Glassford Girl: Boxed Set (Complete Series) (Time Jumper Series)

by Jay J. Falconer

  Deep inside, she felt a tingle begin to tickle her spine like a feather. It was a feeling she liked, and it had nothing to do with a time jump. It had everything to do with being kissed by a hot boy, who, despite everything else that was going on, seemed to accept her for her. Problems and all. She didn’t have a clue why, but she was happy that he did.

  After countless late-night, tear-filled conversations with her mother back before the night of The Taking, Emily knew that a loving, trusting relationship between two people was exceptionally rare and deeply important. She knew she couldn’t make it without Derek at her side, not with what she had to face going forward, with the eyes watching her from the shadows with ravenous breath. Granted, he wasn’t perfect, but neither was she. Neither of them were normal or complete, but as a couple, they balanced each other out and made a whole person.

  She now understood what her mother was trying to explain to her oh so long ago. Emily was thankful for what she had. It wasn’t much compared to a lot of other people on the planet, but it was all she needed.

  * * *

  Two hours later they sat side-by-side at a computer in the second-floor lab, looking at the web page for Derek’s Lit/Comp class. Emily was reading the section about Derek’s writing assignments, trying to help him decide whether to write an essay or take a shot at the Beat Writing choice.

  She was beaming inside, thinking about how he was trying to better himself, even though the path ahead of him went against everything he was. Her arms seemed to move on their own, wrapping around his neck to pull him in close. “I’m so proud of you.”

  “Me, too. Though, I feel kind of like a fish out of water. But I’m gonna give it a shot. Not like I have a choice—it’s in the terms of my early release. And I kind of like not being, you know, not being a criminal. It’s weird sitting in class with all those kids who don’t know what’s really going on around them. They seem so . . . sheltered.”

  “I can relate. Not to being sheltered, but sometimes I see other teenage girls out in public—with their moms or whatever—and I think, well, like you’re saying. They seem so sheltered. But right now I’m thinking sheltered might not be such a bad thing.”

  “Hmm. As long as you’re thinking, what do you think I should do for my assignment?”

  “I think you should do the interview. That sounds more like you. I know you prefer to get out there and mingle and stir some shit up.”

  He shot a quick smile at her. “Maybe I should write something about sports. I do like sports. Especially hockey.”

  She laughed. “If that’s what you’re interested in, then I bet you can. You don’t strike me as a jock, though.”

  “I used to play Peewee hockey before my family situation got jacked. I was really into it. I’m kind of a closet hockey junkie, to be honest.”

  “Is that a confession?”

  “It is.” He put his right hand over his heart, raised his left hand and took a mock-serious tone.

  “Hello. My name is Derek, and I’m a hockey-a-holic.”

  “Shut UP!” she said with attitude, shoving him hard and making his chair rock sideways for a moment. Then it righted itself. They both laughed.

  He turned his eyes back to the computer. A second later, a look of panic came over his face. He stood up and shoved all his stuff in his backpack. “I have to be back in eighteen minutes or I go back to Durango. Damn it!”

  He kissed her on the cheek and just like that, he was gone.

  Her heart ran empty as the reality of her life settled in, quickly reminding her just how fragile and alone she really was.

  She buried the pity party and focused on the computer. The library was open for a bit longer, and she wanted to do some research while she had the chance. One day into the new Derek—Derek 2.0, as Sheldon the computer whiz would probably call him—and she was more than inspired. She was invigorated.

  She tapped the keys on the computer, bringing up three different search windows. In the first one she typed “Alien Abduction.” In the second, she typed “Neurobiology.” In the third, she typed “Time Travel Theories.”

  She was focused more than ever, and determined to figure out what they’d done to her and why. Then find a way to make everything right.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  10:59 p.m.

  Miller and Alison sat across from each other at a booth in the seating area of The Fourth Street Café and Eatery. Miller was majority owner of the place. The staff was about finished for the night and would soon head home. Miller poured a fill of premium whisky into a pair of shot glasses, then pushed one across the table to Alison.

  “Need ice?”

  “You’re kidding, right?” Alison said, wrapping his fingers around the glass.

  “Water?”

  “You forget who you’re drinking with, Millsy? You might as well hook up a Johnnie Walker drip line to my arm and save the middle man.”

  “Just checking to see if you were back to your old self.”

  “I am.”

  “Good. I like you a whole lot better when you drink.”

  “Me, too,” Alison said, downing the glass of booze. He tapped the glass on the table and Jim filled it up.

  “We’ve got way too many years between us for one of us to try changing now. Things just wouldn’t be the same. You know, old dogs and new tricks.”

  “Yeah, I had to make it appear I was onboard. It was all part of the department’s Improve From Within program they were selling over the holidays. You know, the company line about exercise, eat right, and eliminate the sauce. But it wasn’t for me.”

  “It’s not like you had a drinking problem. So what was the point?”

  “Idiots, I tell ya. Always getting in our shit. Blame the bleeding heart liberals in the media, making the talking heads upstairs react to whichever way the wind is blowing. Don’t they get it? Jarheads like us only drink with friends. Or when we’re alone. Or when we’re stressed. It’s not like we have to drink. But after a long day dealing with the underbelly of society, a man can only take so much. I think it might be time for me to think about retiring from this gig and trying something new. There’s something to be said about picking up leaves in the park. A mindless job sounds damn good right about now.”

  “I hear ya, brother.”

  The surface between them was empty except for a manila folder containing selective info that Miller had decided to share with Alison about Emily Heart—which wasn’t much. Caution was his main focus until he knew more about Alison’s agenda. Then he might share more.

  The new restaurant manager, whom he’d hired to take over for Rob the Rapist, was named Abby Rose. She was a punctual, supremely conscientious, middle-aged woman who was only a millimeter over five feet tall. Even with her small stature, she carried a management footprint that reminded Jim of a veteran linebacker, chasing down the ball with fearless abandon, not letting anyone get in her way.

  When Jim interviewed her for the manager’s position, he felt like he was the one applying for the job. Her articulate questions put him on the spot, which caught his attention and landed her the job. He felt that any woman who could handle herself in a stressful situation like that would run a tight ship. And he was right. She did.

  Abby appeared in the doorway to the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel.

  “Jim, we’re just about done here. You going to lock up or do you want me to stay and take care of it after your meeting?”

  Jim turned. “I got it, Abs. Have you met my old friend, Detective Alison?”

  She smiled. “I haven’t had the pleasure. Nice to meet you, Detective.”

  “Nice to meet you, too.”

  “You boys be good tonight.”

  “Not a chance,” Alison said, firing a quick wink at her.

  Abby didn’t seem to let his obvious flirtation affect her. Her eyes scanned the table, stopping on both shot glasses for a moment. “Night, fellas. Drive safe.”

  “Will do,” Miller told her, waiting until sh
e walked through the kitchen swing door and disappeared from sight.

  He turned to Alison. “Okay, bud. This is it.” He held up the folder. “This is what I have on the girl.”

  “You’re finally gonna come clean with me, Millsy?”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Miller said, choosing his words carefully to maintain his poker face. Lying to an old buddy wasn’t making his conscience happy, but he decided not to travel the full disclosure route for several reasons. Least of which was, he didn’t trust the detective side of his friend completely, not when it came to Emily Heart and the string of incidents that seemed to be following the girl across time and space. Alison was under a mountain of pressure from his boss, and if he’d been any other man, a man of lesser character or fortitude, he would have buckled under the weight a long time ago.

  Jim knew sharing the entire saga of Emily Heart would require a willing suspension of disbelief by Alison, and his full participation of an active imagination. The die-hard Marine sitting across from him would be unwilling to do the former, and incapable of the latter. Their time serving in the Corps had made Jim a baseline skeptic, but for Alison, it had turned him into a whiskey-loving cynic whose every thought was laced with paranoia and distrust. Jim needed to reveal carefully, because the mere mention of the word paranormal would probably make Alison’s head explode.

  What Alison’s time in the desert of the Middle East hadn’t eroded, twenty years on the police force had. Jim hated to say it, but Alison chose to only see the worst in people. He did have a few redeeming qualities, you just had to look hard for them. Most people who met the man didn’t bother, leaving a bad first impression to linger for eternity.

  Miller opened the folder and shuffled through a dozen photos he’d brought with him for the meeting. He laid one image on the table—a computer-generated screenshot he’d grabbed from a TV news report a couple years earlier. He began his edited story, keeping a close watch on Alison’s facial expressions and body language, making sure to sell the fiction he was about to spin.

  * * *

  At the same time, a few blocks away, Emily breezed out the front entrance of the library, heading south on North First Avenue.

  The night air was cool and refreshing, with a hint of smoke in the air. Someone nearby must have been using their fireplace, she decided. Her mind instantly flashed a scene showing Derek and her sitting on the wood floor of a cabin in the forest, only a few feet in front of a roaring fire, cuddling under a blanket, without a stitch of clothes on. Her mind drifted, letting her imagine what it would feel like to have her skin pressing against his; both of their bodies burning with anticipation about the impending night of romance. She smiled, then turned the dream off. There was work to be done tonight.

  Her mind was alive with ideas after discovering some interesting articles on Internet websites about neuroscience and time travel. However, every site she visited about alien abduction looked corny and paranoid. She couldn’t take them seriously, so she spent most of her time reading about neuroelectricity, biotransformation, and wormholes.

  Lately, she hadn’t had the time to think through what was happening with her ever-changing jump process, but tonight she did. Her visit with Junie later could wait a little while longer while she pondered more important topics, like what was happening with her and her transformation when the blue fire came, where her relationship with Derek was heading, and what the deal was with the Orange Man and his exploding briefcase. It was a mishmash of subjects to sift through, but she needed to spend time on each of them.

  “Sometimes a girl just needs time to think,” she mumbled. For some, sitting on a bench in Glassford Park might be the first logical choice, but since it was usually overrun with creepers at this time of night, she tossed that idea aside. She let her eyes wander up and enjoy the stars as she crossed East Portland Street, then, out of nowhere, an emotional image of her mom came into her thoughts.

  “Mom, where are you? I miss you so much,” she called out to the heavens, holding back a bevy of tears that wanted to erupt.

  “I’m here, Em. I’m always here. With you. Watching over you. Guiding you,” her mother’s voice answered back.

  Right then, Emily realized that she hadn’t heard her mother’s voice in what seemed like ages. Maybe Candi had been away, focusing her attention elsewhere in her otherworldly plane of existence.

  Emily had a hard time using the word heaven to explain where her mother’s life force went after her heinous, painful death on the visitors’ ship, but she did believe that her mom was in a better place, regardless of the realm her consciousness was actually in.

  The cadence and tone of her mother’s reassuring words had filled her heart with love, but the moment of bliss didn’t last long. A nasty string of visions from the night of The Taking took over, changing her mood completely.

  “Someone has to make you pay,” she said to the memory of her abductors.

  Before she took another breath, an orange-colored SUV drove up next to her with music blaring. The pimped-out truck slowed to a stop and idled under a shower of light from the streetlight above. The music dulled and the driver’s window rolled down. Someone from inside whistled at her.

  “Hey, little mama, you looking to party?” a male said. A moment later, the driver’s face appeared through the window. He was a white man in his early twenties with a rather handsome face and slicked-back blond hair. A burning cigarette hung precariously from his lips and he seemed twitchy, unable to hold still in his seat.

  Beyond him, in the front passenger seat, was a girl with sweeping black hair. Maybe Hispanic. Her ultra-thin face indicated she was grossly underweight. She was about the same age as the driver, and her face was full of piercings and layers of dark makeup. The girl stared at Emily, bopping around in her seat like a marathon dancer.

  “Damn tweakers,” Emily said, turning to change direction. She crossed the street behind the vehicle and traveled west on Roosevelt. “You know better,” she scolded herself. “Stick to side streets and alleys, especially at night.”

  The car turned around and began to follow her. When it caught up, the driver leaned out the window. “Where you going, sweet thing?”

  “Leave me alone!” Emily snapped, quickening her pace. She jogged down the sidewalk toward the lighted awning of a restaurant that she could see a few hundred yards up the block.

  The car kept pace with her and the driver continued his verbal banter. “Why you running away, Red? We just want to party. Come on, girl, we’ve got some good shit. You’re gonna love it.”

  “I told you, leave me the hell alone!”

  She ran the rest of the way and stopped under the awning of the restaurant. The painted front door read “Carly’s Bistro. Walk-ins Welcome. 10:30 a.m. – 1:00 a.m.”

  Perfect.

  She turned and gave the meth-heads an evil stare before stepping inside.

  Emily stood inside the waiting area of the bistro, peering out the front window to keep watch on the stalkers. Their vehicle pulled ahead and parked a short distance away with its tailpipe puffing a thin veil of smoke.

  A long-haired blond woman with sunken cheeks and a flat chest suddenly appeared next to Emily. She was wearing a designer blouse—all white—that hung from her narrow shoulders like a floor mop.

  “Welcome to Carly’s. My name is Tally and I’ll be your hostess today,” the woman said with a high-pitched voice that was three octaves higher than ear-splitting. It took a second for Emily’s ears to stop ringing.

  Tally’s maroon-colored peasant skirt looked too big for her frame, but even so, it needed to be a foot longer to cover up her porcelain-white calves and boney chicken legs. The word anorexic popped into Emily’s brain when she considered the woman’s entire presentation. Junie carried more meat on her bones than this forty-year-old, and that was saying something.

  “Table for one, young lady? Or maybe you’re meeting someone?” Tally’s voice shrilled.

  Emily turned her head, h
oping to protect her ears from instant hearing loss. “Uh—no, sorry. I’m actually just hiding out for a minute.”

  Before Tally could respond, the SUV flipped a U-turn on the street and peeled out, revving its engine and fishtailing as it sped in front of the restaurant. A moment later it vanished into the darkness, leaving only a trail of tire rubber and smoke behind.

  “Are you okay, my dear?”

  “Yeah, now,” Emily replied, giving the concerned woman a painful smile—partially due to the close encounter with the drug addicts, but mainly because of Tally’s annoying voice. A castrated chipmunk wouldn’t stand a chance in a shrieking contest against this woman.

  “What happened? Did they hurt you?”

  Emily checked the area again. All clear.

  “They were trying to get me to do drugs with them, but I told them to leave me alone. All I can say is thank God I found this place when they kept following me. Do you mind if I wait here for a few minutes? Just to be sure they don’t come back.”

  “Stay as long as you need, sweetheart,” Tally said, pointing to an open booth neighboring the hostess stand. “Why don’t you rest there for a few minutes?”

  “I think I’d rather—”

  Tally put her hand on Emily’s shoulder, squeezing it softly. “Honey, I’d feel much better if you weren’t standing in front of the window where they can see you. Drive-bys and all. You can never be too careful these days.”

  “Okay, but I can’t stay long,” she said, following the blond stick figure to the empty booth. Emily waited for Tally to step aside, then slid her bottom onto the cushioned seat. She could still see the street if she leaned to the right and peered around the hostess stand.

  “Let me get you some water. You look thirsty,” the hostess said, darting off in a flash.

  Emily sat with focused eyes, checking the view of the street every few seconds. She wondered how long she’d have to wait before she could declare that the druggies weren’t coming back. It was possible she had made the situation worse when she gave them the stink eye. But then again, she didn’t plan to do it. It just happened—not that her excuse would make a difference.