Her eyes lit up as she saw the array of slinky, spiked high heels displayed on pedestals.
He hated to disappoint her, but she’d get them into enough trouble without wearing those things. He checked the price on some black leather boots.
Page came and looked over his shoulder at the boots he held. “I don’t want those, I want—”
“These are more practical. See, they have a nice two-inch heel—you’ll like that. But it’s a nice broad heel instead of a stiletto. This will give your ankle more support as well. I’m the one looking after you, and I don’t want you toppling over again.”
Page grabbed the boots and inspected them at length. “They are nice. I guess they’ll do.”
He would have to disappoint her again, because after paying for those boots, he wouldn’t have much left. She’d have to make do with the cheapest pair of jeans they could find, no matter how unfashionable. He mentally braced himself for the onslaught.
“Once we get you a pair of these in the right size and you pick out some cheap jeans, we can go to the train station. When you get to Manhattan and have your own money to spend you can choose whatever clothes you want.”
“And then we can go back to the year two thousand. Me to find my helpers, and you to your own life.”
Matt managed a smile. “One thing at a time.” First I’ll worry about getting her safely back to the city. Then he could worry about the difficult dilemma he would find himself facing.
Chapter 6
Three Blind Mice
June 30th, 1997 The Upper West Side
SAM stared at the beautiful broad road with its line of trees down the center and the heavy traffic flowing in both directions. The park was gone, and her tears were drying. The surroundings of the previous moment had been replaced by rows of old but well kept apartment buildings. She’d no idea what area of the city she’d landed in, but she didn’t care. She had only one thing on her mind. Kirin.
Though she couldn’t see the woman anywhere, Sam must’ve been caught up in Kirin’s Travel field, despite not being in range. She didn’t know how it had happened, but she didn’t care about that either. What concerned her was finding the fugitive.
Sam figured the same thing that had separated them all in the first place must’ve happened again. She checked her watch to find out the day and the year and confirm that she was at least still in New York City. Then she looked at the locator screen.
The red bar indicated a leader device—presumably Kirin with Harold’s watch—somewhere to the east. The same direction Sam had been looking in when she saw the woman Travel. But Kirin had not yet escaped justice.
As long as Sam stayed in the same time as her quarry, she would continue to pursue the murderess. But Sam’s ankle was still swollen and the pain had become so great she could barely stand—finding Kirin and a way to bring the woman to account was going to be tough.
Her right leg already growing tired of bearing her full weight, Sam limped over to the side of the nearest building. She sighed and let herself slide to the pavement. She let her mind drift and tried ignoring the pain, enough to get a moment of rest.
With the problems she’d already encountered, she hoped they’d been right about the devices needing twenty-four hours to recharge before they could be used for Traveling again. She would need that time to find Kirin and come up with a plan.
Clearly the size of the Travel field was off. Maybe that was just a margin of error thing though, the engineers using a fudge factor to try to keep anyone from getting lost in time. Sam could see it would be safer to err on the side of caution and say the range was a bit shorter than it actually was. The locator apps must’ve been programmed the same.
It gave her a slight advantage over Kirin. If only Sam could stay just outside the range indicated by their watches, then Kirin wouldn’t be able to tell if they’d Travel together or not. The woman wouldn’t have left in the first place if someone had shown up on her locator screen. She’d think no one had come through with her.
Not knowing if the other Travelers had become aware of her perfidy, though, she’d have to be wary. She’d likely keep checking her locator app to keep a safe distance. But she’d have no idea how far away another Traveler might be as long as they appeared as a red bar instead of a white blip. Or who it was.
What Sam couldn’t know was what distance really would put her outside the range of the field. It’ll be tricky.
She reached down to massage her ankle while she tried to think. Unless Kirin stayed a long time in one place, Sam would have a difficult time catching up with the woman. And it would only get harder the longer Sam sat on her rear end resting.
Then a couple of bills came floating down into her lap. She raised her head, but her unknown benefactor had already departed. On examination, she found herself holding two dollar bills and wondered how much taxi rides cost. While she needed to rest her ankle, she also burned to get after her quarry.
She pocketed the cash and checked her locator again. The red bar had switched from east to southeast, and she knew Kirin was on the move. Where’s the woman headed? Sam would find out somehow.
Another bill floated into her lap, and once again a good samaritan walked on without comment. The little she had heard about this place must have been wrong. A quick look showed she’d been blessed with a twenty, and she suspected she now had enough.
She pushed herself to her feet and walked with care to the curb. She wasn’t sure how this worked—she simply held the twenty in the air and waved it at the passing cabs. Sure enough one stopped on the other side of the parked cars and opened its door for her. Her resources were limited, but the money had literally fallen into her lap and she needed to move faster than her ankle would allow. She hobbled into the back of the cab and handed the money up to the driver.
“You need to go to the hospital, miss?”
Sam shook her head. “I need to go south.”
“Where to?”
“I’m not sure. I’m not from around here. I don’t even know what part of the city we’re in.” She nodded at the bill she’d handed him. “How far will that take me?”
“This is the Upper West Side. You want me to drive south for twenty bucks? That’ll get you into Midtown. How’s that?”
“I don’t know. Please just take me south right now. Maybe I’ll have a better idea where I’m going when we get closer.”
The cabbie shook his head and started off down the street amid the streaming traffic and honking of horns. Sam watched her watch.
As she kept one eye on the screen, she considered her challenge. She couldn’t avoid sometimes showing up in range, as a blip on Kirin’s device. She had to hope the woman wouldn’t check her locator screen so often that she’d realize she was still being pursued. Sam had no control over whether or how long she could maintain that advantage—what she would do was make every effort not to be seen by her target. The locator app would help keep from getting too close, assuming she managed to catch up in the first place.
Of course, Kirin had a head start. Traveling had increased the distance between them and then Sam had stopped to rest. Hopefully this taxi ride would make up some of the difference.
She glanced up to look at the city blocks passing by. “What will I find in Midtown?”
The cabbie stretched round to give Sam a good long look. He scratched his stubble with one hand while his other held the wheel, the other traffic ignored. “Lots of stuff. Mostly businesses.”
Sam nodded, and the man returned his attention to his driving. This main thoroughfare turned more directly south, and after a few minutes Sam noticed the red bar on her watch shift to the east. “Sir, could you take the next left turn? Wherever that’s feasible.”
The man grunted again. Soon he turned down a one-way street, and before they’d gone a full block, Kirin appeared as a blip on the locator screen. Sam yelped, “Stop here! Please. This is it.”
The cabbie shook his head but eased over to a space at the
curb. Sam searched through the taxi’s front windshield, but she couldn’t see Kirin among the throng. Sam double checked her watch, then slid over to the door.
As she reached for the handle, she looked back at the driver. “This really is the place. Thank you.”
“Hey, you want your change, little lady?”
She couldn’t remember the long, boring lecture about tipping customs, but as the money had been gifted to her she should be generous.
She shook her head at the driver. “Keep it.” She still had two dollars and that should buy some food. But first she had to find Kirin.
Sam smiled at the sad-eyed cabbie and then exited the taxi trying to keep herself small, which was easy enough. She waited until the cab pulled away before checking her locator app again. It certainly was easier to track the blip—unable to see the woman herself, she could still tell where Kirin had to be. About eighty meters to the east and moving south. Wanting to get further back from her target, closer to the edge of the range, Sam started walking slow to the next block where she turned south.
She looked back and forth between the people up ahead and where the woman’s blip appeared on the watch screen. Once she had a clear line of sight she should be able to discern Kirin, even at the full hundred meters. She hobbled on three and a half more blocks before she finally saw her quarry.
Sam had stopped for a ‘don’t walk’ sign at an intersection when she looked at the locator and then raised her head in the right direction to catch Kirin entering an edifice standing on the opposite corner. Sam drew back from the street and looked around her for a good vantage point to observe the building. One that’s just out of range.
She ended up leaning against the side of a pizza parlor. This time she wasn’t going to let herself sit down, because she needed to stay alert to watch for when Kirin exited. Sam squinted and read the discreet plaque next to the door where Kirin had gone in. American International State Bank. And that prompted Sam to remember.
During orientation, they’d mentioned research leaders having access to funds from a trust account the professor had set up in the eighteen hundreds. So the team leaders could get money to pay for food and lodging while conducting their research. Either the leader devices somehow gave them that access, or Kirin had wormed the information out of Harold. Or both.
If they’d mentioned further details, Sam hadn’t been paying attention. She was interested now—because she needed to know what Kirin was doing, but also since Sam herself needed food and shelter. And she didn’t think two dollars would last long.
She took in a deep breath. She’d save worrying about those things for when the time came. Right now she had enough to do, trying to keep close to Kirin until the woman settled somewhere. Though even then Sam couldn’t relax her vigilance. I’ve got Kirin in sight, and I can’t risk losing her.
Sam found her head starting to list to one side and her eyes growing heavy. She was beginning to drift off—her body must’ve been pumping out analgesics pretty hard for the pain to have abated to the extent she could fall asleep.
She scrambled to check the locator screen. The red bar still indicated her target to the southeast—without knowing if her attention had wandered to the point she might have missed Kirin, she’d have to assume the woman remained in the bank.
Pinching herself to stay alert, Sam started to stretch. She glanced briefly at the faces of the people walking past and took note of the buildings all around, and she saw plenty of restaurants—it was starting to make her hungry.
She also saw the crew cut topping the tall, tightly muscled form standing at the intersection to the south, getting ready to cross over to the bank when the light turned. The man must’ve thought he was tracking Page. Sam stepped toward the curb, ignoring the protest from her ankle, and quickly checked her watch to see the blip appear, comfirming Kirin was still inside the bank and not moving. Then Sam stretched as high as she could manage and started to yell. The pain helped.
“Bailey!” She cried out. “Bailey,” she shouted again, waving her arms high above her in the hope he might actually see her.
“BAILEY!”
She watched Bailey turn his head in her direction and stand motionless as the light changed and the crowd surged forward and around him. She saw the man drop his gaze and knew he was checking his locator screen. He looked over at the bank and then back at her. And still he didn’t move.
“Bailey!” She waved her arms vigorously, beckoning him over, even though the effort cost her in increasing pain.
The man gave the bank another glance. Then he stepped over to the edge of the crosswalk leading to her side of the street and waited for the light. When he finally got close, she saw the questions piling up behind his eyes.
Bailey looked around at the people passing and ignoring them both, before returning a hard stare to her. “Samantha, right?”
Sam hobbled backward to the pizza parlor and leaned against its wall once more, taking some of the pressure off her ankle. “Call me Sam. I know we only spoke briefly during orientation, but you’re a sight for sore eyes.”
Bailey moved up closer to her and lowered his voice. “What’s wrong with your ankle? Why are you waiting way over here? For Harold? I don’t understand—I thought I was tracking Page.”
Sam shook her head. “It’s not Harold or Page. It’s Kirin in there with the leader device.”
Bailey took a step back and frowned. He must have sensed something was wrong, because his eyes were troubled. “Perhaps you’d better tell me what’s going on.”
Sam lowered her voice to match his. “Harold is dead, murdered. Kirin stabbed him in the heart and took his watch. I managed to chase her for several blocks, but she outran me and got outside the field range. She Traveled but somehow took me along.”
Bailey squinted and waited until she’d finished. Then he looked down at her ankle. “You need medical attention.”
Sam bristled. “What I need is to keep following that murderess until I figure out a way to bring her to justice for killing Harold.” She wanted help for her ankle, but this was more important.
“Not your job, Sam. Let the professor take care of Kirin.”
She looked into his eyes and allowed the building tears to push through, pleading. Then it hit her. “You were in enforcement, weren’t you? Before you joined the project. If anybody should be taking care of Kirin, it should be you.”
Bailey kept shaking his head. “That’s not who I am anymore. Besides—”
“I’m the only witness. And Harold’s body is in the future.”
Bailey’s head stopped and his hard eyes looked directly into hers. “The future...”
Sam nodded. “None of the evidence even exists yet. The authorities of this time don’t have a crime to investigate, and the police in two thousand don’t know where to look, and even if they did...” She let her words trail off, her mind caught on something. “By the way, how did you get here?” It was ridiculous to think this man might be in league with Kirin. Wasn’t it?
Bailey spoke low and clear. “I just don’t know.” He shifted around to lean against the wall, right by her side, slouching down and fixing his gaze on the bank across the way. He says he’s not an enforcer anymore, but he’s acting like one.
“None of the others were around when I arrived, so I checked my locator app and started off toward the nearest leader. The direction was switching and I was wandering inside Central Park when suddenly I Traveled. Next thing, I was on Madison Avenue.”
“Central Park?”
“A giant park in the middle of the city. It seems it was a den of iniquity and violent crime.”
Sam furrowed her brows in thought. “Kirin had just gone into this big park when she Traveled. You must’ve been close to her.”
Bailey frowned. “She didn’t show as in range.”
“I was outside of her range, too. The Travel field must extend farther than what the locator screens show.”
“Makes sense. And it would m
ean—”
“That she doesn’t know she brought either of us with her, and if we can stay just outside range, she couldn’t be sure she’s being followed. Any Traveler might be in the same time period.” Sam had already thought this through. “Even if she suspects something, as long as we don’t get too close she couldn’t know she’d take us along with her when she Travels—if she does.”
Sam paused for breath. And Kirin doesn’t know there are two of us. “But right now she must be in there getting the money out of the trust.”
Bailey shook his head. “She can’t. Not the principal, not even the professor could do that. At best she has limited access to the interest.”
Sam rolled her eyes. This kind of thing was why she hadn’t bothered to pay attention in orientation. “Interest?”
He looked at her funny, probably thinking she was a complete idiot. I’m not, though.
“Money making money. That’s why she’ll need to Travel again. If she was willing to commit murder, she won’t be satisfied with the stipend allotted for expenses. She’ll want more, and that will mean Traveling further into the past, to make the money multiply.”
Sam had been grateful to find she wasn’t alone. She was even happier for help in her quest for justice. And she was thrilled that she’d be getting the assistance of a former enforcer who understood the way criminals operated.
Before, she had simply burned with indignation at what Kirin had done. Now Sam had hope.
She was about to ask Bailey for a fuller explanation, because she still didn’t understand what Kirin was supposed to be doing, when the woman exited the bank with a pair of big suitcases. “There,” Sam whispered, standing. “What took her so long?”
Bailey stayed slouching low against the wall. “I imagine she needed to make sure she got old bills.”
Sam kept from looking directly at Kirin, afraid that the woman would feel the fire in her eyes. “It takes twenty-four hours for the devices to recharge for Traveling. I heard that much at least.”
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