Page 43 of The Book of Lost Hours

THE FIRST THING A MELIA noticed when she parked the car on James Gravel’s street was that the windows of the pawnshop had been broken.

The lights were off, but the sign on the door was flipped to open.

Opaque plastic sheeting had been hung where the windows should have been.

Shards of glass lay on the ground. She turned off the engine and set aside the map she’d found in the glove compartment, placing it alongside the little black notebook with James’s address, which she’d taken from Moira’s handbag.

The same two gentlemen from before were perched on the stairs.

“He doesn’t need your trouble, girl,” one of the older men said as she approached. “Why don’t you turn around and go back home? Last thing we need in this neighborhood is a white girl bringing her problems.”

“What happened to the shop?” Amelia asked.

The man narrowed his eyes at her. “Couple of feds carrying a warrant showed up just after you left. Terrorized the Gravels, had his kids crying. They smashed in the windows of the shop and tore through just about everything they owned. James is lucky that’s all they did.

Edith took the kids to her folks’ place outside the city. ”

Amelia’s mouth was dry. “And James?”

There was a long, suspicious pause. “He’s in the shop trying to clean things up.”

Amelia felt their eyes on her as she climbed the steps of the shop, careful to avoid the remaining glass.

The bell above the door jangled loudly, making her jump.

The shop was dark, some of the lights smashed to pieces.

The place was in disarray. She let out a shaky breath as a voice behind the counter spoke.

“Selling or buying?”

James Gravel had his back to her, marking something in the shop ledger. His shoulders were rolled forward in defeat, but his voice was unshaken.

Amelia opened her mouth to respond but nothing came out.

“Sorry for the mess. I’m afraid we…” His words died on his lips as he turned to face her.

“Mr. Gravel. I came to…”

“Get out,” James said darkly.

“But I…”

“Go on. Get out of here.” He came around the counter, a menacing expression on his face.

Amelia stepped back. “I need to talk to you.”

James ignored her. He pulled aside the plastic sheeting and scanned the streets, letting the cold air trickle in. There was a bruise on the underside of his jaw. Another on the back of his hand. The crystal of his watch was cracked.

“Where’s your handler?” he asked in a mocking voice. “She waiting around the corner?”

“No, she isn’t with me.”

“What about those trigger-happy gentlemen who came after you?”

Amelia swallowed nervously. “I’m sorry. But I need to talk to you. I didn’t know who else to go to.”

“Well, I can’t help you. Now if you’re really sorry, you’ll get the hell out of here and take your trouble with you.”

Amelia’s eyes passed over the broken windows behind him. The damaged shelving. Her shoulders slumped and she turned to go. James caught her wrist as she reached for the door. He was staring at the bruises on her knuckles. At the angry mark on her face from Jack.

“One of them do that?” he asked.

Amelia nodded. There was a long pause. James let go of her wrist. He turned to the door and flipped the Open sign to Closed.

“Come on to the back,” he said gruffly.

Amelia followed him behind the counter and through to the back of the store. He didn’t look at her and instead began unlocking a wooden chest of drawers.

“What happened to your watch?”

“They took it.”

He scoffed. “You shouldn’t have let them do that.”

“I didn’t exactly have a choice in the matter.”

“Right,” James said with a sigh. “Have a seat.” He gestured to a clutter-filled table.

Amelia didn’t sit. She watched as he lifted the bottom of the wardrobe and reached deep inside. “The Russian boy had a blue flower,” she told him.

James’s hands stilled in their search. “What’s his name?”

“Anton Stepanov.”

“Oh. Yeah. He’s one of ours.”

Amelia swallowed shakily. “H-he said my uncle was too. That he was the leader.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You didn’t tell me that before.”

“I didn’t trust you. With good reason, it seems.” He turned back around. In his hands was a wooden box with a heavy padlock.

“What’s that?” Amelia asked.

“Sit down.”

This time she did, sliding into the seat. “Were you lying about not knowing what happened to my uncle too?”

“Unfortunately, no. That part was honest. But he did come to see me. Brought me these.”

James undid the padlock on the box and opened it. Inside there were watches. Seven of them, all ticking to the same tune. Amelia leaned forward to get a closer look.

“Are those…”

“Watches he stole from the department. Yup.”

“ He stole them?” Amelia asked incredulously. “Does the department know that?”

“I imagine they’re starting to figure it out,” James said with a small chuckle. “Just as they’re probably starting to realize that it wasn’t Anton Stepanov who killed him.”

“So it’s true then? Anton isn’t a murderer?”

“No. Quite the opposite, actually. He’s a target.”

Amelia didn’t know why but she felt relieved.

“A target of who?”

“The department. The Russians. Everyone really.”

“Why? What did he do?”

“Aside from being a rather ardent participant of the resistance? He stole the Russians’ watches too.

All of them. That was the plan, you see.

We were working on organizing the mass removal of watches from government-run timekeeping organizations.

America, Russia, Great Britain… any nation that has one.

We weren’t planning to act just yet, but something happened that made Ernest change his course at the last minute. ”

“What happened?”

“He found Lisavet Levy’s book. The one she used to store the memories she saved.”

Amelia frowned at that. “Anton Stepanov has the book now,” she said, thinking aloud. “Do you think my uncle gave it to him?”

James shrugged. “Couldn’t tell you. He was in a hurry when he came to see me and only mentioned the book in passing. He brought me the watches before he went off to have a little talk with Moira Donnelly.”

“How is she connected to all of this?”

“Ernest didn’t say. Just that he needed to talk to her about the book. I tried to tell him that going to her was a bad idea. But he insisted. Said it was important.”

Amelia felt as though her head was spinning. What on earth was in this book that would make her uncle risk everything?

Shouts outside made James leap to his feet. He tore through the shop to look out the window, pulling aside the plastic.

“Shit,” he hissed. “They’re here.”

Amelia’s stomach plummeted.

James raced past her and began securing the box’s padlock, his frantic hands making the whole thing rattle.

“What do we do?” Amelia asked.

James stashed the box back inside the wardrobe and returned the false bottom. He shut and locked the whole thing and turned back to her.

“Come with me.”

He pulled her into the main shop and began spinning the crown of his watch. The entryway to the back of the shop transformed into a door.

“You first,” he said, the dark expanse of the time space stretching before them. “Wait inside, I just need to…”

The shop door burst open. A shot rang out. Amelia screamed as James’s grip on her arm went slack. He fell backward onto the counter and hit the floor, head cracking against the wood.

“Don’t move or the next one’s for you!”

Fear gripped Amelia’s whole body as she saw Jack standing in the doorway. Behind him, Fred and Moira entered with guns raised. Moira’s silver revolver was the one that made Amelia’s heart pulse with rage. Even after everything else, it still felt like a betrayal.

Jack came forward, keeping his gun trained on her. “You have one chance, sweetheart. One chance to come quietly or I’ll shoot you right here. Understand?”

At her feet, James let out a groan. Jack swung his gun at him, ready to shoot, but Amelia lunged for his arm, knocking it off course.

The gun went off two inches from her head, the bullet ricocheting down into the floor. Jack threw her off violently, landing her just beside James. She scrambled sideways, positioning herself in front of him.

“Leave him alone!” she shouted.

“I’ve had just about enough of you.” Jack raised his gun toward her this time. Amelia braced herself, squeezing her eyes shut.

There was a bang. A shot, but no impact. No pain. Instead, everything held still. Everything fell silent. The room had stopped. Jack was still in front of her. He still had his gun pointed at her head. James was still on the ground. But they were all still. Completely frozen. Suspended in Time.

Amelia’s breath came hard and fast. The only other person unaffected was Moira. She had her gun raised, like Jack, only instead of pointing at Amelia, she had it aimed at Fred.

“Are you all right?” Moira asked, lowering her weapon.

“Are… how… are you doing this?” Amelia stuttered.

“I’m not,” Moira said with a grimace. “You are.”

That’s when Amelia noticed the bullet suspended in midair, halfway between Moira’s revolver and the center of Fred’s skull.

“Me? That’s not possible. I don’t even know what this is.”

“Neither did I the first time it happened,” Moira said in a vaguely mournful voice. “It’s called temporal departure. It’s what happens when someone’s mind and body exist on separate planes of time. Like you.” She came to offer her a hand. “Stand up.”

Amelia scrambled onto her feet, eyes darting around the scene. “You shot Fred.”

“Yes. I’m going to shoot Jack, too, in just a moment so you might want to look away.” She took the gun from Jack’s hands and slid it into her belt.

Amelia stared at her in shock. Moira eyed Jack distastefully, her finger poised on the trigger.

“I don’t understand.”

Moira turned toward her. “I can’t explain it all now. I need you to go inside the time space and wait there until I come and get you.” She gestured to the door James had opened.

Amelia’s eyes widened in horror. “What? No.”

“You said that Anton had a blue flower, right?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Go and find him. He can help you.”

“But I thought… you killed my uncle!”

Moira winced. “Go find the book like I told you to. Then you’ll understand. And as soon as I fix things out here, I will come back for you.”

Amelia shook her head frantically. “No. No, I can’t. I-I-I don’t have a watch. I’ll be stuck.”

“Yes, I know. It won’t be for long. I promise.” Moira reached out and ran a hand over Amelia’s hair, tucking one of the strands behind her ear. “I’m sorry, Amelia,” she said in a hushed voice.

With one hand, Moira shoved her backward through the door to the time space. Amelia stumbled and fell. Before she could recover, Moira had pulled the door shut, trapping her inside.

T HE DOOR closed. Amelia was safe. Safe from Jack and far away from what Moira was about to do. Keeping the gun pointed at Jack, she willed Time to move again. She didn’t need to touch the watch to do it. Time was within her. Fred’s body hit the ground in an instant. A direct shot to the head.

Jack’s eyes flickered in that hazy way. The way people always looked when emerging from an altered past. He wouldn’t know what had happened.

Wouldn’t know why she had her gun pointed at his head.

A part of her regretted that. She wanted him to know why she was doing this.

She wanted him to understand why she was about to kill him.

As he turned to look at her, eyes going wide, she settled for the fact that, even if he didn’t know what exactly had brought them to this moment right here, he knew damn well everything he’d done to her up until then.

“Moira,” he said in a hushed voice. He looked around and noticed Fred lying on the floor. He checked behind her where Amelia had been standing before. His hand went to his holster, finding it empty.

He smiled. Still a prick even when staring death in the face. “Where’s the girl?”

“Safe.”

Jack narrowed his eyes at her. “You trapped her there, didn’t you?”

Moira said nothing.

“And so it all comes full circle. How charming.” He shifted and Moira matched his movements, keeping him right where she wanted him.

Recognition registered on his face, all the pieces coming together.

Pieces that had been right in front of him the whole time, so close to the surface that Moira had been terrified he might see them too soon.

It wasn’t her cleverness or his stupidity that kept him from realizing it.

Jack Dillinger was many things. Crass. Violent.

Chauvinistic. But he wasn’t stupid. It was arrogance that kept him from seeing the truth.

The sincere belief that he still had her, that he had all of them, under his thumb the whole time.

“So this little rebellion…” Jack said, swirling his finger through the air. “How long have you been a part of it?”

“Does it matter?” Moira said.

“I should have known. Ernest isn’t even dead, is he?”

“I guess you’re about to find out.”

“And the girl… that’s her, isn’t it? The child born outside of Time. The baby girl you told me was dead.”

“How long have you known?” Moira asked. She hated herself for giving into his taunting, but she had to know.

“I didn’t. Not for sure. But I’ve suspected ever since that day Ernest brought her to the office. You’re a good liar, Moira, but I know you too well.”

Moira cocked the gun and pressed it against his temple, tired of his games. “Not well enough to save yourself, I guess.”

For a moment, his well-constructed mask slipped. A phenomenon she’d witnessed only once before, years ago. “Just do me one favor. For old times’ sake,” he said, some of the smugness leaving his voice for this final request. “Don’t burn my memories.”

A slight tremor ran through Moira’s hand at his words. “I won’t,” she promised.

He raised his chin defiantly, refusing to give her the satisfaction of seeing him scared. “Well played, Miss Levy.”

Without hesitating, she pulled the trigger twice.