Yesterday's Thief: An Eric Beckman Paranormal Sci-Fi Thriller (15 page)

At Fry’s Electronics, Zach directed her to buy a top-end Lenovo subnotebook. Although small and light, the FullFlect screen folded out to provide a twenty-seven-inch, touch-sensitive surface.

In the store’s coffee shop, he got everything set up for her and showed her how to go online.

“And when you’re online, you can use Google to answer any questions. Like this.” He typed
what is the internet
into the Google search bar. It came back with
the internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link several billion devices worldwide.
He showed her how the other “links” on the page provided more information.

“Ah. Is amazing. I think you just lost your consulting job, Zach.”

He shrugged.

She spent the afternoon soaking up the information, then looked at her new G-Shock watch. “May I take you to dinner?”

She had some kind of upscale restaurant in mind, but Zach suggested the more informal Surf ’n Surf establishment that catered to people who wanted Wi-Fi with their seafood.

Out of habit, she scouted out the kitchen’s rear exit on her way to the powder room. Returning, she froze. Zach’s screen had her image on it. An image from the news. She jerked back into the hall and watched around the corner as he manipulated the image, cutting away her black hair and adding blonde. She ducked when he turned and checked behind him.

Would he contact the police? Had he already done that?

She came out of the hall while he was still looking. He tapped the keyboard and the image disappeared.

Back at the table, she faced him and put her hand on his forearm. “Zach, you’ve been very helpful all day, and I appreciate what you’ve done for me. Here is three hundred dollars.” She leaned forward and gave him a peck on his cheek. “I just remembered something I have to do. I need to leave right away.”

“Oh, no. Can’t you stay for dessert? I ordered us some banana splits with chocolate mousse.”

“No, Zach, I must go.”

Zach glanced toward the front of the restaurant. He was expecting someone. “Wait. I can take you wherever you want to go.”

The sound of squealing tires echoed from the street, and seconds later three men burst in.

* * *

I put my hand over my eyes. “No. You’re going to stick your hand in there?”

“Not just my hand, Eric, my arm.” Jessica turned to me and smiled. She forced her left arm into the cow’s rectum, and the huge animal mooed and jumped her hindquarters around. <
What the fuck is going on back there?
>

Ha ha, just kidding. Animal thoughts aren’t like that. Someone once complained to a famous animal behaviorist that he acted as if animals were machines. “Not so,” he said. “I view animals as emotional humans.” His point was that animals rely largely on emotion rather than logic or conscious thought. And I can’t read emotion, only words.

But I get
something
from animals. It’s hard to describe. If forced to put it into words, I’d say this cow was thinking, <
Oh.
> Probably, <
Oh!!>
, but the emotion was missing from what I received.

In any case, it was so gross I had to turn and walk away a bit. By “walk,” I mean slip and squelch through the muck in the stall. The sagging barn seemed ready to fall down and smelled like a ruptured sewage treatment plant. So, no, not your typical first date.

Jessica laughed. “Can’t take it, huh?”

She had called me the night before and asked me out. I’d been interested in her work as a veterinarian, and she invited me to come along on some house calls. I’d expected she’d be giving some cat a shot or bandaging a puppy’s foot. I hadn’t realized she was a large animal vet. I should have guessed. She’d told me to wear sturdy boots and old clothes.

I had been focused on Viviana and Zaharia, but after a week of investigating, I’d struck out. I didn’t want to be distracted, but Jessica looked like a great prospect for a long-term relationship. Someone I could trust. I’d vowed to work on that. So, I said yes.

“Sheesh, Vi—uh, Jessica. You do this a lot?”

“I’ve personally done AI, artificial insemination, for hundreds of cows. Someone working with an AI company might do about three thousand a year.”

“I know, this is a stupid question, but—oh, no!”

The cow started peeing. This had to be the grossest job ever. I had expected something out of the James Herriot book
All Creatures Great and Small
, but this was more like
All Things Ugly and Disgusting
.

She paused until the cow was done. “So, you have a question, Dr. Beckman?” She was pushing and moving her arm around in there with a look of intense concentration.

“I don’t want to interrupt, and I know nothing about cow anatomy, but don’t you have the, uh, wrong hole?”

She chuckled and put on a look of mock alarm. “Oh, gee, I knew something was wrong. No, I feel through the wall of the rectum for the location of the cervix. And … there, I’ve got it now.”

Like pulling an arrow out of a quiver, she drew a long, thin device from a pouch on her back.

She slid that into the correct hole. “This AI gun has to go through the cervix and just into the uterus. Wrong place and,” she turned to me, “no calves. That’s got it now.” She slowly depressed the plunger on the AI gun. “And now several million sperm are on their happy way.”

She pulled everything out, washed up, and we were on to the next house call.

In the van, she patted me on the knee. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

I looked at her hand, and
you don’t know where that’s been
went through my head. I didn’t flinch. Maybe because it had been her left arm that had been inside the cow.

She glanced over at me. <
At least he didn’t flinch.>

“No, not too bad. It just takes a little getting used to.”

“You want to try it at the next farm?”
>

“Absolutely. Let me at it. Never know when that skill might come in handy.”

“Ha. You knew I was joking, but do you think you’d—”

Her hands-free phone chimed. “Dr. Holiday, we’ve got a troublesome foal delivery at the Strassman farm. Sounds like head retention. How soon could you get there?”

“The one in Marshall? Forty minutes. Tell them to get the mare up and walking and to
not
try to pull the foal out. Very important.”

“Will do. I just loaded the address into your GPS. I’ll let them know you’re on your way. Thanks.”

“Serious?” I asked.

“Could be. The foal should come out forelegs and nose first, but sometimes the mare pushes too hard. The foal’s head gets bent backwards.”

“Ouch.”

“Right.” She nodded and exited the freeway. “We’ll see.”

At the farm, the mare was being led around the pasture. Then she lay down. The owner looked at us helplessly.

Jessica headed over, pushing an air of confidence ahead of her. The owner, a short, heavyset woman, rushed to meet her. <
Oh, thank God. Thank God.
>

The owner and I leaned against the fence. We watched Jessica examine the mare, poking and prodding and feeling. She was at home in this environment, no longer the somewhat shy woman I’d met in the bar. I couldn’t help but compare her with Viviana. Jessica was supremely confident here, in the familiar environment. Viviana had that same confidence in a world that was surely foreign to her. But Jessica seemed more down-to-earth.

Jessica gave us a thumbs-up and came over.

“It looks like having the mare walk around has corrected things. Often, as soon as Mom stops pushing so hard, the foal is able to get into the right position.”

Sure enough, the nose of the foal soon poked out between its two skinny feet. Before long we had a healthy foal on the ground. Thirty minutes later, the baby horse was walking around. Amazing.

In the same way, the rest of the visits ranged from cute—baby chicks—to gross—huge pig with a prolapsed uterus. I had no trouble picturing a long-lasting relationship with Jessica, if I could sustain it. I also pictured her taking a thorough shower before we made love.

At the end of our “date,” I leaned over and kissed her. “Jessica, I enjoyed spending the day with you. I’m involved in an important case right now, but I promise I will call you. You can trust me on that.”

She smiled. <
What’s to trust?
>

What’s to trust? I had no idea what that meant. Thoughts didn’t always make sense. Or maybe my wonderful kiss scrambled her brain. No, probably not.

After she drove away, my phone demanded my attention with a high-priority alert. I pulled it from my pocket and checked the screen. Twitter alert: Viviana had been found in Marin County.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

When the three men burst into the front of the restaurant, Viviana was already most of the way to the kitchen. She glanced back at Zachary. He was pointing at her, the little traitor. She’d begun to like him. What a snake.

The first man brought something up and pointed it at her. A camera. Ah, paparazzi. Not FBI.

The cooks looked up as she sped through the kitchen and out the back door. Her compact trail-running backpack hugged her back. It had the money, gold, and more from her cache, plus a few critical tools. Her new, top-of-the-line hybrid athletic shoes gave her an edge. She’d ditched the fashionable but impractical Converse sneakers.

She flew out the kitchen exit and sprinted across the parking lot. Amazing what a little adrenaline will do.

The lead man was fast. The kitchen’s screen door slammed open. “Wait, Viviana. Just one photo, please. I’ll help you escape.”

Fat chance. She vaulted the cedar fence at the back of the lot. Cars squealed around the building, their headlights illuminating the bare tree branches. They’d have to go back to get to the road into the housing development. Would any of them chase her on foot? From the glance in the restaurant, none had seemed particularly fit.

How many would chase her? Just a few? Of course not. She was the top news story in the world. Hundreds could be swarming around, eventually. If they cornered her, all would be lost. She needed a good hiding place, somewhere she could sit undetected for twelve hours or more.

She pulled the pry bar out of the side pocket of her pack and stopped by a car with a roomy trunk. Few realized how easy it was to pop an automobile’s trunk open. She looked around. No one in sight.

She slipped the bar’s hook under the lip, near the latch, and levered the trunk open. Pop. Easy.

An alarm blared and she dropped the pry bar. It sounded like some kind of spaceship.
La naiba!
Burglar alarms in cars. That was new. And bad. Very bad.

She picked up the pry bar and tore down the block. She jumped behind a hedge. Four cars raced toward the blaring car. Okay, nice diversion. She zipped the tool back into her pack and put another few blocks between her and the photographers.

Would climbing a tree work? Probably not. Wait. A tall oak grew next to a two-story home. Without hesitation, she ran to it and flowed up the trunk, past a window, and onto the gently sloped roof.
Perfect.
She tiptoed over to the chimney—would the residents hear her?—and lay back with her head on the crown of the roof. Her pack was lumpy, but she kept it on. She might have to leave in a hurry.

The sounds of rapid footsteps came to her from below. Voices, too. “No, she wasn’t. I would have seen her.”

The night was warm. She looked up at the sky and closed her eyes to think. Maybe she should have gotten on a bus and traveled to a remote city. Maybe she should head into some wilderness, camping in isolation until things died down.

No, her picture had been on the front page in every city in the world, and things weren’t going to die down. More importantly, she had to go to San Francisco’s Coit Tower on November 1. That was their meeting place. She had to locate Zaza.

The voice came from above her. It was filled with triumph.

“I found you!”

* * *

“But you’re not an expert on energy production.” I crossed my arms. “Come on. How can you be sure this is bogus?”

Dr. Diallo, my time-travel expert, wore a black and white head wrap with a colorful African dashiki and skirt. Only her intelligent eyes hinted she was a world-famous physicist. I’d bribed her with dinner at Chez Panisse, and my long day as a veterinarian’s assistant made me a little short tempered. We faced each other over a spread of grilled lamb with basil pesto, eggplant confit, romano bean fritters, and a mesclun salad. I wasn’t getting much support for my theories.

“True, Eric, that’s not my specialty, but I do know a bit about science.” She raised one eyebrow. “Fleischman and Pons weren’t careful enough—”

“This work has nothing to do with them. Dudnic’s papers came out ten years before their work.” I stabbed the printout of one of his experiments with my finger.