Downtime

by James Allen

  "What the hell kind of a vacation did you take, Nash?"

  While I tried to come up with an explanation, the nurse came to my rescue, though her poking and prodding wasn't much of an improvement over Faulkner's interrogation. By the time she'd gone, I'd cobbled together some semblance of a lie about how I'd been kidnapped and imprisoned under the most primitive conditions.

  Faulkner seemed dubious. "Yeah? What about the watch? And the book of poems. Where'd they come from?"

  I told him they were a gift from a friend I'd made in London and he hastily changed the subject, even squirmier than Sully about my romantic travails. I offered up a few useless memories of my brief incarceration, tossing in implications of Gladstell's involvement so that Faulkner could draw his own conclusions. His initial reaction was to post an agent outside my door. I convinced him that an open invitation from a comatose sitting duck was more likely to spur Gladstell into risking capture to tie up loose ends. Faulkner reluctantly agreed to let it get around that I might be starting to wake and from then on, it was just a matter of time.

  Over the next forty-eight hours, Agent Mahoney called on me, the image of doctorly concern with clipboard and stethoscope in hand and his favorite Sig loaded and ready under his white coat. Leonard made a move just after Mahoney slipped out at four in the morning; and he came bearing not a gun, but a syringe. Half-awake, I heard him move to the bedside and wondered for a minute if it was just Mahoney back early. Then I heard his voice, genial as ever.

  "Hit for six are we, Agent Nash?" A gloved hand patted my shoulder. "Pity for you. Convenient, however, for me." I peeked in time to see him gripping the IV and raising the needle. I didn't bother to ask what was in it. I just grabbed his wrist before he could inject it and knocked him flat on his ass. The syringe rolled under the bed and Gladstell stared up at me, dazed. "You're not comatose."

  I gave the call button a good long push. "Looks like you snapped me out of one, for a change. Funny, huh?"

  Another forty-eight hours later, with a warning from a real doctor to never do again whatever I'd done to end up hospitalized, I was on a plane back to New York. Faulkner ruined my first day back with the curt announcement that I was officially off duty for the next two weeks. Not even my grumbling that I'd already spent enough time lying around would persuade him to put anything new on my plate. Free time was the last thing I wanted right now. Stuck with it, I aired a musty apartment, bought some groceries, and set out to get back in synch with life I'd almost lost for good.

  The first few days were unreal. I couldn't bring myself to consider that Ezra, Derry, Kathleen, and the rest were all long since turned to dust. I didn't want to dwell on it and during the day, I managed not to. At night, it was more difficult. Though the ghosts I summoned were just products of my imagination, they were real enough to keep me awake and then follow me into dreamland when I finally did doze off. Even worse was waking in the middle of the night on a blessedly firm mattress in a comfortably heated bedroom to find myself utterly alone. No modern convenience muted the fierce longing to feel him wrapped around me, his breath warm on my neck, his sleepy voice murmuring my name in the dark.

  With the television for company, I sat up until dawn and wondered how many nights it would take until I adjusted to sleeping on my own again. I had a feeling Ezra wasn't adjusting any better than I was--which only succeeded in making me feel worse. In the early hours, in my least coherent state, it seemed I could almost sense his presence and it took some doing to convince myself it was only wishful thinking. I hadn't expected getting over him would be easy, but this was nothing I'd ever felt at the end of a relationship. He was in my thoughts at all hours of the day and anything else that managed to squeeze itself in there found itself subjected to the consideration of whether Ezra would have found it interesting.

  He might not be around, but he haunted me all the same. I had to get out and do something, go somewhere. If I couldn't work, I'd play. I hit the bars, resolved to put the past in the past and keep it there. I wasn't looking for long term or meaningful. I was looking for distraction, pure and simple. I was damn near desperate for it. In the crush of bodies and boom of pulse-pounding rock, I wandered like a kid in a candy store, the opportunities for meaningless sex as plentiful as ever. But the inviting smiles thrown my way didn't seem to spark a taste for the chase. The idea of hooking up with anyone else right now depressed me and the mere act rang hollow as a cure.

  Back home before midnight, I considered whether any potential relief could be found in getting soundly shit-faced. My foray into the kitchen cabinets for leftover booze was interrupted by the doorbell.

  Ready to welcome just about anyone, I was shocked to see Reese on my doorstep. For some reason, he seemed just as astonished to see me. "Morgan..."

  Well, that was a start. "Reese. What's up?" It was the best I could do when I didn't know why he'd come by--and I didn't know whether I was pleased that he had.

  His amazement melted into a slight puzzled smile. "Why so dressed up? You meet a cute stockbroker or something?"

  "Can't a guy dress up once in a while?" Never mind that he looked sloppy in a polo shirt and slacks. Or that everyone looked underdressed to me since I'd gotten back. I'd been confident I'd revert to slob mode soon enough; it just hadn't kicked in yet. "Come back for your tennis racket?"

  "You mean you haven't hocked it?" He moved to come in and I let him. We worked our way through a six-pack while he brought me up to date on his life for the past couple of weeks. He finished it off by asking where I'd been and I realized he'd tried to contact me before this.

  "Work." It was my standard answer and got me the standard sigh.

  "Of course. So, really, what's with the suit? And vest, no less. Who're you trying to impress?"

  He thought I was dating again. I suppose I had been, but somehow the idea of mere dating didn't seem to define my relationship with Ezra. It was certainly nothing I wanted to tell Reese about. As I opened the last beer, he leaned in to kiss me and I considered whether I'd found the distraction I'd been looking for. Sex had never been a problem between us. By the second kiss, he was unbuttoning my shirt...

  By the third kiss, I knew that whatever need I wanted to fulfill, it wasn't a need to be with Reese. "Hold on a second," I said, drawing back to catch my breath and figure out how the hell to let him down gently. But I didn't have to. He looked at me with a small rueful smile and shook his head as if he couldn't believe he'd been so stupid.

  "Who's the guy? I hope it's no one I know." As he got up, he finished off the beer in one long swallow and put the bottle on the coffee table. "Because I don't think I want to spend all my time six months from now listening to some buddy of mine alternately cussing you out and whining about you after you've dumped him."

  "No one you know."

  "Yeah? So who?"

  "A guy I met in London."

  He looked dubious, but didn't pursue it. "Whatever. I came by because I had this weird dream that someone from your office came and told me you'd been hurt and I was concerned about you. As pissed off as I was, I didn't want to leave you to fend for yourself if you'd been shot or something."

  "I'm fine," I said, not even sounding convincingly fine to my own ears.

  His gaze narrowed. "Maybe there was something to the dream, because there's something going on with you. More than just hooking up with someone new. You want to let me in on it?"

  The ache in my throat wouldn't go away. God damn Ezra and Reese both. "Nothing's going on with me. I've just wrapped up a case and I'm taking a little time off--" Even as I said it, I realized I shouldn't have.

  "You're taking time off?" His eyebrows lifted. "Damn. You must be in love."

  I could tell him the whole story and he'd still make a case that I was fleeing commitment as usual. And maybe it was true to a degree; but to give up everything on the slim chance of turning a two-week affair into a lifetime thing, that was a lot to ask of anyone.

  Then again, who had asked?

/>   When Reese had gone home, I shucked off my clothes, wrapped myself in a blanket, and curled up on the sofa. I hadn't meant to hurt him. I never meant to hurt anyone, but I always seemed to. A pretty neat trick, considering I usually never stayed in a relationship long enough for it to get so complicated. Still grappling with guilt, I lay awake for a while, occupying myself with wondering what Ezra was doing. As far as I was concerned, he was still living and breathing, even if a hundred or so years now existed between us. He was really only a backward step through time and no logic in the world could convince me otherwise. A little research into what had eventually become of him might. But I couldn't do that. Not when I was still missing him this bad.

  There was only one hope of rescue left. Bright and way too early Friday morning, I was at my desk shuffling through some paperwork I'd left behind when I'd gone to London. Faulkner eyed me dubiously as he passed by on his way for coffee, then again when he came back. On his third trip to get coffee--or go to the bathroom, I wasn't sure which--he stopped by my desk, set down his cup and stared down at me until I tore my eyes from the computer to give him my best worker bee smile. The suspicion in his face deepened noticeably.

  "What the hell are you doing here?"

  "I ended the vacation early. Never heard you complain about it before."

  "I never had to sit in a hospital five days waiting for you to get your sorry butt out of a coma, Nash. You bring a doctor's note?"

  "Jeez, what is this, fifth grade? I'm fine."

  He studied me even more directly than Reese had. "No," he decided. "I don't think you are. You didn't have one of those near death experiences, did you?"

  A near life experience, maybe, I thought ruefully. "I promise you, I'm fine. Really. I just need a little time to get back in the swing of things."

  He sized me up another long moment. "Yeah. Well, get to it." He pushed out of the chair and took his cup. "By the way..." He pulled a crumpled sheet of paper out of his pocket and tossed it onto my desk. "Found that in the elevator. Your handwriting. You must have dropped it."

  My heart skipped a few beats, then struggled to catch up as I realized he'd gotten hold of my Ripper file, the notes I'd taken when Ezra and I had started working the case. I picked the paper up gingerly, smoothing it out, and caught Faulkner's faintly amused look from the corner of my eye. "Guess you were wondering what this is all about, huh?"

  "Hey, if you're going to exercise your imagination, Nash, at least it's work related. When you nail old Jackie boy, you'll let the rest of us know, won't you?" He was chuckling between sips of coffee as he walked off.

  I turned to the keyboard and hauled up a search engine. I'd been missing Ezra so bad, I hadn't bothered to check for a record of Sid's arrest. The first site I went to recorded another woman's death, the worst one yet, in November. So did the second site and the third. I hunted up the most scholarly sites I could find and they all contained the same information. Jack had never been caught.

  I remembered what Sully had said to me in the hospital. But even if the truth had been buried, Sid couldn't have killed Mary--unless he'd escaped. Or someone had let him loose. "Those bastards." I shut the computer off. "Those goddamned bastards." I hadn't changed a fucking thing. Sully had let me know as much, but it hadn't really sunk in at the time. When he'd told me to drop the case, he'd known it was bigger than Sid. He'd known they would let Sid go, but he hadn't told me, maybe because he really thought I'd turn it into a national incident that could threaten the monarchy. He hadn't doubted my ability to catch Sid. He just believed it was better that I didn't.

  Maybe he was right. After all, he had a loftier view of past, present, and possibly future than I did. He'd just been doing his damnedest to keep me from throwing the Eternal Plan out of whack or getting myself killed. It was still disheartening to think all my searching had been in vain, not to mention all the shit I'd put Ezra through.

  Dropping a hand to my waistcoat, I held the cool weight of the watch in my palm, then lifted it to the light and popped it open. I let my gaze trail along the engraving, word by word. He'd known me two weeks and he'd remembered my birthday. I had no idea when his birthday was. Maybe there was a record of it somewhere, but it would be alongside the day of his death and that was something I couldn't bring myself to find out.

  Not even work was proving a distraction today. I didn't think anything could. I left the office at four and picked up some Chinese take-out on the way home. The guys were probably sitting around Kathleen's table now, stuffing themselves with roast and potatoes and gabbing about their day. I wondered if Ezra missed me as much as I missed him. I was sure Derry and Kathleen were doing their best to keep his spirits up. Was he working at the museum again, enduring Henry's petulant complaints and avoiding the storage room where we'd last seen each other? Had he spoken to his father since I'd gone? Was he being pressured to reconsider a "proper" marriage? He couldn't do that, not when he knew what he'd be missing--could he?

  Maybe tomorrow in the reasonable light of day I'd feel better. Or maybe I'd just sleep in and not feel anything at all.

  Plan B went awry and Plan A wasn't looking good either when an insistent doorbell woke me at eight. Two bright and shining voices smote me with a simultaneous "happy birthday" and I winced and tried to close the door. Maggie, all hundred pounds of her, pushed it open and grinned at me from under a shimmering cap of black hair. "No escape, Nash. Suck it up." She pushed a box wrapped in orange paper and purple ribbon into my hands and headed for the fridge.

  Donovan followed her in, cake plate cradled in his arm, and lifted the cover long enough to show off his handiwork. "Sugar free and fat free."

  "Yum." I took the book-sized package from under his arm and he headed for the kitchen table as Maggie reappeared with a beer. He nudged her back toward the kitchen with the instruction to find plates and forks. I sat down and looked regretfully at the cake. "You guys realize it's eight in the morning, right? On a Saturday?"

  "We said we'd take you out on the town for your birthday." Donovan pushed a geometrically flawless circle of white candles into the smoothly frosted surface. "You do remember, don't you?"

  "Sure, Van." Maggie dropped into a chair and propped her feet on another one. "Why wouldn't he remember an off-hand suggestion you made three months ago?"

  "Claws in, dear," Donovan said cheerfully. "The B stands for Bureau, not Bitch."

  "Yeah? I thought it stood for butt-brained, anal retentive psychopath," Maggie retorted, tossing her lighter on the table. "Come on, fire it up so we can take Morgan out for a decent breakfast somewhere."

  How they'd worked side by side for ten years without killing each other, I still couldn't guess. Van wrinkled pale brows at her, but lit the candles and the two of them sang the requisite song, painfully off-key. I took a piece of cake without much hope that it would be edible, but it was surprisingly good. Then I noted Maggie was grinning from ear to ear as she stuffed a forkful into her mouth.

  Donovan knew on the first bite. "Jesus, Mag, you trying to kill us?"

  "Huh. Better fifty years with sugar and butter than a hundred without them. Let's go get some donuts and coffee and hit the market before it gets crowded."

  By ten, we were at the mother of all flea markets, tables taking up a city block and if that wasn't enough, antique and second-hand shops further in lured shoppers ever deeper into debt. I wasn't much in the mood for it, but sitting home would have been worse. I knew I was in trouble when I came across a lacy old shawl that reminded me of Kathleen. I put it on my credit card, knowing I'd never give it to her, then wondered if there was anything Derry and Ezra might like.

  When Van found me at noon, I had a bagful of trinkets that would end up in my hall closet and I was grateful he didn't ask what I'd bought. We went in search of Maggie, Van stopping occasionally to pick through stacks of books. My growling stomach and I were ready to push him along when the strains of a familiar tune seeped through the noise of crowd and traffic. "What's that?"


  "What's what?"

  "That music."

  "What music?"

  I moved past him toward the shops. "Don't you hear it?" I was pretty sure I wasn't cracking up, though the bagful of gifts for people I'd never see again was a disturbing indicator that I might be heading in that direction.

  Van hurried to keep up. "What? The waltzy stuff?"

  Then I saw it, outside on the sunny porch of Weatherley's Antiques, a victrola with its brass horn turned like a morning glory toward the sun as the scratchy record played music that seemed to slip straight out of the past to my ears. "It's a mazurka."

  "Yeah? Since when do you listen to anything besides the Stones?"

  I wanted to get closer, close enough to shut out the noise of the crowd and let the memories wash over me along with the music. A petite elderly woman in an apron and name tag kept the music playing for a couple who were apparently interested in buying the machine. I listened as she told them it had belonged to her grandfather, as had the stack of records beside it.

  "Do you have a waltz minuet in that pile?"

  Friendly hazel eyes alight with curiosity swung my way. "Do you know how to waltz, young man?"

  "As a matter of fact..." I caught Van's smirk and gave him a dark look. "Yes, I do."

  The woman, whose tag read Caroline, seemed as amused. "Well, I just may have--oh yes, here it is." She changed records and started the victrola up again. With the first notes, I was back on the terrace with Ezra as he took my hand. He'd shown me more than a few dance steps that night. His heart had said yes and he'd held his breath and jumped, to hell with the consequences. It was the sort of bravery I'd never match, no matter how many loaded guns I faced.

  "Son?"

  "I'm sorry." I gave her a sheepish smile. "That's it, yeah. The one I wanted to hear."

  "Are you all right?" she asked.