Time of Departure (33 page)

I showered and went to work.

The next two days were hell. On Saturday morning, I capitulated and phoned Marc. For the first time since I had taken up residence in his life, I called him at the office. The switchboard put me through to the Joint Task Force.

A male voice answered. “Lipinski!”

Just my luck …

His voice wasn't as raspy as I remembered, but its familiar tone of offhand negligence came through loud and clear. I gripped the receiver tighter, suppressed my disdain, and said, “Detective Hastings, please.”

“Who's callin'?”

It wasn't hard to imagine how a timid witness might react to this slug's red carpet reception. It occurred to me that Lipinski might have been the reason the case was never solved.

“My name is Marjorie Rawlings. I'm with the phone company,” I replied coolly.

There was a pause, and I heard a muffled “Hey, Hastings! Line three! Lady named Rawlings from the phone company. Maybe you should pay your bill!” followed by a coarse guffaw. The line went dead, and then Marc came on.

“Marc Hastings speaking.”

“I was hoping you'd catch on.”

“I did. Just a second…” I heard the creaking of a chair. “Okay,” he said in a low voice. “What's wrong?”

“When will you be back?”

“Not sure. It looks like tomorrow night.”

“I need you back,
today
.”

“You mean…?”

“Yes. I think we should talk.”

“We already have.”

“Marc! We can't ignore this! It's selfish and it's wrong!”

He was quiet for a second.

“How much time do we have?”

“It's tonight.”

A pause. “I'll be there. I'll think of something.”

 

47

Marc called just after three. I was lying on the couch. The ringing telephone roused me from a fitful stupor, awash in crimson dreams of violence.

“I'm leaving now,” he said.

“God! Look at the time!”

“The lieutenant pulled me into a witness interview. I couldn't get away!”

“Hurry!”

There was another cold front moving through. I brewed a mug of tea, slipped on the jacket Marc had bought me, and waited in the rocking chair on the veranda.

He showed up forty minutes later.

He kissed me. “What's in the mug?”

“Tea.”

“I think I want something stronger. Right back…”

“Marc!” But the screen door slammed and he was gone.

Somewhere a clock was ticking. I sat there listening to the trill of some unidentifiable songbird, trying desperately not to think.

Not to feel.

Marc reappeared with a shot of whisky. He dropped into the lounge chair next to me. Before I could say a word, he said, “Funny thing … after we talked, I was told we'll be working a lot of overtime for the next couple of weeks. The feds are saying this guy will hit again very soon. The abductions are getting closer together. The chief canceled everybody's leave—uniform, plainclothes, even the civilian staff.”

“When are you due back at the office?”

“Tomorrow morning, eight sharp. But I have a feeling I won't be getting much sleep tonight.”

“Neither of us will.”

“Tell me.”

“If they don't arrest the killer today, they never will! Four months from now, the FBI will pull out. Next spring, the task force will disband.”

“You told me all this. I thought we'd made a decision. I thought we agreed we have no choice!”

“You sound like you don't want to know.”

“I don't! I don't want to lose you!”

“I wasn't being fair to you. I should never have asked you to choose.” My voice was shaking.

Marc set aside his drink. He pulled his chair closer. He took my hand. “You were just being fair to yourself! And most of all, to our baby! I get it! I do! I hate it, and I know you hate it, too, but I accept it. We'll win in the end.”

“We can't be sure of that! Nothing I saw in the future pointed to that.” I felt tears starting. I rubbed them away. “I'm beginning to think…”

“What?”

“That I'm really not here to preserve the future. That I'm here to change it. I'm here to save a life that needs to be saved.”

“No! Listen! It's the future. We can't change it, and we shouldn't try! There's a higher purpose for you being here. There must be!”

“I met her.”

“What?”

“On Wednesday. She came to The Yearling.”

He stared at me. “You met the next victim?”

“Yes. And you know her.”

“
I
know her?” He looked shaken.

“You told me from the beginning that you knew her. You told me when we were drinking that bottle of Margaux in your file room. Sometime later, Lipinski said there'd been talk that you and this girl had dated. Eventually you admitted to me she'd been your girlfriend. You said the relationship ended a year before she disappeared. But there wasn't a hint about any of that in your files. You must have edited it out.”

“A year?” Marc was dumbfounded. “Are we talking about Mandy Jordan?”

I pulled the wedding invitation out of my jacket. “We've been invited to her wedding.”

He blinked at the inscription on the envelope and then tore it open. He opened the card and quickly scanned the flowing script printed inside. His face went pale.

“Unless you and I do something,” I said quietly, “your friend Mandy will die tonight.”

The card dropped from Marc's hand. He shot out of his chair so quickly that, for a terrified second, I thought he was going to hit me. He lurched toward the railing, but before he reached it, he sank to his knees.

I went to him. I knelt and held him. “I've racked my brain,” I whispered, “trying to understand why you tried to keep it from me—why you delayed telling me until the day we broke the case.”

“Maybe,” he croaked, “I didn't want you to start thinking I was the killer.
Her
killer.”

“You mean, a copycat?”

“It's not unheard of … using a serial killer's modus to cover a targeted murder.”

“But then there was this conversation.”

He looked at me blankly.

“
This
conversation, Marc! The one we're having right now! There must have been a reference somewhere in the Amanda Jordan file to your previous relationship with her. But I never saw it mentioned. So did you edit it out
because
we had this conversation today? Or are we having this conversation today because you edited the files?”

He let out an explosive breath.

I continued. “I've just told you I met Amanda, so you—as Old Marc—knew that. You also knew I had revealed to you
ahead of time
that Amanda would be the next victim, because I've just done that. So the question is: Why did she die? Why didn't you save her?”

“Either I tried, and failed, or—”

“—or you didn't try at all!”

He was silent. He looked almost shamefaced.

“We need to make a choice, and we need to make it now! I can give you the information you need to save her! Do we save Mandy's life, and risk annihilating mine, along with Rebecca's, or do we allow her to be killed and spend our lives in guilt and torment? I can't make this decision, Marc. Only you can.”

“Me?”

“If we stick to our original agreement and let Amanda Jordan die, you're the one who will be forced to carry the memory of that decision. I only have a year left. Next March I will be gone, and nine months later I will be born. I will have no conscious knowledge of any of this. Neither will Rebecca—assuming she is ever born. Of the three of us, only you will suffer the burden of guilt every waking moment of your life.”

“But if we save her,” he replied, his voice thick with emotion, “you never read a police file about her, the investigation will be forever altered, and even if you don't vanish completely from history, you and I might never meet in our altered lives. In that case, why does this feel so right?” He sobbed. “You and me, Claire! Why do we feel so right? Why?”

My heart was breaking, but I knew I had to be strong. I had been thinking about this for three days, and I thought I had an answer. It was a precarious, uncertain answer, but it was a plausible one. “After the killer's trial collapsed and I was suspended from my job, I was in despair. A killer had gone free and I couldn't fix it. I couldn't understand why you were calm. You said something strange. You told me I had
already
fixed it! You quoted a Chinese proverb to me. It was as if you wanted me to remember it. You said, ‘Only the future is certain … the past is always changing.'”

“What did I mean?”

“You must have meant that I could change the past, and the future would survive. Now I'm here, in the past. If you stop Amanda from walking those few blocks to her girlfriend's house, and I don't tell you the abductor's name, there will still be seven missing women. There will still be an open investigation. You will still wait for me and help me solve the case.”

I hadn't told him about the extra body. I didn't know if Jane Doe's death predated or postdated Amanda Jordan's, and I didn't see any value in complicating the discussion.

I could see Marc processing what I'd just said. I pressed the point. “My love, I think we can save Amanda and still go on. I'm willing to take that chance. Are you?”

His body stiffened. I saw new determination in his eyes. “Just time and place … that's all I need to know!”

“She's staying with her mother. Do you know where that is?”

“I've been there. It's near the high school in Newberry.”

“One of Amanda's girlfriends is throwing a bridal shower for her. The girlfriend lives nearby, so Amanda will decide to walk. She'll never arrive. You need to save her without catching this monster in the act. All you need to do is drop by to see her. It's just a social call. Use the wedding invitation as an excuse. Tell her you wanted to RSVP in person, since she went to so much trouble to find you. Just make sure you drive her to her friend's house!”

“What time will she leave the house?”

“A little before seven.”

Marc checked his watch. “It's nearly five already! How exact is that time?”

“The shower was set to start at seven. Her mother told the investigators she left the house just before that.”

Marc took my face in his hands. “Will you be here when I get back?”

“I don't know. Maybe not.”

“If you're not…”

“You'll have to wait for me, Marc. You'll have to wait until I'm thirty-one.”

Tears rolled down his face. He folded me into his arms. He kissed my face, my lips. I wanted to die. He released me. He rose to his feet, picked up the wedding invitation, and walked out to his truck. He didn't look back.

Watching Marc Hastings drive away was the hardest thing I had ever done.

But it wasn't the last thing I ever did, because at six fifteen, the phone rang.

“The time … it was wrong.” His voice was desolate.

“What are you saying?”

“She left the house at quarter to six.”

“Her mother said seven! The police file said—!”

“You mean
my
file, Claire?”

“You changed it? You changed the time in the file!” I shouted at him in my confusion. “What were you thinking?”

“I don't know yet! How can I know now? I must have had a reason! Something important hasn't happened yet! What else can it be?”

“Marc! That beautiful girl is about to die!” I sobbed. “Look for a carpet! A rolled-up carpet! That's where she was taken. It's lying next to the road near her house. That's the spot. And set up a roadblock on the highway to Cedar Key! The man you're looking for is driving a—!” The phone went dead.

Marc had hung up. He didn't want to know.

I must have fainted. I was still lying by the phone when Marc found me later that night. He lifted me off the floor and carried me to bed. I lay in his arms and wondered how long it would take before both of us went insane.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, Marc was gone, but he'd left a note.

The FBI guys want to talk to me. Mandy's mother told them about my visit. Don't worry. I'll show them the wedding invitation. Then I'll suggest we use a tracking dog. It might lead us to that carpet so I won't have to pretend I had a hunch. I love you, Claire. I will always love you. M.

 

48

“Keys are under the mat.”

Nonie and I were standing in the doorway of the rear entrance to the kitchen. She had just agreed to lend me her car in return for a full tank of gas.

“It's a standard. Know how to drive one?”

“Yeah, no problem. How's the clutch?”

“Smooth as silk.”

“Okay. Thanks. I'll be back in a few hours.”

I believed the promise when I made it.

“If you don't mind me asking … where are you going?”

“Archer.”

“Oh.” She looked puzzled, but she didn't pursue it.

I couldn't tell her why I was going to Archer.

I couldn't tell her that when I woke up that morning, three days after Mandy Jordan's abduction, I just wanted to see my mother.

Maybe I needed to see her for comfort.

Or, maybe just to keep myself sane.

I don't know. I just knew I had to see her.

Nonie's '65 Chevelle was a basic six-cylinder model. The body had a few dents, but the engine had been well maintained and it ticked over smoothly. It took me longer to get from Cross Creek to Archer than I'd planned, mainly because the route I would have taken through Gainesville in 2011 was not continuous in 1978, which meant I had to make two detours along the way.