Timebound(114)
“I’m not sure that’s possible,” Katherine said as she started buttoning up the dress. “I don’t run CHRONOS—Angelo doesn’t even run CHRONOS. And I can’t control other people’s actions, only my own. Believe me. I’ve tried a few times.”
She was clearly thinking of Saul. I rifled through my memory, trying to dredge up the dates. When had she become suspicious of Saul?
“I know that, Katherine, but I also know you’re a very resourceful lady. You’ll think of something.” She finished the last button and I turned to face her.
“And… the concerns that you’ve had? That maybe Saul is not sticking to protocol as closely as he should? About his friends at the Objectivist Club? Check his bag when he returns from Boston. But—you can’t confront him about any of this until April 26th. There will be an argument. You need to leave a message to let Angelo and Richard in on your concerns at that point. And you must be scheduled to take the jump the next day—on the 27th.”
Her expression grew increasingly skeptical as I added each new complication to the plan. Katherine was a skilled actor—she had to be in her line of work—but could she really pull all of this off? And if she didn’t, if she never made the jump to 1969? What would I find when I got back? Or would I even get back to my own time?
“Oh, and um… you’re pregnant,” I added with an apologetic smile as I sat on the bed and began to squeeze my feet into the boots. “You probably don’t know that yet, because it happened after the New Year’s Eve party.”
Katherine looked a bit uncomfortable at the mention of that night, and I focused on the shoes again as an excuse to look away.
“You can’t tell Saul about the pregnancy,” I said. “Not until you know how he reacts to you finding… what you find in his luggage.”
My fingers slipped on the buttons of the shoe and I cursed softly.
“But you already know how he reacts,” she said, reaching up to pull a pin from the back of her hair. She bent the hairpin in two places with a quick twist of the hand and gave me the result—a makeshift buttonhook. “I’m smart enough to connect the dots. He’s not going to respond in a reasonable way. But you expect me to go back, knowing all of this, and act like everything is fine for what, nearly two months? And to go through with an unplanned pregnancy that I could easily terminate at this stage?”
“I’m sorry,” I said, bending down to finish the shoes. “I know this is asking a lot. But if you can’t find a way to make this happen, exactly as I’ve said, I’m pretty sure that history is going to be rewritten on a grand scale. And, without giving too much away, you will not approve of the rewrite.”
“I don’t approve of any changes to the timeline,” she said, pressing her lips firmly together as she retrieved my bonnet from the cane-backed chair next to the fake window. “That’s what makes it difficult to believe what you’re saying.”
“Well, you’ve made an exception this time. At least, the Katherine that I know made an exception,” I said, holding her eyes with a steady gaze. “In fact, she’s spent most of the past twenty years trying to orchestrate this exception—even going so far as to arrange my parents’ meeting on the off chance they’d produce me. And unless you follow her lead, millions—no, let’s be honest, it’s probably billions—of people are going to die well before their appointed time.”
A long stare later, she let out a shaky breath. “Well, if that’s the case, granddaughter, I guess we’d better go.”
21
I really think we would have made it out of the hotel unnoticed if Kiernan had just stayed put on the sidewalk like Katherine had told him. Or if we hadn’t taken a wrong turn at the second corridor, which turned out to be one of the blind hallways Holmes had thrown into the floor plan just for grins and giggles. If either of those things hadn’t happened, Holmes would still have been in the office on the other side of the exit.
But both of those things did happen. The creditor Katherine had lured in to distract Holmes was downstairs, arguing loudly with Minnie, who was demanding that he wait for Holmes in the parlor. Holmes was on the landing between the first and second floors, holding a gun in one hand and the back of Kiernan’s shirt in the other.
“Good evening, ladies.” Judging from the pleasant smile on Holmes’s face and the humorous twinkle in his blue eyes, he might have been planning to engage us in a casual chat about the weather. “Does this young fellow belong to either of you?” he asked.