Downtime

by Tamara Allen

  “That I know, sir. Just Sunday last, we fished one out of the water who thought himself an expert oarsman.”

  The three of them shared a laugh and I held my tongue, letting Ezra do whatever it took to persuade them I was no danger to anyone, except maybe myself. Seeming satisfied I wasn’t going to demand directions from any more unsuspecting citizens, the cops moved on, leaving me in Ezra’s custody. Ezra began walking and I fell into step beside him.

  “You that chummy with all the police around here?” I asked after a long stretch of quiet.

  “They’ve called upon me in the past for assistance.”

  “Oh yeah? Solve any big cases?”

  “I did locate a stolen necklace. And one or two murderers,” he added quietly.

  “Make the papers?”

  “Make….” He looked puzzled, then his face cleared. “Ah. No. I didn’t wish to be mentioned in the newspaper.”

  “So you let the police take all the credit. No wonder they like you.”

  “Like may be putting it rather strongly.”

  “You can’t blame them. They deal in facts. They see what you do as pure fiction.”

  “As do you.”

  I heard in the offhand statement a small hope that maybe I was seeing what he did a little differently now. “I need a lot of convincing—but I’ll admit you do a pretty convincing Sully. It was like being with him again for a couple of minutes.”

  “I’m sorry,” he said gently.

  I knew what the apology was for. “Don’t worry about it. Look, Sully—if that was Sully—told us the book will trade hands. Any idea what he might’ve been talking about? How much do you know about this Adam Whitby?”

  “I don’t know anything about him. I haven’t worked there long and he keeps to himself.”

  “Aloof type?”

  “Well, I should have said he keeps company with the other senior members of the staff. Henry probably knows him better.”

  “Yeah? Damn. I was sort of hoping to avoid any more conversations with Henry longer than ‘please pass the potatoes’.”

  Ezra cleared his throat. “Now, Mr. Nash, Derry and I have made a pact to try to be kinder to Henry. He’s had a difficult time of it, working all these years without promotion to a better position.” He paused, a frown touching the corners of his mouth. “Perhaps I shouldn’t have told you that. Don’t mention it, will you?”

  “Did it occur to you maybe he brought that on himself? The guy’s a cranky son of a bitch.”

  Ezra’s curiosity was back. “Do the men of your time use that sort of language so freely? In any company?” he added, and I knew he was remembering Sully’s particular way with words.

  “Men, and women too.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Some may like the idea of visiting the future, but I don’t think I should care for it at all.”

  “You’d probably fit in well enough,” I remarked as we turned a corner and I saw the house just ahead.

  “Would I?” He did not appear flattered. “If I take up swearing to a greater degree, I will consider it.”

  I had to admit I liked his sense of humor, even when it was directed at me. He went ahead up the steps and unlocked the door, waving me into the foyer. The gas was low, the hall quiet and shadowy. An overactive imagination could envision ghosts lurking here. I wondered what Ezra saw when he stepped inside behind me and shut the door.

  Whatever he saw, I doubted it was reflected in his pleased sigh. ‘Much better,” he said.

  I turned to see him shucking off his coat. He shook his head with a certain sympathy as he met my eyes. “You need something warmer. Perhaps tomorrow—”

  “I’m going home tomorrow. I’ll be warm enough until then.” I looked toward the landing. The whole place was so damned quiet. “Guess everyone’s gone to bed?”

  Ezra stopped on the step and turned to me. “We were all quite worried about you, you know.”

  No way was I that transparent. Maybe he did read minds. “I’m sorry. I just needed to get out for a little while.”

  “It’s all right. Everyone else needed to go along up. They have an early start tomorrow, so I said I would hunt ’round for you, myself.”

  “You probably figured I’d end up arrested.”

  “Not at all. Just lost.” He smiled. “Try to get some rest, Mr. Nash. We shall be fearfully tired tomorrow, as it is.”

  “So I guess Derry’s sound asleep,” I said as Ezra started up again. I backed down a step. “I’m just going to go crash on the sofa instead of waking him up. Kathleen won’t really mind, will she? I promise to take off my shoes.”

  The hesitation in Ezra’s face lasted barely a moment before he spoke. “She might not, but I do. It’s far too chilly to sleep in the parlor.” He waved for me to follow him up. I wasn’t entirely sure whether I preferred a shivery nap on the sofa or a warmer couple of hours in bed with a guy who’d be tossing and turning from ghosts poking at him, if he slept at all.

  I’d probably be dreaming of Sully, myself. I followed Ezra to his room, getting another look at it from a less sleepy perspective. Unlike Henry’s showroom, Ezra’s was decorated without an awareness of other eyes that might see it. Books crowded on the mantel were propped with mismatched candlesticks. A coat sleeve stuck out between the closed doors of the wardrobe cabinet, and on the dressing table next to it were scattered linen collars, stickpins, cuff links, and Ezra’s shaving equipment. The guy was even more of a slob than I was.

  The high-backed mahogany chair by the fire was the nicest piece of furniture I’d seen in the whole house; Ezra had tossed an old blanket on it and a tasseled pillow. A smaller pillow crowned the footstool and I suspected the whole set-up had served on more than one restless night as a place to sleep. More pillows were piled at one end of the window seat, and on the sill above them sat a plate with a candle burned nearly out of existence. The edge of the curtain was singed and I wondered if Kathleen didn’t live in fear of Ezra burning the house down.

  I’d never seen so many makeshift beds in one room—for one person—before. A dark blue brocaded bathrobe lay rumpled on the floor and it wouldn’t have surprised me to learn he’d been sleeping there off and on too. At the far end of the mantel was an oval brass frame holding a photograph of two people I assumed were Ezra’s parents; the small golden-haired boy on the woman’s lap no doubt Ezra himself. I studied the woman’s gentle features and the man’s forbidding ones and wondered if Ez was an only, like me. Probably not, in the era of huge families. I took off my jacket, then realized I didn’t have the pajamas Derry had lent me. “You have something I can sleep in?”

  “Nothing clean, I’m afraid.” He looked around at me hesitantly and I realized he thought I’d stripped down to nothing. I gave him a grin. “No peeking,” I said and pushed off my jeans. It was a little too cold to sleep in the buff; besides I wasn’t sure Ezra could take it. Sticking with my briefs and T-shirt, I dropped into bed and stretched out gratefully under the thick layer of blankets and quilt.

  Ezra had shed only his jacket and vest and I suspected he didn’t intend to go to bed. I rested my chin on the pillow and watched as he poked the coals to life. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Anything you like.”

  “How’d he look?”

  “Healthy. Happy.”

  I didn’t want the routine answer. Sully had seldom looked either healthy or happy. He’d always looked like a guy who needed a vacation—or some Alka Seltzer. “Did he say anything else? Anything you didn’t tell me?”

  Ezra put away the fire iron. “He mentioned he finally found a good cigar. Does that mean anything to you?”

  I would’ve said yes, but the unexpected lump in my throat prevented it. The pillow was fortunately close at hand, or it could’ve gotten embarrassing.

  Unfortunately, Ezra seemed to realize what he’d provoked. I felt the mattress shift as he sat beside me. “Morgan? I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. I shouldn’t have….” A hand touched my shoulder. “A
re you all right?”

  God, I hadn’t thought of Sully’s smelly cigars in ages. The last time he had smoked one, I’d thrown it out the car window and told him the damned things would kill him before he was fifty. His old habit of rolling a cigar between thumb and fingers, Ezra had been doing that during the séance—and with his left hand, I realized. Sully was a southpaw, but Ezra was right-handed. I’d noticed it, though I’d hardly given it a spare thought at the time.

  “Morgan?”

  He was persistent. I swallowed the lump and sucked in a steady breath. “Yeah. Fine. Never better.”

  He snorted softly. “Never better. A Nash euphemism for perfectly miserable, I think. You should know he hasn’t gone anywhere. Certainly not anywhere you won’t eventually end up, yourself.”

  “Yeah?” Certain scenes from the past wanted to replay themselves in my mind. If I let them, I’d be bawling for sure—and Sully would probably find a way to smack me in the head, even in his noncorporeal state. I wrapped my arms around the pillow and stared at my distorted reflection in the row of brass spindles.

  Ezra leaned back against his own pillow. “He was a part of the FBI as well, I take it. He worked with you?”

  “He did a whole lot more than that. He kept me from going off the deep end when my dad died. He stayed on me through college and training and stuck with me until I got the hang of the job. Then I guess he figured he’d been around long enough. Six months ago—” And that was about all of it I could relate. The lump returned and I nestled my chin in the crisp linen and closed my eyes.

  Ezra’s hand was light but comforting on my shoulder. “It’s been my impression that we’re fairly decided on what we want to do when we take up a life here, including how long we mean to stay. Mr. Sullivan seems content with the result of that life with you.”

  “So he couldn’t hang around a while longer? Just for laughs?”

  “I imagine co-existing with you is rather exhausting after a while.” The comment was delivered with such rueful earnestness, it caught me off guard. He’d been oozing sympathy and then, out of the blue, that damned sense of humor that snuck up as swiftly and lethally as a knife between the ribs.

  It took some effort on my part to glare at him instead of laugh. “How come I didn’t hear you making cracks like that to those grieving widows?”

  “That would hardly be good for business, would it?” Pale lashes that had been drifting to his cheeks lifted, and he fixed me with an amused and still sympathetic blue gaze. “Are you all right? And please do not say, ‘never better’.”

  “Fine and dandy?” My little nap earlier had taken some of the edge off my own sleepiness. I was wired by the idea that I could be going home tomorrow. I might be getting used to this place, and I didn’t want to. I was ready to go.

  Ezra’s breathing had evened out. When he finally did let himself sleep, I noted, he went fast. He’d have a crick in his neck tomorrow like nobody’s business, not to mention another wrinkled suit. Well, I could fix the neck, at least. I caught a handful of his sleeve and pulled until he slid down to lie on his side. I realized I couldn’t let him freeze, either. Sneezing through whatever magic he had to work to get me home would not improve our chance of success.

  It was a little more work to tug the quilt loose and throw it over him. Ezra sighed in his sleep and burrowed under the blankets I’d warmed up. Dropping back onto my pillow, I stared over at my bunkmate. It was a good face, I’d give him that. A few small freckles along the straight nose, a little flush of color in the hollow of his throat, gold in his lashes, and a definitely tempting mouth; yeah, a good face. And what I’d seen of the rest of him wasn’t bad either.

  So why was he all by himself? Even in the era of just say no, he was too handsome to be alone. Just because he’d gotten himself engaged didn’t mean he’d taken a vow of celibacy. I was pretty sure keeping a lover on the side was as common a thing now as it was in my own time. He had to be seeing someone, unless the psychic thing scared potential boyfriends away.

  I didn’t think any longer that he was a con man, but whether he was a few cards short of a full deck remained to be seen. Hell, maybe I was the crazy one, to believe he’d talked to Sully. But I’d talked to Sully—and how Ezra had managed that trick so convincingly, I had no idea.

  And even though it was painful, I wanted to talk to him again. I wanted to share a pizza with him, rehash cold cases, and talk baseball. I could still picture him at my games, sitting at the top of the bleachers with the same sort of instinct that drove cats into trees, wearing a shirt and coat wrinkled from a late-night stakeout, his booming voice carrying across the field with enthusiasm every time I hit a ball past the fence or stole a base. The other parents hadn’t known what to make of him, but my mom had been grateful. As hard as Archie’s death was on her, her primary fear had always been that I’d lose my way without my dad to keep me straight. So to speak.

  Maybe I wasn’t fourteen anymore, but I still needed Sully around. Who else was going to cheer for me from the top of the bleachers?

  Ezra mumbled in his sleep and rolled over, taking more than half the blankets with him. Charlotte was going to love being married to this guy. Well, as far as I was concerned, blanket possession came under the guideline of survival of the fittest. I took back my share and then some, and rolled onto my stomach to sleep.

  Sun warm on my skin woke me. It brightened the room, slanting across the mound of blankets I’d kicked off sometime during the night. Barely awake, I took curious note of the fact that sunlight wasn’t the only thing warming me. Ezra had gravitated from his side of the bed to mine. His arm rested across my stomach, his hand nestled under my ribs. A soft, even breath caressed my shoulder—not exactly an unpleasant sensation, no matter how I might want to deny it.

  Fine, so I was attracted to him and it was getting harder to ignore. That didn’t mean I had to do anything about it. Worlds apart might sound clichéd, but for us, it could be taken literally. And I had enough disturbing memories to take home without the added bonus of a roll in the hay with a guy who’d died decades before I was born. I wasn’t, nor would I ever be, that hard up.

  However, due to a combination of factors, hard and up still applied to the situation.

  Ezra was out cold—but keeping warm, all the same. All I had to do was climb past him and I had a clear shot to my clothes. With exquisite care honed from many an early-morning exit, I got one leg over him without waking him. But my talents were restricted to box springs, not this overstuffed feather concoction. I over-shifted and, losing my balance, landed on top of him.

  He blinked at me groggily. “Morgan?”

  Feeling my face heat up, along with various other parts of me, I threw on a breezy grin. “Sorry.” I pushed myself onto hands and knees. “Just trying to get past….”

  He glanced down—hell, I would have too—and cleared his throat. “I do beg your pardon.”

  That would teach me to hog the blankets. I shot him a dark look. “You started it, treating me like your own personal teddy bear.” I eased to the edge of the mattress. “Maybe you’d better bump the wedding up a few months. You need some action and fast.”

  Ezra was red-faced himself as he struggled against an obvious desire to laugh. “Some—action? Teddy bear? What—”

  “Forget it. Can you just hand me my clothes?” Then I remembered. The museum. Shit, shit, shit. “What time is it?”

  He picked up the pocket watch on the bedside table and frowned at it. “That can’t be right.”

  I leaned forward and plucked it out of his hand. Ten o’clock. I scrambled out of bed and, my back to Ezra, reached for my clothes. When he didn’t move a muscle, I threw him an impatient look over my shoulder. “Come on. Get up and get dressed.”

  He raised his head, a slow smile spreading across his face. “I slept.”

  “Yeah, we both did. Too much. Now get up. Clothes.” I scooped up a shirt and tossed it to him.

  It landed in his lap and he utterly igno
red it. “I slept. Ten hours. Without waking once.”

  “I’m very happy for you. But the point is, it’s ten o’clock. Can we go?” God, I had to stuff myself into that damned suit again. I gingerly pulled on the pants, then grabbed the shirt and the vest. Ezra was still lost in his own blissful world. “Ez, let me just remind you that if this Whitby guy sells the book before we find him, you’re going to be stuck with me for a very long time.”

  That seemed to wake him. He dressed quickly and we went down to find that nearly everyone else had already gone off to work. “You’d think someone would wake us,” I said as we left the house and flagged down a cab.

  “They probably thought we’d manage it on our own,” Ezra said.

  “So if all your acolytes are at work, who’s going to send me back? You?”