The Children Who Time Lost (35 page)

I smiled and relaxed in the chair. Trust them to come up with that assumption. Men. “Who said it was my first time?”

Michael gave me an approving nod and turned his gaze out the window. Silence returned to the limo. We were safe for the time being.

I hadn’t heard other cars for a while. Only birds and the sound of rough terrain filled my ears. We were heading somewhere off the beaten track. Many times I’d wanted to ask Michael where we were going, but the scowl on his face told me he didn’t want to talk about anything. Manuel pulled to a stop after over four hours of driving. The doors opened, and he helped Doug out and I followed.

We were surrounded by about four acres of green grass, with a small lake a few yards away, to our right. I saw cows and sheep in the distance, but my eyes rested on the house in front of us. It was a large bungalow with a barn and trees everywhere. A black Cadillac was parked just outside it. Worried, I looked at Michael, but he didn’t seem concerned. An older man with a round face and glasses stepped out of the car and approached us. I took a step back and grabbed Michael’s wrist.

“Relax,” Michael said. “That’s the doctor.”

The man walked up to us and took Doug’s arm and studied his wounds. “I’ll get him inside,” he said to Michael.

Michael nodded, and the doctor started helping Doug into the house.

“Will he be all right?” I asked.

The doctor turned and smiled. “He’ll be just fine.”

Manuel got in the car and started the engine.

“Where’s he going?” I asked Michael.

“He’s getting rid of the car. We can’t risk anyone finding us through it.”

“But I thought he disabled the tracker.”

“Anyone could have seen us on our way here.” He eased me toward the house. “Where are we?”

“Hollister. San Benito.”

The name meant nothing to me.

“Don’t worry, we’re still in California.” He kept walking into the house, but I didn’t move an inch. I was still processing everything that had happened. The Shriniks could hypnotize people to do their bidding. Who could I really trust?

Michael spun around and ushered me forward. “Come on inside. Let’s get you some food.”

I nodded and followed him.

“You can have my ex-wife’s room,” he said.

I wondered why he told me that. I really didn’t need to know that.

He stopped and seemed to study me. “You know, you kinda look like her. Same eyes.” He kept walking.

I shrugged and kept going. Again, he was giving me information that didn’t seem important. I guessed he wasn’t completely over her. “What was her name?” I said.

“Bethany.”

“What happened?”

He glanced back at me with a blank expression.

“Your wife. What happened with your wife?”

“Oh.” He smiled and shrugged. “I guess she just wanted more.” He stepped into the house.

I stopped. What more could she have wanted? Michael seemed to have everything. I walked in.

The first thing I did was have a shower. I used the fresh towels Michael had given me to dry off. The fresh smell of wood filled the whole house. I could hear the cows and the birds through the windows, which was nice. All I’d known for most of my life was the hustle and bustle of fast city life. This was different. At that moment, I felt as if I could live the rest of my life here. I dried myself off and opened the room’s massive closet, beside a king-size bed. I put on some faded jeans and a black top. There was no point thinking about visiting my hotel anymore. Anything I’d left there was gone. I was just happy that I still had my medication. My cash was almost completely gone, too.

I went through each of the drawers on the table opposite the bed. It was obvious that Bethany had stayed in this room. There were at least ten bottles of perfume, most unopened. I looked at the picture of her on the wall, above the full-length mirror. How vain could she possibly be, to have a picture of herself in her own room? But then again, she was married to Michael. There was a passing resemblance. Our hair color and complexion were similar, but that was it as far as I was concerned. I continued opening the drawers. When I reached the bottom right drawer, I saw numerous magazines with Bethany’s face plastered on the front. I pulled out one where she posed with only leaves covering her body. I flipped to the fifth page, where she was interviewed, and read the entire article. She was some sort of high-flying model and magazine editor as well as the goddaughter of Michael’s CFO, Barry Clark. Some of her answers made her sound obnoxious, such as when she said that money was the only definition of happiness. But she also seemed like a woman in love, even if for some of the wrong reasons. She said it had been love at first sight when she met Michael. I shook my head at the thought that even men like Michael had the same trouble as the rest of us with maintaining a relationship.

I sprayed on some of Bethany’s Tom Ford perfume and counted my money. I had just over two thousand dollars left. I heard movement outside and pushed the door open. I saw Michael walking down the corridor toward the living room.

I stepped out and saw a door opening at the end of the hall. The doctor stepped out and shut the door. Then he walked into the living room. I shut my door and ran after him. I stopped outside the room he’d walked out of and reached for the handle. But I didn’t open it. I stood there for a moment before hearing Michael speaking with the doctor. I walked into the living room.

“That’s great news,” I heard Michael say.

“What is?” I asked.

Both men turned to me. They sat across from each other. The TV to their right was switched on, but the volume had been muted.

“Ray was just telling me about Doug,” Michael said. “His injuries aren’t serious.”

I sat on the couch beside Michael.

“How are you holding up?” the doctor asked me.

I just stared at him.

“I mean after everything you’ve been through.”

I frowned at Michael.

“Relax, Rachel. He knows everything I do.”

I nodded. “I’m okay, I think. I just want to take my son home.”

Ray nodded. “And you will.” He smiled at Michael. “You have the right man on your side.”

A car pulled up outside. I shot a worried stare at Michael. He walked to the window and peeked outside. Then he moved to the door and opened it. I rose and walked toward him. I saw Manuel get out of a large black SUV and walk toward the house.

Michael looked at me. “I told you I had everything under control.”

We stood aside to let Manuel enter. He held two large plastic bags in each hand.

“Everything okay?” Michael asked.

Manuel nodded and emptied the bag’s content onto the living-room table. He’d brought a large selection of food.

“Did Vijay ask many questions?” Michael asked.

“Nothing I couldn’t handle. I just told him you wanted a car of your own to drive for the next few days.” He looked at Michael after the bags had been emptied.

Michael gave him a single nod and Manuel moved everything to the kitchen next door.

“Right,” Ray said. “I’ll be leaving.”

Michael opened the door for him. Ray shook his hand, nodded at me and walked out. Seconds later, the Cadillac’s engine roared to life and Ray drove off. Michael went into the kitchen and spoke to Manuel for a little while. Then I heard the stocky limo driver walk down the corridor.

When Michael returned, I stood up and met his gaze. “Is everything all right?”

“Sure. The SUV is from one of my guys up here. He keeps some of my cars for me.”

We sat beside each other. “Where’s Manuel?” I asked.

“I sent him to bed. The poor guy’s been looking for us all day.”

“That’s probably a good idea.”

Michael yawned and stretched his arms. “I wish I could sleep, but I just can’t.”

I knew exactly what he meant. “So what do we do now?”

Michael shook his head. “I honestly don’t know.”

“We carry on,” said a voice from the corridor.

Doug was approaching us with determination on his face. His thick beard was gone; he now wore only stubble. He cleaned up quite well. I rushed to my feet and grabbed his shoulders and eased him onto the sofa opposite Michael’s.

“You don’t have to nurse me, Rachel,” he said.

I caressed his hair. “Yes, I do.” I peered into his eyes. “You saved my life.”

He smiled and nodded. I sat back down and noticed Michael withdraw a scowl when our eyes met.
God, he’s jealous.

“Have you heard anything?” Doug asked Michael.

“Nothing. Nothing on the news or anywhere else.”

“What about your work?”

“I’m not taking their calls yet. Too risky.”

Doug frowned at the ceiling. Michael stared out the window. I couldn’t avoid it any longer. “Are we gonna talk about what happened at the gym?”

They looked at me but didn’t speak.

“They can control humans. I mean, Willie didn’t even remember anything. God knows who else they’ve already corrupted.”

All I got were blank stares. Then Doug leaned forward. “We’ll be able to tell. That guy had no emotion in his eyes. He was looking past us rather than at us.”

I scowled and stared at the silent TV set. He was right. Back in 2043, Angela was working with the Shriniks, but she seemed to be doing so willingly, without being controlled.

We all sat in silence for a few minutes, and then Michael coughed. “How did you get here?” he asked Doug.

Doug looked at him, confused.

“Which portal did you use?”

“I popped out in Nevada, probably a few miles from where the meteor hit.”

“Nevada?” I said.

“Don’t ask me how, but that’s where I landed.”

“Then why did I arrive in Barstow?”

They both shrugged. I frowned at the floor and then looked at them with wide eyes. “What if the meteor didn’t even fall from the sky?”

Michael stood up. “You mean—”

“Yes. What if it came out through the portal? What if it wasn’t even a meteor?”

“We need to go out there,” Michael said. “See if anything else comes out. Who knows, maybe we’ll be able to figure out what the hell is going on.”

“You kidding?” Doug said. “In case you haven’t realized, we need to be keeping a low profile right now. Besides, we won’t be able to get near it. There’ll be agents everywhere.”

Michael rose and picked up the remote. He changed the channel to one showing a scene of the site. A number of people were on top of nearby hills, watching government agents collecting samples from the crash site.

“See what I mean?” he said in a raised voice. “There are people out there. We can blend in.”

Doug scratched his beard and stood up also. “But we can’t go out there and just wait for a portal to appear.”

I could feel the tension in the room. I rushed to my feet and stood between them. “You’re right, Michael, we need to get out there. But Doug is also right. We can’t just go there and wait. We need a plan.”

Doug paced, glancing at the screen every few seconds. “The Shrinik that helped me said that the portal reacted to extreme heat.”

Michael held his palms up. “So?”

“What if we could trigger the portal ourselves? With some powerful explosives, we could do just that.”

“Explosives?” Michael said. “You crazy? Do you know how much attention that will attract? You said it yourself: We need to be keeping a low profile.”

“It’s still better than going out there and just waiting.”

Michael kicked the couch and walked toward the window. Then he turned and faced us. “What if we go through the hassle of getting these explosives, and they don’t even work? What if no one comes through? What if it turns out to be a big waste of time?”

“Then we’ll go to where I came through,” I said. “They could just as easily come through the Barstow portal.”

“I’m telling you,” Doug said, “it’ll work.”

“It actually could,” I said. “But we’ll need to wait until the area is cleared out.”

Doug and I looked at Michael. We needed him behind us before we could do anything. A single nod of Michael’s head told us all we needed to know.

“Will it be a problem staying here until we go?” Doug said.

Michael shook his head and stood up. “I’ll start working on getting the explosives.” He walked toward the corridor.