“Abel?” Kiernan says as he stops the truck outside the house.
Abel turns off the video and looks up. His eyes are filled with the same dull shock I’ve seen each time the historians start to realize they won’t be going home. “Yes?”
Kiernan nods toward the house. “The lady may have some odd comments about me and Kate . . . and maybe angels. Just roll with it, okay?”
“Martha?” My heart sinks. “Do we really have to get her involved?”
“I thought of going to the cabin, but the lawyer listed my address when he bailed me out.”
“This will mean she’s housing fugitives. She has kids, right?”
The door to the house opens, and a light-haired woman about my mom’s age steps out onto the front porch. She’s smiling, but she looks nervous.
“Her kids are all grown and gone, Kate. Martha understands the risk. So does her husband. We won’t be here long. Just until things quiet down—maybe get some rest and a bite to eat. Take some time to map out a plan.”
Abel drops my phone in my lap and opens the door. “What a novel idea. A plan.” He slams the door behind him.
“You know, other than being twice her size, a different race, a different gender, and maybe thirty years younger, Abel reminds me an awful lot of Katherine.”
That gets a half chuckle from Kiernan, and he says, “Kate, I’m sorry about—”
“Let’s talk about it inside. Someone needs to introdu—” But when I glance outside the truck, I see that Martha has taken over. She’s taken Abel by the arm and is leading him up to the porch, where a guy who must be her husband is now waiting.
“What did you tell her about all of this?” I ask.
“I just said it was her chance to play angel.”
Abel and Kiernan are still in the kitchen with Martha’s husband, Joe. If he has any reservations about Martha taking in fugitives, you’d never know it—we were welcomed warmly, and he’s done his best to make all three of us comfortable. I’ve just finished eggs, bacon, and biscuits. Kiernan and Abel are still eating. It’s a relief to discover that Abel is a little less combative with food in his stomach.
I’ve moved to the sofa in the living room so that I can watch the front gate through the key. Grant and Delia should arrive any minute now, and I’ll need to jump over and unlock it. What I’d really like is to stretch out on this sofa and sleep for a week. The last sleep I had was the four-hour nap I squeezed in before my dinner with Trey. The last time I got a full eight hours was before we rescued Martha from God’s Hollow.
A few minutes later, Martha comes in with my coffee cup, which she’s refilled.
“Wow. You must be psychic.”
“No.” She smiles as she hands me the cup and then sits on the couch next to me. “I just saw you yawnin’ when I looked in here a little while ago. You know, you’re welcome to do whatever it is you’re doin’ with that thing in the kitchen with the rest of us. I told Joe it was like prayer beads. He ain’t ever met but two Catholics in his life, so he might stare a little, but I hate for you to be off all by your lonesome.”
“Thanks, Martha, but I think the other car is going to show up pretty soon, and I’m going to have to disappear for a few seconds. That might make Joe do a little more than stare.”
She laughs and tucks a stray piece of hair, as much gray as blond now, back behind her ear. “It might at that. I told him a little about what happened, but I ain’t ever mentioned the disappearin’ part. He already thinks I’m a little crazy.”
“It’s really good of you to do this, Martha. Both of you.”
“Not at all,” she says. “Joe and I both have people in our lives who are gone now, people who treated us kindly and taught us right from wrong. I can’t pay Sister Elba back for takin’ me and my cousins in, but it’s like this book I read a few years back, written by a lady down in Augusta—she says you’re s’posed to pay it forward. Sister Elba would have taken these people in, so now I’m doin’ it for her.”
“And Kiernan told you about Grant?”
“The guy that was at God’s Hollow? It’s okay. I know he wasn’t part of it. He was tricked by that devil, same as me and all those who died.”
Martha leans over and puts her hand on my knee. It’s a very maternal gesture, and something about it reminds me how much time has passed for her, even more than the lines on her face. “And I know he wasn’t a real devil, just like you ain’t a real angel. I figured that out while I was stayin’ with the Owenses. I don’t know what that circle thing is, but it keeps you the same age or maybe lets you move around time, like in that Mark Twain book. That’s why you look just the same. Except I didn’t know about the hair, ’cause it was all tucked under your hat before. You should wear it down more often.”
“I tell her that all the time,” Kiernan says from the doorway. I’m not sure how long he’s been standing there.
Abel is behind him, wearing a bathrobe of some sort over his pants, because there were no shirts that would fit him. He looks at Martha and says, “If it isn’t any trouble, ma’am, I’d like to take you up on the offer of a hot bath before Delia arrives. Maybe it won’t frighten her quite as much if I get a bit more of the blood off of me.”
Martha helps him upstairs, and I turn to Kiernan. “I’m more worried about how Abel is going to react when he sees Delia’s face. They should be here soon, right?”
“Yeah. I’d guess in the next five or ten minutes.” He sits down next to me. “Kate, it was Simon across the street, okay? I figured as much, but I had to check it out. You getting involved would’ve made things twice as difficult. But I shouldn’t have lied to you. It just complicated matters.”
“What happened? Why does he think you’re here?”
He shrugs. “I told him the truth, sort of. That I’m keeping an eye on you for Prudence. Keeping you from poking around in their business in the future.”
“Do you think he knows you’re helping, not just watching?”
“I don’t know. Probably not, since he said I’m backing a losing horse when it comes to Pru. Said not to let loyalty to her make me stupid.”
“But—why is he here? I thought they didn’t need the keys.”
Kiernan leans back, rubbing his temples. “I don’t know that for certain, Kate. Maybe with the split between Saul and Pru, they want a few more on hand. But I think it’s simpler than that. Simon, he’s like . . . I don’t know. My Kate called him an adrenaline junkie. Simon tends to think of time as his own private amusement park. Who needs your video games or movies when you can jump in and out of the real thing? He nearly got both of us killed in Cincinnati back in 1884. And a few days before I found you on the Metro, he blinked out in the middle of a raid on a speakeasy, in full view of the police. When I saw him tonight, he said I should stick around—” He leans forward, lowering his voice. “That things were about to get good. He’s here because he wants to see a lynching.”
∞22∞
OCONEE COUNTY, GEORGIA
August 11, 1938, 12:05 a.m.
“You two barely manage to get me out of jail, and you wonder why I don’t believe you can take down an organization with millions of members? Some of whom can time travel?”
“Please keep it down,” I warn him. Again.
Martha and Joe went up to bed an hour ago, right after Kiernan and I got back from abandoning the Buick on a back road about five miles away. We’d planned to do the same with Kiernan’s truck, but it took him three tries to jump back to Martha’s yard after the Buick, so I think he’s tapped out with the key for a while. His truck is hidden in the barn, and the plan is for Delia, Abel, and Grant to lie low here for a few days, until the fuss dies down, and then head north in the truck.