Then I notice the outlier, and a shiver runs down my back. The marked date is more than three months before the other circles begin and has a very special significance to me.
April 4, the very day I returned to this world with Ellie.
The day I made Iffy’s time line permanent.
He can’t know that.
There’s no way he can know that.
Stop! You’ve seen the pictures, I tell myself. He’s not a time traveler. There is no way he can know the importance of April 4.
I take several breaths to calm down. While the other circled dates may or may not represent all the times our paths crossed, the April date must have nothing to do with—
I pause, staring at the calendar as an answer dawns on me. If the other dates are times he saw me, then maybe the same is true for the first one. Maybe he was in the park where I appeared with Ellie. To this point, I thought that our arrival had gone unseen, but there were others in the park. Many had come running to see if they could help when Ellie collapsed. Had he been in the crowd? Could that be what this is all about? He could have been freaked out by what he saw and searched until he found me again. And when he did, he started following me to see if I would disappear.
This possibility fits the facts, but while I want it to be true, it’s still speculation. And it’s always better to know for sure.
I exit the room and move to the one at the end of the hall.
The moment I step inside, I freeze. I’m in the master bedroom. A door off to my right leads to what I’m sure is an en suite bathroom. It’s the bed, however, that’s caught my attention, or more specifically, the shape of the single person lying on it.
When I’m sure there’s been no change to the deep, rhythmic breathing I heard upon entry, I quietly move into the room until I’m close enough to see the sleeper’s face.
It’s Kane.
This is unexpected. In less than twelve hours, he will follow Ellie and me to our lunch with Iffy. Which probably means he will follow us first to the hospital and then to the restaurant. With the way morning traffic is in Los Angeles, he’ll need to leave within a few hours to be able to do that. Add in the possibility that it was Kane I noticed parked on my street last night, and I would have thought he’d have found a hotel in San Diego. Now I’m wondering if he actually comes home every evening, even if just for a few hours. That’s a lot of driving and doesn’t make much sense.
Unfortunately, any search of his bedroom will have to be done when he’s not here, so I go out as silently as I came in. I also ignore the two rooms with closed doors at the other end of the hall and add them to my “check next visit” list, which, for me, will be in only a few minutes.
I’m tempted to jump right into his living room midmorning, when I know he will be gone. But caution, as it almost always does, overrides this whim. There could be others sleeping behind the closed doors after all. I hop back out to the porch and then choose a spot in some bushes around the side of his house that can be seen only by someone standing a few feet away. I set my arrival time for 10:00 a.m. and jump.
When I pop back into the world, my eyes are closed to slits in anticipation of the morning sun. As soon as my irises adjust, I head toward the front of the house. Logically Kane can’t be here and still make it to San Diego, where the earlier me will see him in a couple hours, so my hope is that the house is empty, but I’m stopped at the corner of the building by a voice coming from the front yard.
“Here we go. Lemonade, nice and cold.” The speaker is a woman with an accent I believe is Hispanic.
She’s obviously talking to someone. I wait for a second voice, but there’s no reply. Kneeling down, I peek around the corner. A chair has been placed in the middle of the small front yard, and in it sits an old woman, a glass raised to her lips. I have only a partial angle on her profile, but it’s enough to see that she’s the same wrinkled woman from Kane’s photographs. Standing beside her is a middle-aged Hispanic woman with shoulder-length dark hair. She’s wearing a colorful shirt and a pair of white pants, and sees the world through brown plastic-framed glasses.
The older woman lowers the glass again and hands it to her companion. “Not sweet enough. More sugar.”
“No more sugar,” the Hispanic woman says. “It’s not good for you. This is okay.”
“More sugar.”
“Mr. Kane would not want you to have more sugar. You know that.”
“Do you see Vincent here? I don’t.”
“That doesn’t matter.”
“Lorna.”
My eyebrow raises slightly. Lorna is one of the names on the schedule I found in the kitchen.
The Hispanic woman — Lorna — raises her free hand in surrender. “Okay, okay. More sugar. I’ll be right back.” She heads inside the house.
So the schedule is a list of… attendants? I think for a moment, trying to recall what this kind of person is referred to as here. Caregiver. That’s it. The people on the list must be the ones who watch over the old woman while Kane is gone. Which must mean he comes home every night to take over.
Without looking, I reach for the wall to steady myself so that I can lean out and get a look at the front door, but I misjudge the distance and my palm knocks into it harder than I expect it to. The sound isn’t loud, and when the old woman starts turning in her chair, I assume she’s easing an ache, but she twists all the way around until she is looking directly at me. I hold as still as possible, hoping her ancient eyes are not strong enough to pick out the part of my head sticking around the house. Her blank expression seems to confirm this is the case at first, but then suddenly her lips curl in a smile and I can’t help but think that it’s aimed at me.
My hand automatically moves into my satchel and finds the combination of buttons that will trigger an emergency escape, but there’s something about her face that keeps me from pushing anything yet. Maybe it’s the intelligence burning in her eyes, or maybe it’s the fact that I can see some of Kane in her. Whatever the case, I’m unable to figure it out before the groan of a hinge signals the door opening again.
The old woman turns back around as Lorna returns. I listen, sure that she is going to say something about seeing me, but instead she takes the glass, gives the lemonade another taste, and says, “Now, that’s better.”
I back out of sight and pull my chaser out. Instead of hitting the escape combination, I select the locator number for the living room of my apartment and a time that will put me there not long before Iffy and Ellie arrive home from lunch.
As much as I would like to conduct a more thorough search of Kane’s home, I would be a fool to do so when someone else is here, which, from the looks of things, might be all the time.
The only thing I can do for now is go home.
CHAPTER SIX
As planned, I’m waiting in the apartment when Iffy and Ellie walk in. Immediately I notice dark circles under my sister’s eyes. Though it isn’t even midafternoon yet, it’s been the busiest day Ellie’s had in a while, and it’s clearly taken a lot out of her. I mentally kick myself for adding the lunch onto our schedule. It was obviously a bad idea.
“Are you feeling okay?” I ask her.
“I’m fine,” she says with more energy that I’m sure she feels. “Did you find out who the man was?”