by Julie Drew
Tesla giggled nervously, and clapped a hand over her mouth. Oh my god, she thought. It worked. I don’t look anything like me. She’d been inspired last night, sleep deprived, her thoughts wandering, wondering how she could possibly get anywhere near her mother with her unusual looks, wondering what kind of a disguise, what kind of a costume—and then she’d known, all in an instant. After all, Halloween had been only days ago, the big stores still had the remains of all the costumes and accessories, including cosmetic contact lenses, and a bottle of hair color could be found anywhere. At the store she’d grabbed the first dark brown do-it-yourself hair color she saw, and over in the clearance aisle where the Halloween stuff was piled in random fashion, she’d found the lenses and, after reluctantly passing over a pair that would give her yellow cat’s eyes, with narrow, vertical slits for pupils—how fun would that be?—she’d settled on brown. Brown on brown, to go unnoticed, to slide by in the crowd, to be, for all intents and purposes, invisible.
It was perfect.
Still, she hadn’t really known—she couldn’t possibly have imagined—exactly how perfect it would be. She looked like a completely different person.
She opened the door, wearing the slightly baggy, very worn guys’ Levi’s Sam had lent her, cinched up with a cracked black leather belt to hold them on her hips, along with a black T-shirt that was too small for him in the shoulders, and tight across her breasts. She carried a dark green flannel shirt to put over it when they left the house, and walked into the living room.
Sam glanced up, expectant, and his mouth actually dropped open.
Laughing—she couldn’t help it—Tesla practically crowed. “I know, right? It’s amazing, I look like somebody else. No one would ever recognize me, not even at home!”
Sam got up and walked over to her while she gloated, looking intently at her eyes, then panning out to her hair, her boyish, nondescript clothes, and then back to her eyes. “You’re right,” he said slowly. “You don’t look like you at all. This will actually work.”
“I knew it would! You doubted me, but I knew.” She spun around, for once completely unselfconscious, free and confident and utterly unfamiliar to herself. It was heady stuff, and she could barely contain it. When she stopped, a little dizzy and still laughing, she grabbed Sam quickly by the arms as the room continued to move, and without thinking leaned in and kissed him on the mouth, hard, and then backed away, breathless.
“What was that for?” he asked after swallowing once to make sure his voice would come out normal, or at least as normal as he could make it.
Her arms raised, a too-innocent look on her face, newly-darkened eyebrows arched, she asked, “What do you mean? Should I say I’m sorry?”
He scowled at her then, not wanting to be the butt of her joke, the boy she knew liked her—as if that somehow gave her permission to use those feelings when it suited her. He took the two steps that brought him right into her face, grabbed her upper arms as she’d just done to him, but his hands circled her arms fully, and instead of moving his face to hers he brought her in toward him, a quick, hard pull, and kissed her back, the frustration of his feelings for this girl, the physical ache he felt when he was near her—hell, when he thought of her—all laid bare in his mouth on hers. The kiss lasted longer than he’d intended, and shorter than he wanted, his lips parting hers, and then he pushed her away and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, not caring if she saw that he was shaking.
“No, you shouldn’t say you’re sorry,” he said hoarsely. “Should I?”
Tesla looked at him for a long moment, breathing just as hard as he was. “I guess we’re even,” she said stiffly.
He regretted it instantly, the rough way he’d held her and crushed her mouth under his in anger, but he couldn’t say so; it had become unbearable to him to play the fawning puppy, following her around and wishing for something neither of them felt he deserved. He wouldn’t do it any longer.
Sam searched her eyes, tried to gauge her thoughts, and came up empty, unable to penetrate the dark layers she hid behind, and he realized he hated this look on her.
“I guess we are,” he said finally, walking back to the threadbare sofa and sitting down again. “So what’s the plan?”
Thirty minutes later the dark-haired girl and boy left the house and rode away on the motorcycle, the dirt driveway leaving a grayish cloud behind them, filling the air with the dry smell of dust and engine exhaust. The street became quiet, the few houses either shuttered up and vacant, or empty for the day as their owners toiled away at minimum wage jobs. The only sound was a crow cawing in the distance as the man stepped out, finally, from the shadow of the house next door to Sam’s. His look was thoughtful, studied. He was clearly a serious person, used to thinking through whatever confronted him, weighing his options and following, mentally, all of the possible paths open to him before deciding which one he would actually take. His mind raced, considering all that he had seen, all of his relevant experience, and the girl and boy he’d followed from the physics lab.
The dark-haired boy and the redheaded girl, who believed her youth and a cheap dye job would keep her safe.
The man turned and began the slow walk to town, having dismissed the taxi he’d followed them in the moment they arrived on the boy’s rundown street. There was nothing unusual in the man’s carriage or demeanor, but something disturbing about the eyes, an unusual intensity. The lids were held open too wide in a startling, obsessive kind of look that, thankfully, no one got close enough to see.
CHAPTER 10
Finn walked in the front door of the old Victorian mansion and tossed his knit cap on the hall table. He made his way across the parlor and into the kitchen, rubbing his eyes while he walked.
“You look like hell,” Bizzy said, and Finn dropped his hands to see her sitting on the kitchen counter eating a sandwich.
“Thanks,” he said, too tired to spar.
“Are you just now getting home?” she asked, glancing at the clock.
“Yeah, I was at the library all night with Joley, looking at newspaper archives. Then the police station this morning, charming my way into seeing the case file on Tasya Petrova’s accident.”
“Did you get what you needed?”
“Bizzy,” he said, chiding her gently. “I said it required charm. What do you think?”
“My question stands,” she retorted.
He grinned. “Yeah, I got it, but it was touch and go—I had to pull out my best material.”
Bizzy took a bite of bologna and mustard on white bread—Beckett would have gagged—and merely rolled her eyes.
“I learned some interesting things, though,” he said. He did not look happy about it.
“Such as?”
Finn hopped up onto the counter next to her in one easy motion, reached over and took the sandwich out of her hand. After taking a bite that reduced what was left of it to almost nothing, he handed it back, chewed and swallowed before he answered.
“Well for one, Jane was a brand new federal agent who ‘happened upon the scene,’ according to the police report. She’s the one who called it in.”
“Oh, man. You guys were right, she’s in the middle of this.”
“Well, we don’t want to jump to conclusions. It’s certainly possible that she had been driving to or from the Abbott house. They were best friends, and the accident happened on Pinewood Lane, that old blacktop road that winds between the university and the neighborhood the Abbotts lived in then.”
“Did you find anything else?” Bizzy was wide-eyed and had forgotten all about the last remnant of her sandwich, which dangled between her fingers. Finn plucked it from her hand and popped it into his mouth, talking while he chewed.
“The M.E.—the medical examiner—put the time of death between ten pm and midnight. Jane called it in just after eleven thirty.”
“That seems reasonable,” Bizzy said. “It must have happened during the earlier part of that time frame if she called it in at
eleven thirty—wait, was Tasya already dead when Jane arrived?”
“Unclear. But Greg Abbott was there as well and…”
“What??”
“And so was Tesla.”
Bizzy was stunned. “What do you mean? Tesla was there when her mom died? How come she never said so?”
“I’m not sure she knows—or remembers, rather. It’s all basically reasonable, when you read all the official documents, pretty cut and dried, but there are interpretations made and conclusions drawn by the authorities that aren’t the only, or even the most obvious ones that could be drawn.”
“You have to explain that,” said Bizzy, breathless now, her thin shoulders quivering with excitement.
“Jane called in a car accident on a quiet, unlit road in the woods just outside of town, not far from the Abbott’s house. She happened upon it at eleven thirty. She reported a casualty from the one-car accident, which she said in the transcription of the call was a collision with a tree just to the side of the road. No other passengers.”
“Okay, fine so far.”
“When the emergency vehicles got there, Tasya’s car—with her body in the driver’s seat—was smashed into a tree, and it was burning out of control. The paramedics couldn’t get near it, and the small extinguishers they had were useless.”
“So?”
“So, Jane didn’t report the fire, so the fire department didn’t respond, only the paramedics and the cops.”
“That means—”
“We don’t know what it means, if anything. Her report and the follow up that closed the case as a simple accidental death explained that the car was not on fire when she called it in, that the fire began afterward. The department’s investigation confirmed that there was a slow gas leak from the impact, and the fire could very well have started after the actual crash. After Jane made the call.”
“It doesn’t tell us anything, then?”
“Well, maybe not by itself, but it is a piece of the entire picture that we don’t want to ignore. What we do know—and this is not insignificant—is that the fire burned for at least half an hour before it was extinguished. Tasya’s identity was confirmed with dental records, but whatever evidence might have been in the car was pretty much incinerated. It wasn’t until after midnight that the fire fighters arrived on the scene, having been called by the paramedics, and were able to put it out with their heavier equipment.”
“Is that a problem in terms of believing Jane’s report?” Bizzy asked.
“I don’t know,” Finn said, frowning. “The detectives and the investigator from the Fire Department found no evidence of foul play, and they were satisfied with Jane’s report, finding it consistent with the timeline the evidence suggested. The final pages of the case file, written by Jane’s superior, note that she failed to call in the fire the moment it started, but she was a rookie, and there was no official reprimand. She didn’t call it in, she said, because she was busy trying to extricate Tasya’s body from the car. She states that there was no pulse before the fire started, that she had confirmed Tasya was dead right before she made the call. The case was closed.”
“What about Tesla?”
“Well, that part is certainly strange. Jane’s call said nothing about anyone else being on the scene, but when the local police and ambulance arrived, Dr. Abbott and Tesla were there. The police report says that neither the man nor the little girl, husband and daughter of the driver who was killed, had been in the car, but came upon the scene while taking a walk near their house. The report also says that the little girl was in shock and was treated at the scene.”
“So, what—Dr. Abbott was taking a walk with his little girl at eleven thirty at night? And Tesla doesn’t remember any of this?”
Finn shrugged. “I guess not, she’s never mentioned it. And I think she would have, she certainly didn’t hesitate last summer to tell us the entire story of her first time-travel. And—wait, there’s more,” he said when Bizzy looked like she was going to interrupt.
“The report notes that the medical examiner determined the cause of death to be either internal injuries caused by the collision or immolation after the impact, when the car caught on fire. It was ruled an accident, either way, but they were unable to determine which was the official cause because the husband of the deceased refused permission for an autopsy, citing the already traumatized child.”
“Oh, I see what you mean,” said Bizzy. “You could draw the same conclusions the officials did, but it’s just as easy to see this story in other ways. Especially since we know the players and some of their personal history. Not to mention the top secret work the dead woman and her husband were involved in.”
“Exactly,” said Finn. “We know that Jane has a thing for Dr. Abbott, and it is weird that, given Nilsen’s accusation against him, he was at the scene and refused an autopsy. Frankly, it doesn’t look good. Tesla’s suspicions seem well-founded, even without knowing what she overheard her father saying.”
Bizzy looked troubled for a moment, but then her expression changed to one of certainty.
“Yeah but Finn, I know him. He wouldn’t…you know, have anything to do with his wife’s death. She was his kids’ mom, geez. What kind of monster would that make him?”
“Biz, we both know there are monsters in the world, and they don’t always look like monsters.” Finn’s voice was surprisingly gentle, and Bizzy tensed a little.
“Yeah, we do know that,” she said after a moment, her voice faintly brittle. “One of the reasons I think we get along so well is because we both know that. We’re kind of alike.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, I know we had different childhoods—way different—but we both learned to…you know. Not count on other people.”
Finn thought for a moment, careful not to look at her. He could see her poison-green Doc Martins, the black tights with the holes ripped through, revealing the prominent shin bones beneath, swinging back and forth at the joints of her knobby knees, like a child sitting on a chair, too small for her feet to reach the floor.
“So you haven’t really said much about how you learned that lesson,” he said, trying not to spook her.
Her legs stopped pumping, and one foot slowly twisted around the ankle of her other leg, tying her up in a knot.
She said nothing, and he let her. He had no need to push—if she wanted to tell him anything, she would. He thought it might help, but ultimately that decision was hers.
“You know I went into foster care when I was five, right?” she finally said, her voice pitched so low he barely heard the question.
“Yeah, you did tell me that. That your mom was a meth addict, and your dad in and out of your lives—more out than in.”
“Yes. Well. I was pretty little when the state put me in the first foster home and…I don’t remember much. Just that I was afraid, and learned to be quiet. Always quiet.”
Finn felt a buzzing in his ears as he tried to imagine Bizzy as a small child, the frailty and the trust, the utter dependence on adults for mere survival, let alone love and affection.
“I got moved around a lot the first few years. Some of the families were nice, but you never really belong. Then when I was seven I was placed with a family that had two kids, both girls. One was my age, the other one a couple years younger.”
Bizzy’s legs were swinging again, pumping a little harder, a little faster than they had been before. Finn could feel the muscles in his abdomen tighten, and he was conscious of forcing himself to breathe evenly, slowly. He didn’t know what was coming, but it wasn’t going to be good, or easy.
“I won’t bore you with the details, but the gist of it is that the dad had been molesting the older daughter for a while. At the trial it came out that when he started showing interest in the younger one, the mom suggested getting a foster kid.”
Bizzy studied her chewed-down fingernails, her legs moving, running in place and getting nowhere. “I’ve thought about it a lot, you k
now, now that I’m older, and I think she just wasn’t able to save her own kid, for whatever reason, and she saw this as a chance to keep him away from the little one. And me—well, I was a stranger, I wasn’t hers, and maybe I could distract him. Keep him occupied so he’d leave her kids alone.”
“Bizzy. Jesus.” Finn could barely speak.
She shrugged, her face expressionless, her voice easy, dismissive. “As strategies go, it wasn’t a bad one. It worked. For almost a year he…focused on me, and the other girls were safe. You know, relatively.”
Finn wanted to hurt someone—bad. He wanted to punch and tear and gouge, to beat the man who’d hurt Bizzy until there was nothing left of him but a mass of wet pulp on the ground. He couldn’t see, or hear, or think beyond that rage until a small sound from Bizzy, still sitting right next to him, brought him back. The rage was gone as quickly as it came, and he did the only thing he really could do that might help: he reached around her and put his hand on the side of her head and gently pulled her into him until her head was on his shoulder, his arm holding her in tight. This wasn’t about him, or what would make him feel better.
Finally she sighed—there had been no tears—and sat up straight, so that his arm fell back down to his side. “It was a long time ago,” she said, able to look at him now. “I can’t remember a lot of it—which makes me understand how Tesla could have been there when her mom was killed and have no memory of it. I have nightmares, sometimes, but not as much as I used to, and even those are pretty vague.” She shrugged. “We protect ourselves—even just in our own heads, and from our own thoughts and memories. Instinct, I guess. And I’m good with that. It’s not a bad thing.”
Finn did his best to follow her lead, take it to quieter, saner ground. “You said there was a trial. I’m surprised they let you be part of it, as young as you were. How’d the bastard get caught?”