It Wasn't Always Like This (23 page)

“It’s
not
your fault,” Emma interrupted, bending to untangle her feet. Her f ingers were clumsy, and it wasn’t going quickly.

“For God’s sake,” muttered Pete, “untie me now!”

Coral broke into another coughing f it. “But I thought you liked Matt,” she began.

“Nope,” Emma said, still bent over trying to free her feet. “And I’m the stupid one. Just so we’re clear.”

“We’re clear,” Pete said. “Now get me out of this damn chair. I think my shoulder is broken.” He groaned under his breath.

Emma would have complied. Only it was then that she heard the sound of a door sliding open, and Matt, whose last name she had never learned, sauntered back into the warehouse with the pace of a man with no need to hurry.

He looked taller than she remembered him, and less rumpled. She hoped she could do something—anything—before he noticed that her hands, which she slipped back behind her as Matt walked through the door, were no longer tied to the chair. She tucked her feet under the chair.

Matt f licked his gaze slowly around the room, then homed in on her. He tilted his head, and she was annoyed that, he reminded her of one of the hawks that Charlie used to train.

She met his gaze, held it until he blinked. “What did you inject her with?” She hoped she sounded more commanding than she currently felt.

“Does it matter?” Matt asked. “For the record, I wasn’t sure until I went back to your place. But I saw that old pocket watch hanging there and knew I was right. You were Emma. Emma O’Neill. And you had no idea who I was. Not a clue. Although I have to say you can hold your bourbon.”

Anger burned in Emma’s chest. “More than I can say for you.”

She had hated many things over the years, and with good reason, but the thought of him touching Charlie’s watch seemed one of the worst. Still, she forced herself to stay where she was. Surely Matt saw that she and Pete were now back-to-back in the middle of the room. But if she worked fast and kept him talking . . .

Keeping her eyes f irmly on Matt, Emma reached behind her for Pete, found his hands. “Let Coral go,” she said, willing Matt to keep his focus on her. “She’s not who you need.”

Matt made a
tsk
ing sound. “You know I can’t do that, right?”

“Sure you can,” Pete muttered. Emma felt his ropes give as she worked her f ingers around the knots.

Coral’s coughing sounded ragged now. Whatever she’d been infected with was far more than just poison and probably contagious. Maybe airborne. Maybe Emma had been right the f irst time. Matt wasn’t that bright after all.

Work with that, O’Neill,
she told herself.

Matt’s lips twisted in a small smile. “You know, when I was a boy, I sometimes thought maybe you were just a myth. But here you are. And I’m the one who found you.” He stretched out his arms, a move that reminded her of Glen Walters. “The things you must have seen. The places and the people. Time rolling at your f ingertips. And what are you doing with it? Living in some Dallas apartment? Why? You could have anything you wanted. But here you are. What a waste.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” Emma’s f ingers fumbled with another knot. Almost.

“World’s a funny place,” Matt said. He seemed to have no pressing desire to kill them or move whatever this was forward. Was he just toying with her? Was he waiting for something?

He
had
to be waiting for something. But what? Who? They would have to make their move—
she
would have to make her move—before that something
happened.

“Your friend Coral here likes you so much that she posted lovely pictures of you for the whole world to see. Including me.”

“And your point is?” Emma tried for casual, bored even.
Get yourself loose, Pete,
she thought. And winced as she heard him groan again in pain.

“It wasn’t even that hard to f ind you,” Matt said. “I think that’s why I didn’t believe it was actually you. Sitting in that dive bar. Eating tacos some girl sold you off the street. Drinking bourbon. The girl detective with a huge secret of her own. Thinking I was just some guy.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “Don’t overestimate yourself. Those General Patton stories are getting a bit stale, by the way.”

“I’m sorry, Emma,” Coral said.

Emma could hear the rasp of her breath. She glared at Matt. “She needs a doctor. Just let her go. We can do this on our own.”

“I think you’re confusing who’s in charge here, Emma.” Matt placed a hand on his chest. “You know there weren’t many of us faithful left when I took over for my father. Guardians of the world, that’s what he called us. Destroy the evil. Praise the good. No middle ground. Just right and wrong.”

“I think
you’ve
got that confused,” Emma said.

Matt shrugged. “And I think you’ve got something I want. But you’re not the only one, you know?”

Did he mean Charlie? Emma wasn’t sure what was faster than galloping, but whatever it was, her heart was doing it.

“I hoped to do this another way,” Matt said. “But you can’t always get what you want, can you?”

“So you’re going with a lame old song lyric?” Emma drawled.

Pete’s voice rose from behind her. “Hey, Matt, you know what Patton said, don’t you? ‘The object of war is not to die for your country but to make the other bastard die for his.’”

She knew his hands were still partially tied, but Emma felt Pete rise. “Go!” he hollered. “Now!”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Dallas, Texas

Present

Emma launched herself from the chair, slamming into Matt, anger and adrenaline surging as her body collided with his.

They hit the f loor together, her elbow knocking over a container of something acrid and pungent, sending it puddling just beyond where they sprawled, her forehead smacking the f loor with an audible thump.

This time the blackness threatened to drag her under.

“Emma!”

She jerked her head painfully in Pete’s direction. His hands might be free, but his legs were still tied to the chair, his left shoulder def initely broken or dislocated. How had he even managed to untie her hands?

In that distracted second, Matt pushed up hard, breaking her hold, and somehow he was dragging her to her feet, the cold metal nose of a gun pushed against the back of her aching head.

“Don’t!” Pete said, his voice a low and dangerous growl.

Emma’s vision had gone wonky, spots and pinwheels, and a sharp panic rushed over her.

“Let her go,” Pete said. “Let both of them go. Deal with me.”

Matt tightened his grip on Emma. He pressed his mouth to her ear, and she shuddered. “We’re going to walk out this door together, Emma. Just you and me.”

The dizziness threatened to overcome her, but she forced her voice to stay steady. “Your friends run off on you?” Because there had been others, so why weren’t they here? Had something happened?

“Shut up,” Matt said. “Get moving.” He was backing toward the door now, dragging her with him, the gun still pressed to her temple.

She was so dizzy it was hard to move. So dizzy that she barely heard the sound of the door opening behind them. And then an excited and oddly high-pitched voice said, “Drop the gun. Do it now.”

Matt whipped around, pulling her with him.

“Your friends aren’t coming back, by the way,” said a short, bow-legged man with distinctly frog-like features. He was wearing tidy khakis, a striped button-down, and what looked to Emma’s increasingly hazy vision as some form of boat shoe. Other than his footwear—which was a step more fashionable than the clumsy work boots he had favored in the distant past, he looked exactly as Emma remembered him.

“Kingsley Lloyd?” She wondered if she was hallucinating. How was he here? Why was he here? Was he working with Matt? How was that possible?

But all she could manage was, “You’re alive.”

She’d known, of course, deep down, that he probably was. But the shock of it—of another person who had traversed the decades, who had lived and lived, even if it was this absurd, traitorous man. Even if it wasn’t Charlie. She was shaking now, and not just from the waves of dizziness.

“So are you,” Lloyd said, and there was something like wonder or delight in his wide eyes.

“Well, I’ll be damned,” Pete muttered.

“What the hell did you do?” Matt lifted the gun from her head and waved it over Emma’s shoulder at Kingsley Lloyd.

“Evened the odds,” said Kingsley Lloyd.

Matt was dragging her again, the gun still pointed at Lloyd. Emma could see Pete now, his gaze f licking from the gun to Emma and Matt to Kingsley Lloyd.

Emma could no longer hear Coral’s labored breathing.

It was like that f irst day she had loved Charlie. The day she had let the hawk free. Emma O’Neill, the girl who could not bear to make mistakes, the girl who would make so many of them that she would soon lose track. She had lost everything but never given up hope. Would never give up as long as her heart was still beating in her chest, because really, what else could she do?

The years pressed on that beating heart, all of them, a tumble of lives and moments, of words said and unsaid, promises made and broken.

And a thought rose from her jumbled brain. If Matt wanted her dead, he would have already shot her. There was no reason not to.

So if not that, then . . .

A memory of something, of one thing, rose to her tongue. Or rather, she allowed it to rise. Because Emma remembered mostly everything. The endless span of days and weeks and months and years.

Yes,
Emma thought. It could work. It
had
to work.

She turned her head as best she could. “Do you know we’re mostly made of water, Matt? Did Mr. Lloyd tell you that was the key?”

A few feet from her, Kingsley Lloyd made a
hmm
sound in the back of his throat.

“Shut up,” said Matt, but she knew he was listening.

“What did he promise you? Eternal life? To be like us? Because that’s what you really want, isn’t it? I thought you wanted what they’ve all wanted. To kill me. To make sure no one stayed on this earth longer than they were supposed to. Because that just ruins your fun, doesn’t it?”

Matt waved the gun at Lloyd again. “You told me you had something.”

Emma pondered his question, but her head was throbbing harder now, and her left eye erupted in some kind of kaleidoscope pattern. The odor of the liquid spilling out of the container made her breath come harder in her chest. She managed a quick glance at Pete. His gaze was locked on Matt’s gun.

She shifted her attention to Kingsley Lloyd and saw his lips lift in a quick slash of a smile.

“Do you remember what you asked me that day, Mr. Lloyd? About the lobsters?”

“Lobsters?” Matt yanked Emma tighter against him. Pete’s gaze slid to Emma’s, and she could see the question in his eyes.
What are you doing?
Even if she had been able to answer, she wasn’t sure what she would say.

“They don’t age,” Emma said aloud. “They just get bigger.”

“Enough of this bullshit.” Matt’s hand steadied on the gun.

“You don’t want to kill me,” Emma said. “You want to
be
me.” When she heard his quick intake of breath, she knew it was the truth. “You want to know what it’s like?”

She had him now. She knew it. She just had to distract him long enough for Pete to make a move. And if Emma knew anything, it was that Pete, injured or not, gun or not,
would
make a move.

“It’s
amazing
. Like Christmas and birthdays and sunsets over the ocean all rolled into one. I don’t age. I don’t get sick. Ever. I won’t ever contract a cold or the f lu. I won’t get cancer. I won’t start forgetting my keys and discover I’ve got Alzheimer’s. My hair won’t go gray. My skin won’t wrinkle. I won’t wake up one day and think, ‘My God, I’ve wasted all these years, and now I don’t have many left.’ You know why? Because I’ve got an inf inite number. I won’t drop down dead from some aneurysm. If there’s a place I haven’t seen, well, I can always go see it tomorrow. Because I have
all
the tomorrows. Every single one. You know why? Because Kingsley Lloyd here, he found the impossible. And then he shared it with me.”

Emma’s head was f lying now, threatening to rise dizzily off her shoulders. “What did he promise you, Matt? Was it that?”

Matt’s gaze was locked on Kingsley Lloyd. “You said you had it still. The plant.”

“I do,” Lloyd said. “Absolutely.”

Kingsley Lloyd’s face did not give away the lie. Did not let on to what he must know just as she did—that the few original sips of tea from the plant on the island was all they had needed. It didn’t matter if the stream had disappeared, that none of them (so she assumed) had ever found it again.