“Did you see her?” I ask.
He looks up at me, brow furrowing. “You didn’t find her?”
I shake my head. “She’s not back there.”
“Are you sure?”
As I say, “Of course, I’m sure,” my phone rings.
I pull it out and see Kane’s number on the display.
Not now, I think, but I accept the call and say, “Yes?”
“There’s a building on Casitas Avenue in Atwater Village.” Kane recites the address. “Be there in twenty minutes.”
“I need a little more time than that.” There’s no way I’m going anywhere until I find Iffy.
“You have twenty minutes.”
“Please,” I beg.
“Twenty minutes. Just you. Make sure your friend stays in his car.”
Not only has he said friend instead of friends, he has identified RJ as male. He must have been hiding near his house when we were there last night and followed us to the motel and then to the Alcove. My phone pressed hard against the side of my head, “You have her,” I say, my voice barely controlled.
“Don’t be late.”
Click.
On one side of Casitas Avenue are businesses and warehouses and parking areas, while on the other sit homes and apartment buildings and townhomes. The address Kane has given me corresponds to a building on the business side that has a FOR LEASE sign attached to the front. There’s a fence around the adjacent parking lot, with a car entrance gate that’s closed and locked. The pedestrian one beside it, however, has been left partially open.
“Let me out here,” I say as soon as we pass the building.
“I don’t think you should go in there alone,” RJ says as he pulls to the curb. “Maybe we should call the police.”
“And tell them what? That Kane took my time machine and won’t give it back?”
“If he’s really got Iffy, that’s kidnapping.”
He has a point about that, but I can’t chance the chaser falling into the hands of the authorities. Who knows who’d get hold of it then? As much as I wish it weren’t true, the device’s safety is more important than any of our lives. Besides, I don’t think Kane is interested in hurting Iffy. He wants me. She’s just the lure.
I open my door. “Wait here. I’ll get her out, then you two get as far away from here as you can.”
It doesn’t really matter where they go. Once I’m inside, if I can get my hands on my chaser — strike that, when I get my hands on my chaser — I’ll rewrite all of this, and this period of temporary time will finally be erased.
The only windows on the front of the building are too high for me to look in, but even if I could, they are so covered with dust that I wouldn’t see much anyway. As I pass through the gate, I note the dusty windows continue down the side of the building. Below them at various points are several closed doors.
At the very back of the parking lot, in the shadows, is a car. Even at this distance, I’m sure from its shape that it’s Kane’s Lexus.
I try the doors to the building one by one, but it’s only the entrance closest to the car that’s unlocked. The hinges creak as I push the door open. The area inside is dim but not dark, the dirty windows letting in more than enough light to make out details. The entire space — side to side, front to back, floor to rafters — is open. A warehouse, though one that clearly hasn’t been used in a while. At precise points, metal columns rise from the ground to support the roof, but otherwise the floor is empty.
Well, not completely empty.
Forty feet in front of me, Iffy sits in a chair, Kane standing behind her. Wide silver bans encircle her ankles and her chest. Duct tape — a name I know thanks to Iffy — holding her in place. There is a small table, too. On it are two bags — a dark-colored backpack and my satchel.
“Please close the door,” Kane says. He’s trying to sound calm, but the shake in his voice is even worse than it was when we talked on the phone.
Perhaps that should give me some hope, but what it does is make me worry he might do something stupid and unexpected. The smartest thing I can do at the moment is play along. I close the door and turn back to him.
“Now come over,” he orders me. “Slowly. And keep your hands where I can see them.”
My steps echo off the cracked cement floor. As I draw nearer, I lock eyes with Iffy, trying to silently ask if she’s okay. If she’s responding, though, I can’t tell. She just looks scared to me, further fueling my anger toward Kane.
“Stop,” he says when I’m about fifteen feet away.
As soon as I halt, he steps out from behind Iffy’s chair. In his hand I see that he is once more holding the gun he threatened me with in the apartment.
I raise my hands out at my sides, fingers spread, to drive home the point that I’m unarmed. “I came just like you told me to. Now let my friend go.”
With a speed that surprises me, he whips his gun up and points it at me. “Shut up. You only speak when I tell you to speak.” He takes a step in my direction. “Here’s your first question. Where were you born, Denny Younger?”
“Here,” I say. “In California.”
He glares at me and shakes his head. “No. The truth.”
“It is the truth.”
“It’s not!” His voice has started to shake again, only this time it also has an edge of desperation. “Where were you born?”
I try to swallow, but my mouth has gone dry. “The Shallows,” I finally say. “New Cardiff.”
For a few seconds, he starts and stops a smile several times, as if he’s forgotten how to actually do it. “Say it again.”
“The Shallows in New Cardiff.”
“And where is New Cardiff now?”
I see no reason to lie. “It never existed.”
“Like the Upjohn Institute?”
The cotton that has soaked away all the moisture from my mouth has moved into my throat. “Yes.”
“Like the magnificent world where the British still ruled here?”
My voice fails completely, so I only nod.
He stares at me for what seems like hours before he says, “I didn’t believe it, didn’t believe the stories about you.” His voice has taken on an almost dreamy quality, and I sense that he’s talking as much to himself as to me. “How could anyone? And yet you’re actually real. I’ve been waiting to find out the truth for a long time. A long, long time.”
Waiting for a long time? What’s he talking about? I’ve been here only since early spring. It makes no sense.
The only thing that is clear is that though he knows about my world, he’s not of it. I thought it impossible to be more confused about what’s going on, but I was wrong.
He walks over to the table, removes my chaser from my satchel, and sets it down. “You’re going to help me with a mission.”
“What kind of mission?”
That half smile again, there and gone. “A mission of mercy.” He places the muzzle of his gun against the back of Iffy’s skull. “Approach the table. But be warned, any trick you try won’t be fast enough to stop me from pulling this trigger.”
I wish he was wrong, but he’s not. Even if I were to activate the emergency escape combination, he’d likely know something was up and would shoot Iffy before I could disappear.
Yes, I know. Ultimately it wouldn’t matter. I’d be able to go back and stop Kane long before we ever got to this point and avoid Iffy’s death. But I would always remember that I let him kill a version of her. Despite all the lives I have already erased — once even Iffy’s — I’m not strong enough to be even tangentially responsible for her outright murder. What I must hope is that he will drop his guard at some point for long enough that I can make my move without risking her life.