A Thief in Time (Thief in Time Series Book 1)

by Cidney Swanson

  So, he averted his attention. Focused upon the fineness of the morning—another perfect day in paradise. Considered what he would take for breakfast (a coffee from the Nordstrom Café Bistro, perhaps?). Mused upon a pet hypothesis he was anxious to test. And then, as he turned a corner, emerging into blinding sunlight, it came to him.

  The young man. Edmund Aldwyssen.

  There had been a moment when the professor had been certain that Edmund meant to harm him. Dr. Jules Khan hadn’t survived dozens of forays into history without scenting the subtle shift that preceded a revealed firearm, a drawn sword, a pair of raised fists.

  But the boy hadn’t raised his fists like a boy ready to duke it out. He hadn’t reached for a firearm concealed in a shoulder holster like an undercover agent. No, the young man had done neither of these things. Instead, he had shifted his right hand to his left hip like someone reaching for a sword. Like someone who’d been pulled into this century from an earlier one by means of the singularity device.

  Khan swore. This, then, was the subtle clue that had been itching and tickling the professor’s brain—and it gave the boy away, the action of reaching his right hand across to his left hip, seeking a sword that should have been there.

  Or had he misread the clue? Maybe Edmund had been reaching to scratch an itch. Maybe he had poison oak. Maybe he’d been swiping at a fly.

  It was still possible the laboratory remained inviolate and unprofaned. Wasn’t it?

  In his mind’s eye, the professor visualized his subterranean chamber. His sacred space. His hidden source of limitless wealth and knowledge. He was in trouble. In peril.

  He slammed on his brakes as a frisson of fear ran its way up his spine. He had been so careful for so long. Would the girl have blabbed everything she’d seen and done all over social media? Exposure was unthinkable. Whipping out his cell phone, Jules Khan searched a few key phrases. Fortunately, he found nothing to increase his fears. Of course, there was nothing to abate them, either. If the girl hadn’t told anyone yet, that was no guarantee she would keep silent indefinitely. Khan had a sudden vision of days, months, years, spent holding his breath, hoping, praying, pleading, bribing.

  He couldn’t live like that. He wouldn’t live like that.

  Hoping Halley and her sixteenth-century boyfriend were still at the gallery, Khan made a completely unprotected U-turn and then sped forward, uttering a very old, rather foul, and tiresomely common word.

  31

  • HALLEY •

  “Eliminate the impossible,” said Halley, “and whatever remains, no matter how crazy, is the truth.” She looked over to Jillian, who had seated herself on one of the gallery’s viewing benches. “Did I say it right?”

  “Essentially,” murmured Jillian.

  “Guys?” said DaVinci, scrolling through her phone. “Check this out. If you Google ‘Dr. Jules Khan’ plus ‘time travel,’ the only hit is that one paper in 2001. I’ve gone back five pages, and that’s it. One paper. What’s with that?”

  “It would make sense if he had actually succeeded and wanted to keep it secret,” mused Jillian.

  “That’s my assumption,” said Halley. She collapsed onto the bench beside Jillian. “This is a huge secret. Like, the biggest secret ever.”

  “Oh,” said DaVinci, eyes widening. “That’s why you said Edmund was Danish, so the professor wouldn’t hear Edmund’s Elizabethan mouth shooting off and figure out you had brought someone back—uh, forward—in time.”

  “Yes,” Halley said. “It was the only thing I could think of.”

  “Good thinking, really,” said DaVinci. “So, um, I take it we are all . . . believing Halley’s, uh, explanation?”

  Jillian nodded. Halley felt her eyes brimming. She hadn’t been prepared for how good it would feel to include her friends in this secret.

  “Sorry,” she murmured, swiping at her eyes. “I’m being stupid.”

  Jillian hugged an arm around Halley’s shoulders. “It’s fine.”

  “It’s just,” said DaVinci, “am I the only one who thinks it’s an awfully big coincidence that Dr. Khan just happened to show up here where Halley and Edmund are? What is he doing showing up here? At a closed art gallery? On a Saturday morning?”

  “That’s why I texted you guys the warning,” said Halley, miserably. “I don’t think he just happened to show up here. I’m afraid he’s following us.”

  Jillian frowned. “There’s actually a very rational explanation for Khan being here. You said he came back from the time machine clutching jewelry, right?”

  Halley nodded, as did Edmund.

  “Well,” said Jillian, “My mom’s colleague—the one who owns the gallery and gave DaVinci this opportunity—her husband has an office in the back, and he buys estate jewelry and antiques.”

  Edmund spoke. “The professor carried rings, chains, and a carcanet of great worth when he appeared before us from nowhere.”

  “He sells the things he steals,” said Halley.

  “Traveling in time to steal expensive jewelry for a living?” said DaVinci. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “That’s my guess, anyway,” clarified Halley. “He’s retired, but he’s, like, not even forty. And his home is worth four million, easy, according to my mom.”

  “Um, hello, my parents teach,” said DaVinci. “No way did he make that teaching at UCSB. But selling old art and jewelry like that, he’d be richer than a Swiss banker.”

  “He might buy what he brings back, rather than stealing it,” suggested Jillian.

  “In either case,” said Edmund, “He would have good cause to keep the machine a secret.”

  “Well, if he’s here at the gallery, he’s probably selling jewelry,” said Jillian to Halley. “Which would mean you have nothing to worry about. There’s a perfectly good reason for him to be here, and it has nothing to do with you.”

  DaVinci rolled her eyes. “You always see the best in people.”

  “It doesn’t mean she’s wrong about why Khan’s here,” said Halley, trying to convince herself. “Although, he did ask about Edmund . . .”

  Jillian shook her head. “He was just doing what anyone would do to be polite. Which leads me to another point. Er, Edmund, you come across a little . . . intense.”

  “I beg pardon, lady, but I understand you not,” he replied.

  “She means you’re all, ‘Me Tarzan—me protect Jane!’” said DaVinci.

  Edmund looked more confused than ever.

  “Let’s just finish up here,” said Halley, rising. Even knowing Khan hadn’t come there for her, she was still eager to get away as soon as possible. As they hung the final tapestries and adjusted the lighting, Halley explained her plan to return Edmund to his rightful time when her mother next house-sat for Khan.

  “The machine is in the main house’s basement,” explained Halley.

  “Where everyone keeps their time machine,” murmured DaVinci.

  “So you’re going to have figure out how to break into the basement,” said Jillian, tapping one finger thoughtfully to her chin. “Branson might have some ideas . . .”

  “Branson?” asked Halley.

  “Branson,” sighed DaVinci, pretending to fan herself.

  “He’s full of extremely practical tips,” said Jillian. “Not that I’ll tell him why or anything.”

  “I’m only helping if it’s during daylight hours,” said DaVinci. “I read this sci-fi story once about a time traveler who became a ghost every night at midnight.” She gave an exaggerated shiver.

  Jillian murmured, “DaVinci.”

  Edmund looked amused.

  “No offense, dude,” added DaVinci. “And I still totally need to sketch you.”

  Halley groaned. “I can’t ask either of you to help.”

  “Of course we’re helping,” snapped Jillian. “What kind of friends would we be if we abandoned you in your hour of need?”

  Halley, reminded of how she’d left them at the booth yesterday, felt her
face heating.

  Edmund responded to Jillian. “I cannot ask either of you to place yourself in the path of harm, but I must return or perish in the attempt.”

  Halley felt her stomach tightening. Within seconds, her phone began buzzing with incoming texts.

  It was her mother.

  “Fantastic,” she murmured.

  32

  • HALLEY •

  Halley’s mother wanted to know about her paycheck. Had Halley picked it up? Why hadn’t she brought it over? Where was it now?

  Halley sighed and shot back a quick response. Then she looked up to her friends.

  “Mom’s angry I didn’t pick up her check last night when I promised to,” she said. She couldn’t quite keep the defeated sound from her voice. “I have to swing by the apartment just in case the check was miraculously mailed yesterday evening and delivered to our address this morning.”

  This time it was DaVinci who crossed over to hug Halley. “Just remember,” she murmured, “you are an amazing daughter. It’s your mom who has issues, and those issues have nothing to do with what you do or don’t do.”

  “I know,” said Halley. “It’s not me. I know.”

  “You don’t,” said DaVinci, shaking her head at Halley. “But I hope someday you will.”

  “Okay,” said Jillian. “Time for me to pick Branson’s brain on picking locks.”

  DaVinci snorted, released Halley, and said she had to get home, too.

  “I’ll pick you both up tomorrow at ten,” Jillian said to Halley and Edmund. “Meanwhile, you should show Edmund how Santa Barbarians have fun.” She winked at Halley, who flushed and turned to leave.

  Edmund peppered her with questions once they were alone in the truck, and by the time Halley finished explaining about checks and the postal service (which Edmund found fascinating), they had reached the parking lot of her small apartment. She opened her mailbox and pulled out several days’ worth of junk mail, scanning for anything handwritten. Not finding it, she climbed back in the truck and handed the stack of mail to Edmund so she could text her mother.

  Nothing yet. I’ll check again Monday.

  As soon as she finished typing the very ordinary word “Monday,” she realized that a week from Monday, Edmund would be gone. The thought carved a hollow space in her belly. She didn’t want Edmund to leave. She wanted him to stay, punctuating her life with his laughter and his sense of wonder at ordinary things like the postal service. She wanted the shiver that came with accidental contact, the back of her hand brushing his forearm, their knees jouncing together on Montecito’s potholed back roads. She wanted to hold his hand, watching pelicans dive into the silver sea. She wanted to lean in until foreheads touched and the world shrank down to their two breaths.

  Exhaling, she sent the text. She was being a fool. Edmund had to go.

  She put her keys back in the ignition and told herself to pull it together. Two days ago she’d never even heard of Edmund, Second Earl of Unobtainable. She pulled the truck out of the parking lot.

  Except . . . Edmund wasn’t unobtainable. Not at the moment. Which was maddening and wonderful.

  His mood seemed to have shifted as well. He looked gloomy, his brow furrowing. Halley’s eyes traced the slight growth of beard that had appeared overnight. She looked back to the road, and an achy part of her wondered what it would feel like to kiss him now.

  “Are you worrying?” she asked softly, glancing back at him.

  “Is it thus apparent?” His mouth turned up at the corners, and Halley noted how his face had small white creases that the summer sun of four hundred years ago had failed to reach.

  “It’s time for some serious distraction,” she said. “I know just the thing. First stop, a modern grocery store. I’m introducing you to ice cream.”

  Pulling into the Vons parking lot, she had to explain the concept of “store” to Edmund, who only knew the word as a verb: “to store,” as in, “to store grain for winter.”

  “We do visit the costermonger instead of the store,” Edmund explained. “London has those who will sell you apples or nuts in season, from a cart or stall, and shops of every kind, besides.”

  Despite London’s wealth of offerings, Edmund was dumbstruck by the inside of Vons. He stared in open-mouthed amazement at everything from the seafood display to the wine selection to the brightly packaged loaves of bread. Halley had to grab his sleeve to tug him away from the cartons of identical white eggs.

  “I stand amazed,” he murmured over and over.

  “Frozen food’s this way,” she said, guiding him to the selection of gourmet pints of ice cream.

  She asked if he wanted to try mint chocolate chip, but he didn’t answer.

  Halley looked up from Phish Food and Cherry Garcia to see what had captured Edmund’s attention. He’d thrust a hand inside the freezer case and was holding it there in stunned silence.

  “How is it that the chill of winter is contained within this box?” he asked.

  “Electricity,” murmured Halley. “And if you’re not going to help me pick a flavor, we’re getting dulce de leche.” She reached for the carton and then gently pulled Edmund’s hand back out of the freezer, shutting the door.

  He was still marveling at his cold hand while Halley paid for the ice cream. “Do you have plastic spoons?” she asked the cashier.

  The cashier handed her two. “Breakfast of champions,” he said, winking as he bagged the ice cream.

  Back in the truck, Edmund was as fascinated by the icy frost forming on the container as he had been by the freezer case. He was like a toddler playing with the wrapping paper instead of the gift. She eased the truck onto Coast Village Road, turning right for the beach.

  “Careful,” she said as they jolted along the uneven pavement toward the Biltmore. “If you leave your hand on the container like that, you’ll get frostbite.”

  Edmund looked up, smiled bashfully, and replaced the ice cream carton in the bag. “I did things equally foolish when I was a boy.”

  “If this foolishness involved something frozen and your tongue, I don’t want to know.”

  Edmund laughed at this and vowed she should not, in that case, hear any more of his youthful folly.

  The ocean came into view, the sun glancing off the water in a repeating pattern of diamonds that seemed to stretch all the way to the Channel Islands. Halley parked and the two scampered down a set of crumbling stairs.

  “This way,” said Halley, turning right, away from the Biltmore’s manicured beach. She suspected the stairs on that end of the beach were not crumbling into ruin, but she preferred the golden sandstone cliffs to the cement-reinforced walls of the hotel’s beach.

  Edmund paused, stooping to retrieve a blue-gray rock from the beach. It was pocked with holes.

  Halley crouched beside him.

  “I have never seen the like,” he said, turning the stone in his hands.

  “It looks like someone took a miniature melon baller to it, huh?” asked Halley, before remembering he wouldn’t know what a melon baller was. “You should take it home with you. To remember.”

  Something flickered in Edmund’s eyes as they met hers.

  Swallowing, Halley stood and strode down to the water, allowing it to lap at her feet. The pure cold of the ocean drove away the drowsy warmth of Edmund’s gaze.

  Silently, Edmund joined her, having pulled off his shoes and socks.

  They stood for a long while like that, the two staring out at the bright water.

  “I dream of the sea,” he said at last.

  Halley turned to him. His face held a fierceness she hadn’t seen before.

  “You do?” she asked, fishing for more.

  Edmund bent to pick up another rock, small and rounded and ordinary. He hurled it far, far out to sea. And then he spoke again.

  “I dreamed of following Martin Frobisher and John White to seek the glories of the New World. But that was long ago.”

  The fierceness on his face had bee
n replaced with something more like regret. It made Halley want to take his hand. Tentatively, she reached for it. Edmund held on tightly and did not let go.

  33

  • KHAN •

  Dr. Jules Khan drove uphill toward Nieman’s art gallery at precisely twelve miles per hour over the posted limit, desperately hoping Halley Mikkelsen and her boyfriend hadn’t left yet. What he meant to say or do, he wasn’t sure. Finding them came first. Khan had bluffed his way through any number of threatening situations as a temporal rift traveler, and in Latin no less. Surely he could manage a teenage girl barely out of high school.

  Khan drove through a four-way stop without stopping and inched his speed up to fifteen over the speed limit. And then, just at the next curve, he saw an ugly blue pickup truck driving toward him in the opposite lane. Its driver did not make eye contact, apparently too distracted by her passenger.

  Slamming on his brakes, the professor reversed into a driveway and turned around to follow the pickup.

  The pair made a stop at Vons, giving Khan time to consider what, exactly, he was hoping for out of an encounter. Licking his lips nervously, Khan decided not to follow them into the grocery store. It was too public. Too many people around who might overhear sensitive information. Instead, he remained in his car, its low profile mostly hidden by an enormous Hummer H2.

  Within eight minutes the pickup was on the move again. Khan kept what he hoped was a discreet distance and tried to will himself to stop worrying. Who, really, was more easily intimidated than an eighteen-year-old fresh out of high school? Khan had commanded the fear of hundreds of college freshman every year during his tenure as an instructor in the physics department. Though retired, he still purposefully referred to himself as a “professor” rather than as “Dr. Khan.” There might be more cachet in the honorific, but there was more intimidation in the job title.