Losing Time (Lost Time, Book 1): A Time Travel Romantic Suspense Series

by Nicola Claire

  “Will this blindside me?”

  He laughed, a barrel-chested bark of laughter.

  “Not so much as amuse, I should think.”

  “Then out with it, Clive. The suspense is killing me.”

  He chuckled at my melodrama. Then sobered.

  “I dreamed of a girl.” How apt. “With blonde hair and blue eyes and a sharp tongue.” He looked directly at me. “She spoke with a Kiwi accent.”

  “Mimi?”

  “Her sister. Although, I must admit, when I first laid eyes on your Miss Wylde I did wonder. But no, my dream girl was called Carrie.”

  Christ, how did this play out? In what way could Carolyn Wylde be connected with Clive Crawford? In what way could she cause him to travel forward through time to now?

  “I’m sure we’ll laugh about this eventually,” I offered. “But for now, I’ll be honest; I’m a little concerned.”

  “How could two sisters, twins, have such an impact on us?” Clive chuckled again. I was glad one of us was finding this amusing. I feared what sort of omen these dreams actually meant for RATS. “I have no idea what you dreamed, Jack, but I assure you mine was quite benign.”

  “Then what on earth made you shift times?”

  His sad eyes met mine.

  “She asked me to.”

  “I don’t understand?”

  “No, I suppose you wouldn’t.”

  “Clive!”

  He sighed, then picked up his cigar, which had almost burned down. He flicked off the remaining ash and then just stared at it.

  “I’ll have to quit these,” he commented mildly. I shook my head, not recognising this version of the man I’d known for ten long years.

  “I’d always wondered where you’d sourced them from,” I offered. Maybe if I humoured him, the Clive Crawford I knew would return.

  “I have my secrets.” I was thinking he had a hell of a lot more secrets than I’d ever known.

  “Clive,” I started.

  “It’s all right, Jack. RATS will be fine.”

  “How do you know?”

  He looked up at me, placing the remainder of the cigar between his teeth, and smiled.

  “Because I built it to survive.”

  “Clive, you’re worrying me.”

  He pushed himself to his full height, grabbing his walking stick while he was at it. The cigar in one hand, he leant on the stick with the other. The man I’d shared too many whiskies with on too many nights stared back at me. But I wasn’t sure that I knew him at all.

  “It’s out of our hands now, son,” he said.

  “What is?”

  “The future.”

  “What did your dream Carrie say, Clive?”

  “I told you,” he replied, starting to limp off. “She asked me for help.”

  “And reorganising RATS in my time helps Carolyn Wylde out how?” I called after him.

  He stopped several feet away and looked back at me.

  “I hired you,” he said simply, and my lungs ceased working. “I made her sister a Novitiate,” he added, and I felt lightheaded all of a sudden. “The rest is up to you, Jack.”

  And then he was gone. And I was alone in the dark under the boughs of a chestnut tree feeling like I was spotlit by a blazing sun.

  And It Wasn’t Mine

  Mimi

  Jack was in a foul mood. Thankfully, Rafe wasn’t. But the Orion seemed so much smaller than usual, even without the presence of Sally. I sat in the third seat; the Novitiate’s seat, and watched as Jack thumped in coordinates on the dashboard, one digit after another. I was sure his finger would go right through the plastic keys before too long.

  Rafe watched on warily, flicking the odd reassuring smile my way, and then narrowing his eyes at the man in charge. Jack, for his part, didn’t even seem to notice us. I stared down at the orange flight suit I was wearing, searching for that initial surge of excitement I’d had when I’d first put it on. But it was gone.

  Jack had chased it away with his temper.

  “Door,” he suddenly barked.

  Rafe got up from his seat with a silent sigh and approached the entrance to the module. I glanced around his body at the launch pad, noting a few white overalls in the distance. A couple of blue-clad security guards stood off to the side, as well. I was unsure if their presence was because of me, or because of the weight of this flight.

  Orion Two was missing. And it was our job to find it.

  Carrie, as Jack had said, didn’t even matter. Not to RATS. Not to the various coloured jumpsuits out there in the launch pad hangar. Not even to Jack himself.

  I bit my lower lip as Rafe accepted the module door from a techie and secured it with a large, hollow thud.

  It sounded just like the beat of my heart.

  I turned back to the console and wiped my sweaty palms on my thighs. Rafe was just as silent returning to his seat as he’d been getting out of it. Jack was an ominous dark cloud. For my first official flight in an Orion, I’d expected a different atmosphere. Not one thick with tension and the impending thunder of a tropical storm.

  “Coordinates?” Jack asked.

  “All checked…sir,” Rafe muttered. Jack didn’t even spare him a glance.

  “Then let’s do this,” he said, about to hit the ominous looking red button before the command chair.

  “Do we have a plan?” I blurted before I could stop myself. Jack’s hand hovered over the button. He slowly turned his head toward me.

  It was the first time he’d looked me in the eyes since we’d boarded.

  “I was under the impression this was your plan, Miss Wylde,” he said mildly.

  “Shouldn’t we discuss it?” I pressed. “Ensure we’re all on the same page.”

  “This is your story,” he argued. “Your page. We’re just along for the ride.”

  Is that what he thought?

  “You’re the Surgeon,” I snapped. I almost added, Act like one. But that wouldn’t have gone down well.

  “I am aware of my role, Miss Wylde,” he countered, moving his hand to the red button. “Be sure you remember yours.”

  The Orion roared to life, the nebula-like cloud engulfing it outside, the stars shimmering through the coloured swirls of dust on the external camera screen. I felt weightless for a split second, then heavier than I had ever been. When silence surrounded us, I held my breath. Only releasing it when the world rushed back in again.

  The Vehicle touched down without so much as a bump.

  “Textbook landing,” Rafe announced. “Well done.”

  Jack just grunted in reply.

  “Time matches,” Rafe added as if nothing was wrong. “Location as well. We’re in 1969 at the Cocoa Beach Pier.”

  We both looked towards Jack. His eyes were glued to the sine wave on the main screen.

  It was blue. Not orange.

  “He’s not here,” Jack remarked.

  “Give him time,” Rafe offered.

  Both men turned to look at me.

  “Perhaps a walk, Miss Wylde?” Jack suggested. “God knows it was while you were on the bloody thing that Miss Groves disappeared.”

  I nodded my head. There wasn’t much I could say to that. I was the outsider; they were the qualified doctors. He’d been wrong before. This was their story, and I was the one just along for the ride.

  We changed into clothing appropriate for the era, taking turns in the bathroom as required. I stared at myself in the small mirror above the sink and wondered just what the effing hell I had gotten myself into here. I was travelling through Time chasing a Lunik vessel with the equivalent of an angry Rottweiler for a companion. If Sergei Ivanov was crazy, then what was I?

  At the last minute, it was decided that Rafe would actually remain with the MPCV, as we were attempting to replicate prior events as closely as possible. Of course, Sally wasn’t with us either. But that was also intentional. Why give Ivanov another person to target? We wanted him to target me.

  In truth, though, it w
as Carrie we wanted. It was Carrie we wanted to target me.

  That thought left me reeling and not just a little sick of heart. I was finding it increasingly hard to breathe.

  The sun beat down on us as soon as we took our first steps outside, the scent of sea salt and brine wrapping around our frames. We walked in silence to the end of the pier, expecting an ambush at any minute. But nothing happened. No nebula. No stars. No space-like silence. Just gulls and crashing waves and the odd shout of a surfer out in the water. By the time we reached the railing at the end of the pier, I was a nervous wreck; sweating profusely; jumping at the merest creak of wood beneath our feet; heart beating erratically inside. Jack’s perpetual silence only exacerbated everything.

  I hadn’t realised I’d come to rely on his gentle tone and softly offered support so much. But there you have it. Brooding Jack left me feeling all kinds of disconcerted.

  Brooding Jack had had quite long enough.

  “What’s going on, Jack?” I asked, resting a hip against the railing. He stared out into the ocean as if not seeing a thing.

  “What do you mean?” he asked. “And you should address me as Dr Evans whilst on a mission,” he added.

  “OK then,” I said. “What’s going on, Dr Evans?”

  He flicked dark eyes to me, then back to the scenery.

  “I don’t know what you mean, Novitiate.”

  Oh, so it was like that, was it? My fingers clenched around the railing. Something inside my chest squeezed.

  “You know, you’ve had a stick up your arse from the moment we entered the Orion,” I said evenly. How I managed to stay calm was beyond me. “I was wondering what or who might have put it there…Doctor.”

  “That is hardly appropriate language, Miss Wylde.”

  “Would you prefer if I said, ‘Bloody fucking bollocks’?” And there you have it, not so steady.

  He closed his eyes slowly and then let out a deep breath. I felt his disquiet keenly.

  “He’s not coming,” he said. Completely avoiding the topic of conversation. Completely avoiding facing me.

  “No,” I agreed, feeling acutely disappointed. With him. With the whole situation. With myself, in all reality.

  I expected more from Jack than he was obviously capable of giving. He’d had me believe in the dreams. And maybe that was the problem; the familiarity; the fantasy; the intimacy.

  The dreams were meant to be part of us, but every time I began to think that, every time I let that thought win, something happened to make me disbelieve.

  “Perhaps we could try the Holiday Inn,” Jack suggested quietly.

  I packaged up my hurt and smiled.

  “That could work,” I offered. Sergei had approached me there. Would he again?

  Would Carrie?

  Jack turned to walk back down the pier, but I reached out and stopped him.

  “Tell me,” I pleaded. Why I don’t know. Maybe I’m a glutton for punishment.

  “This isn’t the place or…” he began.

  “You’ll feel better if you do.”

  He smiled. The first real smile I’d seen the entire morning.

  “I’m not so sure,” he murmured.

  “Something’s bothering you, and until you face it, you’ll never beat it.”

  “Very perceptive, Miss Wylde.”

  “I can be,” I said with a small smile. Speak to me.

  He stood statue still and just stared. Neither of us saying a word. If Ivanov had chosen that moment to appear, we would have missed him. Thankfully, the Russian wasn’t heeding our call.

  Yet.

  “It’s all right, Mimi,” he finally said, voice soft and gentle. I’d missed that tone. “It’s nothing you need to concern yourself with. It’s something I must accept on my own.”

  “You’re not making any sense. And why do the rules not apply to you?”

  “What rules?”

  “‘You should address me as Dr Evans whilst on a mission,’” I repeated in a mimic of his much deeper voice.

  He chuckled. The tightness in my chest eased. “I’m the Surgeon, Miss Wylde. I get to make up the rules.”

  “And break them.”

  His hand moved as if to reach for me. I held my breath. Then he stopped it part way between our bodies. Returning it to his side eventually with a sigh.

  “I’m breaking them all with you,” he murmured, and then started walking back towards the beginning of the pier, somehow making my heart ache and my eyes fill with tears.

  I dashed them away and followed behind him, unable to bring myself to walk at his side. Jack was deep in some sort of misery, one I couldn’t seem to reach him in, even when I tried. The thought I should have understood what was going on entered my head, but for the life of me, I had no idea what would have made him so quiet.

  It involved me; I knew that. And it upset him, of that I was certain, too.

  Neither thought made me feel right.

  “There is a chance,” Jack said as we walked down the main street, passing by the diner we’d visited on my first trip back in time, “he will reappear at the origin of the tear. The Holiday Inn was where he first attempted to draw us. Where he approached you for that first time.”

  It made sense, but I couldn’t seem to voice my agreement. Jack’s mood had affected mine.

  “Keep your wits about you, Miss Wylde. Our previous selves will be present here; we must stay out of sight.”

  “What happens if we don’t?”

  “A confusion of sorts.”

  “Which means?” I demanded.

  “Which means we may devastate this time. The dimensional wave may become inoperable. Unlike a rip which we can repair, a muddled temporal dimension becomes impossible to navigate. So, we tread with care.”

  I nodded my head, unsure how we’d achieve that and why we’d returned at all if it was that dire.

  We found a place off to the side to watch the scene unfold in the Holiday Inn car park. My eyes automatically being drawn to the astronauts. Once a NASA nerd, always a NASA nerd. I watched Neil Armstrong joke with reporters. I smiled wanly when they smiled. I imagined being him, being an astronaut, and imagined the weight of command, the weight of the impending flight on my shoulders. A new found respect for what they undertook settled deep in my bones. There had been other manned Apollo flights into space before this one. Orbiting the moon. Returning safely to Earth again. But this was the first time an Apollo crew would land on the surface. The first time man attempted to land on a natural satellite to Earth. A feat worth being in awe of.

  But somehow, even though I felt it, imagined it, the awe didn’t really reach me.

  It was Jack who spotted Abe Silverstein first; clearly, I was too distracted. But along with Silverstein, we found the shooter. It was easy to extrapolate the order of events after that. But not so easy to see myself as it all unfolded. From our vantage point we couldn’t make out the face of the person shooting, shadows left all but the most basic outline visible. They weren’t tall or broad of shoulder, but they fired the pistol with a steady hand and lethal eye.

  I sucked in a breath when the previous time’s Jack bounded over the Corvette’s bonnet. I stifled a yelp when Mr Silverstein went down. The crowd panicked. It seemed more chaotic than it had when I’d been in the middle of it. Even watching from outside, I felt every cry, every stumble, every scream, as though mine.

  When Ivanov appeared at the back of the me we were watching, my hand reached out and found Jack’s. He didn’t deny me the contact; whether that was a concession he’d make any novice Novitiate, I wasn’t sure. But I was thankful for his warmth and firm grip back.

  I searched for the shooter again, but he’d vanished. Just like he’d vanished the first time, we’d been here. I wasn’t sure how that was possible, how we could fail to see where he went even as we were looking for it the second time, but the events mimicked our original visit.

  In every way bar one.

  Sergei Ivanov, his gun pressed into
the side of the earlier me’s ribs, looked up and over my shoulder directly at us. The present us. Watching from our hiding place, trying not to be seen.

  “Christ,” Jack muttered. “How the bloody hell does he even know we’re here? Now?”

  I shook my head, seeing the hatred in those dark eyes directed right at me. Or us, I’m unsure. Seeing the intelligence behind the man. Seeing his intent. Feeling it all.

  “Does it matter?” I asked, voice scratchy. “He’s here. Can’t we catch him?”

  Jack glanced down at me, his lips pressed into a thin line, his brow furrowed.

  “Are you ready for this, Miss Wylde?”

  How could I not be? This man held Carrie.

  How could I be, as well? I was out of time.

  I nodded my head as Ivanov responded to my earlier attempt to emasculate him with my elbow and knee. And then we were running, and he was punching the earlier me in the stomach, and landing a particularly nasty blow against my temple with the butt of his gun. He looked up at our approach, watching us dispassionately, taking his time…and then ran.

  It was all too easy, really. But it happened so fast, that we couldn’t prevent what happened next. We rounded the side of the Holiday Inn, our breaths panting, our steps too loud, and came face to face with a Lunik. The door was open. The Vehicle was lit up on the inside. A nebula was already forming.

  Through the open access way, I spotted a replica of our Orion, right down to the number of chairs. And in one sat my sister.

  The world narrowed to just us, to just this moment, to the desperate need to reach her.

  “Carrie!” I yelled. But she didn’t even turn her head.

  And she wasn’t alone. In the command chair beside her sat Sergei Ivanov, his eyes on us, his hand on the console of the Vehicle. He hit a button. The door began to close. I ran harder, my heartbeat frantic, my breaths laboured, time seeming to slow.

  Then I was leaping, screaming, reaching for the inside of the Lunik, as Ivanov raised a gun, pointing it at my head.

  Stupid! I’d known he had a gun. I’d known he wouldn’t hesitate to fire. If I was honest, I’d known his agenda was far darker, far more reaching, than we’d feared.