“Agent Ross.”
An officer separates himself from the cluster of uniforms on the other side of the room. Ross moves toward them. I follow, stepping as far around the fallen body as the space allows. The police start a round of greetings. I tune them out, scanning the store so I don’t have to look at Jason Torino. Closed freezer doors line one wall, their metal fronts gleaming in the overhead lights. On the opposite side, racks offer various meat-related products: barbecue sauce, seasonings, and grill tongs. In between, a line of glass display cases divides the public and vendor sections of the store. Even though the cases are empty and wiped clean, the room still carries a lingering aroma of raw meat mixed with the peppery scent of salami. The smell makes my stomach heave.
“How long since he died?” Ross asks.
“The woman who runs the shop found the body about two hours ago,” says one of the cops. He’s a beefy man with red hair and a nose that’s been broken at least once. He leans back on his heels while he talks, arms crossed, chewing loudly on a piece of gum. “It was totally by chance she came in today. She and her husband were planning to go away for the long weekend. They locked up the store around eight o’clock last night. It would have been a perfect crime. No one should have been here for three days, way too long for a rewind, except the woman came back this morning. Said she left some sandwich meat they planned to bring in the freezer.”
Ross catches my eye over the cop’s shoulder, confirming what I already know: the planned set-up is textbook Sikes.
“So,” Ross says aloud, “time of death was somewhere between eight last night and nine this morning.”
“Your rewind will pin it down,” the cop says, “but I’m guessing it was last night.” He nods toward Jason, his squashed nose wrinkling with distaste. “That guy’s not real fresh.”
I dare another peek at Jason. The cop’s right. Rigor mortis stiffens the corpse’s limbs. The blood that didn’t escape through his throat has settled, turning his hands an unnatural shade of blue. Near his head, a couple of flies hover like tiny helicopters. I turn my attention back to Ross.
“Is the shop owner a suspect?” he asks.
The cop shrugs. “She sounded pretty shook up when she called. We’ve got a guy checking her out, though.”
“OK. We’ll get to work then.”
Within seconds, I am unleashed and resting two fingers on Ross’s bare arm. Movement stops. Sound ceases. The flies hang motionless over the blood.
Ross rubs his hands together.
“Let’s start the rewind.”
The unnatural quiet hangs around me like a smothering blanket. Even through the freeze, the stomach-turning raw meat smell saturates the air particles. I must be more tired than I realized. Time always fights against me when I freeze it, but the feeling today is more pronounced. Even my thoughts move slowly, as if they have to push themselves through a barrier to reach my consciousness.
I pull on the time strands. They shift sluggishly. I pull harder. Undecipherable buzzing noises float through the air. Shadowy doubles of the cops around us move with quick little jerks. I watch an echo of myself get releashed, hover for a split second, then hurry backward out the door with Ross. The cops pace the room for a bit, mouths moving in muted gibberish as they probe the crime scene. Pretty soon they start leaving in small clumps. A short-haired female cop, her partner, and a civilian woman reverse their way inside. The cop undrapes a police blanket from the woman’s shoulders, talks to her a while, then backs away with her partner and leaves the woman alone. The woman crouches, letting out a weird, high-pitched sobbing before lurching upright to stumble back-first to the phone. She gestures frantically as she speaks into it. After a few seconds of this, she replaces the receiver, runs backward away from the phone, and then opens her mouth in a long scream. Finally she, too, toddles out the door.
Shadows flee along the checkered tile floor as darkness descends on the unmoving shop. Faint car noises pass outside. The large refrigerators hum. The sense of heaviness seeps deeper into my bones. I speed up the rewind, impatient to get to the murder. The shadow hands of the clock over the counter spin backward. 6:00 a.m., 2:30, midnight. I wish there were a place for me to sit down. The slipping minutes seem to be leaking from my brain, the seconds taunting me, struggling to free themselves from my control.
A headache bursts into my skull with the force of an explosion. Panic dries my mouth. I brace myself against the edge of the display case, the truth too obvious to ignore. I’ve done rewinds two days in a row before. I’ve done them after a worse night of sleep than I got last night. This headache is different. This tiredness is different. Something is going wrong.
“Mr. Ross …,” I say. I must have missed something important when I was looking at those charts. A critical bit of information that shows when an attack is imminent.
The blood around Jason Torino starts to move.
“Alex! Slow it down.” Ross leans forward. Blood seeps up toward Jason’s body, scarlet rivers returning to their source.
I struggle to control the time strands even as they pull away. Jason starts twitching. I concentrate. Hard. If I can just hold on a little bit longer, Sikes will show up. I clench the strands with all my strength. Even if we can’t follow the killer, at least we’ll see who he is. If I can just hold on.
Blood flows out, then back in as the rewind wavers from my control. Jason’s shadowy double writhes. Something inside me rips. The shadow image of Jason disappears. Ross gasps. Time pours from me in a rushing torrent. The scene around me breaks up. Images pour into a tangled soup: the crying woman, the cops, the wings of the fly.
“No!” I try desperately to pull the rewind back. I can’t fail now. We have to see the killer. Sikes is so close. Pain floods the emptiness left behind by the rush of time. I moan, bent double by the blast. Ross turns toward me. His mouth moves, but I am way too far gone to understand. My fingers scrabble for purchase on the glass case. Air moves against my cheek. The beefy cop moves toward me, blinking anxiously.
Time is moving again. The rewind is over.
“I couldn’t hold it.” I feel like a husk of a person, a shell empty of any spark of life. “I messed up.”
Ross catches me when I fall. “Alex?”
I’ve been an idiot. I should have told Dr. Barnard I’d gotten sick as soon as I went back. He would have done something, prevented this from happening again so soon.
“What’s wrong?” the cop asks.
“I’m sorry,” I manage, just before the world goes black.
08
THE LIGHT SEEMS UNNECESSARILY BRIGHT. WHITE SHEETS, white walls, a shining metal tray. I close my eyes. Thirst swells my tongue. Water, I try to say, except the word comes out as a groan. Faces fade in and out of my vision: Amy, Ross, Chief. I’m not sure which are real. Someone calls my name. KJ? It sounds like he’s crying. My head pounds. When the darkness returns it feels like mercy.
The next time I wake, it’s night. Stiff sheets wrap my body. The air is cool and smells like rubbing alcohol. An IV pulls against my arm. Moonlight leaking through a slatted window outlines the furniture filling the room: bed, sink, cabinet, and an empty chair. On the wall hangs a poster of a painting with melting clocks. It’s all very familiar.
I am in the clinic.
A familiar weight settles on my chest, sinking slowly down until it fills my stomach. I’ve never heard of anyone suffering two bouts of time sickness in two days. Usually kids have months between episodes. At this rate, the third one might hit me tomorrow. Or tonight. Self-pity closes my throat. Only the lucky few survive to face a fourth. You knew it was coming, I tell myself. You always knew. The reminder doesn’t help. Tears drip past my temples into my hair.
Footsteps pad outside the room. I close my eyes, not wanting anyone to see me crying. The door opens with a soft whoosh, and someone moves close to my bed. Amy? Yolly? I hold still, keeping my breath slow and even. I’m not ready to face the world yet.
A gentle tug on my arm te
lls me my visitor is changing the bag on my IV. I wait while she fumbles with it, wondering why she doesn’t turn on the light. The few other times I’ve been here I don’t remember the staff being so considerate. Maybe the standards go up when the patient is terminal.
The fiddling stops. I turn my head infinitesimally and slide one eye open a fraction. Through the haze of my lashes I see a bulky figure shuffling through the bottles of medicine in the cabinet next to my bed.
Another head pokes around the door.
“Is she still asleep?” Even in the half light I recognize Amy’s outline. The figure beside me starts.
“Like a baby.”
Surprise pops my eyes all the way open. I know that voice, and it isn’t Yolly’s. It’s Ross. Ross slides his hand from the cabinet, neatly pocketing something before turning toward Amy in the doorway.
“I thought you were keeping watch out front?”
“Julio just passed the door a few minutes ago. He won’t be back for at least half an hour.” She comes to stand close to Ross, her face lifted toward his. She’s paying no attention at all to me.
“Besides,” she says, “why do you care if the night guards see you here? Agents are allowed in the Sick anytime.”
Ross shrugs. “Barnard already gave me a report on Alex’s condition. I wouldn’t want him to think I don’t trust him. And it’s not that I don’t, it’s just … I want to be sure the kid’s going to be OK.”
Ross’s concern warms me like a burst of sunshine. I am just about to tell him I’m awake, when he adds, “Besides, we wouldn’t want Julio to see this.”
There’s a rustling sound and the squeak of a soft-soled shoe sliding across the linoleum floor. Amy giggles. I slam my eyes shut. To my infinite horror, I recognize the wet slurping sound of people kissing.
Shock keeps my eyes sealed. When Shannon said Amy had a boyfriend, it never crossed my mind that it could be Ross. I’d always pictured him with an elegant lawyer or a brilliant professor. Not someone like Amy. I mean, sure, she’s cute, but all she ever talks about are the clubs she and her friends hang out in after work. Half the time I show up at the clinic she’s texting instead of working. I wonder if I am sicker than I think. Maybe this whole scene is a hallucination.
“Carson!”
The admonition breaks on another giggle. More rustling. I crack open one eye. The writhing shape reminds me of an oversized hunchback, the chest too large and head deformed. I close my eyes again and wait, hating myself for witnessing this scene.
“I’m so glad it’s you here taking care of Alex,” Ross says. More kissing, some indistinguishable murmurs. “She’s a good spinner, you know. She can hold time much longer than the others.” Smooch, rustle. “I have a case coming up I could really use her on, too. A Sikes case.”
“Can’t you take someone else?” Amy asks. “Any spinner would be proud to work with you.”
“Alex is special.”
I’m too mortified to take any pleasure in the compliment. I concentrate on breathing, making each intake of air deep and even.
“I wish I could help,” Amy sighs.
More kisses.
“Actually …” An idea dawns in Ross’s voice. “You could help me.”
“I could?”
“You know how Dr. Barnard never releases patients after a bout of time sickness unless their chronotin levels drop below 160? Well, Alex’s chronotin levels are naturally high. Dropping them that low might take weeks. And Alex really likes the work, making her sit around thinking about dying is only going to make her worse.”
“So how can I help?” Amy sounds eager.
“Fake the test results for me.” Silence greets this suggestion. Dense, kissless silence. I second Amy’s astonishment. Monitoring chronotin is a cornerstone of Center routine, the essential foundation for a spinner’s life and health.
“It won’t be hard,” Ross says. “When you draw Alex’s blood tomorrow, pretend to run the sample, but instead just write in that she dropped to, say, 167, and then the next day write in 148.”
Ross sounds disturbingly cavalier about my health. In the car, he told me Barnard couldn’t test my blood anymore once Ross changed my meds. Is that what he was doing when he ransacked the cabinet? I take a mental survey of my insides without detecting anything different. If Ross did change my meds, isn’t it even more critical to track my chronotin than it was before?
I open my eyes again. Amy stands stiffly in Ross’s embrace, her head craned back so she can see his face.
“What if I get caught?” Amy asks.
This is her first question? I clench my fists beneath the sheets. Shouldn’t she be worrying more about me getting sick?
“How could you get caught?” Ross bends his head to nuzzle Amy’s neck. His words grow muffled. “You toss the samples after you test them, right? So if for some reason anyone else retests her blood they’ll just think the first result was faulty.”
My thoughts must have winged their way through the room telepathically, because Amy asks, “Isn’t it dangerous for her?”
“Of course not!” Ross’s indignation relaxes my gripped hands a little. “Remember all those books you lent me? The ones from Dr. Barnard’s library? I’ve studied this really carefully. The doctor is just being overly cautious.”
“What if I run the test and her levels are rising?”
“Don’t run the test at all. Give the blood samples to me, and I’ll check them at home. If there’s a problem, I promise I’ll tell Barnard.”
“You’re so clever.” She strokes Ross’s cheek. “I bet you know as much about chronotin as Dr. Barnard.”
My hands loosen a little more, though I’m still not as reassured as Amy seems to be. At least someone will be checking my chronotin, but I still wish it was Barnard. For all the books Ross may have read, he’s not a famous spinner scientist.
Amy leans her head against Ross’s chest.
“I’m only on shift a half day tomorrow,” she says, and even to me the protest sounds halfhearted. Ross kisses her. I close my eyes.
“A smart girl like you will figure something out.”
There’s more rustling. Ross whispers something, and his words turn into the suck and slurp of kisses. Amy gives a little moan.
“If it will really help you …,” she says.
“You’ll be my heroine. My invisible partner in crime.” Ross gives a throaty chuckle. “In solving crime, I mean. When I catch Sikes, you’ll know it was partly because of you.”
Amy moans again. I lie still, pretending to be asleep and trying not to listen. Finally, Ross says, “I better go. Wouldn’t want to get you in trouble when Julio comes back for a check.”
“You’ll stop by later?”
He answers her with a final kiss.
A few minutes later I open my eyes to an empty room. Shadowy shapes lurk in the dark, the outlines of furniture turned vague by the night. I stare up at the ceiling and listen to the clinic’s night sounds. Something mechanical beeps at steady intervals, a radio plays classical music in the distance, a car sputters outside the window like an old man coughing. Memories from my last rewind play against the gloom: the seeping and receding blood, Jason’s disappearing body, and the door that never opened to reveal the killer. I twist onto one side, then the other, my positions limited by the dangling IV line. I feel tired and dirty, soiled by my unintended voyeurism, my failed rewind, and—though I hate to admit it—flickering doubts about Ross’s principles. Ross. The man who just made a midnight visit to secure my ability to work again, even after the disaster of my last attempt. The professional agent who is risking his career to extend my life. The guy who will stoop to seducing Amy to get what he wants.
When I wake up the sun is shining. Yolly stands near my bed, twisting the little rod that opens up the blinds. When she sees I’m awake, she smiles.
“Back among the living, I see.”
It’s not the most tasteful comment, given my current condition. I prop myself up against
the pillows. Someone has dressed me in pajamas. I’m guessing Shannon picked them out, since they’re royal blue, a color she claims is flattering on me. My IV is gone, too, which I take as a sign of recovery. I am also starving.
“What time is it?” I ask.
“You really ought to ask what day it is.”
Yolly whips a plastic thermometer from her pocket and pops it in my mouth. The multicolored kittens decorating her smock smile encouragingly.
“You’ve been in here for two days,” she tells me. “We’ve all been terribly worried.”
“Two …”
The thermometer clatters against my teeth, and Yolly makes a zipping motion across her lips with one hand. I wait impatiently until the probe beeps and she takes it out.
“Two days? What’s today?”
“Monday.” Yolly squints at the thermometer. This close I can smell the sweet vanilla scent of her hand cream. The familiar everyday perfume raises a lump in my throat.
“Looks good,” Yolly says. “Amazing really. When you came in you were as sick as I’ve seen anyone.” She picks up my chart from a rolling supply table and makes a note. “And to answer your original question, it’s almost noon.”
Noon. I’ve been out for over forty-eight hours. Except for last night. I cringe as images crowd into my head. Ross and Amy. All that heavy breathing. As if my uncomfortable recollections conjured her, Amy sticks her head in the door. She wears street clothes, jeans and a green cardigan with big square pockets.
“Hi,” she says, giving Yolly the kind of smile little kids offer when you take their picture, lips stretched with no emotion behind them.
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