Fate (Wilton's Gold #3) Read online

  There was plenty for him to be contemplating given the opportunity, but he tried to suppress that urge to work, to plan. He’d been given a difficult hand to play, and really needed to understand his current situation before he could begin to figure a way out of it. That was going to take some degree of peacefulness that the haste of the past two days had not afforded him. Sitting here on the patio with the cool ocean breeze blowing through the loose cotton shirt he’d bought when they’d arrived in Florida, now hanging open off of his shoulders, he was bound and determined to grab that little bit of peace.

  Dinner with Dexter and Victoria at a seafood place about a mile from the hotel, which had excellent coconut shrimp, had been spent mostly talking about Kane, and his place in the time travel soap opera taking place around them. They hadn’t learned much that they didn’t know already, but there was a consensus among the three of them that something had to be done to fix the situation. The probable solution raised far more questions than they knew how to answer, though. The most difficult, perhaps, was the notion that they might not be the only ones able to travel through time. That occurrences in the history they knew could have been affected by time travel just the same as George Mellen’s history was, just the same as Jeff’s previous travel had. The fact that they knew what happened to Mellen was of little consequence. The timeline they were now on was history to them and everyone else. If they went back and changed Mellen’s fate because they felt it was the right thing to do, what would stop them from going back in time to change history in any way they wanted? Nothing.

  In truth, a lot of the impetus for doing something was at Dexter’s urging. He felt guilty for letting Kane slip away from him, and he felt responsible. Jeff and Victoria were not as decisive, but they shared the view that the Time Program was responsible for Mellen’s death, so if the Time Program could do something about it, it should.

  Jeff shook his head roughly. He didn’t want to think about the dinner conversation. He wanted to mellow.

  Which was probably impossible – there was too much rattling around in his brain. He tried shutting his eyes and focusing on the sound of the surf. It helped, to some degree.

  Behind him, he heard a knock on the door, and dropped his head in frustration. The last thing he wanted to do was have Dexter come into his room and try to sell him on a plan. As much as he loved the guy, now wasn’t the time.

  Still, he stood slowly and took his time walking over to the door, even stopping to turn on the lamp on the table beside the bed. When he reached the door, he leaned his face up to it, saying, “Dexter, I really need to rest. Can it wait until tomorrow?”

  “It’s not Dexter,” Victoria said from the other side of the door. “It’s me.”

  Jeff nodded to himself and unlatched the door. She was standing in the hallway in a sheepish sort of pose, one leg crossed over the other, her hands behind her back. Like Jeff, she’d changed her clothes and wore a colorful sundress with a thin sweater over the top of it. He realized his shirt was open, and immediately hoped it didn’t conjure any old feelings within her. Though admittedly, he didn’t know the tenacity of their prior relationship – all he had to work off of was a stunted kiss in the airport. “What’s up?” he asked.

  “I was hoping we could talk a little.”

  “About what?”

  She laughed. “About what? I think you know.”

  He glanced back into his room, toward the open glass doors that led to the patio. He really had been enjoying his quiet time and the beach atmosphere. He knew he didn’t want to be cooped up in this room being interrogated by a woman who said she’d dated him. “Go for a walk?” he said half-heartedly. She nodded, so he retreated into the room and put his sandals on – another good purchase. He’d bought a $140 pair, and didn’t feel guilty about it. He figured that if the U.S. government was going to pull him away from his life and force him to do their bidding three years into the future of his actual life, he was going to be compensated for it. These sandals hugged his feet like a swaddled infant. He walked past Victoria and checked to make sure the room door was locked once it closed behind him.

  A few minutes later, their feet hit the cold, soft sand. Jeff ended up taking off his pricey sandals and carrying them, Victoria walking a foot away by his side in stride. The sun had now fully set and the beach was dark except for shadows cast by the hotel lights and silhouettes of couples walking the same way they were. They didn’t speak from the time they were standing in Jeff’s doorway until they were two hotels down from their own.

  “This is a lot to handle,” Victoria finally said, the wheels in her head obviously spinning. “There’s the time travel piece of it, of course, but there’s also the personal part for me.”

  “I would think, given your field and your education, you’d be prepared for this.” He tried to be empathetic, but at this point, this really had to be all business for him. He wanted – needed – his own life, free of collateral damage from the other Jeff’s entanglements.

  She was shaking her head. “Yes, they tell you on the first day of psychology school not ever to allow a professional relationship to turn into a personal one. Why is it you never believe that things can go wrong when they feel so right at the time?”

  “Well, it sounds to me that your relationship was ripe for disaster. Way too much at stake.”

  “When you’re in it, you hope that’s not the case.”

  “I’m not sure what it is you’re wanting from me here,” Jeff said, purposefully pushing his toes into the sand as he walked, simply because it was relaxing – a tactile sensation effectively distracting him from the emotion he could hear in this woman’s voice.

  “I don’t know either. I appreciate your agreeing to spend some time talking with me. I know you don’t owe me anything.”

  A couple passed them, hand-in-hand. Jeff nodded to the man, who nodded back. “Why don’t you tell me about you and the other Jeff,” he said. “The other me. How’d you meet? You said I recruited you?”

  “Yes. It must have been pretty soon after you – or he – returned from your mission to Russia, because it was about that time. I was working for Stanford University on a grant studying hysterical, or fugue, amnesia, as it relates to singular traumatic moments such as terrorist attacks, earthquake or tornado destruction, et cetera.”

  “And what is hysterical amnesia – wait, did you say Stanford?”

  “Yes. Why?”

  It was either an incredible coincidence, or the other Jeff had sought out another scientist from Stanford for a specific reason. The woman, Erica, who he and Dexter had seen in 1849, had been a scientist at Stanford, as well. He’d have to spend some time on that one. But he wasn’t going to mention her to Victoria. “Nothing,” he said, “just trying to paint a picture in my head.”

  “Ok,” she said reluctantly. “Hysterical amnesia is the type of amnesia they use for comedic effect in movies – remember the one when Kermit the Frog gets hit by a car? It’s where you experience a traumatic event and wake up remembering nothing about yourself. No recollection of anything, including the event.”

  “Does this happen a lot?”

  “It happens enough for the government to put some money into it,” she said. “Though it was never confirmed, I believe there were soldiers in Afghanistan that were experiencing the phenomenon, but it happens occasionally in other scenarios, as well.”

  “You were looking for a cure?”

  “Yes, but I left the project when you came calling.”

  They walked for a moment in silence. Jeff could easily see the connection between the burgeoning science of time travel psychology and Victoria’s studies. Both involved specific effects on a singular person’s memory – one remembering and one forgetting. Quite possibly, they were related enough that treatment for one could identify treatment for the other. If, that is, there was a desire to “treat” time travelers so they wouldn’t have to carry around the burden of being alone in their memory of a different reality. It
seemed far-fetched, but he could understand the logic of it. It’d probably make things a lot easier for the USTP if they had a way to make Jeff forget about Russia and Dexter forget about Kane. But why would the other Jeff make that a priority?

  Of course, until then, Victoria’s only job – that he knew of – had been prepping candidates for the time travel program. Perhaps her understanding of how the brain worked was keen enough to proactively address that issue, rather than waiting for it to happen. After all, it was up to her to determine whose mind could handle it.

  “You haven’t told me about how we met,” he said, as warmly as possible. He risked leading her on to learn as much about the previous Jeff as he could from her.

  “Well, the other you attended a presentation I was making in Philadelphia at an APA conference. After my talk, you approached me and asked to take me to dinner – that you had a proposal for me. I think you said, ‘the opportunity to work on science that has never before even been considered.’” She laughed. “I thought you were a stalker. Especially with your not giving me any details.”

  He sighed. “That’s the first thing anyone’s told me about the other Jeff that actually sounds like me.”

  “It does,” she said. “It does. After some convincing, though, I let you take me to dinner. You laid out for me what was going on with the Time Program, which was not yet up-and-running. It blew my mind. But I didn’t understand why you needed a psychologist – and I don’t think you really did either at that point. But as we talked, it became clear. Once you laid out for me what had happened in Russia, and your trip back to the Gold Rush era and how screwed up that had been, it was easy to see why you needed me.”

  “I told you all that?” Jeff was surprised at himself.

  “It was a hard sell,” she said. “I don’t respond well to missing details. I know about the woman with the cell phone. He told me all about her.”

  “Well, he couldn’t have told you all about her. There’s not a lot to tell.”

  They reached a breakwall of stones, which was a natural barrier forcing them to turn around and head back toward their hotel. Another couple sat on one of the big stones smooching.

  They walked for a moment in silence again. The moon had risen over the horizon and was casting its light on the rippling water. It was actually quite breathtaking. Jeff hoped it would distract Victoria from the Erica conversation. He really didn’t want to be discussing that with anyone at the USTP, much less this woman who had such a strange connection to him.

  No such luck. “Do you think that’s where he went?”

  “Where who went?”

  “The other you. Do you think he went to the Gold Rush to find her?”

  Jeff knew his own intentions, so it was reasonable to believe that the other version of himself might have the same ones. He shrugged. “I don’t know. I suppose it’s possible.”

  “And then never come back? That would be painful.”

  “Let’s not jump to conclusions,” he said, holding up his hands even though she couldn’t see them in the dark. “There’s an infinite amount of other possibilities as to where he could have gone.”

  “Yes, but Jeff, that’s the safe bet. I’ve tried to pretend for a long time that it wasn’t, but there’s no avoiding it.”

  “Don’t dwell on that,” he said, hoping to change the topic. “So you come to work for the Time Program... When did you start seeing each other?”

  “Not too long after that. Working so closely together just turned into a relationship.”

  “A close one, I’m gathering?”

  “I thought so.” Way too much emotion in that short statement for Jeff’s comfort.

  “Look, Victoria,” he said, “Like I said at the beginning of this walk. I don’t know what you’re looking for from me. What I did – what the other version of me did – it sucks. If I could find a way to fix it, and not put you through it, I would. You seem like a great person and a talented scientist. But I don’t know you. If you’re envisioning a relationship because you feel there’s some connection, you’re really starting at square one – up to and including our introduction, which happened today at the airport. I don’t want to put you through that because in absolutely no way am I even considering looking for a relationship. When I was in Russia, I wasn’t looking for a relationship, so the fact that I came back and dove into this one tells me you must be a pretty special girl. But it’s not in the cards.” He couldn’t see her face, so he wasn’t sure how that was going to go over. But he couldn’t afford to let her emoting go on for too long.

  “Like I said at the beginning of this walk: I don’t know what I want from you, either,” she said. Pretty grounded. “You’ll have to allow me a little leeway, though. You showing up here after I’ve been heartbroken for a year-and-a-half is all-consuming. Yes, I’d like to think that my education and knowledge in psychology could mitigate that, but it isn’t doing the trick. A part of me wants to punch you, a part of me wants to put my arms around you and not let go. But wait – there’s this wonderful twist. You have no idea who I am. How is a person supposed to deal with something like that?”

  She was starting to get a little animated, so he tried to calm it down with humor. “Maybe some of that amnesia would come in handy,” he said.

  “Jeff, I’d pay anything right now,” she said. “There has to be an answer.”

  He sighed. He didn’t want to care, but he found himself caring. Not for her because of any romantic story she had from the past few years, but as a colleague and someone he could see being a friend. As long as she kept her distance, he determined he would try to help. With time travel, there was always a way. Probably not a sure-fire way, but there was at least hope. For now, though, he had to keep things in perspective – and help her to do the same. “Victoria, you have to accept the possibility that there is no answer. It might be something you have to deal with and move on from. Just like any other break-up. Just like any other loss.”

  “I know,” she said. “Unfortunately, I was just getting to that point, then here you come into my life.”

  “I understand, and I’m sorry about how that affected you. Believe me, I have my own issues. Try missing three years of your life and having everyone you care about think you’re dead.”

  “You’re right,” she said. “I’ve made this about me, but there’s so much more to the situation. If only-”

  Jeff’s phone buzzed in his pocket and he held up a finger, not knowing if she could see him in the darkness. He took the phone from his pocket and checked the screen. Dexter. “Hello?”

  “We’re shut down,” he said.

  “Who’s shut down?”

  “We are. No more Kane mission.”

  “Why?”

  “I don’t know. I just got a call. We’ll talk when you get back.” Jeff hung up.

  “What’s going on?” Victoria asked.

  “Dexter says we’re not going back to get Kane. Said the mission was shut down.”

  He could see her nodding in the hotel lights. “Yeah, I had a feeling that might happen,” she said.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  December 12, 2018

  Dexter stood up dramatically, pushing the chair he’d been sitting over backward. It was more aggressive than he’d intended the motion to be, but he didn’t regret it. He paced for a moment toward the enormous window peering out over the USTP’s sculptured grounds, then turned. “If we follow the Time Program’s rules that we’ve laid out and everyone’s agreed upon, there is no way we shouldn’t go back and fix this.”

  Dr. Bremner looked up at him from the other side of his big desk, remaining stoic despite Dexter’s animation. The orders had been given – they had no choice but to follow them. “Dexter, you need to separate your emotions here. We haven’t come up against a circumstance like this, so it would have been impossible for us to predict it enough to put rules in place.”

  “Then why do we have rules in the first place?” He moved back toward his cha
ir and picked it up off the ground. Bremner’s office was the epitome of government overspending, ostentatiously decorated and peppered with photos of the doctor standing with a wide array of Beltway dignitaries and celebrities. As expected, it was a corner office, though one window looked down onto the USTP atrium, the other to the outside.

  Dexter’s frustration was not wholly due to their mission to fix the Kane situation being called off. It was also how it had happened. Apparently, as they’d found out when they returned from Florida, as soon as they’d left Kane’s house, the decrepit old man had made a call to the highest levels. The highest levels. While Jeff and Victoria had been out walking on the beach, Bremner, who had sent them to Florida in the first place, had gotten a cease-and-desist call from the White House, nixing the Kane mission. Bremner had taken it to heart.

  “Dexter, I understand your concerns,” Bremner said. Though Jeff and Victoria were standing behind him, Dexter was the only one that he’d addressed so far. “But you are the only one who knows what Kane did in the other reality. The only person on Earth. Even these two don’t know. We cannot justify upending the current history – that everyone’s a part of except you – just so you can clear your conscience. Understand?”

  “Then the rules need to be rewritten,” Jeff said from behind him. It was the first time he’d spoken since they’d arrived at the campus. Dexter turned to look at him.

  Bremner hesitated for a second, then nodded. “Well, yes. You’re probably right.”

  “But they need to be rewritten to protect this from ever happening again,” Jeff said. He was solemn – he was putting out an image that Dexter hadn’t seen since he’d created this new toy called time travel. It wasn’t even scientific. It was cautious. Apprehensive. He immediately wondered where he was going with this line of thinking. “What happened with Kane is a learning experience, and, I’m sorry, Dexter, I agree with Dr. Bremner. We shouldn’t go back and fix it. This Kane that we met today is an honorable man, and we shouldn’t take that away from him. However, we must do whatever we can to make sure nothing like this ever happens again.”