Time of Departure (36 page)

He scuttled forward, gulping breaths, put his foot on the top step, leaned on the floor, and started down.

“Turn on the light!”

He pawed under the floorboards. I heard a click.

“When you get to the bottom, stand away!”

I stood above the opening as he hobbled his way down. When he reached the bottom, he stepped away as I had ordered.

I started down. I could still see his feet. I kept my eyes on them as I descended.

When I was two steps from the bottom, he lunged for my legs. His feet had already given him away, so I was ready. I shot him through the arm. He yelled and fell backwards, out of my view. When I reached the bottom step, Tribe was folded up on the dank earthen floor like a pesticide-sprayed spider, clutching his bleeding arm and glowering.

“You stinkin'—!” he rasped.

“Shut up!”

“What now? What do you want?”

“To start with, a confession.”

“What the fuck you talkin' about?”

“Let's start with where you're sitting! Three feet below your scrawny ass is Constance Byrne! She was number two. She was hitchhiking to Cedar Key when you grabbed her. Right there—” I pointed at the ground to his right. “—is María Ruiz. She was number five! There”—pointing again—“Ina Castaño! She was the first, wasn't she? Bet you scared yourself. But then it got easier, didn't it? Over in that corner, Patricia Chapman!”

Tribe stared at me in shock.

“Where is Amanda Jordan?” I hissed.

Tribe didn't answer. He just stared at me and then looked to his right. I swung my head. A beat-up old mattress lay on the floor, pushed up tight against the wall. I kept my gun trained on Tribe as I backed over to take a closer look. The mattress was stained and filthy.

I strode back over to him and shoved Marc's gun in his face.
“Where is she?”
I yelled.

His jawline tightened. His expression hardened.

“So … she's already dead!”

I hadn't expected to save Mandy, but I had nurtured a lingering hope that I would find her alive. I knew the consequences, but I'd come ready for them.

I had come prepared to change the past, and even her death wasn't going to deter me.

“I don't get it, Tribe.”

“Get what?”

“Why you didn't bury her here, with your other … girlfriends.”

He sneered. “How do you know I didn't?”

I cocked the hammer of the gun.

Tribe's eyes burned. “Ran outta room.”

I studied him. “Psychos like you usually start younger. So either you're a late bloomer, or you killed women we don't know about. How many? How many have you killed?”

“‘We'? Who's we?”

“I asked you … how many?”

“Eight.”

So … I'm right.

I am Jane Doe.

I examined my own skeleton.

There can be two of me … but one of me has to be dead.

“Why crab's eyes?”

His cheek twitched. “They die a piece at a time.”

My mind recoiled, but before this ended, I wanted answers.

“Is there a point to that? Other than sick sadism?”

“They'll do anything for the antidote.”

“There isn't one.”

Tribe ignored me. He clutched at his arm. “I need a doctor!”

“What made you so sick, Tribe?”

“It's not me.” He licked his lips. “You fixin' to kill me?”

“And bury you in this cellar? Now, wouldn't that be justice?”

His gaze shifted to the stairs behind me, then back to me. He straightened his back. “I don't know where ya came from, bitch, or why yer here or how ya found me, but I know one fuckin' thing—you ain't got the nerve to kill me!”

An eerie calm washed over me.

It was time.

“You don't understand, do you?” I cocked the gun.

Tribe shrank back, his eyes wide. “Understand what?”

I aimed between his eyes. “Only the future is certain. The past can be changed.”

 

52

The blow came from behind. A split second before I was hit, an unholy animal screech shattered the cellar. The gun flew from my hand as I landed in a sprawl on the cellar floor, my head an inch from the cottage's stonework foundation.

I was half-stunned, but my instincts kicked in just in time. I rolled to see a wild-haired woman launching herself at me. I kicked at her. My foot caught her in the stomach, but she kept coming. I had a flashing glimpse of Tribe, crawling toward us on his hands and knees, his eyes bright with malevolent glee. Then the shrieking woman was swarming over me, ripping at my face and neck with her fingernails. We rolled and wrestled until she was on top of me with her fingers around my throat. I twisted in vain to get away. She had me pinned. But my left arm was free. I grabbed a handful of dirt and threw it in her eyes. When she reared back, I punched her. It was a weak blow, and she shrugged it off. She attacked again with her claws.

I had been ready to die, but I wasn't ready to lose a fight. I grabbed the woman's ear and ripped it off.

She howled like a demon from hell and tore at my throat.

I caught movement to my left. Tribe had Marc's gun. He stretched out his arm, aiming at my head.

So this is how it ended,
I thought hazily.

And then my brain shrieked at me:

CLAIRE! YOU'RE NOT JANE DOE!

Frantically, I seized Tribe's wrist and twisted.

BOOM!

The gunshot was deafening.

Time seemed to dilate … slow … stop.

The woman toppled sideways.

I rolled to my left and snatched the gun out of Tribe's now slack fingers. I kicked the woman's legs off my own and rose unsteadily to my feet. My right knee throbbed.

My attacker lay motionless in the dirt. A trickle of blood oozed from a bullet hole near her right temple.

Tribe crawled to her. “Doris? Doris!” He touched her cheek and started moaning. “No … No … No!”

“Tribe?” He ignored me. I left him to blubber while I took inventory. I had no broken bones, but I was bleeding from a dozen scratches and lacerations on my face, throat, and upper body. My shirt was covered in the other woman's blood; most of it, I guessed, from her torn ear rather than from the gunshot wound.

Tribe was hunched like a ghoul over the woman's corpse, his spidery fingers stroking her matted hair.

I prodded him with my foot. “Look at me!”

He raised his head. His face was a mess of tears and snot.

“Is this your sister?”

“Yes!” He spit the word at me.

“So, it was a lie. She didn't die in India.” I answered his shocked expression. “Yes. We know that, too. But what we don't know is why. Why, Tribe,
why
?”

His jaw started working, as if he was about to hurl himself at me. I pointed the gun at his face.
“Answer me!”
I yelled.

“Yeah, I took them girls, 'n', yeah, I screwed 'em! We both did! But I never killed 'em! Not one of 'em! It was her!”

“She killed them?”

“Yeah. After she finished.”

“Finished what?”

“Her experimentin'. When she was done, she'd just up their dose.”

I felt my gorge rise. Less than ten percent of serial killers are female, and almost all of them kill for money or power. A woman who kills for sadistic pleasure is extremely rare.

But … one who employs a willing partner?

It beggared belief.

“How did you do it? No witnesses! How did you make them vanish?”

His eyes went cold. “Nobody notices a girl talkin' to a girl. I just drove the car.”

“You were alone!
Today!
Stalking my … Stalking that woman!”

“Doris was coming with me tomorrow.”

My mind sighed relief.

That's why you're here, Claire. To save your mother.

I leaned down. “Why? Why did you help her?”

“She was my sister!”
he wailed.

I stared into Harlan Tribe's uncomprehending eyes for a few seconds and then turned away. I limped over to the stairs. As I reached the bottom step, a cramp hit me. The pain started low in my abdomen, and then sliced like a hot knife into my lower back.

I gasped.

No!

I grabbed for the stair railing. I waited. It hit me again. I doubled. I waited.

Slowly, interminably, it eased.

I waited for another.

It didn't come.

I looked at Tribe. He hadn't noticed. He was still sniveling over his sister's body.

“One more question, Tribe…”

“Ain't ya gonna kill me?”

I wanted to.

I wanted to end this vermin's existence. One bullet through his head, and I would permanently eliminate myself from this time line. In eighteen months, I would be born. I would grow to become a different Claire Talbot. I would have no consciousness of all the young lives Harlan Tribe had destroyed.

My failure to save Victoria Chan and Mandy Jordan was like a garrote around my throat.

It would take only one bullet.

But now I knew I wasn't Jane Doe.

Now I knew I had a daughter to protect.

“Not today,” I said.

Tribe glowered at me. “You said you got a question.”

“Who got Doris pregnant?”

He didn't reply. He didn't have to. His eyes told me everything I needed to know. I took the locket out of my pocket and tossed it over to him. It landed in the dirt next to him.

“That belongs to your sister.”

He stared at it, uncomprehending.

I dropped the gun on the floor. “There's one bullet left. I suggest you use it on yourself.” I started up the steps. “I'll know if you don't.”

 

53

I was back in Archer by late afternoon. I rolled past my mother's house and worked my way south to 147th Street. A sign warned:
NO EXIT
. I drove to the end of the road and stopped at a cemetery beside a small church. The road's unpaved extension followed the south edge of the graveyard and terminated in dense brush.

I had a table knife and a grocery bag with me, taken from Tribe's kitchen when I left. I used the knife as a screwdriver and removed the car's license plates. Next I pried the VIN plate off the dash and scraped the build sheet off the doorpost. From my work on the Martínez case, I knew where to look for the second VIN plate. I lifted the hood. It was right where I'd expected, riveted to the top of the driver's-side fender. I pried it off. There was still a derivative number stamped into one of the radiator supports, but I couldn't do much about that. I cleaned out the glove box and searched the rest of the car, grabbing anything that might identify the owner. I dumped everything into the grocery bag and set it on the floor. Then I got behind the wheel and stomped on the accelerator. I was doing nearly fifty when I ran out of road. The Plymouth punched through a hundred feet of scrub before it high-centered and stalled.

I grabbed the bag, climbed out of the car, and started walking. With my bad knee, it took me nearly an hour. Along the way, I tossed Tribe's license plates and keys into the bush at intervals along the roadside and dropped the rest into the playground trash can.

Tribe would have to explain his gunshot wounds. I remembered that when Annie had run Tribe's name during our investigation, his only record was as a victim who had been shot during a robbery. He'd probably tell them some perp shot him and stole his car. Next, he'd require surgery to remove the bullets. The slug in his leg was still there; the one in his arm might have gone through.

Until he obtained another vehicle and his wounds healed enough to lift a body into the trunk, he'd be forced to stash his sister's putrefying corpse in the cellar.

It would take only one anonymous tip to send him to death row.

But Marc and I had only eleven months left, and we had a baby on the way.

As I crossed the playing field, I saw Nonie's Chevelle parked behind Marc's truck. The car's doors swung open, and Marc and Nonie stepped out.

Marc took one look at my bleeding face and rushed toward me. He reached me just as my knee gave out. He lunged and managed to break my fall. He hoisted me into his arms and carried me to the truck. Nonie pulled the passenger door open so he could lift me onto the seat.

“How did you know I'd be here?”

“I didn't. But you told Nonie where you went when you borrowed her car.”

The terrible strain of the day had visibly aged him. His eyes were rimmed with red. I felt sick with shame.

He reached behind the seat and yanked out a first aid kit.

“I have things to tell you,” I whispered.

“Later.” He opened the kit. “First we need to take care of that bleeding!”

I grabbed his hand. “Marc, I made a mistake!”

Nonie sensed she was intruding. She eased away from us and stood by her car.

“More than one, I'd say,” Marc said as he ripped open a gauze pack.

“I was so fixed on changing the past, I forgot the future is certain.”

He stopped what he was doing. “Meaning?”

“Meaning … no matter what I do, you and I will be together in the future.”

“I've already figured that out.”

“How?”

“Because whatever you tried today didn't work. When I saw you walking across that field, I still remembered you.”

“I'm sorry!” I started to cry.

“I'm just thankful to have you back. Your note almost killed me.” He dabbed at a wound on my neck. “I need to know what's coming, Claire. Please!”

“You will. I promise.”

“You've always held back. What's changed?”

“What's changed is that I now know what I didn't know twelve hours ago. There
are
three of us. In the future.”