A Time of Shadows (Out of Time #8) (11 page)

Elizabeth took a seat on the lumpy sofa. “I don’t see how they could have possibly followed us. You drove all over creation and back. Twice.”

Simon grunted again and let the beige curtain fall over the window. “Let’s hope so.”

“I didn’t see anybody tailing us.”

“I don’t know how you could see anything with that traffic,” he said, coming over to join her on the sofa.

Elizabeth tucked her legs up under her. “We should call Jack. Let him know what’s going on.”

Simon nodded and then sat down heavily, sinking into the “had seen better days” cushions, and frowned even more deeply.

She put her hand on his thigh and he covered it with his own before turning it over and taking hold of it. Elizabeth leaned into his side, resting her head on his shoulder.

“Are we doing the right thing? Having her here?”

Elizabeth lifted her head. “Haven’t we had this conversation?”

“I know, but…” He shook his head. “That was before.”

“We knew we wouldn’t be the only ones looking.”

Simon nodded. “And yet, now that I’m faced with it.…” He let out a deep breath.
 

He turned to look at her, his eyes dancing across her face, searching for something. She cupped his cheek and smiled at him, wanting to reassure him. That seemed to be what he’d been looking for. A smile came to his lips and he kissed the back of the hand he held.

 
He tilted his head back, resting it against the sofa back. “Do you think this feeling ever goes away?”

She laid her head back and turned to look at him.

“Ever since she arrived, my heart…aches,” he finished with a helpless smile.

“I don’t know,” she said. “I kind of hope not.”

Simon nodded and Elizabeth inched forward to kiss him. It was soft and gentle. They pulled apart and just looked at each other for a moment. It was one of those peaceful, perfect moments. And it was shattered by the titanic roar of a plane coming in for a landing, apparently ten feet over their heads.

Elizabeth laughed and sat up. “So, are you ready for phase three?”

Simon pushed himself up from the sofa and retrieved the canister from his jacket. He brought it back and held it out.

“Would you like to do the honors?”

Elizabeth sat up a little straighter and wiggled in her seat. She took the small tube and pulled the cap off. At the top of the slip of paper was the number 99.
 

“Ninety-nine?” she said. “How does that follow thirteen?”

Simon frowned and read the note aloud. “A mad hatter’s tea party fit for a king.”

“You don’t think he means Zog, do you?”

She’d actually met, well, tripped, a king once. King Zog, the Albanian monarch had taken a header over her loose shoe at a hotel in war torn London.
 

“He’s the only king I’ve met…I think,” she added. “Unless you count mummies.”

Simon took the paper from her hand. “No, I’m quite sure he doesn’t mean that.” He looked at her with dark, haunted eyes.
 

“Then…?”

Simon cleared his throat. “Kashian. King Kashian.”

“Ohhh.”

That explained Simon’s instantly-dark mood. Even though it had been well over a year ago for them, and nearly a century for the rest of the world, memories of King Kashian, the vampire gangster, still haunted him. The nightmares he’d had about her death and how they’d all nearly come true left a bit of scar tissue inside him. Or, judging from the quiet storm behind his eyes, maybe they were wounds that never fully healed.

“And the tea party is Charlie’s,” she said, realizing what the rest of the clue meant. Charlie’s speakeasy, Blue’s in the Night, like many others, served its swill in teacups in case of a raid. It was a weak ruse, but Prohibition drove people to do all sorts of things to get by.

“Yes,” Simon agreed with a frown and then pointed to the bottom of the slip of paper. “And the moon is waxing gibbous this time. That doesn’t make sense; we’ve skipped the first quarter. And the old crescent is several phases beyond that.”

“They’re all out of order.”

Simon pursed his lips in thought. “The numbers and phases aren’t being given to us in sequence. Perhaps one is the key to the other?”

“But what do the numbers mean? 13, and now 99?”

With a sigh, Simon pushed himself up off the sofa and walked back over to the window.
 

Elizabeth tried to see a pattern in them. “Maybe they’re part of a combination for a lock or something?”

Simon looked out into the darkness.
 

“Could be a bible verse?” Elizabeth offered, but her heart agreed with Simon’s dismissive look. Teddy wasn’t exactly religious.
 

She stood and walked over to join him at the window. “Maybe it’s a phone number and we call it and Teddy answers?” She pretended to talk on the phone. “Hello, Teddy? It’s Elizabeth. What the hell?”

Simon snorted and pulled Elizabeth into his arms. “I have a few things to add to that.”

Elizabeth sighed. “I guess it’s no use trying to see the final picture with so few pieces. A hand could be a bagel.”

Simon arched an eyebrow.
 

“Didn’t you ever do jigsaw puzzles?”

“Never.”

“You poor, mad fool,” she said.

He laughed and pulled her more securely into his arms. “As loath as I am to do it, I’m afraid all we can do is wait and see.”

Elizabeth tipped her head up. “And go to New York apparently.”

Simon’s chest heaved once heavily. “Yes.”

“I should see if we can get a reservation,” Elizabeth said as she tried to step away, but Simon pulled her back.

“That can wait.”

She looked up at him questioningly.

He looked down at her, his eyes still dark, but now for a different reason. “Have I told you how much I love you lately?”

His long fingers brushed a strand of hair away from her face. “How much I adore you?”

Elizabeth smiled at the warmth in her belly.
 

“Because, Mrs. Cross,” he said as he leaned down until she could feel his breath against her cheek, “I am hopelessly in love with you.”

He kissed her jaw and her knees wobbled a little.
 

“Truly,” he whispered between kisses. “Madly.”

“I’m thirsty.”

Simon sighed.

Elizabeth couldn’t contain her giggle at the interruption and slid out of Simon’s arms as she turned to Charlotte.

“What?” Charlotte asked as she stood in the doorway to the bedroom.

“You have impeccable timing, Charlotte,” Simon said.

“I do?”

Elizabeth laughed and crossed to her daughter. “Ignore him.”

Putting her arm over her shoulder, she started to turn her back toward the bedroom. “You should be in bed. We’ve got a big day tomorrow. Going to New York.”

Charlotte stopped like she’d hit a brick wall. “New York?” she asked, wiggling out of Elizabeth’s grasp and turning to look at her, then Simon and then back. Her excitement was palpable. “Really?”

“Yes,” Simon said.

She beamed. “Does that mean more cannoli?”

Simon shook his head and Charlotte pouted, this time letting Elizabeth guide her back through the door.

Elizabeth leaned down and whispered, “Maybe just one.”

~~~

Jack felt a little guilty about sneaking out of the hotel without Tess again. She seemed all right. More than all right really, but he was still used to doing things on his own, and anyway, what she didn’t know wouldn’t hurt her.

He flagged down a taxi a few blocks from the hotel and handed the driver the address. The streets were virtually empty and they sped through the sleeping city.

Tess was probably actually asleep this time. It was nearly three in the morning.
 

After he’d had the brainwave about the university, they’d tried to find the physics department. But by the time they had, it was closed for the day. They made their way back and had an early dinner in the rooftop restaurant of their hotel—the Panoramic. It was well-named. From the minarets of the Blue Mosque to the dome of Hagia Sophia and Topkapi, they could see nearly all of Istanbul. In the darkening skies in the distance, they could see the Bosphorus, the Marmara Sea and the Prince Islands.
 

The food was good, but the wine even better. It was a pleasant enough way to spend an evening. Tess was a beautiful woman, and good company. They’d laughed and talked, although neither had offered too much of themselves. It was a familiar waltz. Jack was used to dinners like that from his time in the OSS. At a dinner with spies, no one stopped talking and yet no one said anything at all. Now that he had time reflect on it, last night’s dinner had been very much like that.

There was something intriguing about her. She was holding back somehow. Some secret. And there was nothing quite like a woman of mystery, he thought as the cab started across the Galata Bridge and toward the European side of Istanbul. Multi-colored lights from the gallery of shops and cafes that lined the underside of the bridge reflected off the water of the Golden Horn. Dark silhouettes of fisherman lined the upper railing and flashed by the cab window like ghosts.

When they reached the edge of Taksim Square, Jack paid the driver and told him to wait. Fingering the small key Travers had given him before they’d left, Jack walked down the quiet side street looking for number four. It was a surprisingly well-lit, ground floor shop named Bagaj. There was no clerk on duty and it took him a moment to find the bank of lockers. The tag on his key read 36 and he found it quickly. Inside the locker he found a small suitcase, the size of a carry-on. Jack took it out, closed and locked the door and started back for his cab.

He hefted it onto his hotel room bed. It was heavy, he thought, and that was disturbing. Using the second key on the small ring, he unlocked the suitcase and unzipped it.
 

He flipped it open and gave a low, impressed whistle. Handguns, knives, hand grenades and even a submachine gun—it was enough for a small assault unit. Just what the hell had he gotten himself into?

Inside the suitcase there was also a small note.
 

Take what you need. T

Jack put the note down and picked up one of the handguns—a .50 caliber Desert Eagle. The damn thing weighed about four pounds. What the heck was he going up against?

Putting that away, he found something a little more to his liking, a nice normal 9mm. He made sure it was clear and then tested its weight and balance. Satisfied, Jack let it rest in the flat of his open palm, butt facing away. Then he jerked his hand down, the pistol flipped over and seemed to hang in the air for a split-second before he snatched it out of limbo, his finger finding the trigger instantly.

He sighed. He’d tried that once before and it got him shot. Fancy tricks were for dead men. He spun the gun once around in his hand and put it on the bedside table along with a few boxes of ammunition. Looking back down at the mini-arsenal with a frown, he zipped the bag up and slid it under the bed. Tomorrow night, he’d take it back to the locker.

Still fully clothed, but too tired to care, Jack lay down on top of the covers. He rolled his head to the side and watched the city sleep until he felt himself disappearing and joined it.

J
ACK
ROLLED
HIS
SHOULDERS
. The shoulder holster that Travers’ little bag of tricks had provided felt a little snug. He’d have to adjust it later.

“All right?” Tess asked as they walked down the halls toward the university physics department.

Jack tilted his head to the side and massaged his neck. “Just a crick. Slept funny, I guess.”

She eyed him suspiciously and he wondered why he hadn’t told her the truth.
 

“Here,” she said, gesturing to a door.
 

Jack knocked twice and then pulled the door open enough to poke his head through. “Hello?”

A short man with a ring of silver hair on his balding head looked up at him and frowned. “You have the wrong room,” he said before focusing again on whatever was on the desk in front of him.

“Dr. Demir?”

The man looked up again. “Evet?”

“Do you speak English?” Jack asked as he came in the rest of the way and held the door open for Tess.

“Was that not the language I answered you in?” The doctor held up a hand and waved them away. “I’m sorry, but I’m very busy.”

Ignoring them now, he went back to his papers.

“We’re here about Drasko Skavo,” Tess said. “Do you know him?”

The name got the doctor’s attention. He paused, frozen for a moment, then put his pencil down and looked up at them. “No.”

Jack crossed the small office. It was overflowing with books and two whiteboards covered with equations and notations he wouldn’t have understood even if he had been able to read Turkish.

As Jack neared the desk, the doctor stood nervously and took off his reading glasses. “I’m sorry, but I’m not able to help you.”

“I think you are,” Jack said as he casually sat on the edge of the doctor’s desk and picked up a globe-shaped paperweight. It was a bluish silver metal encased in glass.
 

“Heavy,” Jack said as he hefted it. And he wasn’t kidding. It was strangely heavy.

As unspoken threats went, it was pretty blunt. Not that Jack would have hurt the doctor, but Demir didn’t know that. Jack arched a cocky eyebrow at him.

“And rare and expensive,” the doctor said, unimpressed, and came to take it from him. “Also quite toxic under the right circumstances.”

Jack handed it over quickly.

“What is it?”

“Osmium,” Dr. Demir said as he carefully put it back into its cradle on his desk. “It’s the densest naturally occurring element.”
 

Jack looked at him blankly.

“Present company excepted,” the doctor said with a small wicked smile.

Tess snorted. “Oh, I like you.”

Demir moved back around his desk, putting his reading glasses on as he did. “In that case, you’ll please leave me to my work.”

Sitting down again, he waved them away.