Belmary House Book One (17 page)

He took down the place and told the others he had to meet with Miss Saito, not even needing a story since she was their boss. Still, his stomach rolled with nerves, suspecting everyone was looking at him funny.

He ran the four blocks to the coffee shop, throwing open the door and startling the one other patron besides Emma, an elderly lady who was halfway through her scone. She scowled at him as he made his way past her, pointedly wrapped her leftovers in a napkin, and left.

“Good job,” Emma said grimly, her face pale and drawn. He was certain she’d been crying.

“Let me get you something,” he said, noticing she only had a water glass in front of her.

Her shoulders slumped but she didn’t protest and he ordered them lemon bars and herbal tea, hoping it would calm the panic he saw in her eyes.

“They’re not coming,” she said as soon as he sat across from her. “Someone got cold feet and called the contractor, demanding to know more about the specifics of the shopping center. That information was something I wasn’t supposed to know. I had to dig for it, so when he gave my name as the source, you can imagine they weren’t too pleased. They called Henry, told him his team was conspiring against the construction.” She rubbed her eyes like a little child, and breathed out hard.

“Ah, crap.” Dex picked up his cup, then set it down, knowing the mint tea would be about as soothing as acid at that moment.

“I told him I acted alone, none of you lot had anything to do with it. I’ll probably be sacked. At the very least I’m off the Belmary House project.” Her breathing grew ragged and she gripped the edges of the table. “I won’t be able to come to the house anymore.”

“We’ll just work here then, or at my flat, or the public library. It doesn’t matter, Emma. We’ll find a way.”

She nodded and pressed her lips together. “Just stay mum about everything. Keep your head down, act shocked at my betrayal, whatever you need to do to stay in the house. I’m going to beg for forgiveness when Henry’s had a chance to cool down. I need to be there. Ashford could come back at any time.” Her voice rose with every sentence until she clapped her hand over her mouth, as if to keep from screaming. “I have to get back,” she finally whispered, leaning across the table.

The desperation in her eyes made him reach over and grab her hand. It was ice cold. He wanted to be a hero and assure her that everything would be fine, but it seemed more and more likely that the opposite was true.

The demolition date was set. Even if they dawdled and failed to meet their deadline, he couldn’t imagine anyone caring at this point. Everything that didn’t get cataloged and carefully packed would probably be swept into the back of a truck or worse, get blown up with the house.

“What if we stake out the room, wait for the portal to open and just go into it?” he asked, surprised at the terror on her face. “Maybe we’ll run into Ashford, or get to a time that’s easier to travel from.” The waiting and wondering was killing him. Even if it was dangerous, it was something to do. He hated feeling like he wasn’t doing anything.

She shook her head so that her hair fluttered about her cheeks, and she scraped it behind her ears.

“I can’t,” she said. “I can’t risk it. At least in this time I can still—” Her eyes roamed wildly around the empty coffee shop, settling on him.

“Yeah, Emma, that’s the thing. At least in this time you still have your job. You know Henry will come around, you’re probably the best he’s got. And it’s not like the technology’s so very different, no matter how much you complain.”

“You don’t understand.”

She shook her head some more, then ran to the loo just as he saw tears leaking out of the corners of her eyes.

It had to be the lack of sleep that made her so upset. They still had time, this was only a minor setback. He tried as hard as he could to think of new things to tell her when she returned to the table, but when she finally came back, her face was so deathly pale, they all died on his lips. He couldn’t tell her things he didn’t believe, and he wouldn’t lie to her. It almost seemed as if he should try to convince her it wasn’t so bad to stay in this time, just in case it came to that.

“I cannot stay in this time,” she said forcefully, as if reading his thoughts.

She tried to drink her tea but her hand shook, splashing the liquid over the sides of the fragile porcelain cup.

“Okay, Emma,” he agreed.

She made an anguished sound and pulled a phone from her bag. “No, I mean I really can’t. I have to get back. It’s not just my job— look.” She held up the phone, then turned it on, waiting.

“That’s a cool phone,” he said, instantly regretting the inappropriate outburst.

Tilly would tell him things like that were the reason he was still single. Emma’s mouth twitched.

“Yes, it’s a very cool phone. I can’t get service for it, but I’m able to keep it charged.”

She held it out to him and he leaned over to see a gap-toothed girl with plaited black hair grinning from the screen. Her hand still shook and he took the phone from her, his heart sinking into his stomach.

“That’s my daughter.” Emma’s voice broke and she pressed her palms against the table, curling her fingers into the cheery yellow cloth. “The last thing I said to her was ‘see you tonight,’ and now I’ve been away from her for one year, four months and eighteen days.” As she clutched the tablecloth in her hands, her cake plate got pulled closer to the edge.

Dex set the phone down between them and moved the plate, placing his hands on her tightly curled fists. “Okay,” he said. “Okay. We’ll find a way. We’ll get you back.”

After a moment, her hands relaxed. The phone screen had gone dark, and she slid it back into her purse, then wiped her eyes. “I’m sorry.”

He shook his head. “How old is she? What’s her name?”

Fresh tears rolled down her cheeks. “You’re the first person I’ve been able to tell about her. I haven’t been able to talk about her in so long. I’m afraid I won’t be able to stop and bore you.”

“Don’t be daft,” he said, offended.

“Her name is Dahlia Cho Saito. She turned eleven three months ago. You might remember me being extra bitchy that day. It was when that chandelier crashed to the floor and I let everyone have it?”

“I recall.”

His ears still burned from the set-down he and his team had got from her for letting a priceless crystal chandelier get smashed.

“Wait, were you a teen mum?” He slapped his hand over his mouth and apologized. “That’s none of my business, I’m really sorry.”

She laughed, her eyes looking livelier. If talking about Dahlia restored her in this way, he’d talk about her for the next lifetime.

“Don’t be sorry, anyone who can do maths can figure it out.”

“But how? You’ve got a PhD, you’re only three years older than me and you’re my boss for goodness sake.”

“I worked my arse off is how. I never slept, and definitely abused my mother’s kindness. You name the job and I did it.”

“Mime,” he said.

She took a swallow of tea, her hands no longer shaking. “Not a mime exactly, but I did singing telegrams, and stood in front of a shop dressed as a wedge of cheese for two weeks one summer.”

“Can you sing?” He didn’t think he could have been more in love with her.

“Not a bit. Nobody cares when your skirt was as short as mine.”

“Fishmonger,” he said, wanting to keep her smiling and laughing.

“Bloody hell, you’re good at coming up with obscure jobs. I worked at a seafood restaurant, so there.”

“Okay, I accept you’ve done all the jobs.” Dex didn’t want to ask, didn’t want to know the answer, but the words came out anyway. “Dahlia’s father?”

She snorted. “He tried. We were actually married for three months, but he couldn’t handle it. The last I heard of him, he was in Australia working on an oil rig.”

“Serves him right. He doesn’t deserve you or her.”

Her smile softened and she blinked before looking away. “Thanks, Dexter.”

He wanted to take her hand, or even more, touch her cheek, and tell her how fantastic he thought she was, but a new thought overtook his romantic urges. It was a good thing, he told himself. She’d probably knock his nose into next week if he tried to come onto her at such a time. He shivered at the close call.

“Wait a tick, you’re in your own timeline,” he said. “You actually exist somewhere else, right?”

She nodded, expression turning harsh. “Yes. I grew up in Oxford. I’m still there.”

“Have you ever?”

She grimaced and looked down. “Ashford explicitly warned me against it,” she said, pausing to take a long, shuddering breath. “I held out for about six weeks, then took the train and staked out my house.”

“Did you see them? I mean, yourself?” He recoiled at the thought of it. Too weird.

“I did. I saw myself holding my little sweet baby and I wanted to die.”

“I’m sorry. It must have been hard.”

 “No, I mean, I actually got violently ill and had to leave. I think it’s a preventive measure to keep people from screwing up their own timelines, but I couldn’t have got any closer than I did.” Once again she looked down before continuing. “I-I never tried it again.”

“Wow. I don’t know what else to say. It’s definitely fascinating.”

“I wish I could get a grasp on it. The portal, I mean.” She was clearly done with talking about her past self. He could see it had upset her and as much as he wanted to know more, he kept his questions to himself. “It’s supernatural, not science, and it’s bugging the hell out of me that we can’t find any real information.” She leaned back and crossed her arms. “Hopefully Tilly thinks to tell Ashford the house is in danger. If our means of getting back to normal relies on it, which I feel certain it must, he needs to know not to dawdle around.”

“Would he dawdle around?”

Dex was outraged. Tilly was a tough girl, had been raised by a cop, and if it hadn’t been for her understandable problem with guns, would have become one herself. Just the fact that she continued on that path after his uncle died showed how tough she was. He wouldn’t worry a hair about her even on the mean streets of London in this time, but things were different where she was now. He almost laughed to think of her using her crazy fighting skills wearing a Regency era gown. No, she was much better suited to her own era, and she needed to get back.

Emma shrugged. “We may not be his top priority.”

She let out a long, slow breath, as if this was something she struggled with on a daily basis. He couldn’t imagine how terrible the last year had been. Something struck him, a thought that made his brain go sideways.

“What if you can’t get back? What happens to you,
this
 you, I mean? Your past self, I mean the present day you, is blithely living her life. What happens in ten years when your times convene?”

She pressed her hands into her stomach and shook her head, clearly not the first time she’d thought of it. Her pale face turned a sickly shade of green and he wished he hadn’t brought it up. His idiotic curiosity wasn’t helping anything.

“I guess I just disappear and the old me will end up back here again, none the wiser. I don’t know. It makes me sick to think of it for too long, same as when I see myself. Saw myself.”

It sounded like hell, an endless loop of torture. And Tilly would be trapped in the past to live out her days. All he could hope for would be to find some mention of her in a document or something, but he’d never see her again.

He knew better than to bring up his plan of staking out the portal room and trying to enter it if it opened. If it meant he could get some answers it might be worth the risk. He could make sure to be prepared, and if he had to hide in the damn wardrobe in different years, he’d keep entering the portal until he came face to face with Ashford or anyone who knew how it all worked.

“You better get back,” she said, not making any move to leave. “We’ve got thirty-three days to figure things out or stop the demolition.”

“What are you going to do?” he asked, not wanting to go when she looked so desolate. “I can call them and tell them I’m not feeling well.”

“Have you ever called in sick a day of your life?” She raised an eyebrow at him and he blushed.

“No, but this is a good reason. I feel like I’m spinning my wheels packing everything up, working against us somehow.”

“You’re staying in the house, which is the most important thing right now. Keep checking for messages, and don’t you dare do anything rash. If you feel cold air, get your arse out of that room.” Her color was coming back and she sat up straighter. “I’m going to consult some psychics. I have a list the length of my arm, and I’m going to go to each one and spew my story to them all. At worst, a bunch of hacks will think I’m a nutter, but maybe one of them will know something, be the real deal.”

“That’s brilliant,” he said, glad to see her almost back to her robust, efficient self.

“Don’t leave me, Dexter,” she said, eyes flat. “You’re the only thing keeping me sane right now.”

He nodded, and put any thought of heroically jumping into the portal out of his mind. It would probably kill him, but he was going to make sure she got back to her child.