That will have to do.
I leap onto the seat on my right and I pick up the edge of the dress and scramble over the back of the seat. Tyler tries to get to me, but I’m too fast. He grabs the sleeve of my dress, but I twist away and over the back of the next seat. Then I hop into the aisle and run.
I barrel over Mrs. Withers as she stirs on the floor and offer her a silent thank you for her momentary distraction.
Tyler shouts behind me. He’s grunting. I push through the door, wedging my way between a group of men who’ve returned from the dining car.
I need to get off this train! I reach into my dress and pull my watch out. I can project and be safe in a second.
But I need to get to Washington, too. If I project now, my watch will never be able to come back to this date. It’s a limit of our Annum watches—they can never return to the same date twice. Projecting would mean abandoning the Lincoln assassination, at least for now.
Dammit!
“There’s nowhere to hide!” Tyler shouts behind me, and he’s right. This train is a prison and a bull’s-eye all at once. What am I going to do, keep running the aisles until we get to Baltimore?
No, I have only one option. I turn the knobs on my watch and meet Tyler’s gaze. “Until next time,” I say with a smile that’s more nervous than confident. I slam the face shut.
I’m shot up. The pressure builds in the back of my throat, like I swallowed a rock, as I fly though time. I’m ripping through time, stretching, straining. Projecting without the protection of the gravity chamber is hell. I can’t breathe. My bones are popping and cracking. I can’t take this—
I land in the exact same spot, sixty-three years and four days later. I land on my feet but stumble and immediately go down. My knees crash into the wooden railroad ties. I allow myself one yell, then I roll off the tracks and down a short embankment. I push off the ground and stand. My dress is torn, one huge gash right at my knees.
It’s . . . I do the math . . . 1928. And I have no idea where I am. Somewhere in between Boston and Worcester. Railroad tracks are the only thing I see in either direction. No towns. No streets. No buildings. There’s nothing. I’ve gone and stranded myself in the middle of nowhere.
I rifle through the duffel bag. I don’t have any clothes for 1928, and it looks like I skipped that part of the money drawer, too. We’d traveled about forty-five minutes. I assume that means I’m close to Worcester? Maybe? I kick at the ground and send a dying clump of grass and dirt into the air. Then I heave a sigh, sling the bag over my arm, and start walking back toward Boston.
I don’t know what to do. I could always project back to a few days before the assassination, hop another train, and just wait. But then I’d be giving up way more than thirty-five days of my life. And my teammates can’t wait that long.
Or I could call it a loss and move on to the Boston Strangler. Goose bumps dot my arms as I think of it. I really don’t want to do the Strangler mission. Really really don’t want to do it.
So I think about Tyler. XP got to Tyler. I shake my head. It’s so obvious, I can’t believe we didn’t really consider it before. Each of our Annum watches costs something like twenty million dollars a pop. Tyler’s watch only works with his DNA, so he’s essentially free labor for XP. Plus, Tyler has a serious vendetta against our organization.
My mind races with questions. Violet said there were two people who snatched Indigo, so there’s at least one other member of the blackout team. Who? Another Guardian? Is Tyler’s tracker still active? If it’s not, how will we ever find him? And how did Tyler get his watch back in the first place?
I look up. In the distance, a building rises into the sky, and I take off at a trot, then break into a run. I forgot how good it feels to sprint, to forget about everything and just focus on how fast you can go.
I also forgot how much sprinting takes out of you, especially in a stiff dress and booties. I stop and bend over, gasping for breath, then decide on a brisk walk. I find the main road and stick to the shoulder. Cars zoom past me, and I don’t want to get hit. Well, “zoom” is a bit of an overstatement. They’re topping out at like twenty-five miles per hour.
I’m getting stares. Lots of them. Mostly from the women, looking my weird dress up and down. I keep my eyes on the cars as they pass.
One creeps by at about ten miles an hour. A Ford Model T. There’s a girl in the passenger seat who is about my age. She’s laughing and shrieking at something and brushes a strand of bobbed hair from her face. She has both legs propped up on the dash and a bottle of clear liquid raised to her lips. Moonshine, most likely. I’m pretty sure we’re still in the middle of Prohibition.
Her dress is a sleeveless silk number with a short hemline. It’s obviously expensive. She makes eye contact with me for a brief second and winks. Not a friendly wink. A wink of superiority. I narrow my eyes at her. Yeah, go ahead and wink. You won’t be winking a year from now when the stock market crashes and that little silk dress goes the way of your savings account.
That was mean.
I wish Abe was here. He’d tell me that was mean, and then I would admit that it was mean, and then we’d laugh about how it would take a week to drive from Boston to New York in that car.
I wait until the car is completely out of view, then I turn to make sure another isn’t coming. There’s a horse-drawn carriage half a mile down the road, but they shouldn’t be able to see me. I drop the duffel bag, take hold of my right sleeve, and yank against the shoulder seam. It takes several pulls, but eventually it rips. I tear off the sleeve, then start on the left. Then I bend down, grab a handful of fabric right below where it’s already ripped, and pull with all my might, trying to rip it as evenly as possible.
I stand up. I should have left well enough alone. I don’t look like I fit in to 1928, I look like I just lost a fight with some old, rusty playground equipment. Threads of various lengths dangle down my arms, and my skirt goes from long to short to long again as it travels around my knees.
I’m going to be run out of this town on a rail.
But what’s done is done.
About twenty minutes later, a sign welcomes me to Framingham. Framingham is twenty miles from Boston. That’s as far as we got? I head for the building I saw in the distance and discover it’s the town hall. The large brick building is held up by eight Corinthian columns that are each two stories high. The words “Framingham Memorial” are etched above. The building looks brand new.
There’s a restaurant across the street, so I duck inside. Every head turns to look at me, and I grimace.
“Good lord, child,” says a man with a rag, wiping off a table. He stops and stares at me. “What happened to you?”
“I . . .” I look around. “It’s a long story. I’m trying to get back to Boston. Can you point me toward the train station?”
“I can show you,” a voice says from the back of the room.
My duffel falls to the floor. I know that voice. I lock eyes on a guy plunking a few coins on a table. He grins.
It’s Abe.
CHAPTER 24
I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been so thoroughly and completely shocked that I forget how to speak. The first was when I was seven and I found my mom passed out cold on the bathroom floor. I stood there, staring, for what felt like hours, my little first-grade brain incapable of processing what was happening. The second was when the woman from Peel showed up unannounced on our doorstep the summer after eighth grade. She introduced herself and extended a hand, and all I did was look at it—this foreign hand offering me a way out. The third was just a few months ago, when I found out who my dad really was and how he died.
And now this is number four. My mouth drops open, and I gaze into eyes that are so familiar to me. Are they mad? Suspicious?
No. They’re not. They’re warm, hopeful.
I have to restrain myself from leaping at him. He walks up to me, and I stand there like a statue. He pulls a tweed cap out of his b
ack pocket and plops it on his head.
He smiles at me and holds open the door. “Ma’am?”
I blink, then blink again, then walk out into the sunlight. And then I throw myself at him. I wrap my arms around his neck and inhale. The scent of adventure bodywash fills my nostrils and leads me back to Annum Hall, to Peel, to Ariel’s house, to all of the places I’ve smelled it before. Everything is forgotten.
“What are you doing here?” I whisper into his neck. “Did everyone see my note?”
He reaches for my hand. “Everyone wants answers, but no one thinks you had anything to do with whatever happened to Bonner. Well, at least no one from Annum Guard.”
“But that means . . . who?” A man loading chicken crates into a wooden-framed truck bed looks up at us, so I duck my head and pull Abe farther down the sidewalk.
“It’s all being kept very hush-hush. No Boston PD, very limited number of feds. A special FBI task force made up of those with the highest clearance levels.”
“And they think I had something to do with it?”
“They want to know where you are.” He pauses. “Red has your back on this. He had me disable your tracker right after you projected here. He sent me to find you. I overrode my tracker, too.”
Another Model T goes whizzing past at about ten miles an hour. I watch it for a few seconds, then turn back to Abe. “Does Red want me to come back?”
“The opposite. Red wants you—us—to keep digging. We’re not going to get this opportunity again. With Bonner gone, Red has better access to old mission ledgers. He’s got Yellow, Green, and Violet following up on a few more leads. And here”—he reaches into his back pocket again and pulls out two folded pieces of newspaper—“you have to see this.”
I take the papers, then park myself on one of the steps leading up to Memorial Hall. There are all sorts of people around. Men wearing flat-brimmed straw hats rushing up the stairs, women with bobbed hair wearing shapeless dresses walking down the sidewalk. A few of them eye my dress, but only for a moment.
I look down at what Abe’s given me. The first clipping is from the society pages, dated about ten years ago. Well, ten years ago from the present. The half-page spread is devoted to pictures from a charity golf event. I wrinkle my nose. “What is this?” But then I spot a picture of Secretary Howe. He’s standing next to a man I’ve never seen before. The man is probably in his late fifties. He’s wearing a golf shirt and light pants. I look down at the caption:
National Defense CEO Francis Howe and National Defense COO Alexander Quail
Quail.
“Wait, is that . . . is that Bonner’s dad?” I drop my voice lower as two older women on the sidewalk shoot disapproving glances in my direction. “Her dad was the chief operating officer of Howe’s company?”
Abe nods, then juts his chin toward the picture. “And an old golf buddy.”
“So her dad basically got her the job at Annum Guard?”
Abe nods again. “Yep.”
“But that doesn’t make any sense. Why? And that doesn’t explain why she changed her name to Jane Bonner.”
“There’s something else. We found her file. Seems that after college, Marie bounced around jobs for a few years, but then eight years ago, she got a new position.” He looks at me, like he wants me to say something.
“Um, okay . . .”
“Working on then–Senator Caldwell’s reelection campaign.”
“The vice president?” I practically shout, then duck my head. A group of boys playing a game with a stick and a thin wooden wheel are staring at me. And I don’t know why I’m so surprised by this revelation. I mean, I saw at the party that the VP and Bonner have known each other a while, but I find it hard to believe that they worked together. Caroline Caldwell looked like she wanted to knife Bonner at Leighton’s house. Then I remember how Joe Caldwell ogled her, and something clicks.
Was Bonner involved with Joe at some point? Hang on, is that why Caroline Caldwell asked me to exercise discretion? She thought there was a chance I’d find out about it, and she didn’t want it going public?
“Vice President Caldwell ruined Bonner’s reputation, didn’t she?” I ask Abe.
“Obliterated it with the force of an atomic bomb is a more accurate description.”
I look at the second clipping. It’s a long article.
“Do you remember that big, campaign finance scandal when we were in, like, seventh grade?” Abe asks.
“No.” What seventh grader remembers something like that? Besides Abe. He grew up in a family where CNN and PBS were the only TV stations allowed and where NPR was a constant on the car radio. We’ve played this “Do you remember . . . ?” game a lot. I always lose. My mom likes reality TV and old-school Madonna.
“Anyway, Marie took the fall. She admitted to taking money from corporations that had hidden their identities to give more than they’re legally allowed. There was a special prosecutor assigned. Caldwell testified against Marie, and after that, Marie took a plea deal.” He pauses. “She went to prison, Mandy.”
My mouth falls open.
“Marie served eighteen months. When she got out she stayed low for a while, but then, like a year ago, she popped back up on the radar screen as Jane Bonner.”
“How did she get the Annum Guard appointment with that kind of past?”
“Think about it. She’s the perfect lackey to a corrupt government official. Someone on the straight and narrow isn’t exactly going to be lining up for that job. Howe needed someone he could use, someone he could manipulate. Someone who wouldn’t go digging into Eagle. Red thinks she must have panicked when we started disappearing and was going to turn on Howe, and that’s why . . . well, they got to her.”
It all makes sense, but something is still nagging me. “Howe is XP then?”
“All signs point to him, yeah.”
“But I saw a man with Bonner. The man who took her. I only saw the back of him, but it wasn’t Howe. This man was much bigger, much bulkier.”
Abe shrugs. “It was probably someone who works for Howe.”
I hand Abe the clippings and stand. “So now we need evidence.”
“We need evidence,” Abe echoes.
“Has the bug picked up anything on Mike?”
“Nothing much. A few things we’re looking into, but so far, nothing we can use.”
I pause for a second to gather my nerves. “And where are you and I on the Mike front?” I’m trying to keep things professional, but I know I probably just sound awkward.
He sighs. “Obviously, I don’t like knowing that you kissed him—he kissed you—whatever. But unless you say otherwise, I’m going to assume that whatever you did, you did out of necessity in order to plant the bug.”
“I’m not going to say otherwise.” Even if the truth is somewhere on the gray spectrum.
“Then you and I are fine,” Abe says.
I interlace my fingers in his, and this time he squeezes them back.
We start walking toward the train station in town. “I blew the first XP mission. Blackout was on the train.”
Abe gasps. “And you got away?”
“Barely. It was only one person.” I hesitate. “Tyler Fertig. One of us.”
“We have to tell someone. We have to warn the others.”
“I know.”
“Let’s go back now.”
I shake my head. “I’m sure we’re going to run into him again on the next XP mission . . . which is the Boston Strangler.” I hear the edge in my voice. I don’t know why this one is creeping me out so much. I’ve had plenty of training running around in dark warehouses at Peel, unsure of what dangers lurked ahead. I guess I’ve just always found the idea of killers who prey on victims like they’re hunting animals to be horrifying. I had nightmares for a solid month when we studied serial killer patterns at Peel.
“We can take Tyler down on that mission, just us,” I say.
“But what about the other blackout member? Violet said the
re were two.”
“I think we can handle it. I just . . . I don’t want to put anyone else at risk. You and I are the best trained to handle combat situations. Yellow would be useless right now. Violet is . . . not the best with these situations.” I remember how she nearly chickened out on the Gardner mission, which now seems like a lifetime ago. “And I just don’t trust Green enough to let him in on this. But you . . .” I reach out and squeeze his hand. “You, I trust.”
Abe purses his lips together for a moment. “I think you’re wrong, Mandy. And I think you’re selling everyone else short. The smart thing is to go back now and get more help. Think with your head, not your heart.”
A little voice nags me that Abe’s right, that we’d be much better equipped to handle the blackout squad if we’re at our full numbers. But then I think of losing Yellow or Violet or even Green . . . I can handle myself. Abe has a black belt.
“Abey, I really think it should just be us.”
Abe is silent, but then he blows out a breath and nods. “Okay. We’ll do it together. But what in the world does XP have to do with a serial killer?”
“I have no idea, but whatever it is, it can’t be good. Especially considering the first mission—the one I abandoned—was the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.”
What if XP is a murderer? And not like my old headmaster or—I hate that my mind goes there—like my dad. Not someone who kills for money. No, someone who stalks his prey. Someone who kills just to kill. Someone who gets off on the psychological mind games.
I shudder again.
“Since Vaughn worked for XP, that means XP killed two presidents?” Abe says.
“I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll ever know.”
“What’s the third mission? Do I even want to know?”
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