23 Minutes (12 page)

Daniel hands her a linen hankie and stands up to give her room to pull herself together.

She wipes her eyes first, then mops up the rest of her face. Now what? She has never had a guy—or anyone, for that matter—hand her anything more substantial than a disposable tissue. Is she supposed to return the hankie to him, all damp and nasty as it is, or consider it a gift? In the best of all possible worlds, she supposes she should launder it and return it at a later date.

But this is obviously not the best of all possible worlds.

She looks for him and finds him by the door, picking up her papers, which are strewn about the entryway. She has apparently once again dropped her folder—this time without even noticing when it left her hands.

He is unapologetically reading the papers.

And this time there are no lists of reindeer names.

Daniel comes and sits down next to her again. The top page is the intake form from when she moved into the first group home, the one on Alexander Street. It's the part of the psych evaluation where Dr. Shaheen describes how Zoe is delusional, believing she can travel through time and space at will, making it sound all Syfy-channel stupid.

She tells Daniel, “The one on the green sheet is far less unsettling.” Even though, really, Daniel looks more interested than unsettled.

He sorts through the pages till he finds the transcript of her conversation with Dr. Shaheen where Zoe admits she made up the time travel stuff in order to get attention when her parents were getting divorced. Daniel says, “I'm not sure he sounds entirely convinced.”

Zoe says, “As well he shouldn't have been. The divorce came about
because
of me, because of my perceived mental health issues. All he needed to do was check the dates.”

Daniel asks, “So you're retracting your retraction?”

“Yes,” she admits.

“And … you brought these papers to me … why?”

“Actually I didn't,” Zoe says. “I dropped them accidentally. My group home is shifting to a paperless office, so they're in the process
of uploading all of this stuff onto their computer. Once they're done, the paper files will be shredded. I'm not the techie sort who can hack into computer systems. But anyone with a paper clip could pick the cheap little lock on the office door. I just wanted to see what they were saying about me. Decide for myself what I wanted to leave to be scanned into the computer. I really kind of specifically
didn't
want you to see.”

“Oops,” Daniel says.

Zoe says, “They kind of make a bad first impression.”

Daniel gives a noncommittal grunt. Then adds, “Sort of like carrying a gun might do.”

“Hmm,” Zoe says. He doesn't seem overly concerned by the fact that she's been under psychiatric care, so she's emboldened to ask, “So what do
your
papers say?”

He glances at the envelope which he's left unguarded on the step behind her. But she's been too busy making a spectacle of herself to snoop. “Just trust fund stuff.”

Ooh, trust fund. Zoe's heard of trust funds. If she understands the concept correctly, they're for people who have more money than they know what to do with—money, and irresponsible kids who can't be relied on not to run through the family fortune faster than it's made. She
knew
Daniel was out of her class, no matter what their ages.

He asks her, “Where, exactly, did you see me when I frightened you?”

“Here,” Zoe says. “About ten minutes ago. Or in about ten minutes. Depending on how you look at it.”

“Oh.” Daniel refuses to rise to the bait, to become visibly troubled at her words.

“I was supposed to tell you
armadillo
.”

“Were you?” he asks. “Told by whom?”

Zoe is charmed by his correct usage of
whom.
Rasheena has called her OCD about grammar. Zoe tells him, “Told by you.”

“The last time we met,” he finishes for her, “ten minutes … one way or the other.”

“Actually,” she says, “it was the time before the last.”

“I see.”

“As a code, or password,” she explains. “A shortcut. So you'd believe this … rather unbelievable story I'm telling you.”

He puts out his hand for her to give him back his ID card.

She looks at it one last time, then with uncanny precision of mind, she zeroes in on the single absolutely most irrelevant factor of the entire day. She says, “Lentini? You're Italian?”

With his light brown hair and blue eyes, he looks close to the opposite of Italian, but he only shrugs as he puts the card away.

“So you're a private eye?” Zoe thinks of Mrs. Davies and the old-time black-and-white movies she likes to watch. “Like Sam Spade in
The Maltese Falcon
?”

“Shit, no,” Daniel says with a sudden laugh, then immediately catches himself and hurriedly repeats a simple “No,” apparently in consideration of her young and presumably delicate ears. He says, “So you knew about
armadillo
, but not that I'm a private investigator?”

She nods.

“OK. And why are we here?”

Before answering, she asks him, “Can you keep track of the time? I absolutely need to leave by 1:38.”

His eyebrows go up, but he doesn't ask her to clarify what,
exactly, she means by
leave.
He takes out his cell phone and sets it on top of her folder. “No phone of your own?” he asks.

“No.” She sees that the time is 1:29. Now, she realizes that she's been hearing for a few minutes the sound of rain hitting the front door and the window on the landing, though she hadn't really noticed when it started.

Nine minutes. How could she have let this playback get so out of control? There isn't enough time left to try to intervene at the bank. She must use these nine minutes to learn what she can, including how to convince Daniel about what is going on.

She says, “I really can travel back in time, but only to revisit the last twenty-three minutes. Nobody else realizes they've already lived through those twenty-three minutes. Only me. So people keep on doing and saying exactly what they did the first time, unless something
I
do or say causes them to react differently. And what I'm doing differently
this
time is explaining to you, planning with you. So that I'll be better prepared for next time, knowing what to say, and what works, and what's a waste of time.”

“OK …,” he says in the careful way she finds so appealing, not exactly buying into her story wholeheartedly, but not dismissing it either.

“The reason I've traveled back is because I saw the bank get robbed. You were there, too.”

“And you thought I was involved?”

“Not the first time, but … yeah, later on I came to doubt you.”

Daniel asks, “You can do this time travel thing over and over?”

The phone's display shifts to 1:30.

“Not indefinitely,” Zoe admits. “Ten playbacks is it.”

“And which playback are we currently in?”

Zoe counts up.

Stopping the woman with the two kids and borrowing the phone to call the police …

Trying to alert the bank guard, then watching from the card shop …

Returning to the bank and getting shot …

Sidetracking Daniel into Dunkin' Donuts …

Seeing Daniel's gun and going all freakazoid about it …

Coming to realize she couldn't just let him get killed but that too much time had passed to intercept him …

Here and now. Where, again, she's squandered valuable time.

“Oh crap.” It's more often than she had realized. Dangerously more often. How could she have been so careless? “This is the seventh playback.”

“OK,” Daniel says. “So why, exactly, do you keep going back?”

“Because I keep trying, but I can't fix it so nobody gets hurt. Because that first time, the robber shot you.”

“
Shot?
” he repeats.

“Killed,” she clarifies.

He's still not one hundred percent with her, but he's believing the
possibility
of what she's saying enough to look at least somewhat apprehensive. Not panicked, but cautious. She supposes it's pretty hard to be cavalier about someone—even someone with the papers to prove she's officially been diagnosed as crazy—foretelling your death.

1:31.

Zoe says, “I went back in time, tried calling the police. Even more people got killed. Got you not to go in. Still, he ended up shooting a bunch of people. Nothing I've tried worked.”

“Why did you think having me not be there would keep him from shooting?”

“Because you recognized him,” Zoe explains.

“So who is he?”

Exasperated, Zoe says, “You didn't say.”

“That was pretty unaccommodating of me.”

She worries he's veering into skepticism again, but then he asks, “Well, what did he look like?”

Zoe wishes people wouldn't keep asking her that. “Hard to say. White guy. Older than you.” She's suddenly sidetracked. “By the way, how old
are
you?” Not that it really makes any difference, but it would be nice if he turned out to be younger than he looks.

“Twenty-five,” Daniel answers. Then changes that to, “Well … I will be. Soon.”

She guesses that he rounds his age up to give himself more credibility as a private investigator, to imply more experience. Still. Twenty-four, or almost twenty-five. “Yeah,” Zoe says. “Twenty-five. Me, too. Soon.”

Daniel flashes her a quick smile which makes her willing to forgive the almost-ten-year difference in their ages. Though, of course, there's no way he would feel the same.

1:32.

Zoe says, “So I'm guessing he was closer to … I don't know … forty, maybe. I noticed he was a bit shorter than you.” She indicates up to about the top of Daniel's nose. “I couldn't see his hair because he was wearing a Red Wings cap.”

“Ah!” Daniel says. “A Red Wings fan.”

“Does that mean something to you?” Zoe asks, relieved at how easy this has turned out to be.

“No,” Daniel says. “Eyes?”

Zoe tries to remember. “Yes,” she finally declares definitively. “Two.”

Daniel sighs. “Could you at least see his eyebrows? What color were they?”

Zoe considers. “Dark.”

Daniel asks, “So, probably brown eyes?”

She didn't notice them the first time, but forces herself to picture when he aimed his gun at her. She flinches, then nods. “Yeah.”

Daniel notices, but doesn't comment on, the flinch. “Beard?” he asks. “Scars? Birthmark? Tattoos? Gold teeth? One leg shorter than the other? Name tag, or place of employment embroidered on his shirt?”

Zoe has been shaking her head. Now she says, “I think you're beginning to get off track.”

“Accent?”

She shakes her head again, then adds, “Didn't sound so well educated as you.”

Daniel crosses his arms and looks at her, and she thinks he's amused, but she's not sure. Not even sure why he would be. He says, “This is not a lot to go on.”

1:33.

“Oh!” Zoe suddenly remembers. “His license plate is HDP … ahm … I think it was 374. No. 347. Definitely. I think.”

“No helpful logo on the door? Like a company name? ‘Don't like my driving? Call …'?”

Zoe shakes her head.

“Parking sticker?”

Again, she shakes her head.

“What kind of car?”

“I don't know. Silver something-or-other. Not a truck. Not a van. Just a regular car. Not brand-new. Not obviously old. Don't you have a friend on the police force who can run a trace on the license number?”

He's just looking at her. Apparently he doesn't think this is as brilliant a suggestion as she does.

She explains her reasoning. “Private eyes on TV always have helpful friends on the police force.”

“Yeah,” he points out, “and they also come with their own theme music and commercial breaks.”

“No police friends?” she presses.

“Nobody who can get me the information in five minutes.”

1:34.

Daniel amends that to, “Four minutes.” He says, “Why don't you give me more details about how the robbery goes down. How many customers in the bank?”

“Maybe a half-dozen?” She tells him, “The guard is pretty generally useless.” She feels guilty as soon as she says it, taking into account that he, also, dies more often than not. A close second only to Daniel. She continues, “When you're not there to set him off, I'm guessing maybe the robber suspects one of the tellers has pressed the silent alarm. One of them is a bit jittery about the whole armed robbery thing. The robber shoots her sometimes, too.” She's thinking of the William-Henry-Harrison-coin teller, the one who squealed upon seeing the hold-up note.

“Which teller?” Daniel asks.

“Second from the right.”

Daniel points out to her, “They aren't always at the same stations.”

Zoe supposes this makes sense. She sighs at yet another description called for. “Kind of cold. And snooty. Has a tendency to look down her nose at you.” She considers, then amends this to, “Well, at me.”

Daniel looks as though he's fishing in his memory, and coming up with nothing.

Zoe adds, “Curly auburn hair pulled back from her face with a hairband … green eyes. Teal-colored glasses …”

“Charlotte?” Daniel interrupts incredulously. “The robber shoots
Charlotte
?”

Zoe doesn't remember seeing the woman's name. She's about to say,
Well, yeah, if Charlotte is the one with the reddish hair and the curls and the glasses.
But Daniel is looking so distressed at the thought of her getting shot, Zoe forgoes the snarkiness. He didn't react that openly to news of his own death. She says, “Sorry. Friend of yours?”

She has no right, Zoe tells herself, to feel jealous.