Silver Storm: Timewalker Chronicles, Book 2 (6 page)

Bandit growled at him from her cozy bed next to the unlit fireplace, then yapped out two short barks that sounded suspiciously like, “Yeah, right.”

“Shut up, dog.” He growled at Bandit, who rolled over for a belly rub in response. Spoiled little rat. He leaned down to oblige the little rodent, but the moment didn’t last long.

The soft click of the bathroom door’s latch preceded a soft, sharp whistle. Bandit’s ears popped up and she jumped out of her bed. Her tail wagged so fiercely it looked like the little puff-ball was going to fall over laughing at him as she sauntered toward the bathroom to join her new best friend in the shower. Hot water. Soap. Lots and lots of bare skin.

The door closed once again behind the little traitor and he heard Sarah’s soft laughter. Now he was jealous of a ten-pound fur-ball that smelled like dead fish.

Tim started cooking and let his mind work on the problem at hand. It was either that or stare at the bathroom door like a lust-filled fifteen-year-old boy. By Sarah’s account he had a time-traveler to deliver to a man in Bannockburn. But he knew it was more than that. Much more.

He’d missed something. Why did he want to believe her? He hadn’t seen any plastic surgery scars. Her face was an exact match to a twenty-seven-year-old magazine cover. And she’d appeared out of thin air with a lightning strike for accompaniment.

None of this added up. Time travel was theoretical at best, and even then, only into the future, never the past. It didn’t matter what current theory you subscribed to, once you changed the past you never found your way back to where you started. You could end up in a parallel universe, or an alternate timeline. The possibilities were, literally, infinite.

Time travel was out. He just couldn’t believe it. Which meant someone had gone to a hell of a lot of trouble to create a backstory for her, maybe even make her believe it.

And why? There were others who could continue his research. He’d dealt them a hell of a blow, slowed them down for a few years, but he wasn’t egotistical enough to assume he was the only capable mathematical brain on the planet. So why bother with this elaborate ruse? Why bother with him at all?

Unless it was the Rear Admiral and his fucking Casper Project. The CP was bad news and they’d been following him for weeks before he destroyed his lab.

Maybe someone had continued his research, maybe not. Maybe they wanted him to step back in and play for a completely different reason. He’d do whatever he had to do to stop them from using him to develop those weapons, or learning his secret, even play along with the gorgeous liar in his bathroom until she led him back to the enemy’s lair.

The thought made his heart hurt, but he dismissed the emotion with years of hard-won practice. She was good, he’d give her that. But he’d learned long ago not to trust that traitorous organ. Logic said her story didn’t make sense. Logic kept him alive.

Chapter Three

Tuesday, 11:00 a.m.

Tim kept his eyes on the highway, safely averted from the woman to his right. Bandit lay curled up in her lap, still shivering from her bath, but smelling much better. Sarah absently stroked the soft hair on the top of Bandit’s head and stared straight ahead. She looked like a lost doll with eyes too big for her face. She’d supposedly been gone, absent, missing for over twenty years and she didn’t crane her neck in curiosity once? It was almost like she was afraid to look outside.

“We should be there in about thirty minutes.”

“That’s fine.” Sarah closed her eyes and let her head fall back against the headrest. “Luke probably won’t be home yet, anyway. Hopefully, Alexa will be there. Maybe she can help us.”

“Alexa. The other time traveler?” He checked the mirrors again, the sky. No one was following him, or if they were, they were very, very good.

“Yes.”

Jesus, this woman was crazy. If she hadn’t mentioned the Casper Project and the destruction of his lab, he would have written her off as a loon. But she had. She knew things she shouldn’t. He had to stick around long enough to figure out why.

“And why won’t Luke be at home, eagerly anticipating your arrival?”

“He’s probably at work.”

“Where does he work?” Tim waited with bated breath for her answer. This would be another piece of the puzzle, assuming she knew the answer. She didn’t.

“He used to work in a lab, in Texas. I don’t know what he does now…” Her voice trailed off for a few seconds before she continued. “I wonder what Alexa’s mission was. I wonder if Luke thought she was lying, too.”

Tim didn’t have an answer for that, so he kept his mouth shut and focused on watching the roads, the sky and the rooftops along the way. No sense asking more questions she wouldn’t answer.

Sarah gasped and his truck’s radio lost the signal, blared static for a couple seconds, then popped. No doubt, little miss sunshine had blown a fuse in his poor vehicle. He could feel the buzzing power ramping up again along his skin, just like when she’d blown up his T.V.

Bandit whimpered and burrowed her little head under Sarah’s arm.

That was the one thing that made him question his conclusions. How the hell was she doing that? How was it possible for her to be producing so much energy that he could literally feel it crawling all over his skin like ants?

A half hour later, Tim squeezed the steering wheel until his knuckles were white. He’d asked for answers at breakfast, but all she’d told him was that it was complicated and she didn’t want to have to explain it twice. She’d either claimed she didn’t know the answers, or asked him to wait until they reached this scientist’s house to explain the entire drive.

He’d tried to be patient, he really had. But the soldier in him was used to recon and planning, not trusting a doe-eyed female to tell him what to do and where to go. Especially a woman he didn’t trust. And if his suspicions were correct, a lot of lives were at stake. All his fault. It made his stomach curl and head ache.

He forced his fingers to loosen their death grip. Thirty minutes of silence was all he could take. He’d thought Sarah would crack, ramble on like a typical female, like his mother would have with her incessant chatter. But no. He had to meet the only woman on the planet who talked less than he did. Which meant, if he wanted answers, he was going to have to drag them out of her.

Sure, she’d asked him to wait. Apparently, Sarah only wanted to share her secrets with someone else. Luke. The scientist who had more than likely stolen his work. Tim was ready to strangle the jerk and he hadn’t even met him. They were less than three blocks from the bastard’s high-dollar house and he couldn’t stop himself from casing the neighborhood. The guy had money, used to work in a lab, and had a questionable history.

Maybe Luke was already neck deep in the Casper Project. Maybe the rumors and conspiracy theorists were right, and Tesla had invented time travel back in the 40s. Maybe they already had negative matter by the tons stored up somewhere and his entire career had been a joke. Maybe Sarah really was a time traveler.

Yeah. And maybe Santa Claus would leave a little white pony under the tree this year.

Gun loaded. Check. Knife. Check. She claimed she had no idea where they were going. If he spent some extra time doing recon and making sure Google Maps had their shit together with this neighborhood, she’d never know the difference. He’d map the exits before he walked into this irresistible trap.

Then he’d be able to breathe.

Even if every other breath crippled him because his traitorous nose did nothing but zero in on the smell of her sweet skin beneath his glycerin soap. The recon might take a bit longer than usual, since he was obviously operating with half a brain, and had been since pulling her out of the water. Losing brain cells over a woman’s scent wasn’t something he’d ever experienced before. He couldn’t imagine the effect being any worse on his thinking skills if he were mainlining heroin.

He wanted her. And he didn’t want anything from anyone. Ever. People were nothing but trouble. Show them vulnerability, emotion, or love, and what did it usually lead to? Alone time and a lecture from his father. A vacant smile and absent pat on the head from his mother. And a laundry list of demands from everyone else. The guys from his old unit were the only ones he trusted, and most of them were still half a world away, boots on the ground.

He didn’t need a woman. Hell, he didn’t want that kind of distraction now, couldn’t afford it. Of course, if that had been part of their plan, it was working like a charm. He couldn’t think straight with her in the truck.

Biggest logic problem with the whole thing? That new Mark on his neck. That screwed every theory he had. It was not like they’d snuck in and tattooed him with burning ink…

“We’ve driven past the house twice now, you know.” Sarah stared out the window as she spoke, her long elegant fingers stroking Bandit’s small head.

And he didn’t think she’d been paying attention. Guess she wasn’t as unnerved by his oh so manly combination of Old Spice antiperspirant, lake water, and wet dog.

“Give me a few minutes to check things out.”

“Okay.” Sarah stared at him for a moment and Tim felt like a frog under a microscope. She knew what he was doing. The knowledge shined out of her eyes. She knew, she understood, and apparently, she agreed that it was necessary.

That worried him. What the hell was he getting himself into? And why couldn’t he walk away? God knew, this whole scenario screamed nothing but trouble.

“If you want my help, you’ve got to start talking to me. You can start by telling me where you’ve been all these years and why you haven’t aged a single day.” Tim gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached and went back to checking rooflines, corners, cars, and shadows. He’d probably crack a damn tooth, but he’d wait her out, get some answers.

All the while, that Mark on the side of his neck heated and burned, like he’d been injected with a twelve-hour Bengay time-release medicine capsule under the skin. His scar was normally numb, so the extra sensation was making him edgy.

She sighed, and Bandit lifted her head to glare at him when Sarah’s fingers stopped moving in her fur yet again. “Your Google was right. I was windsurfing that day. I did get struck by lightning. But what it doesn’t know is that it wasn’t just a freak storm that blew in over Lake Michigan.” Sarah took a deep breath and rubbed Bandit’s ears. “In fact, I’m not sure what it was. All I know is I was surfing, then sizzling, then I spent what felt like a few hours in a strange room hallucinating…” A shudder raced through her shoulders and Tim resisted the urge to remove his hand from the steering wheel so he could run his fingers under her hair and rub the tension out of her neck muscles.

“You still haven’t answered my questions. Where were you?”

Sarah’s silence felt like it dragged on for a week. “Even if I tell you now, you won’t believe me. Not until you meet Alexa and Luke.”

He wanted to push her but he was afraid she was right. He wouldn’t believe her. “Then tell me something I will believe.”

“Friday morning, at dawn, Chicago is going to be attacked by an advanced weapon that uses some kind of freaky theoretical particles. All of Chicago, every building, every person, everything is going to vanish in a matter of minutes.”

Nine million people. Theoretical weapon. Tim’s instincts roared to life. Surely those bastards couldn’t have completed the weapon already? He’d destroyed everything, all of his research, every hard drive scrambled, every piece of paper shredded and imposters put into play. He would not be another naïve idiot like Leó Szilárd. That poor bastard scientist had worked to develop nuclear weapons, then was shocked and resentful that the military dared kill people with his invention.

Tim had dived in to electromagnetics and quantum theory headfirst. The possibilities? Exciting. Space travel. Unlimited clean energy. All the amazing things that could be accomplished with the technology dancing in his head, ideas from
Star Trek
episodes to science fiction classics suddenly made possible.

But he’d seen too much, knew how that would play out. He might build a “warp drive” or make fossil fuel obsolete, but he’d give the war mongers a weapon too terrible to imagine. A weapon that could annihilate a city the size of Chicago in seconds.

Hell, no. Point him in the right direction and he’d kill the bastards before they got the attack off the ground. He had friends who’d help. A few phone calls and he’d have a couple of “retired”, stateside guys ready to roll in less than twelve hours, guys who knew how to take care of things. “Who has a weapon capable of that? Where are they? And why did you show up in my backyard?”

“I don’t know where they came from, but they’re not human. The Archiver didn’t tell me the details about them. I’m not sure even they know. They just told me about the attack. The CIA, FBI, police, military, none of them would believe me. You know that. They’d throw me in a dark hole somewhere and write me off as insane. Then Chicago would die and they’d torture me for information I can’t give them. And it will happen. They can’t stop it. I’m the only one who can stop it and Celestina said I need your help to do it.”

“The Seer? A woman who told you that she can see the future?” Distance viewing. Precognition. Prophecy. His own life experiences. That a woman could witness a possible future was easier for him to believe.