Time Enough for Love (13 page)

“Then who? Someone has. Is it this Wizard-9 you keep talking about …?”

“No. The agents from Wizard-9 are afraid to get too close to you. It’s Chuck they want dead.”

“Chuck?”

This was not going to be easy to explain. Maggie stood up. “Do you like this dress?”

With a sudden burst of exasperation, Charles ran his hands back through his hair. His mouth was held in a grim line, his eyes burned with intensity, and
with the exception of that missing scar on his left cheekbone, he suddenly looked exactly like Chuck. He even sounded like Chuck as he kept his voice carefully tight and controlled. “Will you please just tell me what the hell—”

“I’m
trying
,” she said. “Just answer my question.”

“Yes,” he said. Some of that control slipped. He clearly wasn’t as good at holding everything in as Chuck was. “All right? Yes, I like it very,
very
much—”

“You should. You picked it out for me.”

“No, I didn’t—
God!
Why am I arguing with you about a dress? You’re obviously—”

“Sometime within the next seven years, those time-travel theories you’re working on will become legitimate enough for Data Tech to sponsor your research,” Maggie raised her voice to inform him. It wasn’t long before he closed his mouth and listened.

She continued, more quietly. “And sometime within the next seven years the Wells Project will be born and your theories will become reality. Your theories will work, Charles, but some very bad people from an organization called Wizard-9 will want to get their hands on your time-travel device—you call it a Runabout. They’ll use it to go back in time and plant a bomb in the White House that will kill
the U.S. President, and then they’ll try to kill you too. But you’ll escape, and you’ll use a prototype to come back in time to try to set things right.”

Charles slowly sat down. “My God.”

“You’ll come back from the future, and one of the things you will do is to pick out this dress for me to wear—a dress that’s sure to catch your attention.” She sat down across from him. “There are two Dr. Charles Della Croces in Phoenix right this very moment. One of you is thirty-five years old, the other is forty-two. Your forty-two-year-old self—he calls himself Chuck—he’s at Data Tech right now, pretending to be you.

“He was in the Circle K with me when you arrived. While I kept you busy he bought a cup of coffee and went out. He took your car over to Data Tech, and the agents from Wizard-9 followed him, thinking he was you.

“You see, Wizard-9 wants to make sure Chuck and I do nothing that will prevent you from developing your time-travel theories. They’re following you to make sure we don’t get close to you.”

Charles was silent, just watching her. Then, as if he couldn’t hold it in any longer, he leaned forward, spearing her with the intensity of his gaze. “How does it work?” he asked. “Where have I been going wrong in my equations? Is it the—”

“Whoa.” Maggie held up her hand. “I don’t know anything about the theories.”

“God, I can’t believe it actually works!”

He stood up in one swift motion, reaching across the coffee table to pull her to her feet. He grabbed her around the waist and whirled her around the room. “It works, God, it really works!”

Maggie laughed at his totally un-Chuck-like outburst. She’d never seen him act like this before. She hadn’t known he was capable of such sheer, unadulterated joy.

But as quickly as he’d started to dance, he stopped. He nearly ran to a small writing desk that sat near the entrance to the room. He opened the drawers, rifling through them until he came up with paper and a pen. He quickly brought them back to the sitting area, and leaning against the coffee table, he began to scribble what looked like equations as he mumbled aloud.

Maggie’s strengths didn’t lie in mathematics, but she knew one thing. He had to have a mind like a computer to be able to think in terms of the kind of equations he’d just scratched onto that piece of paper.

For the first time she fully realized how incredibly intelligent Charles Della Croce was. For so long she’d thought of Chuck as a kind of a cowboy, a
gunslinger, a fighter. But in truth, Chuck
was
Charles, and he was also a brilliant scientist.

She wished, though, that he hadn’t forgotten how to smile, to laugh, to break into spontaneous dance.

As she’d seen Chuck do nearly a dozen times, Charles seemed to become aware that he was drumming his fingers impatiently on the tabletop. And just as she’d seen Chuck do, he forced himself to stop.

He was so like Chuck, but even so, she could see the differences. Charles didn’t have that hard edge, that suspiciousness, that hard-as-steel toughness that made Chuck seem impenetrable. He still had that same piercing intensity, but he also had a charming touch of youth and innocence—that ability to become genuinely excited.

Both men had the habit of keeping themselves slightly distanced from her by both their body language and a certain detachment in their eyes. She’d broken through Chuck’s control a few times, but it had required tremendous patience and hard work.

Charles’s control seemed far less anchored in place.

As Maggie watched he threw down the pen and raked his fingers through his hair. “What am I doing? All I have to do is talk to … my other self. He can tell me where I’m going wrong. Chuck, right?” He paused. “Why does he call himself Chuck?”

“Because I gave him that nickname,” Maggie told him.

He looked at her. Really looked at her. Maggie could practically see the wheels turning in his head. “Are we lovers?” he asked quietly. The chill in his eyes was completely gone. He smiled slightly, almost shyly. “Please say yes.”

She nodded. “Yes,” she said. “Lovers—and friends.”

Charles nodded too. “That’s a good combination.”

Maggie had to look away. “Chuck doesn’t seem to think so.”

“Of course he does. I should know because he’s me, right? I’m him.” He smiled again. “It’s funny, when we first met, I had this odd sensation, as if I knew you already—and in a sense I did. Only it was in the future that I knew you, not in the past.” He stood up again as if he couldn’t sit still another moment. “God, I can’t believe it’s really going to
work
! Do you know how many years I’ve been working on these theories?”

Maggie shook her head. “No.” Chuck hadn’t told her. Chuck hadn’t told her much of anything about himself.

“For more than twenty-five years,” he said. “I
started the basis of these theories back when I was seven years old.”

“Why?” she asked, leaning forward slightly. “Why is developing time travel so important to you?” Maybe
Charles
would tell her.…

But he didn’t answer right away. He just looked at her. “It is,” he finally said. “It’s very important to me. Ever since—” He broke off. “I haven’t told you anything about it?”

Maggie shook her head. “Sharing’s not exactly one of your strengths.”

He changed the subject. “You said I came back in time to ‘set things right.’”

She met his gaze. “That’s right. Seven years from now your top priority will not be to develop time travel. It’ll be to make sure you
don’t
develop it. Charles, that’s what I’m here to ask you to do. Stop your research. Don’t let it go any further.”

She’d shocked him. She saw it clearly in his eyes. Chuck never would have let it show. “How can I stop when I’m obviously so close to success?”

“Because if you
don’t
stop, hundreds of people will die. Including
you
.”

He silently started to pace.

Maggie turned on the couch to face him. “Chuck seemed to think you would do well to go into medical research and—”

“But it’s all going to be different now,” Charles interrupted her. “Now that I know what’s going to happen, I can make sure this Wizard-9 isn’t involved in the project.”

“There’s no way you can do that. They’ll kill you and steal the Runabout if they have to.”

“So what am I supposed to do? Burn my papers? Erase my computer files? Promise never even to
think
about time travel ever again?”

“Yes,” Maggie said. “Please.”

He stopped pacing. That wasn’t what he’d expected her to say. He stared down at her. “Are you sure you want me to do that?” he asked. “Just like that, everything will be different. One tiny seemingly inconsequential decision, and my entire life will take an absolutely different path.”

“And a lot of people won’t die because a bomb
isn’t
planted at the White House. And you won’t become the target for assassins and terrorists and other crazies who want to get their hands on the Wells Project. And Wizard-9 agents
won’t
chase you across the better part of a decade, trying to kill you before you have the chance to change what they’ve already done.”

He stepped toward her, gently touching her cheek with one finger. “And we might never meet. Are you willing to risk that, Maggie?”

“But we
have
met,” she countered. “We’re here, right now—”

“Are we?” he asked. “I’m here, but are you? Are you from the future? Because if you are, if I make that one little seemingly inconsequential decision, you’re going to disappear. You and Chuck will vanish.”

Vanish?

“Think about it,” he said. “If I don’t continue, the Wells Project won’t happen. I won’t invent the Runabout.…”

“I’m not from the future. But … Oh, my God,” she whispered. “If you don’t invent the Runabout, there’ll be no way for Chuck to travel back in time and—” She broke off, staring up at Charles. If Charles didn’t invent time travel, Chuck wouldn’t have come in the first place. None of the events of the past few days would have happened—including Chuck’s appearance in her backyard. Charles was right. If he did what she asked and turned his back on his time-travel research, Chuck would simply disappear. “Will I even remember that he was here? Will I remember him at all?”

There was compassion in his eyes. “I don’t know.”

Maggie closed her eyes, remembering the way Chuck had kissed her in the dressing room of the tuxedo shop. They were about to leave for the convenience store, to intercept Charles, and Chuck had
pulled her into his arms and kissed her so sweetly, so tenderly. She realized now that that had been a kiss good-bye. He’d fully intended never to see her again.

She remembered how Chuck had cried back in the motel when he’d told her how she would die, seven years in the future. She remembered the steely determination in his voice as he swore he wouldn’t let it happen that way this time around.

She hadn’t realized it, but he was prepared to give up everything for her. Even his own existence.

Right now he was at the Data Tech party, all alone, waiting for himself to cease to be. He knew that if Maggie succeeded, he would disappear. With just—what had Charles called it?—one little seemingly inconsequential decision, the past seven years of Chuck’s life, everything he’d done and dreamed and hoped and felt, would be gone.

Maggie stood up. Her legs felt weak, and her voice sounded just as wobbly. “I have to find Chuck.” She headed for the door. “Come on, Charles, you’ve got to help me. We’ve got to go to Data Tech, and you’ve got to trade places with Chuck again. I have to talk to him. There’s got to be another way.”

C
HUCK WORKED HIS
way through the crowded Data Tech lobby, heading for the bank of pay phones, careful not to let the Wizard-9 agents get too close.

He’d put some makeup on his scar. From a distance it looked fine. But up close, it wouldn’t take long for someone who knew him as well as Ken Goodwin did to figure out that he was the older-model Della Croce.

The way things were going, it was only a matter of time before his real identity was exposed.

He couldn’t
believe
the memories that were flooding through him.

Maggie had taken his plan and tossed it right out
the window. Instead of trusting that Chuck would know the best way to manipulate his own past self, she had decided to go for the direct approach with Charles. She’d actually gone and told him the truth.

The
truth
.

Chuck cursed himself for a fool. This was his fault. He should have explained to Maggie why telling Charles the truth was a very, very bad idea. He should have told her about that goddamned game of Chinese checkers he didn’t play when he was seven. He should have told her that Charles had an extremely powerful and compelling reason to want to continue his time-travel research. Telling him that time travel was possible, and that it was within reach, within less than a decade’s worth of work—that wasn’t the way to get him to quit.

And now Maggie and Charles were coming here, to Data Tech. He knew even when he dialed the phone that no one would pick up at the suite in the Century Hotel. He knew that if he could remember riding in a taxi alongside of Maggie, then they were already on their way over.

Chuck ran his hand through his hair as he tried to think. Think. He
had
to think. He would continue to be a step behind them if he waited for the memories to kick in. He would remember the door
Charles and Maggie came in only
after
they came through it. And when he got there, they’d be gone.

Unless he could remember their conversation. But this time his memories were ghostly and faded, as if everything Maggie and Charles were doing really
did
take place seven years ago. It was hard enough to remember their actions, let alone their words.

No, his best bet would be to second-guess them.

Okay. That shouldn’t be too hard. After all, he was Charles. What would he do?

He’s just been told that his time-travel theories are on the right track. He’s jazzed by that,
and
by the fact that he’s in the company of an incredibly attractive woman. The potential danger only heightens the excitement he feels. What would he do?

Maggie wouldn’t know that Ken Goodwin had augmented his forces, hiring outside help and nearly doubling his number of men. She would have told Charles that there were only four Wizard-9 agents. He’d figure with such limited manpower, Wizard-9 would either watch the back entrances, or keep an eye on the man they thought to be Charles.