Authors: Chris Redding
“Zach,” she croaked out. His gaze raced up and down her. Grace was alive, though smudged and battered. His heart leapt with relief.
He took her hand, but looked for signs of distress from the action. She didn’t pull away.
Grace’s gaze took him in. “I’m sorry. I didn’t save her.”
He blinked.
Didn’t save who?
“Dolores is dead?”
She nodded, her face pale, her neck bruised.
His hands found her other then squeezed both of them. He sat on the edge of the bed. “What happened?”
“He came up behind me. I never heard him.”
“So she got shot anyway,” he said.
Her crestfallen face made him wish he hadn’t been so blunt. He took a deep breath and pushed what grief he had over Dolores to the back of his mind. He needed to concentrate on the living for once.
“I guess you couldn’t change what was supposed to happen. Maybe you weren’t supposed to change it.”
His words sounded odd to his ears, but he knew Grace believed in what she said. She had a gift in her own mind. Even if he didn’t understand, he wanted to.
“You don’t understand. She wasn’t supposed to die. That’s why she talked to me. I’ll go see her again.”
Coughs rocked her and Zach poured water into a glass. He handed the liquid to her. She drank, then handed it back to him.
“What are you doing?” he asked when she swung her legs to the side of the bed. She looked too pale to stand.
“Going to see Dolores before they take her away.”
“This is nuts, Grace. I don’t know how you know she was going to be killed, but seeing her isn’t going to change anything.”
“Zach, go home. You didn’t believe me then. Why would you believe me now?”
“Because this time I want to.”
She paused, her gaze searching and probing him. She stood, looking wobbly. “Go. She won’t talk to me when you’re there.”
“If you go back in time,” he started, not believing his question. “Will I remember you?”
“No.”
Desperation fueled his next move. For the first time since Dolores, he wanted to trust someone. So he strode around the bed to Grace, took a gentle hold of her head, and kissed her hard so she would understand that he felt something for her.
Then he left before she could say anything.
***
Zach’s kiss, and her body’s subsequent reaction to it, had Grace sitting back down on the bed.
If his touch had caused a kaleidoscope of colors, his kiss created a storm. Both inside and outside. Her body thrummed with the anticipation of love the kiss showed her and the future she’d have. She’d be thirty tomorrow and her gift would probably be gone. She just had to climb back in bed.
She’d have Zach and no dead people talking to her.
“Damn.”
“What are you doing out of bed?” A brisk efficient nurse whisked into her room. “You need to rest.”
Her resolve strengthened, she said, “I want to see her.”
The nurse cocked her head and her face took on a pinched expression. “Okay. Let me get a wheelchair, then.”
So Grace waited, thankful that she hadn’t had to convince anyone that she should see her landlord. Everyone understood.
The nurse came back then wheeled Grace to Dolores’ bedside, leaving her alone with the dead woman.
“Dolores?”
Her dead landlord opened her eyes. “Help me.”
***
Having rewound back in time again, Grace wondered what it meant that she met Zach earlier this time. He’d been at Dolores’ place when she went to rent the place. She sighed. At least she didn’t still have the effects of the fire on her. That part was normal.
She couldn’t spend the next few days scrutinizing every difference.
Unless the changes were the key to the puzzle.
“There shouldn’t be any differences,” she said as she pulled her red pony car into her soon to be old apartment complex.
To see her apartment complex on fire. “Oh, no.”
Fire trucks blocked her access. Where there weren’t trucks there were hoses to the various hydrants. Parking a block away, she then hiked back and searched out her work partner, Glen Gery. He was also a volunteer firefighter.
“Grace,” he said then embraced her in a Nomex hug. “You’re place is wrecked.”
“Nothing to save?”
She hadn’t brought much with her to Glen Hills, but she did have some photos that had meant something to her.
“No, sorry.”
“The cause?”
“Don’t know. I was inside and it looked set.”
She didn’t think her landlord would do it, but who knew what lurked in men’s hearts. With nowhere to go and no desire to watch the firefighters battle the fire that left her homeless, she returned to Dolores’ place.
Zach was just leaving. He paused before getting into his car as if memorizing her license plate. With no moving violations she didn’t care what he searched for. On the other hand if he read about the last place she’d lived and the murder he’d become suspicious again.
She frowned while pulling into her new home. Dolores agreed to let her move in early. Tonight.
So Grace went shopping for new clothes thankful that her uniform stayed at work. Fatigued from an activity she didn’t enjoy she stopped mid-afternoon for cup of coffee.
Settling into a plush seat by the window she realized someone was staring at her. Zach rose and moved to sit at her table.
“Hi,” she said trying to sound like she never met him.
“You’re Grace.”
She motioned for him to sit. Maybe this time she’d get to know him better. “Find anything out from my license plate.”
“You haven’t applied for your New Jersey license, yet,” he said, dropping into the seat and placing his coffee in front of him.
She smelled vanilla and cinnamon from his cup. Hers was a straight, unadulterated cup of coffee with a little artificial sweetener. Interesting that he was a former cop and went for the fancy stuff. “I have some time. I haven’t decided I’m staying.”
“Oh, will you go back where you came from?”
She shrugged. She had no idea what her latest “job” would bring her or even if she’d be successful. “Doubt it.”
“Problems back there?”
Did he know already? “Why would you think that?”
He was in full cop mode, even if he wasn’t a cop anymore. Or had that changed? She didn’t see a badge on his belt so maybe not.
“Usually that’s the reason people move.”
She leaned back in her chair, her finger tracing a line around the top of her oversized coffee cup. “People move around for lots of reasons. Wanderlust. Better jobs.”
He leaned his elbows on the table his gray gaze taking in all of her. She wouldn’t have been any more vulnerable if she’d been naked.
“Do you have wanderlust?”
His voice came out low and gravelly. The sound touched a primeval part of her, saying, “This is your mate.” This was as if she’d met her other half. Oh. My. God. Should she do things differently with Zach this time?
She smiled, pushing away her scary feelings. “Yes, I think I do.”
With his head cocked, he flashed her some teeth. The gesture wasn’t actually a smile, but something more predatory. “What would make you settle?”
“Hm. Good question.”
“You don’t have the dream of the picket fence and kids in the yard?”
She did, but never expected it to happen. “Not sure that’s in the cards for me.”
His smile this time was softer as if what she’d said appealed to him. “So what do you do, Miss Harmony?”
“Grace, please. I have a feeling we’ll be getting to know each other.” She wished she could predict what the next person ordered so she could set him on the path to believing her. This time was different, even more different than the last time she came back in time. This made her job more difficult. “I’m a medic at Centre Community Hospital.”
“Shift work. That’s why you look a little ragged.”
Was her hair sticking up? Had she forgotten to brush it this morning? A self-conscious hand nudged a lock out of her face. “My apartment is presently on fire.”
“Jeez, then you look pretty calm. You have a place to stay?”
“Dolores is letting me move in tonight. Not that I have anything to move in this time.”
“This time?”
She bit her lip. “The move to this place as opposed to my move to Mill Hall.”
“Oh,” he said.
The pager on his belt made a noise. He stood and switched it off. “Well it’s been nice chatting with you, Miss, er, Grace. I hope to see you again.”
The way his gaze lingered on her she figured he’d be making the effort for that to happen.
Chapter Thirteen
Zach whistled his way to his car, feeling better than he had in awhile. A chat with a gorgeous blond could do that for him.
Now onto the grim business of a fire at an apartment complex. “This must be the fire Grace was talking about.”
He appreciated his old partner asking for his advice. Knowing Ed, he really needed it and wasn’t trying to cheer up Zach.
The scene had been declared safe by the fire company so Zach, his ex-partner, Ed, and some crime scene techs from the Prosecutor’s Office traversed to the first floor apartment. At least where it had been before fire consumed it.
“Whose apartment is this?” Zach studied the techs as they went to work. Not much evidence to gather. Most had gone up in flames. Still, the team had to search.
“A Grace Harmony,” Ed said. He’d been on the scene prior to Zach’s arrival
His face didn’t reveal that he’d just been with her. “You have a number?”
“Yeah, but you’re just our consultant. We’ll interview her.”
He’d put Zach in his place, reminding him he wasn’t on the team anymore. The jagged pill of reality threatened to choke him. “Fine. Who called in the fire?”
“The landlord. He was coming by to fix something. We can’t locate him right now.”
“That’s odd,” Zach said, the stench of charcoal invading his nostrils. He’d never get over that smell. “You think he started it?”
Ed shrugged. “We’ll have to see.”
“Right. Guess you’ll start with the wife.
***
Grace’s cell phone rang. “Hello Mark.”
“Hey, Gracie. How’d you know it was me? Are you doing that back in time thing again?”
She sat in her new apartment, lounging in sweatpants and a t-shirt. She didn’t have the energy to unpack. Time travel took a piece out of her. Having done it twice in less than a week, exhaustion attacked her bones. “Yes, I am, but things are odd. The days are not repeating themselves. I don’t know what it means.”
“How so?”
“Well I’m meeting people before I’m supposed to and my apartment burned down early this time. It didn’t the first two times.”
“Back up this truck. You’ve been through this twice? Has that ever happened before?”
“No, never. The first time the person was murdered anyway.”
“But that happened last time, too. That murder victim died also. Gracie, I see a trend.”
She shuddered, thinking about her last town and her last murder victim. Shaking her head she cleared it of the bad reminders of a failed job. “Yes, but the murder victim didn’t talk to me the next time. This one did. I’m scared.”
“I wish could be there, but I’m in California. Got a gig on a commercial. We start shooting tomorrow. Won’t be done for a week.”
Ever the struggling actor, Grace didn’t know how Mark even paid his own rent. Should she ask him if he was on his way here? That could be different, too.
“This will all be over in two days.”
“Two days? Is that when she’d killed? On your birthday?”
“My birthday’s in three days.”
“Check the date, Gracie.”
She grabbed for a newspaper and sure enough, Mark was right. Her eyes drifted closed as her heart thumped in her chest. How could she possibly do this in this short a time?
“Do you usually get that little time?” Mark asked.
“That’s another strange thing. I usually have three weeks. I have some ideas about where to start and who to check off my list, but that’s it.”
“Doesn’t sound like fun.”
“No it isn’t. Gotta go Mark, someone’s knocking on my door.”
***
Dolores had brought Chinese food and she and Grace had devoured it when the inevitable knock came on the door. For a moment, Grace wanted to tell Dolores everything. How else could she save her?
Zach stood on her doorstep scowling. He was going to be even grumpier than last time. Why did she find this man attractive?
“We meet again. Come in,” Grace said.
Zach strode into the apartment as if he owned it. Technically when he was married to Dolores he had.
“Hey, Zach, what brings you here?” Dolores asked.
“I have a few questions for Miss Harmony.”
“Is this official business?”
“Yes, you’ll have to go Dolores.”
This wasn’t how it had been before. Grace felt the undertow had taken a hold of her foot and she was going to drown. Dolores left and Grace settled on her couch that opened to a bed. Zach stood.
“Sit.”
“No.”
“I’m not answering questions with you towering over me. Do I need a lawyer?”
He sat. “Not unless you did something wrong.”
“I haven’t. What is this about?”
“The fire at your apartment complex. Your landlord is missing and the fire started in your apartment.”
Grace put a hand over her open mouth. “I asked him to look at my stove. I thought it was leaking. Could that have started the fire?”
“We don’t know exactly how the fire started, but it wasn’t an accident. How well did you know your landlord?”
“Not well. I’d only lived there three weeks.”
Zach flipped open a pad. “You didn’t see him socially?”
“Socially? He’s married.”
His stare went through her. Then she understood him.
“Lovers. You think I was his lover? Have you seen his wife?”
“No.”