Time Thief: A Time Thief Novel (11 page)

There was no one to be seen. Not even the cars were present, which meant that some of them, at least, had gone somewhere. I must have been so busy talking with Peter that I didn’t notice the sound of them leaving.

An idea blossomed in my head, one so bold and audacious that for three minutes I mentally argued with myself over its brilliance (sometimes, I really wish Carla hadn’t taught me so much about the inner workings of my brain, because it just seemed to make all those ids and egos and all the other bits and pieces argumentative and unruly), but in the end, I told all the inner voices to shut the hell up, and rolled Peter back onto the mothy sleeping bag.

I had almost made it to Eloise when a soft voice spoke, making me jump for what seemed like the umpteenth time that day.

“Good evening, Kiya. Or perhaps I should say good morning since it’s after midnight. What is it you are dragging behind you?”

I dropped the end of the sleeping bag upon which Peter lay unconscious, and spun around, fear causing my heart to feel as if it had leaped into my throat. “Gregory?” It was more of a question than a statement. What on earth was I going to do if he flung himself on the immobile Peter and attacked him? Hurriedly I moved between the two men, blocking the latter with my body. “Er…good evening. Morning. Whatever. I thought you were gone with the others.”

“My cousins, you mean? The ones who seek the man who attempted to break into my grandmother’s caravan?”

“Yes.”

“They have gone to search for the interloper.”

“Ah. Um…” I looked around quickly, wondering if I could find something to use as a weapon in case Gregory tried to attack either me or the wounded Peter.

My id, ego, and superego all screamed at me that I
was insane for even thinking of protecting a man who was clearly not what he appeared.

“Kiya?”

“Hmm?” I tried to adopt an innocent expression, not that much of it would be visible, since I was standing in the moonlit shadows cast by the tall firs and shrubs surrounding the camp.

“What is it you’re dragging so stealthily to your car?”

“My sleeping bag. See?” I tipped up one corner to shield Peter, and pulled the edge of the bag around to show Gregory. “It’s…uh…it’s just too mildewy. I figured I’d take it to a cleaner to see if I can get the smell out.”

“At one twenty-seven in the morning?” Gregory suddenly jerked to the side to see around me. I jumped sideways, as well, wincing a little when the quick movement caused what sounded like a human-sized body to roll off a sleeping bag and into the shrubs, the resulting dull thunk indicating something very like a head had collided with a tree trunk.

“I hate to be late. See?” I pulled the rest of the now Peter-less sleeping bag around in front of me, using it as a form of downy shield. “Sleeping bag.”

Gregory sighed. “What did Peter tell you to make you protect him this way?”

I gawked at him for a minute, then shoved the sleeping bag through Eloise’s passenger window, and gestured toward the dark shape that was sprawled in the shrubs. “Did you stab him?” I asked as I stood next to where Gregory squatted over Peter.

“Me? No.” The surprise in his voice was quite genuine, I was sure. “He is hounding my family under the
auspices of the Watch, but I did not do him physical harm. Not this time, at least.”

I had no idea what he was talking about, but I didn’t like the sound of any of it. Although at that moment there were more important issues at hand—like getting Peter to a doctor. “Well, he seems to think that someone in your family did. He’s been stabbed. Twice.”

“I gathered he was harmed when I saw the trail of blood around my grandmother’s caravan.” With a slight grunt, he hefted Peter up in his arms and turned toward the RVs. “My grandmother has some healing skills—”

“No!” I said quickly, catching him by the arm before he could take Peter away. “We have to get him away, Gregory. He’s not safe here.”

He looked down on me, the moonlight giving his golden hair an odd, washed-out hue. “Are you implying my grandmother would harm him?”

“No, of course not, but I wouldn’t trust your cousin Andrew farther than I can throw a shot put. There’s bound to be a doctor or clinic in town, or a phone we can use to call for a paramedic.”

“Peter would not want paramedics called,” Gregory said, annoyance making his voice brittle. He turned toward the far end of the RV crescent, then paused. “Christos. Andrew has my Jag. We’ll have to use your car. I assume it’s running?”

“Yes. Mostly. So long as we don’t get wild. Here, let me climb in first, and then you can stuff Peter through the window and I’ll guide him onto the backseat.”

Never having tried to shove an inert six-foot-two-inch-tall man through Eloise’s passenger window, and maneuvered him onto her short backseat, I had no idea
just how difficult that feat was going to be, but after about fifteen minutes of both Gregory and me swearing, sweating, and occasionally making grimaces of sympathetic pain when Peter’s head bashed into the roof, window, or side of the car, we finally got him placed more or less in a fetal position.

“I just hope to god he doesn’t die because we had to cram him into the backseat,” I said as I gave Eloise’s ignition wires a couple of flicks, jumping when the electrical charge zapped my too-close fingers.

“That’s not very likely.” Gregory, who had climbed into the passenger seat, and taken Eloise’s parking brick without comment, stared in disbelief as her engine sputtered to life. “Did you just hot-wire your own car?”

“Yeah. Something’s wrong with the part of her ignition where you put in the key. This is the only way to get her going. It’s not too bad so long as you don’t hold the wires long. All righty, off we go!”

Eloise stalled seventeen times before we finally rolled into the small town of Rose Hill. Since it was the middle of the night, Main Street was silent and empty, the road and sidewalk creepily dark, and spotted every ten yards with jaundiced pools from flickering streetlights.

“Well, this is straight out of a horror movie,” I said as we crept down the street. I peered back and forth, looking for signs of a clinic or doctor’s office.

“I don’t think it’s that bad, but it’s certainly not where I wish to be at this time of night.” Gregory glanced at his watch. “Where do you plan on taking Peter?”

“To a doctor. He’s been stabbed,” I reminded him, then frowned. “You don’t seem to be overly worried about that fact.”

“I’m not.”

“He could die!” I exclaimed, horrified at Gregory’s callousness.

“I told you that wasn’t likely.” He shot me a curious look with an even more curious half smile. “Peter is not easily killed.”

“And you know this how?”

He just shrugged. “We are at the end of the town and I have seen no signs of a doctor. What now?”

“Now I use that phone I saw at the gas station and call 911.”

“You seem to delight in making me repeat myself—” he started to say, but I interrupted him.

“Yes, I know you said that Peter wouldn’t want an aid unit called, but there’s no doctor, and not to beat a dead horse, but
he has been stabbed
!”

“There’s some sort of a motel over there,” Gregory said, pointing across the street from where I’d coaxed Eloise to park, prepatory to using the gas station’s pay phone. “Why don’t we dump him there, and since you seem to insist that Peter receive some sort of medical care—which, I assure you, is unlikely to be needed—I will call someone to see to his injuries.”

“Call who?” I asked, making a shooing gesture until, with a sigh, he climbed out of the window.

He waited until I followed before answering. “A healer. What are you doing?”

“Peter mentioned something about someone he was meeting at this motel. I’m going to see if the guy is here.” I marched resolutely up to the front door of the motel—which had clearly done duty in the past as a small church—and gave the door a shove.

“Someone else is here with him?” Instantly, Gregory
was at my side, suspicion giving his eyes a glint of interest. “Who?”

“Don’t know. He just said a friend. Hello?” Lights ran down a long narrow hallway toward a black space at what must have been the nave of the church. “Anyone here?”

“It’s almost two o’clock,” Gregory said, brushing past me to stride down the aisle toward the yawing blackness. “I doubt if this place runs to a night clerk, but perhaps they have some sort of a register we can check.”

“A register?” I trotted after him, feeling a bit unnerved as we approached the dark section that consisted of a cluster of dimly visible chairs and small round bistro tables. There were a couple of night-lights on the walls that cast ovals of blue-white light on the walls and floors. “Why do you care about a register? Peter needs a doctor!”

“Ah. Staircase. Perhaps the office is upstairs.” Ignoring my question, Gregory ran up the black wrought-iron metal staircase, the sound of his footsteps echoing eerily enough that, after one quick look around the room, I hurriedly followed him.

“Gregory, what about this doctor person you said you were going to call? Oh, hello. Um. You’re not a doctor, are you?”

“No. But I do have a first aid kit.” The woman who emerged from a doorway on the second-floor balcony was clad in an oversized T-shirt, and had obviously been sleeping, because not only was her hair mussed up; she also had sleep wrinkles from her pillow crisscrossing one cheek. “Do you want a room? We don’t normally take people this late at night, but—”

“You wouldn’t be able to let me look at your register,
would you?” Gregory asked with a smile directed at the woman that she’d have to be dead to miss.

I glared at him, and knocked off several sexy-guy points for the fact that he was so blatant with the use of his handsome self.

She blinked at him; then a slow smile spread over her face. She leaned against the doorframe and said, “It’s on the laptop, and that’s password protected. You want to try to get the password out of me? I’ll warn you that I’m
very
security conscious.”

“We need a doctor,” I said loudly, giving Gregory a hard shove on his back. “Like right now.”

“Why?” the woman asked, looking me over before returning her gaze to Gregory.

“Because we have a man in my car who’s been stabbed, and he said something about coming here to meet a friend of his.”

“A man? What man? Sec.” She disappeared into the room for a moment before emerging with a silk kimono pulled on over her sleeping shirt. “I can call 911, but it will take them forever to get up here. We don’t have paramedics around here anymore. People voted them out since it raised taxes. Your car out front?”

“Yes.” I trotted after the woman as she ran down the metal stairs, following her flapping robe as she hotfooted it down the hallway to the front door. “Is there a doctor in town? Or a nurse? I hate to leave Peter stuck in my car—”

“Peter?” The woman hesitated for a second as she reached the door, casting a curious glance over her shoulder at me. “Tall, dark, and has purple eyes Peter?”

“Yes.” I frowned again. Just how did this woman know about his eyes? She was probably one of those
women who threw herself at every male-model-worthy man she ran across. Poor Peter. He might be somewhat annoying, but he didn’t deserve to be pestered by hussies like this. “His eyes aren’t purple, though. They’re violet. Like Elizabeth Taylor’s eyes, except prettier.”

“He’s in your car?” She dashed through the door and down the couple of steps to where Eloise sat.

“Yes, but don’t move him,” I said, ignoring the fact that Peter had been moved several times since he passed out. “He’s been grievously injured and…where is he?”

“I don’t know, but he’s not here.” She tried to open Eloise’s door, but that had long since been frozen shut. Abruptly, she spun around and glared at me just as if I’d done something wrong. “Are you trying to pull a fast one on me?”

“A fast what? Look, Peter was in the car. He’d been stabbed, and was unconscious. Gregory had to help me get him—Gregory!”

It suddenly occurred to me that Gregory wasn’t there backing up my story to this man-ogler.

“What the—oh no, you don’t!” As I ran back up the steps and into the churchish motel, the woman dashed past me and ran hell-bent for leather to the spiral staircase. “Hey, you! I’d better not find you’ve been into the motel records on the laptop, because that’s private property and it’s against the law to pry, and I know the sheriff in this—”

Her words stopped before I made it to the top of the stairs. The door to her room was open, light spilling out onto a small wooden desk that sat before it, upon which was a laptop that was indeed turned on.

“That bastard! He went into my room and got the laptop!” She whirled around and jabbed a finger toward
me. “And I just bet you were the bait to get me away from it, weren’t you?”

“No!” I protested, irritated at any number of facts, not the least of which was that Peter had disappeared (along with Gregory), which left me looking like I was guilty of nefarious intent. “Everything I said is the absolute truth. Peter was stabbed. We stuffed him in my car and brought him to town to find a doctor. I don’t know how he got out of my car so fast, since he’s a big guy and Eloise’s window is small, but evidently he did, and he wandered off somewhere.”

“Right, like that’s going to happen when he has a perfectly good honeymoon suite here.”

I blinked. “He’s on his honeymoon?”

“No. It’s the best room we have. And I don’t care what you say, I know the truth when I see it, and so will Sheriff Al. I’m going to call him right now to come over and grill you about your rotten boyfriend.”

I straightened myself up to my full height, squaring my shoulders. “Peter is not my boyfriend. I just lay on him in order to hide him from Gregory’s cousins.”

“Not Peter!” She shot me a scornful look that raised the hairs on the back of my neck. “He wouldn’t be interested in someone like you. It’s the other one. I just bet you Al will be able to track him down.”

I was rallying a really potent retort when she strode into the bedroom to get her phone. I have occasionally been called a bit naive about some things, but I’ve never been horribly slow on the uptake, and there was no way I was going to waste the opportunity to get the hell out of Dodge while the motel woman was on the phone.