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CHAPTER FIFTEEN

I ’m rewriting history.

That’s my only explanation for the fact we’ve found a twenty-year-old lead to a case I’d poured over a hundred times.

The thought has me buzzing, as if I’ve downed too much coffee, jittery and on fire. I’m not sure why we never saw the connection before, but I can’t ignore the old rush of a hot theory filling my veins.

“Let’s Google it,” I say, holding up the baggie with the burlap label, and when Eve just looks at me, I realize I’ve made yet another time-warp blunder.

Not unlike my suggestion for a digital facial recognition search. Good job, Slick. I’m not sure how much of my inadvertent future knowledge will affect the past, or, uh, the future. Except, now might be the time to invest in Google stock, right? Too bad they don’t exist yet.

Eve shoots me an appropriately odd look. “Do what?”

I rack my brain for a few seconds. “I mean Yahoo.”

She frowns but nods. “Sure. Yahoo.”

She pulls up a chair to a desktop computer stationed in a nearby cubicle and I flip around a folding chair and straddle it, leaning on the back.

I can feel the heat of the spark still lingering between us, the one I lit with my words, “I think I would start all the good things sooner.”

For a crazy second, the smell of her, the look in her eyes, something of surprise, even hope, ignites a different sort of buzz under my skin. Because I know that look. It’s the same expression I get when she puts down her book, late at night, when she just wants me to ease away the ache of the day.

It’s the hint of vulnerability Eve so rarely shows. The hard-wrought intimacy we fought to find after our many dating starts-and-stops.

However, while my twenty-eight year old body stirs with the memories in my head, in that moment it’s the fifty-two year old, well-married man inside me that longs to wrap my fingers through her hair, pull her close, anchor myself to something familiar.

Something known. Something mine. No. Ours.

Except for Silas. His timely appearance brought me up short, reminded me that Eve is not mine. Yet.

She’s young and eager, still relatively innocent and I am, in experience, if not in body, a much older man.

Which makes my impulses suddenly awkward and not a little creepy, and I’m possessed with the strangest urge to protect her.

From myself.

This is really getting weird.

She searches for Good Earth coffee and finds a listing. Not a website, apparently the world isn’t quite that sophisticated yet, but a piece of data with relevant info.

“The company is located in Brazil, with distribution worldwide,” Eve says, reading from the site.

“There has to be a connection,” I say, not because it’s such a rare and unique deduction, but I’m reaching a point of desperation. “It’s our only known link between the two bombings.”

I don’t continue my thought that it’s also the only link to tomorrow’s horror. Unfortunately, yesterday’s search didn’t raise even a sliver of memory.

At this rate, I’ll need some kind of miracle to stop tomorrow’s bombing.

If I even can. Because suddenly every time paradox I’ve ever read whirls through my brain.

Is my failure already written into the timeline, no more than fated scenes about to play out and etched in stone? Or, can I stop it, and if so, does all of history change? Will I wake up to a new life tomorrow?

That brings me to the conundrum that I might actually be stuck here, right? How does one return to their time when they don’t know how they got here in the first place? Art said only, I think so, to my question. I don’t know about you, but in my book that isn’t the reassurance I was hoping for. My watch is still ticking, so, that has to mean something, but what if I’m stuck here forever?

I’ll be smarter. And richer. And maybe I’ll enjoy it better this time around, so I guess I’m not horrified by this idea.

Except … what happens to Eve, in the future? That future. The one I vanished from without a trace. If I never get back, she’ll never know what happened to me. Just like we never knew what happened to Mickey for so many years.

My hands grow clammy.

Then one more thought strikes me like a bolt of cold lightning.

Ashley.

I want them both back now, and that thought puts a fist right through my sternum so hard I nearly gasp.

I have to get back. I will get back.

But while I’m here, I’ll save a few lives. In fact, the first thing I’ll do after stopping this bombing is figure out how to get Danny Mulligan to stop hating me.

For no reason, I might add. His words to me, out of Eve’s earshot, have left a bruise. “I don’t trust you, Stone, and I’m warning you—stay away from my daughter, unless it’s work related. I don’t want you to get her into trouble.”

Everything for the rest of my life will be classified as work related, you can bet on it. But I would really prefer Mulligan to like me, especially since he’s going to be sticking around.

How? I’ll figure that part out later.

I reach over Eve’s shoulder and point to a listing down the page. “What is that article about a protest?”

It’s something from a Canadian news site about an organized protest. Eve reads it as fast as I do.

“It looks like Good Earth coffee was named by the protesters as one of the perpetrators of child labor,” she says, summing up what I’ve just read. “There’s a long list.”

“Who are the protesters?”

“A conglomerate group. The article mentions Free the Children, a couple church groups, and the International Child Labor Defense League.”

“Yahoo that.” That sounds weird. Apparently “Google it” doesn’t translate. “Search for the Child Labor Defense League,” I say, simplifying.

She’s already typing it in and a few hits come up. “It’s a group out of DC. They’ve been involved in a number of protests around the country. Here’s one in Oregon, and another in New York City.”

She pulls up the article. “Oh, wow, they’re not exactly peaceful. Seattle. The burning of…a coffee shop.”

“Was anyone arrested?” I’m reading it too, but Eve’s always been a faster reader than me.

“A couple people. Gus Silva and…Jo De Paulo.”

“Do a search?—”

But she’s already typing, and there is a hit for a Gustavo Silva, Brazilian footballer.

Brazilian.

“He immigrated to the US a year ago with D.C. United,” Eve says. “And was arrested about three months later.”

I sit back and shake my head. “What is a Brazilian footballer doing hooked up with a child labor protest group in Seattle?”

“According to the Child Labor Defense League, Brazil is one of the leading countries that uses child slave labor to pick their beans.”

“Interesting. Where is Gustavo from in Brazil?”

“There’s a picture of his team.” She’s pulled up the team roster. “Wow, about half these guys are international.” She is scrolling down and right about the middle of the page, my gut clenches.

“Stop.” I point to the screen. “That’s Ramses.”

“The guy you chased today?”

I nod and it’s all I can do to sit here, every corpuscle in my body on fire. “I knew it.”

“You think he’s involved with the Child Labor Defense League?”

“He and Gustavo.”

She has clicked on Gustavo’s picture, and is reading his stats. “He’s from a village in the State of Espirito Santo…” She clicks on Ramses pictures. “Bingo. Same as Ramses.”

“They knew each other in Brazil.”

She’s typing again, and the awkwardness of feeling older, even more experienced is starting to dim, flushed away by that familiar, sweet jazz we get when we’re onto something.

“The State of Espirito Santo is the biggest producer of Robusta coffee beans in the world.”

“So these two boys escaped, through soccer. Except, why would Mariana not bring her son with her when she left Brazil?”

Eve looks at me. “Who?”

“Ramses’s mother. Mariana Vega. I know she is divorced, but?—”

“Mariana Vega. Of the Vega Family coffee growers?” She is pointing to a listing on the original protest site. “What if she couldn’t bring him?” Eve turns, her hazel-green eyes alight. “I’ve heard stories of drug lords keeping mothers from seeing their children, from immigrating.”

“Eve, you’re brilliant,” I say, and it’s a such an easy, common word between us that it takes me by surprise when her eyes widen, a smile tipping her lips.

It hits me that this is the first time she’s heard that from me and my throat thickens because I’m realizing that I’m not only rewriting the bombings.

Eve really likes me. The spark in her eye is easy, the smile lit with something inviting and if I’m reading her right—and let’s not jump to any conclusions because I don’t have the most attuned emotional barometer—I’ve somehow accelerated our romance by about a year.

Hooyah.

I’m trying not to act on the pulse between us. “It’s not a difficult leap to suggest that Gustavo had friends—or even family—pressed into the coffee bean labor pool. And maybe Ramses saw it. Maybe he even became sympathetic to Gustavo’s point of view.”

“Maybe Gustavo recruited him for the Child Labor Defense League.”

“But why is Ramses here, in Minneapolis, and not playing on the team?”

She clicked on his photo. “He’s on the injured list.”

“He didn’t look injured when he was doing his 100 meter sprint today. See if you can find out anything else. I think it’s time I have another chat with Mariana and her son.”

Just like that, as if I can hear it, something clicks inside my brain.

Maybe I never heard of Ramses because he was killed in the third bombing. A voyeur to his own crime, drawn in too close to the flames.

“I heard Booker tell you to stay away from her.” Eve looks at me, but as soon as the words are out of her mouth, she bites her lip. “I mean—sorry.”

She has a point. More, probably Ramses isn’t going to give up anything—not unless I haul him down to the precinct for a face to face. It’s a good bet Mariana won’t open her door to me. And, I’m not getting a warrant after today’s tackle.

“He didn’t tell Burke to stay away, though.” I pull out my cell phone and Burke is on speed dial. He’s grouchy and not a little irked that I abandoned him this afternoon—an opinion he didn’t spare when I returned, two hours later, the meeting in Stillwater spinning in my head.

The watch is working.

Whatever. Right now, all I know is that my instincts are also working, and I ignore Burke’s late night ire and update him on what Eve and I have found.

“It can’t wait until morning?” he asks, and for a moment, I’m stymied.

He’s already suspicious of me. How did you know? The memory of his disbelief, his fury this morning punches through my thoughts.

I don’t know how long I’m going to be trapped here, and frankly the last thing I need in my suddenly off-kilter world is to lose Burke’s trust. Still, we’re running out of time. “What if Ramses is on the run? Or worse, planning to hit another coffee shop. Maybe even tomorrow morning?”

I don’t sound desperate, so that’s good, but I let the question linger in the quiet.

It also occurs to me that if we have Ramses, and he’s our bomber, then the nightmare is over.

“I just got home from a gig.”

Right. Burke is still a jazz drummer, even in my time, but now he’s playing for a band that is making a name in Minneapolis. Someday, Sticks, as he’s called, will have to make a choice between his police work and his music.

You know what he chose. So maybe that’s why he’s not a fan of my creative choice. I hadn’t really considered that before.

Still, “Then I’m not interrupting anything. Get up and do me a solid, bro. Just go pick him up. I’ll meet you at the station.”

I am not sure if that is a curse I hear, but he mumbles something and hangs up.

“I did a check on the US distributor of Good Earth coffee. It’s out of Chicago, but their offices are closed.”

“I need a list of coffee shops that use this brand.” I shake my head. “We could use a hacker.”

She laughs. “Right. You and my brother—he’s always trying to ‘hack’ into things. This isn’t the movies, Rem.”

I didn’t know that about Asher. But then again, he died before he could show the world who he was.

Not this time.

My phone buzzes. It’s Burke, texting to tell me that he’s on his way to Ramses’ house.

I glance at the clock. After eleven. We have eight hours, if my sketchy memory is even remotely correct.

Eve stands up. “I’m heading home, but let me know how it goes with Ramses.”

I stop myself from reaching out and tugging on a strand of that twisty red hair, and instead nod. I grab my jacket and am about to start searching the city’s coffee shops when Burke texts me again to meet him at the precinct office.

The parking lot is dark save for the puddle of light from the overhead streetlight. Moths dart through the glow, shadows against the pavement. The air is balmy, seasoned with a hint of freshly mowed grass and the slightest tinge of late night moisture. A breeze lifts my shirt.

I’m leaning against my car when lights stripe the lot and I make out Burke’s Integra. He pulls up behind me, not in a space, and leaves the car running.

His expression is gnarled and edgy when he gets out, and it occurs to me that maybe I did interrupt something.

Naw. Burke is even more of a loner than I am. He works out, reads, and come to think of it, loves time travel books.

Ironic.

“What?” I ask, before he can attack.

“He’s not there.” He shuts the door to his still running car.

“What—?”

“The house was lit up, so I knocked, and Mariana Vega answered the door. Said Ramses had gone out—she didn’t know where.”

I stifle a curse but Burke frowns at me. “So we get him tomorrow?—”

“No, we gotta stake out his house, grab him the second he gets back.”

Burke is giving me a look like he did this morning, or even last night. “What’s going on, Rem?”

Doggone it. “I just think…it’s a?—”

“I swear to you if you say this is a hunch, you’ll lose teeth.”

I close my mouth. Finally, “I was right last night. Why won’t you just trust me?”

I’ve done it now, because I just might be the only person Burke trusts. And he has his reasons, but I know I’ve delivered a jab.

“Fine.” His mouth tightens “Let’s go.”

“No. I have to…well, I have to figure out how to hack into a database in Chicago.”

Burke just stares at me. Shakes his head.

Gets in his car without a word.

And I point my Camaro toward a little bungalow on Webster Ave South.