Destroyer

CHAPTER SIX

As planned, I’m waiting in the apartment when Iffy and Ellie walk in. Immediately I notice dark circles under my sister’s eyes. Though it isn’t even midafternoon yet, it’s been the busiest day Ellie’s had in a while, and it’s clearly taken a lot out of her. I mentally kick myself for adding the lunch onto our schedule. It was obviously a bad idea.

“Are you feeling okay?” I ask her.

“I’m fine,” she says with more energy that I’m sure she feels. “Did you find out who the man was?”

“You don’t look fine.”

“I am. I swear. Just… a little tired is all.”

“Then you should go lie down.”

Frustrated, she says, “Denny. The man.”

I take a breath, then nod. “Yes. I got a name.”

“What is it?”

“Doesn’t matter. You wouldn’t know him.”

“Well, of course, I wouldn’t know him. But so what?”

I frown. “Vincent Kane. Happy?” I glance at Iffy. “The name familiar to you?”

She stares off for a moment, thinking, then says, “Never heard of him.”

“So, who is he?” Ellie asks.

“Why don’t we talk about it later? Right now I want you to get some rest.”

“I don’t need a rest.”

“Oh, really? Then why are your eyelids half closed?”

“You’re worse than dad.”

I know our experiences with our father were not the same. Ellie was his favorite. Her death took whatever happiness was left in him with it. From that moment on, he and I were just doing time together. So from her point of view, there is some warmth in the accusation, but for me, it is damning.

After a few moments of awkward silence, she says, “Maybe I am a little tired. I think I will lie down for a few minutes.”

The sudden tension I’ve been feeling ebbs as she starts walking toward the hallway. I know she realizes she’s stepped across a line, but she doesn’t fully understand why so it’s easy enough for me to let it go.

Just before she disappears, she stops and looks back. “Thanks for lunch. That was fun.”

I notice a brief flicker of excitement in her eyes. Most of her time is spent either in the apartment or at the hospital, so perhaps going somewhere new for lunch hasn’t been such a mistake after all.

Once she’s gone, I tell Iffy about my trip to Kane’s house.

She is as unnerved as I am by the circled dates on his calendar, especially the one on April 4.

“And you’re sure he’s not one of your friends?”

Friends is not exactly the word I’d use to describe other time travelers, but I say, “He’s not. There are pictures of him when he was young. He grew up here.”

“So what’s his deal then? Why is he interested in you?”

These are the same questions swirling around my mind, but I’m no closer to any answers now than I was at Kane’s house.

“Can you stay with Ellie for a while?” I ask.

“Where are you going?”

“If I can’t get into his house, maybe I can get into his car. There’s got to be something there that will help us understand what he wants.”

“You’re not going to confront him, are you?”

“Of course not.”

She stares at me, her eyes narrowing slightly.

“He’ll never see me,” I promise.

I previously witnessed Kane arriving in the Gaslamp Quarter and following us to lunch. What I didn’t check is what he did after we left. So I return to there, arriving in the same alley I used before, only closer to the time we finished eating.

I find a good spot where I can watch the action unnoticed and then wait. No more than ten minutes pass before I see Iffy, Ellie, and me coming around the corner. I observe the brief conversation where I tell them I’ve seen Kane — though at the time I didn’t know his name. We then split, Iffy and Ellie heading for the bus stop, and Earlier Me hurrying over to the alley where I had arrived a few minutes ago.

To avoid any unnecessary conversations, I make sure I’m not seen by Earlier Me. He isn’t off the street for more than thirty seconds when Kane strolls around the corner. About halfway down the block, my follower suddenly halts, his gaze focused on the bus stop where Iffy and Ellie are waiting. There are four other people standing near them, none of whom — as Kane’s obviously just realized — are me.

He scans around, and even looks behind himself as if expecting to find me standing there. There’s no missing his sense of panic, and I can’t help but get a little pleasure from this.

A bus is approaching the stop. When Kane looks back toward Iffy and my sister, he notices it, too. This seems to only deepen his confusion. After a few seconds, though, he makes a decision. He takes one last look around before rushing across the street to his car.

To the honks of annoyed motorists, he makes a sweeping U-turn as soon as the bus has passed by and falls in behind it. I wait until they disappear and then make a jump back to the apartment, making sure to arrive several minutes before the version of me returning from Kane’s house will get there.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’ve seen multiples of me many times, and have even interacted with them on occasion, but I find that unless absolutely necessary, it’s best to avoid surprising myself. I head out to the street and make my way to a place where I can keep an eye on the bus stop where Iffy and Ellie will be arriving.

Before the bus even gets there, though, I see Kane’s car. He passes the stop and then takes a parking spot almost directly across the street from my building. He sits in his car for a few moments before finally getting out. He looks left and right, his gaze even sweeping past my position, but I’m tucked in the shadows beside the entrance to another apartment building, making it impossible for him to pick me out. He then jogs across the road and disappears down the side of my building.

I check my watch. The girls won’t be entering the apartment for another thirteen minutes. The walk from the bus stop will take only four minutes at most, meaning the bus won’t be arriving for about nine. Depending on how long Kane is away from his vehicle, this might be my opportunity to search it. I keep an eye on the spot where he’s disappeared, expecting him to return at any moment. So when the bus arrives without his reemergence, I’m curious as to what he’s been doing.

I slink farther back into the entryway to prevent Iffy and Ellie from accidentally spotting me. When they’re gone and Kane has still not returned, I decide to put off checking his car for the moment, and instead, find out what he’s up to.

Avoiding the street, I pass all the way through the complex and the parking area in the back to the alley that runs behind all the buildings. Carefully, I move from place to place until I am only one structure from my building.

Kane had walked down the side of my building using the long driveway that serves our covered parking in back. Since it’s still daytime, most of the slots are empty, making it easy for me to see that Kane isn’t there.

Thinking he might be somewhere along the driveway, I slowly lean around the edge of the wall for a look. It’s deserted. He must have gone through the back breezeway into the courtyard of my building; either that, or we’ve crossed paths and he’s already back at his car.

As I step out of cover, intending to sneak over to the parking area of my complex, I catch movement at the top of my vision and hear a shoe scrape against something rough. Ducking back behind the building, I hear the thump of something heavy landing on the roof of my building’s carport.

A few more scrapes followed by someone taking a deep breath and then what I assume are feet landing on asphalt. As the person begins jogging down the driveway toward the street, I allow myself to peek after him.

Kane.

He’d been on our roof. But why?

I watch him run across the street and out of sight. Using the chaser’s calculator, I figure out a location number that will put me on the roof of my complex without having to climb, and touch go.

There are certain things a chaser does flawlessly, such as if your destination is at ground level but there’s a surface that covers it — like a sidewalk or a road — the device will compensate for this, and you will arrive feet solidly placed. Where it has issues is with artificially elevated locations. If your location number is even just slightly off, you’re in trouble. That’s why getting the calculation right is so important.

In my rush to find out what Kane was up to, I’ve apparently made an error, and materialize two feet above the actual roof. Fortunately when I hit the white grainy surface, I’m able to keep from falling flat on my face by catching myself with a knee and a hand. And while my landing is loud, I’m above a unit rented by one of our neighbors who works during the day. So, in theory, my arrival and walking around should go unnoticed.

Still, I place my steps with care as I head over to the section of the roof above Ellie’s and my place. It takes me only a moment to spot that there’s something that shouldn’t be there. A palm-size silver box sits at the base of the retaining wall that runs around the roof, on the side where the driveway is. A wire runs out from it and over the top of the lip, out of view.

I kneel down next to the box and pick it up. Though I haven’t held this type of device before, it’s easy enough to figure out from the control buttons that it is a digital recorder. I follow the wire, and find, as it starts down the outside of the building, that it’s been painted a color very similar to the wall, making it all but invisible to anyone more than a few feet away. With this knowledge, I can see that it goes all the way down to my bedroom window.

What in God’s name is going on here?

I coil up the wire and shove it and the recorder into my satchel. What I want to know is, did Kane put this device here just now, or has it been in place for a while?

I set my chaser to take me back thirty minutes before Kane showed up, and use a more accurate location number so that I forgo falling from the sky.

A recorder sits in almost, but not quite, the same spot as the first one I found. I pull out the confiscated device and compare the two. From a scratch along the left side, I can see that I am holding two versions of the exact same recorder. The only difference is what’s displayed on the small digital screen. On the device I took, the main readout sits at 00:00:04, while on the one I just found — the earlier version — the number is 01:47:32.

I hit PLAY on this second device but hear nothing, so I rewind a little bit and try again. My voice and Iffy’s from earlier that morning come out of the speaker, and I listen for a few seconds as we talk about our plans for the day. I rewind some more and hear another conversation, this one not nearly so easy to pick out because it took place in my hallway.

Anger boiling under my skin, I check the other device. The only thing recorded on it is four seconds of a man saying today’s date and the time that coincides with Kane’s upcoming visit to the roof.

Though it’s true I still have much to learn about this world, I haven’t just been sitting around in ignorance. I check the devices and find a cover that, when open, reveals a memory card. When I remove the one that has the recordings of Iffy and me on it, the number on the display screen switches to 00:00:00. I hadn’t anticipated that. Kane will be expecting to find a full recording, but since I don’t want to leave the card with our conversations on it, there’s little I can do except hope he thinks the recorder malfunctioned. To complete the illusion, I slide the card that has yet to record any of our voices into the slot.

Time now to check his car.

I take a carefully planned jump that puts me in the driveway of the apartment building across from me moments before Kane parks in front of it. From there, I watch him ease to the curb and then head across the street. As soon as he disappears from sight, I head over to his car and then kneel next to it, pretending to tie my shoe. I know from previous observations that there is a woman walking a dog somewhere behind me, but she’s going in the other direction. None of the apartment buildings in my neighborhood contain more than twenty units, and there are only a handful of windows from which I can be seen. I check them all to confirm there is no one watching and then take a thirty-second micro hop inside the car.

I arrive on the driver’s seat in a crouch, the wheel a half inch from my ribs. Once I stretch out, I hunt through the central console and find a few receipts, a plastic container holding mints, some pens, and a screwdriver, but that’s it.

I turn my attention to the dash box in front of me — the glove compartment, as Iffy calls it. There’s a soft fabric case containing a manual for the vehicle and a copy of the registration. The information on the latter matches what I already know. The only other things inside are a few more pens and some auto service records.

This, so far, has gotten me nowhere.

I lean between the seats and lift the lid of one of the white boxes sitting in the back. Similar to the box at Kane’s house, it’s full of files that seem to pertain to his job. The same is true of the other two boxes. I open a few of the loose files sitting on the front seat and see that they are also work related.

I grunt in frustration. There is nothing here that sheds any more light on my follower. The only place I haven’t checked is the trunk, but I can’t risk opening it as he might see me from the roof. Nor can I jump inside. It could be full, in which case my chaser’s emergency function would kick me fifteen feet to the side and likely land me in the middle of the street.

As much as I would prefer to avoid it, I see no other choice. I’m going to have to confront Kane directly. While I am just over six feet tall, I am thin and not particularly intimidating, so it will be important for me to set the where and when of the encounter.

And if there is anything I could be considered an expert at, it would be controlling time and place.

My plan is to visit Kane in his bedroom after he has gone to sleep and catch him off guard.

I could go back to a previous evening, but that would cause a time ripple I would rather avoid. If I did that and succeeded in scaring him off, then everything he does after our discussion will be different than what it has been. Even just that one night would mean he wouldn’t follow us to the restaurant, which in turn would mean that while the events as I know them will always be part of my memory, Iffy’s and Ellie’s memories will change, and in their minds Kane wouldn’t be sitting at the patio table and I wouldn’t go to his house. In fact, they won’t even know Kane’s name. Perhaps in the grand scheme this isn’t a big deal, but I’ll know the break between our memories exists, and as I’ve said before, that’s the kind of thing I’d like to prevent from happening.

I return to my home time — a time that corresponds with the actual days and minutes and seconds I’ve been alive, in other words, as far forward as the chaser will ever allow me to go. This puts me in the apartment about forty-five minutes after I promised Iffy I wouldn’t confront Kane.

She and I talk through my plan. She’s naturally concerned, but feels as I do that we need to get to the bottom of this.

My intention has been to wait until 11:00 p.m. before jumping to Los Angeles, but by ten o’clock I’m too anxious to hang around any longer and decide to go.

Unlike when I visited Kane’s street in the early morning hours, there are lights on in many of the houses. Unfortunately, one of these is Kane’s. To eat up time and burn off some of my nervous energy, I take a walk around the neighborhood.

When I return twenty minutes later, Kane’s house is dark. Still, I force myself to wait until 10:45 p.m. to make sure he’s had enough time to fall asleep, and then from my list of previous jumps, I select the locator that will put me just inside his front door.

The living room looks no different than it did on my last visit. I glance down the hall to the back of the house. It’s dark and quiet in that direction, and I see no reason to check it out again. I am here for a single purpose, and he is upstairs.

The two doors at the near end of the second-floor hallway are closed again. I realize now that one must belong to the old woman from the yard. I ease past them and continue on until I am just outside the master bedroom.

I allow my anger at Kane’s intrusion into our lives to grow, hoping this gives me the confidence I will need when I confront him. When I am as ready as I will ever be, I step inside and quietly close the door.

Like before, I see his shape on the bed, under the covers. Since he’s facing away from me, I move around the side so that when I wake him, I will be the first thing he sees.

As I crouch down beside the mattress, though, I realize something isn’t right. Hair lies across his face, but Kane’s hair is short, cropped on the sides and not much longer on top.

I look around for something I can use to move the hair away from his face, and that’s when I spot the pair of brown-framed glasses on the nightstand. I’ve seen them before, but not on Kane’s face. I look back at the bed and realize the shape of the person is too small to be my follower.

This isn’t Kane. It’s the woman who brought the old woman the lemonade. The caregiver called Lorna.

I wonder for a moment if she might be his wife, but quickly dismiss this thought. She’d called him Mr. Kane when she was talking to the old woman. Not something a wife would likely do.

So where is Kane? Did he get held up in traffic and is still on the way home? Or is he not coming at all?

Perhaps my previous assumption was wrong and Kane doesn’t come home every night. This I can check, either by going back and following him to see where he went earlier this evening, or by popping back into his house later tonight to see if he’s returned.

It’s been a very long day for me, though, and I can no longer ignore the exhaustion I feel. So whatever I decide to do needs to wait until after I get some sleep.

I open the bedroom door again so, if for some reason, the old woman needs help during the night, Lorna will be able to hear her, then I move into the hallway and pull out my chaser.

Like I did earlier, I make a home time jump, and am in the present when I arrive in my darkened apartment.

I’m a little surprised Iffy isn’t sitting in the living room, waiting up for me. It’s not that late, after all, and we often stay up long past midnight watching television shows and movies I have never seen before. But then again, even though her day has not been as long as mine, it has been stressful, and I can’t blame her if she’s already fallen asleep.

I slip the chaser back into my satchel and head toward my room. The door is closed but not latched, and through the crack between it and the jamb, I see only darkness. I carefully push it open so I don’t wake her, but as I step inside, I hear Iffy let out a soft moan.

“That’s far enough.”

It’s not so much the harsh male voice that stops me from moving as the barrel of the gun that’s suddenly pressing against the base of my skull.