by Ann Charles
He leaned forward, too. “Which makes you even more interesting.”
My stomach cramped, making me tense up. I breathed through the pain, sitting back to keep the distance. Next time, I needed to meet him in a large auditorium, or maybe at a football field.
“You’re just trying to get me off my game,” I said. But it wasn’t going to work.
He dipped into his whipped cream again, slowly licking the spoon clean. Aunt Zoe rested her chin on her hand, openly ogling him, her brain once again a steaming pile of lusty mush.
I suddenly realized what Dominick was doing. This wasn’t a matter of merely seducing the others in the room to stroke his ego. It was his show of power. With what appeared to take very little effort, he had gained control of an impartial crowd in a setting that I’d figured would be safe for this meeting. On top of that, he’d neutralized my backup, aka Aunt Zoe, turning her into one of his heart-eyed minions.
“And what game is that?” he asked, his smile cocky.
Before I could answer, our regular waitress returned and took our orders. She offered Dominick a refill on his whipped cream, making it clear she was available to personally serve it to him via various body parts. Her bawdy invitation along with another flare of queasiness made me recoil.
He winked at her. “Maybe later, darling.”
She giggled and left with an extra sway in her hips, which Dominick didn’t even seem to notice.
Aunt Zoe did, though, judging from the squinty-eyed glare she aimed at the departing waitress. I pinched her thigh under the table. She turned that glare in my direction and then seemed to realize that she was once again under his spell. She shook it off.
“Don’t you want to go wash your hands and freshen up before we eat?” I said to her, hoping that some cold water and distance from Dominick might snap her fully out of this lust-filled stupor.
“Yes, I do.” She grabbed her purse, shooting me a worried frown. I flashed a thumbs-up back at her.
“So,” Dominick said, after she left. He reached for my hand. “We’re finally alone.”
I pulled my hand back before he could touch it. “Cut the shit, Don Juan. I don’t have time for any more of your showing-off today, so let’s get down to the reason we’re really here.”
He smirked. “You noticed my demonstration?”
“I’d have to be blind and drunk to have missed it.” I pointed at him. “And I don’t appreciate you messing with my aunt’s head, so when she returns, leave her alone.”
“I can’t help it if I’m drawn to her. She’s a very striking woman. I imagine she would provide great pleasure for her sexual partner in and out of bed.”
Jeez! Really? Did he have to go there? “She’s off limits to you.”
“But she’s lonely. We could enjoy each other’s company for a while. I could ease her frustrations, make her feel wanted again.”
That was Reid’s job, not Dominick’s. “She’s taken.”
“Does she know it?”
I didn’t know that answer. “We’re done talking about her.”
“Fine,” he pouted, taking a sip of hot chocolate. “What do you need from me in exchange for finding and capturing my pet?”
By pet, I assumed he was referring to the lidérc. I doubted Dr. Otto Sugarloaf would have referred to it so affectionately. Otto was the one on whom the parasitic entity had caught a ride to the US in the late 1800s. It had ruined his career and life in his home country, and it had gone on to destroy him here as well. I’d need to be careful not to end up suffering the same fate as poor Otto.
“I want to know about the timekeeper.”
“Which one?”
Which one? How many were there? I’d heard of one other, but that was it. “Ms. Wolff.”
“Ah, the one who no longer is.”
“Yeah, her.” I crossed my arms. “Out of curiosity, how many timekeepers do you know?”
His lips pursed. “Come now, Scharfrichter.”
I winced at the sound of my title spoken aloud, glancing around to make sure nobody appeared to be eavesdropping. There were still plenty of glances and outright stares in Dominick’s general direction, including a handful of men now who appeared to be admiring him as well, but I doubted any spoke German.
“You know there are tales I cannot tell,” he continued. “At least not for the price you’re offering today.”
“I would think the capture of your pet would be worth some serious trade currency.”
He shrugged. “In some circles, sure. But you are hardly in a position to bargain for more at the moment.”
What did he know about my bargaining position? And how?
“Now, what would you like to know about Ms. Wolff?”
“Who killed her?”
One dark eyebrow lifted. “Is this a trick question?”
“No.”
“I don’t understand what you’re getting at.”
“I’m not getting at anything. I just want to find out if you know who took her out of commission.”
He stirred his hot chocolate with his golden spoon. “Of course I know.”
“Who?”
“You.”
I blinked. “Come again?”
He took a sip of hot chocolate. I had a feeling he was taking his time answering just to toy with me. “You are the one who killed the timekeeper.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“But she wore one of your marks.”
“My marks? Which particular mark?”
He mimicked slicing his neck.
I cringed. “Anyone could have done that to her,” I said, not liking my so-called mark one bit. I’d prefer to leave a V cut into someone’s clothes, like Zorro’s Z.
“Not true,” Dominick said.
“You’re saying that my kind are the only ones who do the …” I did the neck slicing trick.
He gave a wishy-washy nod. “Mostly.”
“Ah-ha! So somebody else could have killed her.”
He appeared to contemplate that through a mouthful of hot chocolate and then swallowed. “Probably not. Why would anyone else take out a timekeeper?”
“Why would I?”
“Only you know that answer, Scharfrichter.”
I winced again at the name on his lips. “Okay, enough about who killed who, let’s move on to what a timekeeper does.”
He grinned. “A timekeeper keeps track of time.”
“Keep it up, wiseass, and I’ll shove that golden spoon of yours up your nose.”
His head tipped back as loud, deep laughter rippled throughout the room. Several females’ heads turned. I could have sworn I heard a collective sigh.
“Ah, Violet. You are such a refreshing breeze after dealing with the previous one of your kind.”
“You knew my predecessor?” How well had he known Prudence? Did he know she was still around? How old was Dominick?
“I knew her. There are only so many places to hide in these hills, and she was a sight to see, especially that night …” He stopped, checked himself, and then smiled. “Well, gentlemen do not speak of such things.”
Yeah, but Dominick wasn’t really a man, was he? Let alone a gentleman. I needed to take another trip up to visit Prudence, apparently, and find out her history with Dominick.
“From what I’ve been told,” I said, returning to the reason for our meeting, “a timekeeper keeps track of where and when.”
“Exactly.”
“What does that mean?”
He held up his finger.
I frowned. Where and when meant one finger?
The waitress appeared, food in hand, and I realized he had been telling me to wait.
She handed me my plate, more or less shoving it in my direction while worshipping Dominick with her smile. The eggs almost landed on my lap. His pancakes were covered with a mountain of whipped cream and strawberries.
She dabbed her finger in the cream and stuck it in her mouth. “Delicious.”
“Yes, you are,”
he flirted back.
“Someone please shoot me,” I muttered.
Aunt Zoe returned to the table, shooing away the waitress. She slid into the booth next to me and frowned at the amount of whipped cream and strawberries stacked high on Dominick’s pancakes compared to her own spritzing of cream and one lousy strawberry.
“Don’t worry,” I told her. “Dominick is going to give the waitress a big tip when we’re done.” It’d probably be covered with whipped cream when he gave it, too.
I pushed my eggs around on the plate, my stomach not really interested in me putting them in my mouth and sending them south.
“Would either of you like a bite?” he asked, holding out a piece of pancake dripping with cream.
I held out a hand, my stomach clenching.
“Yes!” Aunt Zoe said, eating from his fork as he smiled at her with his charm on high beams.
I pulled her back to my side of the booth. “Damn it, Dominick. You said you’d stop doing that.”
“Okay, okay, but I can’t help it. Your aunt is very tempting, and I’m hungry for someone who can hold my interest during the day as well as the night.”
“Too bad. You can’t have her. She’s out of your league.”
He winked. “That makes her more of a challenge.”
“No.”
“As you wish.” He closed his eyes for a couple of seconds and then returned to his mound of whipped cream.
Aunt Zoe looked at her plate of untouched food and then me, her forehead creased. “That’s weird.”
“What?”
“I swear I took a bite of pancake.”
After hitting Dominick with a quick glare, I patted her arm. “I’ll explain later. Eat up.”
While Dominick and Aunt Zoe ate, I pushed my eggs around some more on my plate and nibbled on my toast. Aunt Zoe nearly choked on her pancake when I claimed to have a small appetite in the mornings. I waited for Dominick to finish his whipped cream before pressing him for more information. By then, the restaurant was mostly empty.
“So, what does it mean?” I asked. “How do you keep track of when and where with a clock?”
“You need to stop thinking of clocks as a means for keeping track of the hours in a day.” He dabbed the corners of his mouth with his napkin. “Instead, think of them as keeping track of time spent in a location. For example, we are here eating, so our clocks would be ticking away here. However, if we were to expire or go somewhere else, our clocks would no longer be tracking time in this location.”
I took a drink of coffee, suspecting I was going to need the caffeine to make sense of this before he was done.
Aunt Zoe pushed her empty plate aside. “So, when the clocks are no longer working, what does that mean?”
It was good to have her back by my side. In the future, we’d have to be more careful around Dominick.
“That depends on the clock,” he said. “But usually it means the clock’s subject is no longer with us.”
“You mean dead?” I asked.
“Not necessarily. Subjects come and go, depending on their role. When they move back and forth, between here and there, the clocks tell the timekeeper.”
Okay, I sort of understood the here and there, but—”How will the clocks tell them?”
“By cuckooing or chiming, depending on the clock.”
“You’re saying,” Aunt Zoe said, her brow lined, “that if a clock is chiming, that means someone is coming or going.”
“Correct. The chime represents a state of change.”
“And if it is silent,” Aunt Zoe continued, “someone is no longer here, meaning they’re dead or somewhere else.”
“That is also correct.”
But Prudence had said the cuckooing was the toll of the death bell. Why would she say that?
“And if a clock is ticking away,” Aunt Zoe said, “the clock’s subject is here doing his or her thing.”
“Or its thing,” I added.
He nodded. “See, it’s quite simple.”
Yes and no. For example, I didn’t really understand where “there” was, and part of me wasn’t sure I wanted to know because of who or what might be waiting there for me.
I rubbed my temple. “How do you know who the clock’s subject is?”
“By the carvings.”
Ah-ha! So that was why the carvings on each were unique—like snowflakes.
“Do you have a clock?” Aunt Zoe asked him.
“Of course not.”
She frowned. “Why not?”
“Because I am not a traveler.”
“Only travelers have clocks?” I asked.
“Only travelers need to be monitored.”
“Why?”
“Because they cause ripples.” He smirked. “As well as other problems.”
I thought of the bone eater and the problems it had caused when I brought it back with me to Harvey’s ranch. “Are executioners considered travelers?”
“Yes.”
“So, I have a clock.”
“Most likely.”
My palms grew sweaty. Where was it? Who was watching it? Was that how Ms. Wolff had known about me? Was one of the clocks on her walls mine?
“Where do the clocks come from?” Aunt Zoe asked.
“From the clockmaker.” He said it as if it were common knowledge.
“Is this clockmaker local?” She dug deeper.
“That I do not know, as I am not a timekeeper.”
“You certainly know a lot about them,” she said, her gaze wary as she watched him.
“I’ve been around for some time.”
My turn. “So Ms. Wolff was keeping track of all of those different travelers?”
“If she was doing her job, then yes.”
“And those clocks represent all of the travelers in this area?”
“I doubt it, as there is more than one timekeeper.”
That’s right. I knew that. “Where is the other timekeeper?”
He steepled his fingers. “That information I cannot give away, especially to a killer.”
“I didn’t kill Ms. Wolff.”
He shrugged. “Whether you did or not, I cannot risk telling you any more information on other timekeepers. It would be bad form.”
Okay, then maybe he could answer this: “Was Ms. Wolff dabbling in something she wasn’t supposed to?”
“Aren’t we all?”
No. Yes. Maybe. Was I? I should ask Doc if there were rules listed in my family history book that I needed to know about so I could decide whether to break them or not.
“Could Ms. Wolff have been killed because of her involvement in something risky and I am now suspect by association?”
“I suppose, but it’s not normal.”
I laughed. “Nothing about this conversation is normal.”
“Maybe it’s not normal to you yet,” he said. “But that too will change if you live long enough.”
If I lived long enough? I tried not to focus on that comment too much. “Recently, when I was in Ms. Wolff’s apartment, there was a clock cuckooing. Then the phone rang. When I answered it, someone told me to open a door. What did that—”
“You heard the phone ringing?” he interrupted, his tone suddenly higher.
“Yeah.” I shared a raised brow with Aunt Zoe before turning back to him. “Ringing along with the cuckooing.”
“And you heard the voice through the phone?”
“Yes.”
He leaned forward, his elbows resting on the table as he stared at me. The bout of nausea swelled into my throat, but I swallowed it. “What are you, Violet Parker?”
“We’ve already gone over this part.”
“Yes, but a Scharfrichter is not a timekeeper. They are two very different beings.”
“Different beings?” I parroted.
“Did you open the door?” he asked.
“Hell no.”
“Why not?”
“I didn’t like the sound of his voice.” It had
been too creepy for me to even think about letting him through, reminiscent of the big bad wolf. “Plus, he was rude and he didn’t say, ‘Please.’ “
Dominick’s jaw fell open. “You jest?”
“No, why?”
“You needed to open that door.”
“It’s not my job, remember? I’m a different being than a timekeeper. Besides, I couldn’t open it.”
“Why not?”
For one thing, I didn’t know how. More important, “Because I kind of broke that door and now it doesn’t work anymore.”
“That might cause a problem.”
“Not for me.” I had a feeling that letting the caller through would have been a bigger problem.
A smile slowly spread up his face. “Fascinating. You were chosen.”
“What’s that mean?” For some reason, I had a feeling he wasn’t talking about my name being drawn for a Secret Santa game.
“Ms. Wolff chose you. That must be why you can hear timekeeper-related sounds and are able to answer the calls—tools of the trade, so to speak.”
So Prudence was right? “Why would she choose me? I had no idea who she was until I showed up and found her dead.”
“I’m more interested in why she would choose anyone. It’s highly unorthodox for a timekeeper to do this.”
“I’m telling you, she didn’t choose me for anything like that. She simply wanted to give me information, but I took too long to get there.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“About what? Her wanting to give me information?”
“No, are you sure that you took too long to get there?” He pursed his lips. “Maybe you took exactly long enough. Had you thought of that?”
Huh? No. Why would I …”What?”
“Violet, timekeepers are experts at manipulating time. I find it more likely this was Ms. Wolff’s plan all along.”
Her plan? How would she …?
I leaned my head on Aunt Zoe’s shoulder. Sweet juju beans! This was going to crack my brain. She patted my cheek and nudged me back upright.
“Time can be a tricky devil,” he added with a wink.
I froze. Where had I heard that before? Oh, yeah! Prudence had said that, too.
He looked at me with total earnestness, no charming smile or flirty eyes. “There is one thing you should remember, Scharfrichter.”