“It’s like a fucking rotary phone,” he said.
The idea struck him as funny, and he laughed. Harder and harder, he shook with giggles as his legs grew weak beneath him. He stepped down to the floor and steadied himself on the worktable until the laughter began to taper off to chuckles and snorts. Evan wiped his eyes and looked back at the clock, expecting the numbers to be gone, hidden once more in the strange calligraphy.
They weren’t. Apparently, once seen, you couldn’t un-see them.
“Curiosity killed the cat and nothing in the world could bring him back.”
Evan swallowed, not liking the sound of his voice in the basement. He needed to get to work, enough messing around. But as he turned away, his eyes snagged on the four hands of the clock, now pointing at distinguishable numbers. He froze, feeling as though he stood at the edge of a bottomless cavern, his toes encroaching on empty air. Which way to step? Onto solid ground, or into the emptiness?
You know why you’re down here and not upstairs punching away at Justin’s outline, just like you know why you haven’t left this island like any sane person would have by now. You know. Dispense with the self-serving lies. I am the self, you can’t bullshit me.
Hating the voice inside, Evan noted the placement of the clock’s hands and took in which numbers they pointed at. One, nine, one, nine—1919. He tried to remember if he’d bumped the hands. No, he hadn’t. He rubbed his face, swiping at his eyes, which were much too tired all of a sudden.
How many people had been around the clock over the years? How many curious fingers had touched, prodded, spun the hands? A warmth glowed in the base of his stomach, the same as earlier that day on the boat when Selena kissed him. Excitement. The possibility of something impossible. He opened his mouth as though to speak, to chide himself out loud, and then shut it.
The idea, hidden beneath the dark waters of obscurity over the past days since finding Bob’s notes, rose from the depths, becoming clearer and clearer. For a moment he tried to refuse it, to push it back below to where it would return to the indefinable shadow it once was, but instead, he let it come fully into view. The enormity of the possibility, along with its insanity, almost floored him. Evan gripped the back of the chair and slowly slid into the seat, the strength leaving his legs.
Once seen, it can’t be unseen.
Evan looked at the monstrosity standing indifferent against the wall.
“He tried to go back, back before she got sick.”
He didn’t know if he spoke of Abel or himself. His jaw worked soundlessly, and if the lights were to wink out, he knew he would die, crushed by the immensity of the concept that now breathed—pulsed—with life.
“I can go back.”
Bob’s words spoken aloud should have chilled him, but they didn’t.
Evan shut his laptop, went to the diagrams at the far end of the table, and began to read.
~
When he awoke hours later in his bed, it was to the sound of a pistol cocking. A very round, very cold circle of steel pressed into his cheek, and he saw the outline of a man standing over him. Evan’s heart went from a normal beat to a full racehorse gallop in less than a second. Adrenaline rushed through his recumbent form, and he trembled beneath the light blanket that covered him.
“You yell, I kill you and then your son, you understand me?”
The man’s voice was low and unsteady. It wavered as though he were shaking too, but Evan couldn’t feel any vibration through the barrel of the gun.
“Yes,” Evan said, his voice a sleep-filled croak.
The man leaned over him, and the pressure of the gun increased. He wondered if the intruder had changed his mind and would pull the trigger in the next second, sending him on to whatever waited. The bright thought of seeing Elle flared, extinguishing as he imagined Shaun waking to a single gunshot, frightened beyond anything he’d known before as a strange man entered his room to end his life. The worst part would be Shaun wouldn’t know what was happening or why. This thought kept Evan still, waiting for the man either to speak or to let down his guard enough for him to launch an attack.
“Where is it?”
So it was a robbery.
“What?” Evan said. The barrel pushed so hard against his cheek, his teeth ached.
“The clock, the fucking clock,” the man said, his voice coming out in a rasp.
“Downstairs,” Evan said, readying to fling his hand up and roll his body at the same time.
The gun drew away, and the man stepped toward the door. Evan saw his arm reach out for the switch. Light flooded the room, and he found himself looking at a late-middle-aged Asian man with close-cropped dark hair. His eyes were narrowed against the glare of the sudden light, and his mouth was a hard line drawn at the bottom of his face. The revolver in his hand was so large, it seemed like a prop out of an action movie. Evan sat up, careful not to make any movements too fast.
“What do you want?”
The man’s mouth quivered. “I want to see it.”
“You can have it, as long as you don’t hurt my son.”
The man grimaced and stepped forward, leveling the gun at Evan’s forehead.
“What did you do to her?” he asked. A tear slid free of his left eye and caught the light before rolling out of sight under his jaw.
Evan brought his hands up to his shoulders and leaned back. “Who, who are you talking about?”
The man’s lips moved, but his teeth remained locked together. “Becky, my daughter. What did you do to her?”
Evan’s mouth dropped open, and he took in the likenesses of the man before him and the young PCA—the same color hair, the same cheek bones.
“I didn’t do anything to her.”
“Bullshit,” Becky’s father said, thrusting the handgun forward.