Page 55 of The Book of Lost Hours

“I am not the only one who knows what you did to her. There are others like me who see what you people do. We know that it’s wrong. She was just the start of it. We are here to fight for her. To keep people like you who murder innocent girls from rewriting history.”

“And what about the book?”

“Book?”

“The book of memories she carried around with her. Rumor has it you’re the one who took it from her. What happened to it?”

The muscles in Vasily’s jaw rippled. “Why do you want it?”

“Don’t play coy with me. You know why. For the memories it contains.”

Vasily’s face twisted into an ironic smile. “Ahhh. Which memories are you afraid of my superiors seeing?”

Jack gave Vasily a dark smile of his own. “Does it matter? Where is it?”

Vasily laughed in Jack’s face. “For that, Mr. Dillinger, you will have to kill me.”

Jack let out a sigh and stepped back. “I could do that. But fortunately for both of us, we have other methods of getting what we want.” He beckoned for Moira to come forward. “Clean this up for me. I want to see those memories before you get rid of them.”

Moira didn’t move. The man was staring at her with fierce hatred in his eyes. This man who said he fought for Lisavet Levy. Why had he mentioned Amelia? Did he know what Lisavet had done?

“Donnelly,” Jack said. “Don’t make me ask again.”

Moira moved toward him, taking the black notebook in hand. Collins came forward to administer the tranquilizer.

Without warning, Vasily Stepanov broke free from the hands that were holding him.

He took the gun from Brady with frightening dexterity and lunged forward, grabbing hold of the closest person.

Moira screamed as he jerked her sideways.

Her back slammed against his chest, the notebook flying from her hands.

She felt the cold end of the pistol press against her temple.

Vasily dragged her backward, one arm locked tight around her neck.

“Move away from the door or I will shoot the woman!”

Everyone in the room froze, guns raised. Moira looked at Jack, dread pooling in her stomach. Would he comply? Or was she expendable after all?

“Move. Now!” Vasily barked again, desperation leaking through the cracks in his voice. The pistol shook in his grip.

Moira squeezed her eyes shut. She reached for Time, feeling it shudder within her, and pulled it to a stop.

The world froze for everyone but Vasily.

She reached for his gun, twisting it from his grasp, her other hand gripping his jacket.

Their eyes met as she cocked the gun back before he could retaliate.

“On your knees,” she ordered in a voice that scarcely belonged to her. “Now!”

He dropped to the ground, disoriented and panicked, one hand twisting in her skirt. He could disarm her if he wanted, he was strong enough. But that was the benefit of bending Time the way she could. It put the fear of God into even the strongest of mortal men.

“You mentioned Lisavet Levy’s child,” she said sharply. “Tell me what you know.”

He hesitated.

“Tell me!” she said louder, pressing the gun to his forehead.

“I saw Lisavet Levy take her into a memory. Time walking, they call it. The baby was alive when she went in but when Lisavet came back… she came alone. I saw the ground give way. We have been looking for the child. Searching all the memories the Americans try to destroy.”

“Who else is looking?”

“Nobody. Just me. Nobody else.”

Moira pressed the gun more firmly against his head. “You said ‘we.’?”

“I misspoke. It is my English. I meant me only.”

He was lying. If she wanted to, she could unfreeze Time and let Collins knock him unconscious. She could find out the truth. But if she did that, then Jack would know too. She cocked the gun.

Vasily started begging. “Please. Please, I have children. A son. Three little girls. Their mother is already gone. They need their father. Please, think of the children.”

“I’m sorry,” she said. She meant it. Four orphaned children were a heavy price to pay to keep her own child from being discovered. “I have a daughter to protect, too.”

In the last seconds before she pulled the trigger, she thought she saw a glimmer of recognition in his eyes. His body slumped to the floor, his hand falling onto her shoe. Moira let out a loud gasp. She allowed herself five seconds to compose herself before reaching for the hands of Time once more.

Behind her, the four timekeepers fell back into motion. She heard the sound of their breath catching in unison. The haze of memory slowing their ability to perceive what was in front of them. A dead body. Moira with Brady’s pistol in her hand, blood on the front of her dress.

“Moira?” Jack asked, hesitant for the first time.

Sliding Vasily’s hand from her foot, she bent down and removed the watch from his wrist. She tossed it and the pistol to Brady.

“Send that back to the Russians,” she told him. “That ought to keep them from trying to interfere again.”

At least she hoped it would. If this Russian knew that Lisavet Levy’s child was still alive, how many others had he told? His superiors, certainly. But what about the others?

Jack caught her arm as she tried to pass him. “What did you do?”

“What I had to. I couldn’t be sure if any of you were going to save me.”

Jack stared at her. Something flickered in his eyes. A reminder that there were still things she could do that were beyond his control. Terrifying, unattainable things. He let go of her arm.

When Moira finally left the TRP building that night, Ernest was waiting for her out by his car. She froze in the doorway. Jack put a hand around the back of her neck as he passed on his way out.

“Not a word,” he murmured in her ear, giving Ernest a wave.

Moira approached Ernest nervously. The night air was thick, the sky above hung with humid stars that lit the foggy parking lot with an eerie, night-blue glow.

“You didn’t have to wait for me,” she said with a smile.

Ernest didn’t smile back. He was staring at the bloodstains on her dress. “Why are you covered in blood?”

She swallowed. “Please, it’s… it’s better if you don’t ask.”

Ernest’s eyes slid to Jack’s car behind her where he sat watching this play out while he smoked a cigarette in the driver’s seat. After a moment, Ernest took a handkerchief from his pocket and used it to clean the spots of blood on her neck she had missed.

“Did Jack have you dictating notes for an interrogation or something?” he asked.

“Something like that.”

“You okay? I know those can be rough sometimes.”

Moira took the handkerchief from him. “Yeah, I’m okay. Can we maybe go get something to eat? I’m exhausted.”

Ernest leaned forward and pressed a kiss against her forehead. Simple and familiar. “Sure. Let’s get out of here.”

She breathed a sigh of relief as he opened the car door for her and got into the driver’s seat without another word.

Ernest put one hand over hers as they drove, his jaw grinding the way it always did when something was really bothering him.

Moira looked down at the handkerchief still in her hand.

She ran her fingers over the newly embroidered blue flowers over and over again, the sound of Vasily Stepanov’s pleading voice ringing in her ears.

M OIRA WAS distant for weeks after that night and Ernest, try as he might, didn’t know how to reach her.

He did his best to get her to talk about it, but she wouldn’t give him more than a few sentences.

Each time he mentioned it, he would watch as her expression tightened, her eyes filling with panic.

“Please, Ernest. It was nothing,” she told him. “I’m fine. Really.”

But then one night, he grew impatient and snapped. “It’s not nothing, Moira. I’m not an idiot. Something happened.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” she insisted, turning away from him.

“Don’t want to, or can’t?” Ernest asked, catching her arm. “Did Jack tell you to keep it from me?”

“Ernest… I can’t. ”

“Why did he have you involved, anyway? Secretaries aren’t supposed to know about any of this and he’s got you attending interrogations. Making you privy to more of what’s going on than I am. What does he have on you? Or what do you have on him?”

“Nothing. Nothing.”

“I’m not blind, Moira. I can see that there’s something going on between you two.” He didn’t mean it. But the words slipped out anyway, a product of the endless heckling he got from the other timekeepers who had long believed that Ernest’s girlfriend was sleeping with their boss.

Her eyes widened. “Ernest, you don’t think I’m… you know I’m not…”

“Well, if it isn’t that, what is it?”

She didn’t answer, a look of hurt filling every feature of her face.

Tears welled in her eyes, and he instantly wanted to take it back.

Without a word she pulled her arm from his grip and left his apartment, leaving him to deal with his own regret.

He tried to call the boardinghouse that evening but she wouldn’t take his call and again the following day.

He didn’t know to fear the worst. Until he saw the boy.

Ernest encountered him inside the time space two days after his fight with Moira, huddled and gasping on the floor.

He was curled into a ball, tears streaming down his cheeks.

Ernest could tell his nationality by his uniform, but approached him anyway, kneeling down to touch his shoulder.

The boy reeled backward at his touch, scrambling away from him and raising one arm to shield himself.

“Hey, hey. It’s okay,” Ernest reassured him.

The boy began sputtering in unintelligible Russian. Ernest took one look at his tear-stained face and those wild, hollow eyes and knew immediately that this was Vasily’s son. The watch on his wrist only confirmed it.

“Do not hurt me,” the boy was saying in terrible, broken English. “Please, American. I do not want to die.”

Ernest’s eyes widened. “What’s your name?” he asked in Russian, even though he already knew.

The boy blinked, taken aback. “Y-you speak Russian?”