No Unturned Stone Page 3

  “Yeah.” I walk over beside his chair. “It’s me. How are you?” Except, what a terrible thing to ask. I offer a thin smile.

  “Did you change anything?”

  So he does remember. Our last conversation, the one in the past included me blurting out a diatribe of confusion about my time travel, the fear I might be stuck in the past forever, and too many unanswered questions about how the watch works.

  He had no answers. Just the cryptic, The watch is working.

  Which is why I nod. “Yes.” I have to tighten my jaw against a rush of emotions. I stare at him, and he meets my eyes, and nods slowly.

  I can’t think, don’t have words. I just go to one knee and lower my head.

  Deep inside, I fear that somehow, I’ve done this terrible thing to him. Somehow my choices have created a dissection of time, splintering off to this hell we both find ourselves trapped inside.

  I finally take a shuddered breath and lift my head.

  Only then do I notice his daughter, seated on the remaining leather chair across the room. A tear falls off her chin. She wipes it fast and gets up, heads into the kitchen.

  I turn to Art. “I don’t know what to do.”

  He’s listening, and apparently doesn’t think I’m certifiable, so, “I used the watch, and it…it sent me back to 1997.”

  He doesn’t blink, unfazed.

  “I thought it was a dream at first—it felt like a dream. But I could smell and taste things, so it couldn’t be a dream, right? But still, I thought it might be—even until the end. I came back and I was in exactly the same place I was when I left—like I’d never been gone at all. And I still would have thought it was a dream if…” And my throat starts to clog, but I press through, “If my entire world hadn’t changed.”

  I take a breath because his gaze is on me. My voice collapses. “I came home and terrible things have happened to my family. My daughter was murdered. And my wife…” I clench my jaw and force the words. “She’s divorcing me.”

  “Oh, Rembrandt,” he says, and gives me a look I want to interpret as sympathy.

  But I’m not done, so I clear my throat and keep dishing out the horror. “There’s a serial killer on the loose, which is new. I mean, there were kids disappearing before I left—” And even as I say that, I realize that yes, the day I went back to 1997, my wife returned from work with the horrific news of a young man who’d gone missing. Which doesn’t match the M.O. on the board, but maybe in this timeline, Booker—and I?—have discovered a connection to the killings.

  The Jackson killer.

  Or, did I do something in the past to unleash these murders? The idea turns me cold.

  I look back at Art. “I don’t understand. I mean, how can I do something that causes so many deaths. All I did was solve a cold case.”

  Art nods.

  “You could have rewritten your timeline,” says a voice from the door and I realize Meggie has been listening. She’s holding a lemonade and now brings it into the room and hands it to me. “Right, Dad?”

  “Maybe,” Art says.

  “What are you talking about?” I say as Meggie comes in and sits down.

  “Have you ever heard of Chronothesia?”

  “No.”

  Art pipes up. “It’s the idea that we can ‘travel’ in our minds to a previous time, and in that moment, re-evaluate our actions. It’s a way for psychologists to help trauma sufferers re-enact their trauma for a better outcome.”

  And now he’s lost me. “I thought you were a watch repair man.”

  “I am.” But for the first time, ever, I get the tiniest smile from Art.

  “Mom and Dad were time travel theorists,” Meggie says, warmth in her voice.

  “I still am … maybe,” Art mutters.

  Meggie glances at my lemonade. I wonder if she’s laced it with something stronger. I take a drink and it’s tart and bracing and exactly what I need when she adds, “Think mental time travel.”

  I raise an eyebrow. Because, well, that makes a little sense. “Like… Quantum Leap?”

  Art chuckles. “No. That was fiction.”

  Right. “You’re saying when I was back in time, I was in my younger body, but my, um, self, stayed here.”

  Meggie looks at me with something of a bingo in her eyes. “It’s the theory that a person could connect with himself, in the past, through chronothesia and create different choices, which would, then affect his current situation.”

  “Like that movie, Back to the Future.”

  “Again, that’s fiction, but yes you’re getting closer.”

  “You’re saying that if I travel back in time in my mind, and relive my life, only with a different outcome, I’m really rewriting my life?”

  I look at Art, who is nodding.

  “But then I’ve overwritten all the events of everyone’s lives,” I say to Meggie.

  Now it’s her turn to nod.

  I steal a furtive glance at Art. How can I reveal what I did to him?

  His mouth tightens, however, because he knows that I know something.

  “So, what happens to my memories when I come back? If I’ve changed things, then why don’t I remember them?”

  “Because your consciousness travels outside of time. Think of it like flying. Then, when you return to your time, the place you started, you ‘come back to earth’.” Art finger quotes the words. “And once you land, your memories will start catching up. The longer you’re in the current time, the more your beginning memories will sync with your new memories.”

  Which means the longer I stay here, the more my Ashley, my seven-year-old cherub, vanishes. I breathe out low and long. “So how did this happen?”

  “Were you thinking about anything specific when you, um, went back?” Art asks.

  The cold case. “I was holding a file on the coffee shop bombings. And I went back to the moment of the first bombing.”

  “So, the connection is your cold cases,” Meggie says.

  “Those contain some pretty powerful regrets, I’m guessing.” Art is looking at me, something of compassion in his eyes.

  I nod.

  “So powerful, that you might wish yourself back there, to do something different.”

  I see where he’s going. “And that desire could be powerful enough to cause chronothesia?”

  “Maybe,” Art says.

  “And the watch?”

  “My theory is that it acts like the GPS system, taking you to the right place and time,” Art says.

  “But it doesn’t even work.” I pull back my shirt sleeve to reveal the watch, the hands still frozen.

  “Doesn’t it?” Art says.

  Oh, right…

  I have to ask the question but am terrified of the answer. “Can I reset it? Fix it?”

  I need my world back.

  “Where did you get the watch?” Meggie asks, leaning forward.

  “His boss.” I can’t believe Art remembers that. “The police chief.”

  Silence.

  “Please tell me I can fix what I’ve done.” I sound desperate, because, well, I am.

  More silence.

  “Art?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. But remember, if you try to rewrite time, you risk changing a trillion other tiny elements that can have dire consequences.”

  Hello. This isn’t news to me.

  “You could go back and put right what went wrong.” Meggie says, her gaze on her father.

  “I saved lives,” I say. “I can’t go back and…blow up the coffee shop.”

  Although if I could, would I? Right now, maybe I would, although I’m ashamed to admit it.

  “I think it’s not a matter of fixing, but of creating a rewrite you can live with…” Meggie says. “Or,” and she lifts a shoulder, “Maybe you just stay here, and try and live with your new reality.”

  No. Way.

  “How would I even…” And then it comes to me… I’ll return to the day Ashley was killed and stop it. I don’
t care about the cold cases—I mean, yes, I do, but really, what would you do? I’ll just change this one thing.

  And then, everyone will live happily ever after.

  I’m getting my daughter and my wife back. I get up, run my hand over my head and look down at Art. I have to know. “What happened?”

  He makes a face. “We were coming back from a wedding on a Saturday afternoon and a car just came out of nowhere and t-boned us.”

  He glances at Meggie.

  “Mom was killed instantly.” She puts a hand on his shoulder. “Dad suffered a fracture of his C-4 vertebrae.”

  I know enough to recognize the injury of a quadriplegic.

  “I’m so sorry.”

  “It was a freak accident. I don’t think it’s anything you did, son.”

  Art’s words are so kind, I am undone. Especially since this is not the Arthur Fox I remember. Suffering has softened his rough edges.

  “Would you like to stay for lunch?” Meggie asks after a pregnant moment.

  “I can’t. I have to interview a witness and do a press conference.”

  Meggie glances at the television and back to me. “I thought I recognized you. You’re the one who’s heading up the investigation on the serial killer.”

  I freeze, deer in the headlights.

  Art is looking at me. “You don’t remember that, do you?”

  I shake of my head.

  “Oh boy,” Meggie is shaking her head, too.

  Exactly.

  “Be stalwart,” Art says and I suddenly understand the inscription. Indeed. I head toward the door.

  Meggie grabs it behind me as I step out.

  I realize I’m still holding the lemonade and finish it before I hand her the glass. “Tastes just like your mother’s.”

  Her mouth opens.

  I wink and go to my car.

  I think I can fix this.

  But first, I have to lie to the world.

  4

  I don’t know why I find myself parked outside the Mulligans’ house, the sun flaming out against the deep blue of Lake Minnetonka. A slight wind bullies the poplar and oak and hovers over the neighborhood, as if in foreboding, and I’m not a detective for nothing. I have instincts and they tell me this is a bad idea.

  I’m listening to the radio, the classic rock station, because even in this altered reality I know good music. The kind of music that fueled all my bravest decisions. My Porsche is purring, ready for a getaway.

  Queen is singing Crazy Little Thing Called Love. Thank you, Freddie. Because I saw Eve go in earlier and I’m stuck in the what-ifs.

  What if Burke is right?

  I know you’re thinking, about what? Wait for it, I’ll explain.

  After leaving the Foxes’, I headed back to Minneapolis and stopped off at the University of Minnesota to check on Hollie Larue, the latest victim. Some passers-by found her half-drowned in the river near the 35W bridge. A waitress from Mahones, she’s blonde, pretty, in her early twenties, and fits the profile of the Jackson victims exactly. Beaten, sexually assaulted and strangled, with a twenty dollar bill tucked in her fist, the words, “Thank you for your service,” written in black sharpie across Jackson’s face.

  Disgusting, if you ask me. Worse, I can’t eject from my brain (although I’m trying) the idea that something this horrific happened to Ashley.

  Maybe Burke is right to keep the file away from me.

  No. Not for a second. I will wrench that file from him tomorrow, even if it takes a brawl.

  I talked with Hollie’s parents, a nice suburban couple who deserved better for their youngest daughter. I left my card and asked them to call me if she woke up, then landed back at the precinct and spent the rest of the day cramming for my big show.

  Burke loaned me his jacket and I realized I needed to hit the weights a little more. But I put on my game face — the one that has walked into hundreds of gruesome murder scenes, the one that has delivered brutal news to parents — and held a short but succinct briefing in the press room at the precinct, the sun hot on the windows. No details, just the update from the doctors on Hollie and our investigation. Which sadly is nothing, and I again asked people to be careful.

  I haven’t mentioned the profiles—young, blonde teens and twenty-somethings, most of them waitresses, bartenders, and working girls. And never would I leak the tidbit about the twenty dollar tips. But I advise all young women to stay in the daylight, walk with friends and make wise choices.

  It sounds like something I’d say to Ashley when she became a teenager. Becomes. Becomes a teenager.

  Apparently, I wasn’t a complete train wreck because Burke gave me a nod. I didn’t take any questions, but Eve fielded a few about the facts we could release about Hollie. Where she was found, and when. Her condition.

  When I stepped back and let Eve take the podium, my heart nearly imploded in my chest.

  Her fragrance hit me, and I realized that in my universe, the one I’m desperately missing, tonight we’d be barbecuing burgers and sharing a cold beer under the stars, waiting for Ashley to go to sleep.

  And then…

  I focused on a spot on the back of her head and tried not to think anymore.

  But she looked good. Wore the same outfit as when she met me at the door this morning—dress pants, a crisp white shirt. Her curly auburn hair is tied back, and she has donned a suit jacket, every inch the award-winning forensic scientist.

  I also know the other Eve. The one who kicks off her heels when she gets into my car, pulls the band from her hair and unbuttons that shirt low enough for me to remind myself to keep my eyes on the road. I could nearly hear her laughter, soft, light and uncoiling the stress of my day—which, until recently consisted of staring at a blank page in my office, searching for words.

  My nose-diving writing career is the very last thing I care about right now.

  So, no, not much success in turning my thoughts blank.

  When she finished, Eve met my eyes with a tight-lipped half-smile of approval.

  I’m like a puppy to her smile, and it took everything inside me not to rush up to her. I feel noosed by the accusations she—and Burke—have thrown at me. I don’t know what I did, but I am sure it merits her anger. After all, I know myself. Had a front row seat of the man I was before she married me.

  Like I said, I’m surprised she stayed with me this long.

  It doesn’t make my sucking chest wound bleed less.

  She left without a word to me, despite the smile, and frankly it didn’t bode well for tonight’s party.

  “I told you she doesn’t want me there,” I said this to Burke two hours later as we sparred in one of the two rings at Quincy’s.

  The old warehouse-turned-gym is located in the heart of Minneapolis and made for guys like me who need loud music and sweat at the end of a day.

  Def Leopard had my number as Foolin’ blared from the overhead speakers, bouncing against the metal beams and exposed piping as we circled each other.

  Burke’s mitt grazed my chin, but I jerked back before it could connect, then closed in for a jab to his mid-section. Connected.

  I didn’t know why his grunt felt so good, but I followed with another and he caught me and shoved me away. He was breathing hard, a sweat turning his bowling ball head shiny. “What did you want her to do? She just delivered you divorce papers.” He bounced away from me.

  I hit the ropes and came back at him. “I dunno. It’s just that Danny and Asher’s deaths were at the center of why we came together. She was obsessed with the investigation.”

  “And you helped her.”

  “Of course I did. And not just because she was hot.”

  Burke shook his head as I charged him. But he stopped me with a gloved fist to my jaw. The world blinked and I dropped like a stone.

  Shoot.

  He laughed as he grabbed me around the arm and pulled me to my feet. “But, she does need you today, even if she says she doesn’t.”

  I don’t
know what he knows, but those words rang inside me and I debated, but finally took a shower, headed home, changed clothes, and turned up here.

  The night is cool, the sky bruised and hurting and it conjures up the time we—well, she—sneaked into her house to talk her brother, Asher, into helping us crack the coffee shop bombing case. Asher was young and smart and would have made a dent on this world had he and his father not been gunned down at a local convenience store a few weeks later in a drive-by shooting.

  It was a retaliation by a gang-boss for Danny’s on-the-job killing of his kid brother. At least, those were the whispers on the street. The shooters were never apprehended.

  It occurs to me that it’s another cold case, one that is providentially sitting in my box of cold files back home.

  The deaths of her father and brother unraveled Eve. It skimmed too close to the loss of her best friend, Julia, and for years she obsessed over their killers. She never handled the grief well and stumbled into her own method of mourning. Booker’s name was scrawled on the paperwork, but I ran the case and made the decision to file it away in the cold case basement, just trying to keep Eve sane. In a way, Ashley saved her—us, really. Eve finally loosed her grip on justice—or maybe vengeance, we never really got to the bottom of that—and started to embrace peace.

  I have to wonder if Ashley’s death has loosed the darkness.

  It’s the memory of her late nights that propels me out of the Porsche and into her driveway. The way she used to twist her hair when she was thinking until it was coarse, fragile, and broken at the ends, the bone-weary fatigue she carried, and the season she spent way too many late nights with Silas.

  In those early days, I had to pry her from her lab, but even after that, when the anniversary of their deaths came around, I’d find her holed up, needing rescue.

  The twenty-year impulse to save my wife doesn’t die with a flimsy stack of divorce papers, now currently dumped in my recycling bin.

  Find the beginning. Overwrite.

  I want my world back.

  My wife back.

  The door squeals on its hinges as I reach the front stoop and I stop just inside the pool of light on the bottom step, next to a pot of geraniums.