Flirtinis with Flappers (6 page)

He turned back to me, his head cocked in question. "Weird?" he repeated. "Like how?"

I shrugged. "I don't know, really. Just…weird. Like they're not themselves."

"Besides you, you mean?"

Touché. I felt my face heat into a blush. "Yes, besides me."

Sam shrugged. "Can't say that I have. Sorry, doll. Why?"

"Er, no reason. Never mind." I sighed. I really needed to work on my line of questioning. I was never going to locate Nick at this rate.

Sam glanced up the stairs to the locked door. "You know, it's probably safe to go back up," he suggested. "I'm sure the police are long gone."

I nodded, so ready to get out of the basement and the close proximity of
Sam. I might have successfully dodged his verbal come-on, but the sight of him was still doing melty things to my insides.

We walked up the stairs, and I wondered what I should do next. Finding my home seemed like a logical move, but I had no idea where I lived. The FBI sure didn't give me a lot to go on. I was totally flying blind.

As we slowly made our way down the corridor, checking around each corner for any sign of police, I opened up my handbag and rummaged through, hoping for a clue. I had nothing.

"Looks like the coast is clear," Sam said as we exited the club. It was night, and the streetlights cast a sickly yellow glow on the dreary landscape. "Want me to take you home?"

"Do you, uh, know where I live?" I asked hopefully.

"No, but you can surely tell me."

Darn. "Uh, no, that's okay. I'm good," I said, not wanting to raise his suspicions further by informing him I had no idea what building I called home.

Sam shook his head. "It's dangerous to walk out here at night. And I've got nothing else to do. So, um, tell me where you live, and I'll take you in my car."

I laughed nervously. "No, really. It's fine. I can walk. Need the exercise, really. I mean, do you have any idea how many carbs are in your standard gin and tonic?"

Sam shot me a confused look. Duh. I'd inadvertently snuck a twenty-first century-ism into my vocabulary. He didn't know what carbs were. Heck, I wasn't even sure if the term "calorie" had been invented. I'd have to be more careful, or they'd be carting me off to the insane asylum before V-Day.

"Er, never mind," I said with a wave of my hand. "Point is, I'll walk. It's not far."

At least, I hoped it wasn't.

Sam opened his mouth, as if to say something, then shut it again and shrugged. "Have it your way, darlin'," he said. "Catch you later." And with a casual wave, he turned and walked over to a shiny new black Ford and jumped in.

I watched as he pulled away, driving off into the night, wondering what the heck I was supposed to do next. Go back inside? Ask someone how to get to my house? This time-travel stuff was a lot harder than it first appeared.

"Dora?" A high-pitched, disembodied voice suddenly interrupted my reverie. I whirled around, searching the streetlamp-lit street for its owner.

"Who's there?" I asked.

No answer. Just a clattering in the darkness. I sucked in a breath, wishing I'd been allowed to time travel with my personal can of pepper spray.

"Dora Duncan?" There it was again. Still squeaky but a little more impatient sounding.

I gulped, realization hitting me with the force of a ten-ton truck. Oh my God. The voice was using my real name. Not Louise, my Roaring Twenties name. Not the name belonging to the body I was currently inhabiting. Whoever it was calling my name evidently knew my true identity.

Could it be Nick? Could he have found out what I was sent to do and which body I was sent to do it in?

And if so, what was he going to do to me now that he knew?

My heart pounded as I scanned the alleyway, searching for the identity of the voice. However, it still appeared completely vacant. So vacant, in fact, that you'd half expect some tumbleweed to float across like in a spaghetti western. So where the heck was the voice coming from? Was it in my head? Could the Men in Black be trying to communicate with me in some telepathic way? Was that even possible?

I folded my arms across my chest, firming my resolve. There was no reason to freak out. Absolutely none. Even if I was, let's say, completely defenseless and alone nearly a hundred years in the past, trapped in someone else's body and hearing some invisible squeaky dude cry out my twenty-first-century name.

Nope. Zero freak-out necessity.

I reached up to brush a lock of hair out of my eyes and realized my skin was damp with nervous perspiration. I remembered the old days in Iraq. How brave I used to be. Perhaps foolishly so but still. What would Nick's "Dora the Explorer" have done in a situation like this?

"Dora?" the voice repeated for a third time.

"That's my name. Don't wear it out," I called out into the darkness, hoping I sounded braver than I felt.

"Cute. Real cute," the voice replied, in actuality not sounding all that amused. "Now get over here. We need to talk."

I furrowed my brows. Yeah, right. If he thought I was going to step into the darkness so he could "talk," he had another think coming. I may not have been Dora the Explorer anymore, but I was still a few steps up from Dora the Dumb Butt, thank you very much.

"I'm, uh, all talked out, actually. Maybe in the A.M., you know?" I said, stepping backward in a hurried attempt to put more distance between myself and the invisible voice.

"Dora, don't be a dolt. Just get over here."

I pursed my lips. "No."

The voice let out an indignant squeak. "Fine. Fine. I'll come to you then."

I swallowed hard, wondering what I should do.

Are
you going to just stand there? Let him come get you? Even in Iraq you made a run for it. At least you tried to
es
cape. What has happened to you? It's bad enough they broke your spirit. Don't let them subsequently cause your death as well.

Okay, maybe it wasn't as inspiring a pep talk as in
It's a Wonderful Life,
but it was rousing enough to jolt me into action—and that was all that mattered at the moment.

Without further contemplation, I turned and started running as fast as Louise's legs could carry me away.

I darted down the dimly lit road, past squat gray warehouses and other decrepit buildings, twisting and turning down various narrow streets lined with cars. I'd never figure out my way back to the club at this rate, but if I could lose the squeaky dude, it'd be worth it.

As I ran, I noticed that an oddly familiar feeling of excited adrenaline had started pumping through my veins.
Jam
Juice,
Nick and I used to call it, since it nearly always started flowing the second you found yourself in an impossible jam. Near escapes had always been our favorite aphrodisiac back in the day. Exciting, death defying, and making for a great story down at the bar. (After the wild and crazy Jam Juice sex, that was! Man, that had been good.)

Nope, I hadn't had this kind of rush since, well, you know. It felt…great, in a way.

I scrambled over a crumbling brick wall, around a growling dog chained to a tree, and dodged gravestones in a tiny, weedy cemetery. Then I headed down a side alley and…found myself at a dead end, blocked by a chain-link fence, which was complemented with rusty barbed wire.

Hands on my knees, I sucked in a shaky breath. Louise evidently hadn't clocked as many hours at the local gym as I had, and she was hurting bad. From the way my lungs felt like they were collapsing in on me, I'd venture a guess that she was also quite the chain-smoker. Uh, not that I had the lung capacity of a killer whale myself lately. Ever since I signed up for Netflix I'd been skipping the gym in favor of the couch. After all, I had to make sure I got my money's worth each month, and we were in the golden age of television, as they said.

I scanned the alley. Had I lost him? It was tough to know, as, of course, he'd been invisible. But I'd led him on quite a chase. I doubted anyone would be able to find me.

"You effing moron. Why did you run?" asked an out-of-breath voice cluttering closer down the alleyway.

Then again…

"Leave me alone!" I cried. "I've got a gun, and I'm not afraid to use it."

"Oh, for God's sake," the voice growled. Well, it growled as much as a squeaky voice could manage. "I'm on your side, princess. I'm your contact. Didn't Fredricks and the gang tell you you'd be meeting a contact?"

A contact? I furrowed my brow, trying to think back. Had the Men in Black told me I was to meet a contact? And was it likely I'd forgotten about it if they had? I mean, I had a good memory and all, but the whole time-travel thing in and of itself was a lot to take in and filter through. Some details definitely could have slipped through the cracks.

Then the light bulb lit over my head like some idiot cartoon character's. I remembered what I'd been told.

"The Rat?" I asked. "Are you The Rat?"

"Yes." The voice sounded relieved. "Give the girl a gold frigging star."

I frowned. "So, how come I can't see you then? Are you invisible?" Hm. An invisible contact might come in handy.

"No, but—" The Rat seemed to hesitate for a moment. "I wasn't sure if you were ready to see me. I look a little…different than I think you might assume."

"Different? How so?"

Was he scarred? Burned? Disfigured? I was the last person he should be worried about judging him on that. He could be the Elephant Man, and I, for one, would feel his pain. I could see the beautiful soul lost behind the scarred face. He'd be tender. Sweet. And we'd fall in love—

"They call me The Rat, right?"

—and we'd live happily ever after until we got back to the present year, where we would both be able to see that awesome plastic surgeon I'd interviewed a few months ago about celebrity scarring and—

Oh. I should probably be paying attention.

"Right. The Rat. Who'd you rat out, anyway?" I asked. "And how do I know you won't rat me out next?"

The Rat gave a long wheezy sigh. "Not The Rat as in ratting someone out. The Rat because…well…"

Suddenly, I felt something scamper across my feet. I leapt back, startled, managing to inadvertently slam my body into the chain-link fence. But the discomfort of wire gouging into my back was nothing compared to the shock of what I found at my feet.

A massive brown rat, complete with long bald tail, stood on his hindquarters and twitched his nose at me. But it wasn't the creature itself that threw me. I was never one of those silly girls who ran from rodents. It was the uncanny disapproving expression on his furry face that got me. Almost…human-like. Kind of channeling Nicodemus from
The Secret of NIMH,
except less friendly and more…annoyed.

"You're…? You're…? Oh my God! You're really…?
"

"Can you stop babbling for one second, please?"

I did. Mostly because I couldn't manage to form words after seeing what I'd just seen. It seemed impossible, but there was no denying it happened. The rat spoke. English words came out of his fuzzy little lips.

"Eesh. And you wonder why I didn't want to show myself. You women are all the same. What the heck is it about bald tails and beady eyes that cause you all to go wacko? I mean, you could easily crush me with your foot." He paused, then added, "Uh, not that I'm suggesting you do that."

I stopped screaming as the realization hit me. (Yes, I know, a little slow—It'd been a long day.) I swallowed hard. "You're…?" I
started, staring at the fuzzy creature as it stared back up at me. "You're—?"

"Wow. They sent an articulate one this time. Excellent."

My eyes widened in disbelief. His mouth had moved. He'd really talked. The creature before me was an actual, real live talking rat. How in the…? I so wished Jenny was here with her camera. Or any photographer, for that matter. We'd have the biggest exclusive story of the millennium.

Rats that rant, tonight at eleven.

"How can you talk?"

"How can I talk? I open my mouth and stuff comes out. I mean, I'm sure there's a scientific explanation as to how air is expelled through your vocal chords while your mouth and tongue shape the actual words, but you really don't need those kinds of details, do you?"

Wow. He not only talked, he'd mastered the art of sarcasm. Nice.

I crouched down onto the dirt-caked pavement to check him out more carefully. Getting up my nerve, I reached down to touch him. To see if he felt real.

"Hey! Watch the fur. Do you enjoy it when people start poking you?"

I pulled my hand away. "Umm, sorry," I muttered. Touchy little fellow, wasn't he?

"So are you ready to listen now?" he asked impatiently.

"Uh, yeah. I guess."

"Good. As I was saying just before you decided to take me on a marathoner's tour of Chicago, we need to talk."

"O-kay."

"As I mentioned before, I'm not just a rat. I'm
The
Rat. As in, your contact The Rat. Back home, I'm Special Agent Rogers, and I'm six foot, two hundred pounds soaking wet thank you very much. Pretty good-looking, too, in case you were wondering. The ladies love me."

"Uh…okay." I nodded, trying to accept it all. I mean, hey, why not? This morning I thought time travel was a ridiculous concept. So why not sarcastic talking rats who were really good-looking special agents in disguise? At the rate things were going, by the end of the day it was more than likely I'd be believing in the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, and maybe even jolly old St. Nick.

"Anyway, they sent me back here as a rodent to check out the scene, see what's going on. Figured a small creature like this could do better recon than a human. After all, I can slip into rooms and eavesdrop on private meetings without anyone knowing they're being watched."

"Very convenient."

"You'd think so, huh? But there are lots of on-the-job hazards. Cats, for one. You haven't lived till you've seen what a four-story Fluffy looks like when it's ready to go all postal on you. Scary. And then there's picking up chicks. There's a lotta lookers here in the twenties. Ain't even one of them interested in getting it on with a foot-long rat. Go figure."