Glimpse (The Tesla Effect Book 1) (29 page)

“Get them out of here, Joley!” Finn shouted. Tesla’s breath had been knocked out of her and she tried to pull air into her lungs. She got to her knees, saw Bizzy grab Malcolm’s arm and drag him toward the hospital side, while Keisha and Joley each took one of Tesla’s arms and pulled her to her feet. They all ran, but not before Tesla looked back and saw Finn drape one of Becket’s arms around
his neck while she hissed through gritted teeth, “Amateurs! Not a single one of you took cover like I told you to.”

“Shut up, Beckett,” said Finn lightly. “You’re bleeding all over my favorite shirt.”

Tesla finally got her legs under her. She sucked air into her lungs gratefully and ran alongside Joley and Keisha, but the stretched feeling got stronger with every step. They caught up to Bizzy and Mal, who had stopped at the door that led to the hospital, and everyone paused, wide-eyed and breathing hard.

“It’s locked,” said Malcolm.

“I’ve got the code,” said Bizzy breathlessly. She pushed the seven numbers with fingers that shook, but nothing happened. No click, and the door wouldn’t budge.

“The code’s been changed,” she said, after she’d tried it for the fourth time. “It’s set to randomly change at automatic intervals, and we have to log-in—those of us with clearance—to get the new code.
I’m sorry.”

“We have to go back,” Tesla said. “We shouldn’t have left them there in the first place.”
She was already backing up, her body moving in the only direction that would ease the now-unbearable tension she felt in every inch of her body.

“That’s where the shooter went,” Keisha said.

“Come on,” said Joley. “We have to go back anyway to go out the other side.”

In two minutes they were back. Finn had propped Beckett up against the wall and she sat with her legs stretched out on the floor in front of her, while he ripped the bottom four inches from his T-shirt, which he’d pulled off as soon as he’d gotten Beckett settled. He glanced up once, saw Tesla, then started the tear in his shirt with his teeth. He ripped the cotton fabric with his hands, his biceps knotted as he tore through it, his abdomen flat and hard and well-
defined.

“Yeah, I look pretty much just like that without a shirt on,” Malcolm said with a nervous laugh.

“This is gonna hurt,” said Finn to Beckett as he pulled her forward, as gently as he could, from where she sat, slumped against the wall. “Somebody come help me,” he said, and Tesla and Joley stepped forward immediately and crouched down beside him.

“What do we do?” Tesla asked.

“I need something I can cut with,” he said.

“You’re gonna operate on that girl?” said Keisha, but Finn ignored her.

Tesla reached into her bag and pulled out a utility knife and held it up. “I have this,” she said.

Finn turned to her, took the knife and pushed out the blade.

“Huh,” said Beckett, who had opened her eyes and looked at Tesla. “That’s a surprise.”

Tesla shrugged. “You never know what you might need when you’re a spy.” Becket smiled and closed her eyes as Finn sliced through the strap of her Lycra camisole and pulled it down just enough to reveal the black, bleeding bullet hole in her shoulder.

“Oh my god,” said Bizzy, her voice a sepulchral whisper.

“Shut up, Biz,” said Beckett, her eyes still closed.

“Sorry,” Bizzy whispered, her own eyes wide.

“Joley, hold Beck’s arm out away from her body. And be careful.”

Joley did as he was told, hesitating only when Beckett gasped, her eyes shut tight against the pain the movement caused her. “Oh bloody hell,” he said. “I’m so sorry Beckett.”

“Tes, take my T-shirt, wad it up over the wound, and press hard on it.”

Tesla swallowed and moved closer, just past Joley who held Beckett’s arm out of the way. She got inside, close enough to Beckett and Finn that she brushed against both of them, and pressed the shirt to the girl’s bloody shoulder. A groan escaped Beckett’s tightly-shut lips and Bizzy whimpered softly from behind them.

“Keep the pressure on,” Finn said quietly beside Tesla. “Just like that.”

He reached across Tesla, his bare chest against her arm, and said softly to Beckett, “The bleeding has slowed from the pressure, Becks, and now I’m gonna tie it up. It’s got to be tight, so get ready.”

Beckett exhaled once, slowly and thoroughly through her mouth, and then inhaled, long and steady through her nose. She nodded once, her eyes still closed, and began another long exhalation of air through her mouth as Finn ran the 4-inch wide strip of cloth under her arm and against the rest of the shirt Tesla still held tightly against Beckett’s bloody shoulder. As he drew the fabric in tight to the wound and then pulled it even tighter into a square knot, Beckett slumped forward against Tesla, who had removed her hand from the makeshift dressing at the last second. Tesla caught her, carefully avoided her wounded shoulder, where a small spot of red had already appeared through the cloth, and looked at Finn.

“I think she’s fainted.”

“No she hasn’t,” Beckett said weakly, her eyes still closed. “She’s just regrouping.”

“You are one tough blonde,” said Finn affectionately.

“Don’t forget it,” Beckett said weakly as she leaned against Tesla, who actually smoothed her hair back tenderly. Beckett opened her eyes, looked up at Tesla, and raised an eyebrow. Tesla smiled at her and shrugged.

“We need to get you out of here,” Joley said. “Think it’s safe to head back up?”

“We don’t really have a choice,” said Finn as he looked at the blood that already seeped through the T-shirt bandage on Beckett’s shoulder.
“We can’t stay here.”

“True,” said Joley. “Plus, I’m hungry.”

“Don’t make me laugh, it hurts,” said Beckett, her voice a little stronger.

“Okay,” said Finn. “Joley and I will get Beckett up the stairs, you guys go ahead of us. If there’s any sign of trouble—and I mean this—the rest of you haul ass up those stairs and get to Lydia’s. No turning back.” He looked at Tesla, spoke to Tesla, and she could not look away. “Understood?”

Everyone nodded, and they went through the door and up the metal staircase that would lead them out fairly close to Lydia’s house. Finn and Joley got Beckett up and moved as carefully as they could. Beckett was able to carry some of her own weight, but it was clear she couldn’t have walked on her own. The rest of them tried not to look back as they climbed, listening for the smallest sound and watching for any movement as their eyes swept the darkness at each corner they rounded in the stairwell.

They finally made it to the top, and the door loomed ahead of them. Tesla was there first, and she took a breath and opened the door to whatever awaited them in the dark.

CHAPTER 32

“Clearly, I will have to rethink this entire operation,” Lydia said, her fury barely contained. “I expected a minimal level of professionalism from each one of you that you have
all
failed—miserably—to meet. All of my efforts to effect Dr. Abbott’s safe return were geared for maximum safety. We could—and should—have been able to navigate this case without
anyone
getting hurt.”

They had gathered in Lydia’s second-floor sitting room—even Sam, who had arrived only minutes after the rest of them—and awkwardly stood, sat, or paced around the room. No one was able to meet Lydia’s gaze. Without ever saying so, they all knew they would remain until the doctor had taken care of Beckett, and emerged to tell them just how bad it was, despite the fact that at this moment they would have all preferred to be elsewhere. All the doctor had said when he arrived with his nurse, who carried a large black roller bag, was that Beckett had lost a lot of blood. Then he closed the door to her room, and they waited.

Lydia fumed for a few minutes, silently, and the clock on the mantel ticked loudly. Finally the older woman looked up and over the top of her glasses and focused on Finn.

“What, exactly, were you thinking?” she asked.

“We went to get Tesla,” he said, though they’d already explained at least twice. “She had snuck out, we thought we knew where she’d gone. So we went there to get her. Those were your instructions.”

“As you know perfectly well, Finnegan, my instructions were to bring her here from her house. When you found she was gone you should have texted to inform me, and waited for further orders.” Lydia’s fingers drummed on the arm of her chair nervously, and Tesla was surprised to see her so agitated. She must feel horrible about Beckett, maybe even responsible, to have employed such young, inexperienced operatives.

“And what about you, Tesla?” Lydia asked sharply. She had turned to the girl so suddenly that Tesla jumped.

“Me?” Tesla squeaked.

“Yes, you. Why would you go off on your own like that?”

“She wasn’t alone.” Keisha spoke for the first time from the seat next to Tesla on the sofa. “She was with me.
I knew about her escapade below the hospital before any of you got involved. My only allegiance is to T—of course I’m gonna be with her. You’ll just have to get used to it.”

“You are not trained—either of you—and there is a chain of command that must be followed, or—or this kind of thing happens,” Lydia said with a wave toward the closed door of Beckett’s bedroom.

“Look, no offense, Lydia, but I don’t know about your chain of command, or why you think I should follow it. I don’t work for you, and neither does Tesla.” Keisha said it politely enough, but she held Lydia’s gaze and it was, shockingly, the older woman who looked away.

“That is an excellent point,” Lydia said after a moment. “And it serves to remind me that Tesla should not have been
brought into this at all.”

“But Lydia, you don’t have the right to keep me out of the picture when it’s my dad who’s been kidnapped,” Tesla protested.
“And why, exactly, have I been here for half an hour and been told absolutely nothing about this breakthrough in his case that was the reason you sent them after me in the first place?”

Lydia looked at Tesla, who glared back at her. “You’re right, of course, dear.”
To everyone’s surprise, she sounded suddenly very old, and very tired. “Forgive me. I knew it would be an unpleasant conversation, and with Beckett injured, well…. I suppose I was relieved to postpone this.”

“Postpone what?” Tesla sat up straight on the couch in sudden alarm.
“Is my father hurt—or dead?” she asked, her voice low and carefully controlled.

“I cannot answer that with any certainty,” Lydia said calmly as she held Tesla’s gaze. “But Jane Doane has disappeared, and—”

“What? Aunt Jane’s been kidnapped, too—but why? And how?” Tesla stood up, looked wildly around and took a step away from the couch toward the door, ready to—well, she didn’t know what. She felt a sudden helplessness, a fear and vulnerability that paralyzed her, and then Lydia spoke again.

“Tesla, you don’t understand—listen to me.”

The woman’s sad, gentle tone—the lack of any semblance of urgency—immobilized Tesla. “What don’t I understand?” she asked, though she knew before she’d even finished the question that she didn’t want to know the answer.

“Tesla, we have evidence that Jane has been in league with Nilsen the entire time. Probably from the start, all those years ago. I said she was missing, dear. Not kidnapped.” There was a pause, a beat that lasted an eternity.

“I’m sorry,” Lydia added.

“I don’t believe it,” Tesla said.
She pulled free from Keisha, who had stood when she did and had her hand on Tesla’s arm just above the cast. “I’ve known her my whole life, there’s no way.”

“Yes, but have you really known her?” Lydia asked sadly. “Think about it, Tesla. Did you know what her real job was? Did you know, until Sam accused her, that she had maintained her relationship with Nilsen long after your parents broke ties with him?”

“No,” Tesla said quietly, tears in her eyes. “But that doesn’t mean—”

“Tesla, if she kept all of that from you, what else has she kept from you?”

Tesla walked to the fireplace and back, desperate to find a way to refuse this. She was glad Max wasn’t here, glad he was spared this, but at the same time she missed his particular gift, his insights about people, stories, motivations—of course, she thought.
Motivations
.

“Why would she work with Nilsen?” Tesla asked as she whirled back to face Lydia. “What could she possibly have to gain? I know her, I know how she lives, she doesn’t care about money, she lives simply, and she could have made a lot more money in the private sector, but she chose government work. So why?”

“You really don’t know?” Lydia asked.

“No.” Tesla felt her braids hit her shoulders as she shook her head. “I really don’t know.”

“Jane loves your father,” Lydia said gently. “She’s always loved him.”

“That’s crazy,” Tesla said, but her voice had lost the strength of conviction it had held only seconds before.

“Is it?” Lydia asked. She rose wearily from her chair and walked toward Tesla while the rest of them watched other people’s lives unravel. “Is it crazy that she would have fallen for him in college, so smart and handsome and kind, fallen for him even before her more attractive and sophisticated roommate had met him? Crazy that he would have fallen for the roommate instead, that Jane would be forced to watch the love and the life your parents built together, relegated to just the old college friend, the aunt and godmother to their children, forever the outsider?”

Tesla had backed up to the fireplace until she had nowhere else to go. Sam, who stood nearby, took a step nearer to Tesla, who didn’t look at him because she couldn’t take her eyes off Lydia.

“Leave her alone,” he said.

Lydia ignored him. “Tesla, this may be hard to hear, but it’s the truth. You told me once, in this very room, that even if it was hard you preferred to know the truth.”

“I know,” Tesla said. “And I still prefer the truth, but Lydia, this doesn’t make
sense
.” She turned to Finn, “Does this make sense to you?” she asked, and he recognized it as much more than the question she’d asked—it was a plea to leave her some small scrap of the foundation upon which her world had always rested.

“I don’t know,” he said as gently as he could. “It’s possible that she loved him—that she still loves him.” He shook his head lightly, tried to clear the wave of grief that threatened to drown his attempt to think this through, confused by how strongly he felt her pain. With an enormous effort of will he set the overwhelming emotions aside.

“But Lydia,” he said, turning to the older woman. “Why would Jane work with Nilsen to steal the time-travel technology, why would she participate in, or even just cover-up, Nilsen’s kidnapping of Dr. Abbott? How does that help her if what she wants is Dr. Abbott for herself, finally, after all these years?”

Tesla, who had stared at Finn as he spoke, whipped her
head around, back to Lydia, her mouth slightly open, her eyes desperate and bright.

“Because as long as Dr. Abbott continues to work on time travel, he will never truly leave his wife—she was also his partner, his colleague. This is their work—perhaps even more fully hers than his—and as long as Greg Abbott continues that work, Jane Doane has no hope of taking Tasya Petrova’s place in his life.”

Lydia turned to Tesla. “I am sorry, my dear. I understand how crushing this kind of disillusionment can be.”

Sam stood right next to Tesla, put both arms around her and she buried her face in his chest. Finn and everyone else in the room stared at the sight of her, broken and
alone, when the door to Beckett’s room opened and the doctor walked out.

Tesla and Sam stood by the bed in Beckett’s room, the last two to file inside and speak to her. She lay on the bed, the covers pulled up over her chest and tucked underneath her arms. She had a fresh dressing over her bullet wound, and her face was peaceful, her eyes closed.

“She looks better,” Sam said quietly, and Tesla nodded.
She was glad for Beckett, but the day had become surreal, a dreamscape she occupied, with full knowledge of what it was. She felt nothing—about any of it. It just wasn’t real.

“She’s also awake,” Beckett whispered.

“And still talking about herself in the third person,” Tesla whispered back.

Beckett smiled.

“Sorry, did we wake you?” Sam asked as he took a step nearer.

“No, I’m just laying here.”

“It doesn’t hurt anymore, now that the bullet’s out?” Tesla asked.

“Couldn’t tell you,” Beckett said.
“Good drugs.”

“I guess I missed all the excitement,” said Sam. “I saw Finn and the others race away from Tesla’s house, but I couldn’t get into the physics building to follow them.
It must have been pretty crazy down there. You were lucky, I guess.”

“Yeah, lucky,” Beckett said dreamily, her eyes still closed. “I guess they told you about your aunt, huh?”

It took a second for Tesla to follow. “Lydia said they suspect her of working with Nilsen,” she said reluctantly.

“Not to mention shooting me,” said Beckett.

“What?” Tesla reeled, and just when she thought she couldn’t be shocked by anything else, ever again. “Why do you think that?”

Beckett’s eyes were open now, and looking—with actual sympathy—at Tesla. “It all fits,” she said quietly. “Motive, opportunity, skill set. And now she’s disappeared. Not a coincidence, I think.”

“God, Beckett,” Tesla said softly, horrified. “My Aunt Jane shot you? I—I don’t know what to say.”

“Why should you say anything? It’s not like you’re responsible,” she said dismissively. “In fact, you were not bad down there.
You had a cool head.” Her eyes closed again. “I actually thought I might die. Kind of puts it all in perspective, you know?”

No one answered her, and the room was silent. Just as Tesla thought the injured girl had fallen asleep, and that they should leave her to rest, Beckett spoke again.

“Makes me feel bad about our little deal,” she said.

“Our deal?” Tesla asked, confused.

“No, idiot. Him,” she said. “Our deal to keep you and Finn apart.”

Tesla turned and looked at Sam, who met her eyes but stood rigid, resolutely silent. Tesla turned back to Beckett. “You and Sam are trying to keep Finn and me apart?”

“Well, we hadn’t really started yet,” Beckett said as she opened her eyes and returned Tesla’s look. “But we agreed to try.”

“Why?” Tesla demanded, the question for Beckett alone. She didn’t want to hear Sam’s answer to that question.

Beckett shrugged, and the movement caused her face to contort in pain. “Shit,” she said softly, and waited until the pain passed. “I don’t really know,” she admitted. “I guess I’m just a bitch.”

Tesla took a deep, shaky breath, and then let it out, along with her anger. “No, you’re not,” she said, which surprised them both. “You try, but you’re not as good at it as you think you are.”

“Great,” Beckett said. “Way to make me feel even worse.”

Tesla smiled, and then Beckett smiled, too.

“I guess I’m glad you’re not dead,” Tesla said.

“I guess I’m glad you’re a spy now, too,” Beckett said.

There was no more to be said after that and Tesla, utterly exhausted, did the only thing that was left to her: without so much as a glance for Sam, she slipped out of the room and out of that house before anyone could stop her and made her way down the streets of the town she knew, the life she thought she knew, and she didn’t stop until she was alone, as it was apparently meant to be.

Tesla tried to sleep, but after an hour in which she tossed and turned and punched her pillow into shape it was clear that sleep was not in the cards. She got up and walked downstairs in the soft, stretchy tank and boxers she liked to sleep in. Maybe some mindless TV would help.