Einstein's Secret (21 page)

“I understand, sir. I’ll call you when I get there.”

That was my cue to leave. I’d have to race Clavin to Princeton, so I started right then.

I hurried back down the hall, took the connecting hallway into the dining room, and raced through the foyer and out the front door. I sprinted along the front of the house, circled around the large garage, ducked into the woods, then headed to the back of the property.

As I moved through the woods, I replayed the conversation I’d just heard. It explained, finally, the anomalies in the appointment books that Meyer had kept. It was now clear why she didn’t note how long the meetings with Clavin were going to be and why Einstein had no appointments for the next two or three days: because Einstein
hadn’t
been meeting with Clavin. Those weren’t appointment times Meyer had been noting. They were the times Clavin was set to arrive in Princeton to pick up Einstein and chauffeur him to Cumberland. And Einstein had no appointment afterwards because he’d stay there for the next two or three days. Henry Clavin worked for Weldon and
that
was his connection to Einstein.

I also thought I now understood how Weldon and Van Doran were connected. Weldon, who’d discovered the portal while at UVA, had confided in Van Doran about his precious discovery, and Van Doran had brought in Einstein.

When I made it to the road, it was almost dusk. I trudged forward, parallel to the road, under the cover of the forest. Cars roared by, probably heading to the drive-in. When I approached its perimeter, I saw that proved true. The parking lot was half-full, but filling up fast. Tonight’s feature presentation was
To Catch A Thief
, which made sense, considering what I was about to do.

My plan for the drive-in was fairly basic, because it took into account my experience as a car thief—which was none. I’d buy a walk-in ticket, then stroll toward the concession, checking out the back row of cars, on the lookout for one that was currently empty of driver and passengers.

Once I spotted my mark, I’d meander over by the driver’s side, as if I were headed toward the front of the drive-in, and check to see if the keys were in the ignition. If they were, I’d make my move. If not, I’d repeat the process. The car had to be in the last row, so I could back it out easily and head directly for the exit.

*

The cars were ten deep at the ticket window, and as I walked past them, my thoughts went to my dad. I hoped he wasn’t working tonight. I didn’t want to face him.

By now, he’d have seen that I’d never published the promised news article. He’d know that I’d taken advantage of him, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I feared this disappointment had been a terrible blow to him and had affected the rest of his life.

At the ticket window, I waited for the car in front of me to pay then bought my ticket using a bill from Eddie’s cash. I silently thanked Eddie for his final gesture. If he hadn’t reached for his pocket, I would’ve forgotten the cash from the fifties.

Inside, a few employees, all teenagers, were guiding cars into rows. Maybe the younger kids weren’t working this evening because it was a school night. Still, I was on the lookout for my dad.

I casually headed over to the concession stand, and as I did, I scanned the parked cars. There were very few cars along the back row because spots were still available closer to the screen. And those that were there all had someone inside.

While standing in the concession stand line, I began to scout cars in other rows. Specifically, cars parked at the end of a row, so they weren’t blocked in. But from where I stood, I couldn’t tell if the passengers were in those cars or not.

As the concession line moved forward, more cars rolled into the drive-in, and I watched them, hoping some would opt for the back row.

None did.

Then I found myself at the front of line, ordering a burger. That wasn’t part of the plan, but it beat loitering around, looking suspicious.

I stood to the side of the concession stand, ate my burger—which was unexpectedly delicious, rich with flavor, like a gourmet burger rather than a fast-food burger—and watched more cars park. As I finished the last bite of my burger, a short unspooled on the big screen.

No Hunting
, starring Donald Duck.

The back row of cars was proving to be a bust, so I sauntered down toward the front, checking each row as I passed. Some patrons
had
set up lawn chairs in front of their cars, leaving their cars empty. But even if they had left their keys in the ignition, they were parked too far into their rows to allow for a quick getaway. Just as I wasn’t a car thief, I wasn’t a stunt driver. I needed a clear path out.

I was about halfway down the lot when I heard car doors slamming behind me and quickly turned back to check it out.

A car had just parked at the end of a row that I’d passed. Two kids, around six and ten, were hurrying to the front of the car. Their mom joined them, while their dad headed to the back of the car. He opened the trunk, and a few seconds later, slammed it shut. He came around the car, carrying lawn chairs, then unfolded them and headed toward the concession stand. The kids and their mom sat down and starting watching Donald Duck.

I was already moving back toward their car, plotting my getaway. The route from their parking spot to the exit looked fairly clean. And there were no cars directly behind their car, which gave me plenty of room to back their car out, swing it around into the lane, and race to the back. Near the concession stand, I’d have to hang a left.

My hope was that I’d be closing in on the exit before a major uproar about the stolen car had started. Even if the family and nearby patrons were already yelling about the thief, the commotion would take a minute to make its way to the back.

I was about ten yards away from the car when I saw him.
Richie
. He was walking in my direction, but I couldn’t tell if he recognized me.

I thought I could make it to the car before he got there, so I didn’t change my course. Not with the family engaged with Donald Duck and the car sitting empty right there at the end of the row. This was too good an opportunity to pass up.

Richie and I moved closer to each other, and my eyes fell to his shiny plastic nametag,
Richie Morgan
, as if I had to verify, again, that he was my dad.

I avoided making eye contact with him. Instead, I glanced at the kids and their mom in their lawn chairs as I walked by them. The kids didn’t as much as breathe in my direction, they were so riveted to Donald Duck, but the mom smiled at me. I returned the smile, moved on to the car, and glanced down into the driver’s side window—

The keys were dangling from the ignition.

My heart started to pound.

There was no excuse now, except for Richie. I glanced at him before reaching down for the car door handle—and he was staring right at me.

“Hey, mister. What happened to the article?”

“It’s not ready yet. I’m sorry.” That was abrupt, but I knew that if I wavered in the least, I wouldn’t go through with this.

I opened the car door, slid inside, and shut the door as gently as possible so as not to attract the mom’s attention. I reached for the ignition, and hesitated—exactly what I didn’t want to do.

My wildly beating heart moved into my throat. It was now or never. Time to ignore my fear and use my adrenaline rush, which was flooding my body and telling me to run, to turn the key.

I did, and the car roared to life with so much muscle that it startled me. This powerful behemoth was a far different breed than the fuel-efficient, compact car of the future.

The mom and kids looked back toward the car.

I jammed the gearshift from park to reverse, looked back over my shoulder, and backed the behemoth up.

Then I jammed the gearshift forward, and lurched headlong, tires squealing, into an arc that put me into the lane heading toward the concession stand.

A couple of people with popcorn and sodas in hand were walking toward me, and I was ready to swerve around them, when they kindly obliged and scooted out of my way.

As I bore down toward the concession stand, I could see the faces of the patrons in line, including the dad’s face, in shock. Everyone scattered, realizing they were in the path of a crazed car thief.

Except for the dad. He stood his ground.

Was he going to try and stop me?

I was gaining speed, so the dad had about ten seconds to decide whether to make a heroic stand or get out of the way. I had the same amount of time to decide whether to start my left turn early to avoid to him, a turn that would be so sharp from here that I’d surely wipe out.

It was a classic game of chicken—and the dad caved in.

He jumped out of the way, and I made my left turn a few seconds later, but it was still too sharp and the car wiped out, skidding to a stop right in front of the concession stand.

I pressed on the gas and the car jerked forward and was back up to warp speed in no time, hurtling toward the gate.

But it wasn’t really in no time. Unfortunately, it was just enough time for Richie to come running out from the interior of the back row, waving his hands and yelling for me to stop.

What happened next, happened in a flash. There was no time to slow down or swerve or avoid the inevitable.

I saw the front of my behemoth of a car slam into my own dad, the kid with the bluest eyes ever, who loved films more than anything, and heard a sickening, bone-crushing,
thud
. He disappeared from sight almost as quickly as he’d appeared.

The car continued to hurtle forward, and while my mind went into hyper-drive, my body went into autopilot and continued to execute my disastrous plan.

It was too late to stop. The damage was done.

Nausea filled my gut and my limbs were trembling.

I’d killed my father. That was for sure. No way had he survived that blow.

The car plowed forward toward the exit, and in its wake, I heard the screams of horrified people.

Chapter Twenty-One

I gripped the steering wheel hard, as if it were the only thing keeping my thoughts from spinning out of control. My entire body was pulsing with queasiness and dread. My nightmare had reached the proportions of Greek tragedy.

Time travel was messy, but how could I have killed my own father? If this were a science-fiction tale, I would’ve disappeared right about now. Without a father, I couldn’t have been born. But this wasn’t a science-fiction tale. It was fact. Time travel wasn’t like it was portrayed in the movies.

As a wave of nausea swept through me, my car roared down the road toward Cumberland. I considered stopping to puke, but if I stopped, it would turn into a permanent stop. The magnitude of what I’d just done would paralyze me.

I had to keep going because
I had to fix this.
More than ever.

Einstein’s confession is the key.

I clung to that. Otherwise, there would be no salvation.

I thought about Dorothy’s Theorem. Belief had worked. It had transported me to the right time. But doubt still crept into my thoughts. Sure, I had evidence that belief dictated the workings of wormholes. But that wasn’t evidence that Einstein’s confession could bring my dad back to life.

That seemed more like faith.

I muted the doubt and tried to concentrate on the task at hand. Regardless of my belief, regardless of faith or not, I had no other option but to move forward.

The road in front of me was dark and lined with thick woods. In the distance were headlights, but it was too soon for the police to be headed this way, and there were no flashing red lights up ahead.

How fast did law enforcement respond to a crime in the fifties? Probably way slower than law enforcement in the future. Still, when it came to the heinous crime of running over a child, it wouldn’t be moving at a snail’s pace.

The speedometer said I was doing fifty, so I pushed the car to sixty, and pulled the directions out of my pocket. The first turn would come up when I hit Cumberland proper. Take a right onto Mechanic Street, which led to 68 East, which led to 220 North. Then came a thirty-mile stretch of flat-out driving.

Within minutes, the lights of Cumberland shone through the thinning woods. Over the next few miles, I debated whether to abandon this car or not. How long would it take before the police started to hunt it down?

Luck favored me in one way. When I hit 220 North, I’d be in Pennsylvania, which meant there’d be some jurisdictional issues between the local and state police of Maryland and those of Pennsylvania, not to mention good old communication problems.

I hit the lights of Cumberland, and it was then that a new concern crossed my mind. Was there evidence of my monstrous act festooned on the grille of the car? I was cruising through a quiet residential neighborhood, with no traffic, so I weighed whether to pull over and check. It was a Sunday night and my guess was that everyone was either inside the picturesque homes lining the street, sitting in front of their boxy TV sets, or they were at the drive-in.

A car turned onto the street and headed my way. As it passed, the driver, a middle-aged man with glasses, looked over, tipped his hat, and smiled. I smiled back, and was reminded that luck favored me in another way, too. The fifties were a less-suspicious time.

I decided not to pull over and check the car. That would be the more suspicious move. Instead, I kept my eyes peeled for Mechanic Street. The half a dozen other drivers that I passed all looked at me and nodded. I nodded back to all of them.

I turned left onto Mechanic Street, drove through another residential neighborhood, and stuck with my decision. There’d be no pulling over to check the grille, or to switch cars.

Within three minutes, I’d merged onto Route 68, and a few miles later, I was gliding down the open road of Route 220, crossing the border into Pennsylvania. There were a couple of cars behind me and none in front of me. It was obvious that in this decade, people didn’t rush around at all hours.