The Day Before Forever (21 page)

Alanna slapped his hand. “That's not true.”

“So when are you two getting married?” Henley asked.

“We're still in the process of figuring everything out,” Peter said. He tilted his head at Alanna. “That's because this one here can't make up her mind between a summer or a winter wedding.”

“And that changes everything,” Alanna said. “On one hand, an outdoor summer wedding with wisteria in the garden would be so beautiful. On the other hand, can you imagine the lights and the snow outside during a December wedding?”

“So we need to get that decided before we decide anything else. That'll dictate inside or outside, the location, everything.”

Alanna smiled. “There's only one man crazy enough to marry someone as indecisive as me.”

“She means stupid enough,” Peter said, earning him another smack.

They seemed perfect together.

“But we're definitely thinking of doing it this year or the next, depending on venue availability,” Alanna said. “You
know, you both should come. In fact, you
need
to come.”

“To the wedding?” Henley looked a little startled.

“Of course! It'll be wonderful to have you there. Wouldn't it be wonderful, Peter?”

“Yeah, definitely,” Peter said.

I knew what Henley was thinking. We wouldn't be there for the wedding. There was no way. We'd either be in another time . . . or dead.

I saw that Henley wasn't going to answer anytime soon.

“We'd love to try,” I said. “I'm afraid things are up in the air for us as well.”

“Well, promise me you'll try hard,” Alanna said.

“I promise.”

The rest of brunch was small talk. Alanna and Peter sounded so excited for the future. They were going to get an apartment someday, to finally settle down. An apartment with a yellow door, since that signified happiness to Alanna for some reason. They wanted a dog. The big, scruffy kind. Peter wanted to learn to cook. And Alanna wanted a closet bigger than the kitchen.

I was happy for them, but I couldn't help but feel a bit envious. They had everything planned out. They could afford to dream about the future, because it was going to happen for them. Every time I thought about actually having a future with Henley, I felt like I was going to jinx it. We had to live day by day. Yes, that meant we were thankful for every moment we had with each other, but it just wasn't fair. I wanted to think about kitchen countertops and argue about the color of bedding too. I wanted that with Henley.

When we got back to the room, I thought Henley was going to mention something about Alanna and Peter getting married. In 1904, Henley had asked me to marry him as one final attempt to get me to stay. He now understood why I'd had to say no, but it had to have been on his mind since then.

But instead, Henley's face turned cold. “Alanna and Peter's room was broken into.”

“Was anything taken?”

“Not that they could tell,” Henley said. “But they asked Aaron for a room change.”

“D-do you think . . . ?”

“The killer?” Henley said slowly. “Maybe.”

“Tell me exactly what they said.”

“Peter said that it was probably just that they forgot to lock the door behind them when they were going out, but Alanna swore she remembered to lock the door.”

I bit my lip. That wasn't much to go by. “Anything else?”

Henley nodded. “Alanna said the objects in their room were moved ever so slightly.”

“As if someone was looking for something,” I finished.

“You think Juana's looking for something?”

“Maybe,” I said. “I'm not sure what. What are the chances that these two break-ins are even linked?”

“What are the chances that you'd become immortal?” Henley said back to me. “We're not taking chances. We don't
take
chances.”

“Then say it is the same person . . . Why would he do something like that? He knows what room we're in,” I said.

“Maybe the person wasn't looking for us, then,” Henley
said. “Alanna mentioned the place was disheveled. He was obviously looking for something. And he came when Alanna and Peter were out.”

“Money?”

“Yes, if he were a common thief. But what common thief would walk into a hostel and take the time to go to a specific door all the way down the hall?”

He had a point.

But it also could have been actually unlocked, and therefore an easier target for a thief.

Henley continued. “If I were a common thief, I'd break into the first door I saw. Better yet, I'd go straight for the front desk. Odds are Aaron keeps some cash there. It's quicker and less risky.”

“So if it's not a common thief . . .”

“We don't know for certain, but we can guess,” Henley said.

“And if the person wasn't looking for us and entered the room when Alanna and Peter were obviously out . . . he must have been looking for a specific object. Something important,” I said.

“The clock?” Henley tried.

“Why would we keep the clock in someone else's room? There's no reason to think it would be there.”

“You don't know if that actually happened or if that's just the paranoia talking,” Henley said.

“I agree . . . but we have to take everything as true for now.”

Henley paced the room in front of me.

It made me impatient and antsy just watching him, so I looked away.

I remembered when the killer had trashed Miss Hatfield's house and had gone through all our stuff. Nothing had been missing. It had seemed as if he was looking for something. What if this was the same?

“What if this person was trying to see if either Alanna or Peter are like me?”

Henley stopped in his tracks. “You mean immortal?”

“Yes. They're the only people we've spent any time with here; maybe this person thinks that means we're the same. And what if he was in their room because he was looking for water from the Fountain of Youth? And maybe a clock of their own?”

“Rebecca, you know this is all conjecture . . . ,” Henley started.

“Conjecture's all we have for now,” I said. “The only thing we know for certain is that this killer will keep on coming after us.”

“So we've got to move as quickly as we can.”

“Yes. And I don't like it, but we need to turn you immortal. And then we confront him.”

That night, we asked Aaron for a room change. We figured that if Alanna and Peter had done it, we could too, but Aaron informed us that he could only switch our rooms with Alanna and Peter's old room. That was all he had left. Henley and I decided against it, since what good would that do? The killer had already proved that he could easily break into that room.

But before we went to bed, Henley took a chair and propped it under the doorknob.

“Just in case,” he said.

I took the scissors from the desk and put it under my pillow.

We both knew a simple chair under the doorknob and a pair of scissors under a pillow wouldn't be that much of a deterrent, but at least we would hear someone trying to break in and we would be prepared. Hopefully.

THIRTEEN

“WELL, WE CAN'T
just sit here and wait for everything to fall into place,” Henley said. “If we're going to make me immortal and find this killer, we need to
do
something.”

I was as antsy as he was, but I didn't show it.

“We should do some research,” I said. “So we know what we're doing and have thought out the next steps.”

“Good. Good. And how do you propose we do that?”

I looked up at him. “The internet, of course.”

We walked over to the library again. This time we knew to bring pence instead of whole pounds. But we still didn't have a credit card. I hoped it was a different woman working the circulation desk this time.

We walked up the white steps and into the library.

I was amazed by the hush of the room. There was no one really enforcing it; people just knew to keep quiet to preserve the tranquility of the space.

I approached the front desk. Thankfully it wasn't the bitter, curly-haired woman from last time.

“Hello. We'd like to use one of the computers here, but unfortunately, we've only brought cash.”

“Oh, no problem at all,” the woman said, putting on her reading glasses.

This woman was older and had her graying hair tucked into a bun at the nape of her neck. She actually looked nice, unlike the first librarian we had met.

I handed her a pound. “Could we pay for an hour of computer use?”

“Certainly.” She rummaged behind the desk before coming around.

The woman walked up to the first free computer she saw. “Would this one be all right?”

“Um . . . could we have that one over there?” Henley pointed to a computer in the far back of the room.

“Certainly.”

We walked over to the far computer with her, and the woman quickly typed in a code that woke the machine.

“That should work,” she said.

“Thank you.”

We sat down after she left, and I opened up the internet browser.

“Where do we start?” Henley said.

“Let's see . . . So if we're traveling to Florida, we first need a place to stay.”

I typed quickly and pulled up a map of Florida.

“Islamorada,” I whispered, trying to find it.

Henley pointed at the bottom of the map. “Is that where the Fountain of Youth is?”

I nodded, zooming into the map so I could see all of the Florida Keys. “That's the island.” I pointed.

“So we'll want to stay near there,” Henley said. “Are there any hotels or places to stay?”

“It's the Florida Keys,” I said, but of course Henley didn't know what I meant. “It's a place where people like to go on vacation. There'll be lots of places to stay.”

I made a few clicks.

“See?”

A list of hotels and resorts flooded the screen.

“So many palm trees,” Henley muttered, looking at the photos.

“Let's go for the cheapest one we can find.”

I ordered the list from least to most expensive.

“Here we go. There's our place.” I pointed to the first link. “Creekside Pointe Resort.”

“Sounds like a trite name,” Henley said. “Let's see the photos.”

It didn't really matter since there was no way we were going to stay at a more expensive hotel, but I clicked the photo link to humor him.

I scrolled through a variety of photos all with palm trees. The lobby had mini potted palm trees. The views from the rooms included palm trees. Even the photo of a suite's bathroom had a palm leaf jutting in from the window.

“Not bad,” Henley said.

“You do realize these are probably the most expensive rooms
they're showing?” I said. “But I suppose this resort will have to do, since there's nothing cheaper.”

“We should write this down.” Henley got up to go to the circulation desk. He came back with a pen and a notepad.

“You couldn't just take one sheet of paper?”

Henley shrugged. “She gave me the whole thing.”

He wrote the name of the resort down, along with a phone number.

“How much is it for one night?” Henley asked. “I just want to write it down so we can begin to budget.”

“That's a great idea.”

I began clicking around until I got a quote. I stopped short.

“Well, how much is it?”

“It's
from
two hundred and fifty dollars a night,” I said.

Thank God we had gotten some money. But what else did we need?

“We really should get a credit card, so we can avoid looking suspicious,” I said.

“And where would we get those?”

“New York.”

“We can buy the plane tickets online ahead of time,” I was telling Henley as we walked toward the shopping center Aaron had suggested. “We can get the tickets from here to New York first. Then when we get to New York, we'll grab the credit card so we have steady money. We'll have more than enough money to buy tickets from New York to Miami. We can also book the hotel room then.”

“I still don't understand why we're going to the mall right
now,” Henley said.

“Because it looks suspicious to go to a resort not wearing anything that looks remotely like resort wear. And also Aaron said they have a tech store. They should have one of those phones that Carl uses—the prepaid ones.”

“We're ensuring that people can't trace our phone calls? Do we really need that? It's not like what we're doing is technically illegal.”

“Well, we don't know how much the killer knows about us. What if he can track our phone? More than that, we need a phone to be able to call taxis and the resort just in case. I just don't want to sign up for a plan,” I said.

We power walked across an intersection.

“A plan?” Henley asked.

“There's more to modern life than you can imagine, Henley.”

We entered the shopping center. It seemed to be divided into a large department store on the left and smaller stores and boutiques on the right.

“Let's get this phone first,” I said to Henley, spying the electronics store on the right.

Tech House, the neon sign read.

“Hello.” An older man walked out from behind the desk as we entered.

“We're just browsing,” I said automatically.

I scanned the shelves full of colorful boxes advertising the electronics they held. I wasn't seeing any phones.

Henley was looking on the other side of the small store.

Maybe they didn't carry any prepaid phones. We were out
of luck then.

“You sure I can't help you with anything?”

The way the old man trailed us around the store made me think his store didn't get too many customers.

“We're looking for a prepaid phone we can use here and in the States. Do you sell those here?”

“Why didn't you say so?” The man straightened his checkered short-sleeved shirt. “They're right here in the back.”

He walked us over to a row of different phones.

“These are all the pay-as-you-go phones we stock. I'm afraid they don't have all the bells and whistles of the new smartphones, but they get the job done, and they all should work in America,” he said. “Would you like two of them?”

I picked up one of the boxes. It didn't matter which one we got, as long as it was able to call other phones. We didn't need anything fancy.

“No, just one is fine,” I said.

“But you'll need something to call your sweetheart,” the man insisted, looking at Henley.

Henley had a smug look on his face. So he thought this was amusing?

“I'll give you a discount on two. Eight pounds off.”

“No, really. It's fine—”

“Ten pounds then,” he said.

“We only need one.” I walked to the desk, making the older man follow me.

“What about Visa gift cards?” the man said. “We sell those too! You can use them to top up the phone when you run out of credit.”

That made me stop in my tracks.

I knew the word “Visa” went with “credit cards” in my mind, but I had never heard of Visa gift cards before.

“What exactly is a Visa gift card?”

“Think of it as a prepaid debit card,” the man said. “You can buy a hundred-pound Visa gift card with a hundred pounds, and then use it wherever you like . . . Of course, there's a small fee of five pounds.”

“We can use it wherever? Including the States?”

“Anywhere you desire.”

This could work.

“Even buying plane tickets?” I asked.

“Of course. Any place that takes credit cards will take Visa gift cards.”

Using a Visa gift card might be the way to go. It would definitely look less suspicious than cash . . . Maybe it'll even look like we're using a credit card.

“What's the biggest amount we can put on each card?” Henley asked.

“Five hundred pounds.”

I looked at Henley. His eyes were rolled up at the ceiling as he did the math.

“We need a fair few,” he said, settling for grabbing a rack full of them. He dumped the cards on the table. “We'll take these too.”

“Good.” The man looked pleased, ringing up our purchases.

I read the price sticker on the back of the phone's box. Twenty-five pounds. Not bad.

Henley handed the man cash, and he looked even happier.
He set up the phone for us before putting it back in its box and handing it over.

I stuck the box and the gift cards inside the backpack we were carrying.

“Have a nice day!” the man said as we walked off.

“I'm guessing the department store is next?” Henley said.

When we walked in, everything was glittering. The floors, the glass cases, the mirrors—they were all polished to a high shine.

I was expecting Henley to gawk, but instead he simply said, “Some things never change.”

“You mean you used to shop in department stores?” There was no way.

“Of course we did. How old do you think I am?” Henley chuckled. “Lord and Taylor, Macy's . . .”

My jaw went slack. “Macy's? You mean you had a Macy's in the 1900s?”

“Don't be silly. Of course we did,” he said. “Now, which section should we look at first?”

Since we had walked into the men's clothing section first, we decided to start there.

“I don't need much,” Henley said.

“I know. I want to save money too, but we have to make you look like you're actually going to a resort in the Florida Keys.”

I grabbed a pair of green shorts.

Henley shook his head. “There's no way I'm wearing those.”

“What's wrong with them?”

“Too bright.”

I put them back, opting for a brown pair instead.

Henley raised his eyebrows wordlessly.

“Out with it,” I said. “What's wrong with these ones?”

“Do you see how short they are? No self-respecting gentleman would wear such a thing.”

“You're not a ‘self-respecting gentleman' in this time period,” I said, though I put back the shorts. “You're supposed to be a normal guy in the 2010s. Act like it.”

Henley reached for a pair of navy shorts. “If I had to show leg, these would be the pair I would wear.”

I held on to those, while we continued looking through the racks.

“Let's see . . . We have shorts now. You can wear the shirts you already have. What are we missing? Swim shorts,” I said.

I found the swimwear section and held up a pair of board shorts.

“You do swim, right?”

“Of course I do,” Henley snapped. “It's like you think I'm ancient.”

I laughed. “How about these, then?”

He took the swim shorts from me. “That's fine.”

I started walking toward the checkout desk.

“Where are you going?” Henley asked.

“To the checkout.”

“Don't you want to look at the women's section?”

“I'll be fine wearing what I already have. It's certainly skimpy enough,” I said. “Miss Hatfield will also probably have left some clothing I can use back in the house.”

“She had resort wear?”

“She had everything,” I said, thinking of the many chests of
clothing I had glimpsed, each containing dresses and undergarments from different centuries. “Are you ready to pay, then?”

“One second,” Henley said.

He steered me away from the checkout desk and toward the jewelry section.

The jewelry section was even more well-lit than the men's section. Light from the fixtures above us bounced off sharply cut jewels.

“What are we doing here?” I asked.

“You'll see.”

Henley walked up to a case filled with rings. Immediately, a shop attendant swooped in.

“Could I help you with anything, sir?” The man wore a slim waistcoat and talked with his hands.

“Yes, actually, you can.” Henley pointed out a ring in the case. “Could I take a look at that one in the back?”