Culler began to speak in fragmented sentences, broken thoughts, almost as if to himself, knowing his associate would follow the thread. “Abbott must have been warned somehow,” he said. “Tucked her safely away… If the door could place a child forward in time, then we must assume it can also… That would explain her presence at the auction…” He turned to Danyer, awestruck. “We’ve underestimated this woman.”
He got up and began to pace, peanut shells crunching underfoot. “What next, what next,” he mumbled.
Knowing where Mr. Culler’s mind was going, Danyer nodded, his pitch so deep as he mumbled that the two words he spoke registered more as thought than sound.
“Mrs. Grundy, indeed,” answered Mr. Culler.
Danyer snarled, his meaning clear. Mr. Culler waved off the implied question. “Yes, yes, Miss Aster will have her turn,” he said. “But we need to make ourselves scarce for the time being, and going to Pawnee County kills two birds with one stone, so to speak.” He reached into his breast pocket. A flicker of doubt crossed his face as he turned the pocket out. Finding it empty, he slumped back on the bar stool to slowly down the remainder of his beer.
When the stein was emptied, he exhaled and looked into the mirror to peer at his reflection. It stood and took three steps in his direction. Slowly, a smile formed over its features, its eyes alight and wild as it ran a finger across its own throat. Without the slightest change of expression, he heaved the mug into the glass. Glancing at the stunned bartender, he rolled his shoulders, cracked his neck, and said, “Bill me.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-ONE
And the Truth Comes Tumbling Out
It is a universal condition among males of the species that those who are smitten have little use for the obvious, and in that regard, Nathaniel Goodkin kept good company.
He was laboring to make sense of it all as he made for the sandlot at the corner of Third and Broadway— the mystery surrounding Miss Aster, the baffling power she had over him, and his willingness to involve himself in her affairs without explanation. His subconscious would sort through the irrelevancies, expose the glaring truths, and generally take him in hand later. At the moment, he had a letter to deliver.
Christian and Edmond were sitting in the dugout of a small baseball diamond talking to Cap’n, their eyes following his every step as he walked up and sat down on the bench.
“Where’s Annie?” Christian asked, breaking the silence.
Nathaniel peered over the sandlot. “I left Miss Aster in her hotel room with instructions not to answer the door except for one of us.” He reached into his pocket. “She wrote a letter addressed to an Elsbeth Grundy and asked that I deliver it to you.” Frowning, he switched his hand to the other pocket before taking the coat off and turned the pockets inside out to check them more thoroughly. “I don’t understand,” he said as he reached into his pants pocket. “My wallet is missing.”
Cap’n, who had been watching the production with more than a hint of skepticism, shook her head. Being quick on the uptake and possessing a greater reservoir of experience in certain matters than the present company, she’d already come to the conclusion Nathaniel was gradually working his way toward.
“That man,” he said, sounding thoughtful. “The man with the beret!” He palmed the top of his head, his expression reflecting the shock in his voice. “I think my pockets have been picked.”
“This ain’t good.”
Edmond turned to Cap’n. “What’s not good?” he asked. “I should’ve seen it coming.” She held her up a finger, indicating that she’d get to Edmond’s question shortly. “Mr. Goodkin,” she asked. “Was this guy blond and short, with a baby face?”
Nathaniel’s mouth flew open, confirming Cap’n’s suspicion. “It was Johnny Parker. I’d bet my bottom dollar on it.” She grabbed some sunflower seeds from her pocket and popped them in her mouth.“Johnny Parker’s a professional pinch,”she explained. “Usually works solo but pulls the odd job for Culler now and then. It’s a good bet old man Culler has your wallet and the letter.”
Christian groaned, leaning forward to put his head in his hands.
“Is Annie in danger?” asked Nathaniel.
Christian looked up, peering at Nathaniel between outspread fingers, and nodded.
Annie tossed and turned, caught in a dream where her father was standing over her crib with a tiny baseball mitt in his hand, saying, “I always wanted to teach you how to play ball.” He started to put it in her hand when the sound of gunshot cracked from somewhere behind, and—
Annie sat up in bed, trying to regain her equilibrium, when she heard another bang, this time coming from the door.
“Miss Aster, are you in there?”
Recognizing Nathaniel’s voice, she stumbled to the mirror and adjusted her hair. After running her hands down the length of her skirt, she gave up and opened the door. Her half-formed smile faded when she saw that Christian, Edmond, and Cap’n had accompanied him.
“Thank goodness,” Nathaniel said. “May we come in?”
They were all breathing heavily, and Annie searched for a clue to what had them so tightly wound as they filed into the room.
Cap’n, all business, headed for the bed and placed a pillow in her lap, while Christian leaned forward to stare into Annie’s eyes. “You look exhausted. How long have you been asleep?”
“A hundred years, I think.”
Nathaniel looked at her quizzically, then surveyed the hallway to confirm no one was watching. He closed the door and turned to Annie. “Miss Aster, I think it would be wise for you to share the contents of your letter.”
Annie looked anxiously from one face to another. “Is there a problem?” she asked.
“I’m afraid it has most likely found its way into the hands of Messrs. Culler and Danyer.”
Annie’s hand flew to her mouth, and she began to chew on the end of her thumb. “Are you certain?”
“I am,” said Cap’n. “Remember me telling you about Johnny Parker? From the look of things, Mr. Culler hired him to find out more about Mr. Goodkin and got your letter to boot. Just plain old bad luck.”
Annie sighed, rocking her head back to thump lightly against the wall. “Oh dear.” She began to pace about the room while the others made themselves comfortable.
“I suppose it’s time for an explanation.”She picked up the clock sitting on the desk, staring at its face. “Heaven knows you’re due one. The truth, I fear, will be difficult to understand.” Setting the clock aside, she retrieved her handbag from the closet, rooting around until she found a piece of yellowed paper. Sitting on the edge of the bed, she held it in her lap with both hands.
“You too,” she said to Christian.
He looked at her, surprised, then sheepishly reached into his pocket to pull out the twenty-dollar bill.
Annie gave the piece of paper in her hand to Nathaniel, motioning for Christian to do the same.
Looking very uneasy, as if knowing there would be no going back once he learned its secret, Nathaniel inspected the bill, while Cap’n scrambled to her knees to peer over his shoulder. “Who is Mary Ellen Withrow?” she whispered. He shook his head, not wanting to speculate.
“Can you tell me the series number?” Annie asked.
When Nathaniel didn’t respond, Cap’n peered at the corner of the bill. “It says ‘series nineteen ninety-four,’” she said.
“And what about the other one, Mr. Goodkin?” Annie gestured to the document on his lap.
Nathaniel handed the bill to Cap’n and picked up the document in question. “It’s an article from the Star,” he said. He rubbed his thumb over its surface. “It’s quite weathered,” he added, looking for the date. Inhaling sharply, he looked up. “It’s tomorrow’s edition.”
As Cap’n scrambled to his side for a better view, Annie said, “To answer your question, Cap’n, Mary Ellen Withrow will be the Unites States Treasurer in the year nineteen ninety-four.”
Nathaniel gave no
indication that he’d heard Annie, but Cap’n’s head snapped up. Her expression gave the appearance of someone on the verge of understanding, but Nathaniel merely closed his eyes and placed his forehead in the palm of his hand.
Picking nervously at a loose thread on the cuff of her sleeve, Annie pressed on. “I am…from San Francisco as you learned in our first meeting, Mr. Goodkin,” she said. “But before I made my way to Kansas City, it was May thirty-first in the year nineteen ninetyfive.”
Nathaniel remained withdrawn—Annie wasn’t even certain he was listening—but Cap’n’s response was a pleasant surprise. Illustrating the credulity of youth, she simply said, “Well, I’ll be.”
Annie smiled at her before continuing. “I live…in your future. I am here, I suppose, because of a peculiar door I purchased and installed in the back of my home—Mr. Abbott’s door. Somehow, it found its way over time to me. The door is, as he claimed in his show, a time-travel conduit. Through it, I became pen pals with Elsbeth. Because of it, I learned of Abbott’s murder and rashly asked El to intervene. She attempted to do so and was hidden in his closet while he was murdered.”
Cap’n dropped to her seat and crossed her legs, spellbound.
“Unfortunately,” Annie continued, “El was seen leaving Mr. Abbott’s home by a neighbor and was implicated as the primary suspect. I took it upon myself to correct the situation. In the course of doing so, I have learned that I am not only Elsbeth’s granddaughter, but also the daughter of David Abbott.”
Nathaniel jerked upright. “What?”
Reaching over to put a reassuring hand on his leg, Cap’n turned to Annie. “You?” She took a second to make certain she understood what Annie had shared. “Are you saying you’re the baby that was reported missing?”
Nathaniel leaped to his feet.
Annie ignored him for the moment, focusing on her confederate. “Yes, Cap’n. I’m the child reported missing yesterday,” she said, glancing at Nathaniel. “I’m Annabelle Abbott Aster, and the door didn’t end up in my possession by accident. Something larger is at work.”
Cap’n, to her credit, was doing her best to take everything Annie said at face value, but the math escaped her. “How?” she asked. “Abbott’s daughter ain’t even one year old yet.”
Annie studied Nathaniel carefully before turning back to Cap’n. “Yesterday, on your timeline, just before he was murdered, my father transported me, his one-year-old daughter, through the door and into the future where I grew to adulthood completely unaware of my past,” she said. “In that one day that has passed for you, I traveled forward in time seventy-odd years and have lived two-and-a-half decades since.” She paused, thinking, and pulled a pouch from her bag. Inside it was a syringe. She held it up. “This is erythropoietin. It is medicine from the future that stimulates the production of red blood cells and helps me to manage a little medical problem.”
Unable to contain her curiosity, Cap’n held out her hand.
“I have a lifetime of memories, not all of them happy,” Annie said, looking at Nathaniel as she gave the syringe to her little confederate. “I remember sitting alone in the corner during my eleventh birthday party, my godmother teaching me to shoot skeet, my adoptive parents’ funeral, meeting Christian at the park”—she paused, glancing at Nathaniel—“and my first kiss.” Still, he didn’t respond, so she marched on.
“With the door’s aid, I came back in time to Kansas City hours before my father was murdered. Our meeting in the park, Mr. Goodkin, and our meeting on Broadway, Cap’n, were on my first day in Kansas City as an adult. However, while I met the two of you, I was simultaneously asleep in a bassinet in my father’s home in Westport.”
Cap’n seemed to absorb the information as easily as a sponge, nodding throughout Annie’s tale. Nathaniel swallowed mechanically, but to Annie’s relief, he finally spoke. “There were so many peculiarities I couldn’t explain,” he said to himself, sitting on the edge of the bed. He looked up as if about to say something more, but whatever it may have been died on his lips when Christian spoke up.
“Annie,” he said. “What was in the letter?”
“Everything,” she said. “With the least bit of imagination, Culler will figure everything out—that I am David Abbott’s daughter, that my grandmother is a witness to the murder…” She took Cap’n’s hand in hers, holding it gently while she looked in her eyes. “I wrote that my ‘confederate’ stole a money clip from Mr. Culler and helped me plant it on my father’s body. It won’t be hard for him to deduce who that is.”
“Do you think he’ll believe it?” Christian asked.
Cap’n lowered her feet and hopped off the bed. “He’ll believe it.” She stood up and faced Annie. “It’s not safe here for you no more,” she said.
“Me? What about you?” Annie’s question was full of apologies, guilt, and the memory of the mementos she and Cap’n had found in Mr. Culler’s office.
Cap’n’s laugh had a sarcastic ring to it. “I can run rings around him, but you need to disappear,” she said. “And the way I see it, there ain’t no better place to hide than through that door.”
No one picked up where her comment left off, so Cap’n removed her cap, considering the menu of options. She placed the pillow against the headboard. “Miss Annie should head home soon,” she said. “And I expect she’ll be heading to the park.”
When Annie nodded, admitting that she wasn’t certain how to find it, Cap’n turned to Christian. “Can you get there from here?”
He looked at Edmond, then shook his head.
“What about you?” Nathaniel asked when she turned to him.
“I got something to do,” she said, “but I’ll catch up with you shortly.”
Nathaniel looked at Annie, his expression unreadable, and nodded to Cap’n. “I’ll take them.”
While they had been making plans around her, Annie had quietly slipped to the desk and written a note. She folded the paper in thirds, placed it inside her bag, and retrieved her suitcase from the closet. “I suppose I’m as ready as I’ll ever be.”
As everyone headed for the door, Annie reached out to touch Nathaniel’s hand. “Can you wait a moment?” she asked.
Unwilling to meet her eyes, he walked back into the room without comment.
Annie turned to Christian and said, “I’ll meet you downstairs,” closing the door before he could respond.
She turned, searching Nathaniel’s face.“I suppose I should have told you before we…” Her voice trailed off as she sought the right words. “Before we kissed. I tried to tell you as we walked to the hotel, but— ” She stopped, horrified by his expression.
His lips were bloodless, compressed in a chalky line, and he was breathing heavily, as if struggling against some frightful impulse. “You think that’s what bothers me?” he asked.
She stepped back, holding up her hands defensively, as he leaped forward, grabbing her roughly. He shook her until her head bobbled loosely.“Annie!”he cried, shaking her some more.“Do you think that’s what bothers me?” Suddenly, his features crumpled. “You’re going someplace I can’t follow.” He crushed her against his chest, rubbing his face in her hair. “I can’t bear it.”
CHAPTER
THIRTY-TWO
Good-Byes
Don’t leave without saying good- bye!” Cap’n scampered down the street as Annie reached Christian’s side, her arm entwined with Nathaniel’s.
Before she was out of earshot, Edmond cupped his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Watch yourself !”
Without breaking stride, Cap’n spun around and, running backward, saluted.
When she turned a corner, Edmond folded his arms across his chest and turned to Christian, grinning. “She’s something else, isn’t she.” As always, Edmond’s inflection made it clear this was a statement, not a question.
Annie laughed quietly as she sorted through the pair of messages left in her inbox.
Dear Miss Aster:
Mr. Langley accepts
delivery of the door and will have it shipped to the San Francisco location as you requested, though he did express some confusion as to how you were made aware of a store that won’t be opening until this fall.
Sincerely,
Thomas Gophe,
Manager, the Broadway Hotel
Attached to the message was a receipt signed by Mr. Langley. Annie wondered for a moment what his future ascendant, the surly owner of the Antiquarian, would say if he knew of her shenanigans. She started to laugh again, but her smile quickly faded as she flipped to the second message.
Miss Aster:
Or should I say, Miss Abbott?
The first round goes to you, but the game is far from over.
Ambrosius Culler
Nathaniel was the first to catch the change in Annie’s mood. “Annie?” he asked. “What’s the matter?”
She handed him the note and watched as his face darkened. “We must get you to the park immediately,” he said.
Christian was about to question Annie regarding Nathaniel’s comment, but she rushed forward, grabbed Edmond’s arm, and began a spate of trivial chatter, glancing back at him with a barely detectible shake of her head.
He held back, thinking he’d corner Nathaniel. Instead, he found himself on the receiving end of something he half expected and dreaded.
Nathaniel pocketed the note. “I’m going with her,” he said. When there was no immediate reply, he repeated himself, looking very determined.
Christian shoved his hands into his pockets and looked ahead to make sure Annie was outside earshot. “You mustn’t,” he said. “It’ll put Annie in the terrible position of having to refuse you.” Before Nathaniel could protest, he added, “And not for the reasons you think. It’s clear that she cares for you a great deal. That’s the problem, strangely enough.”
Nathaniel grabbed Christian by the arm. “How can love in any way be a problem?” he asked.
The question was inevitable and deserved an answer, but the story behind it was not Christian’s to tell. “She refuses to be a burden to anyone,” he whispered. Looking from Nathaniel’s hand, wrapped firmly around his bicep, and into his eyes, Christian sighed. “She’s an orphan, Nathaniel. She knows what it’s like for those who are left behind.” Having said that, he removed himself from Nathaniel’s grip and, leaving the man to ponder his meaning, hurried to catch up with Annie and Edmond.
The Lemoncholy Life of Annie Aster Page 24