“I do not want you stealing time. You are too new to it. I will provide time enough for both of us,” he said with a finality that rubbed me the wrong way.
“You also said that what was in the past didn’t matter. Which makes me think that was a really nice way of saying you used to steal time but don’t anymore. Would that be true?”
He didn’t say anything for a few seconds, but an interesting parade of expressions passed over his face: guilt, anger, pain, and finally resignation.
“I suppose you should know the worst about me if you are going to marry me,” he said, his shoulders slumping.
I didn’t point out that I hadn’t agreed to marry him; I just put an interested expression on my face and sat back to listen.
“Sunil was bound to me a few years ago. It was my punishment for his death.”
FOURTEEN
My jaw dropped at Peter’s bald statement. Since I’ve been jaw-dropping a lot in the last few days, I quickly sucked it back up to where it belonged, and asked, “You killed someone? Sunil? You stole all of his life?”
“In a manner of speaking. I—”
“You great big ass!”
He looked taken aback, as well he might, but I was too incensed to apologize for calling him names. “Here I was feeling like dirt because you’re all shiny and clean and pure and don’t steal time, and yet you killed someone nice! You don’t even have Hitler for an excuse.”
“Hitler?” he asked, looking adorably confused. “What does he have to do—oh, Piotr Faa?”
“That’s right.” I pinched his arm. “How could you do that, Peter? How could you kill someone? Especially someone as nice as Sunil?”
“It was an accident,” he said quickly, and once again, that parade of guilt and anger and pain trooped across his handsome face. “I didn’t actually steal so much of his time that he died. It was an…er…odd circumstance.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, crossing my arms over my chest more to keep from touching him than to show just how annoyed I was. I felt absolutely certain that Peter wasn’t at all like his cousins, and if he had done what he had said, there must be some extenuating circumstances.
“I can’t. If I tell you what happened, you’ll loathe me—as, I admit, I am due—and then you won’t marry me, and I’ll end up spending my days in a haze of unfulfilled need and want, and will make all sorts of bad choices, ending, no doubt, with the acceptance of the many offers Alison has been making to me every chance she has.”
I glowered. “Did you just threaten me with that motel strumpet?”
“No. I would never do that.” His expression was absolutely stone-cold sober, but there was a twinkle in his eyes that made me feel giddy.
“Good, because I absolutely will not tolerate any such threats. If I promise to not loathe you, will you tell me?”
“Yes,” he said, his tone resigned. “But I will hold you to that promise.” He pulled me up to his side, his body warm and solid against mine. I oozed into him, ignoring my superego when it told me I should be ashamed to be cuddling with a self-professed murderer. Peter wasn’t bad, I told my inner voices. He couldn’t be bad. He felt much too right to be anything but an honorable man.
Famous last words, my superego snarked.
I put him in the corner of my mind on a time-out, and donned my most understanding expression.
“A few years ago I was working a job in London. As you surmised, at the time I was no different from any other Traveller, and took small amounts of time here and there, as a matter of course. It was automatic—a few seconds here, a few there, with no one the wiser, unless the donor noticed a few extra coins in his or her pocket. One day, I was on a street corner, and absently took about thirty seconds from the man next to me. I started across the street, but in a horrible quirk of fate, that thirty seconds cost the man his life. Because I took it from him, he was still on the street corner when a drunk driver careened around a car and ran him down where he stood on the sidewalk.”
“I don’t understand. Wouldn’t the driver have gone back thirty seconds, too?”
“If he had been close enough to have been affected by the time theft, yes. But he wasn’t. He was speeding down the street at a distance that left him untouched by the theft.”
I put both arms around Peter, responding not to the words but to the very real pain and regret in his voice.
“You must understand this, Kiya, because it is something we Travellers have to live with every time we steal from mortals—you never know how that time you take might have been used. In this case, that ten seconds that I stole was the time Sunil would have used to cross the street, and be out of the way of the drunken driver.”
“How awful for you both,” I said, pressing a kiss to his neck. “Poor Sunil. Poor you. You didn’t know that something as ingrained in you as breathing would result in the death of another.”
He grimaced. “I deserve the punishment. No one forced me to take his time—I simply acted as all Travellers act, and was cursed for my actions.”
“I can see that this is why you’re so adamant that I don’t steal time, and I understand what you’re saying about weighing the consequences of doing so—is the person in a position where they might be harmed from the loss of time?—but surely that doesn’t mean we can’t ever do it. I mean—think of the possibilities, Peter! Think of all the genocide that could be avoided! The abuse of people and animals by monstrous individuals—we can stop them. We can make the world a better place. Don’t you see? This isn’t a curse—it’s a gift, a wonderful, precious gift.”
He eyed me warily, all hints of humor gone from his face. “What you’re talking about is the act of a god, Kiya, and we are far from those ethereal beings. We were never meant to hold the sort of power that you are describing. That’s why the shuvani hold us accountable for every second taken.”
“But surely if the motive is for the common good—”
“Define common good.”
I shook my head. “Now is not the time for a philosophical discussion of what is good and what is evil. I simply want you to see that just because you had a tragic, horrible experience doesn’t mean that we can’t use this ability for good.”
“You’re right,” he said wearily, letting his arm drop from around me.
I beamed at him, relieved and not a little bit surprised that he so quickly agreed with my point of view. My pleasure was dashed a few seconds later when he continued.
“This is not the time for a philosophical discussion of the moral bounds that are stretched by all Travellers. I am on the hunt for a murderer, and that’s where my focus must now lie.”
I was about to argue my point further, but before I could get the words out, the sound of angry voices from the RVs caught our attention. We listened intently for a few seconds.
“That sounds like Andrew,” I whispered, jerking when car lights suddenly flashed on the canvas of the tent. The sound of a car starting and pulling out with a squeal of brakes and a spray of dirt and gravel immediately followed. “Who was he yelling at? We’re both in here.”
“It sounded like William. Ah, yes.” The angry muttering of William could be heard all the way across the campground as he, too, got into a car and slammed his foot on the accelerator, leaving with a loud roar of the engine.
“Wow. They must have had one heck of a fight. I wonder what it was about.”
“I don’t know. Stay here.” Peter ducked and exited the tent.
I gave the tent flap a dirty look, scrambled into my shoes, and followed him, saying, when he stopped to glare over his shoulder at me, “I so do not take orders. Besides, I want to help search their RVs now that they’re gone.”
“When we are married, you will respect my requests and do as I say.”
I glanced at him to see if he was serious. The way he peeked at me from the corner of his eye told me he was waiting to see what sort of outraged reaction I’d have to that load of crap. “I have news for you, Buster Brown—no w
oman will ever marry you if you expect that sort of subservient existence. Certainly I won’t.”
“Hrmph. Why?” Peter asked, gesturing me to the fringes of the camp, where the shadows were the deepest.
“Because that’s the most sexist, moronic, unrealistic attitude—”
“No, why do you wish to search the RVs?”
I nudged his shoulder as I crept silently behind him, careful to keep my volume to a whisper. “So we can find the stolen evidence, of course.”
The sun had long since set, but the moon hadn’t risen yet, which left the clearing dark and somewhat creepy, what with the hulks of partially destroyed buildings lurking around the edges. Faint little glows of light could be seen alongside the RVs, but they did little to lighten the area. The entire lumber mill looked exactly what it was—a ghost camp, once a thriving, bustling place of industry, and now devoid of all but the memory of those times.
And a handful of immortal time thieves.
“I’m so glad ghosts don’t exist,” I muttered under my breath, more to bolster my spirits than to initiate a discussion.
“Why do you think they don’t?” Peter asked, skirting the first RV.
I stopped for a moment to stare at the back of his head. He must have felt the stare, because he turned back and held out his hand for me. I rushed to accept it, taking great comfort in the warmth and strength of his fingers.
“Kiya, ghosts are not the frightening entities that the mortals so delight in. They are simply the spirits of people who have died, but who haven’t gone on to the next plane of existence.”
“That sounds pretty frightening to me, but I don’t have time right now to be either worried or scared over the idea of real ghosts. What are you doing if not searching for the evidence?”
“Trying to locate the vial. I think that’s Andrew’s caravan. If I tell you to stay outside while I search, will you do it?”
“Not on your tintype.” I clutched the back of his shirt so he couldn’t escape me. “And isn’t searching for the vial the same thing as finding the missing evidence?”
“No.” Evidently Andrew had taken the time to lock his RV. Peter pulled out a small black case and, with a quick glance around the crescent of RVs, bent over the lock on the door.
“I don’t see the difference.”
“That’s because you are assuming that the two are the same thing.”
“Now you’re really confusing me. Why aren’t they the same thing?”
A faint noise from Mrs. Faa’s RV had me spinning around, crouched and prepared to hide behind the nearest piece of lawn furniture.
“False alarm,” I whispered to Peter. “I’d better stand guard, though, just in case someone looks out their window or decides to take a late-night stroll through the forest.”
The faint whooshing sound of the door opening had me turning back to the RV.
“Stay here,” Peter said, mounting the stairs.
“In your dreams, immortal boy.”
Peter didn’t even bother sighing; he simply entered the RV with me on his heels. Carefully, so as not to make any noise, I closed the door behind us, blinking like crazy when all light was shut out of the RV. “Where are you? I can’t see—ah, thank you.”
The penlight that Peter switched on didn’t illuminate the inside of the motor home much, but it did calm an imminent case of the heebie-jeebies that I felt crawling up my back. “So. Search time. I’ve never done this before, but I’ve seen it on TV, so it can’t be too hard. I can take the left side, and you can do the right, OK? I just need to know what this vial looks like.”
“It looks like this,” Peter said, standing up from where he had been squatting in front of a small refrigerator. In his hand was a long glass tube, like a test tube, but stoppered and encased in some sort of thin foam wrap.
“Do you mean it just looks like that, or it is that?”
“This is the vial.” He flashed the penlight onto it. A label was clearly visible, along with some handwriting that I took to be Peter’s.
“Well, hell,” I said, disappointed despite the relief of knowing he had the vial back. “I was kind of looking forward to searching. I’ve never done it before, and although I know it’s reprehensible doing it in the first place, we have justice and stuff on our side, so I figured that karmically speaking, it was OK. I guess that means we’re done, right?”
“For the moment.” To my surprise, Peter set down the vial and continued to flick the penlight around the interior.
“What are you looking for now?”
“Evidence.”
I pointed to the vial, even though I knew he couldn’t see me doing so. “Isn’t that it?”
“I’m looking for evidence that Andrew is involved in something else.” He moved down the aisle, his light sweeping back and forth in front of him.
“Another murder?”
“No. I know he’s involved in those.”
I stopped, my hands on my hips. “OK, I’ve been the ignorant sidekick to your brilliant master detective for long enough. Spill with exactly what it is you’re doing.”
He disappeared into a room that I assumed was the bedroom. I went to the door of it, and watched as he systematically searched through the built-in dresser. At last, he turned to face me, his expression one of profound frustration. “I don’t know what it is I’m looking for. I just have a feeling that he’s involved in something, and I had hoped that I’d find proof of it.”
“Something connected to this murder?”
“Yes.” He hesitated, obviously loath to tell me what it was. I waited silently to see what he’d do, feeling it was important to know now, before our relationship had gone too far, whether he was a man who would value me for more than just our sexual compatibility. “The thought had crossed my mind that Andrew might somehow be involved with the body that you saw earlier.”
“Dalton’s body?”
“The one made to resemble his body, yes.”
I watched him closely. That wasn’t the sum total of what he was thinking. “Or?” I prompted.
The penlight moved. I could see Peter’s jaw tightening. “Or Dalton’s body. I don’t know which it is, now. I thought I did earlier, but the more I think about the meeting I had with Dalton, the more I’m convinced that something wasn’t…right.”
“How so?” I put my hand on his arm when he left the bedroom. “Peter, I’m not just being nosy, I really want to help you. I’m not stupid, and I do notice things—most of the time—and what’s more important, I’m the one who saw the body and the Dalton zombie.”
“Revenant, not that he is one.”
“Let me help,” I said. “If you want for us to have a life together, you’re going to have to resolve yourself to the idea that I want to share more than just your bed.”
He took my hand and kissed my knuckles. “I’m not trying to frustrate you, sweetheart. I’m just—other than having Sunil bound to me, I’ve never really had a partner, especially not one romantically linked to me, and it takes some getting used to.”
I smiled and slid my hand down to pinch his adorable behind. “Are you trying to tell me that you were a virgin before that night at your motel?”
“I said I didn’t have a partner, not that I’d never had sex. Come. Andrew could be back at any time, and I’d rather not he see us in his caravan.”
“You forgot the vial,” I told Peter when he followed me down the stairs.
He made an annoyed noise.
“Honestly,” I said as I dashed back inside, and retrieved the precious object. “It’s like you don’t care about it.”
No one was present outside, and we made it back to the tent without anyone knowing what we’d been up to.
“OK, that was fun,” I said as I tucked the vial into my purse. “I’ve never done anything like that before. I can see why you like being a police detective. Do you have to go through special paranormal police school to be part of the Watch?”
“Yes.” Peter stood outsid
e the tent for a moment before he reached in and, taking my hand, pulled me out.
“Where are we going? My purse is inside—”
“We’re going somewhere we can talk privately. One that doesn’t smell of skunk.”
“Are you sure you’re not taking me off to seduce me under the midsummer moon?” My fingers tightened around his, and I gave myself up to thoughts of just what I’d like to do to him under the moonlight.
“I hadn’t intended on doing that, but I am nothing if not a considerate man, and I will naturally oblige your lustful desires.” Once we were beyond view of the camp, he adjusted the penlight so that its beam broadened, making it possible to see obstacles before us.
“Maybe later,” I laughed, warmth filling me as he squeezed my hand. “After you tell me what you’re thinking.”
“Right now I’m thinking about your breasts, and belly, and how much I like it when you tighten your muscles around me.”
“That is the result of years of Kegels. My foster mother always said I’d bless the day I started doing them, but I always thought she meant I’d have awesome bladder muscles when I am an old lady. I guess this is just as good. Our incredible sex life aside, now that you’re resolved to the idea of sharing your thoughts with me—”
“That, my fair little squab, is going to take more than a few minutes,” he interrupted, stopping before a small clearing that consisted of an official forest notice posted to a tree. The light of the flashlight made it possible to see that next to the sign were a couple of low, smooth rocks that were just the right height for sitting. He led me over to one, taking a seat opposite me.
I giggled at the squab reference, and continued. “Now that you’re OK with the idea of telling me what’s going on, why doesn’t the vial matter to you any longer? What did you mean by saying that finding the evidence and finding the vial weren’t the same thing? And why do you think Andrew of all people was involved with whatever is going on with your boss?”
“Do you always ask this many questions?” Peter asked. “If so, I may have to reconsider the proposal I made earlier.”