Innocent Bystander (14 page)

This time the silence had a different tenor. He straightened his arm. The call had ended.

Burnett’ll go after the computer
. He considered dropping Timothy off with his grandmother, then waiting outside Desmond’s house for Burnett to arrive, but he’d be unable to function the rest of the day with no sleep. He considered assigning a uniform to watch Desmond’s house, but that would simply guarantee Burnett’s capture. The idea of him going to prison for a crime he didn’t commit made him ill. Memories of an incident that occurred when he was a rookie slipped in through the back door of his mind. He tried to shut it, but the door wouldn’t close.

He and his partner had caught a young Guatemalan construction worker suspected of murdering his wife for insurance money. The man was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Months later evidence came to light that exonerated him. The man had, in fact, been framed, and Mayweather, primarily due to his inexperience, had been an unwitting accomplice.

Released within weeks, the shame the construction worker felt, and the pain and stigma of having been convicted remained with him. He could not find a job, and his family and friends disowned him. Six months later he hung himself. His eight-year-old son became an orphan.

Common sense told Mayweather he’d simply done his job. Compassion insisted he’d made a rookie mistake blindly accepting his former partner’s every word, and he deserved forgiveness. Reason maintained he’d had no control over the actions of others; the head of the department’s internal investigation had arrived at the same conclusion.

Guilt, however, reminded him almost daily of the role he played in that boy becoming an orphan.

While that situation differed from Burnett’s, he still couldn’t bear the responsibility of helping send another innocent man to prison.

He crossed to his desk and clicked on a lamp. With his thumb and middle finger, he rotated the wedding ring he still wore, and stared at the beautifully framed photograph of his wife on the back right corner of his desk. She sat on a bluff overlooking the steel-blue waters of Hana Bay. The glow of happiness on her face tried in vain to brighten the room.

“I don’t know what to do, Julie,” he said to the lovely face inside the rectangular wood frame. “Can you help me?”

He waited, as he always did after requesting her guidance, and as always, she ignored his request. He twisted his ring a second time, hoping that might motivate her.

A moment later he lowered his eyes and fell back into the chair. Times like this aroused the most frustration: not the lack of a reply, but the waste. The wasted lives, and the wasted potential—his wife, the construction worker, and now possibly Mr. Burnett.

There was a lot wrong with the world—drunk drivers who run red lights, honest people framed by those who are supposed to serve and protect them. He couldn’t fix all the problems, he knew that, but he wanted to do just a little, enough to know that when he died the world had been a slightly better place because he’d been in it. Many would call him naïve; others, idealistic. He didn’t care.

The present crisis intruded to warn him that if Desmond had done what Burnett claimed, the professor wouldn’t hesitate to kill him if he found him in his home. If Burnett died, the truth might never be known.

No matter what choice he made, the outcome would not be pleasant.

He needed some sleep. He was all too familiar with how effectively fatigue hindered clear thinking. The only thing he knew for certain was that Burnett was on his own.

A bleary-eyed Desmond watched his printer spit out the final sheet of the five-page time travel paper. He found it difficult to believe something so small, less than twenty-five hundred words and a dozen equations, could change the world.

He heaved a sigh of relief, neatly stacked the pages and attached a paper clip. It had taken him two days to figure out Henri’s password, two days of trying every word and number combination he could think of. Two days before, out of desperation, he had typed in a word so improbable he never could have imagined someone with Henri’s genius would have chosen for a password: Henri.

To his chagrin, the “updated” version proved virtually identical to the draft he had previewed in his office. Having anticipated this possibility, he’d added his personal touches to the first draft. Henri’s ideas had now been communicated in his unique style. Though disheartened, at least he could now dispose of his student’s computer.

Seated at his desk, he propped up the lucid dreaming book in his lap. He flipped open to the page where he’d left off.

Before he even finished the first paragraph, a flicker outside interrupted his reading. Something had reflected in the light of the streetlamp. Earlier in the night he’d thought he had seen someone in his front yard, but when he’d arrived at the window, he’d found no one.

This time he felt certain he had seen someone. He stretched and pretended to stifle a yawn. After he shut the book, he leaned forward and switched off the desk lamp. He leapt up and sprang to the window. A teenage girl stood partially hidden behind an American elm alongside the driveway. He lowered his reading glasses to get a better look at her.

A chill overcame him when he realized she resembled Audrey—same brown hair, same style of clothing, and about the same age. He rubbed his eyes and refocused.
My God, it is her
.

He stumbled through the dark office, down the hallway, and to the front door. Standing at the door, he contemplated what he would do if it was her. That was impossible, he reminded himself, and he switched off the alarm. He yanked open the door and stepped onto the porch. She was gone.

He stood there, uncertain what to do. Apprehension urged him back indoors, but curiosity spurred him in the opposite direction. He descended the three steps, paused, then crept halfway down the brick walk. From this location he surveyed the expansive front yard, but still saw no one.

The night, perfectly still, sought to draw him further out. Apprehension won this battle and drove him into the house.

Someone had no doubt played a trick on him. But who, and why, he could not imagine. Had Burnett hired a look-alike to spook him? Possible, but the man probably had his hands full avoiding the police.

Maybe he had hallucinated her. He knew his lack of sleep had begun to affect him, and he needed to be sharp. In the coming days and weeks he would make some of the most important decisions of his life. Although the recurring nightmare would not permit a good night’s sleep, he could rest for several hours. After a cursory peek out the door, he shut it, double-checked the lock, and headed to the bedroom.

* * *

Burnett angled his head back and reeled in horror as the gray-white mushroom cloud towered above the ancient city of Rome. A torrent of death ripped through the Italian capital.

Voices called to him:
“Why have you done this to us?”

“I haven’t done anything,” he protested, but the disembodied souls repeated their demand.

Burnett covered his ears. His accusers persisted, furious and energetic.

Just as he passed the point where he could no longer tolerate it, he catapulted up on the hard, lumpy mattress. Emma, who’d been lying beside him, gasped and tumbled to the concrete floor.

“What happened?” she asked. She knelt on the edge of the mattress.

“Nothing,” he said, unaware at first of where he was. With the glow of the nightlight surrounding her face, barely illuminating it from behind, he mistook her for an angel. Unsure whether she was real or a product of his imagination, he reached out for her.

The memory of the nightmare smacked him across the face. He lowered his hand and glanced at the time on his smartphone. Only fifteen minutes had passed. Was that even enough time to enter a dream state? Maybe it wasn’t a dream. Maybe it was something different.

He wanted to tell her about the nightmare. He wanted to tell her how much it distressed him and how he wished he could understand why it repeated every night. But she would surely consider him crazy. Having the same dream as Henri, the same one that brought Audrey into his life that fateful night,
was
crazy. They had ample insanity in their lives at the moment. No need to burden her with anything more.

“Talk to me,” she said.

“Just a bad dream,” he said, hoping that would be enough. Once again he glanced at the phone. It remained connected to the webpage he’d been viewing when he nodded off. He disconnected it from the web. He’d vowed to limit himself to five minutes at a time in cyberspace. Though confident Henri’s tinkering had left him as invisible on the Internet as he’d been on Mayweather’s phone, he had no desire to push his luck. Nor did he want Emma to know what websites he’d been visiting.

Since his inquiry into nightmares and dream interpretation had proven futile, Burnett had sought information about the curious electric shock he’d felt when he’d finished Henri’s paper. Plenty of information existed on electric shock therapy and electrical safety. Everything he ever wanted to know about how to treat someone who’d suffered an electric shock was available. Nowhere on the World Wide Web had he found a single reference that would shed light on his experience.

Whatever Henri had stumbled upon was without precedent.

“Not as bad as the dreams Henri was having, I hope,” Emma said.

“No,” was all he could think to say. He hoped she wouldn’t press him on the subject.

“Want to tell me about it?”

“I don’t remember any details.” He searched for a way to steer the conversation from his dream. His gaze toured the dark garage, and his attention settled on the outline of her car. The Nissan Leaf was one of the more unusual-looking vehicles he’d seen recently. One of the first mass-produced all-electric cars, he knew well why she drove it.

He also knew once he got her started on the subject of why, she would forget about his dream.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to tell me,” Emma said.

He couldn’t ignore the hurt that permeated her voice, but it didn’t change the fact that he was not prepared to tell her; much the same as Henri had not told either of them about his dream—until they’d noticed changes in his behavior and relentlessly pestered him about it.

“What I really want,” he said, motioning to the Leaf, “is to know why someone with the obvious class and style you have would drive a car that looks like that?”

Emma laughed and turned away. “Beauty is in the eye …”

“I suppose.”

“The real question is, why don’t you drive one?”

Burnett considered it for a few seconds. “Not sure. I guess I wouldn’t even know how to recharge the battery.”

“It’s easy. Don’t act stupid.”

“And what makes you think I’m acting?”

Emma laughed and dropped her head. It was the precise response he’d hoped for. Once again the mood had needed lightening. Too much pressure had been dumped on them, too many things could go wrong. They had lost too much and suffered too much. Crushed by the weight of their circumstances, he had nowhere to turn but humor.

“I’d really like to know,” Emma said. “Aren’t you interested in doing your part?”

“What can one person do?”

“You’re kidding, right?”

He waited for the lecture to begin.

“That’s like asking why should I vote. Of course one person can make a difference. You don’t have to recycle everything, but you can recycle some of it. You don’t have to drive an electric car, but you can drive a hybrid.”

All he could do was nod. He admired her commitment to the planet. He wasn’t doing his share and felt relieved she did more than most.

Emma dropped her chin into her open palms. She sniffled and cleared her throat. “It took me a year to convince Henri just to recycle.”

“Only a year?” he said gently.

She smiled and wiped away a tear. “You can still do your part. Henri talked about how you haven’t found your direction. I know you don’t like to talk about it, but you could use your knowledge of physics to help. You could make a difference. Henri used to say you were the second smartest person in the class.”

Burnett smiled inwardly and recalled that he hadn’t told anyone, aside from Desmond, of his intention to pursue a career in teaching. Another trait he and Henri shared—a penchant for secrecy.

Perhaps Henri was right. He maintained a solid B average in a class half the students were failing, despite what Desmond had told him outside the Starbucks. He looked forward to conducting research. Though not his first choice, he could explore new ways to produce clean energy. Maybe that was where his future lay.

Either there or in a prison cell.

“I know you think I sound like a Pollyanna,” Emma said, “but if you could harness solar power and make it practical, you could change the world.” She paused. “It would be a better future than Henri’s dream predicted.”

The dream
. Am I seeing the future or just one possible future?
Maybe it was something completely different. Maybe it was a plain old-fashioned nightmare with no added significance.

Part of him sensed it didn’t matter. The odds of getting out of this mess were, if he dared be optimistic, infinitesimal. There were only so many potentially life-destroying situations he could juggle at once. A break would be nice.

He didn’t want to think about the dream anymore. He didn’t want to think about Henri’s death or Desmond setting him up for murder or about whether the future depended on what he did or didn’t do.

He wanted to talk to Emma. He wanted to talk to her the way men and women ordinarily talk, discuss the things men and women ordinarily discuss.

“You’re right,” Burnett said. “It’s time I settled on a direction for my life. Eventually we all have to grow up.”

“It’s not about growing up. It’s about finding meaning. Actually, it’s about creating meaning.”

He began to appreciate the deeper reasons of why Henri had been attracted to her.

“I wonder if Henri knew just how lucky he was?” Burnett said. He hadn’t planned on vocalizing the thought, and now that he had, he wished he could travel back in time ten seconds and cover his mouth. He sensed his face becoming flushed and he looked away.

“It’s going to be daylight soon,” she said. “I hope you don’t mind if I try to get a little sleep.”

“Of course not.” He watched out of the corner of his eye as she placed her head on the mattress.