Time's Enemy: A Romantic Time Travel Adventure (Saturn Society Book 1) (48 page)

At the knock on the front door, Charlotte looked up from the scattered objects on her workbench. Who would be calling at such a late hour? She hadn’t put the room-for-rent sign back up yet, and Theodore had given her enough money to pay the rent—this month. She wasn’t in the mood for company, hadn’t been since Tony had left. All she wanted to do was work.

She tried to collect her thoughts and refocus her mind on the project. Strips of red celluloid. A shiny, flat cylinder, half the size of a dime. A piece of green Bakelite with silvery lines running through it.

Her brother had surprised her when he’d stopped by. She hadn’t wanted to see even him, but he’d walked in uninvited. Dewey had been able to tell she hadn’t been eating, said he was worried about her. She’d almost told him about Dr. Caruthers. But sense and shame had made her let him think Tony’s leaving was the sole reason she was upset. The fact she was wearing the violet print dress Tony had bought for her probably helped convince him.

She brushed a hand over the smooth fabric. Though the sleeves didn’t quite cover the ugly, yellow bruises Caruthers had made on her arms when he pinned her down, it was the only thing she owned that made her feel pretty, ever since—

She pulled her hands back up to the workbench and picked up the shiny chip from inside the calculator. Hopefully, her silicon chips would arrive soon, and she’d see what it would take to replicate the calculator’s cell. As she rummaged through a box of electrical odds and ends, the person at the door knocked again.

She kept digging. “Go away,” she muttered. Rather late for Mrs. Paulson to be asking to borrow a cup of sugar.

Having misplaced her wire strippers, Charlotte grabbed Theodore’s Saturn Society knife and shaved some insulation off a wire as the person upstairs rapped on the door again, more insistent. If she ignored them, maybe they’d give up and leave.

S
LOW, STEADY FOOTSTEPS CLICKED ACROSS
the floor above her. Charlotte looked up. “Theodore?”

The footsteps moved through the living room, then into the kitchen. Charlotte frowned. It had to be him. He hadn’t checked on her yet that day. “Theodore?” She shouted louder.

The footsteps stopped. He’d heard her. Why wasn’t he—

What if it wasn’t Theodore? Oh drat, she’d forgotten to lock the door! It could be anyone. Even—dread crawled down her spine—Dr. Caruthers. If the person had a legitimate reason to be there, they’d have answered when she called out. She clenched her jaw and grabbed Theodore’s knife. If it was someone with ill intent, she’d be prepared.

She crept up the stairs, stepping carefully so they wouldn’t creak. At the top, she hesitated.

The door lay slightly ajar. She started to lean forward to peek through the crack when another knock came from the front door. A sharper, more rapid knock than the first. “Charlotte!”

Theodore. But if he was outside, then who—

She peered into the kitchen.

His back to her, the man standing at the table rifled through the pile of Tony’s clothes she’d never put away—

There was something familiar in his stance. Something familiar in the strong, muscled calves beneath his odd, above-the-knee knickers. She squeezed the doorknob. She’d seen that mussed, dark hair shot with gray, run her hands through it...

A thrill coursed through her. “Tony!”

Tony whirled around as his hand closed over his old wallet, still in the pants pocket he’d left. In the crack of the basement door, Charlotte’s brown eye caught a reflection from the light, blowing away all thoughts of her betrayal. “Char—”

The front door opened.

He tossed down the clothes and shoved the wallet into his shorts pocket.

“Charlotte?” the newcomer called from the living room.

Pippin! The front door squeaked as it opened. Tony yanked open the back door and fled.

Pippin hollered again, his voice strident through the open window. Tony hurtled down the steps, then—

His foot slipped on the wet grass, and he pitched forward onto the gravel path leading to the alley. His glasses flew off.

He spat out a mouthful of dirt, groped for his glasses, spotted the neighbors’ porch light reflecting on them. He jammed them back on and leaped to his feet, his knees smarting where the gravel had gouged his skin.

Charlotte’s voice drifted through the door. “I tried, but he got away... didn’t have time, I don’t know...”

Tony’s bolted for the alley, a sensation of lead weight forming in his gut.
Sold out again.

He stopped. Which way?

Headlights blazed from the direction of Fifth Street. A car started. Tony dashed toward Third.

Charlotte clutched her quarter. “I told you, he said he was never coming back!”

Theodore glared at her. “I’ll deal with you later. I have a criminal to catch.” He burst out the side door.

Tony’d said he’d never come back. Because she would die. Yet he had. She watched Theodore disappear around the Paulson’s house, then pushed the screen door open and slipped out.

“Ben! This way!” Theodore shouted from ahead.
Caruthers!
Charlotte flattened herself against the side of her house as a dark green Cadillac—Caruthers’—trundled down the alley. Theodore jumped in the passenger side, slammed the door, and the car pulled away in a spray of gravel.

She sneaked around the corner of the Paulson’s house, barely aware of the drizzle coating her arms. No sign of Tony. The car had slowed a few doors down, its red tail lights demon eyes in the dim alley. In a porch light’s glow, she saw Theodore’s face at the window as he peered out.

What could she do? Where had Tony gone? She made a fist, then looked down at her hand. She still gripped Theodore’s knife. She squeezed it in grim satisfaction. As long as Tony could outrun Theodore and Caruthers, he had a chance.

But there were others. Men desperate for jobs, whom Theodore had hired to watch her house, despite her insistence Tony wasn’t coming back. How long would he be able to elude them?

And would she die, like he’d said?

Tony crouched under a porch and peered through the broken lattice at the car down the alley. It stopped, and Pippin climbed out. He tramped along the side of a garage and shone a flashlight between two garbage cans. “He’s got to be around here somewhere,” he called to the man in the car.

They’d reach Tony’s hiding place in minutes.

Tony brushed the dirt off his legs, picked a few pebbles from his knees, then dug the wallet out of his pocket.

He slid his fingers into the main compartment. Touched a couple bills, then the sharp corner of something else poked his fingertip.

He slid it out, held it up so that the semi-shiny, silver packet caught the light that filtered through the lattice from a nearby streetlamp. The condom Bernie had given him at Mulroney’s. Tony had forgotten all about it. Could’ve used it at the Fishin’ Shack, not that one condom would have mattered as much as he and Charlotte had— He clenched his jaw at the sudden sensation of rocks lodged in his throat. She couldn’t have kids anyway. And she’d betrayed him... He jammed his fingertips into the wallet’s card holder, felt the raised lettering on his Visa card, the smooth laminate of his driver’s license. A few coins. But—his throat hardened—no calculator.

Frantically, he shook the wallet open and flipped through the plastic pages of photos and credit cards, in case it might have gotten wedged between them. The change compartment was too small to hold the calculator but he looked anyway. Damn, damn, damn! He had to go back. What if she’d started working on it?

He shoved the wallet back into his pocket and poked his head out the gap in the lattice.

The car idled behind the next house, toward Charlotte’s. Flashlights flicked over the back lawn. A dark form skulked around the garage across the alley and rattled a door handle on it. No chance of slipping by that way. Tony leaned out farther. Toward Third Street, the alley was clear.

He’d run there, then double back to Charlotte’s. He crawled from under the porch, then scrambled across the yard.

“There he is!” someone shouted from the house’s side yard.

Tony dashed down the alley. Car doors slammed and the driver threw the vehicle into gear. How many of them were there?

He darted from house to garage, sneaked between garbage cans, behind bushes, in a zigzag path he hoped would throw off pursuit.

Charlotte slipped out from behind a garage and pressed her palm to the base of her neck. Theodore had almost seen her. What on earth was she doing? By following them and not helping, she’d sentenced herself to share Tony’s fate.

She squeezed Theodore’s knife in her fist. She wouldn’t let Caruthers take her again. She’d die before she’d endure the Saturn Society’s treatment. Tony would do the same, should they catch him. If he could.

She forced her gaze straight ahead as she crept down the weedy strip of grass along the thigh-high, stone retaining wall that snaked along the top of the riverbank, the light from the streetlamps along Sunset Place barely enough to see by. Over that wall the land sloped down until it met the Great Miami.

Looking at the river from a distance didn’t trouble her. She could see a little sliver of it from her bedroom window in the winter, when the trees were bare. It reassured her, to be able to look out there after a storm, and see for herself that the river remained shallow and placid, thanks to the Conservancy dams built after the flood. As she moved toward it, her foot twisted on a bottle, and she flailed for the wall as she tumbled to the ground. Below, the water gleamed in a wide ribbon of black, festooned with sprinkles of light. Dams or no, it was too close. She tore her gaze away, flinching as she stood on her injured foot.