Time Thief: A Time Thief Novel (13 page)

A second shape was briefly silhouetted against the tent before melting away, the voices fading, as well.

I unzipped the door to my tent and stuck out my head, thankful once again that the tent opening was faced away from the RVs.

“I’ll go into town and find him just as soon as I’ve taken a little from the woman,” drifted back to me as soft as the wind.

“Andrew. Has to be Andrew. Gregory knew where Peter was last night, and he didn’t try to kill him then. Of course, I was there, and he might not have wanted a witness. And then Peter disappeared. And Gregory disappeared. Oh, holy hell, it could be him. Crap. Well, whichever one of them it is, all I can say is over my dead body,” I whispered, and pulled out my scant supply of cash and sole credit card, all of which I stuffed into my bra. Take a little from me, indeed! Unless he hadn’t meant money…but no, that didn’t make sense. I didn’t have anything else Andrew might want. Or Gregory. Damn. I wish I knew which one had been speaking.

I waited until I could hear nothing more, then crawled out of the tent, my mind awhirl.

Across the empty space, Andrew and Gregory stood together. Gregory appeared to be arguing with Andrew, who stood listening with his arms crossed.

Which one had been talking to William? And did it really matter? If I needed any proof that Mrs. Faa’s family had been behind the attack to Peter, I had it. The question was, what was I going to do? Go to the police? To Peter?
To Mrs. Faa? Maybe the pugs could do something about it…. I shook my head at that bizarre thought, but before I could ask my inner self—ego, id, and superego—what was up with the odd thought processes, the world seemed to shimmer and shake and spin, making me blind for about three seconds.

When my vision returned, I was stunned to find myself in the middle of washing a cup, the very same cup I’d been drinking out of a few minutes before. Even worse, I was speaking familiar words. “I can’t believe in this day and age people have that sort of prejudice against Gypsies.”

“Gypsies?”

I spun around and stared at Mrs. Faa as she snorted, gave a grunt, and got to her feet.

What the hell?

“We are not Gypsies!”

I felt the cup start to slip from my fingers, clutched it tightly, and with infinite care dried it off and set it in the cupboard.

“I’m sorry,” I said slowly. “You’re not a Gypsy or a Romany.”

“No, of course I’m not. I’m a Traveller, just as you are.” She gestured toward my arm as she made her way over to her recliner, two pugs following.

“This is so utterly bizarre.”

“What is? No, Clothilde! We do not lick ourselves there. Come and lie down with Mama.”

I looked around the interior of the RV, and wondered if I had gone insane. “Nothing,” I murmured.

Once again those dark, piercing eyes studied me. “Where is your family?”

“Dead,” I said, not bothering to give the explanation
that I knew I’d just given almost minutes before. “I have a foster mom.”

“Tch.”
Mrs. Faa lay back, closing her eyes, one hand absently stroking the nearest pug. “That tells me much. It is easier to let the explanation go for now. Another time, Kiya Mortenson.”

I stared at her for a good eight seconds, then turned on my heel and walked resolutely out of the RV. I passed the kids playing in the sandbox. I didn’t wave, but it didn’t matter—they still gave me the same look they’d done a few minutes before. I looked at my tent, then down at myself. I was wearing a gauze shirt and walking shorts. My left breast itched. I pulled out my shirt enough to see the tops of a couple of bills poking out from where I’d stuffed them.

“OK, this is too much. Something seriously weird is going on here.” I walked resolutely back to Mrs. Faa’s door, mentally rehearsing how I was going to ask her if she had just had the biggest case of déjà vu ever, when the masculine rumble of voices had me pausing before I could knock.

I looked over my shoulder to see William, Andrew, and Gregory clustered together near my tent. William snapped something I couldn’t hear, and marched off without a look in my direction. Andrew and Gregory continued to talk, although they stopped when I stumbled toward them, both their faces devoid of expression. I watched them for a second or two, trying to make up my mind about which one of them I had overheard, gave it up as a lost cause, and went over to my car instead.

Something odd was going on, something that involved a murder attempt, persecution by the police, and a weird brain attack on me.

“Whatever it is,” I told Eloise as I climbed in through her window, “I don’t like it. I don’t like it one little bit, but I can promise you this—it’s going to stop. What on earth?”

Something was digging into my hip as I settled into the driver’s seat. I reached into my back pocket and pulled out eight shiny silver dollars. I stared at them in silent disbelief for a few seconds, then carefully tucked them into the pocket on the side of the car door.

I was ready to swear that there were no silver dollars in my shorts when I put them on earlier.

It took me little more than half an hour to drive into Rose Hill, collect the giant cases of expensive dog food, make a couple of calls to arrange for the vet visit and doggy spa appointments (I was assured the blueberry facials were very popular amongst the canine clientele), and pick up a few nonperishable food items to stock my scanty larder.

I had stored the groceries on top of the dog food where it sat on the backseat, and was about to conduct the intricate ritual that was the act of starting Eloise’s engine, when a shadow fell over the front window, and a man leaned into the car.

He held a gun, which was pointed at me.

“Where is the vial?” Peter asked, his eyes a flinty shade of violet.

“A vile what?” I asked, looking between the very real black gun and the man about whom I couldn’t seem to stop thinking. “Is that real?”

He frowned as I gestured toward the gun. “Of course it’s real. You don’t think I go around waving toy guns at people, do you?”

“I don’t know, perhaps you do. Any man who leaps
out at women in forests, and bleeds all over their air mattresses, and then disappears mysteriously when someone tries to help him, just might be the sort of man who sports a fake gun.”

“Come with me,” he said imperiously, waggling the gun at me.

“To where?”

“I can’t tell you that.” He had the nerve to look annoyed by my question. “And since I have a gun—a real gun—and you don’t, you will do as I say.”

“And if I refuse?” I asked, curious as to what he’d say next. It was odd, my superego said to my ego, that we weren’t at all afraid of him despite the fact that he had a gun aimed at us. My id murmured something about his eyes being the eyes of a gentleman, not a madman, but the egos would have nothing to do with that. They bickered back and forth about whether or not it would be wise to continue contact with Peter. I ignored all three and watched with pleasure as an indescribable look crossed his face.

“Then I will force you to come with me,” he said finally.

“Let me get this straight,” I said, wiggling my fingers against Eloise’s red leather steering wheel. “You’re attempting to kidnap me.”

“Of course I’m not kidnapping you. I’m with the Watch! We do not kidnap. We detain and question.”

“And you wish to detain and question me about something vile?”

“A vial. It is an object, one that you removed from me last night while I lay insensible in your tent. You will return it to me now.”

“Why? Is it valuable?” I asked, making myself comfortable,
greatly enjoying the conversation, bizarre as it was.

“For the love of the saints, woman, will you get out of the car and do as I say?” he all but yelled. I could tell by the way he shifted that he was getting tired of leaning through the window. He suddenly stood up and called loudly, “No, stay in the car. You’ll be safer in there.”

I didn’t see anyone in his car. Maybe he had a dog with him? I searched for signs of a companion, furry or otherwise, but my gaze was caught by the sight of a familiar red car cruising slowly down the main street. Two heads were silhouetted in it, which meant that either Andrew or Gregory was in town to hunt down Peter. Most likely both.

“Now, listen here,” Peter started to say as he leaned into the car again.

“Get in the car!” I squawked, taking him off guard by grabbing his shirt and pulling him farther into the car.

“What the hell!” he cried, his voice muffled since I had managed to smash his face up against my chest as I continued to jerk his body in through the window. “Unhand me, you deranged, if lovely, female! I do not care for aggressive women!”

“Get in the car and shut up!” I grabbed the back of his belt and heaved, successfully pulling his legs into the car. Unfortunately, he was sprawled across me, rather than sitting as I had hoped, but as Gregory’s car got closer, I managed to shove Peter’s head down, flick Eloise’s wires, and slam my foot onto her accelerator.

I
must have taken Eloise by surprise, too, because the car not only started without her usual dramatics but leaped forward, immediately plowing us into the dark blue sedan that was parked in front of me.

“By the saints!” came a muffled oath from the direction of my thighs, where I had jammed Peter’s head.

“Stay down, you fool!” He struggled to sit up, managing to swing his legs around into the area of the car meant for such limbs. I grabbed him by one ear, and pulled his head back down to my lap. “They’ll see you!”

“I don’t care who sees me. That was my car you just hit!” Peter snarled, and tried to shove away my hand that was holding down his head. “I repeat, unhand me, woman! May I remind you that I am armed?”

I reversed, shot out into traffic (which consisted of a couple of tourists leaving the gas station), and, pulling a U-turn, sped off in the direction opposite the one Andrew and Gregory had come.

“What are you doing? Where are you taking me? By the gods, you’re kidnapping me!”

“Turnabout, fair play, etc.”

“You cannot kidnap me! I’m with the Watch!” He managed to pry my hand off the back of his neck and sat
up, his face red and very, very angry. “I can arrest you for this!”

“Yeah, but you’re not going to,” I said, not taking my eyes off the road.

“Why the hell wouldn’t I? Where’s my gun?”

“Under my left foot. Sec, and I’ll get it for you.”

He waited until I maneuvered around a hairpin turn, then accepted with ill grace the gun I fished out from the footwell. “Right,” he said, pointing the gun once more at me. “You’re under arrest.”

“Safety’s on,” I said, glancing at him.

He made an annoyed noise and flipped the safety switch. “You will now do as I say. Return us at once to the town so that I might see what sort of damage you did to my rental car.”

“No way, José.”

I thought his eyes might bug out at that. He ground his teeth for a moment before saying, “You appear to be under the misimpression that you are in charge in this situation. You are not.”

“I think I am,” I said, giggling to myself. Why, oh why, was I taking such a perverse pleasure in baiting the man? Maybe it was the way his beautiful eyes sparked with ire. Maybe it was because I liked seeing him sputter. Perhaps it was the bossy way he had, or the fact that he smelled wonderful, and I had been possessed with a desire to run my hands over his chest to see how his owies were.

“You are delusional on top of deranged. Pull over. I will drive.”

“Look, you seem to be confused about a few things. I am kidnapping you. Yes, I know you can arrest me for that, but since I have a benevolent reason for doing so, you won’t.”

“What reason could you possibly have for forcing me into this rusted hulk of a car?”

I glared at him for a moment before turning onto a small dirt pullout. “Look, you can insult me all you want, but lay off Eloise. She’s a good car. She just needs a little work.”

“Thank you for stopping. Now, get out of the vehicle so that I might drive us back to town, whereupon I will have you detained for interfering with an officer of the Watch in the course of his duty.” Peter’s face was stern and resolute, and for some insane reason, it just made me want to grab his head and kiss the dickens out of him.

I fought hard to keep my hands where they were, ignoring the way he brandished the gun at me. “And just how do you think you’re going to do that?”

“Arrest you? Quite easily. As a member of the Watch—”

“No, drive back to town,” I interrupted. “Just how do you expect to do that?”

He sighed, and gestured at me again with the gun. “I’m not an imbecile. What is your name? Kiya?”

“Kiya Mortenson, yes. And I never said you were, although if you think you’re going to drive Eloise back to town, you’re mistaken.”

“I assure you that, despite my ancestry, I am the master of every vehicle I meet, even one as…eccentric…as this,” he said with smug self-assuredness that had me smiling to myself.

“You think so? Fine. You get her started, and I’ll let you drive us back to town.” I put Eloise into neutral, and took my feet off the gas and the brake (both have to be engaged in order to keep her running when she’s at a stop). Her engine promptly died.

Silence filled the air around us, broken only occasionally by the sound of a car or logging truck whipping down the road.

Peter ground his teeth at me. Visibly.

I giggled.

“Move,” he ordered, putting the gun in a holster under his armpit.

“You forgot to put the safety back on,” I pointed out as he struggled to open the passenger door. “And sorry, but you have to go out the window. The door is welded shut.”

He snarled something very rude that I thought it best to ignore, put the safety switch back on his gun, and then crawled out of the window.

I followed him out, leaning against the door in order to contemplate the fir trees that encompassed the little pullout.

“Where’s the key?”

I shrugged. “I don’t remember. Doesn’t matter; you can’t start her with keys. You have to use the ignition wires.”

The look he gave me just made me want to kiss him all the more. I stopped looking at the trees, and watched him as he bent double in his attempt to get the car started. He really was exceptionally handsome. I didn’t know if it was the combination of his dark hair and those beautiful violet eyes, or the way the stubble on his jaw seemed to beckon to me.