The Day Before Forever (18 page)

Henley laughed. “It's all about appearances. But yes, my business often took me to people's houses and their private studies were my meeting rooms.”

“Private studies that looked like this, I'm guessing?” Henley would never—and
could
never—guess at the difference in economic backgrounds between his upbringing and Cynthia's. I didn't remember much of Cynthia's house, but I knew it wasn't anything like this or Henley's country estate.

Henley said something, but I didn't quite catch it.

“What?”

“Penny for your thoughts? You're tilting your head like you're in the middle of a harsh debate with yourself.” Henley chuckled.

“I'm just thinking about the difference in upbringing between you and Cynthia.”

“Is there that much of a difference?” He stretched his shoulders.

“More than you know.”

We heard the door open, and Hilary came in carrying a wooden tray with two porcelain cups of coffee. She walked toward us carefully and set it down on the clear acrylic table in front of us.

“Enjoy,” she said. She walked back to her station at the desk.

There were brown sugar cubes in a matching porcelain sugar bowl. Each piece of porcelain had a different geometric design etched in gold. As I looked closer, I realized the tray wasn't made of real wood. It was aluminum, or some sort of other metal, simply painted to look like wood.

Henley caught on to the fake wood tray too. “A metaphor for this time, don't you think?” he whispered to me.

I watched Henley completely disregard the sugar and drink his coffee black.

“Don't you want some sugar in that?” I said. “Look, there's even some cream.”

“Sugar's for the weak,” he said.

I made a point of putting two sugars in my coffee. And also a bit of cream.

“Why, hello.”

Tabitha walked into the lobby, as if she hadn't known we would be there. She might have had us wait on purpose, even if she didn't have anything else to do that day.

“Why don't you take your drinks and come follow me, if you please?”

Henley and I each took our own cup and saucer as we stood.

Tabitha opened the door. “I trust you both have been having a fine day?” Her smile was so practiced, it almost looked genuine.

“We have been, and yourself?” Henley ushered me in front of him, so I was trapped between him and Tabitha as they spoke over me.

“The typical workday,” she said. “Enhanced by caffeine, of course.”

We walked down the hall with me stuck in the middle, making me feel like a herded sheep. I presumed we were going to another conference room.

I caught sight of one room with the lights on. Was it the same room we had been in before? I looked through the glass walls, and it looked like those might be the same orchids in the middle of the table.

Tabitha opened the door to the room. “Please, take a seat.”

Henley took the seat he had taken before, and I sat next to him in my original seat by the door. I set the backpack on my knees.

Tabitha sat across from us, and I saw there were forms already stacked on the table.

“Nothing to be afraid of,” she said. She looked so calm and collected. “Just some forms that will need your attention. Let me first start off by relaying what our jewelry experts said.” She smiled, but it looked like she was baring her teeth. “They were quite pleased by how wonderfully the jewelry had been preserved. The garnet is practically without scratches. Your late grandmother—and those who owned it before her—must have been especially diligent with that, Mr. Beauford. Our experts haven't seen anything like it, and therefore we are willing to offer a great sum for it.”

I thought back to when we had sold my dress as a Tudor “costume.” Even that went for a great deal more than I had thought. I couldn't think what the jewelry would bring in—especially with its semiprecious stones. Would it be an amount we could even manage?

My mind started to race. Tabitha had mentioned a bank
transfer. I hoped that wouldn't cause any problems. We didn't have a bank account in the UK. Miss Hatfield had set something up for us in the US. I knew that because we'd had a credit card we could use. I remember her telling me the account was with Chase. She had made me memorize certain things when she was alive—it was as if she knew something would happen to her. The bank name and account number were a couple of the things she made me commit to memory—along with the house address and her cell phone number, of course. Hopefully we could use that bank account, but it would take a long time for that amount of money to clear, especially if it came from overseas. We just couldn't deal with too big an amount from Carter House.

“What offer are you willing to make for the earrings alone?” I asked.

Tabitha's eyes darted to me in surprise. I wasn't sure if she was surprised that I was speaking or if the surprise was aimed at what I had asked.

“The earrings alone? Six hundred thousand.”

“Six hundred thousand?” Henley and I said, almost simultaneously.

“That's our highest offer,” Tabitha said. “You won't get that offer anywhere else selling directly.”

Their highest offer was almost too high. That might be a problem.

“We'd like to only sell the earrings,” I said.

Even calm and collected Tabitha wasn't so calm and collected anymore. “Pardon?”

I looked at Henley as I spoke. “At this moment, we'd like to only sell the earrings directly to Carter House.”

Tabitha's face was beginning to blanch. “B-but, Mr. Beauford, our prior agreement—”

“You said it wasn't a final deal until today,” Henley jumped in. “Our prior meeting was ‘only an agreement for an appraisal,' I believe you said. And something about ‘both parties are not required to go through with the transaction.'”

Thank God Henley was backing me up on this, though I didn't know how much he knew about bank transfers and sending money overseas. Surely things must have changed since his time.

“We're not even calling off the transaction,” I said. “We're only modifying it.”

“You won't find a higher price selling directly for the necklace,” Tabitha said.

“You're probably right,” I said.

Henley took my hand in his and gave it a squeeze in front of Tabitha. “Rebecca's just looking out for me. She knows I have sentimental value tied to this jewelry set; it's the object that reminds me most of my grandmother. I hadn't been able to see it before, but selling the entire set would not be the right thing to do right now. Surely you understand, Tabitha?”

Tabitha's gaping mouth scrambled to figure out what to say, but Henley didn't give her a moment to speak.

Instead, he continued. “With any other run-of-the-mill auction house, I wouldn't even think to sell the earrings, but Carter House is a different institution. Its clients are some of the most refined connoisseurs of art and jewelry there are. I'm sure Carter House would be able to find someone who cares about these earrings almost as much as I do.”

There was a pause.

“Well, what do you say, Tabitha?”

“Let me print out new paperwork,” she said. Tabitha was so flustered, she forgot to excuse herself when she left the room.

“That was wonderful,” I whispered to Henley.

“I hope that was worth it,” he said.

“It is. I promise.” I didn't want to explain it here, for fear that someone might walk in and overhear our conversation.

“You'd better explain later.”

Ten minutes later, Tabitha came in with a new stack of papers and a suede pouch. The papers were so fresh from the printer that they were warm when she passed them to us.

“The necklace,” she said, as she passed the suede pouch to our side of the table.

I took a peek, and sure enough, my necklace was in the pouch. It looked regal—and so much more expensive—wrapped in suede. It also looked as though they had cleaned the necklace, as it sparkled more than it had before.

I turned my attention to the forms Henley was already going through. “Tudor-era garnet earrings” was the only item listed for sale. The price was six hundred thousand pounds as promised.

“Could you please verify that the information is correct from our last meeting and then sign the highlighted sections?”

Henley scanned over the address and information section. “It looks all right to me.” He signed his name on the various pages.

“Should we use the address on file as the billing address?”

I answered that one. “Yes.”

Tabitha took down notes on a sheet of paper she had in front of her. “The bank transfer will take place as soon as possible on our end, but please remember it might take a while for it to clear overseas.”

“And the cash?” Henley asked.

“Is right here.” Tabitha took out an envelope and passed it toward us. “Ten thousand pounds. You can check it.”

I peeked inside and saw it was thick with stacks of cash. Each stack even had a rubber band around it.

Henley put the envelope in the green backpack.

“Now, if that will be all for today . . .” Tabitha stood, and we followed suit. “Please let me escort you both to the lobby.”

Tabitha opened the door and led us through to the sitting room.

“If there's anything else that we can do, please don't hesitate to give us a ring.” Tabitha smiled, though she was probably thankful to get rid of us. “Carter House would love to be of service.”

She shook Henley's hand then mine. Her fingers were so cold compared to mine, I expected them to sizzle upon contact with my hand.

Tabitha left us in the lobby, and I called the elevator. Henley gave Hilary a quick wave before we stepped in.

“Lobby, please,” Henley said.

The man in the elevator pressed the lowest button.

The doors opened, and we glided through the main lobby and onto the streets. We were only out a second before Henley spoke.

“So what was that about selling only the earrings?”

We walked farther away from the buildings before I answered him.

“It would have been too much money if we had sold it all,” I explained. “Firstly, we definitely don't need more than six hundred thousand in British pounds. Even that amount is a lot more than I thought we'd get for just the earrings.”

“Secondly?” he prompted.

“Secondly, transferring that much money overseas would have raised a lot of flags.”

Henley was now cradling the green backpack in front of him like an infant.

“That looks even more suspicious,” I said, pointing to the way he was wearing it.

“I don't care.” Henley dropped his voice. “Did you see how many bills she put in there?” But he still rearranged his arms so he looked less like he was carrying something valuable.

“That's what ten thousand pounds looks like,” I said.

“I know . . . but my God!”

I knew what he meant. It was one thing to think about ten thousand pounds and it was a whole different thing to actually see that much money in front of you.

“We should go back to the room now,” I said, already starting to drag Henley in the direction of the hostel. “There's no way I feel comfortable walking around with that kind of money on you. I feel like you'd get mugged at gunpoint.”

Henley quickened his steps. “That would be a problem.”

We rushed the rest of the way to the hostel. Most of the walk—almost jog—was a blur, but I paused at one point when I saw a flyer taped on a wall advertising a free movie. Henley
didn't seem to notice it. “
A Fine Experiment
,” it read. It didn't sound like that interesting of a title, but there was a picture of an old woman holding the hand of a young man. In some ways, it reminded me of Henley and me. It stuck in my mind. They listed a few showings. Maybe we should see it? It
was
free. I made sure I remembered the address.

For the rest of our walk I kept looking over my shoulder, paranoid that a stranger would come up to us and demand we hand over the money. I knew I shouldn't have been that worried. Henley didn't
look
like he was carrying that much money anyway.

Once in our room, we recounted the money in the backpack and put it under the bed. Though it was probably more dangerous for us to leave it behind, it felt like a relief to not have to worry about it being stolen from us.

“There has to be a better hiding spot,” Henley said. “If I were to rob a room, I feel like that's the first place I'd look.”

“Look around,” I said. “Do you see another place we could put it?”

The room was sparse. Aside from the bed there was only the bedside table, but the drawer was too small for the backpack and the table was too small for us to hide the backpack behind.

“Good point.”

TEN

“NOW THAT WE
have the money, we should really call Carl again. This time for the passports.”

“That man?” Henley didn't bother to hide his distaste.

“I know you don't like him—”

“I don't feel comfortable with him.”

“He's not here to make us feel comfortable. He's here to get us passports.”

It was a little blunt, but it seemed to work, as Henley followed me down to the hostel lobby.

“Why don't you do it?” Henley looked at the ground between his feet. “I'd call him, but um . . . I don't think he likes me. He seems to like you better.”

I would have laughed if I hadn't been so nervous about calling Carl myself. He had been nice enough to me, but he was still a criminal. I picked up the phone and began to dial.

It rang.

“Anything?” Henley asked.

“Not yet.”

The phone rang again.

“Still nothing?” Henley was putting me on edge.

“You'll hear it if he picks up,” I said.

I was about to give up when I heard a click on the other end.

“Hi . . . uh, Carl?”

“Yes?” He sounded more intimidating on the phone than he did in real life.

“This is Rebecca and Henley,” I said.

There was no response back. I would have thought the line had dropped if it hadn't been for the breathing I could hear.

I chose my words carefully. “We met in front of the pub?” I couldn't exactly say, “Oh, we were the ones you helped get fake IDs for,” while we were in public.

“Where are you calling from?”

“Um, the hostel lobby?”

“The hostel you and your boy are staying at?”

“Yes?”

“God, woman. You should never use a phone connected to where you're staying.”

“Sorry . . . ?”

“Are you at least using a pay phone?”

“No . . .” I wondered if he would hang up on me.

“Good God, are you trying to get yourself arrested?”

If only he knew I had bigger problems. Like an unknown killer after me.

There was a pause. Henley was looking pale.

“Let's make this quick, then. What can I do for you? There
is
a reason you called, isn't there?”

“Yes, yes there is.” My mind scrambled to think of a way to ask this. What was the best approach?

“Spit it out, woman.”

“We need passports,” I said.

I saw Henley look over his shoulder to make sure no one was around. He signaled for me to lower my voice.

“Two?” Carl asked. “One for you and one for that kid you like to tote around?”

“You mean Henley? Yeah.”

“And you want the real deal? I mean, it'll still be a fake, but a damn good one. Something that'll have the electronics inside and get you through airport security?”

“Well, yes. That's what we were thinking,” I said.

There was a low whistle on the other end. “Oh, girl . . . you're asking for a lot.”

I felt my stomach drop. “You can't do it?” We were back to square one, with no way of getting out of the country.

“I didn't say that, did I now?”

“S-so you can?”

“It'll cost you an arm and a leg, but sure, my guy can do it.”

I bit my lip. We had some money now, but still not an enormous amount. “How much will it cost?”

“Not on here,” Carl said. “We'll talk.”

“I need this as quickly as possible.”

“Then you want to talk now, girl? I'm in the neighborhood. If you promise to make this worth my while, I can be there in ten,” he said.

Before I could respond, the line went dead.

I steadied my hand, putting the phone receiver down.

Henley was pacing in front of me already. It was clear he had heard all that had been said.

“Let's go outside,” I said, hoping it would stop Henley's pacing.

Unfortunately, he continued.

“You really think he can do this?” Henley asked.

“He's the best shot we have,” I said. “And they did a great job on the IDs.”

“This better work . . . It'll probably cost a fortune.”

I didn't tell him I was worried we wouldn't have enough.

Ten minutes later, practically on the dot, Carl walked over to us. This time he was wearing a navy sweatshirt—also with a stain down the front. I was beginning to think his entire wardrobe consisted of dirty sweatshirts he never washed.

“My favorite twosome,” he said.

I was getting used to him leering at us.

He tilted his head toward the back alleyway we always had our conversations in.

Carl walked toward the alley, and we gave it a full minute before we followed.

“Not bad,” he said when he saw us. “You're becoming more natural at this. Pretty soon you'll be just like me.”

That was exactly what I didn't want to hear.

“So let's talk business, eh?” Carl looked at me instead of Henley.

“How much is it going to cost?” Henley said.

“First, let me clarify . . . we're talking American passports, aren't we?”

“Yes,” I said.

Carl shook his head. “Sorry, sweetheart. That's only going to drive the cost up for you.”

“Just because they're American?” Henley didn't understand.

“We live in a post-nine/eleven world, kid,” Carl said, not that that meant anything to Henley.

“It's okay,” I said quietly to Henley. “So how much are we talking?”

“In American dollars? Seven thousand five hundred and up.”

My jaw dropped.

Seeing my reaction, Carl said, “We're talking complicated stuff. Working MRZs, authentic microchipping. Even the passport numbers work when you type them in online. We basically get stolen passports, strip them, and rebuild them—”

I had to think we were going to spend around four hundred and fifty pounds on the hostel room. And then there were plane tickets . . . What would that cost? Eight hundred and fifty pounds? “We can't afford that,” I said.

“Not my problem.”

We were going to be stuck here, on this continent, with no way out. I could travel back to a time period where I could take a boat across the Atlantic with limited documentation, but how long was that going to take? Months at least? Months of potentially being stuck on a boat with a killer after me. If he could find our hostel and our exact room in a specific time, there was no stopping him from finding me on an enclosed boat. And what of Henley? I'd have to leave him here.

Tears pricked at my eyes.

“Whoa, whoa, girl. Don't you go crying on me.”

I sniffed. “I can't help it.”

“Yeah, you can!” Carl said. “Tears don't do anything for me.”

By now, they were streaming down my face. Henley put an arm around me.

“Stop it,” Carl hissed. “Goddamn, woman, stop it.”

But I was blubbering. “I just want to go home . . .”

“Well then find some other way.”

That only made me cry harder. “There's no other way. We tried.”

“Get someone to send you money, then. You got relatives, right?”

“I don't have anyone.” I sobbed. “
We
don't have anyone.”

“An orphan already? Hate it when relatives leave without giving money,” Carl said. “For God's sake, stop the crying already.”

“I'm trying!”

“I'll . . . I'll cut the cost if you stop your crying.”

I sniffed. “To how much?”

“Well, how much can you afford?”

Henley spoke quietly. “We only have a little over four thousand pounds.” We had more, but I knew Henley had done some math too, taking the hostel room into account, and leaving us with extra money for plane tickets and whatnot.

“Whoa, whoa. That's a big cut. You're practically asking me to get my guy to do this for free. Are you insane? Absolutely not.”

My tears started again.

Finally, Carl spoke directly to Henley. “Can't you get your woman to stop crying?”

“I'm sorry,” I said. “I honestly can't help it. I just want to get back to the States.”

Carl sighed. “All right.”

“W-what?” I wasn't sure if I heard correctly.

“I said all right, woman! Geez, don't make me repeat myself . . .”

Henley hesitated. “So you'll do it for four thousand pounds?”

Carl crossed his arms. “But you're paying in full now. None of that half up front and half later stuff. Seven thousand five hundred dollars is four thousand eight hundred pounds, more or less. That's the price for two and my guy gets a percentage of the profits, see . . . So I have to give up my percentage for him to keep his.”

“A-and you'd do that? For us?” My eyes were so wide the tears made a film over them.

“Whoa there, don't get all glossy-eyed on me, girl. That's almost worse than crying. Call it my yearly pro bono work. Can't be doing this all the time, but gotta get the big guy in the sky to get me into heaven somehow, right?”

I didn't know if someone who forged passports and IDs would be getting into heaven, if there even was one, but who was I to make that decision? I could have hugged Carl in that moment, sweatshirt stain and all.

Carl took out his phone and made us stand still for a photo.

“This is going to be your passport photo, okay?”

“How quickly can we get them?” I asked.

“Making demands already, I see?” Carl said. “We'll get
them to you as quickly as possible, but you know, it'll take two weeks, maybe?”

Two weeks. That was a long while for staying in one place. But what could we do?

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much.”

Carl blushed, and he rubbed his cheeks as if to rub the embarrassment away. “Don't go telling your friends that Carl here went soft for a crying woman. Can't stand the waterworks . . .”

I smiled. Tough guy Carl had a heart.

“We
really
need these passports as soon as possible.”

Carl sighed. “What room are you staying in?” He tilted his head in the direction of the hostel.

“It's the Blue Flax room,” I said.

I saw Henley stiffen up next to me. I knew he wouldn't like Carl knowing where we stayed, but if it somehow helped, I was willing to do anything.

I wondered if Carl would deliver the passports directly to us, even though he was usually cautious about conducting his business in public.

“If it's just a drop-off, I can do that at the room,” he said, answering my question. He gave me a nod. “Now, scat and get my money. I gotta get on with my work, and also tell my guy he'll be working overtime this week.”

Henley and I grabbed the green backpack from our room and gave Carl his share.

He counted the cash and only nodded before leaving.

We turned the corner, planning on going straight back to the hostel, but Henley got sidetracked when he saw a pharmacy
across the street advertising that they developed photos.

He dragged me into the store without even asking.

“These stores have
everything
,” he said, half to himself.

“We don't have room in our budget to go around getting photos developed. Not today, anyway.”

“Just once,” he said, already walking up to the photo counter. “It can't be that much. Besides, we don't have any photographs of us together.”

It wouldn't be of us together
,
I wanted to say.
It would be of me with Richard.

Part of me agreed with Henley. I wanted something tangible of us together, but I also didn't want to see Richard in that photo instead of Henley.

Henley had already paid and handed the attendant the camera. We could hear the faint thrum of the machines in the back processing the film.

Twenty minutes later, we were handed an envelope.

Henley couldn't wait and dumped out all the contents on the counter.

There were many of me looking off into a different direction—Henley must have taken photos without me realizing. There were also the ones of us hip to hip, grinning into the camera.

I watched him finger each photo. I couldn't tell if he was looking at my face in the photos, or if he was looking at his—or rather, Richard's.

“Rebecca . . .”

There was one photo—it was probably my favorite—in which I was staring up at Henley while he smiled at the camera.
I appeared so at peace, looking into his face. It was a photo that described how I felt when I was with Henley.

“Rebecca, look.” Henley pointed to the same photo I was looking at.

“What about that photo?” I squinted at it.

Henley pointed directly to a black blur on the left-hand side of the photo.

“That's just someone's shoulder,” I said. “It looks like they were trying to get out of the way of the photo.”

Henley pointed to the left side of another photo. It was the same left shoulder.