did he wear a kilt to the wedding?”
“He wore flip-flops and swim trunks,” Sam said. Bosco had been their ring bearer. Mac had promised that one day, when the timelines aligned, they’d have a real church wedding. The jury was still out about whose church it would be. “But he’s not here.” She twisted the wedding band.
The more she thought about Mac, the more it hurt.
She realized then that she’d decided what she was here to do without meaning to. Mac was more important than Nealie, Ivy, or even herself.
She had to get Mac back, at any cost.
If she couldn’t get Henry out legally, she’d ruin her younger self by breaking him out illegally. But that was a measure of last resort.
But . . . she was now sure it was a measure she was willing to take if her other options failed.
Which meant she had to make this work.
Sam tossed her newly blonded hair and hit Ivy with a megawatt smile she’d perfected for winning commissions from tourists. “So, how about you and I hunker down, talk shop, find a killer, and we all go home happy?”
Ivy glance
d sideways at the rookie, who was doing an excellent job of pretending they didn’t exist. “Troom is in jail for the murder. That will need to be enough for your clients. The department doesn’t have the manpower needed to chase hunches.”
“What about you?” Sam’s voice almost cracked. She was ready to beg.
Ivy’s chin lifted, and a hint of the fire Sam knew flashed in her angry eyes. “I’m a clone. I’m no help to anyone.”
“That’s not true. You could be a big help to me.”
All the muscles in Ivy’s face tightened with fury. “Thank you for stopping by, Miss MacKenzie. I’ll be sure someone hears about your theories. We’ll call you if there’s any interest in pursuing the leads you brought.” She turned and stomped off without even asking for Sam’s number.
The rookie hunched over his computer, trying to avoid being noticed.
Sam rolled her eyes. By hook or by crook . . . she’d find a way.
Sam sat on the trunk of her car with the loop of Bosco’s leash hanging off her wrist. He had a bowl of water, she’d had four chocolate ice cream bars shaped like dolphins, and Ivy Clemens still hadn’t left work for the night. “Bosco, we’ve got a problem.”
Bosco’s tail thumped on the parking lot.
“Where are we staying tonight?”
He didn’t have an answer.
Neither did she, which was worse. She was reacting to everything. Chasing down Mac like a bloodhound with a sense of direction and purpose, but no long-term plan for self-preservation. She didn’t have a credit card to use at a motel, and it wasn’t like she could sleep on a friend’s couch until she found an apartment. She had an irrational urge to call Brileigh and ask for help. Except Bri was nosey as an Italian grandma, and she knew that Sam had an apartment here. Sneaking into that apartment was out of the question, though.
Bosco stretched, his butt going skyward as his front legs reached out.
“The yoga feel good, puppy?”
He hung his tongue out in response.
“Yeah. I could use a few sun salutes, too.” Maybe meditation would help her gain some focus. Move her away from this place of panic. It felt like her heart rate hadn’t dropped in a month.