The Source: Book III of the Holding Kate Series (23 page)

The Post Office at Heartwork Village was a preservation of history and now served as the storage for various maintenance tools and the apartment of Pops McGee. Donnie rapped on the door and let himself in. Rows and rows of golden, antique, locked postage boxes greeted him. The musty traces of years of correspondences thickened the air. No one used paper mail anymore. Donnie had heard of days when the only means of connecting with someone across the country was through paper and pen. He passed through the museum of the Post Office into the back section that housed Pops.

“Hey, Pops! I brought you some of Mel’s meatloaf,” he called. “Pops.”

Silence greeted him. Donnie stepped through the dividing curtain. “Hey, are you hungry?”

He stopped and gaped around the apartment. Apparently no one had lived here in a long time. The bunk mattress was rolled to rest against the headboard, secured by a tie. The closet housed only a cobweb, and the bedside table supported a thick layer of dust.

Strange
.

He assumed Mama Ty had reassigned Pops a different living space, so he headed to the Admin Mansion to find out where he had been moved to. He passed the construction area again and Chaps walked over to greet him.

“Howdy, Donnie.” He tipped his hard hat back off his brow. “Charlie tells me you’ve had some security problems up there at First Cabin. Is everything okay?”

Donnie shook Chaps’ hand. “Yeah, we haven’t seen anyone else around. Say, where is Pops staying now?”

“In the Post Office, ‘course. Same place he’s lived for twenty years.”

“There is no sign that anyone has been staying there, Chaps. There’s a layer of dust on the bedside table. No clothes, nothing.”

Chaps removed his yellow hat and scratched his head. “That’s mighty strange.”

Donnie walked Chaps back to the Post Office to show him, and they got Charlie Goshen from security on their way.

“Did he talk to anyone? Tell anyone he was leaving?” Charlie asked as he stared into the empty closet.

“No. I mean it doesn’t look like he’s stayed here at all. It’s weird,” Donnie said.

“Let’s review the surveillance video and see if we can spot him,” Charlie offered.

A team gathered to sort through the digital footage. Mel and Kim Stevens joined them in the security office and they began a systematic search of any footage with Pops.

“Here he’s going into the cafeteria,” Kim stated. “Looks like it was lunchtime yesterday.”

“I’ve got him sweeping the walkway later in the afternoon. Time stamp is 6 pm,” Mel offered.

Donnie tapped keys at the computer terminal, typing in code. “Here he is at First Cabin. I didn’t know First Cabin was on surveillance.” He cut his eyes to Mel and noted her neck and cheeks flushed bright pink. She slipped her thumb nail between her teeth.

“Is there a camera in the back or just the view of the front?” he asked, thinking of many private moments with Mel in the hot tub.

“Just the front,” Charlie chuckled.

“That’s good to know,” Mel muttered. Donnie squeezed her shoulder and tapped her wrist. She cast a look of gratitude and stopped biting her thumbnail.

“Here he is going into the boathouse. What the—” Donnie exclaimed, paused then rewound the video. He froze it on an image of Pops, and everyone gathered around his computer.

“What is he doing?” Kim leaned in closer.

Donnie hit the play button. Pops lifted up a cane with an ivory handle and buttons along the curve. Mel’s finger trembled as she pointed to the screen, her face blanched.

“Was that…was that Gregory’s remote device?”

“I think so. It looks like what everyone has described.” Donnie adjusted the image and magnified it.

“I don’t understand. What does this mean? How did Pops get a hold of that?” Kim questioned.

“I don’t know.” Charlie tapped on the keyboard, fast forwarding the video. “When does he come out? It doesn’t show him exiting.”

“He jumped?” Donnie turned a confused face to Charlie. “Where would he go?”

“Do you think he’s looking for Gregory?” Mel said.

“Or he might have fallen or be hurt.” Donnie leapt up.

“For all we know he could be sleeping on the couch,” Chaps said.

“We have to go. He could be in danger.” Donnie took Mel’s hand and they ran to the golf cart and hurried back to the QHR.

“Wallace!” They burst into the QHR and told Wallace what they had seen on the footage. He checked the database and sure enough saw a jump at the exact time Pops was in the QHR.

“I don’t understand. Why would he use our jump pad? If he has Gregory’s technology wouldn’t he have just used it?” Donnie asked.

“There’s something else here…” Wallace said.

“I need to get to the Keepers.” Donnie jumped over a console, grabbed a backpack and threw it over his shoulder.

“Whoa! Wait a minute. Someone is coming through the stream. Stand back.”

Donnie inched backward, and Mel walked forward to pull him to her side protectively. The screeching started, and the sphere fell into the pad. When the swirling lights that looked like whitewater rapids dissipated, three people stood on the pad.

“We’ve got a problem.”

NAJWA HEARD THE
gong of the sphere and ran into the cabin just in time to see shards of sand whisper to the floor and vanish.

“Greg!” she screamed and ran to the center of the sphere blast mark. He left her! Why would he leave her? They were partners in this scheme. She had been stuck on this jump for fifteen years! He was supposed to take her out of here! They were going to save the world together. Why would he just leave her here?

Sunlight angled through the windows, coating dust particles in silver radiance. A mourning dove called outside singing the song of her heart. Charred pine lingered in the air as the spent remains of a fire smoked at the hearth.

Dawning realization, she wilted onto a bench. “He used me.”

What was she going to do now? She was stuck in this world. She’d burned her bridges at Spear Cathair. With no access to technology, no friends, no family, how was she going to get home?

Corey.

Corey will forgive me
. “If I go back and ask for mercy, maybe they’ll take me back in or at least send me back home.” Her mind whirred in a frantic panic. “At least I will have someone. Maybe in time Corey could learn to love me for real. Now that Kate’s out of the picture.”

She snapped her head up. They would never forgive her if Stealthlin was dead. She had to find him and take him back. Alive. That was going to be difficult. She had dumped him over a cliff. He hadn’t fallen far, just slid about twenty feet onto a ledge. But what if he’d hit his head or broken something?

She had to get to him immediately. She darted out of the cabin, grabbed the reins of the three horses and headed back toward the cliff edge.

Tears streamed down her face as she felt the blister of betrayal from Greg’s abandonment. This is what she had done to Kate. This was how Corey felt right now. She had caused horrible pain to two very good people. She wondered if Greg had been lying to her about the devastating effects Corey and Kate’s marriage would have. Maybe that had all been a ruse to get her to go along with his plan to capture Kate.

The scariest question of all was what was Greg going to do with Kate?

Najwa didn’t think he would harm her.
Would he
?

She reached the edge of the cliff where she had pretended she lost the packs, then moved down the edge and around the corner. Whispering a prayer, she peered into the ravine where she had actually dumped Stealthlin.

He was gone!

The ledge he had landed on still contained the blanket and a saddle bag, but the great Cheleuthi warrior was no longer there.

Did he roll over and plunge to his death? She had been careful to find a ledge that was wide enough to drop him to. She wanted him to be delayed, not die.

“Tondos! Don’t let him be dead.” Her legs weakened and she slumped to the ground between the horses. “Stealthlin, please don’t be dead.” She put her face into her hands and wept.

“I thought you wanted me dead, Najwa.” Stealthlin stepped out from behind a bush.

“Stealthlin!” she sang with relief, rose and turned toward him.

He held up a hand. “That is far enough. Don’t press your luck with me, woman.”

She froze in her tracks.

“Why have you done this? Is my wife dead? Why have you purposely separated Kate and Corey? Why?”

“Candol is fine. I covered her before we left. Why did I do this? It is a long story. I have been misled.” Najwa wrapped the reins around her fingers anxiously.

“Misled?” Stealthlin growled. “Corey and Kate have only ever given you love and trust. Why would you repay them in this way?”

“I was under the impression that I was saving the world.”

“Saving the world? Ha! I am sure this is a great story. Where are we exactly?” He scanned the area. “Why do you have three horses?”

Najwa’s face fell.

Stealthlin noticed. “Who else have you tossed off a cliff, Najwa?”

“No one. It was for Kate.” She pointed to the third horse. “Kate rode here with us.”

“Where is Kate?” he demanded, his brows slapped together in concern.

“She’s gone.”

Stealthlin’s face blanched. He stepped forward and grabbed Najwa’s arms. “What do you mean gone? If you have hurt her in any way, I swear I will exact vengeance on you myself!”

“She’s not hurt. She’s gone. She—she jumped.” Najwa’s tears trickled down her cheek into her collar.

“Jumped? Where?” He ran to the ledge and peered into the canyon.

“No. She jumped in a sphere.” She hitched a violent breath. “Greg took her.”

“Greg? This Mattovdzky character that Kate came here to get away from?”

“Yes.”

“What have you done?” Stealthlin seethed, grabbed her again, and shook her.

“He told me that Kate and Corey were destined to destroy millions of people if they stayed together. He said he had jumped to the future and had witnessed the devastation. He sent me back in time to live with the Darchori and trained me for this mission for years.”