It’s not the scream that wakes me. Because, in my dream, I’m expecting it.
In fact, it’s not a dream, it’s a memory. I can smell fresh cut lawn, hear the sprinkler from Russell’s house next door. Inside, Eve is fixing dinner, and she’s turned up my Bon Jovi album, singing along to Runaway…
I’m pushing Ashley on her new swing set. Her legs are out, and her braids are flying and she’s laughing, screaming, glancing over her shoulder at me, her daddy.
My chest is full. Especially when Eve walks out onto the deck carrying a plate of meat for the now smoking grill. It’s a blue-skied day and the heady redolence of the burgers snapping and browning draws me over. I circle my arms around Eve’s waist, lean in and press my lips to her neck, her skin tasting of salt and a hint of today’s soap. I’m suddenly ravenous, but she hums, then pushes me away, grinning at me over her shoulder, just like Ash did, only not quite. There’s a twinkle in Eve’s eyes and she winks because it’s Saturday night and my world is perfect.
“Rem!”
I turn, looking for the voice, then round back to Eve who has left me for the kitchen.
I follow her inside, but she’s not there. “Eve?”
“Rembrandt!”
My head pounds. “Eve?” I walk through our family room, past the wrapped canvas pictures we took at the beach, the long sectional where Ash and I watch Dora and up the stairs to our bedroom.
But it’s empty too.
“Rembrandt, are you here?”
I head back downstairs and to my office. It’s exactly how I left it—leather chair, rows and rows of novels on a bookcase behind the desk. My novel, The Last Year, in hardcover, on my desk, as if it might give me inspiration.
Eve says she fell in love with me through that book, written my rookie year as an investigator. It hit the NYT Bestseller list, and bought me my Porsche, and a few other toys. I thought I was going to be the next Mickey Spillane. I had no idea what a fluke it was until I attempted novel number two.
I might be a one-hit wonder. But Eve doesn’t care, and that’s why I’m searching the house for her. Why I’m ignoring the voice…the voice…
The pounding.
I open my eyes, and stare at the ceiling. I’m fully clothed, having dropped onto my sectional last night, one of my mother’s knitted afghans over me. I couldn’t bear to sleep in the bed Eve and I shared—and will again, I’m determined.
Wow, I miss them.
The voice comes again … from outside the front door. “Rem, I’m going to call 9-1-1!”
I untangle myself and roll to my feet, still clearing my head, gulping past the thrum of my heart.
I see a figure through the glass and open the door to find my neighbor, Gia. She’s wearing a tank top, short shorts and holds her baby on her hip. She’s curvy and young and there are sirens sounding in my head, although I’m not sure why.
“Finally,” she says. “I was getting worried.
“Sorry. I was sleeping.” Dreaming, actually, and I’m not a little irked that she woke me up. I glance past her. Must be around six a.m.—the sun is barely up. Which now has me awake. “What’s going on?”
“It’s…” And now I realize she’s been crying, her eyes reddened. Her baby—I think it’s a boy, dark curly hair, big brown eyes—stares at me, his thumb jammed full hilt into his mouth. “Alex. Again.”
Alex. The last thing I remember about her husband Alex is the fight he and Gia got into a few weeks ago. Eve and I watched, and I debated crossing the street to intervene. But domestic squabbles are exactly how many cops get shot, so I stayed put and made sure nobody threw anything like chairs or fists.
Alex finally left in his Beemer.
I’m thinking, in this reality, maybe he’s not much different.
“Come inside.” I hold open the door.
She enters and sets her son down on the floor. He hangs onto her leg, eying me.
“It was so terrible. He came home last night, late, and he’d been drinking and he accused me…” She lifts her gaze to me. “He thinks I’m having an affair.”
And, bad me, but all I can think about is Russell, my other neighbor, and how the kid at her feet looks an awful lot like…
I’ve been a cop too long.
Then Gia takes a step toward me, and suddenly I’m thinking her husband has grounds because she puts her head on my chest, curls her arms around me, and starts to weep.
Oh. Boy. Uh…
“It’s okay, Gia.” I pat her back as benignly as I can because right about now is when Eve would arrive and I’d have some ‘splainin’ to do. I dearly hope I didn’t lose my mind and do something colossally stupid over the past three years with the neighbor across the street.
She pushes away from me. “I’m sorry. I just…you and Eve have been so supportive.” She wipes her eyes. “I miss her. I hope you two work it out.”
Phew. I nod. “Me too.”
“I was wondering, maybe, if I could stay here today? Just until Alex leaves? He’s sleeping it off on my sofa, but…” She makes a face. “He parked in front of my car, too, and has the keys on him.”
Here? In my house?
It won’t matter, though, because by the time I’m back, my world will have reverted and Gia will be back to flirting with Russell, single and without junior, so, “Sure. I’m going to take a run, though, and clean up. Why don’t you and junior—”
“His name’s Mikey.”
And that jerks me, just for a second because that was my brother’s name.
The one who went missing when I was twelve.
“Oh.” I swallow. “So yeah, when I get back from the run—”
“I can make you breakfast.” She pushes past me to the kitchen.
Hmmm …
I hear cupboard doors opening. But it’s not like I’m doing anything wrong—she’s a neighbor in trouble. And clearly, she knows I’m married, so I take the stairs, change into my workout gear and head out the front door, my ear buds in.
My route is always the same. Cut down Drew Avenue, over to Cedar Lake Parkway, then halfway around the lake to the beach, where I do a set of pull ups on the monkey bars of the playground. Sometimes, if no one is looking, I’ll drop for some push-ups, too, then run home as fast as I can.
It’s a decent, forty-minute workout that keeps my blood pressure down and the tacos from piling up on my waistline. But having recently inhabited my former, rather buff, body, I’m tasting my youth and eager to find it again as I start my route. It’s early, the lake is a deep amber thanks to the rising sun, the horizon dark, magenta skies over an explosion of gold, red and orange.
Regardless of the time, the sky is predictable. Sunrise. Sunset. I’m listening to The Four Seasons December, 1963 (Oh, What a Night) and it conjures up my dream.
I’m breathing hard by the time I reach the park. As I do my pullups, I think about Hollie Larue and her parents. And how they’d like to rewrite time. The watch is at home—I took it off yesterday and now the idea of losing it, even to Mikey’s chubby handed curiosity propels me back home.
The house is filled with the smells of bacon and eggs when I enter. Laughter rolls out of the kitchen. I walk into my office and grab my watch, still breathing hard.
“You okay?” Gia is in the doorway of the kitchen. I turn and nod. The welcome scent of coffee floats down the hallway, giving me a tug, but I ignore it and head upstairs.
Okay, I was over-reacting. If she needs to stay here to be safe…well, I didn’t become a cop to turn people out into the cold.
I shower, change into my last pair of clean jeans and another button-down, put on the watch, and emerge, my shaggy hair back behind my ears, clean-shaven and humming.
Gia’s fixed a plate of bacon and eggs for me, and as I walk into the kitchen, she pops it into the microwave. She’s also poured me coffee.
As I sip the coffee as fast as I can, the microwave dings and she sets the breakfast on the table. I pick up the plate and shovel in the eggs. “I gotta run.” I grab the bacon, though. “You going to be okay?”
She nods. “I’ll leave as soon as he does.”
There’s something about her words that sit in my chest as I get in the Porsche. The idea that maybe, somehow in my relationship with Eve, I left first, at least emotionally.
It happens, especially when I’m writing. Wrap myself up in the fiction, absent in mind, if not in body, for hours, days at a time.
I did it at work, too.
I’ll fix that when I reset my world.
Honey, I’m coming home.
I turn on the radio, and my gaze falls on the file folder from last night. The Mulligan file. I shove it into my satchel to look at later, and pull out, heading downtown.
My phone buzzes in the cup holder, and I turn on my Bluetooth. My ride might be vintage, but I tricked it out with all the current technology.
Burke’s voice booms through the speakers. “Hollie woke up. Meet me at the hospital.”
Aw. Not the item at the top of my agenda, but lives are at stake here, too, and the past isn’t going anywhere, so I agree and hang up.
The University Hospital is a sprawling set of buildings seven blocks deep but it has a valet parking service and although it grinds me, I pull up, get a ticket and let some kid take my pretty into the high rise lot while I find Hollie’s floor.
Burke is outside the room, leaning against the wall, his arms folded. “It’s a miracle. They thought she’d never talk again, maybe not even wake up. But she’s awake, coherent, and the doc says you can talk to her for five minutes.”
Her parents are in the room, next to her bed. Hollie is still under oxygen, the bruises around her neck deep purple. Her face bears the marks of a struggle, her eye blackened, her lip broken. But she’s alive and that’s all I can think of as I come up to the bed. She’s alive, and twenty-three other women aren’t, and if I can catch this guy, then I leave this timeline a safer place.
“Hollie,” I say. “I’m an Investigator with the Minneapolis Police Department. Rembrandt Stone. I’m so sorry about what happened to you.”
Her eyes film, and I get it. When people understand your pain, it’s easier to trust them. Not a technique—I mean the words—but it helps the questions go down easier.
Eve taught me that.
“I’d like to ask you a few questions about your attacker. That okay?”
She nods and out of the corner of my eye, I see her father take her hand.
“Do you remember anything about him? Any description?” We already have the time and place, the details of the attack from Eve’s crime scene report. What I need are specifics to help me find, and nail, Leo Fitzpatrick for these murders.
Her breath hiccups and her voice comes out soft and a little hoarse. “It happened so fast. I was coming out of work at Mahones and I heard someone behind me. I started running, and he tackled me. He put his foot in my back and held me down and…” Her eyes are filling. “He told me not to scream, but I did anyway, so he hit me. And then he…” She looks away. “I couldn’t breathe.” She closes her eyes and I hate that I have to ask her to relive this.
“Do you remember anything, his voice, his smell—”
“Yes.” She looks back into my eyes, her gaze searching. “He smelled…like a locker room. Sweaty and foul and…” Her expression matches her words. “He kept talking so quietly the entire time, saying I’m sorry, and Don’t scream. He sounded…wounded. Like he was angry that he was hurting me.” She shook her head. “I don’t remember anything else.”
A gym. That’s at least, something. “Thank you, Hollie.” I meet her father’s eyes and I thank him too. “If she remembers anything else…”
He nods, his eyes dark with fury and I feel it in my bones. I get it.
Leo Fitzpatrick killed my daughter, too.
I need to see that file, and I say as much to Burke when I walk out of the room.
He’s clearly still on the precipice and I give him a look. “I need to check something,” I say, as if the interview has dislodged a clue. “I have a hunch.”
His face betrays the fight I might have to have with him.
“Okay. Against my better judgment. I’ll get it for you as soon as I get back to the office. I have a meeting, then I need to pick up my car from the shop.” He checks his watch. “Could be a while.”
I hide a grin. “The Acura finally give up the ghost?”
He’s frowning. “Really?”
Whoops. Apparently, we’re not driving the boring sedan anymore. “Sorry. Listen. How about I let you use the Porsche. I can take an Uber back to the precinct.”
He considers me, but he’s always liked my wheels, so I see the yes forming. “Fine. I’ll drop you off, then swing by to get you when my car is done.”
I won’t be there, maybe, but maybe neither of us will, (I’m not sure how this works, exactly), so I nod.
He considers me. “Okay. The file is in my desk. Side drawer. You know the combination.”
Huh. So he’s still using his military ID number.
“In the meantime, you start shaking down the local gyms.”
“Sure thing.” Then, I stick out my hand. I’m not sure why, but this Burke has been a good friend to me, and I’ll miss him. He stares at me, but shakes it, wearing a frown and a half-grin.
“What?”
“It’s just…aw, nothing. Hey.” He’s still holding my grip. “Is that Booker’s watch?” He turns my wrist over.
“Yeah. He gave it to me. Doesn’t work though. It’s just a momento.”
“Did you try winding it? John was always fiddling with it.”
I stare at him, a coldness flushing through me. You don’t think…did Booker know how to—
“See you back at the precinct,” Burke says, breaking through my realization.
I toss Burke the keys, and give him my valet stub, then pull up my app for Uber. My ride is waiting for me when I reach the lobby.
The office is just starting to hum with the day when I arrive, the coffee makers gurgling and cell phones ringing. The bull pen is busy with junior investigators and officers typing out reports. I see an open box of donuts next to the coffee machine and take one. If everything goes right, this version of reality is about to be overwritten.
I head to Burke’s office and work the lock. Inside, along with a thick file is a bottle of Dewars, two glasses and a metal lockbox. Interesting. I retrieve the file and take it down the hall to my office.
The Jackson files are piled on my desk. I drop my satchel on the floor and sit down.
Flip off the rubber binder and open the case.
A picture of my four-year old is stapled to the top, along with her case number and maybe Burke was right—I don’t want to see this.
But I can’t stop a crime if I don’t know about it, so I open the file.
The picture assaults me, and I wince, bile filling my chest at the color photograph of Ashley’s body, found in a shallow river in Bass Lake park. She’s wearing her Little Mermaid nightgown, her feet dirty, her hair tangled as if she’d been dragged.
I swallow the bile back, turn the picture over and read the report. Taken from our home in the middle of the night—where was I?—and found two days later in the park. Strangled.
Not sexually assaulted, however. I close my eyes against a terrible heat. Thank you, God.
But she must have been so terrified. I can almost hear her calling for me and the sound of it echoes in the chambers of my soul.
Enough. I push back my sleeve. Last time I wound the watch it simply ticked to life, soft, a heartbeat through time. Then the hands spun and settled on the time of the first explosion.
But the hands don’t move. There’s no thunder, no blackness folding over me.
I close my eyes, and try to project myself to Ashley’s bedroom, standing amid the neighborhood of stuffed animals, imagine her sleeping in her bed, her blonde hair splayed over her pillow.
I’m still here, and my chest is tightening.
I put my hand on the file, twist the dial again.
Outside the room, someone is yelling, something about an accident.
I’m trying to focus. I let myself go to the park, where she’s found, imagine myself standing on the path…
The sound of pounding feet washes over me. One of the dispatchers has sprinted down the hallway. She sticks her head into the room. “Rembrandt—it’s your car!”
My car? I stand up. “What are you—”
“It exploded. Right on the street!”
I stride to the window.
The 911 is in the parking lot, flames licking out of the broken windows, the hood, spiraling black into the sky. Sirens scream in the distance. Officers are trying to approach the car, their hands over their faces to shield them from the heat.
Oh my—“Burke!”
I turn to sprint out of the room, and slam into my table. My files knock to the floor, and on instinct, I turn to catch them, the files, my satchel—all of it as they tumble to the ground.
Forget it. They scatter about and I ignore them, stepping on them as I run toward the door.
I hear thunder, and maybe it’s an explosion outside, but the room suddenly starts to tilt, and glass is shattering, and I am falling.
Burke!
Then the locomotive rolls over me, and I plunge face first into time.