Time Lost

by C. B. Lewis

  Ofori’s eyebrows rose. “A father?”

  “Taken.” It sounded better than “tragically het.”

  “I’m not.”

  Kit blinked at him. “Eh?”

  The slow smile was still playing around Ofori’s full lips. “I’m not… taken. Single and very much not taken.” He tilted his head, gazing at Kit through his black lashes. “And you, I can tell, aren’t taken either.”

  Kit raised one hand to press it to his cheek. It was burning, but his heart had skipped a beat, because Ofori was flirting with him, and even teasing him, and Jesus, it had been a good while since he’d had that.

  “No. Not at all taken. Never even tried it.” He breathed out noisily. “I’m sorry. My brain doesn’t work well when there are good-looking people around.”

  Ofori’s dimples appeared in his cheeks. “Do you always compliment people? Or am I just lucky?”

  “Have you looked at you recently?” Kit retorted.

  Ofori’s teeth really were incredibly white when he smiled. And a little crooked. And good God, Kit thought, if he was noticing that….

  “Um. I should… you know… go. Somewhere.”

  He was almost past Ofori when the man caught his arm. It was just a light touch, but enough to stop him dead in his tracks.

  Ofori was looking at his hand as if it had betrayed him, then raised his eyes to Kit’s. “You fancy a drink?”

  There was a voice in Kit’s head screaming that it was a very bad idea. A little voice that sounded like a chorus of Hamid and Mariam and, for some reason, his year six teacher: Policeman! Investigating the TRI! Lying to a policeman is a crime! Going out and having a drink and lying throughout would be even worse!

  Then there was the little voice that liked very good-looking people buying him drinks and hadn’t got laid in far too long. It was smaller, and quieter, but when it showed up, he really didn’t have a choice, especially not with a man with those dimples and shoulders.

  “God, yes.”

  “What? Really?”

  Kit turned back to face him. “Mine’s a Bacardi.”

  Ofori was staring at him as if he couldn’t quite believe he’d asked and been accepted. He was searching Kit’s face, and if he regretted his decision, Kit wasn’t going to be the one to poke at him to make him back out. A drink was a drink, after all.

  The lobby was deserted, which meant the tap of footsteps was hard to miss.

  “Am I interrupting?”

  Ofori dropped Kit’s arm and stepped back, turning to face the speaker. “Luke.”

  Kit spun to face the man, Ofori’s son apparently. He looked like he was around the same age as Kit himself, maybe even a little older. He was a little shorter than his father, and his skin was lighter, but now that Kit knew they were related, he could see the similarities in their dark brown eyes and the shape of their features. It was bloody unfair that two men could both be so good-looking.

  “Evening.” Luke held out a hand. “I’m Luke.”

  “Kit.” Kit shook his hand. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to steal your dad away.” He glanced at Jacob. “Another night, maybe?”

  A look passed between father and son. Unless Kit was mistaken, Luke was nodding encouragingly.

  “Tuesday evening?” Ofori said. “Seven?”

  Kit wondered if he was grinning like an idiot. His cheeks were aching, so probably. “Sounds good to me.” He took out his quill. “Sync me.”

  They exchanged numbers, and Kit made his excuses and hurried off to find Jenny.

  Behind him, he heard Luke speaking to his father.

  “Seems nice.”

  He didn’t hear Ofori’s reply and was a little relieved. If Jacob Ofori was regretting the offer of a drink, Kit didn’t want to know about it until he cancelled their date. Until then, at least he could imagine all the ways it could go.

  He found Jenny waiting at the souvenir stand, a program tucked under her arm. She was smiling knowingly.

  “Good-looking man.”

  Kit made a face at her. “A friend.”

  “Mm-hmm.” She reached up and patted his cheek. “And friends make you blush like a schoolboy, do they?”

  “Oh, shut up,” he said, grinning.

  Chapter 9

  JACOB HAD his quill out again.

  He’d spent Sunday with Luke, trying his best not to think about anything but his son, but the minute Luke dropped him at his door on Sunday night, Jacob had descended into a moral crisis with the bloody quill.

  All it would take was one message, and he wouldn’t be going out for a drink with a man who was currently part of a major investigation. One message, and he wouldn’t be breaching protocol and putting his own bollocks in a vise if everything went wrong.

  It was simple. Just a message saying something had come up.

  Every time he tried to put the words in, he couldn’t.

  There were a dozen reasons he knew he should.

  And then there was the happy expression on Luke’s face when he thought his father might finally be moving on. If he didn’t go and tried to lie about it, Luke would know. He was always too bloody perceptive.

  It was just one drink.

  That was all it needed to be, and then he and Rafferty could go on their merry ways and never see each other again except in a professional capacity.

  Jacob groaned and tossed the quill to the end of the bed.

  What the hell was he doing?

  There were other ways to get information out of people. Going out on what could technically be called a date was not exactly professional police work. Especially when the target in question was charming in a speaking-before-thinking way.

  Jacob crossed his arms over his face and pressed his head back against the mountain of pillows.

  It was never good when a man was led by his dick.

  That’s what was going on here, and he couldn’t deny it.

  If he were being professional, he would have done things by the book and waited until Anton finished his searches. If he were being professional, he wouldn’t have let a younger man with a dazzling smile catch him off guard.

  He sat up and reached for the quill again, touching the sensor to activate the screen.

  A sensible man would have looked at some porn, stuck his hand down his trousers, and not ended up asking a completely inappropriate person to go for a drink with him.

  The alarm on his quill chimed. He never needed it, but especially not today. Every hour, he’d been awake, glared at the quill, and put it down. Every hour, he decided to send the message, then changed his mind, and left it another hour.

  Maybe there would be new evidence at the office, so he wouldn’t have to meet Rafferty.

  But then, if he didn’t want to meet him, he didn’t have to. That was the problem. He wanted to. He hadn’t been smiled at like that in a long while. Or flirted with so blatantly. Or eyed like he was worth looking at. Most people who tried to flirt with him were much more subtle, and he could ignore subtle. Kit was a breath of fresh air.

  He swung his legs down over the side of the bed. The floor was cool beneath his feet.

  “Bugger it,” he muttered, and threw the quill over his shoulder onto the middle of the bed.

  When he finally got into the office, Temple took one look at him and went to the coffee machine, filling his mug and adding two sugars for good measure. She followed him to his office and set the mug down in front of him.

  “Bad weekend?”

  Jacob shook his head. He propped his elbow on the arm of the chair and cradled his brow. “Any news?”

  “A couple of reported sightings of Sanders to the helpline, but they turned out to be false alarms. Anton said he had some background checks with the Home Office, but otherwise, we’re no further on.”

  With the number of staff employed at the TRI, that could take some time. Jacob could recall seeing and hearing people from different backgrounds. He had no doubt their paperwork would be fine. After all, if the company made such an effo
rt of keeping their books in perfect order, it would be sloppy to screw up the staff details.

  He smiled briefly. “Thanks.”

  She nodded and slipped out of the room.

  Jacob switched on his slate, tapping at the screen to bring up the file on the case again. He had looked through the images so many times, trying to find something new, something he’d missed. The CSU report had been completed, and it only supported what he already knew: at least two assailants, probably with some kind of getaway vehicle.

  He flicked through the images, back to the possessions of John Smith.

  The design on the coat had been identified at last. Some high-end designer made them for close to a thousand pounds each. From the work on the coat, it wasn’t an original, just a very good copy that could be bought at any backstreet market in any city in England. Another lead down the drain.

  He skimmed over the descriptions of each item, then paused, frowning.

  “Temple!”

  She appeared at the door. “Boss?”

  “The boots,” he said, looking up. “John Smith’s boots. The reports said they had some grass on them?”

  She nodded. “Dried grass.”

  He pulled up the image of the boots. “If we’re going with the hypothesis they came in by a vehicle, why would he have grass on his boots? The pod bay is gravel and directly in front of the house.” He looked up at her. “Are we sure he didn’t come in across the grounds?”

  “CSU couldn’t find footprints on the grass, but it was windy and rainy that day.” She frowned. “Where would he have come from otherwise? There are only fields for miles around the house. I don’t think many kidnappers would hike to kidnap someone.”

  “No,” he agreed. “Of course not.” He scratched at his jaw, frowning. “Suppose he could have been trying to get a look in the windows. Maybe that’s when Sanders saw him and warned his son to hide.”

  “You’ll need to speak to the boy again.”

  Jacob nodded. He’d been hoping to avoid it. Ben was already traumatized enough. He didn’t need a reminder of what had happened. Still, they needed to work out the timeline, and if talking to Ben cleared up some of the facts, it had to be done.

  “See if you can’t push the analysis on the grass to see if it matches vegetation in the gardens. If not, we might get more ideas of where he came from.” He rose. “I’ll see if Anton’s heard anything from the Home Office. If I have to go back into the TRI to see Mrs. Ashraf and Ben, I might as well deal with everything while I’m there, if we have any queries.”

  “You want me to call ahead and let them know you’ll be coming?”

  Jacob considered the careful way he and Mrs. Ashraf had approached each other. She was sizing him up and vice versa. Better to limit her contact with his team. “I’ll call her once I know the details. I think she’d prefer hearing directly from me, since we’ve talked before.”

  “Smart one?” Temple guessed.

  “And then some,” Jacob confirmed. He glanced at the images. “We’re going to have to release the scene soon. I think it’ll stand as a show of good faith if I tell her that when I see her.”

  “Here’s your friend’s house back, tell us what you know?”

  Jacob shrugged. “It might work. Unlikely, but possible.”

  Temple returned to the door. “You want me to go out and do a last sweep? Just in case?”

  He nodded. “Can’t hurt. Image everything, just to be on the safe side.”

  By the time he emerged from his office, she had already left.

  Jacob went to the incident board, trying to put everything in order.

  There was too much that didn’t make sense, too many questions that needed answering: Where had the kidnappers come from? Where did they go? Why did they target Sanders? Why were the TRI keeping their mouths shut with one of their chief engineers still missing in action? What were they hiding?

  Now was not the time to socialize with a member of the TRI.

  Jacob thumbed on his quill.

  Kit Rafferty’s name and number were at the top of his contact list.

  It wasn’t the time for it, but if they didn’t get anywhere with Mariam Ashraf, and Ben couldn’t tell them anything, then they were going to be working in circles. He clenched his teeth, popping open a new message.

  It was morally questionable to take advantage of Rafferty’s good nature, and professionally risky in the middle of an investigation, but they needed answers, and if bending the rules was going to get them, he knew he would do it.

  He typed in a message with a location and sent it before he could change his mind.

  Fifteen minutes later, the reply came. Acceptance and a smiling icon.

  Jacob stared blankly at the quill.

  Jesus, he was a bastard.

  Chapter 10

  THERE WAS a speaker system running through the whole TRI building.

  Once in a while, there was a fire drill, and occasionally, rarely, announcements would be made about upcoming visits or events. It was very rare for anyone to be called up individually through the system.

  That was why Kit almost dropped his screwdriver in alarm when his name echoed around the temporal chamber. He was doing upgrade work on the temporal gate. It didn’t look like much more than an oversized metal doorframe, hooked up to wires and cables, but it was far more complicated than anything he’d worked with before. He had been working on it for hours and had only stepped back to stretch, so the sudden burst of noise made him jump.

  “Kit Rafferty, report to Mariam Ashraf’s office.”

  Kit looked frantically at Reg, who was sitting on the floor, working on rewiring another cable. “What do I do?”

  Reg set down the cable and looked up at him. “When Mariam calls? You go. It must be important if they’re calling through the whole building.”

  “Well, they couldn’t exactly call us down here,” Kit said hopefully. “Maybe it’s not so serious.”

  Reg’s eyebrows rose. “If you say so.”

  Kit winced. He spun around, kneeling to replace his tools back in his tool tray. Everything had its place there. He took a moment longer than was necessary, trying to gather himself. He hadn’t seen Mariam since their encounter in the canteen.

  A panicked thought surfaced: maybe they knew about his date with the police officer.

  He wedged the lid of the toolbox closed and scrambled up. “Don’t touch anything,” he said with a nod to the gate, then hurried toward the main door of the room. A long corridor linked the gate room to a layover chamber, where agents usually changed and cleaned up after missions. Beyond that, there was another corridor that led to the main halls and the stairs.

  The temporal chambers were all located in the second lowest level of the building, far underground. It was safer that they were kept out of sight. Unfortunately, it also meant they weren’t connected to the lift network.

  By the time he reached the level where the lifts started running, he was puffing and out of breath. He sagged in the corner of the lift, breathing hard and trying his best not to think of the drop below.

  They couldn’t know about his encounter with DI Ofori. He hadn’t mentioned it to anyone, so unless they had been hacking into his quill, there was no way they could know about it. He didn’t bring up his love life at work anyway, but mentioning that he was having drinks with their investigating officer seemed like the height of stupidity.

  The lift whirred to a halt on the tenth floor, and he glanced at his reflection in the mirrored wall. He looked white as a sheet, making his freckles stand out in sharp relief. If they didn’t suspect he was up to something before, he looked bad enough that they would suspect now.

  He tried to pat his hair into behaving, straightened his T-shirt, then stepped out of the lift and headed toward Mariam’s door.

  It was closed, but he tapped lightly, then pressed the control to open it.

  Mariam was waiting, but she wasn’t alone.

  Janos Nagy was sitting in the chai
r beside her desk, and he rose as Mariam got up.

  Kit looked warily from one to the other. “You called me?”

  Mariam nodded. “A few days ago, you asked me what happened three years ago. I’m not the one to tell you.” She looked at Janos. “I’ll leave you to it. If you need me back, I’ll be in the conference room at the end of the hall.”

  Janos bowed slightly. It was an odd little habit he always had around ladies.

  Mariam met Kit’s eyes. “Hear him out.”

  Kit didn’t know what he was meant to say. He just stepped aside and let her leave the room. The door slid closed behind her. He looked at Janos and knocked his knuckles together nervously. “So, you know what happened three years ago?”

  Janos motioned with his prosthetic left hand for Kit to sit down. “Please. It is a complicated story to tell you.”

  Kit sat down on the edge of the chair. “Why are you the one telling me? Why not Mariam?”

  “Because I am what happened three years ago.”

  Kit frowned. “I don’t think you said that right.”

  “It is right.” Janos leaned back in his chair and laced his hands together. “My name is Janos Attila Nagy. I was born in 1911 in Szerencs region of Hungary.” He inclined his head. “I am the reason you have this job.”

  Kit stared at him. “Bollocks.”

  Janos looked back at him placidly. “You think I lie?”

  “I think there are strict rules to stop that from happening.” Kit shook his head. “They wouldn’t let it happen.”

  “They did not let anything happen,” Janos said. Kit had never heard him speaking so much. His Hungarian accent was strong, but his voice was warm and deep. “Sanders told you that the gate was left open in time past, yes? They started closing it because of me. I struck one of the agents and came through. They could not kill me, but they had no time to send me back.”

  Kit stared at him, his fingers wrapped around the arms of the chair.

  It was against all the rules they had. Suddenly, fancying a policeman didn’t seem like such a major problem.

  “Let’s say that’s true,” he said. “So you just stayed? Just like that? Traveled in time and you were okay with it?”