Time Thieves (17 page)

She stared at both of them.

Jeremy tried again. Both men stayed where they were, not wanting her to run, which was something she appeared ready to do any minute.

“Who do you live with, Madge?”

She stared fixedly at him then shrugged her shoulders.

“So not helpful,” Jeremy whispered, only loud enough for Ward to hear.

“Madge, can you tell us anything about how you got to Sari’s house? According to her, you said you had to hide. You were scared of being found.”

Madge made a tiny noise and pulled the covers up over her head.

“Damn.”

“Yeah.”

“Excuse me.”

Ward turned to find a doctor standing in the doorway, two nurses flanking him. Ward pulled out his badge for them to see, and the doctor nodded. “She’s in good shape, health wise.” He smiled at Madge, who had the sheet down just low enough that they could see her face. “She’s recovering nicely from her ordeal. Aren’t you, Madge?”

She offered him a tiny smile.

“Has she said anything to you two?” the doctor asked curiously. “We haven’t been able to get her to speak.”

Ward turned to stare at the tiny woman. “She gave us her last name.”

“So she does speak, good,” one of the nurses spoke up as she smiled at Madge. “We haven’t been able to get her to talk to us.”

“But she is doing better. Find out where she belongs and she can leave in a few days time.” With a nod, the doctor left and the nurses followed.

Jeremy gave a small laugh. “So not helpful.”

“True enough.” He glanced back over at Madge.

She’d fallen asleep again, or at least was pretending. Either way, she wasn’t any more help at the moment.

Ward said to Jeremy, “Let’s go run her name and see if we can find out anything.”

S
ari closed the
book in front of her. Multiple tabs of paper stuck out from between the pages in places where she’d marked the location of interesting information. Still, from the looks of the number of tabs, going back through those specific pages wasn’t going to be a quick hop either. This was one of the three books her father had given her mother for safekeeping, and she could see why. It wasn’t just about time and dimension. It was theories; formulas for crossing the dimensional barrier. She didn’t know if her father had believed this stuff or had actively participated in it, but should any of this far-fetched gibberish work, it would explain her father’s disappearance.

Like nothing else would.

She still didn’t quite understand how she’d come to believe her father had shifted through dimensions, but with her own eyes, she’d seen him disappear before her and he’d never shown up again. Whether he’d chosen to go, circumstances had mysteriously been right, or things just happened without him knowing it was going to – he’d disappeared.

She hated to think he was looking to come home. It would almost be easier to think of him as dead instead of locked in another reality and trying hard to come back. He didn’t have his books or his research wherever he was now.

And she didn’t know that she could get to him. Who said there was only one other reality? What if there were hundreds? Anything she did could possibly send her into an altogether different place. Then they’d both be lost.

But she couldn’t leave her father missing if she knew of a way to help him.

Her phone rang, startling her out of her deep thoughts.

Ward. “Hello.” She smiled at the warm voice on the other end.

“I wanted to tell you that Madge is awake.”

“That’s great news.” And it was. One less thing to worry about. “She’s recovering then?”

“Yes, only she’s not talking much. She told us her name was Harrods. Which, considering where she ended up, means she’s likely one of your relatives. She doesn’t know how she came to be in your house or why she was scared and hiding out.”

“Wow, really? Oh dear. That’s not good.”

“No. Do you recognize the name?”

“I don’t know any Madge at all.” Sari frowned, thinking for a minute. “Our family tree is very sparse. I’ll see if I can find it and let you know.”

They talked for another few minutes and hung up.

Sari frowned as she closed her cell phone. “Madge Harrods.” Then it hit her. She got up and headed to the bookshelf where she’d stacked the journal she’d found in the attic.

There’d been a family tree in there. It took twenty minutes of frantic scrambling to find what she was looking for. Using her finger, she went over each line on the tree. There. M. Harrods. Born in Victoria in 1935 and deceased thirty-one years later.

Stunned, Sari sat down at her desk and tried to work through the logic. M. Harrods didn’t mean Madge Harrods. Harrods was a common name. There had to be thousands of people with that name. Surely.

Still, the fact was Madge was found inside her house. Her gaze automatically shifted to the book on her desk full of tabs. Surely not.

Her gaze switched to the note on M. Harrods’s death. Ward should be able to confirm that this person actually died and not just…disappeared.

She winced. Ward was a good friend, a potential lover even – but asking him to believe in someone accidentally or intentionally crossing some kind of dimensional barrier would be asking a bit much of anyone.

Still, her hand automatically pulled out her cell phone, dialing all on its own.

“Sari?”

“Yes, it’s me again, sorry. I found something a bit odd,” she added sheepishly. “In the family history that I found in the attic is a listing for a woman named M. Harrods.”

“What? So that could be Madge? And that would make her your kin.”

“I don’t know that.” She took a deep breath and told him the rest. “Because right after that entry of her birth, there is a date for her death.”

Silence.

Yeah, this was all a bit much. When he still didn’t speak after a few moments, she murmured, “I did say it was a bit odd.”

He sighed. “You’re wondering if the date written for this M. Harrods’s death could be a mistake?”

“I’m sure this person is dead and there’s no connection. But…”

“But, given that we have an M. Harrods found inside your house and she has no idea how or where she got there or who she’s hiding from…and now in another place someone of similar name has died?”

“But not similar age.”

“What? Explain.”

“If I did the math correctly, she died at thirty-one.” She read the numbers back out to him.

He mumbled away to himself as he calculated out the math himself. “And if she hadn’t died at that time, she’d be close to ninety now.”

“Which is possibly correct for Madge?”

“Damn. I’ll look into this and call you back. Oh, can you scan that family tree into the computer and send it to me? I might need the parents’ names, not to mention others in the family in order to find the old records. Nothing back then was computerized.”

“Right. I’ll send it in a few minutes.”

She clicked off her phone and walked over to her scanner. Holding the book flat in place, she scanned in the page and sent it to Ward’s email. As she stood there looking at the book, she noticed the spine was thicker in one spot. And so was the lower half of the back cover. Frowning, she walked over to her workshop and turned on her lamp. Under the intense light, she could see the inside of the back flap had been repaired over time. Repaired, or had someone actually added something to the back flap? This was a little out of her expertise, but she hadn’t planned on selling her father’s things anyway. Deciding quickly, she sat down and got to work. Slicing through the glue that held the back flap in place, she lifted off the outside layer of the inside of the back cover.

She gently worked to open the layer of cloth that bound the back flap. It was open on the inside of the book, but to remove any more would damage the back of the book as well. Staring at it, she realized she’d have to cut the binding at the bottom in order to get at the back.

Oh, wait. Further inspection at the center spine showed it had been cut and repaired once already. She gently opened the repair job. It took another ten minutes to open it up. She held the book up and gave it a shake, hoping to slide down whatever was inside the back of the binding. That it could be just a shoddy repair job wasn’t something she wanted to consider.

No, there. A small metallic item poked through.

She grabbed her pliers. A small slim piece of maybe tin came out. It had little to no markings on it. She put it down carefully and turned to look at the book. The tin might have been there to support a broken spine. Still, there was something on the back. She grabbed her tiny needle-nosed pliers and carefully maneuvered them in the right area. It took several minutes before she could grasp the item. Tugging carefully, she pulled it toward the small opening. “Shit.” She winced at the sound of ripping.

Making a sudden decision, she put the pliers down and then picked up her knife. Seconds later, the opening at the base of the spine was twice as big.

Another careful few moments later and she had the folded sheet of paper out and open on her desk.

“What the hell?” Sari sat back against her chair and studied the rice-paper thin sheet. It appeared to be a weird set of figures like a formula. Even after having read two of the three books from her father, she realized this was nothing like she’d ever seen before. This was something else entirely. And it made no sense.

Picking it up carefully by the corner, she walked over to her printer and scanned it in. She didn’t want the single copy to go missing. And with all the weird happenings going on in her life lately, that was an all-too likely event, unfortunately. She saved the document in several places then emailed a copy to herself. Paranoid? Maybe. Still, she couldn’t help worrying.

Back at the book, she carefully refolded it and inserted it into an envelope. Then she got up, walked over, and locked the envelope in the safe.

What were the chances this was what the intruder had been looking for? He’d been through the books on the bookshelf. She’d had to put them back herself. But this book hadn’t been there. It had been thousands of miles away in France. And they couldn’t have known that. Although if they had found that out, it might explain the break-in at her mother’s house.

Turning back to the book, she searched the back spine for any other deformity, but the rest looked normal except for a slight loosening of the binding with the single page missing. Inspiration struck. She took a piece of printer paper, cut it roughly to the same size as the folded piece she’d removed, and carefully inserted it to fill the space. It took several attempts to fit it and even then it wasn’t perfect. It was enough to fool most people though. She carefully replaced the metal bar and closed the bottom seal with tiny drops of glue.

Then she sat and stared at it.

Was the book important enough that she should be copying it too? Page by page? Or would it be safe locked up as well? She had no idea. It was old and fragile and would take hours of tedium standing there at the copier and turning the pages. Or she could give up the value of the book, cut off the binding, and feed the pages into the machine one at a time. That would work, but…it went against the grain to destroy an old book. There was more value if she kept it whole, but money wasn’t the drive at the moment.

Turning away, she headed back into the kitchen. She stopped at the doorway, hesitating. She couldn’t help herself; she returned and locked the shop door behind her. Yes, she was paranoid.

In the kitchen, she put on the teakettle, wondering how the day had disappeared. It was almost dinnertime and that she hadn’t even thought about. She opened her fridge and groaned. As close as possible to empty. That meant she had to go out. Or she could order in. Making a pot of tea, she checked her laptop. As she had several computers, one had started to ‘live’ in the kitchen. Convenient. And addicting. She brought up her email, and there was a response from Brodin. She ignored it, not sure what she wanted to do about him. If anything.

Checking the rest of her emails, she smiled, realizing her long-term client was excited about the last piece she’d emailed. Good, because that neck collar was a pricey trinket. This sale would keep her going for quite a while. Well, as long as she didn’t plan on more expensive renovations. She answered happily, making arrangements for payment and shipping.

Buoyed by the sale, she quickly scanned through her other emails, surprised and delighted to see one from Ward. She’d forgotten she’d emailed the scanned family tree to him.

She clicked on the reply, disappointed to see it was only a brief thanks. She’d hoped for more. And what did that say about her? Besides the fact that she wanted to go back fifteen years to when they’d been children and pick up where they’d left off? Only this time fast forward to adult feelings and adult actions. She grinned. There was nothing wrong with it. They’d been the best of friends, so taking that relationship another step forward was a normal step. They were both free and both adults. So why was she hesitating?

Another decision to make.

She picked up her phone. When he answered, she said, “If you are as tired as I am, you’ve made no plans for dinner tonight.”