A Time of Shadows (Out of Time #8) Page 6

  “Hello!” The big man finally reached them, his ruddy face shining with perspiration.

  “I’m so sorry. There seems to be some mix-up.” He turned back to glare at his assistant who pursed his lips defiantly. “There was no paperwork.”

  “My secretary took care of all this weeks ago,” Simon said, his cut glass accent razor sharp and his patience already thin. “If this is how you treat visiting dignitaries, I can only—”

  “No, no,” the large man said quickly, shooting daggers back at his assistant. “I assure you. The mistake is ours, Sir Simon.”

  Simon held his lordly expression in place before nodding once in acceptance of the apology. The large man beamed and wiped the sweat from his glimmering forehead with a handkerchief.

  “Charles Dewhurst. It’s an honor.” He stuck out his hand to shake, but realizing his palms were sweaty, took it back. He gave them a quick wipe with his handkerchief before stuffing it into his pants pocket.

  Elizabeth felt sorry for him and was starting to regret their charade. But, she reminded herself, a little trickery was a small price to pay if they could find the watch.

  Next to her, Charlotte stood smiling demurely, and finally not tugging on the hem of the dress they’d bought for her. Her jeans, t-shirt and tennis shoes were not the stuff a young lady of her position would wear on an official holiday. But she, like Elizabeth, was far more comfortable out of a dress than in one.

  “I’ll be sure to tell the Society of your kindness,” Simon said.

  Dewhurst visibly relaxed then. So did Elizabeth. Their plan seemed to be working.

  The tower clock was closed to the public, and there wasn’t time to try to arrange a legitimate tour. Instead they’d concocted a plan that Simon would be a visiting English Lord who fancied clocks, a member of the Royal Society for Horology. He would pretend that his staff had made arrangements for a special tour of the clock tower that were somehow misplaced, and hope they could bluster their way into getting one anyway. So far, so good.

  “If you don’t mind,” Simon said, “and pardon the pun, but my time is limited. You understand, of course?”

  “Of course,” Dewhurst said as he elbowed his assistant, who forked over a ring of keys. “This way.”

  “You’re too kind.”

  Simon gestured for Dewhurst to lead the way and Elizabeth hooked her arm through Simon’s. Next to her, Charlotte giggled. Elizabeth shushed her but was on the verge herself. Imperious Simon was very entertaining.

  “Mr. Barnum, who usually takes care of this sort of thing, is sick today. I’m afraid I’ll have to do.” Dewhurst unlocked the door that led to the tower. “There’s no elevator. It’s nine floors up.”

  Elizabeth could see the fleeting hope in his eyes that Simon wouldn’t want to make the trek, but Simon, as cool as the other side of the pillow, merely nodded.

  Dewhurst swallowed and then eyed the stairs before starting up. The stairwell was hot and humid. They’d barely gone two flights before he began to labor and Elizabeth seriously started to worry he was going to have a heart attack.

  She glanced at Simon, nodding toward Dewhurst. They’d barely reached the fourth floor and he looked ready to pass out.

  Elizabeth saw him look up and hesitate. “Mr. Dewhurst, perhaps you would prefer to wait for us downstairs? Perhaps arrange refreshments?”

  “I’ll call down for—” Dewhurst reached for his hip and then frowned. “Always forgetting my phone.”

  He smiled, embarrassed.

  “It is so hot,” Charlotte said suddenly in a perfectly crisp English accent, earning surprised looks from both Simon and Elizabeth. “It would be lovely to have lemonade waiting for us. It would be so very kind of you to do that.”

  Dewhurst hesitated, but it was clear he was not thrilled at the idea of continuing the climb. He eyed the stairs warily before addressing them. “It’s against the rules for people to be in the tower unattended.”

  “It can be our little secret,” Simon assured him. “We’ll only be a few minutes.”

  “Please?” Charlotte asked with a painfully endearing smile.

  Against that, Dewhurst had no comeback, and nodded. “Of course.”

  He glanced once more up the stairs. “You won’t tell anyone?”

  Simon inclined his head and Dewhurst nodded. “I’ll have some drinks ready for you.”

  “Thank you,” Charlotte said, every ounce a princess.

  They watched him start to go downstairs and then turned and continued their ascent.

  “Where did that come from?” Elizabeth whispered to Charlotte.

  “We’ve summered in Grey Hall, you know,” Charlotte said haughtily.

  Elizabeth snickered and Simon frowned.

  “We have?”

  Spending summers at his English estate was probably the very last thing Simon had expected he’d do. His childhood there had been on the uptight, “let’s send you to boarding school” side, not exactly the sort of place he seemed likely to take his family.

  Charlotte shrugged. “It was fun.”

  Simon shook his head and nodded toward the stairs again. “We should hurry.”

  They climbed the last few stories, the heat increasing with each. By the time they reached the ninth floor, it was hotter than blue blazes in the stairwell.

  Simon opened the door and they went inside the room that housed the clockworks for the enormous clock.

  “Well,” Elizabeth said, looking around the dark room for a light switch. She found one and flipped it on. “What exactly are we looking for again?”

  “Anything out of the ordinary,” Simon said. “Teddy would have marked his hiding place somehow, but not so obviously that it would attract attention.”

  “So look for something out of the ordinary that looks ordinary?”

  Simon frowned and sighed. “Yes, I suppose so.”

  The three of them started to scour the walls and floors of the room. The clock mechanism clicked rhythmically in the background.

  “He specifically mentioned the face,” Simon said as he approached the backside of the great clock face. “As good a place as any to start.”

  Elizabeth looked for…whatever they were looking for, but all she saw was clock. A lot of clock. The face had to be twenty feet across.

  “Be careful,” he warned Charlotte. There were exposed gearing mechanisms that looked ready to take off a finger.

  Had Teddy hidden the watch inside the works somehow? It would be fitting in a way, but a pain in the butt to find.

  “He couldn’t be a little more specific?” she complained.

  Next to her, Simon sighed. “Maybe he was and we’re just not seeing it?”

  Elizabeth turned to him and nodded before returning back to the clock face. Teddy would have given them something else. Finding some unknown object in a room this large with this many moving parts was going to be impossible. “What are we missing?”

  Simon didn’t respond but kept staring straight ahead. His eyes narrowed. “The moon, it seems.”

  He took a step forward and touched one of the large wooden support beams, a remnant from the original building. When he moved his finger aside, Elizabeth saw what he meant. Embedded in the wood was a small, tarnished silver medallion with the moon imprinted on it, a first quarter moon.

  “I’ll be damned.”

  Simon reached into his pocket and pulled out his car keys. With a little effort he was able to dig it out of the wood. But it wasn’t just a medallion Elizabeth realized as Simon slid it from its hiding place; it was the top of a small silver tube.

  He was about to open it when an accusing voice came from behind them.

  “I’m sorry, but you’re not supposed to be here.”

  Simon quickly slipped it into his pocket as they all turned.

  It was Dewhurst’s officious assistant. “Not unsupervised.” He looked around for signs of damage. “Legal issue, you understand?”

  “Quite,” Simon said and then gestured ar
ound the room. “Magnificent.”

  The assistant hmm’d in agreement, but it was clear they’d worn out their welcome.

  They hurried down the stairs, sure that the assistant was going to start asking questions they might not be able to answer.

  As they exited into the main floor, a man bumped into Elizabeth.

  “Sorry,” she said reflexively, expecting the same in return.

  Instead of apologizing, he glared down at her. The scar on his upper lip made him look like he was perpetually sneering. Or maybe he was sneering. And staring. Either way, it was unnerving and Elizabeth drew back.

  Simon stepped next to her and took her elbow. “Problem?” he asked and then looked at the man in a way that said he hoped the answer was yes.

  “My fault,” Elizabeth said, although it wasn’t. And if he was a pickpocket, all he’d get from her was a wet nap that wasn’t wet anymore and two fuzzy Advil.

  The man glanced at Simon, decided a hasty retreat was his best option, and quickly disappeared into the crowd. Simon glared after him.

  “Let’s go,” she said, giving his arm a tug. “I’m dying to know what’s in that thing.”

  “All right,” he said and started forward only to stop again immediately. “Where’s Charlotte?”

  Panic-fueled adrenaline shot through her so quickly it took her breath away.

  Elizabeth swore at herself, unsure if she’d forgotten Charlotte because she wasn’t used to having her around, or because she simply expected her to be by her side, as if she always had been.

  She forcibly calmed herself and let the fear dissipate. “She can’t be far.”

  Simon’s face was strained as he lifted his head to try to see over the crowd. He shook his head and Elizabeth’s calm started to slip away.

  “Charlotte!” Simon bellowed so loudly that the crowd near them jumped away.

  Elizabeth started to push through the crowd, and was about to lose the lunch she hadn’t eaten yet, when she saw Charlotte standing on a chair just twenty feet away waving to them.

  “Thank God,” Simon said.

  They hurried over to where she was. Charlotte hopped down off the chair and grinned, pointing to the glass cases next to her. “Cannoli!”

  Elizabeth pulled her into a tight hug. “Oh my God, you scared us.”

  “I was just…” she said but trailed off at Simon’s look.

  Simon pushed out a breath and closed his eyes briefly, composing himself. He bent down so that he was eye-level with Charlotte and gently took hold of her arms. “You mustn’t ever do that. Do you understand?”

  She looked at Elizabeth, confused. “Do what?”

  “Walk off without telling us, honey,” Elizabeth clarified. She looked at Simon. They hadn’t told her how potentially dangerous what they were doing was. There didn’t seem to be the need and they didn’t want to frighten her.

  “We’re new at this,” Elizabeth said instead. “You might feel grown up, but to us you’re brand new.”

  Simon heaved another breath and stood. “And unless you want me to have a coronary you won’t do that again.”

  Charlotte nodded, even though she was clearly confused. Elizabeth sympathized with her. Wandering off twenty feet wasn’t something most parents would normally have a complete freak-out over. Elizabeth hoped they weren’t the kind to do it either, but things were different here than in Charlotte’s timeline.

  “I’m sorry,” Charlotte apologized. “Back home it’s no big deal—”

  “Trust me,” Simon said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Losing you, even for a moment, is a very big deal. In either time.”

  Elizabeth pulled her to her side in a hug. “It’s all right.”

  She glanced over at Simon, who was looking slightly less apoplectic.

  “Maybe since we’re here…” Elizabeth said. “One cannoli?”

  A laugh burst out of Simon and he shook his head in defeat. “One.”

  ~~~

  Cannoli in hand, they made their way out to the back of the Ferry Building. The sun reflected off the bay and Simon squinted against the bright light and the wind coming off the water. In the distance, the Bay Bridge spanned the water. Despite having been to San Francisco many times before and since, it was still strange to see it. The bridge and its counterpart, the Golden Gate Bridge, hadn’t even been a twinkle in the engineers’ eyes when he and Elizabeth had been here in 1906.

  The city wasn’t the only thing that had changed. He had, thanks to Elizabeth. And, like the city, he hoped it had been for the better.

  Elizabeth and Charlotte finished their pastries and shared contented smiles as they sat at the outdoor table. They were a pair.

  Elizabeth turned to him, pushed a lock of hair that blew into her face behind her ear and then arched her eyebrows. She nodded her head toward his pocket and the mysterious canister inside it as if to silently say, “Well?”

  Simon looked around to see if they were being watched, and briefly considered waiting until they’d gotten safely back to the hotel. It probably would have been the most prudent thing to do, but his curiosity got the better of him.

  He pulled out the slim silver tube and twisted off the cap with the inlaid moon. Inside was another small piece of paper. At the top of it was the number “13.” Dear Lord, just how many clues would there be?

  Simon frowned as he read it aloud. “Your radio debut, Lucia. Fun with Dick and Jane.” He dropped the hand holding the paper to his side in annoyance. “What on earth does that mean? Who’s Lucia?”

  “Let me see?” Elizabeth said as she touched his arm. He handed her the paper, and she and Charlotte read it silently. “Dick and Jane?”

  “Do you know them?” Charlotte asked.

  Simon shook his head. “No. There’s a children’s book, Fun with Dick and Jane, but it holds no significance for me. Elizabeth?”

  She shook her head and handed the slip of paper back to him. He looked at it once more, hoping to divine its secrets by sheer will. Like the first note, this one had a small drawing of a moon in phase, but this time it was an old crescent. First, a first quarter and now an old crescent, the final phase. That didn’t make any sense. Those didn’t follow. But they did give him an idea as to how many clues there might actually be. Eight phases of the moon; eight clues. The thought made him sigh out loud.

  “What?” Elizabeth asked, worried.

  He shook his head. It was pure conjecture on his part. Who knew what Teddy had in store for them? For now, they needed to focus on solving this clue or however many came next wouldn’t matter at all.

  He rolled the small bit of paper up and slipped it back into the slender canister before putting it back into his breast pocket.

  “I don’t remember meeting anyone with any of those names in San Francisco. Did Teddy ever mention them?”

  Elizabeth shook her head again.

  “Lucia,” Simon repeated.

  Charlotte started to say something, then seemed to think better of it, shook her head and went back to worrying the inside of a cheek.

  “What were you going to say, Charlotte?”

  “It’s stupid.”

  “I doubt that,” he assured her. “Besides, any idea is better than none.”

  “Well,” she said hesitantly, “I know this doesn’t have anything to do with here but last month Mom and I got on this old movie kick and she was showing me some of her favorites. There was one, The Sword and the—”

  “Seven Seas!” Elizabeth said excitedly.

  “Right.”

  Elizabeth took Charlotte’s hand and pressed it to her chest like an ardent lover. “Come with me, Lucia, across the Seven Seas and I will lay kingdom after kingdom, all the riches of the world, at your bejeweled feet.”

  Charlotte grinned. “Bejeweled feet!”

  Simon sighed. “What on earth are you talking about?”

  “Alan Grant! Remember? He called me Lucia.”

  He mentally kicked himself. Of course! When they’d tra
veled to 1930s Hollywood, they’d met Alan Grant, a movie star who took an instant shine to Elizabeth and for reasons of his own had called her Lucia. He should have remembered that; it drove him crazy at the time, but Grant insisted on doing it. One of the many things Grant insisted on doing.

  “But what does that have to do with Teddy and your past?” Simon asked.

  “I don’t know,” Elizabeth admitted. “Maybe it’s more than just my past with Teddy. Maybe it’s my past, ya know?” She pointed between the two of them. “Our past.”

  Simon thought about that. “Possible.”

  “But how would Teddy know that’s what Alan called you?” Charlotte said. “He didn’t watch the movies with us.”

  Simon started to answer but realized he didn’t have one.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We’ll have to ask Travers about that.”

  “If we’re right,” Elizabeth said, “that means Hollywood’s next. But we covered a lot of ground there.”

  That was an understatement. Grant was in perpetual motion from one club to the next, one problem to the next.

  “Your radio debut,” Simon mused aloud. All at once, the answer hit him. “Grauman’s!” He felt his own excitement build as he put the pieces together. “Your radio debut. We were interviewed on the radio, briefly, before that premiere.”

  “That’s right!” Elizabeth said. She shook her head, obviously pleased with something. “Wow. He’s good.”

  Simon grunted. It was a little disturbing to think Teddy knew everything about their past so intimately. It made him wonder who else might, and that was not a comforting prospect.

  He was about to say so when Elizabeth grinned and put her arm around Charlotte. “Ever been to Hollywood, kid?”

  Charlotte glowed with excitement and shook her head.

  “Well,” Elizabeth continued with a quick look to Simon, who nodded, “you’re gonna love it.”

  Chapter Eight

  JACK SLID THEIR PASSPORTS across the counter and waited. It wasn’t the first time he’d traveled with forged papers, but it was always unnerving. The airport official took the passport with a sigh and opened it. He looked from it to Jack and back again. The Council had provided him with the passport and visa. They said it wouldn’t be a problem, but judging from the way the man’s two large black eyebrows slowly began to merge, Jack was starting to wonder.