Jeremy snorted. “That’s a terrible pun.”
“Unconscious, I assure you. I was trying to be encouraging.” Lance fitted the cover back onto the machine he’d been fiddling with. “Break the problem down. Assuming everything is connected back, all the way back, to the Great Cause, what made you come here?”
Jeremy looked at him blankly.
“To Los Angeles, 2006,” Lance elaborated. “Why this time?”
“I don’t know.” Jeremy rested his forehead in his hands. “When I knew the theory worked, I decided to try to jump forward in stages. Five years seemed doable. It was. I stayed in 2006 for a couple of months.” He looked at Lance. “I forgot to ask. How’s your body holding up?”
Lance flashed back to this morning’s lovemaking and couldn’t suppress a smile. “Fine. A bit creaky. Nothing I can’t handle.”
“My first jump was forty years. I almost had a heart attack. Five years was a snap.” Jeremy stared at the memory board in his hand. “I first flew to Los Angeles in 1998. I tried to see Sherry without waiting for the machine to be finished. I couldn’t find her. Sherry was always somewhere else. And the place we’d jumped back from didn’t exist. It was an empty sound stage. So I bought the land and the building. I knew Sherry couldn’t come back to me until I built the place she jumped from.”
How did Jeremy manage to keep faith with his future? He had trouble believing in next week. “What are you building here anyway?”
“A theme park for adults. It’s going to be called The Castle. Restaurants. And most important of all, virtual reality trips to other times.”
“Virtual reality?”
“VR. A game with effects which makes you feel you’re living inside the world of the game. The world will pay a lot of money to be made to believe.” Jeremy fitted tiny RAM chips into the motherboard. When had they gotten so small? “You knew what I was doing. You fronted for me with the family every time I made a trip out here. Supposedly to oversee the new virtual reality company I invested in.”
His future self knew. He didn’t. “Last night I caught up on a certain amount of history. The Internet is a marvel. From my point of view, the world’s flashed forward into science fiction.”
Jeremy laughed. “I know how you feel. You should have seen me encounter 2014.”
Lance ignored Jeremy’s interruption, pursuing a niggling bloom of an idea. “The problem is I have no memory of my own life between the time I came forward from 1988 to the time I disappeared in 2001. That’s a great whack of knowledge missing. But with the equipment you’ve got here, I think I could build a program which could trace us.”
Jeremy perked up. “That’s what we need. A tracker through history aimed at our names. Something like Interpol has. Filter our names through newspapers, the Internet, our money history.”
“Give me a keyboard. I’ll hook in.” Tracing hackers had been a big part of his job back in 1988. Before Jen and Kathryn crashed into his life, he’d just come back from Switzerland. The Swiss found his hacking prowess very useful. “This is going to be fun.”
Jeremy handed him a keyboard and a snarl of cords. “If you can find out where we were and what we were doing, we can plot a course.”
“Do I start with the time I came forward?”
“Yes. By the way, I’ve already figured out how to get you home.”
Lance dropped the cords. “You what?”
“It came to me this morning. I could send you home right now.”
A great, yawning space opened in his chest. “I won’t go.”
“Too right, you won’t. We have a more pressing problem. What’s the point of sending you back, only to have you die in 2001?”
Lance’s heart moved back into place. He wouldn’t be leaving Jen. “Are you sure we can’t just avoid New York in our own timelines?”
“Yes, it’s too late. The only way is to go back and stop your deaths.”
“Okay. Let’s work on that, shall we?”
But there was no rush. Lance was happy right where he was. With Jen.
Chapter 24
“Any problems?” Michael asked.
“No. Everything’s great. I sold a teapot and some toys. The check’s in the cash drawer,” Jen babbled on. “Michael, this is Sylvie. She’s an old friend of mine. Sylvie, this is my boss, Michael Walshe. His mother owns the store.” She turned to Sylvie and whispered, “Later. After closing.”
Sylvie’s look was decidedly suspicious. “Give me your number. You’re not getting away from me again.”
“I don’t know it. It’s a brand-new phone.” Jen got her purse from behind the counter. “Michael, how do I find my phone number?”
Michael flipped open her phone and pushed ‘call’. His phone rang. He handed her his phone and pointed to the lit-up screen. “There you go. You’d better write it down.”
Sylvie took out her silver-toned phone.
Typical Sylvie. Her case was monogrammed, her initials set in tiny, pink brilliants. Wonder where she got it done?
“Michael,” Sylvie purred. “Could you possibly help me get Jen’s number into my phone? I’m completely helpless at putting things in it.” Her batting eyelashes hinted she was a master at other things.
“Stop it,” Jen whispered. “He’s too young for you.”
Michael smiled at Sylvie. “I’ll be happy to, Miss Taylor.”
Sylvie was always thrilled to be recognized. “You know my name? How delightful to meet a fan. Would you mind putting my number in Jen’s phone also? Here’s my card.”
He turned her card over in his hand. “I’m a big fan of your work. I’ve taped the whole series.”
“Would you like an autographed picture? Better still, how would you like to visit the set?”
Michael shook his head regretfully. He handed Sylvie back her phone. “I’m not free during the day.”
“How about the nights?”
Jen poked Sylvie in the small of her back. “Stop it.” Sylvie liked them young, but this was ridiculous.
“Nights either. I’m pre-med. If your show’s still running in three years, I’d like to take you up on that.”
She ran a pointed pink nail along his jawbone. “I’ll be waiting.”
The store phone rang. Michael hurried to answer it.
Sylvie turned back to Jen. “Meet me tonight after you finish here. I can’t wait to tell everyone you’re —”
“No!” Jen squeezed Sylvie’s hand for emphasis. “You can’t tell anyone. Please. I promise you, it is literally a matter of life or death.”
Sylvie’s face lost all its animation. “Are you undercover?” she whispered. “Are you working for Interpol?”
Both of those sounded like wonderful excuses. Which one would Jeremy prefer? “I . . . I’ll tell you tonight.”
Sylvie stared at her as if she were trying to read her mind. She nodded abruptly. “Tonight.” She blew a kiss to Michael and floated out the door.
Michael finished the call. “I told Lisa to take the week off. She cried and said she didn’t want to let me down. I said I’d feel a lot more let down if she infected me, or a customer. I can’t afford to get sick.” Michael looked frazzled.
“Well, take lots of vitamin C and Zinc and you’ll be all right,” she said briskly. “Sylvie was thrilled to be recognized.”
“I could tell. The way she eyed me, I felt like a piece of catnip.”
“She’s not that bad.” Jen laughed. “Actresses. They’re always on. She likes to play the siren.”
The bell jingled. And jingled. A steady flow of shoppers came into the store and kept them both fully occupied. At five-thirty, Jen ushered the last customer out the door.
Michael counted out cash for her. “Are you coming tomorrow?”
�
�Wouldn’t miss it. This is fun.” Surprisingly, Jen realized she was telling the truth. The eclectic nature of the merchandise. The fact so much of it was history. Even the customers. Although she was fonder of arranging the merchandise than she was of interacting with the people who wandered in. What if someone else recognized her?
Jen tried calling Lance. No answer. Jeremy didn’t answer either. “What’s the use of having a phone if you’re not going to answer the damned thing?”
Michael let her out the front door and locked it. A horn honked insistently. Sylvie sat in the lighted car grinning at her like the Cheshire cat.
Jen stuck her head in the open window. “I said I’d call you.”
“And I didn’t believe you. Work on your acting. Get in.”
“But I have a car here.”
“We’ll pick it up later. Get in.”
Jen opened the door and slid into the passenger seat.
Sylvie turned on the ignition. “Your place or mine?”
Jen gave in to the inevitable. “Mine. Turn right at the light.”
Jeremy was going to strangle her.
Chapter 25
“This is a joke. You can’t possibly live here.” Sylvie kept the car running. “Is this the secret headquarters of the spy ring you’re working for?”
Jen had to admit the warehouse looked creepy in the yellow light of the lone lamp post. “Relax,” she joked. “Torture is no longer part of the business.”
“I’m not getting out.”
“Come on, Sylvie. Lance and Jeremy are in there. I have to pick them up.”
Sylvie turned on the car’s overhead light and searched her eyes. “Jeremy?”
Sylvie made his name sound like a song. She’d always had a crush on Jeremy, which her clueless brother never noticed.
“Yes.”
Sylvie switched off the ignition. “Come on, then. Why are you dallying?”
The outer door was unlocked. Jen led the way to the computer room. She rapped sharply. “Are you decent? I’ve brought company. Sylvie Taylor. Imagine meeting her here?” She tried the handle. Locked. She rapped again. “I know you’re in there. Open up.”
Jeremy opened the door and stepped into the hall to join them. Jen caught a brief glimpse of Lance racing around with dust sheets.
He kissed Sylvie, perfunctorily on her cheek. “Sylvie, what a surprise. How did Jen happen to find you?” His eyes promised Jen a reckoning.
“I found her.” Sylvie’s eyes shot sparks. She backed Jeremy against the door. “Jeremy, how could you? How could you let me think she was dead when you knew—”
Jeremy cut her off. “I couldn’t tell you. I wasn’t allowed. National Security.”
Jen mentally applauded Jeremy. It was amazing how the words National Security could stop an inquisition in its tracks.
Lance opened the door just enough to slide out. The lock clicked behind him. “Hello, Sylvie, it’s been a long time.”
Jen moved between him and Sylvie to protect him from the frostbite of Sylvie’s glare. “Hello, darling.”
Sylvie’s eyes darted from Lance to Jen. Her mouth dropped open. “You have to be joking. You and He Who Shall Not Be Named?”
Jeremy edged Sylvie away from the door. “I’d like to show you around, but the project’s top secret. Let’s go somewhere else.”
“Fine.” Sylvie’s eyes narrowed. “Somewhere we can talk. Where are you staying?”
Jeremy answered. “The Oakwood apartments. But Lance and I are starving. You always know wonderful places to eat. Where do you recommend?”
Sylvie slipped her arm through Jeremy’s. “I know a Chinese place not far from Warner Brothers. You still like Chinese, don’t you?”
Jen stepped back and let them go ahead. Lance folded Jen into his arms. “Rough day, Mrs. Davies?”
Jen leaned into his embrace. Here was safety. “The roughest, Mr. Davies. Except for the beginning. The beginning was marvelous.”
Sylvie called back to them. “Catch up, you two.”
“She was with me in New York. She knows what happened to me.”
Lance crooked his arm through hers, twining their hands. “I wonder how Jeremy plans to handle this?”
Sylvie drove the four of them to a restaurant off Alameda Boulevard. The House of Woo’s exterior was lit with dumpling-shaped paper lanterns hanging from a green-tiled curved roof. The red, moon-shaped doors were embossed with gold-painted Chinese symbols. Illuminated holly wreaths blinked on and off in the windows.
Jen leaned over and tapped Sylvie on the shoulder. “Seriously?”
Sylvie twisted round in her seat. “It’s Burbank’s version of Hollywood, darling. The food’s delicious. I promise you.”
The dining room was sparsely occupied. The smiling hostess led them past a huge fish tank. Jen hoped that wasn’t their dinner swimming in it. She preferred not to see her meals in their natural habitats.
The hostess led them past round white-clothed family tables to a padded banquet booth in the corner. The room was decorated in red. Serene watercolors were spaced along the wall. Intricately carved Chinese screens separated them from the main dining area.
“They have drinks here,” Sylvie said. “I think I’m going to need one.”
She ordered a double brandy, straight up. Jeremy got a beer.
Jen and Lance ordered tea.
Once the waiter walked off with their order, Sylvie resumed her inquisition. “All right, what’s going on?”
Jeremy took a deep breath. “Sylvie, how good are you at keeping secrets?”
Sylvie looked from Lance to Jen. “I’m very good.”
“Sylvie knew about the baby,” Jen said.
Jeremy appraised Jen expressionlessly. “I didn’t. And why was that?”
Because she didn’t want anyone’s pity. Because she couldn’t bear to speak of it. To let anyone know about her failure. Because she didn’t want Lance to know.
Lance’s glance at Sylvie was hostile. “You knew? And you didn’t call me?”
“Of course I didn’t,” Sylvie snapped. “Jen is my best friend. Do you think I’d betray her? She was in pain enough without you swanning around.”
Jeremy took over the conversation. “Sylvie, do you believe it’s possible to transcend time?”
“No, but I adore the concept. Somewhere In Time is one of my favorite pictures. I would have killed for Jane Seymour’s part.”
“What if it were true? What if it were possible?”
“What? Somewhere in Time? Tell me another.”
“Time travel. Could you wrap your mind around the concept?”
“No.”
“Then we’ve got a problem,” Jeremy said. “Because it’s true.”
Sylvie picked up her brandy and downed it. “Go ahead. Convince me.”
By the time Jeremy finished the explanation, they were halfway through the Kung Pao chicken, and sweet and sour pork.
Sylvie ordered another brandy. “So Lance is here from 1988 and you two are from 2001 and you came to the year 2006 to get him back to his past?”
Jeremy nodded.
Sylvie shook her head. “Don’t try to write scripts. This is too unbelievable.”
“Truth often is.” Jeremy’s fingers tapped a rhythm on the table. “But when we got to 2006, we discovered something a bit,” Jeremy hesitated, “disturbing.”
Lance broke in. “There’s no record anywhere of either Jen or me after September 11th, 2001. We both dropped off the face of the earth.”
Sylvie’s chopsticks clattered to her plate. “Then you did die. I knew it. But I hoped.”
Jen patted Sylvie’s hand. “Don’t mourn me in front of me. It’s unsettling.”
“But you’re her
e. I’m touching you. So you can’t be dead.”
Jen empathized with her spooked look. It echoed what she felt whenever her mind touched on the dead dilemma.
Jeremy cleared his throat. “It seems we somehow created a time anomaly.”
Sylvie nodded cautiously. “All right. But it’s good, isn’t it? Jen and Lance are alive and they can just go on from here. You all can.”
“No. I don’t think so,” Jeremy said. “I’m alive twice in this time which creates another anomaly.
Sylvie fluttered her eyelashes at Jeremy. “Two of you? Can I have one?”
Jen rolled her eyes. “Be serious, Sylvie.”
Sylvie pouted. “I was.”
Jen tried to elucidate the problem. “I can’t be in this time if I am already dead. What if someone else recognizes me? What do we do? Tell everyone ‘Surprise! Time travel!’ I think not.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“Fix it.”
“How?” Sylvie asked.
Jeremy sighed. “That is yet to be determined.”
~ ~ ~
“Come on, you lot. Back to the apartment.” Jeremy took Sylvie’s keys from her. “I’ll drive.”
Jen hung back. “We need to pick up our car.”
“Tomorrow,” Jeremy said. “Tonight we stick together.”
Jen knew Jeremy was afraid Sylvie would blab the story to the first person she met. She wouldn’t, though. Jen knew when Sylvie understood a secret was important, she kept it. “Drop us at the corner of Magnolia and Hollywood Way. Lance and I will pick up the car and meet you.”
“You’re going to walk?” Sylvie looked horrified.
“It’s three blocks, Sylvie. Not exactly a marathon.”
“No one walks in Los Angeles.”
Jen surveyed the well-lit, sparsely populated sidewalk in front of them. “We’ll start a new fashion then. See you back at the apartment.”
Bells and tinsel garlands swung in the rising wind. The streetlights flickered through tree branches. Not many cars at this hour. It was after ten.
Maybe This Time (A Second Chance Romance) Page 12