Skyline (15 page)

Charlotte
couldn’t take Monroe’s smug fucking smile. “You printed all these out? How much
did this
cost
, ’Roe? And for what? To prove some point? We already
know
we failed.”

“No.”
Monroe spread his hands in defense. But he didn’t elaborate. He didn’t have a
better reason.

“You’re
stuck on last night, stuck on the fact that
yes
, the future is
dangerous.
Yes
, I took Bill’s side. You know what? I would again.
Because his idea was smart, was well thought out. Yours had so many risks, and
you didn’t even acknowledge them! And now look, you’ve wasted an entire day,
researching everything we already knew.” Who knew how many days they had to
waste?

“I
thought it’d be funny,” Monroe tried, but he didn’t sound convinced.

“Well,
ha fucking ha,” Charlotte said. She felt like she was boiling inside. Every
part of her was getting hotter, her fingertips cutting into her palm. If he
wasn’t going to help, maybe they didn’t need him. If they had to go to the
future, they’d go without him.

“It’s
fine, Charlotte,” Bill said, his voice found. Charlotte swiveled to him, but
his eyes remained on the pages. “He’s right. We shouldn’t have left him out.
Should’ve run our ideas past him. I changed history. I thought I was being
smart, but look what I did.”

“I
didn’t mean that.” Monroe said. He shook his head. “I want to be a part of
this. I want to plan with you guys. To test stupid theories. I want to help.”

“This
is helping?” Charlotte gripped the police report condemning her, before
crumpling it and throwing it at Monroe’s feet. “Telling us that we fucked up?
Great, thanks. That’s so useful.” She turned from him. “Any other ideas, Bill?”

“Charlotte,”
Bill urged, his green eyes staring into hers. “Hear him out.”

“How
are you on his side?” Charlotte spat. “Because you finally realized you were
being ridiculous at the
Lusitania
, all those years ago?”

“That’s
not—”

“All
I was saying,” Monroe interrupted, yelling, “is bring me! Ask for my ideas! You
both jump into things without a plan, but a plan could’ve kept your work from
the police, Char. It would’ve meant Bill spent less time searching every cool
event in every Blast location. I mean, sure, I bet you had a great time, Bill.
And, yeah, I’m jealous.
Truman Capote’s
party? That sounds fucking
awesome. But it’s not where Ana would go. And we kinda knew that Leanor would
run, Char. If we’re gonna stop these bombs, we have to be smarter
.
We
have so few leads, we can’t afford to fuck them up.”

“Like
I did,” Charlotte said, shoving a clenched fist into her pocket.

“No,
I … We have to stop it,” Monroe said, his voice faltering. “We have to stop
her.”

We
have to keep Charlie safe
, he didn’t
add. Charlotte couldn’t believe he’d forgotten.

“I’m
sorry, Monroe,” Bill said, lifting his pale eyes to Monroe’s. “I messed up. I
should’ve waited. Should’ve forced you to come along. You’re the history
expert. But back then you were so mad. And I thought I was smart enough, that
my plan would work. Obviously I wasn’t.”

How
could Bill be apologizing? Did Monroe really think he had a sixth-sense about
cameras? He always had to untag himself in pictures from nights clubbing.

“I-it’s
okay,” Monroe stammered, his gaze stuck on Bill. Maybe he was finally seeing
that Bill didn’t deserve his fury. That didn’t change that he’d wasted a day.
“We’ll find new leads.”

“No,”
Charlotte said, staring Monroe down. “
I’ll
find new leads. Because
Charlie’s in danger. Because I have to make sure he’s okay. And you obviously
don’t give a shit about that.”

“Char—”

But
Charlotte was already at the door, swinging it wide. “You two have a good
evening.” Before either of them said another word, she slammed the door behind
her.

Charlotte
replayed the scene as she stormed down the street, dry after a day of sticky
sunlight. But the sun—just barely falling on the sidewalk before her—had done
nothing for the humidity. It felt like she was swimming while she fumed.
Couples passed by, happily chuckling to one another on their way to a meal.
Probably exactly how Monroe and Bill would be acting in a few minutes.

Wasn’t
that what she wanted?

But
as a blond-haired woman laughed, leaning into her boyfriend, her husband,
whoever, Charlotte remembered that smile on Monroe’s face. His delight at their
failure. The truth was, he’d failed too. All those printouts may have proved a
point, but they did nothing to point the way forward.

“What
an asshole,” Charlotte said to herself, gaining her a dark look from the
passing pair. She didn’t even feel like apologizing.

No
leads, and Paris would have to show up soon. If he had some way of watching
them, he’d know they’d run out of leads. That’s what mattered.

She
slowed her walk, realizing where her feet had taken her unaware. Only two doors
down from Felix’s apartment where Charlie was. Charlotte set her jaw forward
and walked straight by. Forced herself not to pause, not to look up, not to see
whether Felix’s lights were on.

If
Paris were watching right now, she shouldn’t lead him directly too Charlie. No
need to invite that disaster.

How
did all of this happen? All she’d ever wanted was to reconnect with her family.
Repair all that a year of focus on her work—three years in this timeline—had
ruined. Now she couldn’t even see her husband—her ex-husband—or her son. Her
mentor was dead. She’d alienated herself from the person she’d known all her
life. Why was it that the only person who felt close was Bill?

“You’ll
make everything okay,” Leanor had told her. The last words she’d ever spoken to
Charlotte, and she got to hear them twice. Would Charlotte really make
everything okay? Could she?

Everything
she’d done had only made things worse.

Why
had Leanor run? Why not give some hint? Okay, she was scared of Ana, but didn’t
she want this puzzle solved? Wasn’t that
how
Charlotte was supposed to
“make everything okay?” But she’d disappeared. Vanished, despite all of
Charlotte’s warnings. So worried for her own damn life that she wouldn’t …

Charlotte
came to a halt midway between Seventy-fifth and Seventy-fourth.

Leanor
hadn’t run
from
her death. She hadn’t ever cared about Charlotte’s
warning.

What
if she wasn’t scared of Paris, but was accepting her fate? Charlotte had called
to say that Leanor would die, and she’d died. She’d visited, and Leanor acted
oddly, but … What if she was making the future happen, because she knew it
would send Charlotte on this path? What if she was making certain that the
future happened
then
,
there
, because otherwise the past would
change? Maybe Charlotte would change, too. If she hadn’t seen Leanor die,
hadn’t heard her say, “the Blast,” would they ever have visited it? Ever met
Ana for a second, then a third time?

God,
that
at least made sense.

Despite
the warm day, a cold pit entered Charlotte’s stomach. If that was true, if Leanor
had to die to put her on this path, then what if Leanor always had to die? What
if there was no way to keep her alive in the end?

Charlotte
swiveled, facing the blocks it would take to get her home. Turned to a
barbershop beside her. Where should she go? What should she do?

Leanor
wanted her to work, to
act
, and here she was wandering away, moping. She
should’ve joined Bill, searched with him. Should’ve left the apartment and
found Monroe at the library. She had to do everything possible, so why wasn’t
she? Why was she standing on this sidewalk instead of working out the problem
with Monroe and Bill?

She
took the first step toward the apartment and faltered. That stack of photos was
still going to be there, reminding her of Monroe’s smugness. She finished her
step, took another and another. She had to get home.

Her
black shoes ate up the sidewalk. Bypassing Felix’s apartment without pausing,
and not because she forced herself to. She was focused. The three of them would
put their heads together, would come up with something brilliant. Monroe would
see he shouldn’t have been such an ass. Bill would back her up. They’d move
forward. Come up with a new plan.

Even
go to the future if they had to.

Charlotte
arrived at their block, her eyes focused on the outer door of the
apartment—when Monroe and Bill exited, their bodies close, almost touching.
They were smiling, murmuring softly to each other as all the other couples had.
Her feet wouldn’t take her any farther forward.

One
of Bill’s hands was settled on the small of Monroe’s back, guiding them across
the street, away from Charlotte and down an alley. Toward one of their favorite
haunts: a cheese bar.

Charlotte
could’ve called out to them. Told them to stop, drawn them back in so they
could get to work. But they looked so happy, so much more at ease than she
could be with Felix. How could she take that away?

She
could join them. Catch up, grab a beer, eat some delicious cheese from Vermont,
from Colorado, from a tiny little cave in France. But there was work to be done
at home. They’d all failed, like it or not. She let them walk on. Let them have
their date. She’d do the work for three of them. She’d have an idea when they
got home.

Now
she unfroze. She walked up the street, through the door that had closed only a
minute ago, and into their darkened apartment. Some of the gloom had
dissipated. She fixed herself a little sandwich and tried to focus. There was
some way forward. Some era Bill missed. Some clue from Leanor. But her
attention was consumed by the stack Monroe had printed out, still lying on the
table.

She
could almost see him at one of the glass panels set into the library’s tables.
Roaming through websites at random to ease his mind after a morning of staring
at book text. And then discovering this, Bill in hundreds of photos. His smile
would’ve been so big, even more devilish when he wasn’t trying to contain it.

He
probably printed out every image, just for the impact. The exact way he would
underline a student’s every use of a too-frequent word. And her? He had
probably rubbed his hands together and typed in the date. Certain that she’d
screwed up, too.

Charlotte
plucked up the stack and began flipping through. As Monroe had promised, every
one had Bill in the frame. But this was more than evidence of Bill’s
foolishness. It was also a fair representation of all of the Blast’s remaining
endpoints throughout time. Pier Fifty-four long after they’d been there, when
it was nothing more than a concrete slab for parties. The Statue of Liberty on
the day of its unveiling. Dozens of pictures from inside and outside the
opulent Plaza Hotel.

In
a way, looking through these photos was like joining both Bill
and
Monroe. Researching the past and seeing Bill grow, too. She plucked up three
photos at random and could almost see the progression. Bill doughy in one,
shoulders slumped. His shoulders straighter, his eyes keen in another, and a
third where if Charlotte hadn’t seen him now, she wouldn’t have guessed it was
the same man. Even the blogger who’d discovered the photo had written
Bald
Man?
below, unsure.

This
was worse, Charlotte realized. This
was
bad. Bloggers had noted Bill
throughout history—what if they saw him on the street? Would these people on
the Internet make the impossible leap? Would someone else realize that time
travel was possible?

No,
Charlotte told herself, forcing herself to breathe. This would go away. If
they—
once
they—reversed the Blast, then all the attention on these
locations would go away. Bill’s indiscretion would go unnoticed. Just as Monroe
feared, people would forget to care about history.

Still,
Charlotte paged through. Unable to stop looking at the car crash of Bill’s
foolishness. He’d been
everywhere
.

The
photos ranged from black-and-white, blurry, to the crisp digital of only a few
years ago. And, of course, Monroe had printed those out in color—even more
expensive when he could’ve just pulled them up on his own tablet.

Looking
at a photo of the Plaza Hotel—with Bill peeking through a window high
above—Charlotte felt a strange flop in her stomach. She’d missed something
important. She scanned through, but the feeling told her it wasn’t this photo.

She
flipped back to the previous image and pored through, trying to see whatever
she’d missed. This photo, like the next, showed the front facade of the Plaza,
but the building looked different, smaller. A caption told Charlotte that this
was the original Plaza, before it had been rebuilt in 1907, larger, grander,
taller. A flag flapped above the entrance, and a few horses and carriages waited
for passengers. In the foreground, a young couple—newlyweds, the caption
read—stood, about to start their honeymoon. But in the background, the street
was full of activity. Horse-drawn carriages passed one another in the streets.
Couples walked together along the side of the road. Bill spoke with the doorman
in the distance.

On
the side, almost out of frame, a woman with curly white hair watched Bill talk
with the doorman. In her hands was a journal and a pencil. She was taking
notes. Curious. She didn't wear a dress like every other woman in the photo,
but pants and a leather jacket.

Charlotte
leaned into the photo, squinting for clarity. She didn’t breathe; she didn’t
blink. Her heart beat a drum in her chest.

“Leanor?”