Wakening the Past: A Time Travel Romance (Medicine Stick Series Book 2) (9 page)

Surprisingly she was not back in the past, nor back in the body that had once been hers.

She was hovering outside of human flesh, an observer, but not a participant in the scene.

Bobbi Lawrence, her eyes wide and frightened, was huddled onto a sofa next to an elderly woman.
Nolan Jeffers was one of the three men standing next to the fire, but one of the other two held a rifle loosely in his right hand, his coffee cup in his left.

She took a quick look around the room, wondering how to rescue Bobbi, when she was swept away and found herself once more out in the cold, hanging on to a tree branch.

Bobbi. She had seen Bobbi. Whatever there was in the child of Hart still provided a connection between them.

The girl’s wide, frightened eyes seemed to stare at her, pleading for help.

The momentary sense that she wasn’t alone with these strangers vanished, leaving Bobbi feeling more lost th
an ever.

Last night she’d been standing outside the lodge, looking down at the lake and hardly aware of the car that had pulled past her. Then the car backed abruptly and a man with a gun was telling her to keep quiet and get into the car or she’d be shot.

Once in a lifetime was enough. Well, two lifetimes maybe, but somewhere in the back of her mind Bobbi remembered what it felt like being shot, then fading into oblivion.

She’d gone quietly, wondering why anybody would want to take her. Another man was behind the wheel
; he looked to be a little younger than the one who’d stuck the gun in her face, but neither looked anything but old to her fourteen-year-old eyes.

What was this? The senior citizens’ gang? The hand holding the gun trembled so violently that she hoped that even if he shot, he would miss and the bullet would go harmlessly past her head.

Then she remembered the sheriff had been looking for an older guy escaped prisoner. “You must be Nolan Jeffers,” she said triumphantly. “What do you want with me?”

“You were just handy,” the man with the gun said. “We would rather have a younger kid. And no, neither of us is Nolan and maybe you’d better just shut up.” He looked to the man now driving them away from the park.
“This is gonna work, Terry, don’t worry. Having a hostage is like an insurance policy.”

The driver grunted. “Don’t see what else we can do. We’re kind of forced into a corner. And don’t use my name.”

Bobbi thought uneasily of all the stories she’d heard on television about things people did to kids. “Let me go,” she begged, “my grandmother will be so worried.”

“Don’t
be afraid,” the man with the gun said. “We don’t mean you no harm.”

“No,” the man he’d called
Terry agreed. “We just want to right a terrible wrong.”

She’d recognized the small town of Mountainside as they drove into its streets. Even in the darkness, it would have been hard to miss the low mountains that hung over the town and the
stone cottage which seemed to be their destination lay on the street next to the closest mountain.

They took her inside and gave her into the custody of a white-haired old lady with a sweet face and soft voice who somewhat lulled Bobbi’s fears. She saw her to a little bedroom that smelled of
flowers and lent her an old-fashioned night gown in which to sleep.

When she was left alone to change, Bobbi quickly checked the one window as a possible escape hatch, but it was fixed so firmly that she suspected it was nailed in place.

It was such a small window that she doubted she could squeeze through it to freedom even if she could get it open.

She’d
wakened early and ate the good breakfast provided by the woman who had made pancakes, little sausages and hot chocolate (coffee for the men), then showered and put back on the clothing she’d been wearing since the night before.

All this time, the
gaunt little man sat on the sofa in the living room, the gun at his side. The other man who had brought her here, the driver the other one had called Terry, played checkers with another, a slender white-haired man with a slim, kindly face. None of them looked in the slightest like a kidnapper, but she learned that the slim man was the escaped killer, Nolan Jeffers.

She’d been sitting there, trying to think what to do when her sense that Stacia was present had her looking around. In her own mind, she didn’t so much see the physical differences between the two women as she
, Stacia, and me, Hart.

She was Hart. Somehow she knew that, though emotionally she hadn’t even come close to assimilating that fact.

She had not seen Stacia, but only felt her presence.

“Would you like some more hot chocolate?” the old lady asked.

Bobbi shook her head. If the men didn’t seem like kidnappers, this woman was like . . .like your favorite Sunday School teacher. She was slightly plump with a still-pretty face and hair white as snow. “Thanks anyway, ma’am,” she said.

The woman laughed. “Don’t call me ‘ma’am. Makes me feel old.”

But you are!
At fourteen, Bobbi thought of her parents as aging and her approaching-sixty grandmother as old. These people were all years older than Granny and had to be considered ancient.

The woman smiled. “I’m Mrs. Harris,” she said. I own the antique shop downtown.” She looked around at the others, pointing at each one in turn as she said his name. “That’s
Bill and the ones playing checkers are Terry and Nolan. We’ve all been friends since we were younger than you are now.”

Bobbi tried to smile. Never had the generation gap seemed wider. “You need to let me go,” she said.

Terry spoke up. “We can’t do that. You’re here to help right a terrible wrong. And once you understand what’s going on, you’ll be glad to help us.”

“But my grandmother will be so worried.”

The elderly woman’s face crinkled with concern. “Oh, dear. Terry we can’t have the grandmother worried. Just think how I would feel if one of my grandchildren went missing?”

The man called
Terry looked up from his game. “Maybe we can get a note to her. Tell her the girl’s all right and not to worry.”

“Come on,
Terry. You just can’t go around picking up people off the street. Not me and B.J. or this young lady either. It’s just not right.”

This came from the one called Nolan, the one whom Bobbi guessed was the killer.

“It really isn’t wise,” Mrs. Harris said, “holding us all like this. Now I’m sure you wouldn’t really shoot anyone, Bill, but still . . .”

Bill
picked up the gun and waved it in the air. “Don’t test me, B.J.,” he said. “A man can only be drove so far.”

Up until now,
Bobbi had thought this a comedy, but something about Bill’s face as he spoke convinced her otherwise. He and Terry were the captors, she guessed, while she, Mrs. Harris and Nolan were the captives.

She wasn’t sure
either Bill or Terry was entirely sane.

Having started a room by room search of the lodge, Alistair stepped outside to survey the area when he saw his wife running up the slope toward him. He went to meet her and immediately wrapped her in his own coat. Her lips were blue with cold and she shuddered as he put his arm around her and walked her up to the doorway.

“I saw her,” she insisted. “I saw Bobbi.”

He halted long enough to look back in the direction from which they’d come. “Where?” he asked. “I don’t see her anywhere.”

“Not here. She was inside in a warm little room with other people and one of them was Mr. Jeffers.”

Shock
, he decided, and ushered her firmly into the lobby where he sat her down on the sofa and sent the desk clerk for hot tea. Somehow it seemed to him that tea would be better for her than coffee.

She grabbed his arm. “I’m telling you I saw her, Alistair, and there was a man with a gun .  . .”

“Jeffers,” he concluded, thinking he needed to humor her.

“No, I think he was a prisoner too, him and the white-haired woman. There were two
other men and they were holding Bobbi and the others at gun point. We’ve got to find them before something awful happens.”

Gratefully he accepted the steaming cup of tea the clerk brought from the restaurant. “Drink this,” her ordered, “you’re half frozen.”

She pushed the offered cup away and stared up at him. “You don’t believe me?”

“Now, honey, you’re just a little upset and you haven’t been well . . .”

“I saw her, Alistair.”

“Hart, I only left you a few minutes ago and you haven’t had time to go anywhere and see anyone. You were out there in the cold and started imagining things.”

She stiffened, but before she could say anything else Serena Hudson came into the lobby, her face pale and her mouth set in a stern line. “I can’t find her anywhere. I’m afraid someone has taken her.” She stopped as though reminded of something. “Unless she’s run away again.” She seemed encouraged by this thought. “Bobbi’s very resourceful. She got here all the way from California by herself.”

Alistair encouraged this line of thought since he felt Miss Bobbi Lawrence was not a teenager to be underestimated. She was perfectly capable of having decided to free herself of unwelcome company and calling a cab from Lawton to take her to the airport and a flight home.

“The thing to do,” he told Mrs. Hudson, “is to check her credit cards and see if they’ve been used.”

He patted his wife’s arm. “You sit right here by the fire and warm up, honey, while we find that runaway girl.”

Hart controlled herself with difficulty. She could understand other people not believing her. She could see they would tick off each of the things she’d said she experienced as mental illness. She heard voices. She lived through experiences that seemed unbelievable. And now she said she’d seen the missing girl and an escaped prisoner being held at gunpoint at a distant location.

Even she had her doubts sometime. Certainly delusional people thought the things they saw and heard were real. How could she trust her own mind when even the man who said he loved her failed to do so?

And then she heard the distant, silent call that resounded only in her own mind. ‘Stacia! I’m afraid. Come and help me.’

As silently she answered back, “I don’t know how to find you?”

“A
stone cottage in the street next to the mountain.”

The street next to the mountain. Mountainside where her brother and his family lived. Hart’s brother, she corrected herself.

‘I’ll find you,’ she promised.

Alistair shook his head as he ended the phone call. Bobbi’s grandmother waited anxiously for his report and he hated to tell her. “No indication she’s using her credit cards. At least not so far.”

“
She might have had some cash.”

He nodded. “Most likely that’s what she’s using. She’s a clever girl and would know we could trace her through the cards.”

“But what if someone took the money and cards and left her injured or . . .”

Alistair, who didn’t not want to offer false reassurance, was almost relieved when shouts from the direction of the lobby interrupted their conversation. He hurried from the privacy of the lodge office, aware that Serena came after him.

He found Nikki Benson yelling at his sick and exhausted looking wife. “You’ve got to listen to me. We’re going to lose the house if we don’t get some money soon.”

“Has Tommy been gambling again?” Hart asked, sounding incredibly weary.

“Nikki, I asked Tommy to see that you quit bothering my wife,” Alistair said sternly.

Hart glanced once at him, th
en asked how much Tommy needed this time?

“Ten thousand.” Nikki did a fairly good job of pretending Alistair wasn’t there, though she gave herself away at the end by one nervous glance in his direction. “And it isn’t gambling, not this time.”

“Come on, Nikki,” Alistair objected. “We all know that isn’t true.”

“Tell my brother to come talk to me in person and I’ll see what I can do,” Hart said, ignoring her husband.

Nikki seemed about to protest, but after another glance at Alistair, nodded and then left the lobby.

“Hart, you can’t keep dishing money out to Tommy. You’re enabling a bad habit.”

She shook her head as thought to dismiss his comment. “We’ve got to find Bobbi and Mr. Jeffers. That’s the main thing right now.”

“Honey, there’s no connection between the two except that you’re worried about both of them.”

She merely gave him a long, unfathomable look, then turned and walked away, calling back over her shoulder, “I’m going to my room. Please don’t follow me.”

He watched her go, feeling sick at heart. As her husband, he was the closest relative she had. He wanted to pretend she wasn’t sick, that everything was normal, but he couldn’t. He was not a man to shift responsibility that was rightfully his. She was delusional and as such, a risk to herself and others. He went back to the office so that he could make a private call to her doctor in Oklahoma City.

He barely noticed that Serena Hudson watched him depart.