Reversion (The Narrows of Time Series Book 3) (37 page)

“Okay, dear, but you need to keep your strength up. Can’t have you falling asleep on the job. Just promise me you’ll eat before you leave.”

“I will. I promise. Thanks for always watching out for me.”

“That’s what friends are for, dear heart. Do you need me to help with your son again tonight?”

“I appreciate the offer, Gwen, but I’ve got it covered. He’s at a new after-hours daycare I just found.”

“Isn’t that expensive?”

“A little, but I feel bad always having to ask you to watch him for me.”

“I don’t mind, really. You know Roger and I are there for you.”

“I know. Thank you. But I wanted to give this place a try. Like you said, everyone needs a break once in a while.”

“I understand, dear. Next time, then?”

“Sure, that would be nice.”

“Toodle-oo,” Gwen said, waving a flabby arm. She glanced at Lucas before she took off down the hall with a determined bounce in her step.

Lauren swung her eyes to Lucas and smiled.

He couldn’t stop staring at her. It was clear now where Drew had gotten his boyish good looks. His mom was a total, drop-dead, gorgeous fox. He took in a couple of short breaths before his mouth continued on without his brain.

“Falconio—that’s an interesting name. Is it Italian?”

She gave him a look that screamed
No shit, Sherlock
, but her voice told a different story. “Yes, but I’m thinking of changing it to something more generic, like Johnson or Smith. You know, to keep the creepers at bay. Like the Nabisco delivery driver that came in last month with a broken arm. I thought I was going to have to get a restraining order. You know the type.”

Lucas nodded, but kept his lips locked together.

She continued. “Falconio is pretty rare and easy to track down. I’d need to change my son’s name, too, but he might not be okay with it when he gets older—losing one’s heritage and all.”

“Where I come from, hospital personnel no longer use their last name. They go by first name, Nurse Lauren. It helps protect their identity from those creepers you mentioned.”

“That’s a great idea,” she said. “I’m going to suggest that change to the board next time they hold an open forum.”

“Glad to help,” he said, looking away for a few moments. This was Drew’s mom and he needed to get his mind out of the gutter. His mental redirect worked.

Her eyes focused on the floor for a second, then back to Lucas. “Hey, wait a minute. I don’t remember telling you my first name.”

Shit. Lauren was right. Now she’s gonna think I’m one of those creepers she mentioned.

His heart started pounding at double its normal rate while he ran through several explanations until he found one he liked. “You didn’t, but the other nurse did.”

She paused. “That’s right. She did. You had me worried there for a second.”

Lucas needed to change the subject, not wanting her to ponder his lie. If she did, her memory might betray him. He tried to think of something to say, but his words came up dry.

“Are you sure you’re okay? You seem a little shaky.”

“I’m good, thank you. But I really need to get moving. It was nice meeting you,” Lucas said, walking away. His head wanted to turn and take one last look at her, but he kept his eyes forward. She’d taken enough notice of him. Until he could devise a plan to alter events in this time period, something inside of him told him he needed her to move on with her day and forget she ever bumped into him.

He hadn’t planned to interact with her on this trip, other than to stop her from driving home somehow. But a covert intervention might not be possible now. She knew his face.

Crap. What was I thinking?

Lucas sat with his back to the wall in a corner booth of the hospital’s cafeteria on the third floor, pretending to be reading a newspaper. He picked this particular booth based on the lack of people around, and the direct lines of sight to the main entrance, the cashier, and the buffet line exit.

The closest group was eating four tables away, though the booth next to him had just been vacated by a young, blonde woman and her three obnoxious kids. He was thankful when the noisy family finished their meal and took off; however, they never bothered to take their food trays and empty glasses to the collection station. They just left everything sitting on the table like a bunch of hillbillies. He wondered how long it would take for the lone custodial woman with gray hair, rubber gloves, and support hose to make her way over to the vacant booth and clean it off.

His eyes swept the area, keeping watch for Lauren Falconio’s expected arrival. Earlier, she’d told Nurse Gwen in the hallway that she planned to eat before heading home. At the time, Lucas knew he couldn’t keep wandering the halls or loitering around outside, not without drawing the attention of the security staff, so he decided to take up residence in a booth and wait for her.

But that was two hours ago. Now, he was growing concerned Lauren wasn’t going to stop in for a snack as planned. He needed her to keep her promise to Gwen, allowing him to sit down with her while she was alone and not pressed for time. He still wasn’t sure how he was going to convince her not to drive home tonight, but he had to find a way.

The end game was simple: Keep her out of the car accident that would take her life and Drew’s legs, allowing his foster brother to grow up healthy and happy, and never be an orphan. Then he and Drew would never meet in the state home, and they’d never be adopted by the Ramsay family. No Ramsay family meant no attending college together. No college would forever change the timeline and keep the E-121 experiment from being run a second time. The logic was sound, but he needed to sacrifice his future with Drew to stop the end of the world.

Lucas felt a tinge of emotional pain swelling inside. He needed to be strong. For Drew. For Masago. For Kleezebee. For everyone across the multiverse. It all came down to this moment in time and he couldn’t let his personal feelings get in the way.

But what if Lauren didn’t show? Then what?

If she did, what would happen if she wouldn’t listen to him?

What if Drew’s mom thought he was nuts and called security?

He needed a backup plan in case he couldn’t convince her of what was about to come. Let’s face it, other than a chance meeting in the hallway earlier, she barely knew him. She had no reason to believe anything he said, let alone change her plans for the evening. He couldn’t just delay her drive by a few minutes, not with the way the timeline seemed to be autocorrecting. He needed to be sure and that meant stopping her from driving home completely.

How the hell was he going to do that? He couldn’t lead off by telling her he was from the future and was the adopted foster brother of her tiny son. How would that sound? The more he thought about it, the more ways he imagined her seeing him as a complete lunatic.

Maybe he should just steal her car instead, or disable it. Either of those ideas might work, but he didn’t know what car she drove. He’d have to follow her out of the hospital and into the garage, then surprise her from behind and demand the keys. They didn’t teach car-jacking at the university, so he’d have to work this out on the fly.

But what if she noticed him creeping around behind her? She was already on high alert after the event last month with the Nabisco driver, and would certainly have her head on a swivel. He also had to be prepared in case she fought back, or drove off before he could take the vehicle from her. What if she carried a gun?

He pictured her reaching under the driver’s seat, pulling out a .357 and blasting a hole in his forehead. It was a possibility. After all, this was Arizona, and many citizens carried a gun, especially a single mom with a high-risk job. If Lucas chose to believe the ramblings of the local news—in any time period—Arizona is the wild, wild West, and everyone has an itchy trigger finger.

He shook his head, realizing there was an endless list of things that could go wrong, each one more troubling than the last.

Then a new idea came to him. What if he threw himself in front of her car?

Whether he survived the impact or not, there was a high probability it would delay her plans, sending a charge of adrenaline into her system, and stopping the accident from ever happening. She’s a nurse who’s bound by ethics to help those in need. If she followed protocol, she’d stay with him until help arrived, then hang around with the police, answering questions and filling out paperwork. If he was right, she’d call Gwen and ask her to pick up Drew from daycare, thus avoiding his brother’s whole mangled legs scenario. And Lauren would still be alive. A double win for Drew.

Lucas was starting to like the idea, except for the part about being roadkill. He was a fan of quantum entanglement, but not quantum entanglement with a steel bumper. The impact would be painful and the timing had to be perfect, assuming he could convince his legs to step in front of a speeding car willingly. The problem was, he’d still need to follow her out of the building and to her car, running the risk of being tagged as a stalker.

If he somehow managed to avoid detection, then he’d have to quickly deduce her exit path through the garage and sprint to reposition himself. He’d need to choose a secluded location where she wouldn’t see him until it was too late to stop, and she’d need to be traveling at a speed sufficient to cause injury. Plus, he figured he needed a second or two to mentally prepare himself for the bloody meet and greet with the grill of her car. Or truck.

He scoffed, calculating his chances of success. All it would take is one miscalculation and the plan would fail. He only had one shot at the reversion, and he didn’t like the choices thus far. There had to be a better way. Something with a reasonable chance of success.

A brush of movement caught his eye near the cashier. A group of four men had entered the cafeteria and made their way to the checkout stand, one of them wearing a white coat and a thick beard. The others were dressed like orderlies—one of them completely bald, but each of the entourage had a similar face. He recognized every one. It was Starling on crutches, and a trio of Lucas copies, who seemed agitated with the doctor; definitely a tense situation.

“What the hell?” he asked in a dull whisper, holding the newspaper in front of his face before the group looked his way. He didn’t dare peek over the top of the paper, fearing his forehead and eyes might be enough to give him away. His brain took off in a race, crunching through a number of explanations as to why the Lucas copies were involved with the same man he’d run over in the hallway earlier.

The Lucas copies were all his age and, therefore, would have been toddlers in this time period. He doubted they knew this man in the past, even in their respective universes. He figured they must have known him in the future, or were instructed to find him in this time period by someone else. Otherwise, what would be the odds of three Lucas copies randomly connecting with Starling so soon after their arrival? Minuscule at best, he decided. Just as tiny as the chances of the unlucky family dog that had run into a pack of coyotes near the stack of bloody tires in the alley across the street from the hospital.

“Extremely low,” he mumbled. Either they were pulled back here by accident with him, and then tracked down someone they knew in the future, or they came here from some other time in the future to meet with Starling specifically. If the latter was true, it seemed likely his copies were on a mission to change the past, just like he was. The complexity of this reversion attempt just shot up to a new level, making him cringe.

Lucas waited until a silent count of sixty passed, then lowered his makeshift shield until he could see the vintage cash register. Starling and his entourage were gone, but now Drew’s mom was in sight, talking with a group of nurses. She was wearing casual street clothes and carrying a leather purse over her shoulder. A set of keys was dangling from her hand.

Her double shift must’ve been over, and she was about to head home. He slid out of the booth and stood up, ready to go have a talk with her. He was now on the clock, tucking the folded newspaper under his armpit. He gulped, and took a deep breath to calm his nerves.

However, before he could take the first step, the hospital’s PA system screeched with three obnoxious chimes, making almost everyone in the eatery stop what they were doing and look at the ceiling with a concerned look on their faces.

“Attention. Lauren Falconio. Please call Employee Services. Lauren Falconio, Employee Services. Stat.”

Lauren’s eyes flew wide and she put a hand over her mouth. Her legs turned in a flash, taking her to the house phone mounted on the wall next to the dump station for garbage and food trays. She put her purse and keys on the surface between the dual trash bins, then took the white receiver from the cradle and answered it with her back to Lucas. As if on cue, everyone in the room turned in their seats and resumed their meals and conversations—all of it like nothing out of the ordinary had happened.

Lucas changed his course, swooping in to grab one of the hillbilly’s soiled food trays from the booth next door and take it with him. He made his way through the groups of tables, chairs, and chewing mouths, getting closer to his target. Lauren was still engaged in the phone conversation and facing the wall when he arrived. He stood in front of the garbage bins, close enough to touch her if he wanted.

He put his newspaper on the counter next to her purse and keys, then dumped the leftover food into the trashcan, tossed the silverware into a tote, and slid the tray onto the growing stack. Then, all in one fluid motion, he angled his body to conceal his hands from the staff behind him, laying the newspaper on her keys. He scooped his hands together in a flash, tucking the keys inside a fold in the paper while pressing firmly to keep them from jingling.

Lauren never turned her head, still engrossed in the phone conversion as he scooted past her and headed for the entrance.

A minute later he was outside, cruising down the hall with nobody running after him.

The elevator doors opened, and Lucas stepped into the crowd inside, working his way through a gauntlet of elbows and shoulders until he found the handrail across the back of the lift. Next to him was a tall, heavyset young man wearing a jean jacket and a faded, striped gray shirt. If Lucas had to guess, he figured the plump neighbor was no more than eighteen years old based on the smooth skin of his cheeks, the acne scars across his forehead, and the starter growth of stubble under his chin. A pair of vintage Sony Walkman headphones covered his ears as he bobbed in place on his toes, holding a whirring cassette player in his hand. The device had a red label on it with the name: Leonard H.