Hourglass (9 page)

Chapter 17

W
hen did curbside service become part of the deal?” The bucket seats in the small foreign car put us precariously close to each other. At least the sky spread out above us gave the illusion of space. He steered away from the town square and turned down the radio.

“I have to go away for a day or two. I thought if we were both buckled in, I could have an actual conversation with you before I left. It’s important. So don’t touch me.” He made a noise that resembled a growl. “I mean, again.”

“What are we talking about now?” I was ready to do something. At least we could start my … time-travel training. I made a mental note not to say that out loud.

“I’ve got a couple of things I want you to read.” The wind rumpled his hair as he steered with one hand, turning to reach into the tiny backseat with the other. He gave me a hardcover book with the title
Space Time Continuum and Wormhole Theories
, in addition to a thick, worn three-ring binder with tattered and coffee-stained pages inside. “Concentrate on the binder—move to the book if you have time. It’s theory, not fact. The facts are in the binder. Don’t let it out of your sight.”

One wish granted, even if it was just reading material. Maybe the books held some kind of scientific proof that would help me believe him. Like I would understand it if I saw it.

Michael turned down one of my favorite back roads. It ran parallel to a lake. I took my hair down from the ponytail and rested my head back against the seat, looking up at the trees along the shoreline that were tinged with color. Autumn always fascinated me—so much beauty in dying. Leaves holding on until the bitter end, finally going down in a blaze of glory, almost as if they were trying to convince us to keep them alive.

I looked at Michael’s profile out of the corner of my eye, attempting objectivity. Crazy connection or not, any girl would be drawn to him, as evidenced by Lily’s reaction. Straight nose, strong chin and jaw, and then there was that pesky mouth of his. I closed my eyes, enjoying the warmth of the sun peeking through the trees and the wind in my hair. I recited multiplication tables in my head to keep my thoughts under control and my hands to myself.

I don’t know when I fell asleep, just that I awoke when I heard the engine cut off. We were parked on the side street by the lofts. The sun hung only slightly lower in the sky, so I hadn’t been out long. I stretched and opened my eyes to Michael, who appeared to be in pain. His brows pulled together over his dark eyes, and there was a hard set to his mouth.

I froze midstretch. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” he said, his voice rough.

I didn’t think I had crossed any boundaries since I touched him before I got in the car, and none of my roommates at school ever claimed I talked in my sleep.

“I’m sorry about before, on the street—”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t that.”

“Then what did I do?”

“Besides fall asleep?”

“I’m sorry. It’s not the company, but we were up so late, and the sun felt so good.” I stopped. Why was I defending myself? Michael wasn’t too big on the explanations, so I had no idea why I was trying to clarify anything to him.

He looked away from me to focus on the side of the building. “You seem so vulnerable when you sleep. I don’t get that from you a lot.”

I shifted uncomfortably in my seat. “I almost cried at dinner the other night. Was that not vulnerable enough for you?”

“There’s a difference. At dinner you were sad; today you’re … soft.” His eyes returned to my face. What I saw in them made me catch my breath.

“As long as I didn’t drool.”

One corner of his mouth twisted into a half smile. “I wish I didn’t have to go.”

“Don’t.”

“I have to. It’s probably not a bad thing. I don’t know how I would handle another incident like the one we had last night on the patio,” he said uneasily.

“When will you be back?” I reached down to grab my backpack and the books he gave me. And to hide my flaming face.

“I can’t say for sure, but maybe by tomorrow. I hope you’re a fast reader.”

I opened the car door. I needed to get out, needed to put space between us. “Please. Faster than a speeding bullet. Even with the whole”—I twirled one finger in a circle beside my head, giving him the international sign for crazy—“thing, I was ranked in the top five of my junior class.” I shut the car door for emphasis. “Actually, top three.”

“Funny, gorgeous, and a genius. What a package.” He backed out of the parking space, smiling as he drove away.

I loved that he left crazy off the list.

I loved it even more that he would never think to add it.

Chapter 18

T
he binder Michael gave me overflowed with detailed information, making me cross-eyed. I gave it all I had for half an hour, decided I needed sugar and caffeine, and went to grind some beans I’d snagged from Murphy’s Law for a fresh pot of coffee.

Instead of watching it drip, I did my good deed for the day and cleared the countertops of all the piled-up papers. I pinned tiny white cards with dates and times for obstetrician’s appointments scribbled on them to the corkboard on the wall, threw away old newspapers, and saved unopened bills. I’d just finished spraying down the counters when a long beep sounded to tell me my coffee was brewed. I leaned down to put the spray cleaner under the sink and spotted something barely sticking out from underneath the cabinets.

Dru’s key ring.

Maybe the excitement of the pregnancy was making Dru forgetful, because it was totally unlike Dru to lose anything. Yet her keys, including the master, lay on the floor right in front of me.

By accident.

Or by fate.

I wanted to know more about Michael. I didn’t expect anyone from my family to be home for at least another hour, and since Michael was out of town, what kept me from slipping next door, sliding the key into the lock, and taking a quick look around? Maybe Michael left a candle burning. Maybe he forgot to turn off his iron, or the oven. Maybe he left his dishwasher running and it was flooding the place, or a thirsty plant desperately needed water.

Maybe I was way out of line.

I held the key ring by the master key, swinging it back and forth in front of my eyes. Yes or no, yes or no. I was saved from any further contemplation of breaking and entering when the phone rang. Dru sounded more harried than I’d ever heard her.

“Em, thank goodness you’re there. I didn’t have Michael’s cell, and the guys are coming from the storage place to pick up the master for the building so they can deliver his sofa. But I don’t have my keys because I couldn’t find them this morning and he’s not answering at his loft and I think I left them—”

“Calm down,” I said, laughing. “I have your keys.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” She took a deep breath. Good choice. “Can you let the movers in?”

My smile spread wide enough to rival the Grinch’s. “Absolutely.”

The delivery guys did their job quickly. To justify the excuse to linger, I set off to look for any plants affected by drought.

Even though he’d lived in it for only a few days, the apartment smelled like Michael. Clean, like laundry fresh from a clothesline with a hint of something else, maybe pheromones. I caught a whiff of his citrusy cologne and almost forgot what I was doing. I gave myself a mental smack.

Focus. Here to spy.

Dru furnished Michael’s place with items from her stock storage, and the design was simple. It suited his personality. The only concession was a complicated-looking computer. I bumped the corner of the table it sat on with my hip, jostling the mouse. When the computer blinked to life, the screen showed that it was password protected.

Every loft had built-in bookshelves. Most of Michael’s were filled with modern decorative accessories, courtesy of Dru. Two held personal items. On the first was a book of poetry by Byron, along with novels by Kurt Vonnegut, Orson Scott Card, and Jack Kerouac’s
On the Road
. I realized I’d never asked him about his major. Probably wasn’t time travel. I didn’t think our local college was quite that progressive.

The second shelf held photographs. One obviously of his family when he was younger—his dad wasn’t in the picture. Another showed an adolescent Michael laughing with an older man at a lake, fishing paraphernalia scattered around. I peered closer. No resemblance.

A stack of photos lay facedown on the shelf. I flipped through them. Graduation shots, a group on a ski trip, someone’s eighteenth birthday party, and then, last in the pile, a girl wearing a princess costume with dark auburn hair and a wide smile. At first I thought it was Michael’s sister, but something about the girl in the picture was different, maybe the perfect shape of her oval face or her porcelain skin. Jealousy rolled in my stomach. She looked mysterious and exotic and … tall.

In the kitchen, I opened a couple of cabinets and the fridge. Nothing much, unless you counted energy drinks and frozen dinners. A box of Fruity Pebbles sat on his counter. Men.

A moment of hesitation stopped me at his bedroom door. People were less likely to be careful with what they left lying around in their bedrooms. I had no idea what I was looking for, but I was afraid of what I would find. I took a deep breath and clasped my hands behind my back.

If the scent of Michael when I opened the front door hadn’t already prepared me, when I walked into his bedroom I might have just shoved my face in his pillow and stayed. His bed was made and, as I thought, situated directly on the other side of the wall from mine. No wonder I couldn’t sleep.

More books took up space on his bedside table, in addition to a docking station that held his iPod. I leaned over to check out his taste in music and noticed a pad of paper with some scribbling on it.

Bingo.

I eyed it upside down for a second then unclasped my hands to pick up the pad and look at it more closely. When I did, a few business cards fell to the ground. I scooped them up, slightly panicked because I didn’t know if they had fallen from between the pages of the notebook or the tabletop. I gave them a quick glance. They all said the same thing:

On the back was an address just outside Ivy Springs proper. I shoved one in my pocket, stacking the rest in a neat pile. I tried to decipher the words on the pad, but they were in some kind of shorthand or code. Michael seemed to be a master at hiding things.

“What are you looking for?”

I let out a squeak and jumped, almost dropping the notebook. Jack stood beside me with a half smile on his lips.

“You scared me!” I was embarrassed to be busted, even by Jack, who didn’t have anyone to tell. I looked down at my hands and saw my fingers still clutching the notepad. I flung it back on the bedside table, mortified when I had to pick it back up and flip it over so it would look as it did before I touched it. “How did you get in here?”

Jack pursed his lips, hesitating before answering. “I can move between rooms.”

I considered what that meant, and my skin became gooseflesh. “Like from my bedroom to my bathroom?”

“No, no,” he answered, shaking his head before reassuring me. Still keeping his distance, he took a step closer. “As tempting as it might be, I would never do that. I respect you too much.”

I couldn’t look away from him. His pupils weren’t exactly black, just a shade lighter, and his irises were less blue today and more gray. “So you’ve been in Michael’s room before?”

“I have,” he concurred.

Uh-oh.

“Have you ever talked to him?” My forehead broke out in a sweat. Jack might have someone to tell about my snooping. What if he’d appeared to Michael, too?

“No,” Jack said, his eyes growing wide. “Only you.”

“Good.” I hadn’t realized rips could pick when to reveal themselves. I’d have to ask Michael about that later. “Seen anything interesting?” I prodded.

“Such as?”

“I don’t know,” I shrugged it off. “Who he talks to, what he does?”

“He seems to type on that a lot.” Jack pointed to the computer with one hand, leaving the other behind his back. He then pointed toward the portable phone on the desk. “And he speaks to someone on that quite frequently.”

“Have you heard him say any names?”

“I’ve heard him mention you a few times.” Jack said the words carefully, watching me, as if he was weighing my reaction.

“My name?” I asked. “In what context?”

“Just that you were nice … no”—he stopped, considering—“you were coming along nicely … and that all was going according to plan.”

I turned to stalk blindly out of the bedroom, angry with myself for being hurt by his words.

“Where are you going?” He followed close behind me.

“None of your business.” I stopped. I had no reason to be so rude to him. I turned back around to apologize, catching him off guard. He sidestepped to avoid the bedside table.

I froze.

“What’s wrong?” Jack asked.

I took a hesitant step toward him. “Why do you avoid solid objects? I’ve noticed it before, but it didn’t sink in.”

“I don’t avoid anything,” he answered, stepping fluidly away from me.

“But you do. Except for the other night, you were sitting on my bed—I felt your weight pushing down my mattress. How did you do that? And why are you always holding your hands together that way, like you’re afraid to touch anything?”

“I’m not afraid,” he protested, pulling his hands apart quickly, dropping one to his side and tucking the other into his vest. “It’s simply a habit.”

“I don’t think so.” I took another step closer, lifting my hand and reaching gingerly toward his chest.

“Stop. Stay where you are,” he warned, his voice full of fear.

Squeezing my eyes shut and taking a deep breath, I moved forward to slide my hand through his form.