Einstein's Secret (23 page)

I walked past two closed doors and weighed my next move. After two more closed doors, I came to an open one, and stepped inside.

An overweight man in his fifties was fast asleep in his hospital bed. He was connected to a few pieces of bulky monitoring equipment. Their green lights colored the otherwise dark room with an eerie patina.

I stood there, just inside the door, like a phantom in this poor man’s life. And I hoped to stay right there for the next few minutes because my new plan was to wait Meyer out.

History had recorded that she hadn’t been at Einstein’s bedside when he’d died. And considering he’d die within the next hour, that meant she was on her way out. Same with Hans. He was staying with his dad, and since Meyer lived in Einstein’s house, he’d leave with her. Alfred would be the first to go because Meyer would make sure all visitors were gone before she took off.

But what about Clavin? With Meyer standing guard, how would he get the confession? And what if he did get it, while I stood here waiting? To come so close to discovering the secret, literally within a few yards, and then have Clavin glide right by me, with the treasure in hand, would be so tragic as to be comical.

And with that thought came a new insight. A wrinkle I’d never considered before and one that gave rise to a new plan, the best of the night.

I’d always assumed that Meyer had known Clavin. But that was before I’d discovered that Clavin worked for Weldon, and that his connection to Einstein was basically that of a chauffeur who drove the scientist to and from Cumberland.

At the same time, I’d always been sure that Einstein had never told Meyer, nor anyone, his secret, which I now knew meant he’d never told her, nor anyone, about the wormhole and Cumberland.

So it was likely that Einstein had never introduced her to Clavin. To her, he was just a name in an appointment book.

Armed with that insight, I was no longer going to wait Meyer out. My new plan was to go into Einstein’s room now, rather than risk losing the confession to Clavin.

And I was just about to step out of the room when the overweight man opened his eyes. I hoped he wouldn’t spot me, the phantom in the green light.

But he looked right at me. I expected to see fear in his eyes.

I didn’t. Instead, I saw pale-colored eyes, green or blue, eyes that were questioning me. Was he having a hard time processing who I was?

“You’re g-gonna be him,” he said.

A cold chill swept through me. How could this man know what I was going to do? Was he somehow outside of history, aware of the trails?

I waited for him to say more. But as he stared at me with his blue-green eyes, I realized that
I
was the man outside of history, and somehow he’d spotted that. He kept his eyes on me, and I was suddenly fearful that if he told me one more thing he shouldn’t know, my tenuous understanding of my new reality would collapse like a house of cards.

I quickly turned, stepped out into the hallway, and was relieved to see that Meyer, Hans, and Alfred were gone. I wouldn’t even have to implement my new plan. I headed toward Einstein’s room with a little more confidence. My quest for the confession might finally come to an end.

The door to Einstein’s room was open, and I walked right in only to stop dead in my tracks—

Meyer was by Einstein’s bedside, and it was too late to turn around. I had no choice but to put my plan into action. At least Hans had already left.

“I’m sorry to intrude, but I thought the professor was alone.” I stuck out my hand to shake. “I’m Henry Clavin.”

Meyer regarded me for a few seconds, warily, and I wondered if I’d blundered. Surely she’d noticed that I’d entered another room just a few minutes ago.

She finally gave me a very light handshake. “The mysterious Mr. Clavin makes an appearance,” she said. “I’m Miss Meyer.”

I gave a small bow of acknowledgement. Under the circumstances, smiling was inappropriate, but I was pleased that something had gone my way.

“And may I ask what business you have with Professor Einstein?” she said.

“He asked me to come. He had something to give me. I’m sorry I wasn’t able to get here sooner.”

“Why did you go into that other patient’s room, Mr. Clavin?” She was on the ball and to the point.

“I didn’t want the others who were with you to know I’d come to see Professor Einstein.”

“And why is that?”

“Those would be the wishes of the professor.”

Her stern face relaxed. I’d said the right thing. She knew that Einstein wanted his work with Clavin to remain private.

With this small triumph under my belt, I looked over at Einstein. Up close, I could see how much he’d declined since our brief encounter at the Weldon estate. His face was skeletal and his eyes, though closed, were sunken.

Then I glanced at the table next to his bed, checking for the handwritten notes. There weren’t any papers on the table. I wondered if Clavin had already come and gone.

“Professor Einstein had not told me you were coming,” Meyer said.

I didn’t want to risk rocking the boat—now that the boat was in smooth water—with a response that would put her back on guard. So I didn’t respond at all and waited for her to take the lead.

She did. “Perhaps you could tell me what you and the professor were working on, Mr. Clavin. Then I might be able to locate what he wanted to give you.”

That was way more forward of her than I had expected, but who could blame her? She wanted to know about the man who’d been meeting in secret with her beloved employer.

“If I said any more, I’d be betraying Professor Einstein’s trust,” I said. “I know he has few secrets from you, Miss Meyer, but telling you about this project would put you in danger.” And that was truer than she’d ever know.

With great sorrow on her face, and love, she looked at Einstein. She had worked for this man for nearly thirty years. “Then you’ll have to return tomorrow to talk to the professor, Mr. Clavin.”

There would be no tomorrow.

So where was that confession?

Meyer started toward the door, expecting me to follow her out.

I had no choice but to comply.

But just as she was about to step out of the room, an accented voice, feeble and thin, said, “May I have paper and pen.”

We both turned to Einstein. His eyes were rheumy and searching the room. Meyer instantly hurried toward him.

“Of course. Would you like me to prop you up?” she said.

“Yes.”

As she grabbed two pillows sitting on a chair, I scooted out of Einstein’s angle of vision and weighed whether to duck out of the room.

If I stayed, I’d actually witness Einstein writing down his secret. But if Einstein saw me, he could give away the whole game. All he had to do was ask who I was and Meyer would know that I wasn’t Clavin.

Meyer brought the pillows to Einstein and helped him lean up. By the time she’d placed the pillows behind him, I was out of the room. I hoped I hadn’t cut it too close and that the scientist hadn’t caught a glimpse of me.

Outside, I stood to the side of the door and peered back into the room.

Meyer was pulling a sheaf of paper from the drawer of the table next to Einstein’s bed. She riffled through the first few sheets—which, according to history, had equations scrawled on them—and peeled them off.

Then she pulled a magazine from the drawer, used it to back the remaining sheets of paper, and handed the bundle, along with a pen, to Einstein.

He started writing, and I stood there, flabbergasted. I was watching the great scientist writing the very confession that I’d been seeking for twelve years. After all the extraordinary things I’d experienced over the past few days, this was the most amazing.

In the silence, as Einstein wrote, I wondered where Clavin was, and for the first time, considered the possibility that Clavin’s memory had been faulty.
Maybe Einstein
doesn’t
hand him the confession.
Maybe Clavin had been too sick that day in Rockville to remember that he’d come for it, but had never gotten it.

I looked over at Ruth Meyer, who was patiently standing by Einstein’s side as she had for nearly thirty years. Could Einstein have given her the confession?

“I should not have waited,” Einstein said, as he continued to write. “Please deliver this to Henry Clavin or Gregory Van Doran.”

Just then I saw Nurse Ander step out of a room down the hall. History had recorded what was going to happen now. I had no doubt that she’d go into Einstein’s room to witness that he was writing
words
, and not equations.

And that’s exactly what she did.

She walked by me, we exchanged smiles, and then she entered the room and approached the scientist.

That’s when I heard the elevator door open, looked down the hallway, and saw something that plunged me right back into the messiness of time travel—

Alex was stepping out of the elevator. He was wearing hospital scrubs.

Chapter Twenty-Three

What the hell was going on? And with that question came the obvious answer.

Alex is here for the same reason I am. The confession.

And he must’ve come here before Van Doran murdered him in the hit-and-run.

When I looked back into the room, Meyer was heading toward me. She stepped out of the room, glanced at the man in hospital scrubs heading our way, and apparently thought nothing of it.

“We’ll wait until he finishes the letter,” she said. “Then I’ll tell him that you’re here to take it.”

Nurse Ander stepped out of the room, writing something on a chart. I thought she might call Alex out as an impostor, but she walked right by him, her nose in that chart, and said nothing.

Alex stepped up to Meyer and me. He ignored me and spoke to her. “I’m Dr. Mason, and you must be Miss Meyer. Dr. Wiseman asked me to check on Mr. Einstein.”

“Thank you, doctor,” she said.

Alex glanced at me, blankly, as if he didn’t know me, then headed into the room.

Meyer, the worry now back on her face, turned to me. “Excuse me, Mr. Clavin. I’d like to see what the doctor has to say.” She stepped back into the room.

Was Alex going to get to the confession before I did? Had that been his end game from the start? I couldn’t very well move into the room and fight him for the confession. Not with Meyer here. Or could I?

Alex suddenly stepped out of the room. “Hold tight,” he said.

“Do you have it?” I responded.

“No.”

Over his shoulder, I saw that Einstein was saying something to Meyer.

“I have to play this right this time,” Alex said.

“This time?” I asked, but didn’t need an answer, because I suddenly understood it all. He’d tried to get the confession many times and had failed. So he’d recruited others to help him. Unsuspecting others, like me.

I shoved him against the wall. “You wasted twelve years of my life!”

“But it wasn’t a waste. It gave you a purpose.”

“That should’ve been my choice.”

“It was. You could have stopped at any time. But you didn’t want to.”

“Why’d you drag me into it?”

“Because it always plays out the same. The specifics change, but not the outcome. The confession gets lost in history,
every time
. I needed to change that. I needed help.” He looked at his watch. “I’ll show you what I mean.”

He started down the hall, but I hung back, not wanting the confession to walk out of Einstein’s room in someone else’s hand.

“Don’t worry, you aren’t going to miss your opportunity. Not yet, anyway.”

I didn’t move.

“Like it or not, we’re on the same team now,” he said. “We both want to see those pages.”

I followed Alex down the hall and into the room with the overweight man and the eerie green patina. I wondered how many times Alex had ducked into this room and if that was why this patient had turned prophetic.

Alex ignored the man and walked up to the window. “See, it’s playing out just the way it did last time… and the time before that… and the time before that…”

I stepped up to the window and saw a car pull into the parking lot and park. Van Doran stepped out and started toward the hospital.

“He’s here for the confession?” I said.

“Like he always is, and I always stop him.”

“
You
get the confession?”

“No. I never end up with it.”

“Then who does?”

He grinned.

“
I
do?”

“That’s up to you,” he said, and headed back across the room.

“What do you mean?”

“Time travel is messy.”

“Thanks for the insight. Why is up to me?”

“Because you’ve made it this far.”

That wasn’t a good enough answer. He stepped out into the hallway and I followed. “Alex—
you
don’t make it this far. Van Doran kills you in the original history.”

“What makes you think that’s the original history?”

I realized I didn’t know.

“It may become the history of record, but it hasn’t yet,” he said. “The only way to save the old history, to save Eddie, yourself, and even Einstein, is to get that confession.”

“Einstein’s confession is the key.”

“Always has been.” The elevator doors slid open and Alex stepped on.

“Where are you going?”

“To stop Van Doran. But I don’t know how much time I can buy you.”

I had one question left. “If I can’t get the confession, does Laura die, too?”

“Yeah.”

“Because of me?”

He nodded. “Fix this now. Once and forever.”

The elevator doors slid shut.

I hurried toward Einstein’s room, then slowed to a walk before entering. Meyer was standing next to Einstein’s bed, her back to me and her head slightly bowed, in a pose of silent grief.

My first thought was that Einstein had died. There’d been no final words to Nurse Ander in German. Meyer had been the last person to see Einstein alive, which would have been a more fitting end.

But then I realized that the monitoring equipment was still displaying Einstein’s vital signs.

I approached Meyer, and she turned to me. She was holding two sheets of paper, folded once over. The rest of the sheaf of papers was on the table, next to the slumbering Einstein.