by JoAnn Ross
And with one last reluctant, regretful touch of his hand to her hair, he was walking toward the shiny black snowmobile Nate had lent him.
Kirby stood at the window and watched Sebastian drive away. Back to his own life. His own time.
* * *
Desperately trying to keep her mind off what Sebastian and Nate were doing at the brain factory, after sending Danny out to patrol, watching for possible DUI drivers who’d begun celebrating the holiday a day early, Kirby spent the morning cleaning out her desk. She hadn’t had the heart to do it before. Too many things that reminded her of her father, and how much she missed him, were buried in the bits of papers and various small treasures he’d saved.
She found memos he’d written to himself—domestic little notes reminding him to bring home milk or bread after work, forgotten immediately after having been written. There was a newspaper clipping from the Rum Runner Island Yankee Observer, detailing how a hometown girl, Kirby Pendleton, had been assigned to be a technical adviser on a television series in Hollywood. The article, written by Mildred Cummings, the Observer’s long-time social editor, gushed effusively, making Kirby sound like a movie star herself.
There were other clippings regarding her work—specifically her apprehension of the Surfer Rapist, and an equal number relating Nate’s various awards and achievements.
There were birthday cards sketched by her artist mother. After reading the suggestive, highly personal message her mother had written to her husband inside the first card, Kirby resisted opening the others. And although it did not come as a surprise to discover that her parents had remained very much in love both physically and emotionally during their thirty-five years of marriage, Kirby found herself experiencing a definite twinge of envy.
“Damn.” She’d jabbed her finger on one of the trout flies her father had spent so many hours tying. When a tiny spot of blood appeared on the tip of her finger, she stuck it in her mouth.
And that’s when she saw it. A vision appeared in her mind, a three-dimensional image so real that she felt she could reach out and touch it.
Sebastian was in danger. He and Nate were in the lab, the barrel of a gun pointed directly at them. As hard as Kirby tried, she couldn’t see who was holding the gun.
After calling Danny on the radio, telling him to meet her at the lab, she ran out to the Jeep and raced to the wooded site. Although the temperature was in the low thirties, Kirby’s hands were slick with sweat as they gripped the steering wheel.
She repeated Sebastian’s name over and over, like a talisman. Like a prayer.
The odometer on the dash clicked away the tenths of miles. Unfortunately, the digital clock beside it was also rolling away precious minutes.
All the time, she tried to focus on the image, but it had faded away, like morning fog over the harbor. Fear coalesced into a tight, cold ball in her throat as she was forced to wonder if the reason she could no longer read Sebastian’s mind was because he was no longer alive.
No! She wasn’t going to allow herself to think that.
Her cell rang. Seeing Whitney’s name on the dashboard screen, she hit the phone button on the steering wheel. “Police.”
“Kirby, you have to come to the lab right away.”
“I’m on my way. What’s happening?” And, she wondered, could it have to do with this woman she’d never felt comfortable around?
“Look,” Whitney said, “let’s be honest. You’ve never liked me. And I’ve never liked you. But you have to believe me when I tell you that your brother’s in trouble.”
“Again, what’s happening?”
“I’m not sure. But he and Sebastian sent everyone home a half hour ago. It was all so sudden, I left without securing the slides I’d been working on. So, I returned, and that’s when I heard shouting coming from Nate’s lab. And something about a gun. Which is why I left right away to call you.”
“Okay.” Kirby blew out a breath. This could be a trap. She’d known cops who’d been drawn into an ambush. But Whitney didn’t sound as if that was the case. She sounded honestly terrified.
“You’d better go home, like they said.”
“But—”
“If something bad goes down, you’ll just be in my way. Neither of us want you getting shot, right?”
“You think it’s that bad?”
“I think no one brings a gun to a tea party. Go home, Whitney. And whatever you do, do not go back in the lab.”
“You’ll call me? I do care about your brother.”
“I’ll call when the situation is taken care of,” Kirby agreed. “Now get out of there before someone sees you. I don’t want whoever is in there to know you contacted the police.”
Not knowing what she was getting into, nor how many bad guys there were, given the size of her police force, surprise was the main thing Kirby had going for her.
“Okay.” There was a pause. “Be careful,” the other woman said.
“That’s a given.” Not wanting to tie up the phone any longer, Kirby ended the call.
Five minutes later, she stopped the Jeep in the trees, not wanting to pull up into the clearing right in front of the lab. She wished there was some way to sneak into the building. Unfortunately, Nate had installed a state-of-the-art security system, and the slightest attempt to break in would set off a series of computerized alarms.
“Hello. May I have your name, please,” the computerized female voice requested as Kirby stopped in front of the door.
“Kirby Pendleton,” Kirby obliged, hoping the bite of frustration in her tone would not screw up the voiceprint. “Police Chief Kirby Pendleton,” she said, just in case the system would recognize rank.
“Thank you, Police Chief Kirby Pendleton,” the disembodied voice continued, sounding less than impressed by any importance she might have in the community. “Now may I request a handprint, please.”
Every nerve ending in Kirby’s body was screaming as she wondered what, exactly, was happening inside the building. But, knowing the futility of arguing with a computer, she placed her hand against the screen as instructed.
“Working,” the voice assured her. “Scan completed. You may enter, Kirby Pendleton.”
“It’s about time,” Kirby muttered as the door obligingly slid open.
“Have a nice day,” the voice responded.
So far, so good. She was inside. Now all she had to do was find Sebastian and Nate and get them both out of here without anyone getting killed.
The building was strangely deserted. At first that puzzled Kirby, then she realized that Nate must have sent everyone else home in order to keep Sebastian’s departure a secret.
Even as she tried her best to tread carefully, the heels of her boots seemed to echo noisily on the tile floor. As she headed down the hallway and up the stairs toward Nate’s lab, Kirby wished that she possessed Sebastian’s ability for astro-projection.
25
At the moment, Sebastian wasn’t projecting anywhere. In fact, he felt as if his boots were nailed to the floor.
Having never been accustomed to violence on his own planet, Sebastian found this entire scenario extremely distasteful. And illogical.
“I do not understand how you believe you are going to get away with this,” he said, biting back his anger, instinctively knowing that giving in to his seething rage would only make matters worse.
“It’s actually quite simple,” Fred responded with the first smile Sebastian could remember seeing on his face. If a rattlesnake could smile, it would look exactly like Fred Simpson. “While I hold this lethal weapon on the two of you, with Brian and Murph”—he gestured toward the two men standing on either side of him, looking like muscle-bound linemen flanking their quarterback—“will gather all the data disks for the Way-Back Machine our boy genius has created and take them out of here. Next they’ll escort you out to the secured van we have waiting.
“Then, unfortunately, some unstable substance is going to leak out of the chem lab down th
e hall and explode into a gigantic fireball that will level the laboratory.
“By the time they manage to dig whatever remains of Nate’s body from the rubble, I’ll be in Paris, sipping champagne on the Champs-Elysées.”
“Who are you working for?” Nate asked, genuinely curious. “CIA? Some crazy terrorist group?”
He laughed at that, but the harsh sound held no humor. “I told my father that you’d never make the connection.”
Nate’s blue eyes narrowed. “Your father being Romaine Defour.” It was not a question. Nate remembered his employer having spoken of having a son. A son named, damn, Frederic. “I should have realized.” He shook his head in self-disgust. “I should have seen the resemblance.”
“I don’t look anything like my father.”
“Perhaps not physically. But you both have the same glitter of avarice in your eyes.” He cursed. “I should have figured it out.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t be so hard on yourself,” Fred advised. “After all, you’ve been wrapped up in your work. Especially when your alien friend here arrived.”
His eyes glittered with that very avarice Nate had accused him of possessing as he glanced over at Sebastian. “You’re worth your weight in gold.”
“Why are you doing this?” Sebastian asked. A white-hot rage was building inside him at the realization that the very same man who’d seemed such a harmless nerd was the person responsible for injuring Kirby. Although it took a Herculean effort, Sebastian forced it down. For now.
“Why, to advance the cause of science, of course,” he said.
“Not to mention the dough involved,” Nate added. “Especially since your father lost his government funding.”
“Because you stole his work,” Fred snapped.
“The quantum jump time travel and antimatter work was always mine,” Nate argued. “I created it, I nurtured it, I’m the one who did all the work. But your father was too greedy and too impatient, so he couldn’t resist stealing the concept from one of his own employees, twisting the data to make it look as if we were further along than we were, then offering it to the highest bidder.”
“You are so naive, Pendleton. That’s the way the game is played,” Fred ground out. “It all would have worked out if you hadn’t blown the damn whistle.”
“I wasn’t going to let the Pentagon get their grubby little hands on my work and turn it into the latest high-tech war machine.”
“Well, now you don’t have any choice, do you?” Gesturing toward the computer with the pistol, he said to the larger of his enormous cohorts, “Tie these two up to keep them out of trouble, then start loading this stuff, along with Mr. Spock, into the van. We’ve wasted enough time as it is.”
Sebastian exchanged a glance with Nate, who nodded imperceptibly. A moment later, all hell broke loose.
“What the—”
One of Fred’s goons, the one who’d been about to tie the rope around Sebastian’s wrists, gaped at the spot where his quarry had been standing. A second later, a hand pressed against the back of his head, and he crumpled to the floor.
At the same time, Nate lowered his head and rammed it into the stomach of the walking Coke machine headed his way. He was rewarded by a heavy oof, as the man’s air was forced from his lungs. A moment later, Nate felt a bullet whiz past his ear and he dived for the floor.
“Damn it, Fred,” he ground out as he rolled under a desk, “aren’t you carrying this quest for knowledge a little bit too far? Whatever happened to the chaos theory? If you could solve the problem of climate change, you’d be saving the planet. That’d be a Nobel Prize for sure.”
“That could take decades,” Fred said. “Centuries. There’s more immediate money in armaments,” he said. This time the bullet splintered the wood only inches from Nate’s head.
Nate cursed when he saw Murph was back on his feet and headed his way. He tipped the desk over, scattering papers. With an angry roar that would’ve done the Hulk proud, the man kicked the desk aside, shattering it as if it had been made of balsa wood.
But Nate had already moved on.
“You’re not going to get away,” Fred warned.
“I believe that’s my line,” Kirby said calmly, her Glock aimed point-blank at Fred. “At the risk of sounding clichéd, drop the gun.”
Fred wasn’t about to surrender yet. “Murph, get the damn alien.”
“That’s what I’m trying to do, damn it,” he complained, furious that every time he neared Sebastian, the man would dematerialize, then pop up somewhere else across the room. Finally, frustrated, he charged.
Nate, crouched behind a bookcase, stuck out his leg. As he watched the giant go tumbling to the floor, he called out cheerfully, “Timber.”
Fred, faced with the inevitable, obediently dropped his weapon to the floor.
Breathing again, Kirby whipped out her handcuffs and snapped them around his wrists.
Two minutes later, Danny arrived with the police van to pick up the unholy trio. As Kirby handed the prisoners over to her deputy, she gave into temptation and issued an order she’d been dying to say for years. “Book ’em, Danno.”
* * *
She should be ecstatic. After all, it wasn’t every day the police chief of a quiet little island hamlet like Rum Runner Island had the opportunity to save her brother and lover from a potential murderer, not to mention the little fact that she’d kept a major scientific breakthrough from somehow being turned into yet another doomsday machine by war profiteers.
But she couldn’t be happy. Because the one thing that hadn’t changed was that Sebastian was leaving.
They were standing alone in the lab, hands linked, minds entwined.
“I thought you’d lost your powers,” she said, seeking something, anything to say.
“I have, for the most part,” he agreed. “But I believe you’re right about the adrenaline rush. There’s something very primitive about fighting for your life.” But it had been more than that, he knew. Revenge had driven him. Revenge for Fred Simpson, aka Frederic Defour, having harmed the woman he loved.
“I don’t imagine you have much opportunity to do that on Logosia.”
He almost smiled. “No. So long as you stay out of the taverns frequented by outlanders, Logosia is unrelentingly peaceful.”
“Violence is illogical,” she agreed softly.
“That’s the downside,” he said. “But during my time on Earth, I have come to realize that absolute logic is not the utopia it is made out to be.” He drew her close and pressed his lips against her hair. “Because of you, I have discovered that the very best things in life are sometimes the most illogical.”
She smiled up at him through misty eyes. “Ah, we’re back to me being an illogical female again?”
He traced her curved lips with his fingertip, appearing fascinated by their shape and silky texture. “No. We are back to how amazing you make me feel.”
She wrapped her arms around him and wished she could hold him here with her forever. Wished that she could stop time. “That’s better.”
They stood that way, arms wrapped around each other, foreheads touching, for a long moment. Finally, accepting the inevitable, Kirby drew away, her eyes shimmering with tears. “I’m not going to say good-bye again.”
There was an ache in his throat so large Sebastian couldn’t swallow. And there was an enormous, gaping black hole where his heart used to be. “No. No good-byes.”
And then his mouth was on hers, covering and conquering and creating a deep, aching warmth. It was not a kiss meant to soothe or comfort, but one born of raw and turbulent emotions.
On a soft sob, her lips parted in irresistible and avid invitation. His mouth was fevered with desperation, his hands rough with urgency. Swearing, first in English, then switching to Logosian, he plunged into the dark, frantic kiss, boldly taking what he needed, heatedly giving what she needed in return.
And then, before he dragged her down to the floor, he released her.
&nb
sp; Shaken, Kirby stared up at him, wondering what kind of man possessed so much self-restraint he could put aside such fevered passion. Tense and wired and quivering like a plucked bowstring, she closed her eyes and struggled for control.
Then, she did the only thing possible. Biting her lip to keep from begging him to stay, she walked out of the lab. And out of Sebastian’s life.
Nate was waiting for her by the Jeep.
“You really love the guy, don’t you, kiddo?” he asked, his dark blue eyes filled with sympathy.
“Of course I do.” She took a deep breath and scrubbed impatiently at the tears streaming down her face with the backs of her hands. “Enough to let him go.”
“Does it help knowing that he loves you, too?”
She shook her head. “No. Oh, it probably will, one of these days,” she decided reluctantly. “But right now, I don’t think there’s anything either you or Sebastian can say to make me feel better.”
She lifted a hand to his cheek. “But thank you, Nate. You’re a dynamite brother.”
Her decision made, and wanting to leave before she weakened and changed her mind, she climbed into the Jeep and drove back to her office.
* * *
She couldn’t think. After having the state police come and take her prisoners to the mainland, Kirby put Danny in charge for the remainder of the day and went home, where the twinkling white lights of the Christmas tree seemed to mock her, reminding her, as if she could ever forget, that Sebastian was somewhere out there among the stars.
Digging out her grandmother Pendleton’s cookbook, she began to bake some cookies and cupcakes to take to Christmas dinner tomorrow. As much as she wanted to wallow beneath the covers until at least after the New Year, she knew that if she didn’t show up at Emily’s, her bossy big sister would come and get her.
Meanwhile, hopefully the concentration baking demanded would keep her from thinking about Sebastian. From wondering if he made it safely back to Logosia and hoping he’d remember her and what they’d shared when he did.
Three hours later, the kitchen was filled with smoke, and all she had to show for her efforts were a stack of what looked like flat charcoal disks and a muffin tin of charred, heavy rocks.