Aching for Always (31 page)

“I think you do believe me, Joss. I think that's why you're so upset.”

“But that doesn't mean I'll help.”

“Your father was a bad man, Joss. He cheated thousands of people out of what was rightfully theirs. He did it without regard to anyone but himself.”

His words stirred the cauldron of shame and guilt that she, as the heir of a wealthy and ruthless man like Alfred Brand, had always carried with her. It felt like such a betrayal of her father to feel the shame she did. She had been raised to love and respect her parents, and she had loved her father. Yet she'd known the sort of man he was, in business and toward her mother. Could she love the man and hate the deeds?

“That doesn't mean I'm willing to strip him of everything he held dear,” she said.

He caught her again, this time far less gently. “He
didn't mind stripping others of what they held dear. He was brutal to your mother. I think she hated him, Joss, and I'd be very surprised if you didn't think so, too.”

She struggled in his grasp. She wanted him to leave her mother out of this. Being hated was not enough evidence to convict her father of the crime Hugh described.

“You don't know what you're asking me to give up,” she said, growing desperate.

“Perhaps I don't. I never had the advantages you've had. Few have.”

“It's not the advantages. Dammit, it's the memories that come with them. I had a life. Full of holidays and jokes and arguments and birthdays. You're asking me to give all that up.”

“Your father will still travel back in time. Your parents will still marry. Only this time we've made sure he won't find the map. You'll still have your life, but it will be different.”

“No.” She was terrified now. He was backing her into a corner.

“Joss, a man rots in prison because of your father. Right now. He will die without having seen his family. Can you live with that?”

She couldn't, but she wasn't ready to give up. Not quite yet. “Why do you hate him so much?”

“He lied, Joss. He bullied, and he cheated almost every man with whom he had dealings.”

“He was no worse a manipulator than you. What reasons do
you
have for coming here? What parts aren't you telling me?”

The wild anger in his eyes told her she'd hit home.

“Your mother hated him for his crime,” he said. “I believe she did whatever she could to undo it. You bear the stain of his crime, whether you want to or not. You must undo it. And if the bald theft of hundreds of people's rightful futures is not enough to interest you in atonement, perhaps this will be: your father murdered a man in cold blood who tried to stop him, while I watched—and I have excellent reason to believe that man was not your father's only victim.”

She slapped Hugh.

He stepped back out of reflex more than surprise. The accusation, however, never left his face.

Furious over what he'd driven her to and what more he still expected, and unable to begin to comprehend the heinous charges he'd just laid at her father's feet, Joss muscled past him and set out for Rogan's house. She would do it, had known in her heart she had no other choice. She didn't need Hugh to tell her what her duty was. She'd grown up knowing her duty, and somewhere deep inside she'd always known that someday, somehow, she'd be called upon to make amends for her father's sins.

When she heard Hugh's measured footsteps behind her, she was glad he had the good grace to keep his distance. She had no intention of sharing her tears with anyone.

C
HAPTER
T
HIRTY-THREE
 

He watched her slim, aristocratic back, damning him with its rigidity as she turned down Fourth. He had perhaps been overly hard on her, but he had precious little time to convince her. Reynolds had already tried to kill him once, and Hugh couldn't count on his luck a second time.

He tried concentrating on the pain in his shoulder to keep his mind off what might happen when Joss saw Rogan. He'd gleaned from what little she'd said as they made their way to the islet that she hadn't seen Rogan on her foray back to Pittsburgh to collect the medicine. Thus, this would be her first meeting with him since the attack. He knew she hadn't recognized Reynolds that night; nonetheless, he wondered if trusting his instinct that Reynolds would not hurt her was too great a gamble.

She stopped in front of a massive three-storey house with a columned portico and gleaming red double doors. It was easily ten times the size of the house Hugh had shared with his brother and Maggie. It reminded him of the London home of a moneylender he'd had to visit once when his first lieutenant got himself into trouble in a card game.

Apart from a single light in what appeared to be the drawing room, there were no signs of anyone being at home. The moon had just risen, which meant it was near ten.

“Is he there?” Hugh felt a wave of shame when he saw the remnants of tears in her eyes, which she hastily wiped away.

With a frosty look, she pulled out her phone, pressed the console and held it up to her ear. After a moment, she pressed the console again and slipped it into her pocket.

“No,” she said. “And it's a good thing he's not. I'm supposed to be in Vegas. I'm not sure what excuse I'd use to be home sooner.”

He considered asking where her fiancé might be this late at night, but decided against it. “And you have the key?”

“Yes.”

“How is the house secured?”

“I told you, I have a key.”

“Once you go in,” he said. “In case I need to follow.”

He had tried to say it as casually as possible, but he saw the way her face changed. She reached in her bag and pulled out her key. “I'll leave the door unlocked. Is there something I need to be concerned about?”

He struggled to hold his expression in check. He wanted to warn her without directly implicating Reynolds. “You saw what happened to me, did you not?”

“Whoever did that wouldn't hurt
me
, would they?”

Lord, he hoped not. “I have no reason to believe it. Nonetheless, it never hurts to be on your guard.”

“I'm going to ask you something, and I want you to be honest with me.”

“If I can.”

“Is there any reason, any reason at all, for me to be afraid of Rogan?”

It pained him to see how much asking that simple question had cost her. It would be so easy to say aye and take her in his arms. But he knew in his heart Reynolds wouldn't hurt her.

He shook his head. “No.”

Relief streamed into her face. “Why don't you come in with me?”

“I need to keep watch out here.” In truth, he felt things would be worse for her if there was any record of him being in the house with her, and he remembered clearly how the eye in her office had allowed her to see him. For all he knew, Reynolds had the same sort of device here. He also wanted to watch in case Reynolds returned while she was inside.

Her hands shook as she inserted the key into the lock. “If you're trying to scare me, it's working.”

He longed to give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze, but he knew the gesture would not be appreciated. “I don't mean to scare you, but I do mean to make you conscious of your safety. If you feel or sense anything unusual, I want you to trust your instincts.”

It was the most he could say. He hoped it would be enough.

She unlocked the door and went in but stopped, as if a new thought had come to her. “You know,” she said, turning, “even if you're right about my father changing the past, which I don't believe, all that would do is start the loop over. The McPhersons will be rich until the time my father first goes back, and it will all change again.”

“It won't, Joss. Your father stumbled into the past through a hole we haven't identified. Somehow, perhaps with the unintentional help of your mother, he got the map upon which the transfer depended and returned to the future with it, which instantly changed all the years in between. Later, he met a man who knew of your father because he was a time traveler himself. It was Phillip Belkin, the same man who eventually contacted Fiona. Your father had drunk too much and didn't hold his tongue about how he'd come into his wealth. Soon Belkin had the map in his hands and pulled a gun on your father. Your father promised him a huge sum to give it back, which he did—and your father knocked him on the head and shoved him into a time passage. Belkin came to in a raging river and barely survived.”

“Where is this other time passage?”

“We don't know.” Hugh rubbed his neck. He wondered if she believed him. He wondered if anyone could believe anything so preposterous.

“Fiona has offered to give him a share of her family's fortune when it's returned,” he said, picking up where he'd left off. “And unlike your father, she's actually made a down payment on that promise. So the loop will not start over. Your father will go back to the past, marry your mother, conceive you and take the map to Pittsburgh, but when he relives the incident with Belkin, Belkin will not be so foolish. He will pocket the map and return it to Fiona, ignoring your father's generous offer. That will reverse the changes Brand wrought forever. Fiona, Nathaniel and I won't have to go hunting for it. I'll never return to Pittsburgh. And you and I will never meet.”

What Hugh hadn't included in his explanation was that the incident with Belkin and the gun happened after Brand had returned to the past a second time, in order to kill Bart.

She looked at him as if he'd just pulled a gun on her himself. “Just like that, the life I lived will be erased? I'll still live, but everything I know will be different?”

There was no way to make it sound any better or easier than it was. “Aye.”

Joss closed the door without saying another word. Hugh felt the click of the latch like the slash of a blade and took his place among the shadows.

Joss listened to the whir of the ancient boiler in the basement as it worked to heat the house's interior. Built in the early nineteenth century, the house was one of the largest and grandest residences in the heart of downtown. The first time Rogan had brought her here, she asked if he thought he should call a repairman, and Rogan laughed. He said he found the noise charming.

Rogan.

How differently she felt about him now than she had a mere twenty-four hours ago. She wanted to blame Hugh for planting the seeds of doubt in her mind, but she knew he wasn't entirely to blame.

She didn't know what she thought anymore. How much of the doubt she felt came from the snippets of visions? How much came from the truth she'd discovered on that balcony at the History Center—that she'd enjoyed another man's kiss, even if the other man was the
loathsome Hugh Hawksmoor? For the first time in her life, she'd lost confidence in her chosen path.

She'd always understood her path, always followed it. Joss had run the house after her mother's death because her father needed his home life not to be a distraction. Joss had worked hard to ensure the map company survived because that's what her mother would have wanted. She had fallen in love with Rogan because he loved her father and could save her mother's company, and because somewhere in the back of her mind Joss had heard the line from her mother's tale: “And the girl knew the knight was the man she would marry because, among all her many suitors, he was the only one who had offered to help her put things to right.”

She dried her eyes and tried to clear her head. If the map was here it was most likely in the den on the second floor. She started up the stairs.

Hugh ducked into the shadows across the street, every sense in him straining to anticipate what might happen next and be prepared to act. A light came on in a window on the upper floor. His heart began to beat faster. He waited—one moment, then two. The fact that there had been no screams or calls or noise of any kind reduced his worry. He wished he could be there with her.

Someone turned onto Fourth. Hugh watched from his hiding place until the man's face came into view. It was not Reynolds. He breathed a sigh of relief.

When he turned back, the light was out. What did it mean? Had she found the map? He listened for the sound
of the door opening. Nothing came. His eyes returned to the upper floor.

Where was she? How could he endure this terrible wait?

The sound of the water being turned on nearly made her jump out of her skin. Rogan
was
here. He was in the master suite on the top floor. He liked to read the
Economist
in the tub. He should have been expecting her usual end-of-the-day call from Vegas. She wondered why he hadn't picked up when she rang.

She turned off the light and stood in the doorway of the den, where she hadn't found the map, uncertain about ascending.
You're being ridiculous,
she thought.
It's Rogan, for God's sake.
Nonetheless, she paused a full minute before continuing up the stairs.