Eve stepped away from Rem, her heart a fist. Everyone should just calm down. It wasn’t like they’d caught her and Rembrandt in a clench.
Not quite yet.
“What are you doing here?”
Next to her, Rem sighed. “Listen, Danny, I just came to check on—”
“Inspector Mulligan, thanks. And if you’re here for Eve, I don’t think she needs you taking care of her.”
“You. I came to check on you.”
Danny’s eyes narrowed. “Stone—”
Rembrandt flinched. She heard it too—the screech of tires, an engine being throttled. She looked at Rembrandt, whose face turned slack, and then he pushed her—really pushed her—and took off.
She hit the dirt, stunned, as Rembrandt hurtled himself toward her father.
Shots punched the air. She covered her head with her hands as a car rocketed by, peppering their yard with gunfire.
No!
Screams—probably her own—rent the air, and she couldn’t look, just crawled toward the front steps, and hid herself behind them.
Dad!
Suddenly, a body hovered over her. Big, solid, his voice in her ear. “Stay down, Eve. Just stay down.”
The shooting had stopped.
She trembled, her breath hiccupping as she gulped back another scream. And then the voice again. “You’re okay, right?”
Not Rem’s voice. Because he’d run toward her father. As if he’d known—
She looked up as the body moved away from her.
“Burke?”
He met her eyes, then raked his gaze over her body. Touched her arms. “You sure?”
“I’m okay,” she said. She pushed past him to her feet.
The sight on the driveway turned her cold.
Her mother lay on the driveway, her hands pressed to her gut, writhing as blood poured between her fingers.
“Mom!”
Her father was scrambling to his feet where Rembrandt had tackled him into the grass. But Rembrandt beat him to her mother, pulled off his shirt and pushed it into her wound. “Somebody call 911!”
Her father shoved him away. “Hang on, Bets, hang on.”
Rembrandt stood up, his eyes wide, breathing hard.
Then suddenly, he sprinted toward the road.
As Eve listened to Burke shout for help to the 9-1-1 operator, she spotted Rembrandt’s Camaro spitting up gravel as he peeled away from the house.
18
I hate time travel. I want to take Booker’s stupid watch and cram it down his throat, add it to his words that thunder through my brain—you can’t win against time.
Bets’ blood stains my hands as I slam my foot to the floorboard of my Camaro, fishtailing around the corner off Lakeview onto Cottagewood.
These old neighborhoods are a tangle of roads, and my guess is the boys from Hassan’s hood will take the easiest route back to the highway.
Back to the Phillips neighborhood.
Back into hiding.
Not if I get them first.
I saw the car. I remember the brand and make, but getting a good look at it as I took Danny to the ground and held him there has galvanized me.
But not as much as hearing Elizabeth Mulligan scream.
What sort of twisted fate version of the timeline is this? I don’t remember the order of events last time—just that Asher and Danny had driven out to the nearby Cottagewood General store. Maybe Hassan’s men had staked out the house, were following them.
Why they triggered early this time I haven’t a clue, except, well—and the thought is a boulder in my gut as I floor it down Cottagewood—maybe they were after me.
After all, it was me who was chasing Hassan.
I taste bile as I merge onto Minnetonka Boulevard, heading for Vine Hill.
I did this. I changed time, again.
You aren’t here to save people. Changing history…you don’t know what you’re messing with. You don’t know that the tiniest change could destroy lives.
Geez—you think?
I spot the car, heading over the Carson bay bridge as if out for a leisurely Saturday afternoon drive. Maybe they don’t want to raise suspicion by speeding. Just a couple of boys from the hood, hanging out with their AR-15 semi-automatics. It’s an old Buick wood paneled station wagon, just like my first timeline, and as I get closer, I spot the license plate. Memorize it.
Gotchta.
I need backup, but I don’t want to lose them. Pulling my phone from my pocket, I press speed dial to Burke.
That’s when the driver in the station wagon spots me. Or, I think so, because we’re instantly going sixty in a forty and he’s flooring it to Vinewood.
I’m running out of road. He’s going to T-bone right into that intersection with Minnetonka and Vine. I punch it, coming right up on his tail.
Burke answers, but my phone has slid to the floor. “Burke, I’ve got him! We’re on Minnetonka—”
Station wagon has hit the stop sign and taken a right, screeching out in front of an oncoming car.
The car hits the brakes, and barely misses me as I lay on the horn to alert any other oncoming cars, and follow.
My heart is outside my body. But we have a half-mile before he hits Highway 7, and I’m going to stop him before he flies out into the two-lane highway and kills people.
He’s screaming down the two lane road. But I have a Camaro. Time is not going to win this round.
Hassan’s shooters are going down.
They pass Deep Haven Elementary, and I know there’s a curve coming up, so I get on their tail, ready to gas it.
A car in the left lane whips by, and then I floor it. I’m beside them with a clean stretch of road spooling out ahead of me.
I don’t want to bang up the Camaro. But what choice do I have? The highway appears ahead of me, cars stopped at the light, and to the right, I spot a line of vehicles merging into the side road, coming out of a church.
A wedding. That fact tickles something deep in my brain, but I don’t have time, because the wagon isn’t slowing down, and someone is going to die.
It might be me. But right now, all I’m thinking about is Eve, and the fact that losing her mother might be the one thing she doesn’t recover from.
And I don’t care what Booker, or my Dad said.
I can’t be here and not try. I love Eve enough to keep her from walking through all that pain of waiting for justice.
It’s all I have to give her, after everything I did to her—or will do to her.
I yank the wheel to the right and hit the gas, slamming into the front of the station wagon. I brace myself and stay the course.
We are careening for the ditch. A car pulls out fifty feet in front of us.
I hit the brakes.
The force throws me forward—and I thank Eve for her relentless pursuit to make me a better, safer, man, because instinct has hooked me into my seatbelt as the two of us—the wagon and the Camaro—spin.
The wagon jerks around, taking me with it. The force rips me free of the pavement and my car takes to the air.
We—my car and I—land, roll and I’m conscious for most of it. When we shudder to a stop, we are wheels side down.
I’m gulping breaths, my heart nowhere near my body. But I’m alive.
My Camaro, not so much. The car is wheezing, still trying to breathe, wedged against a tree in the ditch.
Sorry, sweetheart.
Sirens scream in the background.
I press my hands to my chest, and yes, I am intact, although I’ll be bruised by the belt. Freeing myself, I try the door—yeah, that’s not happening. The roof is dented, but the passenger door opens, and I kick it wider. I dive out, onto all fours, crawling.
“Are you okay?”
The voice makes me look up, and for a second, I’m not sure where I am. Because the man is sturdy, with military short, gray-brown hair, and blue eyes, and he’s wearing a concern on his face that I recognize from before.
“A
rt?”
He frowns and looks over his shoulder. “Sheila! He’s bleeding! Bring a towel.”
I’m bleeding? “Not my blood,” I manage and push past him, my eyes sweeping the area. “Get back in your car.” I climb to the road, and continue to search for the station wagon.
It’s in the ditch on the other side of the road, on its side, the driver’s side up. And, it too, is smoking.
The sirens are louder, now, but I’m ignoring them, my body running hot as I circle the wagon.
The front windshield is destroyed and even from here I see that the passenger, the shooter, now crumpled half-out of the broken glass, isn’t going to stand trial.
His driver is in rough shape, too, crumpled on top of his body.
I bend over, grab my knees, and lose it. And not because of the gruesome sight.
But, maybe, because this time, I won. That fact leaves me shaken, undone and, to be honest, terrified.
Because I know time is a sore loser.
I glance at Art and Shelia who just stare at me. Sheila is holding a towel.
The sirens have stopped at the crash, and I’m wiping my mouth as an officer runs down to me. “Sir—are you okay?”
He’s a big man and looks vaguely familiar and it’s then I notice his name. Williams.
Big Jimmy Williams, now working for the Excelsior department. I have the desperate urge to tell him not to change precincts. Or better, retire now.
“Detective Rembrandt Stone. These men are shooters in a nearby drive-by.”
“Over at the Mulligan’s place?”
I am nearly weak with relief. So, they already know. “How’s Bets?”
He speaks into his radio, asking for an update. “They’re on their way to the HCMC Trauma Center.”
I climb up the bank, back onto the road.
The Camaro has died, not a hint of life, the body destroyed, but I don’t have time to mourn.
I need a ride.
I’m searching, and my gaze lands on a red Toyota Camry, still parked in the middle of the road, blocking traffic on both sides.
Art has returned to his car, and is sitting at the wheel, his door open, one leg out as if he’s not sure what to do.
I have a job for him.
It doesn’t take much for Art and Sheila to agree to take me downtown to the Hennepin County Medical Center. They take one look at the blood on my hands, on my bare chest—yes, I took off my Journey shirt to staunch Bets’ wounds—and tell me to climb in.
I don’t wait to give a report. I have no doubt Burke, or Booker, or even Williams will track me down.
“You’re hurt,” Sheila says, and it’s now I realize I’m a little scuffed up, as well as half-naked.
“Here.” Art shucks off his suit jacket. “Take this.”
I want to argue but I did save their lives. “Thanks.”
“What happened back there, son?” Art says, and glances at me through the rear-view mirror.
Time is laughing at me. We’re all in this tangle of events, enmeshed, regardless of how it spools out.
“Drive by shooter. I’m a cop.”
“A shooting? Out here, in Minnetonka?” Sheila is wearing a lavender dress, and I am wondering if it’s the one she died in, in the previous version of her timeline.
“Retaliation shooting for something that went down last night.”
“Oh my. This is why we moved to Stillwater,” Sheila says. “We used to live in this cute house on Webster Avenue, just a few miles up the road. But Art found the perfect Tudor in Stillwater, and I thought…what if we changed our lives? Found something safer, and simpler. Brought our daughter up in a small town?” She touches Art’s shoulder. “We started late. Our daughter is only seven. But we have no complaints.”
I must be shaken up more than I realize because my throat is thickening, my eyes burning.
I want my life back. But in my gut, I know it’s gone. All of it.
My sick feeling is that Ashley is not coming back and I have to figure out how to live with what remains.
Our mistakes, our tragedies, our suffering makes us better, stronger, more compassionate people. And those are lessons we learn by going through the pain, not around it.
I swallow, a fist in my chest because I know what awaits me, if I ever get back there. But at least maybe now I can prepare for it.
Be a better Rembrandt the second time around.
They let me off at the emergency entrance. “Thanks,” I say, and then Art looks at me, frowns. “Wait. Did we meet before? Maybe a month ago? You came to visit me?”
Sheila looks at me. “You’re the guy with the watch.”
“Not anymore,” I say. Because as soon as I find Booker, I’m giving it back.
He can keep his time travel.
I thank them and walk to the reception area. My appearance raises the eyebrows of a few nurses and I again explain the blood isn’t mine. I show my badge and ask about Elizabeth Mulligan.
She’s in surgery, her family is gathered in the second floor CCU waiting room.
I know the way, having been this route so many years ago.
The first time, Asher was in surgery—Danny already pronounced—and I found Eve standing at the window, staring out into the night as fireworks shot over the river.
Our relationship found its footing that night as worry turned into grief. As she sat in the chairs and dissolved, my arms around her.
Her mother had Samson and Lucas.
Eve had me. And sure, we had our drama after that night, mostly because of Eve’s obsession to find her father and brother’s killers. But this time around, that’s not happening.
This time around it’s not her father. Not her brother.
Oh, Bets, I’m so sorry.
I get off the elevator and head down the hall, bracing myself for what I already know.
Please—and maybe God and I haven’t been exactly talking over the past decade, but I don’t know anyone else to ask. So, please, God, let Bets be alive.
The Mulligan family is standing in a huddle, talking to a doctor when I arrive. Danny is covered in blood, although his hands are washed, and Asher appears drawn, yet very much alive. Samson stands wide-legged, his arms folded over his chest and Lucas’s lawyer’s mouth is pinched, listening as the doctor gives them the news.
I am not close enough to hear, but I clench my jaw and look at Eve.
She’s standing just behind Sams. And behind her stands Burke, his hands on her shoulders.
Then she covers her face with her hands, her body shuddering and I know. I need to be there, to hold her—
She turns into Burke’s embrace, and I’m stunned, my gait slowing.
Then, Danny looks up and sees me.
His expression confuses me. Not quite hatred, not quite acceptance. Confusion, maybe.
I swallow hard as the doctor leaves them, and approach. “I’m so sorry—”
“How did you know?” Danny’s eyes are fierce, hard in mine. “How did you know it was a drive by shooting?”
I open my mouth, close it. “I didn’t. I just—I heard the car, and I thought of Hassan and—”
“Stone.” Danny takes a shaky breath. Swallows. “Thank you.”
I am blinking at him, words dropping away. What?
His jaw is tight, as if he’s fighting emotion, or saying more.
My mouth is dry, and I need a drink. Water. I need water. “I’m sorry I couldn’t protect Bets. I should have—”
Danny shakes his head. “It’s not your fault.”
But, see, it is.
“How is she?”
“Serious. They’re taking her into surgery now. But…” He glances at Sams, at Asher. “But it could have been Asher. Or me.”
I say nothing.
“Rembrandt! Are you okay?”
Eve has come up to me, taking in my bloody chest and I’m aware that I’m bare-chested under the jacket.
“I’m okay.” I look at Danny. “I got the shooters.”
Son. Huh.
Burke is giving me a look over the top of Eve’s head. “I got your call. So, did you total the Camaro?”
I grimace.
“You should sit down,” Eve says and pulls me over to one of the green chairs lining the hallway.
“I’ll see if I can rustle you up a shirt.” Burke walks down the hall.
Eve checks me over, not like you think, but in a clinical, CSI kind of way, examining my hands, the scrapes on my body. “You have a bruise across your chest.”
“Seatbelt.”
“Well, at least you’re not an idiot.”
That could be seriously debated, but I’m not going to argue.
She slides onto a chair next to me. Danny has walked to the window, Samson next to him.
Asher sits down beside Eve. “Last time we were here, you were waiting for Rembrandt.”
I look over at Eve. Really? She waited in the chairs for me?
She lifts a shoulder at me.
How I love this woman. And, I don’t care what has happened in our future, I’m not letting her go.
“Oh, Rem, by the way—you should know this. I got the list of Sigma Chi members. The loyal lifers who were at the annual party.” She leans up—she’s still wearing her shorts, although her shirt is dry—and pulls a piece of paper from her back pocket. It’s a little soggy as I unfold it.
I scan the list, expecting one name.
“Jeff Holmes isn’t on this list.”
“He’s not a loyal life Sig. He dropped his membership shortly after graduation.”
My gaze goes down the list. And stops. “Robert Swenson.”
“Yeah. I haven’t checked it yet, but it might be the credit card guy.”
“Her softball coach.”
Burke is carrying a t-shirt in his hand, a tag dangling from the arm. He might have picked it up in the gift shop. I stand and meet him. “What did you say was Robert Swenson’s alibi?”
“Softball practice,” he tosses me the shirt. It’s black and has a red cancer-society heart in the center.
I shrug off the jacket and pull it over my head. It’s a little tight, but it works. “C’mon. We have a softball tournament to attend. And, you’re driving.”
I turn, and look at Eve, then Danny, and back to Eve. “I’ll be back.”
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