Time of Departure (30 page)

He wiped my tears. “Tell me, Claire! Tell me now!”

“Her name is Victoria Chan. She's a student at the university. She lives off campus. She went running this morning—on that path that circles Lake Alice. It was early this morning! He's probably taken her!”

“Do you know her address?”

“No! Yes! I mean … I knew it, but I just … I can't think!” I raked through my memory. “Somewhere on Third … Southwest Third!”

“Street or Avenue?”

“Avenue!”

Marc's face hardened. He straightened. “I'll make a call!”

“No! No calls! Just go yourself! Don't waste time trying to find her apartment. Go straight to Lake Alice! Search the running path!”

“I have to call the office! They can get there faster!”

“Maybe, but if you do…”

How can I tell him this?

“What? Tell me!”

“Her disappearance hasn't been reported.” I took a breath. “Victoria Chan won't be reported missing until seven o'clock tonight. If you make that call, you'll eventually have to explain how you knew five hours earlier. Who's going to believe a psychic told you, much less a woman from the future! Where were you between six and eight this morning?”

“Asleep at the apartment. We worked till nearly four this morning.”

“You could end up being a suspect!”

He stared at me. I watched realization dawn. I thought he was going to be sick. After a few seconds, he stood up. “I'll go myself. But I'll be back tonight.”

“No, you won't. You'll be working straight through. After the report comes in tonight, you and a cop named Lipinski and an FBI agent will go to her apartment.” I paused. “I know what you think of Lipinski, by the way, and you're right.” Marc cocked his head in surprise. Before he could respond, I pressed on. “Tomorrow, an engineering student named Matthews will come forward. He'll tell you he passed an Asian girl while he was running the Alice Lake loop this morning. They were running in opposite directions, so he got a good look at her face. He'll take you to the spot where he saw her. The FBI will waste a whole bunch of time running a background check on him, but it's not him, and he has an alibi for almost every other disappearance.”

“You know all this.” His words were framed as a question, but sounded like a statement.

“Yes, Marc. I do.”

“I'm starting to believe that.” He leaned over me, his hands on my pillow, and whispered. “You didn't even give me a chance to ask why you're in here.”

“Kidney infection.” I smiled. “Probably from too much sex.”

He chuckled. “You get better, young lady! I need you!”

“I need you, too. And, don't worry … I will get better. This isn't over.”

“I'll call the nursing station every day. When they tell me you're being discharged, I'll come for you.”

“Okay.”

His kiss was long and soft. “If I didn't love you so much,” he whispered, “I'd have you committed.”

“If I didn't love
you
so much,” I replied, “I'd commit myself. Now, go!”

Marc left quickly, but I knew we had lost.

All I'd managed to achieve—at the cost of a young woman's life—was credibility with Marc. I had planned to tell him everything on Friday night, after shocking him with my
Amoco Cadiz
prediction. I had set out on the sheet of paper every detail I could remember from the first forty-eight hours of the disaster, even—as Marc had pointed out—the exact time the tanker had gone permanently aground (it had grounded twice). I had planned to convince Marc to save Victoria Chan's life. If he was successful, I was going to tell him about Harlan Tribe and save Amanda Jordan's life as well. I'd been ready to change the past and take my chances, even if that meant amputating myself from the future.

But,
I kept thinking,
I'm still here, in the past. I'm thirty-one, flesh and blood, and living in 1978 with all my memories intact. Which means: I must have lived in the future.
Would I vanish from existence if I saved two lives and changed history? Or would I live on, in some new life—in a new “time line,” as one physicist had described it in a speculative article I once read?

A time line with a different set of memories.

I kept coming back to the same question. The question I couldn't face, and couldn't avoid.

Could there be two of me?

I'd been trying to think it through, but then I got sick and my grand plan to save Victoria Chan failed.

So, maybe I wasn't meant to save her.

Or Amanda Jordan.

But then … why the hell was I here?

 

43

That evening, Nurse Bowles showed up at my bedside. She had a young orderly in tow.

“Your policeman friend must have some pull with our Admin Department.”

“What do you mean?”

“He wants you off this ward.” She wrinkled her nose. “I can't say I blame him. We've been asked to move you.”

They rolled my bed out of the room and down the corridor to a private room.

Before Nurse Bowles left, I asked if Marc had left any messages. He hadn't.

But a few hours later, another nurse came to see me. “I just received a call from a police officer in Gainesville.”

“Detective Hastings?”

“Yes. He asked me to give you a message. He said to tell you they were still searching. He said you would understand.”

I had expected this, but it was still a shock. I let out a rattling breath.

“Can I get you anything? Are you comfortable?”

“I don't think I'll ever be comfortable.”

She eyed me curiously. “You're not talking about your health, are you?”

“No.”

“Do you need someone to talk to?”

“Why?”

“You're … different from most patients. When you were sick, you said some things. Some of the nurses think there's something else going on with you.”

Here we go again …

“You mean something psychological.”

But she surprised me. “Not really. Just some of the things you were saying. We wondered if you're not, you know, from here. I mean, you sound American, but…”

I played it straight. “Actually, I grew up not far from here … over in Archer.” And to head off any further conversation, I added, “You know, I really need to sleep.”

She gave me a long look, then proceeded to dim the lights and leave the room.

Of course, I didn't sleep. I was awake most of the night.

By Wednesday, my temperature was back to normal. The IV was gone and I was on oral antibiotics. I had a bit of lingering abdominal pain, but as far as I was concerned, I was ready to go home.

My doctor thought otherwise.

Dr. LaPierre was a six-foot-four giant with hands like suitcases. Every time he visited me on his rounds, I was worried he would announce that he needed to do a pelvic. That never happened—at least during my compos mentis period after Sunday—but on Wednesday morning, he told me he wanted me to stay one more day.

“Why?”

“For observation.”

“Could you be more specific?”

“You had a serious run-in with bilateral pyelonephritis, Claire. You're very lucky the infection didn't spread to your bloodstream. I'm worried about permanent damage.”

My heart sank. “You mean, damage to my kidneys?”

“Yes. The hospital has just installed a new B-mode scanner. I'd like to run you through a test.”

“Are you talking about ultrasound?”

“Yes.” He looked intrigued. “You've heard about that?”

Uh-oh … be careful.

“I … read something. It uses some kind of a sound wave for medical imaging.”

“Congratulations! You're the first patient I've ever met who has even heard of it. I'll book it for later today. I'll come back to see you when I have the results.”

“When will that be?”

“By tonight.”

He was as good as his word. Just before six, he reappeared at my bedside. He stood there silently, just looking at my face. It was a bit unnerving. I steeled myself for bad news.

“You're an interesting patient.”

I blinked. “I hope that's a good thing.”

“Well, before I get into the ultrasound results, you haven't provided us with any background information, Claire. Who's your regular doctor?”

For lack of a better answer, I said, “I don't have one.”

“You must have seen a doctor sometime. It would be helpful if we could get a clear picture of your medical history.”

“I've never been sick.”

“I think you have.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you have no appendix.”

I groaned inwardly. I'd had an acute attack of appendicitis when I was twenty-six and been hospitalized for two days.

“Oh, yeah, I forgot,” I replied lamely.

“But that's not what makes you interesting. What makes you interesting is that you have no surgical scar.”

“Yes, I do.”

“You have four tiny scars on your abdomen, Claire. Two of them are almost invisible.”

“They did it with a laparoscope.”

He raised an eyebrow. “Even more interesting.”

“What is?”

“May I ask where this surgery was performed?”

The correct answer was Gainesville, but I knew I couldn't tell him that. Then I remembered something Sam had always said:
When Americans run out of good ideas, they steal from the Europeans.

I picked a country with a reputation for precision. “In Switzerland. I was on vacation.”

“Hmm.”

“Hmm, what?”

“I read the literature, Claire. I'm very diligent about that. As far as I know, no one has ever done a laparoscopic appendectomy.”

He had me. I fabricated quickly.

“I think, uh, the technique might have been experimental. I was pretty much out of it. My father dealt with the doctors.”

Intelligent eyes locked on mine. “Ultrasound, laparoscopy … you seem to know a lot about cutting-edge medical equipment for someone who's never been sick.”

Yeah, pal, and I'm not even a doctor.
I tried to adjust the topic. “Speaking of ultrasound, you were going to tell me the results.”

“It looks okay, but the blood flow is not perfect. I'm going to let you out of here, but I want to see you for a follow-up in three weeks. Call my office and make an appointment.” He looked at me curiously. “In the meantime, I'll do some research. When I see you, I'd like to hear more about this operation.”

Time to find another doctor …

Marc picked me up on the following morning. He had already settled my bill when he came to my room. I offered to contribute all my earnings from the bar, but he wouldn't hear of it.

On the drive back to Cross Creek, he told me what had happened on Sunday after he left the hospital. A highway patrol trooper had clocked his pickup going over ninety on I-75. He'd lost fifteen minutes talking his way out of the ticket. He'd parked on Mowry Road and walked the entire length of the loop trail around Lake Alice. Finding nothing, he realized he was stuck with what I'd told him. So he'd gone back to his office, worked at his desk until just before seven, and then taken the elevator down to the police department's main reception area. He stood there with a sheaf of paperwork in his hand, pretending he was waiting for someone—and feeling like a fool. That feeling evaporated at exactly six minutes after seven, when a young coed walked in and asked to file a missing person report. The sergeant on reception had just launched into the standard line about waiting twenty-four hours when Marc intervened.

“The girl's name was Cynthia Bascombe. She told me her best friend was missing. They were roommates and she hadn't seen her since she went out for a run at seven o'clock that morning. The missing girl's name was Victoria Chan.”

Marc had kept his eyes firmly on the road while he was talking, but now he turned to me. “You were right. About everything. We found Miss Chan's car parked on Memorial Road.” He turned back to the road. I could see his jaw muscles working. “I'm sorry I doubted you, but it's still hard to take in.”

“For me, too.”

We didn't speak for the rest of the drive.

When we got back to the cabin, Marc made me go straight to bed. I didn't argue. I wasn't just feeling weak. I was desolate.

Marc brought me a cup of peppermint tea and sat on the edge of the bed. “I told my boss I needed some time off for a family matter. I'm here until Wednesday.”

I took his hand. “Family matter, huh?”

“Absolutely.” He kissed me on the nose. “I'll take care of the meals; you just get well.”

“Sounds good.”

“I wanted the time for something else as well.”

“I think you're ready now.”

“This is going to make me crazy, isn't it?”

“Just as crazy as it made me.”

“Okay. We'll start when you're feeling up to it.”

“We'd better start tonight. You're going to need time.”

“For what?”

“To think.”

 

44

I dropped
Future Shock
on Marc's lap. “Did you ever read that?”

“Started it. Never finished.”

“You won't need to. The future ain't what it used to be.”

“I have a feeling ‘impossible' ain't what it used to be, either.”

He wasn't smiling.

It took us two days.

Two days of me talking almost nonstop and Marc listening.

The skepticism was gone. I was amazed at how quickly he adapted to the ludicrous proposition that the woman sitting next to him had lived most of her life in the future. The
Amoco Cadiz
may have been the tipping point, but my predictions about the Victoria Chan case had closed the deal.