Time Thieves (31 page)
Greg reached out and took the gun from his hand. Brodin didn’t argue. Sari watched Ward lower his slightly. Something had shifted here, and she had to understand what that was.
“But was she?” Sari asked, her heart heavy. The possible duplicity of one she loved threatened to overwhelm her. Even knowing her mother’s character, the enormity of this betrayal was so huge, so devastating, that it was unforgiveable. “Are you
sure
she was pregnant?”
“Of course. It’s the only reason I went over there,” her father said. “Once I had the second child, one of you belonged to Tron.” Her father choked back a sob. “I couldn’t let that happen, so Brodin contacted Tron and set it up, but I didn’t know when it would happen.”
“No,” she whispered with such love, “I do understand.”
“Lisbeth thought it would be easier without a difficult goodbye for Sari. So after talking to Tron, I set the watch for it that afternoon, knowing when I returned, he’d be gone. In fact,” Brodin looked miserable. “I didn’t leave. I went to the attic to meet him on the other side. Make it easier for him.”
“Easier for him? And this was to be easier for me?” Sari asked, shocked. Brodin dropped his gaze to the table. “How could this be easy for me?”
But she knew. There was only person this was easier for. She hoped she was wrong, but… She pulled her cell phone out and while everyone watched, she dialed her mother.
“Hello, Lisbeth,” Sari glanced over at her father, his gaze wide and shocked. He studied the phone in her hand. “I have a question, an odd thought, but…”
“What is it, Sari?” her mother asked impatiently. “I’m busy.” In the background, there were sounds of others around her mother. As if she had company over, a dinner party possibly.
“Of course you are,” Sari murmured. She clicked the speaker button on the phone. “The question just occurred to me – did you ever have a second child?”
“What? What kind of question is that? Of course not. You were there, you should know,” her mother said waspishly. “And why would you possibly ask me that right now?”
Sari persisted. “And a second pregnancy – were you ever pregnant a second time while you were married?”
“Like I’d go through that again?” She gave a delicate snort. “No, of course not. I was unhappy to begin with. Why would I compound the situation with a second child?”
“So telling Brodin and my father that you were pregnant accomplished what? Setting up my father to sacrifice the rest of his life while giving you the freedom you craved, all with a viable excuse so your parents would take you back in?” Sari cried, her voice hard and hurting. “Is that the kind of selfish, self-serving bitch you are?”
She stared blindly as the four men stared back at her, the phone shaking in her hand.
“Brodin?” her mother’s voice broke. “What…what has this got to do with him?”
“He’s here with me.”
“He’s lying,” Lisbeth shot back immediately. “You can’t believe a word he says.”
“And me, Lisbeth,” Sari’s father said painfully. “Am I not believable either?”
A shocked silence filled the air.
“Greg?” Lisbeth asked in a dazed whisper. “No, that can’t be!”
“Why, because you sent him over to never return?” Sari snapped. “Sorry to tell you, but I went over there and brought him back. Something I’d have done years ago if I’d known what you’d done.”
“No, wait…” Lisbeth cried out. “I can explain!”
“Right now I don’t wish to even hear your voice – it makes me sick!” Sari tossed the phone on the table. She glared at the men assembled in front of her, their gazes focused on the phone. “I think we should ship her over to Tron.”
Her father winced. She knew it would take him a long time to deal with his wife’s perfidious nature, but he’d heard the truth from her now. He couldn’t be blind to what she was. Angered at what her mother had put the two of them through, she glared at Brodin, the only target in front of her.
“And you helped that bitch crucify my father,” she snapped, hating him in that moment.
“Whoa, I didn’t know she wasn’t pregnant – how could I?” he protested.
“He’s right, Sari. Brodin helped at my request.”
Brodin had dropped his gaze to the table. “Actually, I wasn’t going to help you. I didn’t want to send you over there. I’d hoped to keep the second child a secret from Tron. But it was only after Lisbeth begged me so that she could rest at night knowing her children would be safe did I finally buckle under and agree to help. As it was, the portal had become unstable and you were Tron’s best hope of fixing it.”
Greg nodded sadly. “And I did. I should have left it broken.”
“Wow,” Mark said. “I’d always hated that I’d never had a chance at a normal life with a wife and kids.” He motioned to the phone. “It’s just possible that I’ve been given a lucky escape.”
On the heels of his words, Sari’s phone rang. She picked up her phone, saw it was her mother, and blocked the caller, then tossed the now silent phone back onto the table. She couldn’t even begin to deal with such a monumental betrayal.
Ward reached over to wrap an arm around her shoulders, tugging her close. “Sorry,” he whispered.
There was nothing to say. She glanced over at her father, but he stared at the phone like he didn’t know what to do with it. Then again, why would he? His wife had arranged for his life sentence as a slave.
“I was happy over there, you know. Because I knew it kept you safe.” He tore his gaze away from the phone to stare at Sari.
“I know,” she whispered. She reached across the table to clasp his hand in hers. “But it was all so unnecessary.”
“Then,” Ward said, “let’s make something good come out of this. Let’s close the door forever.” He directed his gaze at Brodin. “This side or Tron’s side?”
“You’d have a hard time fitting in over there again, wouldn’t you?” Sari’s soft voice eased the aggression rising in the room.
“I never fit in. You don’t know what my brother is like. Look what he does to people.” He motioned toward Greg. “He steals them, enslaves them by threatening harm to their loved ones, and puts them to work until they are too old to work anymore.” Brodin turned to Mark. “You, did you ever explain about Madge? Why it was important to return her home before it was too late? Before she died?”
“She’s not dying,” Sari cried out. “She’s going to be fine.”
“Now that she’s here, yes, at least for whatever days she has left.” Mark shook his head. “I heard Tron discussing her fate. She was to be taken out into the wilds and left for the animals like he does every other person of no value.”
Ward stared at Brodin. “Let me get this straight. You know what he’s like. You know he’s planning on enslaving Sari and the rest of her family, and yet you still helped him?” He paused for a long moment, staring at the smaller man like he’d stare at a unique bug. “What does that make you?”
“Desperate,” snapped Brodin. “You don’t understand. He’ll kill me if I don’t do as he wants. Those sons of his come and go and do as they please.”
Sari shook her head. “No, he won’t. He’ll never be able to find you. Not if you hand the watch over for us to destroy. Then he and his men can never come here and you can never return there.”
“No,” Brodin said, shaking his head violently. “You don’t know him. What he wants he gets. You’d have to kill him to get him to stop.”
“With pleasure.” Cold and brutal, Ward’s words hung heavy in the air.
Brodin stared. His mouth worked, but no sound came out.
Sari laughed. “The way I see it, you can either stay here and stay out of trouble, or you can go back and face your brother. Without us. And good luck with Ward and the rest of the police force if you ever try to come back.”
Brodin’s desperate gaze went from Greg to Mark, then back to Ward before finally landing on Sari. “I didn’t want to keep going over there. He’d send Jed and Jordan to get me if I was even a little bit late. And I always had to take back something he’d like. I spent so much of my time trying to find something to make him happy so he wouldn’t stop me from coming back. I had to go – he had the watches. Any number of his people could come looking for me.”
“They no longer have the watches.” Sari smiled. “And neither do they have Mark’s or my father’s pieces in progress or their notes. Or my father’s old books that they stole from me.” Her smile deepened with satisfaction. “They will have to start from scratch and figure it out for themselves if…if you hand over the final timepiece.”
He looked broken, like a man who’d have to look over his shoulders for the rest of his life.
Greg spoke for the first time. “Brodin, I don’t hate you or him. But I’d like to see you stand up for once and do what’s right. Hand over everything and leave your brother and his evil ways locked on the other side. Everyone who is supposed to be here is here. You are the only one who’s not. Now if you want to go home and stay there – fine, then I will take my chances and walk you across and leave you there. Otherwise, I suggest you make a deal to stay here.” He laughed. “Honestly. What choice is there? We’ll treat you so much better here than we were ever treated over there.”
With a heavy thump, Brodin sat down one of the kitchen chairs. He looked like a weight had fallen off his shoulders. Sari realized that although his life had been easier than her father’s, they’d both been prisoners.
Ward said, “I suggest you people get the rest of the watches and materials that you need to destroy so we can close this chapter and get some rest tonight.”
Brodin emptied his pockets. He had his watch. “I don’t have anything else. I’m not like them,” he nodded toward Mark and Greg. “I like to fiddle, but with jewelry, not watches.”
He grinned boyishly. “Actually, Greg and I spent hours making jewelry pieces for Sari here.”
Greg smiled, warmth and happiness on his face. “And we will again, old friend. We will again.”
T
he aftermath was
anticlimactic, with the biggest issue being to find the watch Madge had used to cross over. After talking with her at the hospital, they searched the attic and found the box she’d thrown it into for safekeeping.
When they were sure that they had them all, the watches were disassembled, the pieces mixed up and then taken to a local foundry to be melted. Sari and Ward had elected to stay and watch as the metal pieces dissolved into nothing but a pool of molten metal. Her father hadn’t wanted to come. He knew the watches needed to be disposed of, but the watchmaker in him had wanted them preserved safely somehow.
There’d been much discussion as to the outcome of the little attic room, but no resolution as yet. Considering they were likely to have Mark, her father, and possibly even Madge living in her house – her father’s house – life was about to get very interesting.
Then there was Ward.
Walking back out into the sunshine a little later, surprised by the sadness inside, Sari asked Ward, “Do you think it’s all over?”
He dropped a kiss on her forehead. “No. It’s just the beginning.”
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Book 1 of the Psychic Vision Series
Available for FREE everywhere
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