 
## **Contents**

TITLE PAGE

BOOK OFFER PAGE

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

CHAPTER NINETEEN

CHAPTER TWENTY

REQUEST FOR REVIEWS

BOOK OFFER PAGE II

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Yesterday's Thief  
An Eric Beckman Sci-Fi Paranormal Thriller

By Al Macy  
AlMacyAuthor.com

Copyright © 2017 Al Macy

All Rights Reserved.

Version: SW01 2017/10/19 16:39

Also by Al Macy:

Becoming a Great Sight-Reader—or Not! Learn from my Quest for Piano Sight-Reading Nirvana

Drive, Ride, Repeat: The Mostly True Account of a Cross-Country Car and Bicycle Adventure

Contact Us: A Jake Corby Sci-Fi Thriller

The Antiterrorist: A Jake Corby Sci-Fi Thriller

The Universe Next Door: A Jake Corby Sci-Fi Thriller

Yesterday's Thief: A Eric Beckman Paranormal Sci-Fi Thriller

Sanity's Thief: An Eric Beckman Paranormal Thriller

Democracy's Thief: An Eric Beckman Paranormal Thriller

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CHAPTER ONE

The naked woman materialized behind the umpire during the first game of the playoffs.

I froze and frowned at the TV. What the hell's going on?

The crowd went silent. I paused the live video stream. "Uh ... guys?" I pinched the skin under my chin, still frowning. "You'll want to see this."

"Double play?" Stan wandered in from the kitchen, digging into a jar of peanut butter with a spoon.

"Not exactly," I said.

"Hey, Eric, how old are these olives?" Craig's voice sounded like his head was in the fridge. My condo was small. I could hear him fine.

"Get in here, Craig." I waited until Stan had flopped down on the couch and Craig stood by the TV with his arms crossed. The smell of pizza hung in the air. I moved the video live-feed back a minute and pressed play. "Watch this."

Her body appeared all at once. One second: normal baseball game. Roar of the crowd, droning announcers, runner at second, fast-ball pitch. Next second: blip, a body where you wouldn't expect it, a hushed crowd, speechless announcers. It looked as if she were lying face-up on a high table. A table that wasn't there. Stretched out in the air, her arms extended above her head as if she were doing a back dive. One hand touched the ump's head.

Craig gave a little yip, and Stan stopped chewing. He froze for a second, then started chewing again.

Her body dropped to the ground. Whomp! No table, remember? The hand must have been caught in the umpire's mask or hat, because she pulled him down with her. He was a big man, and his butt landed on her face.

"That's gotta hurt." Stanislaw Stanislowski guided the spoon back into the peanut butter. Nothing fazed him. Twenty-some years as a cop will do that. He put another oily gob of my all-natural crunchy into his mouth, getting some on his mustache.

Craig looked at him. "Really, Stan? The weirdest thing in history happens, and you're joking around?"

Stan shrugged. He had a wide body and a rough face. His five-o'clock shadow usually showed up around noon, and his eyebrows looked like woolly bear caterpillars parading into a cold winter.

Craig got up close to the screen and squatted down. "Hold on. Back up to when she appears and zoom in."

I made the appropriate gestures to the DigiCast, moved the video feed back, paused it, and zoomed in.

"No, not on her boobs, Eric, sheesh. On her hand. Here, let me drive." He snatched the controller and panned over to the official's head. My system had resolution up the wazoo, and I could see the ump's individual hairs.

"Look here." Craig tapped the screen five or six times. "It's not tangled in his hat. Her finger is in his head. Her fifth digit is embedded up to the proximal phalange." Craig Porter was an MD-PhD and the chief neurosurgeon at UCSF. He often talked as if he were on the job.

Craig's face could star in a skin softener ad on a gay TV channel. Tight curls of brown hair hugged his scalp, giving him the look of a well-groomed Chia Pet. As thin as a jockey on meth, he'd never met a rule he didn't embrace. He was thirty-eight, and we'd been buddies since grad school.

Stan put the jar on the couch. "Guess she gave him the finger." We both looked at him, then back at the screen. The game was halted. Bummer. The Giants had been ahead, two-zip.

We watched the replays from three different camera angles. The pitch had been in the strike zone. The catcher threw the ball back to the mound, but the pitcher ignored it, letting it dribble out to second base. He frowned and craned his head to one side, looking behind the catcher. The catcher glanced back and did a double take. He jumped up, threw off his mask, and backed away as if the nude were radioactive.

It was 2020, and the country was finally getting less uptight about nudity, but the station still pixelated the closer views of her infield regions. She was slim but had the kind of curves God and plastic surgeons reserve for porn stars. Her thick black hair billowed out as she fell.

Back in real time an ambulance drove onto the field. EMTs huddled around her embedded pinkie but apparently couldn't separate the woman from the umpire. They had no choice but to put him face-down on the gurney with the woman on top, her arm was folded back as if winding up to throw a knuckleball. She hadn't shaved her underarms. Both the woman and the ump were AWOL. Out cold. I should know. My doctoral thesis examined states of consciousness in comatose patients.

Stan's and Craig's cell phones rang simultaneously. Craig had the latest in-the-ear-canal model.

Stan finished his call first and looked at me. "Stadium. You?" That's Stan-Speak for "The department called and wants me to lead the investigation. I'm heading over to AT&T Stadium. Do you want to tag along?" He takes laconic to extremes.

Stan thought I was a lousy private eye. I did, too. Hey, I'd only been doing it a year. You gotta start somewhere, right? But Stan did admit I had some kind of strange talent for solving cases.

Craig finished his call. He was the only person alive who knew what my strange talent was.

He shook his head. "Sorry, Stan. I need Dr. Beckman with me." He used my title to drive home his point. "They're taking that woman to UCSF. This is right up Eric's alley. I need him to—"

Stan held up his hands in a no-problem gesture. Yeah, he looked relieved. He picked his coat off the floor and headed for the door.

I grabbed the peanut butter jar from the couch. "Hey, Stan. Wait. Take this with you. It's yours now."

He shrugged, came back over, and dropped the open jar—and my spoon—into his big overcoat pocket.

For me, no contest. Hunt for clues with San Francisco's deputy chief or meet the mysterious lady from who-knows-where?

Craig held up a finger. "Hey. I've got an idea. AutoCab."

"Oh, no," I said. "No way. My car's right down in the garage."

Craig unfurled his tablet. "Look, Eric. It can be at the curb by the time we get downstairs. And—"

"You know what usually happens. We—"

"And ..." He held up his hand. "And, I can use my emergency clearance to get through traffic."

That stopped me. We couldn't beat the ambulance, but if we were lucky ... "Okay, set it up." I got my jacket.

"We need to get there fast. You're our best hope for figuring her out. Plus, we can both talk to the ER as we go."

"Hey, Doc, I already agreed. Let's get going."

Craig likes to run through all his arguments even if he's won his case. Or maybe he just likes to talk. He put on his speaking-to-the-computer voice. "Okay, Google. AutoCab to this address. Medical personnel emergency."

"What is your personal emergency?"

"Personnel emergency. Medical personnel, not personal." He rolled his eyes.

I kept the I-told-you-so look off my face.

"Authorization?"

"This is Craig Porter," he said.

"Voiceprint confirmed. Your AutoCab will be at 775 Front Street, San Francisco, California, in two minutes."

We heard the siren immediately. He raised his eyebrows, looked at me, and nodded. No effort to keep the I-told-you-so look off his face.

* * *

After a fifteen-floor elevator ride to the street, we found the AutoCab at the curb. Its door popped open, and we jumped in. It snapped into traffic the instant we sat down.

The AutoCab looked more like a teacup ride than a car. Five bucket seats around a central table. No driver, of course. The siren was noise-canceled inside. Maybe technology was okay after all.

Craig called ahead to the ER on speakerphone. "What have we got, Chuny?"

Chuny has a Puerto Rican accent, and there's always a smile in her voice. "They're about eight minutes out. He's Marco Garcia, Hispanic male, forty-seven, unconscious, BP one-fifty-two over ninety, pulse forty-nine. Massive hematoma where her finger is embedded in his skull."

Craig made a rolling motion with his hand, obviously wanting to hear about the woman.

"She's a Caucasian female, thirty-ish, unconscious, BP one-ten over seventy-five, pulse seventy. Broken nose, finger attached to the ump. You ready for the kicker?"

"What?" Craig looked like a kid finding out about a Christmas present.

"Her heart's on the right."

"Whoa. On the right? Dextrocardia or full situs inversus?"

Chuny laughed. "All I know is the EMTs kinda freaked when they tried to listen to her heart."

"Whoa. Thanks. We'll be there in three minutes."

I looked out the window. Apparently the AutoCab had its own ideas about which hospital we should go to. We were nowhere near the UCSF med center. "Twelve," I said.

Craig frowned and turned to me. "No. Look, Eric." He tapped on the FastTrack's time-remaining display. "Three minutes."

I pointed out the window.

Craig slapped his forehead. "More like twelve minutes, Chuny." He hung up.

Craig squawked to the AutoCab like a flustered chicken and got things straightened out. I watched the scenery and looked forward to meeting the materialized girl.

"Situs inversus?" I asked.

Craig played with the vehicle's screen. "Reversal of the organs. Heart, spleen on the right, liver on the left. Pretty rare. But it could just be that her heart is over too far to the right."

"And that's dextro—"

"—cardia of embryonic arrest, yeah. You got it." He finished futzing with the controls, sat back, and started tapping out a rhythm on his knee.

I smiled. "Didn't think this could get any stranger."

"Can't wait to get there." Craig's normal leg-fidgeting was in high gear. "Do you think you'll be able to read her?"

I nodded. Time to tell you about my strange talent.

I don't look like a freak of nature. I'm thirty-nine and a bit taller than most. Not so tall that people ask whether I play basketball. My unruly, surfer-dude hair matches my stylish stubble, but it's not a fashion choice. Combing and shaving just slip my mind sometimes.

I have a crooked nose that pulls attention from my curiously large forehead, but my face is saved from the ugly bin by intense blue eyes and a six-thousand-dollar smile. That's how much the orthodontist charged.

So, I don't look like a freak. But what only Craig knows about me, and what helps me solve cases, is this: I can read minds.

Weird, right? Now you can appreciate why Craig wanted me along. Even if the magic woman never regained consciousness, I might be able to read her thoughts and find out what the hell was going on.

Jane Doe beat us to the hospital. When we arrived, I had to squeeze my way into the observation gallery. This room, perched above OR Two, had sloping windows with an excellent view of the operating table. Jabbering physicians filled both rows of seats, with more standing in the back. Wide monitors above the windows gave a close-up view of the action.

Craig had scrubbed in but wouldn't be performing the surgery. Just observing. Someone else beat him to it. The surgeons paced around below us, waiting for the results from the pathology lab. They'd sent off a biopsy of the finger from its point of entry into the skull.

Mr. Garcia's brain was not happy. Blood flow was disrupted by the finger, resulting in both ischemic and hemorrhagic strokes. That is, the blood was cut off from some areas and flowing into the intercellular space in others. Blood is a great thing to have. Can't live without it. But if it doesn't stay where it belongs—in its capillaries—it's toxic. Deadly, in fact.

When the thin-section micrograph came up on the screen, everyone in the observation room leaned forward. What we saw didn't seem possible. The tissues of the two patients were merged, apparently at the molecular level, and the doctors would be unable to save the finger.

The surgeon decided, and Craig agreed with her, to amputate Jane Doe's pinkie then dig out the merged tissue from Mr. Garcia's head. The first was accomplished quickly, and when Craig wheeled Ms. Doe out of the operating theater, he looked up and caught my eye. <Meet me in the ICU.>

* * *

I got to the ICU just after Craig and Ms. Doe. I'd done a lot of consults there, so no one was surprised to see me. The nurses transferred her from the gurney to the bed and hooked her up to columns of monitors and IV bag supports.

Flowing dark hair emphasized her delicate face like black theater curtains drawn back from a cozy snow scene. A hint of a smile above her elegant chin suggested she enjoyed being in a coma. Her unusually long nose might have been troublesome on a more common face, but for her it added character. It was one of her best features, in fact.

She looked European or perhaps Russian. I could picture her opening her huge eyes and saying "Vat are you starink at, dahlink?"

She aroused such a curiosity in me I vowed to discover her story. I didn't trust others to figure out who she was, but that's nothing new. I'm not a trusting person. I usually try to take care of things by myself.

I put my head right next to hers. Craig widened his eyes and leaned his head forward. "Well?"

If someone is brain-dead, I get nothing. I may as well be standing next to a statue covered in bird shit. Yes, an EEG can tell you whether someone is brain-dead; you don't need a mind reader for that. But for patients with some activity, I can assess who's home and what they're doing in there. I can also estimate when or if they will come back to the land of the living.

For some, I get a kind of static. None of those recover. Others have scattered, disorganized thoughts. The kind you or I might have when falling asleep, in what's called a hypnogogic state. I'll get things like <More Afro-Cuban mouse lies, please,> or <No equipment is really comfort-proof.> The thoughts have a clear syntax but make less sense than Bob Dylan on LSD.

In my doctoral research I came across a number of patients with "locked-in syndrome." These poor souls are in there having normal thoughts but are paralyzed with no way of communicating with the outside world. Some can move their eyes or blink, but occasionally their physicians don't realize they are conscious. In those cases, I'd whisper in the guy's ear, "Don't worry, buddy, I know you're in there. We'll figure out a way for you to communicate." Of course, I'd get everyone else out of the room first. Wouldn't want people to think I'm some kind of weird psychic.

Where was the woman-from-nowhere on this continuum? Somewhere in the middle. I could sense the disorganized words she was thinking, but they were in no language I'd ever heard. A little like Italian. Martian, maybe? But I was convinced she would regain consciousness soon.

I made a show of examining the EEG traces collected so far, frowning and putting in some "hmm" noises, then announced, "She should regain consciousness within the next five days." I've become an expert at hiding my ability. Can you imagine if my secret got out? They'd turn me into a twenty-four-seven lab specimen.

"How can you be so sure?" David Cassini, the head of neurology, crossed his arms.

Uh-oh, right? No, don't worry. I'm used to deflecting these kinds of questions. I flipped through the EEG traces some more. "Well, it's an overall impression based on lots of experience. You see this theta wave pattern, here? Taken together with the rest of the chart ..." blah blah blah. I felt a little bad because when Natasha Weirdenov did wake up, Cassini would pore over the EEG records looking for theta wave patterns. Oh, well. Can't be helped.

The hospital's chief surgeon, a Dr. Angela Carter, took over and examined our patient from head to toe. Carter was a stunning woman in her late fifties, with thick white hair pulled back in a ponytail. Her pressed lab coat was open in the front, displaying a turquoise silk blouse.

The exam was pretty ho-hum until Carter came to the woman's mouth.

She froze. "We're going to need a dental consult here. Take a look at this, Craig, and tell me what you see."

Craig moved over and peered in. "Huh. She must have taken good care of her teeth, because I don't see a single filling or crown, but ... huh. That doesn't make sense. The teeth aren't in great condition."

"But look here, Porter. This tooth." Dr. Carter held Weirdenov's mouth open, pressed a tongue depressor against a particular tooth, then moved her head out of the way so Craig could see.

"Ah. I get it." Craig said.

"Right." Carter turned to the others. "I'm no dentist, but it looks like she had a big filling there. It's gone now. Ms. Doe seems to have had dental work done, but all the fillings and hardware have been removed."

"Or they just failed to materialize." I said.

All the docs looked at me.

"Well," I said, "we know something unprecedented happened. Unless we've been duped somehow, we know this woman materialized out of thin air. So please don't call me a kook. She was beamed here in a transporter, sent from a time machine in the future, or something we can't imagine. My guess is her fillings simply didn't come along for the ride." I pictured her lying on her back on a stainless steel table. Someone flips a switch. She disappears, and six or seven fillings clatter down onto the empty table.

I got some nods and a few frowns. Dr. Carter paused, then continued her exam.

"There's an old bullet wound here. A through-and-through." She pointed to the scars on the left side of the abdomen. "It wasn't treated well." She palpated the exit wound. "Perhaps treatment was delayed, or the doctor wasn't very good." Carter started turning the patient over.

"Hold on. What's that?" I moved in and pointed to a lighter area on the skin on one side, above her waist.

"Just a pigmentation irregularity, but ..." Carter's voice trailed off.

I pulled the swing-arm magnification lamp over. It held a huge magnifying lens with bright LEDs around its perimeter. I moved it right over the anomaly: a small pattern drawn with lighter skin, as if someone had doodled with a sharp-pointed bleach pen. It looked like the squiggly outline of the head and neck of a person who was lying down. Or maybe a fish. "I'd say her tattoo ink stayed behind, too."

Craig looked through the lamp. "Not a very interesting tattoo. It's nothing I recognize." He almost fell onto the woman but caught himself. The IV bag started swinging.

A nurse yelled, "Earthquake!"

The building rumbled and some glassware jingled, but it was just a small quake. We'd been having a lot of them recently—foreshocks, maybe?

While the others were looking around, I snapped a photo of the tattoo pattern with my phone. Probably breaking a bunch of bullshit privacy regulations. I didn't care.

Things settled down, and the physical exam confirmed that her organs were indeed on the wrong sides. Heart on the right and liver on the left, for example. Carter explained that although it was extremely rare, people born with this condition had no more medical problems than the general population.

I suspected her travel somehow produced a mirror image of her former self. If her molecules were reversed, she wouldn't survive long. She wouldn't be able to metabolize normal glucose, for example. But maybe above a certain size threshold, everything was mirrored, fingerprints included. I made a mental note to reverse the tattoo photo.

The rest of the exam was unremarkable. Time to wait and see what this woman would have to say for herself when she woke up.

CHAPTER TWO

The next morning, in my PI office, I sat with my feet up on the desk, checking the latest news about the mysterious mademoiselle, as the press had come to refer to her.

Peggy, my receptionist-slash-assistant, opened the door to my inner office and leaned in with one hand on the doorknob and the other on the jamb. "Well, boss—"

Some sobbing from the outer office interrupted her, sounding like noises from a distraught hoot owl. Peggy shut the door and walked over to my desk.

"Well, boss, looks like you actually, and against all odds, have an honest-to-goodness case on your hands, and it looks like a humdinger."

Peggy Barbera was a humdinger herself—five foot seven with dazzling blue eyes. Her bouffant hairdo rose high above her head before crashing down below her shoulders. It would have been stylish had this been 1963. She wore a wraparound skirt and a pink turtleneck that hid her prominent Adam's apple.

That's right, Adam's apple. Peggy was a dude. A cross-dresser. She occasionally performed at Dreamgirls, the top drag show venue in San Fran. I was her day job. When I interviewed her, she'd thought, <What if he knows I'm a man?> I winked and said her secret was safe with me. She was shocked. I don't think anyone's ever figured it out. Without my mad mind-reading skills, I wouldn't have tumbled to it; I might have even hit on her.

"A humdinger as in ... what?" I cocked my head and frowned.

Peggy glanced at the door as if checking that no one could see through the frosted glass. She turned back to me and made the twirling cuckoo sign by her ear with one hand and mimed taking a drink with the other.

"Okay, show her in."

I checked my desk to ensure it told a convincing I'm-a-busy-investigator lie: solid wood with a thirty-inch tablet strategically placed to cover the scratches and water stains. I'd decorated the whole office in Mid-Century Film Noir, with an oak floor that pleaded with me to refinish it. It was barking up the wrong tree. One that didn't have money growing on it.

My office was on the second floor of a building that had somehow avoided the wrecking ball. Maybe the owner was waiting for San Francisco's next earthquake. It wouldn't be long considering the recent cluster of quakes we'd had.

A paying client would be a good thing. I would have liked to spend all my time on the case of the mysterious mademoiselle, but I had to earn some money. And I wanted to succeed as a private investigator.

Thoughts of my dwindling bank account balance triggered the memory of my close brush with fame and fortune. In grad school, Craig and I had almost joined the ranks of the sinfully rich. Together we'd developed a machine that would—no, will—cure insomnia. Sorry, not cure it but treat it effectively. The concept was simple. The user puts on a comfortable cap that covers the eyes and ears. Electrodes read in the insomniac's EEG, and pulsing light and sound entrain their brain waves.

It works great. Within minutes the user drifts off to sleep. We called it the EZ-Sleeper.

In the early stages of development, a med-tech company offered us twenty million for all the rights. I was reckless back then. Still am, people tell me. I was sure we could do much better ourselves. I argued Craig over to my point of view, and we turned the offer down. For a while, it looked as if we'd made the right decision.

Then the class-action lawsuit hit. Some of our experimental subjects claimed it induced epileptic seizures and even caused epilepsy in normal individuals. That was bullshit. Not one seizure had been established.

The device would require a prescription, and we'd done rigorous testing related to photosensitive epilepsy, but that didn't stop the lawsuit from those enrolled in the early trials. Our lawyer told us it was frivolous—someone was a gold digger. We'd eventually win, since the enrollees had all signed agreements saying the treatment would probably kill them. But that would take time. And money. That was years ago, but everything was still working its way through the courts.

Bottom line, I needed to make a living. Sure, I could use my weird talent to, say, win at poker, but that wasn't right. I'd be stealing from others. Cheating. Okay, I've done it now and then, I'm no saint, but I wanted to find a kinder way to make a living.

As a PI, I could make money with my special talent and still look myself in the mirror. The only ones I'd hurt would be the bad guys. A win-win. And I'd always wanted to be a PI. Sam Spade, Phillip Marlowe, Inspector Gadget, that kind of thing. Plus, it wouldn't all be mind reading. I'd have to learn other skills. I figured it might even be fun—more fun than chasing medical research grants.

Peggy cut off my trip down the avenue of broken dreams by leading a Ms. Beatrix Winkel into my office. She was a knockout, but only in the sense that she could probably knock me out with her big fists and muscular arms. She looked as if she spent mondo hours in the gym, sparring, jumping rope, and lifting weights.

But today, she wasn't in fighting trim. Her hair was disheveled, and mascara outlined the tracks of her tears. She wore expensive, stained yoga clothes and her shoes didn't quite match. Peggy looked at the shoes then at me. I gave a little nod.

"The police won't help me," Ms. Winkel said. "They think I'm nutso." She opened and closed the clasp of her purse, staring at the floor. <I really need a hug.>

I got up, walked around my desk, and put my arm around her well-muscled shoulder. I was careful not to jerk back when the wave of alcohol breath hit me. Ten a.m., but who's judging? "Please have a seat here, and let's see how I can help you."

"The police won't—oops—listen to me." The "oops" came when my wooden visitor's chair lurched backward.

Peggy gave me a look. She'd suggested I fix that spring.

"Right." I went back around my desk and sat down. I picked up the stylus, ready to make notes on my tablet. "Thanks, Peg, that will be all. So, what is it, Ms. Winkel, that the police won't help you with?"

"My husband."

I waited, but she didn't continue. "You're having some problems with your husband." This was like pulling the words out of her mouth with a fork.

"He's missing." She took a handkerchief out of her purse and scrubbed her face; no dabbing for her.

Ah, now we were making progress. A missing-persons case.

"Why don't we start at the beginning? When was the last time you saw your husband?"

She took a deep breath and rolled her head around like a prize fighter warming up for a bout. "Two nights ago. No, wait, what's today? Is it ...?" She looked at her cell phone. "No, that's right, two nights ago."

"You last saw him two nights ago. Was that at your home?"

"Yes."

This felt like twenty questions. "Is your husband bigger than a breadbox?"

She frowned at me. <What's wrong with this guy? Is that some kind of joke?>

"I'm sorry, that was a silly joke. It would help if you could just tell me what has happened since Wednesday night. Would you like a cup of coffee or a glass of water?"

"Yes."

"Which would you like?"

"Coffee."

"Coffee it is." I clicked the intercom switch three times, the signal for coffee.

Peggy opened the door and poked her head around it. "You rang, boss?"

That's what she said, but she was thinking, <Does he think I'm some kind of trained Pavlov dog, responding to a bell?>

Oof. She hadn't complained, or thought about complaining, when we set up the system. Women can be hard to understand even when you can read their thoughts. There was more to this private-eye stuff than just searching for clues. Maybe cheating at poker wasn't so unethical after all.

"Thanks, Peg. Could we have two coffees?"

Ms. Winkel sat silently. One minute she looked attractive in a handsome way. Next minute, not so much. Her nose angled to one side.

She watched Peggy bring the coffees in, thinking: <Nice biceps.>

If you don't know Peggy's real name is Fred, her muscles are indeed impressive.

Apparently coffee worked like WD-40 on Beatrix's vocal cords, and I got the full story.

"Donnatello, everyone calls him Donny, left for his Monday-night poker game right after dinner, and that's the last I saw him. He always comes home late but never later than three a.m. We've been married eight years, and he's never stayed out all night." <Except for that time with what's-her-name.>

"Does he play poker every Monday? And at the same place?"

"Yes."

"Yes to both?" I made a mental note to stop asking two questions at once.

"That's right. But he gambles other nights, too. He's really into gambling. He wasn't before."

"Before?"

"Before he inherited the money. Back then he'd never even buy a lottery ticket, but now he plays poker, goes to the Indian casinos, goes to crap games." She fluttered her hand as if shooing away a fly. "I don't know what else."

"How much—"

"And the men he hangs out with are total scum-ball lowlifes. He gambles in a bad area of town."

"I see. And how much did he inherit ... approximately?" I asked.

"I don't know if I should tell you." <Four million.>

"It's important for the investigation."

"A million dollars. About. Over a million. He got it six months ago."

"Do other people know about this—the inheritance?" I took a sip of coffee but kept my eyes on her.

"Well, not exactly, but he kind of flaunts that he has a lot of money. I wouldn't be surprised if he told someone. Since he got the money, he's had more friends. They come around. So, I'd say yes."

"What about you, Ms. Winkel? Has your lifestyle changed since the improvement of your finances?"

"I guess." She looked down at her purse. <Not as much as it should.>

"Perhaps you feel your husband spends more money on gambling than he does on you."

"Well, it's his money." She stared out the window. <It'll be my money when he dies.>

Interesting. I have to be careful when interpreting thoughts. People don't have to express themselves clearly in their own minds—they know what they mean. "When he dies" could mean "when the air runs out in the box I put him in," or "when he dies of old age." And I can't read the emotional content of thoughts. They are whispered to me in a monotone, as if spoken by a machine.

On the other hand, I've found thoughts are less fragmented than you'd expect. I hear complete phrases and often neat, grammatically correct sentences. Perhaps the thoughts are cleaned up somewhere along the line. Right, I don't understand it either.

I went through all the questions I'd learned to ask in PI school. Does he have enemies, what places does he frequent, that kind of thing. The caffeine wore off and she reverted to twenty-questions mode, but I got what I needed. The other thing I got was a nice fat check. I needed that even more.

After Ms. Beatrix Winkel left, Peggy popped in to my office. "Well, boss, looks like maybe this sleuthing thing could actually work out for you."

"Surprised?"

"And what did you think of Winkel's bod? She must be into weightlifting. Or bodybuilding."

"Roller derby. She said she's in some amateur league."

"Makes sense."

"Listen, Peg, I'm sorry about that signaling thing I set up for the coffee. The three clicks. That probably seems pretty demeaning—"

"No problem, boss. Didn't bother me at all." She crossed her arms underneath her illegitimate boobs and leaned forward. "Just don't do it again."

"Got it. And, uh ..." I checked my calendar app. "I won't be in tomorrow morning; I have an appointment over in Berkeley."

"Power outages tomorrow."

"Oh, shoot, I'd forgotten." I pulled out my tablet and opened PG&E's blackout app. The energy crisis was getting worse, with rolling blackouts scheduled almost daily.

Peggy already had the blackout app running on her device. "We'll be blacked out between eight and nine a.m. here in San Fran, and the East Bay will be out from three thirty till five."

"Okay, good, I'm clear. My appointment is for ten. On the case of the newly existent dame."

"Remind me again how much you're making—we're making—on that case?" <And why you're not leaving it to the FBI?>

I evaded the question by handing her Ms. Winkel's check, and Peg's neatly trimmed, feminine eyebrows popped up. "Nice."

I leaned back and looked forward to my appointment with the world's foremost authority on time machines.

* * *

I stood outside Dr. Simone Diallo's office and checked my watch. The appointment was for ten a.m., and she was twenty minutes late. A professor at UC Berkeley, she was also affiliated with the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics. For someone whose research was space-time, she'd messed up on one of those dimensions.

A pert coed with spiral curls in her blonde hair came down the hall focused on me. She wore a short lab coat over an even shorter miniskirt.

"Eric Beckman?" She raised one eyebrow. <Older but definitely doable.>

"Yes, that's me," I said. "I take it you're not Professor Diallo."

"She says she's sorry, but something came up. She had to cancel at the last minute."

"I'm willing to wait. Will she be back soon?"

"Hard to say."

I put on my best definitely-doable smile. "I won't take much of her time."

She hesitated and tapped her pen against her cute little nose. "You could go see her in her lab. Maybe. Don't tell her I sent you. Okay? You're a reporter?"

I gave an exaggerated humph. "Certainly not." I leaned down and whispered in her ear, close enough to tickle it. "I'm a private investigator." I didn't say "private dick." That would have been too crude. Not my style. But it would have worked. Flirting is easy when you know the door is already open.

"Well ... okay. The lab is in the basement." She pointed to the stairwell. "Room thirty-six. Don't tell her I told you. My name's Robin." <Oops. Why did I say that?>

"So I'll know who not to tell her told me." What a mouthful.

She blushed, hesitated once more, and headed off down the hall. She looked back and I almost called out after her.

I appreciated her pert walk. No. No more short relationships. That one would definitely not last. Or would it? An image flashed into my mind: the two of us having breakfast in our home. Her cascading hair more gray than blonde.

I turned away from my future wife, took the stairs to the basement, and found a room with "036" by the door. The door was mostly glass and gave me a good view of the laboratory.

It was the size of a two-car garage, with an unfinished, open ceiling. Wires, pipes, and heating ducts filled the space. Bundles of multicolored cables dropped down to racks and tables of electronic equipment. A few cabinets displayed "Danger High Voltage" signs.

A massive cabinet dominated the center of the room. A cluster of heavy-duty cylinders, like stainless steel pipes, radiated out from the center of the enclosure. They converged on a tiny gold sphere.

I knocked and went in. A few students glanced up but went right back to work.

"Mr. Eric Beckman, I presume?"

I turned to see a wrinkled face that could have been the cover photo for National Geographic. I recognized Dr. Diallo from an internet article. "Yes, that's me, and I apologize for coming down here. I hope it's okay."

She was the blackest person I'd ever encountered and was dressed in the simple, drab clothing you might see in drawings of slaves in the 1700s. She wore a head wrap that constrained a massive Afro. I stared.

"Are you enjoying the cognitive dissonance?" She smiled. "Don't worry, you needn't feel like a racist. I'm as far as one can get from anyone's concept of the appearance of a physicist. I know I look more like a washerwoman in 1900 Selma than a theoretical physicist." <Or like a slave.>

"Or like a slave," I said.

She looked at me sharply and laughed. "Most people don't want to go that far, but yes."

She said everything rapidly and with perfect diction in an upper-class British accent. It was as if someone carefully edited her words, printed them out, and asked her to speak them as quickly as possible. Her thinking was fast, too. I couldn't keep up, though I caught enough to know she liked me—<interesting fellow>—but wanted to get the interview over quickly.

She moved over to the central chamber and started fiddling with dials. "And what have you come about, as if I didn't know?"

"I'd like to speak with you about time travel."

"You and every news organization in the country. So, you're a private eye, and I assume you are investigating the appearance of the materialized girl. What's in it for you? Is someone paying you?"

"Hard to say. No, no one's paying me. It landed in my lap, and I want to see it through. I'm going to see it through. Of course, if I figure anything out, it wouldn't hurt business."

She stopped in mid-dial-twist and looked me in the eye. "I sense a bit more education than your normal divorce chaser, but I can't help you. Time travel from the future isn't possible. You're all done. That was quick. It was nice to meet you. Bye-bye."

"I thought it was possible in theory but impractical. Wormholes or something."

"Right. Blah blah blah. Are you familiar with what I'm working on?"

"Only what I saw in Wikipedia. Space-time crystals."

She chuckled. "That's right. And you're looking at one right now. Maybe." She pointed to the tiny sphere that was the center of attention of all the hardware in the chamber.

She stood up and with a heavy Southern accent, said, "We all gonna cool this mo fo crystal here downa juss 'bout zero fuckin' kelvin, and dem dere beryllium crystals gonna be in four dimensions, rotating in space and time at da same damn time."

We both laughed.

She walked to a desk and leaned back against it. "But dat ain't gonna be helpin' you none." She switched back to her upper-crust English dialect. "Look, Sherlock, I'll save you a lot of time and stop you from wasting mine. That woman didn't travel in time from the future. Time travel from the future isn't possible."

"But how can you be sure?"

She crossed her arms. "Ever hear someone ask what would happen if an unstoppable force met an immovable object?"

"Sure."

"It might seem like some deep mystery. 'Oh wow, profound.' You might go back and forth thinking, well it can't be moved, but the force can't be stopped, but the thing can't be yada yada yada. But if you step back, the problem is solved by realizing those two things simply cannot both exist. If an immovable object exists, an unstoppable force can't also exist. And vice versa. By definition. Same idea with traveling into the past."

"You're losing me here."

"You've heard of the grandfather paradox, right?" She raised an eyebrow.

"Sure. If you traveled back in time and killed your grandfather—"

She held up one hand. "That's enough. I'm tired of hearing it. Especially in the last two days. And I don't know why you'd have to kill your grandfather, you'd only need to travel back a few minutes and kill yourself before you stepped into your machine. But it doesn't matter. That paradox simply tells us that you can't do it. You can't do it and avoid that paradox, so it's impossible. As with the two forces."

"What about parallel universes?"

"Phooey." She waved her hand as if pushing something away. "That's not time travel, that's travel to another place. I'm not saying the mysterious mademoiselle couldn't have done that, but it's not time travel."

"Okay, I got it. Time travel isn't possible, so maybe—"

"I didn't say that."

"What? You just explained why time travel isn't possible."

"You weren't listening, young fellow." <I like playing with this guy.> She stood, reached up, and knocked on my head as if on someone's front door. Then she pinched my cheek. "No, I said time travel to the past is impossible. Travel to the future is simple. Happens every day."

I squinted and pulled on my ear. "Um—"

"They probably didn't teach special relativity and time dilation in PI school, right?"

This I knew. "Fly to Pluto and back, near the speed of light, and your onboard clock will run slow. It will be the future when you return. Your friends will have gotten old—"

"And wrinkled. Okay, you've got the idea, genius, now watch this." She stood, walked to the other end of the lab, and walked back. She held out her arms. "Ta-da, I've traveled to the future. My, how old you look, Eric."

"But you were nowhere near the speed of light."

"Doesn't matter. I have traveled to your future. Just a tiny, tiny bit." She held her thumb and forefinger together. "Want to see me send a message to the future?"

I shrugged.

She picked up a scrap of paper, wrote something on it, and dropped it on a desk. Then she stood up, crossed her arms, and tapped her fingers against her arm for ten seconds. "La-di-da-di-da." She looked at her watch, picked up the paper, and handed it to me. Like an excited child who's just gotten a message out of a bottle, she asked me, "What's it say, Eric? What's it say?"

I read it. "Hello from the past. How are you?"

"I say, old chap. Amazing, is it not? The Earth is spinning, we're speeding around the sun, the sun is moving in relation to the galaxy and the galaxy is moving in relation to others. We're moving along at thousands of kilometers per hour, but I was able to send a message to the future, and it ended up right here on this desk. But could I send a message to the past. No. Got it?"

"If I want to find out where she came from, look to the past."

"You got it, Einstein." She poked me in the belly. "Now get the hell out of my laboratory and let me get my wrinkly black ass back to work." <Sure is fun to talk like that.>

CHAPTER THREE

The next day found me on my weekly walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. Suicide-prevention patrol.

In 2017, San Francisco spent seventy-six million bucks building a suicide-prevention barrier below the bridge. It looked like a chain-link fence on its side, jutting out fifteen feet below the railing. The idea was that suicides wanted an easy, one-step way to die. They wanted to jump off the bridge, fly for four seconds, and smash into instant, wet oblivion at seventy-five MPH. They didn't want to break a leg when they jumped down to the mesh.

It didn't work. Suicides jumped off the bridge onto the barrier, walked or hobbled to its edge, and jumped off into the sea. The first suicide happened only two days after installation was complete. I wondered whether the guy left a suicide note saying, "See? I told you it wouldn't work."

Occasionally I wonder whether saving these tortured souls from themselves is the best thing to do. They want to die, right? Yet sometimes a suicide is prevented, and the person goes on to live a long life. Maybe even a long, happy life. On the other hand, in 1988 an eighteen-year-old Sarah Birnbaum jumped off the bridge, survived, and then did it again later that year (and died). Practice makes perfect.

But even with over eight billion souls on the planet, preventing anyone from ending his or her life is probably a good thing. So, I was doing my part.

I don't want to reveal my mind-reading gift to the world. If I did, I'd become a captive guinea pig in some government lab. Perhaps scientists could figure out how I do it and make this ability available to others. It could change the world for the better. So, it's pretty selfish of me to keep it a secret.

To lessen my guilt, I give back. A bit, anyway. I prevent a few suicides. Once a week I go for a walk on the bridge that is the world's number-one location for self-destruction, and I listen.

Every two weeks, on average, someone makes the leap. Am I likely to be there at just the right time? No. But I often come across someone who is seriously considering it. Someone who might come back later and do it.

Eight a.m., and the west wind pushed fog through the bridge, making the cables whistle and moan. It was too foggy for most tourists. I fastened the top button of my lined trench coat. Nice and warm.

The wind force-fed me the scent of seaweed and fish.

A muscular man stood looking down over the railing near the bridge's south tower. <I'll land on the cement foundation. I won't have to worry about surviving.>

Bingo. Every person who looks over the railing thinks about how it might feel, but this guy was planning, not imagining. You might say I hit the jackpot.

He wore jeans and a white t-shirt. He must have been freezing. He was put together like a bodybuilder, with a shaved head and a swastika tattooed on the back of his neck. Charming.

I walked up beside him, put my elbows on the railing, and said, "How you doing, friend?"

He jumped. Sorry. I should have said "he startled." He glanced at me and then out through the fog. Didn't say a word.

"You must be freezing. Hey, listen. I've got an old sweater on under this coat." I opened it up to show him. "You're welcome to it. I'm plenty warm."

He mumbled something.

"Sorry, I didn't catch that."

"I'm not your friend. Take a hike." He was shaking. <I don't want to talk. Can't he tell? Wait until he sees the news tonight.>

Usually my goal with people who are contemplating suicide "someday soon" is to get their name and the name of their doctor. I'll say, "Hey, I'm new in the area, can you recommend a doctor? Who's yours?" If that works, I'll send the doc an anonymous note: "John Doe is seriously considering killing himself. I recommend you speak with him ASAP."

This guy, however, was going to do it. Today. Right now. What to say? I'm no shrink.

I buttoned up my coat. "I had a friend who jumped off this bridge. He survived. You know what he said to me? What's your name, by the way? I'm Eric."

The skinhead stared out into the fog.

"He said that the instant he jumped over the railing, this is before that stupid barrier went up, the instant he went over the railing, he knew he'd made a mistake. But he survived. Went in feet first and yelled to a passing boat."

That was a true story. I'd heard it on the radio. I didn't know the guy—that was the part I made up. I added a few more fabricated details. "Yeah, he survived, but he'll be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. No feeling below his waist. He has to wear a diaper. It happened right over there." I pointed to my right.

When I looked back, my skinhead buddy was gone.

He was on the outside of the railing, dangling from some pipes along the pavement.

In 2005, a teenager jumped over the side of the bridge. A cop saw him and said, "Hey, wait a second!" The boy heard that, grabbed the railing, and held on. After a ninety-minute conversation, he let the policeman pull him back to safety.

I yelled, "Hey, wait a second," and the skinhead let go.

I leaned over and watched him hit the barrier. It rattled and gave enough to cushion his fall, like the netting under a trapeze. He moved toward the edge.

I vaulted the railing and, just like my made-up friend, thought, this is a mistake. Would I break my leg? I tried to absorb the shock with my knees, but my legs collapsed, driving my knees into my chest, knocking the wind out of me. The mesh shook enough to knock my friend off his feet. He started crawling to the edge on his hands and knees.

I grabbed his ankle, but his sock and high-top Nike shoe came off in my hand. I lunged again and got a good grip on the hem of his jeans with my right hand. My diaphragm was still in spasm, but I started getting some shallow breaths in.

Like a claw, my left hand gripped the steel mesh. I couldn't pull him back, but I could keep him from dropping off the edge. He rolled and kicked. I held on.

Then he sat up and put his hands in the air. "Okay, you got me." <Right cross to the jaw.>

My PI training taught me that although I'm not a good fighter, knowing what someone is going to do before they do it is a big advantage. I spun my head to the right. I didn't escape the blow, but it turned a knockout punch into a painful stunner.

Thinking he was done with me, he resumed his trip to the edge, now slithering like a salamander. I jumped forward like a frog and came down on his legs. His waist was at the edge of the mesh, and he was bowing down and up, trying to flip off into the void. <I hate this fucking bastard.>

I gripped chain-link with my hands and pressed my body down. His legs were sliding out from under me.

I peered down through the mesh and a gap in the fog. The water streamed out of the Gate like a river. If we both went over, the wind would push us eastward, and we'd indeed land on the cement tower foundation. The yelling of a crowd washed over us from above.

I had to decide: keep trying and maybe fall with him, or let him go. He was determined to die. He was fighting for it. This wasn't an impulsive decision. I chose: I'd let him go. Let him end his tortured life. I'd done my best.

But apparently he had a different view of his chances of success. Just as I started shifting off his legs, he grabbed the mesh, flipped over, and did a sit-up, popping back onto the surface. <A head-butt will finish this mother.>

This time, I had plenty of time to prepare. A head-butt is effective if the crown of the attacker's head hits the victim's face. I tilted my head down, tensed my shoulders, and lunged upwards, meeting him halfway. Our roles were reversed, and although I was knocked silly, he was knocked out cold.

I lay back on the mesh, rubbing my head furiously and opening and closing my jaw. Ow.

* * *

I didn't need an ambulance, but the first responders insisted.

The jumper and I each got our own ambulance. Good. I never wanted to see him again.

The EMT who rode with me was a stunning brunette of something less than thirty with bed hair that fell across one eye. She peered at me and shook her head slightly. <What a plain-looking guy.>

Hey!

<I don't care if he's a hero. I wouldn't go out with that guy if you paid—>

I shut off her thoughts and concentrated on my own.

That adventure went well, right? People tell me I'm reckless. Sure, it was foolhardy to jump down without any forethought, but it turned out to be the right decision.

Anyway, this should help with my guilt. I saved a life. True, he didn't want to be saved, but maybe he'd lead an altruistic life, inspired by my apparently unselfish act. Or he'd go on beating up immigrants or whatever it is skinheads do. And I'd be responsible for that.

Maybe someday I'd turn myself in. Demonstrate my powers and submit to testing. I'd become a public figure, followed around by paparazzi. Unless the US wanted to cover it up and keep me chained up in a basement somewhere.

No, I'll keep my mind-reading ability a secret a while longer.

I had discovered my talent on May 5, 1997. I was sixteen and making out with Naomi Wasserman in the reclined front seat of her parents' Chevy Malibu. Her thought whispered into my mind: <Why won't he put his hand on my breast?>

I froze for two seconds but played it cool. That is, I didn't spin around and say, "Did you hear that? Who said that?" There was no question about it. I had just heard what she was thinking. Yeah, it was shocking and impossible, but I put off thinking about it. I was occupied at the moment.

Up to that point I'd been a little fuzzy on whether girls enjoyed having their breasts fondled. I was pretty sure they just let their boyfriends do it to keep them happy. The boyfriends, that is. But I responded to Naomi's implied desire, and her moan confirmed I had indeed read her mind. Two revelations in one night: Girls liked guys to touch their breasts and I could read minds.

My relationship with Naomi didn't last. I discovered that even while she was professing her love for me, she was thinking of other guys. <He's okay, but he's no Pete Logan. And Pete's a better kisser.> Perhaps that's where my lack-of-trust flaw got its start. How could I trust people after that? Especially women.

Humans can't live without trusting. You can't drive a car, for example, without trusting that the other drivers will be sober and stay in their lanes. But hearing others' private thoughts can make trusting difficult.

Being trust-challenged turned me into a lone wolf. Not a good thing if you want to settle down and have a family. Maybe I can pass my mind-reading talent on to my children. What a disaster if I never had any.

We arrived at the hospital, and I received a text from Stan: "meet me at the stadium at 4."

I got stuck in the ER waiting game until Craig came to rescue me. The downside was that he put me through a much more thorough exam than a normal ER doc would have.

"C'mon, Craig, it wasn't bad, let me go." I checked my watch. "I've got to be at the stadium in an hour."

"Yeah, you're probably fine, but you know me. You've got some swelling in your ankle. Does this hurt?" He moved it back and forth.

"No, that feels good. You should have been a masseur. What do I have to do to get you to release me?"

He laughed. "Nice try, Beckman. I'm not going to think it. Changing the subject, the umpire recovered fine, by the way." <I'm not going to think about discharge no no I'm just going to think this stuff that isn't relevant yada yada yada I'm paying attention to the exam do the reflexes discharge against medical ad—no, things didn't go well in the bedroom last night I think my wife—oh god paying attention to the exam now ...>

I looked away, putting a hand over my smile. Over the years, I've let Craig think his blocking technique is more effective than it is. I try to respect his privacy, but I'm no saint, remember?

When Craig was checking my eyes with the ophthalmoscope, he put his hand on my head, then jumped back. "Jeez, Eric, that's a huge hematoma. You didn't lose consciousness did you? That could be serious." He looked me in the eye. Without the scope.

"No, no." I reached up and felt the bump on the crown of my head. "I knocked my head against the guy's chin."

"Did you feel nauseous? A little loopy? Do you have a headache?"

"I'm fine, Craig, really." I knew enough to monitor my condition. I snapped my fingers. "Hey, I can get discharged AMA, against medical advice."

He stood and did a little running-man thing with his fingers on his chin. "You should stay for observation overnight, but let me do a quick neurologic exam, and I'll let you go AMA. You've got to promise not to drive."

* * *

Some minimal paperwork, and I caught a cab to the AT&T stadium parking lot. Stan was leaning against an unmarked car with his arms crossed. I've seen Stan move pretty fast, but when he's stationary, he doesn't move a muscle. No wasted motion.

I got out of the taxi. Stan pushed off from his car and started walking toward the entrance to the park. When I joined him, he said, "Fight?"

I touched my facial bruises and gave him the abridged bridge story.

He turned to me. "Guess you were a do-gooder today."

All of Stan's lines are delivered deadpan. Any normal person would wonder whether he was impressed with what I did or making fun of me for being a goody two shoes. Based on his thoughts—<Kind of impressive, but why do it?>—he was somewhere in the middle.

Stan and I have a comfortable friendship. I like him but feel a little bad about it because I targeted him and manipulated him into being my friend. What better friend for a PI to have than the deputy police chief in charge of investigations, right? When you can read the reactions to everything you say or do and understand what someone wants, it's easy to make them become your buddy.

In spite of that phony—on my part—beginning, we're genuine friends now. And he's the only person I've ever manipulated in that way. Well, okay, I've manipulated a few women to get them interested in me. I'm not proud of that, either. Some men have square jaws and chiseled cheekbones, I can read minds. It's not so different, really.

We got to the closed-down ballpark's service entrance, and Stan pressed a buzzer by the door. "We're going to speak with the head groundskeeper, a Miss Lawton. She's got some strange happenings to report. I'd like to get your thoughts on this. Maybe you'll have one of your hunches."

"She's seen some animals appear, maybe rabbits or rats," I said.

Stan turned to me. "Yeah. Like that. How did you—"

"Who's there?" The intercom next to the door came to life.

"Chief Stanislowski with the San Francisco Police to see Miss Lawton."

"Just a sec."

Stan crossed his arms. "So, how did you know that?"

I shrugged. "Just an idea I have about what's happening." That was a genuine hunch that didn't stem from my mind reading.

Stan waited for me to continue, but I wanted to keep the theory to myself.

The door opened and a dour woman of around sixty glanced at us, then looked down. "I'm Lenora Lawton. Come to my office." She turned and led the way into the bowels of the stadium. She was heavyset, and her wispy white hair hung down in a ponytail almost to her waist. She walked with a stoop and a waddle, as if she were making a walk-this-way joke.

Her small office had floor-to-ceiling narrow shelves filled with bobblehead dolls. I estimated a thousand baseball players, each covered with dust. Only one doll stood on her gray metal desk: a bobblehead Jesus. He wore a white robe with a simple sash and a red cape. The base read: "Jesus Christ." I reached for it to make the head bobble.

"Don't touch that, please." Miss Lawton lowered herself into the wide chair behind the desk, and Stan and I sat on folding chairs.

Stan said, "Miss Lawton, you've reported that—"

"Are you gentlemen familiar with the Bible?" She had fine whiskers on her chin and basset hound eyes.

I shrugged and Stan shook his head.

"'And the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and many people of Israel died.' That's what all this is about."

"Miss Lawton—" Stan took a breath "—you've seen animals appear on the field? The way the woman appeared the other day?"

"This is a religious thing. Not for the police. Not for Caesar. The first one was a snake. About five years ago. I was inspecting the field, near the plate, when it just appeared. In the air. It dropped to the ground. It wasn't dead, but it was sick. I thought immediately of that verse. Numbers, chapter twenty-one, verse six, by the way. The Lord had sent it."

"You didn't report it?" I asked.

She shook her head, staring at me. "It's a religion thing. And would you have expected anybody to believe me? I do a good job here, and I take pride in my work. How long do you think I'd keep my job if I reported that God was sending serpents to home plate?"

"But you're reporting it now." Stan raised his eyebrows.

"Well, duh. Now everyone's seen it happen. Everyone saw the woman appear. So I knew people would believe me and I could report it. But I still know it's God's doing."

"Has anyone else seen these animals?" Stan asked.

"You see," she said to me. "He doesn't believe me, even after that woman appeared."

"I believe you completely," Stan said. "Just want to get a feeling for how often it happens."

"More'n ten times it's happened, although I only saw the snake and the dog appear."

"You saw a dog?" Stan looked up from his notebook.

She shuddered and pulled the Jesus statue toward her, making its head jiggle.

We said nothing and she continued. "It was an abomination. Half dog and ... and, oh Jesus, my savior, and ... half inside-out dog." She made the sign of the cross. "It tried to bark ... I put it out of its misery." She shuddered again. "But other times I've come to work in the morning and found dead animals behind the plate. A lizard, a rabbit, twice, and a turtle. More animals recently."

"No people?" Stan asked.

"That, I would have reported."

After giving us some more dates and times, she led the way through the halls and onto the field.

"Have you noticed anything else weird here?" Stan asked.

"Like what?"

"Strange feeling. Electrical charge. Funny smell," he said.

"Nothing." Lawton bent down, lifted a corner of home plate, and set it back down. "And why are the police interested. Do you think this is a crime?"

Stan shrugged.

I stood right behind the plate and gazed around at the stands. What a trip it would be to come up to bat here.

An incredible pain jolted me out of my daydream—as if a chef's knife had been plunged deep into the back of my shoulder.

Stan's and Lawton's eyes went wide. The groundskeeper reached over, then changed her mind and drew back. She kneeled and started praying.

"What is it?" I yelled and pulled a muscle in my neck trying to see. The pain was intense. Whatever it was it was brown and flapping furiously. It bit me.

That did it. My thoughts flashed white and my primitive brain took over. I ran, flailing at it as I headed toward first base. Faster than any all-star.

Stan ran after me. "Stop, Eric."

As my higher brain functions recovered, I thought, "stop, drop, and roll." Yes, I know. That's for when you're on fire. Close enough. I smashed myself down on my back, crushing the monster that was biting me. I got on my knees and did it again, a Fosbury flop onto the turf.

Stan arrived. He had his hand on the gun in his shoulder holster.

"What are you going to do, Stan, shoot me?" I yelled.

"Hold still. Lie on your stomach."

"What the fuck is it?" I couldn't see it.

"It's a bat."

"Shit. A bat? Get it off me!" I craned my neck, but I couldn't see it. It was still moving.

Stan took out the knife in his Leatherman tool and cut away my shirt. "The wing goes into your shoulder."

"Shit!" I slid my right hand to the front of my shoulder and cut my finger on the claw that protruded from my skin. A thin, bony, pointy thing with something membranous attached. "Pull it out," I screamed, but I knew it wasn't a good idea.

"That's not going to work, Eric."

"Well, cut it off."

Stan held me down. "It's evidence for the scientists. We should—"

"I don't care if it's the holy fucking grail. I want it off me. Now."

"There's a pretty big bone here. The ambulance is on its way."

"Now, Stan." I knew I wasn't being rational. That can happen when you have a wild animal, like, say, a vampire bat, stuck in your body.

Stan sawed away at it for a while, then broke it off with a rip and a snap.

"The crack of the bat," he said, deadpan as usual. He tossed it on the ground, along with part of my shirt, and I jumped up.

"Jeez, it's still alive." The thing was writhing around. I raised up my leg to stomp on it, but Stan held me back.

"We might learn more if it's alive."

"Hey, who's the ex-scientist here?" I pushed past him and stomped on the bat's head. Two heads, actually. It had one regular head, and one malformed head on its neck. The pain in my shoulder wasn't getting any better.

Stan looked at me. "Double-header."

CHAPTER FOUR

I opened my eyes and the Day-Glo cavern full of pink, bobbleheaded Jesus-vampires morphed into a normal hospital recovery room. Back to real life. I peered around as the last cobwebs of anesthetic cleared from my mind.

The patient to my left snored with a goofy look on his face. His long hair and shaggy beard made him look like a mountain recluse. His leg was in a cast. On my right, a woman with bandages covering much of her head sipped water through a straw.

UCSF's state-of-the-art medical machinery provided a background of muted whirs, clicks, and beeps. A heavyset nurse searched through the wall cabinets.

I shifted in the bed. "How'd it go?" A spasm of soreness pulsed through my throat. I massaged my neck and licked my lips.

She came over to the bed. "Ah, Dr. Beckman, welcome back to the land of the living. Let me get Dr. Porter for you."

Twenty minutes later, Craig bustled into the room. As I mentioned, he's the only one who knows of my talent. It's not that I trusted him with the knowledge. He figured it out. Tricked me, in fact.

Even though he wasn't a believer in things such as aromatherapy, ESP, or reincarnation, our frequent association in grad school had led him to the improbable conclusion that I could sense other people's thoughts. So, he set a trap. Nothing complicated. In the dorm after a post-exam bender, when my thinking was compromised, he put a clear thought in his head. <Jesus. There's a rat in the toaster oven.>

I opened my eyes, twisted around, and looked at the oven. I turned to him. He wore a knowing smirk and nodded his head. <Got you.> I swore him to secrecy, and so far he's kept his knowledge private. I never even had to remind him that I knew his deepest secrets.

Craig came over to the bed. "Hey, guy." He checked my chart and vitals.

As a normal patient, I'd have been concerned about his worried looks. But he always looked worried. Plus, he wasn't thinking any dire thoughts.

He put one hand on the bed's railing. "Did you know you're famous?"

I rubbed the polymer cast on my shoulder. "Famous?"

Craig tapped his tablet and turned it to me. It displayed the front page of the Chronicle: Batboy Attacked on Baseball Field.

I chuckled. "Stupid and not quite right, like most news headlines. How'd the surgery go?"

"About as well as could be expected. The bones in a bat's wing are analogous to the bones in the human forearm, wrist, and fingers. The carpals are much smaller, but the meta—"

"Craig ..."

"Right, sorry. Dr. Lachman performed blunt dissection along the lengths of all the bat bones and slid them out. Like deboning a chicken. As we'd expected, the bones had merged with your tissue, so we were removing part of you as well."

"So I'm good to go."

"Well, hold on, there's more." He raised a finger. "The tricky part was the wing membrane."

"Is that living tissue?"

Craig nodded. "Apparently so. We brought in a comparative physiologist for consultation. The membrane is a homologue of our skin, extended. Long story short, Lachman teased out a lot, but some tissue is still inside you."

"Is that going to be rejected?"

"Yes, duh. C'mon guy, you want it to be rejected. It's not an organ transplant. Maybe you're still under the influence of the anesthetic." He shined his penlight into my eyes. "But it's all good. We'll monitor you for infection, but you should be fine. Lachman infused your shoulder with Hyperfix, so you'll feel good soon, despite all the muscle damage. The cast comes off tomorrow morning."

Hyperfix had been all over the news, the biggest breakthrough of the decade. A direct result of stem cell research, it could speed up healing by a factor of forty.

"It wasn't a vampire bat, was it?"

"That's kind of interesting. It was what's called a pallid bat."

"Fascinating." I smirked.

Craig held up his hand. "Hold on. The interesting thing is those bats aren't found around here any longer. They all died out around 2013 due to something called white nose syndrome. And, by the way, we're checking the bat for rabies. But no, not a vampire bat."

"So, there won't be any blood sucking in my future."

"Not unless you want that." He emphasized the word "want."

I stared at him. "What does that even mean, Craig? That doesn't make any sense at all."

He shrugged. Craig was a genius in most areas, but when it came to jokes, he was a savant idiot—the opposite of an idiot savant. He'd say something that had the rhythm and feel of a joke, but with no actual humorous content.

After he went back to work, a nurse wheelchaired me to a semiprivate room with a view of Golden Gate Park. I spent the day sitting up in bed, generating some billable hours, researching for the case of the disappearing hubby.

After that, I opened the photo I'd taken of the mysterious mademoiselle's tattoo. I photoshopped the missing ink back into it and flipped it horizontally to undo the mirror image change. It still looked a bit like a fish to me.

I posted the image on several tattoo websites. Most respondents said it was a pretty lame tattoo, not done by a professional. They didn't recognize it. But I finally got a hit from TattooGeezer29: HEY, MUSHBRAIN, IT'S NOT A HEAD OR A FISH, IT'S A MAP.

A map. Of course. Why hadn't I noticed that? It probably wasn't a treasure map since it didn't have an "X marks the spot." Plus, what would be the point of tattooing a treasure map on your waist?

It looked like the outline of a country but not one I recognized. I Googled country maps. Based on her appearance, I started with Central Europe, then moved to Eastern Europe.

I found it. To the right of Hungary and below Ukraine: Romania. Bingo. A perfect match.

In the afternoon, Craig pushed a wheelchair into my room. "How you feeling now?"

"Not bad." I rolled my neck and showed him the result of my brilliant detective work.

"Nice. Good match. Up for a field trip?"

"Not to Europe—are you joking?"

"No, no, much more local." He set the brakes on the wheelchair and flipped down the footrests.

I shrugged my good shoulder. It probably looked more like a dance move than a shrug, so I said, "Sure. Where to?"

"We'll pay a visit to Miss Romania."

I raised my eyebrows. "She awake?"

"Not yet, but she's doing well. For someone in a coma."

She was on the neurology floor, in a room shared with another comatose woman. Miss Romania was much improved, thought-wise. Her thinking was still in another language, probably Romanian, but the dream-state fragments were longer and more organized. And faster. <Okay va teesha so mali coma co ligga.> There were even a few English words mixed in.

She looked good, with a dimpled Mona Lisa smile as if enjoying a private joke. Someone had brushed her thick hair, and it lay dark and lustrous against the pillowcase. I got out of the wheelchair, reached over, and felt it.

Craig laughed. "What are you doing?"

"Just curious. Should I be here? I feel like a voyeur."

"You're a consultant, despite undergoing treatment for the bat thing. Don't worry about it."

I looked at him. This was new. Craig telling me not to worry. He was the worrier.

I sat back down. "We're on schedule. I expect her to come out of it any day. She's beautiful, isn't she?" I admired her high cheekbones and smooth skin. What story would she tell us when she woke up? Could she really have traveled here from the past?

* * *

The docs took off my cast and released me the next morning. I didn't even need a sling. The Hyperfix was amazing. I felt as if I'd been healing for several weeks. Three cheers for modern medicine.

While waiting in the pharmacy for Vicodin pills I wouldn't need, I watched the news. The mysterious mademoiselle was still the top story. CNC was interviewing an intense-looking man who claimed the government had been experimenting with a transporter device.

With my painkillers in hand, I headed off for some good old-fashioned detective work on the case of Donny the vanished husband. Old-fashioned work supplemented with incisive mind reading.

The first five of Donny's "haunts" revealed nothing. Beatrix had listed the places he frequented. She knew of them because he'd bragged about how much he'd won at this place or that: "Hey, Bea, I won 200 bucks over at the Moonshine Lounge."

But something wasn't adding up. No one recognized him. I didn't get a hit until I checked a lounge in his neighborhood. The bar was dark, with chairs up on the tables for cleaning. The bartender, a solidly built tough guy with a no-hair zone above his eyebrows, was counting bottles and writing on a clipboard.

I climbed onto a barstool and showed him Donny's photo. "Seen this guy?"

He grabbed it with a ham-sized fist and angled it to catch the light. <Oh crap, the sex club.> "Nope. Don't recognize him."

Sex club? This was interesting. The bartender was a good liar. Nothing in his manner told me he'd recognized Donny. Sam Spade would have struck out here. I walked toward the door, then, feeling like Columbo, turned and went back to the bar. "Uh, maybe you could help me. He, um, told me about an unusual club he was in. Wanted me to join up, but I lost track of him. Know anything about it?"

"No, asshole. I just told you I don't know this guy. How am I supposed to know what clubs he belongs to?" <And like I'd mention Marty anyway.>

I took out a folded twenty and put it on the bar. How does it go? Maybe this will refresh your memory? "Maybe you've heard of the club, even if you don't know this guy. The guy who runs it is Marty something. I forgot his last name."

He angled his face away and squinted at me as if I told him I'd grown up on Pluto. <Finkelstein? No way he forgot that.>

Like shooting fish in a barrel. A little research on the net, and I discovered a Marty Finkelstein, a janitor. Also a lawyer named Martina Finkelstein.

At Marty's home, his wife talked to me through a locked screen door. She wrung her hands while speaking and occasionally glanced back into the apartment.

Her mind was quiet. Some people are like that. They don't put their thoughts into words much. Perhaps they think in pictures. But she told me the information I needed: the address of the place Marty worked.

I found him sweeping up at a construction site. He knew nothing. Wrong guy. Worse, he had the impression I wanted him to join my personal sex club. Sorry, buddy.

Finkelstein, Prashker, Feldman and Gartner was on the top floor of Embarcadero One in San Francisco's financial district. I stepped out of the elevator and through a set of glass doors. Plush and quiet, the law firm gave off the scents of new office and old money.

The receptionist was professional but firm. "I'm sorry, sir, unless you have an appointment—"

"Please tell her I have a few quick questions about her special club."

The secretary frowned but did as I asked, and I was soon stepping into Ms. Finkelstein's office. "Marty" sat at her desk with a stunning backdrop of Alcatraz and San Francisco Bay seen through floor-to-ceiling windows. She stood and shook my hand. Mid-forties with salt-and-pepper hair, her glasses gave her the vibe of a sexy librarian. Her open-necked blouse and pencil skirt did nothing to detract from that image.

She sat and put her glasses on the desk. "How may I help you, Mr. Beckman?"

"Are you the owner or manager of a club of an unusual nature?" I put it as delicately as I could.

She examined my card some more, turning it over and back, then put it on her desk and looked me in the eye. "I am indeed." <Careful, here.>

She cleared her throat. "I have a legal club that caters to the needs of consensual adults. Most of the adults are wealthy and powerful. There is nothing shady about it. I don't advertise, for obvious reasons. Membership is by referral only."

Had she put a slight emphasis on the word "powerful"? A subtle warning? I put my hands up. "I'm sure that's fine. I'm not after you in any way, and I'm not a judgmental guy." I pulled Donny's picture from my pocket and handed it across her desk. "I'm looking for this man."

<Uh-oh.> "Is he missing?"

"Why did you assume that?"

She smiled. "Well, uh, maybe because you said you're looking for him." <Wow, maybe it really happened.>

"Did something happen?"

She revolved her chair toward the view. <It was just a rumor. I'm in the clear. Just hearsay.>

She revolved back, picked up my card, and tapped the edge against her desktop. "I heard a rumor that a Mr. Roman McCrea was going to kidnap Donny for ransom. Just a rumor. I didn't put much credence in it. Not enough to take to the police. McCrea was a bad man, and I have to admit I was glad when he died."

"Donny died?"

"No, no. Mr. McCrea." <How is this guy smart enough to be a detective?> "He died a few days ago. Just a sec." She brought up a news article on her desktop. She had the newest model. The surface of her desk was a tablet that extended from corner to corner. It was the old Windows desktop transformed from metaphor to reality. With her thumb and forefinger, she spun the display around so I could read it.

Man Dies Stealing Electricity

A woman who lives on Rivera Street in the Sunset district called 911 Friday night and reported a man on fire on a telephone pole. Deputies said a Mr. Roman McCrea was electrocuted while trying to steal electricity from a power line. Mr. McCrea had removed insulation from the wires and attached jumper-style cables to the power lines, apparently intending to bypass his electric meter.

The article went on to describe how energy theft was becoming more common with skyrocketing electrical rates and that the practice often resulted in injury or death.

The puzzle pieces fell into place. I looked out at the bay. "So maybe McCrea died after kidnapping and imprisoning Donny. Does that sound right?"

She spread her hands. <Sounds right, but I'm going to stay out of this.> "I'm sorry, Mr. Beckman. I've told you everything I know."

On my way out of the building, I called Stan and filled him in. Maybe Donnatello Winkel was locked up and starving somewhere. Time was critical, and I figured the police could find him faster than I could.

* * *

I needed to find out where McCrea might have stashed Donny. I followed false leads throughout the day and into the evening, and I needed a break.

The kidnapping scenario made sense, but Roman McCrea was dead, and dead men tell no tales. That's something private eyes say. Or maybe it's pirates.

In any case, I was done for the day. I walked into the Golden Gate Brew Pub. Time to use my painstakingly developed mental talent for something of a more personal nature.

Over the years I'd worked hard at improving my mind-reading skills. On that night with Naomi Wasserman, twenty-three years ago, my talent had been undeveloped. Think of the first time a concert pianist touches a piano. He might play a few notes with his index finger, unable to produce a tune. That's how basic my talent was. I wouldn't even have picked up Naomi's thought had I not been nibbling her substantial earlobe—inches from her brain.

With years of exhausting practice—scales, arpeggios, sight-reading—the pianist becomes a maestro. He or she learns to control the instrument, creating rich, wonderful music without effort. In the same way, I devoted hours per day to practicing my mind reading. I'd wander around a busy mall, focusing on thoughts. I learned to turn up the gain. I could soon read the thoughts of someone thirty feet away. Just as important, I learned to turn down the volume, focus on one person's thinking, and even block out everyone's thoughts. By 2020, I may not have been a maestro, but I could exert exquisite control over my gift.

I even studied neuroscience with the hope of figuring out the physical basis for my ability. Had no luck with that. I still don't have a clue as to how it works. Thanks to my selfishness, no one else will, either.

I walked over to the bar and ordered an Anchor Steam.

The place was quiet, and as soon as I walked in, the thoughts of a farm-girl-fresh brunette in a booth by herself grabbed my attention.

<Never should have listened to Susan. What, a man is going to just sit down in the booth and say 'Hi'? I'm a fish out of water. A lonely fish.>

I took my beer over, sat down across from her in the booth, and said, "Hi."

She laughed. <What? Maybe that is the way it works. Huh.>

"I hope you don't mind that I joined you. You looked a little lonely over here."

"No, I don't mind. I wasn't laughing at you. You just surprised me." She cocked her head. "And in what way did I look lonely?"

"I don't know, you just had a lonely look."

"Show me."

"What?"

"Show me what lonely looks like."

"You want me to look lonely?"

She nodded, smiling.

"Okay, give me a second to get into character." I looked down and shook out my arms as if getting ready for a competition, having no idea what I was going to do. I peeked up at her.

She leaned back and crossed her arms. "I'm waiting." <He's funny.>

Okay, she was on board. That gave me confidence. I pouted out my lower lip like a child who'd lost a puppy and looked slowly around the room.

She laughed and I joined in.

"So, that's what I looked like?"

"But with freckles." They gathered on her cheeks and gridlocked her nose. I hoped she wasn't self-conscious about them.

<Funny. I like my freckles.>

Okay, not self-conscious about them.

We went through the introductions. Her name was Jessica Holiday, a veterinarian who'd just taken over a practice in Marin County. She had a wonderful smile. Made me think of Miss Romania, but Jessica's hair was lighter and her face, rounder. She was in her early thirties and wore down-to-earth clothing.

After the kidding around, we both got a bit shy. I played with the label on my beer bottle. "This may seem strange, but I'd like to tell you that I'm not interested in a quick hookup—"

"Oh, neither am I!" Her face lit up. "I've never done this before. Not in a bar."

"You stick to grocery stores."

She laughed. "Right. In the meat department." She blushed and put her hand on mine. <Whoa! That feels nice. Been a while. Hmm.> She left it there a few extra seconds.

It felt nice to me, too.

She looked down at the table. <I have no idea what to talk about.>

I gestured toward the other people in the bar. "Look at these people. What do you think they're talking about? People who have just met, I mean." What a manipulative phony I can be. Disgusting.

"Right ... Right! I have no idea." <Wow, we're on the same wavelength.>

Our shyness dissipated as we talked. By reading her thoughts, I could make her night more enjoyable, make her feel more at ease. It wasn't just for my benefit. That's what I told myself, anyway.

Her eyes were expressive, flashing wide or squinting depending on what she said. We chatted for hours. Another small quake gave us more to talk about—she'd never felt one before.

I was about to deep-six the no-sex plan. Then again, if I was looking for a candidate for a long-term relationship, she fit perfectly. A real hometown girl-next-door with a genuine personality. Trustworthy, too. Maybe she'd be my salvation.

I pictured her in a cozy home, weeding vegetables in the garden, laughing with me in front of a fire. On the other hand, her thoughts told me she was "in the mood" right now. And wouldn't it be a blow to her self-confidence if I said, "not tonight, dear"?

A text from Craig saved me from breaking my vow of chastity: Miss Romania is awake. Come stat!

After explaining the situation to Jessica, I gave her my card and she gave me a kiss full of promise. I hightailed it toward UCSF and caught Jessica's last thought as I left the bar: <Where's the fire?>

CHAPTER FIVE

Craig met me in the lobby. He looked at his watch. "C'mon Eric, let's hurry. Wait till you meet her."

"What's the story?"

"She says she has amnesia. That's why I stopped talking to her and called you." He opened the door to the stairwell—the elevator was apparently too slow. "I figured you could tell if she's lying."

"Does she remember her name? That's always the last thing to go."

"Viviana Petrescu."

I nodded. "Good. Sounds Romanian to me."

"Let's talk to her just the two of us. The FBI will want in, but I haven't notified them yet."

"Shit, Craig, you're in trouble now." We rounded the third floor landing.

Craig stopped me with a hand on my arm. "Do you think so?"

"I was just kidding. You're fine. What about the FBI guard?"

"On her door?"

"Right." I pulled open the door to Viviana's floor.

"Oh, he's a flake. He's gotten complacent since she's been in a coma. I think he's wandering around the halls somewhere."

We entered her room and found her sitting up in the bed, eating red Jell-O. The vertical-slat blinds were closed, and her roommate was still circling Jupiter—still in a deep coma.

"Ah, Dr. Porter, you are back." She smiled. "You see, I remember. Maybe memory is good now. And you bring friend. Maybe is husband who I am forgetting." She winked at me.

Rather than someone who had been in a coma for six days, she looked like she'd woken up from a refreshing nap. She must have just discovered that her left pinkie was gone, yet she seemed in high spirits. Who can joke around after losing a finger?

I couldn't take my eyes off her hair. Deep black and lustrous, it fell in gentle waves around her neck and onto the front of her hospital gown.

Craig walked to one side of her bed. "Ms. Petrescu, I'd like to introduce my colleague. This is Dr. Eric Beckman."

When Craig said "Petrescu," she thought, <Petki,> as if correcting him. I moved to the other side of the bed and she shook my hand.

I could hear her thoughts but couldn't understand much. It was mostly in a foreign language and fast. Imagine the spoken fine print at the end of a TV drug commercial, but in Romanian. No way I could remember enough of it to write it down and get it translated.

But she thought in English, too. Perhaps twenty percent English.

Most people imagine that thinking in a new language is the height of fluency. However, it's not an all-or-nothing thing. Even a beginning French student might think "bonjour" when greeting a series of Frenchies even if that was the only word he knew. He wouldn't think "hello" and translate each time.

I tried not to look at the delicious curve of her neck and shoulders. "What a lovely name you have. Could you say it for me again so that I may pronounce it correctly?"

She looked to Craig, then squinted and looked at me from the corner of her eye. Suspicious but smiling. "My name, Viviana Petrescu. Is not so difficult, yes?" Thinking: <Viviana Petki> followed by gibberish.

Petki, Petki. I rehearsed it to myself so I wouldn't forget it. Also, I received one phrase twice. In her language: <oonda yestay zaza dud nic.>

I repeated it in my head, excused myself, went into the hall, and spoke it into my translation app. I'd preselected Romanian to English. It provided the translation, "Where is Zaza Dudnic?" Were the last two words a name? This was encouraging, but most of her thoughts went by too fast for me to remember. Memorizing more than a few nonsense syllables just wasn't possible.

I went back into the room, and she said, "You need the break, Dr. Becksman?"

"I, um, pardon me?"

"You need break from staring at the hair. My hair?" Her impish smile returned, and she raised her eyebrows. She lifted a section of her hair, making a mustache under her wonderful nose. God, she was stunning.

Craig laughed.

"You have, uh, very nice hair," I said. Come on, Beckman, get a grip.

"You would like to touch, maybe?" She held it out to me.

"Uh, no, thank you, are you feeling okay?" Without thinking, I reached out and petted the hair she held toward me, as if petting a ferret.

"See. Does not bite. Yes, am feeling okay. I feel good. Like James Brown, no?"

I thought back to the hit song from over fifty years ago. I wasn't born when it came out, but had heard it many times.

Craig consulted her chart. "Ms. Petrescu—"

"No, no, please call me my Christian name. Viviana." She looked first at Craig then at me.

"Okay, Viviana, do you know how you got here?" Craig asked.

She knitted her eyebrows. "I do not." She looked at her missing finger.

"What is the last thing you remember?" Craig pulled a chair to the side of the bed and sat.

I let him do the talking. I didn't want it to seem as if we were ganging up on her.

"I remember only that my name is Viviana Petrescu."

Craig and I looked at each other. The name is usually the last thing to go, but severe amnesia like that is extremely rare.

She laughed a beautiful, musical laugh. "I am making the joke. How do you say? I am pulling on your legs. But is true, my memory is fluffy. I am from Moldova. Moved here to America, to San Francisco, one year ago, give and take." Her eyes twinkled. "And now I am here, in hospital. But I am not sick. I feel nice. Like sugar and spice." She winked at me, and heat rose into my face. Did it show?

She had skillfully avoided answering the question.

"Viviana, your memory will probably return," Craig said. "Are you concerned about it? Does it worry you?"

"No, Dr. Craig, I do not worry. Know this: Am happy person. Always happy. Bad, bad times in my country. Still happy. Maybe am flawed like that. I do not worry. No point to worry about future. No reason to feel bad about past. This, I learn from my uncle."

"Don't worry. Be happy." I sang it with a Jamaican accent.

A puzzled frown flashed across her face. Obviously, she had never heard that song. Most of her thoughts were still nonsense to me.

Craig asked, "Does your uncle live here in this country? Do you have any relatives here?"

She didn't look so happy. "I do not remember."

I thought about the phrase my tablet had translated. "Do you know anyone named 'Zaza'?"

She perked up, "Yes. Yes, that is my uncle, Uncle Dudnic. Is he here?"

"No, I'm sorry—"

"How do you know that name?" Her eyes narrowed. "Is what I called him when I was young."

"You, uh, said it when you were coming out of the coma."

"You were not here then."

Oof, she's sharp. "Dr. Porter told me."

Craig gave me a questioning look, and she probably caught it. C'mon Craig, learn to play along!

He directed a thought my way, <Sorry about that,> then asked her a more standard neurological question. "Do you know what the date is? What year it is?"

"Is silly question. Everyone knows year."

We waited. She looked from one of us to the other. <Something, something, something opt say chee.>

I wrote it on my tablet phonetically. If only I could record her thoughts.

"My memory is fluffy on this. What is date, please?"

"Today is October sixth," Craig said.

"Year?"

"Twenty twenty."

The color drained from her face and her hand flew to her mouth. She stared straight ahead. Her heart rate, displayed on the monitor, went up ten beats per minute.

She seemed to recover quickly, but her heart rate remained elevated. The monitor gave a beep, but Craig turned the sound off. A nurse rushed in. She must have gotten warnings from the remote heart rate monitoring at the nursing station. Craig waved her off.

Craig felt her pulse. "Are you feeling okay, Viviana?"

"Oh, I am fine. I just realize how bad my memory is. More than fluffy."

I couldn't help myself. "We say 'fuzzy.'"

She looked at me with that big smile of hers. "Yes, fuzzy. Thank you. Am working on the English. I am tired. Maybe sleep now."

Craig nodded. "I can give you a pill to—"

"No, no. Do not need pills. Sleep very good. Do not worry. I feel good." She started singing the James Brown song with an entrancing accent. "So good, beep beep, so good, beep, I gotta you."

On the word "you," she poked me in the stomach and winked.

* * *

Craig and I retired to his office. A large window looked out across a courtyard at another wing of the hospital. Craig's dark wood desk held nothing but a keyboard and a monitor. He had his diplomas on the wall, but no books or papers. The paperless office.

Craig sat in his wire-mesh office chair, and I collapsed into a visitor-slash-patient seat. It was three a.m., and I'd had a long day. I never should have gone bar hopping.

Craig leaned forward. "Well, what was she thinking?"

"I have no idea."

"What?"

"She's thinking in another language, probably Romanian."

"Or whatever they speak in Moldova. Just a sec ..." Craig typed a few things. "Romanian. That's what they speak. But whatever it is, it's a problem."

"Right. Unless we can find a mind-reading Romanian, we're just going to have to handle this the old-fashioned way. But I got a few things."

"Like what?" Craig got up and paced.

"First, she's lying about her last name. It's not Petrescu."

"What is it?"

"It's ... well, let me check some things out. It's not clear." I'm not sure why I lied. I could trust Craig, of all people.

He looked at me sideways. "Hold on. You've been acting funny. This isn't some kind of love at first sight thing, is it?"

"No, definitely not. That's—"

<Bingo.> "Because if it is, you've picked the wrong woman. We don't know anything about her, and you just said she was lying to us."

"No, no. Nothing like that." I wanted to change the subject, but Craig did it for me.

"Can you remember, phonetically, anything she thinks?" He perched on his desk. "You could repeat it to someone who speaks Romanian."

"No, it's just too fast and unfamiliar. On the other hand, when we were talking about the date, she thought a lot of syllables, but I got the last three: opt say chee. It's a long shot, but—"

"Wait, I'll enter it here." He went to his computer. "Like 'opt' and then 'say cheese' without the final S?"

"Right."

"Okay, it doesn't have anything for 'say chee,' but 'opt' is 'eight.' Now, I'll translate 'eighty' from English to Romanian ... hey, look at that. 'Optzechi.'" Craig clicked the "pronounce" button. "Opt say chee."

"Yup, that's what I heard."

"So, she thinks it's 1980." Craig tapped his desk.

I whistled. "Could be. Forty years in the past. Wow. And by the way, I don't think she's from Moldova. Why would she have a tattoo of Romania on her hip? She's trying to keep us in the dark. Another lie."

"Well, I worry that we won't be able to figure this out. The FBI will take her away. Or the paparazzi will figure out we've tricked them."

I smiled. "Maybe you need to be more like her: Don't worry. Be happy."

"What else could you understand?"

"Not much, but my theory is that—"

A nurse knocked, opened the door, and stuck her head into the room. "You wanted to be told about Ms. Petrescu."

Craig stood up. "Yes."

"Well, she took off her leads. The heart rate monitor alert sounded at the nursing station. It looked like she was about to go somewhere."

I stood also. "Is she in her room now?"

"Yes, she is."

* * *

We rushed down the hall. Over by the window, she was doing stretching exercises.

Craig went to her. "Viviana, I thought you said you were sleepy."

She did a hamstring stretch with her heel up on the high windowsill. "I had a second blowing."

"A second wind?" I asked.

She held the stretch, with her hands wrapped around her foot, and smiled back at me. "Yes, a second wind. I want to hit the road, Jack. Go somewhere."

The gown showed off her legs, but my eyes were drawn to her biceps. The firm muscles were those of a gymnast. I pictured her scaling a rope with ease.

Craig scratched his head. "We'd like to keep you under observation. You've been through a lot. You seem healthy, but we need to be sure. Do you remember anything about the position of your heart and other organs?"

Ah, the heart being on the right side. I guessed that she'd know nothing about that.

"My heart? Something is wrong?" She put her hand on the left side of her chest and went a little pale. <Chay?> She moved it to one or two other places above and below her breast, then put her fingers on her neck and relaxed.

Okay, "chay?" probably meant "what?" Or maybe "where the fuck did my heart go?" I'd remember to look it up. My first Romanian word. One down, a million to go.

"No, no. Everything is fine," Craig said. "We can talk about that later."

"Maybe walk around hospital? Maybe Dr. Becksman takes me around? He can be looking at my hair."

Heat rose into my cheeks. Sheesh, this isn't like me. I rubbed my face.

"You know, it's four a.m." Craig tapped his watch.

Viviana waved her hand. "Does not matter. I am a little fuzzy"—she looked at me—"on the time. Like the jet lag, no? I am getting the cabin sickness in this room. I want to look around."

After Craig gave her a quick exam, she took my arm, tightly, and we started off down the hall.

Anyone who's brought a new cat home would recognize her behavior. She seemed interested in every nook and cranny, opening closet doors, checking the stairwell. Cats do this to learn their territory—they might need it if they have to hide or escape.

She stood by an evacuation map on the wall, taking it in with surreptitious glances. "I don't mind your investigation."

"My—"

"You know. You are investigating me. Trying to read me, figure me out. Everything I say, you are analyzing. You look deep into my eyes, when you are not looking at my hair. Is okay. What have you learned, Meestair Becksman?"

"Please call me Eric and I will call you Viviana. You speak English quite well."

She disengaged from my arm and stood with her hands on her hips. Then she shook my hand like a man. Her grip made me wince. She lowered her voice and made it gravelly. "Well, howdy do Mistah Eric Beckman. Ah'm pleased as punch to meet y'all."

My jaw dropped. She's full of surprises. She could pass for a Texan. She must have memorized that phrase and practiced it until she spoke with no accent.

Viviana latched back onto my arm and flashed me a smile. "I am full of the surprises, no?"

Ack! Right then I realized how others must feel when they were around me. She couldn't read my ... no, it was just a coincidence, wasn't it? I've searched for years and never found any other mind readers.

Easily tested. I turned to her and put a conscious, verbal thought in my head: I know who you are, Ms. Petki.

"There you go again, staring at me, trying to figure me out. Looking deep into my eyes. Aren't you afraid I vill hypnotize you like Gypsy? You are under my power, dahlink!" She took my arm again and patted it with her free hand. "Let's just have nice promenade." She batted her eyelashes at me. "No more investigating. I like to talk the way I do. Is hard work to talk better. This is more fun. Maybe I am pulling on your legs." She reached down and pinched my thigh. Whoa!

A nurse walked by making notes on a tablet. Viviana seemed fascinated.

"Viviana, when Craig mentioned the year—"

"Upp! No! No investigating, just promenade, remember? Maybe your memory is a little fluffy, too. So many nurses and doctors. Hospital is so much bigger than in my country. Is that a locker room for workers? And they use cards, plastic cards, instead of keys?"

"Now who's investigating?"

She smiled and pulled on my ID, which was on a lanyard around my neck. "It says here, consultant. You are not doctor here?"

I shrugged. Both shoulders were working now. "It's a little complicated. I used to be a scientist, not a medical doctor. I studied the brain."

"And what do you do now, meestair used-to-be-a-scientist?"

"I'm a private investigator."

"Ha! I knew." <Uh-oh.> "In my country, when tire gets worn out, sometimes put new rubber on it. Maybe that's you. What is word? Reface? In Romanian, is 're-fa-chay.'"

"Retread?"

She nodded and switched to her Texas accent. "Better hope y'all don't deee-laminate, yes? Is right word, pardner?"

We came to a window at the end of the hall and looked at the blinking red lights atop the towers of the distant Golden Gate Bridge. As we watched, lights blinked out in a large section of the Richmond district.

Viviana pointed. "Look, power went out. What is happening?"

"You have no idea?"

"Memory is fluffy, remember? Please tell." She hugged my arm tighter.

I pictured taking her in my arms. Concentrate. "You don't know anything about the oil infection or the new electric cars?"

"Am all ears."

"Okay, I'm going to pretend you have been asleep for the last forty years." I examined her face out of the corner of my eye.

She didn't react, but in her mind: <Right.>

Right? "Okay, here's what's going on. A one-two punch caused an energy catastrophe for the world. Years ago, scientists developed an oil-eating organism to clean up oil spills. It worked great, but then the organism infected oil wells, and the infection spread. Oil production dropped and prices skyrocketed. With me so far?"

"Am foreigner, not idiot."

I chuckled. "Fair enough. The second punch was the development of a new battery. After years of minimal breakthroughs, a small company came up with a new, miracle battery. It could store surprising amounts of energy, resulting in much improved ranges for cars. This battery could be produced quickly and cheaply and was plug-and-play with existing electric cars."

"What is 'plug-and-play'?"

"Sorry, it means you could just replace existing batteries with the new ones with few modifications necessary."

"The new battery sounds like good thing. Not punch."

"Right. You'd think so. Except that this battery requires more energy to charge. Much more. And because of the high price of gas, everyone wanted a car that used one. Not only did car companies ramp up production of electric cars, but every neighborhood had someone who would convert your gasoline car to run on batteries."

"So, power plants in trouble, yes?" She rubbed her eyes and stifled a yawn.

"Exactly. And the result ..." I gestured toward the dark area of San Francisco.

Viviana the wonder woman was finally running low on power herself, so I escorted her back to her room and said good night. She pecked me on the cheek, and I turned before she could see me blushing.

CHAPTER SIX

After a few hours of sleep in the doctors' lounge, I took a bus to police headquarters. Stan's secretary, a white-haired sweetheart, gave me a peck on the cheek and let me wait in his office. I didn't blush this time.

I collapsed into one of his mismatched visitor chairs. Here was the office of an experienced investigator. Binders of different colors jammed the shelves—no digitizing for Stan. The walls were gray and devoid of ego photos and diplomas. His semi-cluttered work surface included a travel mug, a water bottle, and a photo frame. I leaned forward and turned the frame toward me—it held a picture of his wife. The din of a busy police station filtered in from the hall.

Stan came in, dropped some binders on his desk, and installed himself behind it.

"You slept in your clothes." This came from a man who always looked as if he'd slept in his. "How's the shoulder?"

I rolled it around. "Not bad."

"I don't have much time. You here about the woman?" He leaned back in his chair and laced his hands across his stomach.

I nodded. "She woke up at two a.m. She'll try to escape, I'm sure of it."

"Name?"

"She says her name is Viviana Petrescu from Moldova."

Stan wrote it down. "The old country."

"But she may be lying about her last name."

"One of your hunches."

"Right. She's a good liar, and she doesn't want us to figure out who she is. A good actress, too, but nervous underneath. Like a trapped animal. Can you put a guard on her room?"

Stan chuckled. "Like she could slip past all the paparazzi?"

"We've fooled them so far. They all think she's at a different hospital."

"Doesn't the FBI have someone on her room?"

"Not all the time."

"I don't know, Eric. She's big news, but at this point, it's a science thing, not something for the local police."

"You worked on it before."

"Yeah, but word has come down on this. She hasn't done anything illegal. Energy crimes have exploded, and we're overloaded. I don't like it, but my hands are tied. Does she know what happened—how she could appear like that?"

"Amnesia."

"Yeah?"

"Says she doesn't remember a thing. Could you put some rookie cop there?" I asked.

"They're all busy. What about you?"

"I'd do it, but I want to find Donny Winkel while he's still alive. Have you got anything on that?"

Stan sat back up and pulled a binder toward him. He looked through it. "No, nothing useful on this Roman McCrea guy. He's the guy you say kidnapped Winkel then died, right?"

"Yes. Have you searched his house, talked with his widow?"

He left the binder open. "While the San Francisco Police Department would love to take advantage of your many years of investigative experience, we know how to work a case."

"If you've got a list of his friends, it could save me some legwork."

He sighed and turned to a page in the binder with a list of names, then looked out the window. After a few seconds, he said, "Done?"

I frowned. I wasn't getting anything useful from Stan's mind. "Done what?"

"I'm looking out the window now."

"Okay, got it." I took out my tablet and snapped a photo of the page. "Thanks, Stan." I waved to the secretary on my way out, but Stan came into the hall and called me back.

"Here's what I'll do," he said. "For some strange reason, your hunches sometimes pay off. I do think there's something important about Ms. Petrescu, and if she disappeared, it wouldn't look good for the department. So, I'll put a kid from the police academy outside her room. Now get outta here, Batboy, and let me get back to work."

* * *

Back at my office, Peggy was putting the finishing touches on her nails. I guess beauty is a full-time job when concealing one's dudeness. She waved her hands as if playing a fast polka on an invisible accordion. "Coffee, boss?" She nodded at the stack of mail on the corner of her desk.

I shuffled through the bills and other junk mail. "Yeah, and get us both some sandwiches from the deli."

"You got it." <Looks like he slept in his clothes.>

She and two pastramis on rye soon joined me in my office, and I filled her in on the Donny Winkel case. She was particularly interested in the sex club.

I took a bite of my sandwich and washed it down with a swig of coffee. "And we're not mentioning that to Mrs. Winkel, unless it becomes necessary."

Peggy mimed locking her lips and dropping the key into her cleavage.

"Well, that's an appropriate place for an imaginary key."

She punched me on the shoulder. Ow.

We divided the meager list of Roman's friends and made some phone calls. And no, I can't read minds over the telephone. Through walls, yes, long distances, no.

We came up with only two reachable individuals who might help us. The first, fittingly, was in prison himself, a man known simply as "Eyeball." I finagled a prison visit, and Peggy and I drove out to the small, low-security facility in Concord. She'd been angling for more involvement, and pointed out that I wasn't getting a lot of phone calls.

We took my gas-guzzling, fifty-mile-per-gallon Yaris. We pulled into the parking lot, and Peggy waited by the car while I went through the bureaucratic procedures for my first ever visit to a prison. Mr. Eyeball lived up to his nickname, having a realistic eye tattooed in the center of his forehead. He sat down across from me in the visiting room and picked up his phone. Leaning toward me, he closed his real eyes.

"Thank you for meeting me today, sir." I spoke directly to his tattoo, shaking my head. "I'm sorry for the loss of Mr. McCrea, your friend. I'm looking for some information that might save a life."

"I'm happy to help you, sir. I don't get no visitors." <Sure nice havin' somebody new to talk to. Wonder how long I can keep him going before he figures out I don't know nothin' ... >

Back in the parking lot, Peggy leaned against the car, waving to her new friends. The inmates whistled and waved back from their cell windows.

"That was quick," she said.

"Dead end. Let's go."

I hoped for better luck at the nearby home of a Ms. Irene Nordman. On her sweltering porch, I laid out the situation.

Irene was pushing fifty, but built right, like a sexy sports car. She laid her hand on my forearm. "I'd get us some iced tea, but every second counts, don't you think?"

Her sensuous movements made me sure she'd known Roman McCrea from the sex club. Seemed old for a club like that, but maybe appearance counted. I pictured some carnival-like sign at the entrance: You Must Be This Sexy to Ride.

"Did you know Donny, or just Roman?" I asked.

<Do they know about the club?> "Yes, I knew them both. Have you checked with Jerry ... I can't remember his last name."

Peggy checked the list. "Jerry Edgar."

"Right, Edgar. He was Roman's best buddy."

Peggy nodded and looked at her notes. "We couldn't reach him. He's on vacation, some backpacking thing, he won't be back for—"

Irene snapped her fingers. "Jerry has a shack in Isleton. Isolated. The perfect place to stash someone. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

We were, in fact, all thinking the same thing: Donny was locked in Jerry's shack. Irene drew us a map. The place was an hour away, and Peggy and I set off, driving as fast as we could get away with. That is, just above the national fifty-mile-an-hour speed limit.

Peggy slid her seat back and put her sandaled, waxed, and manicured feet on the dashboard. "So you think this Edgar guy was in on the kidnapping?"

"Not necessarily. Maybe Roman just used his place without his knowledge, while Edgar was away. Maybe. We'll know when we get there."

After a few wrong turns, we pulled up in front of the shack. "Shack" was the right word for it, assuming it was preceded by "broken down." Built with scrap lumber, it sat in a yard so full of junk that the place looked as if someone were running a garage sale—a discolored claw-foot bathtub, a treadmill, assorted garden gnomes.

We called out, "Donny? Donny?" Nothing.

I broke in, and by that I mean I shifted a sheet of plywood that covered an opening in back. The place wasn't lockable, but maybe Donny was chained up inside.

Not so. I searched thoroughly. It took only a few minutes.

Peg and I trudged back toward the car. I had expected a victory here.

"Hey, boss, what about that?" She pointed to a rusty ship container nestled under some willows. It was blue and as big as a semitruck.

With renewed energy, a second blowing, we raced over to it and banged on the sides. "Donny! Donny, you in there?" We pushed our ears against the sides of the container. Not a peep.

I examined the lock. Brand new. High quality. That's when I caught it. A thought from inside the container. Delirious. <Grable, grable.> Like the last thoughts of a dying turkey. What a letdown it would be if he died before we could get him out.

"Call an ambulance!"

Peggy squinted at me as if I'd asked her to call Tinker Bell. "But we don't know he's in there, boss."

"I've got a hunch. Do it!" I ran back to the shack and dug around in the workshop area. A rusty hacksaw. That would have to do.

Sawing was awkward because the hasp was covered with a protective steel box. The blade disintegrated after only a few strokes. I ran to the shack again, pulling Peggy along with me. "Call the fire department. Tell them we need to break in. And if anybody asks, tell them I heard Donny in there."

"But you didn't."

"Trust me on this, Peggy."

I looked over her shoulder. The tool I needed stood in the center of a woodpile. A huge splitting ax. I ran over and picked it up: a rusted orange thing with "Monster Maul" engraved on the head.

Back at the container, Peggy ended her call and crossed her arms, watching me attack the container. <Okay, now he's lost it.> "They're sending someone from a place called Rio Vista. It's not far from here."

The maul weighed a ton and threatened to slide out of my sweaty hands as I cast it over my head and down. After the third whack, a crack appeared in the rusty assembly. Two more, and the padlock broke free, falling to the ground.

I pulled the right door open, and our hands flew to our noses. Peggy turned and said goodbye to her pastrami on rye. The sirens of emergency vehicles reached us, and she ran to meet the first responders. I held my shirt against my nose and entered the container.

Donny lay on his stomach in the corner, wearing nothing but underwear. The container was as hot as an oven. His mind wasn't even making turkey noises any more. Were we too late? The EMTs came in and took over. They checked him out, then rolled him onto a stretcher and headed to the ambulance.

I trotted along. "Is he going to make it?"

The taller EMT nodded. "His vitals look okay. It's a bad case of heat exhaustion and dehydration, but since I'm not a doctor, I'm not allowed to tell you more." He slid Donny into the ambulance. <He'll make it, but it was close.>

I called Donny's wife, Beatrix, and gave her the news. She sounded overjoyed.

Maybe this private eye thing will work out after all. After filling out some forms at the one-room sheriff's office, Peggy and I got a table at the Barge Inn, a floating bar and grill on the Sacramento River. I ordered a gimlet. I didn't know what a gimlet was, only that Phillip Marlowe drank them. Peggy ordered some frou-frou cocktail.

When our drinks came, we sat in a comfortable silence, looking over the river and listening to an insect symphony.

"So, boss, how come you were so sure he was in there?" Peggy played with her drink's paper umbrella.

"I must have heard something, subconsciously."

She shook her head. <Something's going on.> "I don't know. I saw Donny on that stretcher, and he didn't look like he could—"

"Wow, this gimlet thing is really good—you ever have one? Let me order a gimlet for you."

My relationship with Peggy was the closest thing I had to a good relationship with a woman. Right, I know, she wasn't a woman. Maybe she was like training wheels for me on my quest to develop a long-term relationship with a member of the opposite sex.

After I got her gimletted up, I said, "Peg, may I ask you a personal question?"

"Sure. Give me a second to set up my recorder. For the sexual harassment trial."

I took a sip of my drink and set it down. "You and your girlfriend have a good relationship, right?"

"Ophelia? Sure, couldn't be better. Been together eight years."

"You don't have to answer this, but what does she think of your cross-dressing?"

She laughed. "Yeah, boss, I guess that's pretty personal, but I don't mind. Why do you ask?"

"Well, I'm thirty-nine, and I've never been together with a woman for more than a few weeks. I'm trying to figure out—"

"Admit it. You're just curious."

"Okay. Partly."

Peggy slid a chair out from another table and put her bare feet up on it. "No problem." She sat looking at the scenery long enough that I thought maybe she wasn't going to answer, then said, "Things are fine, and they're going to continue to be fine. But between you and me, boss," Peggy turned to me, "I think maybe she's a closet lesbian."

After a restful dinner that didn't include pastrami, I gave Craig a call. All was quiet on the eastern front. That is, the Romanian front.

"Did you see a guard on her room?" I asked.

"I don't remember," he said. "Look, Eric, I'm about to scrub in for a shunt operation. I can't talk now."

* * *

The events of the day ran through my mind while lying in bed, staring at the time display on the ceiling: 12:09 a.m. I reached for the EZ-Sleeper prototype on the side table. Its brainwave-synchronized input would have me sleeping in minutes, but I stopped and put it back. Sleep could wait. I was enjoying thinking about how I'd solved a case and rescued Donny.

And about the mystery of Viviana Petki. An image of her glancing at the evacuation map while flirting flashed into my head. While distracting me. Shit! I should go check on her. I should have gone earlier. Of course. What's wrong with me? I jumped out of bed and threw on my clothes.

Would she be gone by the time I got there?

CHAPTER SEVEN

Viviana watched the clock on the wall of her hospital room: 12:09 a.m. Sincronizare este importantă. Timing is important. Finally, the hospital shift change was finished. Escape time.

She had to disappear before they figured out who she was. When that happened, she'd get a one-way ticket to prison. Maybe she'd be past the statute of limitations on her crimes, since she'd jumped so far ahead by mistake, but she wasn't taking any chances. She wanted—needed—total independence and anonymity. Without that, her favorite entertainment would be closed to her.

The night before, she'd been tripped up by those stupid machines monitoring her vital signs. They must have sent a signal to a central station somehow. Soon after she'd detached herself, the nurse had popped in. "May I help you?" How did that happen? The only wires from the machines were the power cords. Some technology that didn't exist in 1980?

She wouldn't make that mistake again. She had figured out a solution.

12:10 a.m. She rolled her bed closer to her comatose roommate's, careful to take things slowly, keeping her heart rate stable. Her blood pressure cuff only inflated periodically, so that went first. As soon as it finished taking a measurement, she slipped it off and wrapped it around her roommate's arm.

Next was the thing that clipped onto her finger, whatever that was. She held her hand next to the roommate's and transferred the device in less than a second. So far, so good. The tricky part would be the three chest wires. Would they have enough stickiness to be reattached? She got everything in position and transferred each wire.

One of them got hung up. La naiba! Damn! She untangled it and soon got all three stuck to her unresponsive roommate's chest. The monitor squealed, but only for a second. Viviana pictured someone at the nursing station looking up and then, hopefully, back down again. She was past the point of no return now. If someone came into the room, acting innocent wouldn't work.

She moved her bed back into its original position and arranged pillows and other items until it looked occupied. She reached under the mattress to retrieve her booty: an ID card lifted from a nurse, the table knife from her lunch tray, a surgeon's cap and mask.

She tiptoed to the door and peered out the small window. This was the new guard on her door—the young one. Da, excelent! This was the one who sometimes walked away from his post, taking trips to the bathroom or water fountain.

He was engrossed with some strange electronic device or plaything that involved tapping with the thumbs. How long could she wait for him to go get a drink of water? Could she charm her way past him? Unlikely. If only she could arrange a distraction.

She watched him through the door's window. Hai, du-te! Come on, go! The corridor was deserted. She only had to get past the guard to be in the clear. Her heart raced. Good thing she was no longer plugged in.

She stuffed her hair into the surgeon's cap that she'd slipped from an intern's pocket. That should make her look a little different. She'd rejected wearing the surgical mask—it would hide her identity but call too much attention to itself.

The monitor beeped. She rushed over. One of the chest wires was coming loose. She pressed it down firmly and with the other hand picked up a small flower vase. Dumping out the plastic flowers, she arranged it, along with a fold of blanket, so that it held the wire down. It only had to last a few minutes.

That done, she went back to the door. The guard was gone. Da! She inched the door open. He was strolling toward the water fountain.

She slipped out and eased the door closed. It jumped shut at the last second, hitting the jamb with a thud. Her heart rate spiked.

She held her breath and whipped her eyes to the guard. If he turns—how did he not hear that? Earphones. He had wires going to each ear.

The fountain was close by. She wouldn't be able to get out of sight before he finished drinking. If he saw her hiking away down the hall, he'd know it was her. Viviana willed her muscles to stay loose and took deep, calming breaths. She'd been in stickier situations than this.

She walked away quickly, watching the guard the way a lioness watches her prey. As soon as he released the water fountain button, she reversed direction and walked back toward him with her head down. She passed him just as he sat down and pulled out his toy.

He spoke to her without looking up. "How ya doin'?"

"Not bad." She drew the words out, sounding as American as possible, putting in a touch of Southern accent—naht byad.

She turned a corner and let out her breath. That was the trickiest part, but she wasn't out of the thicket yet. An image of her close call in Bucharest flashed into her head and the burning sensation when the bullet hit her. She was more careful now, da?

She made a beeline for the locker room and waved her stolen ID. The door clicked open and she walked in. Succes!

"Excuse me, may I help you?"

Oof! Two workers stood by the coffee machine.

"Sorry, wrong room." She backed out and dashed into a nearby restroom. She pushed the door closed and put her ear to it, listening.

The two workers walked past. "Yeah, duh, but if she's a patient, how did she get in?"

Breathing deeply, Viviana waited, counting to ten—opt, nouă, zece. Her heart still pounded, but more slowly now. She zipped into the hall and back into the locker room. It was empty. She'd have to be fast.

She heard new voices outside and the click of the electronic door. Oof. Where could she hide? A desk-sized laundry bin on casters sat in the corner. She jumped in and pulled the dirty scrubs over her. It rolled out from the wall. Not good.

Two men came in. "Did you hear something?"

No response. Maybe the other shook his head. They accessed their lockers, speaking medical gibberish the whole time, and taking too long to change. The scrubs around Viviana's face smelled of antiseptic and sweat. Finally, the men's used clothing dropped on top of her. Would they nudge the bin back to the wall and notice the extra weight? The door to the locker room clicked shut.

Viviana climbed out and looked around. She considered the scrubs. No, street clothes would be better.

Most of the padlocks weren't familiar, but two lockers were protected by silly multiple-dial padlocks. The kind with four rings of numbers, zero through nine on each. Easy.

She pulled on the first lock, turning each dial and feeling the slight click as it moved into the right position. Done. The locker held only snacks and an LCD watch. She put the watch on her wrist. Nice. 12:30.

The second locker contained jeans and a turtleneck. She held out the pants. Too long. She slipped them on and rolled the hems inward. Da. Good enough.

She felt the pockets. Empty. No money. She rummaged around on the shelf in the locker, knocking over a plastic bottle of Coca-Cola. Plastic? It didn't feel right. She pulled it out and smiled. It was a fake. She shook her head. If it had been glass, like a real Coke bottle, she might have been fooled. She unscrewed the bottom and pulled out a man's wallet. Someone was clever enough to hide his wallet. He would have been smarter to get a good padlock.

She removed three hundred-dollar bills and two twenties. A lot of money to carry around. The twenties looked different, but not too different. She left the credit cards and driver's license, repacked the wallet into the fake Coke bottle, and resecured the locker.

With the turtleneck and a pair of Swedish clogs from under a bench, she was set. The door clicked and someone else came in. Would he talk to her? She put her head down and walked out, the stolen nurse's ID dangling from her neck.

She thought back to the evacuation map she'd examined. Beckman had noticed her interest, but it couldn't be helped. She entered the stairwell. Seven floors up, she began clip-clopping her way down. Things were going well, but that could change. Maybe the competent guard—FBI?—would return. He'd check on her and sound the alarm.

After only three stairs, she stumbled in the ill-fitting clogs. She fell and grabbed the railing. One shoe came off and went through the railing supports. Leaning over, she watched it sail all the way to the bottom, landing with an echoing crack. La naiba!

Get by without it? No, a person with one shoe or with bare feet would attract attention.

Was someone close behind? No, that was just a premonition, yes? Sweat tickled her neck, and she checked her new watch: 12:37.

* * *

I arrived at the UCSF med center at 12:30 and took the slow elevator to her floor. A guard sat in a chair by her room. Good.

Without looking up from his smartphone, he said, "How ya doin'?"

His thoughts were typical of someone playing a video game. <Up, up. Over. No, no, no. Darn. Now. Now!>

I peered in through the small window. All was okay. She was resting comfortably, as they say. Sleeping.

I turned to speak with the guard, then froze. I whipped my head back to the window. Why was there a vase on the other patient's chest? The tubes and wires—they all went to Viviana's roommate's bed.

I slammed the door open. The guard jumped, then followed me.

I threw Petki's covers aside. Sure enough, underneath were pillows, rolled blankets, and a drawer. The guard's mouth formed a perfect "O," and his face was the color of Russian dressing. I tilted my head back and checked the narrow air ducts in the ceiling. Too small. The windows? No, the fixed-frame windows couldn't be opened. We were on the seventh floor, anyway.

I turned back to the guard and clenched my teeth. "When was the last time you left your post?"

"I haven't left it."

I pointed to the empty bed. "Then how did she get out?"

"I, uh, I got a drink of water from the fountain five or ten minutes ago, but that was just a few rooms down. I kept my eye on the door."

"When exactly?"

"Just ten minutes ago. Maybe twenty." <I think. Crap. I really, really screwed up.>

"Did you see anyone else around?" I opened the cabinets and checked the bathroom.

"No. No one." <That nurse walked by. Or doctor. Crap.>

"Call security. Tell them to block the exits. Tell them someone dangerous is escaping."

I sprinted to the stairwell, and slammed the door open. I went down fast enough to get dizzy. I jumped over three stairs at a time. Step, step, jump. Over and over. Once false move and I'd sprain an ankle.

I caught a faint thought from below me, at the edge of my range: <Shit and crap and vomit!> English, but what American would think that? I yelled, "Viviana!"

* * *

Viviana jumped toward the door to the lobby. Above her a stairwell door clanged, followed by running footsteps. Shit and crap and vomit! The jig is up. Some yelling echoed down, but she couldn't understand it.

She'd been forced to detour to the subbasement, two floors below the lobby, and crawl around searching for her damn shoe among garbage cans and gurneys, wasting valuable seconds. She located it in the angle where the stairs met the floor and stretched to get it, like a cat reaching for a toy under the couch. Halfway back to the ground floor, she'd heard the dreaded sound. The sound of a pursuer. The man was fast, probably FBI. Step, step, bang. Maybe to the fifth floor already. Her premonition had been correct.

Breathe. Is okay. Exit is close.

She slammed open the door to the lobby and raced to the front entrance. She went to the front of the taxi queue. Some of the taxis had no driver or even a place for a driver. How could that be?

The cab at the front of the queue was normal, with a swarthy driver reading a paper. She hopped in and implored the cabbie to go, go, go!

Had she made it? She looked back at the entrance. Her heart knotted.

Her pursuer came charging out. The man stood frantically looking around, then his eyes locked on to the cab. She clenched her fists and lowered her head but continued watching. It was too late. He'd seen her. The man turned and sprinted after them.

Viviana turned to the driver. "Help. Go fast, please. Is my ex-husband chasing."

The cabbie, a foreigner himself, glanced in the rearview mirror and stepped on the gas. The vehicle lurched forward.

But before the car went a few meters, the man closed the distance and reached for the door handle, yelling something. With a click, the lock depressed as if by magic. The cabbie chuckled. She locked eyes with her pursuer. Ce? Is Beckman! Detective.

The cab pulled away, but Beckman didn't give up, he kept running. A traffic light turned red. The taxi slowed.

She leaned forward and held her head low so that she could see the light. "Please go though. Go through light."

The cabbie shook his head. "I'm sorry, ma'am, I must stop. I would lose my license."

CHAPTER EIGHT

I caught up with the cab. She drew back from the door. <Chay? Is Beckman. Detective.>

Yes, it was her! Those were indeed her strange curse words I'd heard in the stairwell.

I looked her in the eye. "Wait, please!" I reached for the door. The cab pulled away. "Stop. Stop!" I kept running. I couldn't give up. She might disappear forever. I'd never unravel her mystery. I'd never see her again.

The traffic light ahead turned red. The cab slowed. Yes! I could catch them. Maybe get in the cab with her.

Ten feet separated us when the cabbie accelerated and went through the light. Had he been playing with me? The intersection was empty.

The cab disappeared down the street. I ran until I was exhausted. I put my hands on my knees and drew in ragged breaths, like a marathon runner who had come in a close second.

What was wrong with me? I slapped my knee. I knew she was going to try to escape. I should have insisted on a better guard. I should have come here immediately after I resolved Donny's case. It was my fault.

* * *

Viviana stepped out of the cab on California Street. She had asked to be taken to California and Hyde, a few blocks from Grace Cathedral. No point in leaving a record of her true destination. A warm breeze came up the hill and ruffled her hair. Where was the fog and cold? Could this really be October?

She started up the hill toward the church. A hundred dollars was a lot for going through the red light, but in a few minutes it wouldn't matter. No worries.

The church was still open twenty-four hours a day. Good. Walking in the front door, she glanced at the magnificent columns extending up to the graceful arches of the ceiling. Instead of appreciating their beauty, she wondered whether she could climb them. No. Probably not.

She knew the way to the columbarium. It had been over forty years, but for her, only two weeks. Her clogs echoed as she went down the cement staircase and through the empty hallway in the basement.

The cremation urns sat in their individual niches along narrow aisles. In perpetuity. Perfect. Sections that had been empty before were now filled. Small chandeliers cast a yellowish light on the chambers, each protected with a Plexiglas front. The walls had become dingier over the years.

She passed her uncle's urn. The three leaves engraved on the front now faced the side. He'd rotated it ninety degrees. Good. He'd retrieved its contents.

When her urn came into view, a wave of dizziness passed over her, as if the floor had moved. Strange. She never got dizzy. She tilted her head back and studied the chandelier. It was swinging back and forth about a centimeter in each direction.

An earthquake. Just a minor one—nothing to be concerned about.

The metal of her urn was darker now. She took out the hospital's table knife and inserted it into the slot at the side of the Plexiglas covering. With the proper tools, removing the facing would have been a snap. Shoulda, woulda, coulda. No worries—the knife would work.

If she could pry the plastic out enough to grip the edges with her fingers, she could pull it free and open the niche. She'd grab the urn, open it, and pull out the riches she'd hidden inside: diamonds, cash, gold, and folded up stock certificates, all neatly packed in a Minigrip plastic bag. She would then put the urn back, rotated ninety degrees.

The Plexiglas seal was tighter than expected. The tip of the knife bent. Over and over she pried the plastic out, and it snapped back before she could get her fingers under it. Yet each time it came away from the wall a little more. She concentrated on the task for what seemed like an hour. No rush. No one was around. Viviana took a deep breath. Soon the treasure would be hers again.

A Klaxon alarm made her jump. An announcement followed: "Warning. Earthquake imminent. Take cover."

She kept working but frowned. She understood the words, but they didn't make sense. No one knew when an earthquake was coming. Some new technology? She would think about that later.

Running footsteps echoed through the basement. Someone yelled, "Earthquake coming, everybody out!" The man rushed past her aisle, then came back.

Viviana's knife disappeared into her sleeve. She put her hands together as if praying.

"An earthquake is coming, ma'am. Any second. You must leave." His voice was strained.

"No. No earthquake. Please leave me here with husband."

"Ma'am you don't understand." He grabbed her wrist and pulled.

She twisted her wrist and snapped it from his grip. He tried to grab her again.

"No!" She kicked the back of his leg just enough to make him unstable and pushed him toward the exit of the aisle. "You go. Run. I follow."

He shook his head but left.

She reinserted the knife into the crack. Another tiny quake hit. Humph. Big fuss for nothing. Then the wall jumped out at her. She stumbled and fell to the floor, the knife clattering onto the marble.

The rumbling stopped. She grabbed the knife and hopped up. She smashed the handle end into the Plexiglas. Not even a crack. Back to prying.

Clenching her teeth until they hurt, she forced the bent tip of the knife into the slot. Now or never. The angled tip was an advantage. She finally found one corner of the covering that was weaker than the others and it came loose. Good. She held the corner open and reached up with her other hand to wrench the cover off.

The wall smashed her in the shoulder and the lights above her went out. Her body flew across the narrow aisle, and her head cracked into the wall. She slid back and forth between the walls on the slippery marble floor as if in a carnival fun house.

The sound of hundreds of urns clattering around in their compartments assaulted her ears. Crashes of breaking glass echoed from above.

She braced herself with her feet against one wall and her hands against the other. The shaking stopped, but when she got halfway to her feet, it resumed. It seemed to go on forever, then ceased with a huge boom that she felt in the pit of her stomach. Her hands were clammy and trembled.

She licked her lips and sat up. The air smelled of dust. The remains of the cremated?

A bluish light filtered in, presumably from battery-powered emergency lighting in the main hallway.

She had to retrieve her urn. No one would bother her now. She felt around on the floor, but the knife was gone.

She waited until her eyes adjusted to the darkness and located her niche. She felt the corner of the covering. She'd pulled it out a centimeter. With her fingers under it she pulled and strained. She slipped, and one of her fingernails ripped from its bed. Aoleu! No, she needed to find something sturdy to pry the cover off.

She moved out of the aisle and into the hallway. It was brighter there. On the floor she found a small painting of Jesus with an ornate metal frame, its glass broken. She worked the frame loose, placed the canvas gently against the wall, and returned to her aisle.

Back at her niche, she struggled to get the corner of the frame under the Plexiglas. It wasn't happening, and now a bad smell made her want to hold her breath. What was that? It was getting worse.

Gas!

She tried once more to pry the covering off. No. She pictured herself running, falling, engulfed in flames. Time to give up. Somehow, she would come back later. La naiba!

Viviana took one last look at the compartment, then ran. She sprinted down the hall and followed the lit exit signs up the stairs—three at a time—to the front entrance. A pile of concrete neatly blocked the door. What had fallen? She looked up but saw only darkness.

The odor of gas was weaker in the large main hall of the church. She looked back down the stairs. No, she would leave now and find some way to return later with the proper tools.

She removed her clogs, squeezed them into her waistband, and climbed over the pile. Would she cut her feet? She squeezed through a narrow gap between the rubble and the top of the entryway. She jumped to the ground, put her shoes back on, and walked out the front of the church. Wandering across Taylor Street, she sat down on a low wall and blew out her cheeks. Defeat.

Under the moonlight the man who'd grabbed her wrist came over and squatted down. "I'm so glad you got out. You must have been very close to your husband."

She thought about the riches she'd cached in that urn. Without any funds, it would be impossible to disappear. Impossible to stay free.

He put his hand on her arm. "I'm sorry for your loss."

"Yeah." She looked straight ahead. "Tell me about it."

A dull thud reached them and they turned toward the cathedral. The light of flames flickered from the holes where minutes before, stained glass windows had stood.

* * *

I was slumped over my home-office desk, dreaming that Viviana was poking me in the stomach, when Shake Alert, San Francisco's Early Earthquake Warning System, blasted me with its Klaxon. My arm jerked to the side, sending a cup of pens and pencils flying to the floor. I looked into my kitchen. The pots hanging from the ceiling were swinging slightly. I must have slept through a small quake. Not enough to set off the EEWS.

After Viviana escaped, and after notifying Stan, I had raced back to my condo, desperate to figure out where she'd come from. I'd thought I could uncover some clues that would tell me where she might go. I must have fallen asleep.

My TV, tablet, cell phone, watch, and even my refrigerator were all concerned for my safety. They blared out the same "Dive! Dive!" sound followed by the words "Warning! Earthquake imminent. Take cover." They repeated their messages continuously, and not in unison.

I jumped up, sending my chair rolling across the room, and slapped myself on the cheek. Okay, Beckman, wake up. Think! I snapped up the tablet, dismissed the alarm, and saved the open browser tab to offline storage. Got it!

I looked over at the TV, which displayed a countdown with screen-filling red numerals: 42 ... 41 ...

I dove under my massive dining-room table. It was a Parson's type design, with thick wooden legs at each corner.

I was on the sixteenth floor of my condo building on Front Street, smack dab in the middle of a liquefaction zone. The worst place to be during an earthquake. This would be bad. Maybe Dayton, Ohio, would have been a better place to live.

37 ... 36 ...

Wait. Plenty of time. I sprinted into the bedroom, my socks slipping on the hardwood floor. I picked up the earthquake supplies backpack from the closet. I'd borrowed something from it last month. What was that? I stepped over to the bedside table and retrieved my wallet. I checked my watch.

25 ... 24 ...

Running shoes, where? By the bed. I grabbed them and put them under my arm. I detoured to the window and snatched the solar charger. Anything else? No. No time. The EEWS was supposed to be accurate to within a few seconds, using each device's exact location.

Back under the table. I looked over at the TV. 7 ... 6 ...

The power went out. Should I get my flashlight out of the backpack? Goddamnit. No time. Just hold on. I stuffed my tablet into the pack. Was this to be the final six seconds of my life?

A small tremor. Not bad. In the fun range. Phew. No, wait. That wouldn't have triggered EEWS.

Boom. The building shifted as if struck by an aircraft carrier. The leg of the table knocked me in the head. I hugged my forehead against it so that wouldn't happen again.

The swaying shifted into high gear. Things slid back and forth as if a giant chef were agitating a city-sized frying pan of shrimp. Back and forth with an occasional flip. My chair took a trip around the room, silhouetted against moonlight coming through the windows.

The floor lunged up then dropped away, taking my stomach with it. "Aaargh!" Video of the World Trade Towers collapsing flashed into my mind. Crashing from the kitchen announced that everything in my cupboards was now on the floor.

Then silence, except for hundreds of car alarms echoing up from the streets. I started to crawl out from my hiding place, but it began again, an instant replay, and kept going and going. This had to be the big one. The building was swaying like the arms of entranced concertgoers. At the end of each excursion, I expected the hesitation and break that would send my condo to the ground. I screamed again. I couldn't help it.

With one final jolt, it stopped. Not wanting to be fooled again, I stayed under the table. From the outer pocket of the earthquake pack, I pulled out my REI headlamp and fitted it over my forehead. The place was a mess, but the building had survived.

After two minutes of stability, I put on the backpack and went to the windows. A jagged crack extended across the full width of my largest window. The city was dark. The windows of neighboring buildings displayed the moving, dim lights of flashlights. I went into the hall to check on the two neighbors on my floor.

Kim O'Farrell, the seventy-year-old gym rat next door had a nasty gash on her forehead but had already bandaged it. She was dressed for her predawn workout. <Fucking earthquake.>

My other neighbor didn't respond to banging on his door or to yelling. I'd never met him, but he might be in there bleeding to death. So I decided to break down his door. Maybe I wasn't totally justified, but I figured it would be good practice.

Even with Kim egging me on, though, I couldn't kick it in.

She shook her head. <What a pussy!>

Maybe it was better that way. If I broke the door and he was out of town, someone might loot his place. But I'd sure feel bad if he died in there.

I limped back to my own condo, put on my backpack, and trekked down the stairs to the street. I wasn't going to stay there another minute. I chose a spot on the curb farthest from any buildings and sat down.

I pulled out my tablet and brought up the saved article that had been the culmination of my search. I just had to read through it one more time before I dealt with the aftermath of the earthquake.

San Francisco Chronicle Archives

August 1, 1980: International Jewel Thief Disappears

A Ms. Viviana Petki, suspected of jewel heists in both the U.S. and Romania, narrowly escaped the clutches of police on Thursday evening. Some even think she was responsible for the theft of the Portensia diamond in 1978. She's reputed to have stolen millions of dollars' worth of jewels and other loot. Despite this, she was never arrested, and has never been fingerprinted.

Investigating the heist of jewels from Marla Davis' hotel while Ms. Davis was performing at the Fillmore West, police followed Petki to her uncle's lab in the China Basin district. Before police could apprehend her, the building burst into flames and burned to the ground. Her body was never found, and no underground tunnels were discovered.

"I saw her go into the building," said Police Lieutenant Nicholas Renzo. "Ain't no way she came out. We had four officers surrounding it."

This event follows the mysterious disappearance of her uncle, Zaharia Dudnic, in 1979. Dr. Dudnic was a world-renowned physicist, whose radical ideas on space-time and energy generation had been discounted by his colleagues.

The article answered some of my questions. She was a criminal, that's why she escaped from the hospital. But she couldn't be prosecuted after so many years. She would know that. I'd have to research the statute of limitations for theft.

The China Basin district now held the ballpark. The lab was surely right where home plate is now.

But where was the uncle? Did he also jump forward in time? Had his lab sat vacant for a year, or did Petki use it, too?

I put my tablet back and leaned against a tree. I was the only person who knew Viviana's true identity, and I planned to keep it that way. An image of her face flashed into my mind. No way would I trust the FBI with that information.

I would find her myself.

CHAPTER NINE

Viv walked along California Street, up the hill from the cathedral. At the top, residents of a high-rise apartment crowded the sidewalk. Most had flashlights. One had a transistor radio, and others crowded around listening to the news. At least they had homes they could probably go back to. She was alone and running in an unfamiliar world with little money and uncomfortable shoes.

She looked around in the moonlight. None of the buildings had collapsed. The pavement showed cracks here and there, but nothing big. Yet the shaking had been so intense in the church. She scratched her ear. Earthquakes could be—what was the English word?—fickle.

Sirens echoed from behind her, and fire engines arrived at the church. She turned and gazed past them toward the financial district and the Bay Bridge. Was that the glow of a fire in the distance?

On to Plan B. She clip-clopped along in her Swedish clogs toward Golden Gate Park. This area of the city wasn't too bad off. Maybe the quake hadn't been "the big one." They might have had their big earthquake while she'd been flying through time. She had a lot of catching up to do.

But this quake had a huge impact on her, snatching her riches from in front of her eyes. What had Beckman said—or sung, really—"don't worry, be happy"? Easier said than done. Can't change the past. Things would work out. After all, she had jumped a full forty years into the future and was alive—she glanced at her missing pinkie—to tell about it. Or maybe not tell.

She walked for an hour and arrived at the edge of Golden Gate Park. The ill-fitting clogs pinched her feet. When she passed a closed McDonald's, her stomach grumbled. Would anything open today? The power was still off.

She found a general store and peered in with cupped hands shading out the glare from the rising sun. Yes, it might have what she needed. The sign said it opened at nine, but today? An accordion-style security gate covered the storefront. The padlock was a good one. She looked up and down the sidewalk. Without tools, breaking in wasn't an option.

Viviana crossed the street and lay down on a picnic bench. Maybe she would stop feeling sorry for herself when she woke. She fell asleep within minutes. The clatter of the security gate made her jump.

As she came up behind the shopkeeper, he said, "Cash only today. No power."

"Is fine. Do you have sneakers?"

"Sneakers? You mean like running shoes, basketball shoes?" They entered the store together. "I have some Converse All-Stars over in that corner."

Perfect. She found a pair that fit her. High-tops. "How about knife? Nice, sturdy knife?"

She left the store with the new sneakers, a cheap hunting knife, and a pack of beef jerky. She counted up her cash: $138.25 left. Dollar coins instead of bills, and no pennies in the cash register. Interesting.

Refreshed from her nap, and with happier feet, she hiked through the park. At first she didn't recognize the cypress tree. She expected it to have grown, yes, but it now had a totally different feel to it. The landscaping had changed as well.

Few people were around. Who goes for a walk in the park after an earthquake?

With the knife in her back pocket, she climbed up the trunk on the side away from the path. She moved smoothly, with the grace of a jungle cat. Her hiding place would be no higher than it had been in 1980. Her planning had included research on how trees grow.

But the cylinder was gone. Ack! She gritted her teeth. So much for Plan B. Did she have the wrong tree? She leaned back and looked up. The wrong branch? Under cover of darkness, she'd carefully chiseled away a perfect little chamber, like the chamber in the columbarium, only smaller. If someone had found it, she'd at least see her excavation.

It had to be here. She looked at the branches again. This was the right location. Could it ...?

She figured the exact spot she'd expect it to be and stabbed the knife in. Nothing. She worked the knife out of the bark and did it again. Oops, missed. Again, right into the hole from the first stab.

There. A hollow clunk. A smile spread over her face. She let her head fall back and took a deep breath.

The bark had grown over the stainless steel cylinder. Guess she hadn't researched enough. She wiggled the knife to pull it out, and the handle came off in her hands. La naiba!

"Hey, you can't climb that tree!"

Oof! She hadn't been watching for people.

She looked down. Just an old buttinsky standing with his fists on his hips. She smiled and waved, descended, and headed off. No cylinder yet, but it wasn't going anywhere. It had sat for forty years with the tree growing over it. Another hour or two would make no difference.

The man's voice faded away. "Don't you have any respect for nature? Who do you think you are?"

With a cup of coffee from an old-fashioned food cart, she sat cross-legged on the grass and finished off her beef jerky.

It was like a summer day. Was she confused about the time of year? She asked a passerby, "Is so warm for October, yes?"

The woman smiled. "The new normal, right?"

Viviana nodded. "Right." New normal? What the hell did that mean? Ah, maybe they changed the calendar. The new-normal calendar? Maybe October is in summer now? No way.

She lay back on the grass, watching the gathering clouds. The private investigator is after me. Beckman. She smiled. Will he give up? Does anyone know who I am? Did anyone see me appear? Maybe time travel is common now. Why didn't they let me watch TV at the hospital?

A video of her opening the cylinder played in her mind, its contents buying her freedom. Then she could relax.

First things first. Need hammer and chisel. Maybe hatchet. She counted out her remaining funds. Enough?

She looked up when the fattest man she'd ever seen, like someone from a circus, sat on a nearby bench. The slats groaned under his weight.

Viviana stood up and dropped her empty coffee cup into a trash can next to the bench. "Excuse me, is there cheap hardware store nearby?"

The man took a bite of his sandwich and a sip of coffee. "Sure. There's one on Irving and Twenty-fourth, right next to the Goodwill store. But it might not be open today."

She thanked him. A Goodwill store—secondhand goods. Perfect.

A block from her destination, the heavens opened up. She ran the last bit and found Goodwill's door open with a "Cash Only" sign taped to it. Twenty minutes later she walked out with a hatchet. She wore some better-fitting jeans, a transparent poncho, and a thing called a fanny pack.

She hurried back to the tree. The thunderstorm was in full swing—just what she needed. No one would be in the park, and the thunder and rain would mask any chopping noises.

With the small ax zipped into her fanny pack—the handle sticking out—she climbed back up the tree and went to work. She was high enough that a fall would put her back in the hospital. It could kill her if she landed badly.

After ten minutes she had the cylinder exposed. Straddling the limb, she worked slowly, spacing out the blows in case someone could hear her. If a man hears one bang, he'll wonder about it but go about his business. Multiple bangs? He'll investigate.

What a long day. Was it really the same day she'd escaped from the hospital? She took a break, rolled her shoulders, and looked around. The park had weathered the earthquake well—only a few uprooted trees. She massaged her wrist. Back to work.

With her arms turning to Jell-O, a big chunk of bark popped out, fully exposing the stainless steel cylinder. She'd recovered the blade of the cheap knife, and she slipped it between the tree and the can. Giving the knife a twist, the canister exploded loose with a snap and flashed past her shoulder. Fear of a second failure destroyed all thoughts of caution. She reached back and grabbed for it, snatching it from the air before it fell to the ground. But she lost her balance and fell backward.

* * *

From my spot on the curb I watched the sun rise on the City by the Bay. Was some of the city now in the bay?

Most people were following their earthquake plans, meeting up with family and loved ones. I didn't have either of those. The woman from the bar—Jessica?—didn't count.

Some older buildings on the waterfront hadn't fared as well as mine. One was on fire. I'd be able to help most at the hospital, or on the way there. My commuter bike still hung from the ceiling of my condo. I reentered the building, ignoring the protests of my fellow homeless San Franciscans, and climbed the stairs to my apartment. No aftershocks now, please.

I shouldered the bike and headed down the stairs.

Passing the second floor, I picked up some sleepy, dreamlike thoughts. <Thank you, sir, these diamond nostrils are a big improvement.>

Someone sleeping in a damaged high-rise? I hammered on each of the condo doors, and on the third one, I got an answer.

"Yes, thanks. I need help here. I'm okay, but I need help. No rush." Her voice sounded weak.

No rush? I set the bike down and tried the door. Locked, as expected. I yelled, "Can you open the door?"

"Well, no, sorry. You'll have to break it down. Can you do that?"

Good question. It was just like the door upstairs. At least I'd learned what didn't work. I hauled back and kicked it with sole of my shoe a little to the left of the knob. The jamb splintered. One more kick and I was in. Good for me. Beckman the kick-ass detective.

"Over here. I'm okay, but I'm stuck."

I followed the sound of her surprisingly calm voice into the living room. The central feature was an antique grand piano that had partially collapsed. The voice came from underneath. I moved around it to find a frail woman of at least ninety with thin, pink hair. She wore a nightie that was way too sheer for my liking. Her boobs were—well, you don't want to know.

"It's so silly, actually. The earthquake warning went off, and I got under the piano. I'm sorry to bother you, by the way, I'm really fine, but in all the shaking and sliding, one of the legs gave way, and it fell down on that side." She pointed to her foot. "You can see it's barely touching me, but I'm trapped like a fox in a leg trap."

Indeed, the body of the piano formed a little bridge pressing down on her ankle. I went around and felt her foot. It was warm and not swollen. Good pulse for a woman her age.

She continued. "I've wiggled and jiggled, but I just can't get loose. So I just lay here, and you know what I did?"

"You fell asleep."

She pointed at me. "That's exactly right, son. I fell asleep."

It was a simple matter to free her. I lifted the piano body a few inches, and she slipped out.

"Are you feeling okay? Do you need any help?" I asked.

She waved her hand. "Oh, don't be silly. I'll be fine. I'm a tough old witch. You go get together with your wife or your family. I'll be fine here."

Out in the hallway, my bike was gone. Damn! I'd brought my lock, but left it in the backpack. Stupid. I sprinted to the stairwell and down to the street. A shifty-eyed twenty-something was just mounting the bike. My bike. I ran and hit him with a flying tackle. I hate bicycle thieves. I've had three bikes stolen.

He rolled over and jumped up with his hands in the air. "Hey, it was abandoned. The earthquake is an emergency. I need transportation." <Ha. Good one.>

As I rose, I drove my fist into his solar plexus. It felt good. Best place to hit someone without hurting your hand. Score one for bicycle owners.

He doubled over, gasping for air. I checked the bike out—no damage—and hopped on. Then I hopped off again and kicked the thief in the balls.

I told you, I'm no saint.

* * *

As Viviana fell backward off the cypress branch she locked her ankles together and rotated around the bough as if performing a gymnastic move. The denim fabric of her jeans slid against the rough bark, protecting her calves against abrasions. It still hurt. Vai!

She dropped the knife shank but held on to the all-important cylinder. She kissed it and held it against her cheek. It was the diameter of a soda can, but longer, like a thermos. She swung herself back up and yanked the large hatchet out of the bark.

Back on the ground, Viviana strained to open the stainless steel time capsule. No go. Even after being whacked with the hatchet, the lid didn't turn. It was as if someone had welded it shut. She zipped it into her fanny pack and hiked over to Lincoln Way, where a cab sat by the curb.

She thought about the $123 remaining in her pocket and squatted down by the cab's window. "How much would cost to take me to cheap hotel?"

The cabdriver was a gnarly woman with thick arms and a gooey cigar wedged in the corner of her mouth. She removed the cigar. "Ain't no cheap hotels around here, babe."

"How much would—"

"Cheapest you gonna find, about two fifty a night. You want that?" She moved her hand toward the meter.

Viviana stood up. "No, thank you."

The rain rattled against the hood of her poncho, and cars hissed by on the wet pavement. She looked across the street. An auto-repair shop stood with both garage doors open.

She crossed over and entered the office. Grimy repair manuals filled the shelves. More littered the floor, knocked there by the quake. An unshaven brute came in from the garage, wiping his hands on an oily rag. His eyes inventoried Viviana's body. "Yeah?" He picked up a manual and dropped it on the desk.

Viviana pulled the cylinder from her fanny pack. "I have this can here, and I can't get it open." She was taking a chance, getting help, but until she got it open, she was stuck.

The mechanic took it from her. "Whoa, this is heavy!" He tried to twist the top off, straining so hard he farted. That didn't seem to embarrass him. He rapped the lid against the wall and tried again. "What's inside, lead?"

"It's my dad's will. He didn't trust lawyers or banks. He just rolled it up and put it in there."

"What? It's too heavy for that." He tossed it into the air and caught it. "Funny day to be worrying about wills, ain't it? The earthquake and all."

"He told me he was going to put some metal toys of mine in it, from when I was young." Tears rolled down Viviana's cheeks.

The mechanic stared at her, chewing something that smelled like tobacco. "Hey, you can turn off the waterworks, lady. Something fishy's going on here, and guess what? I'm going to find out what it is." He turned his back and walked into the garage, Viviana right behind him. The wall between the office and garage held shelves of oil filters and a Playboy calendar.

He took the cylinder over to bay number one and fastened it into a vise. He pulled a pair of large Channellock pliers from a drawer and held them up. "The Persuader." Music she'd never heard before played in the background—a heavy beat and someone talking rather than singing. He fit the pliers to the lid.

"Damn, this is tight. Ain't this stainless steel?" He glanced at Viviana.

She didn't reply but rotated her fanny pack to the front.

"It shouldn't have gotten stuck like—there, that's got it." He removed the can from the vise and started to unscrew the lid by hand.

"No, wait! I promised my sister we'd open it together."

He grunted. "Yeah, right. Nice try, though." He opened the top and a roll of bills popped out and fell on the floor.

"Ho, ho, what have we here?" He bent over and picked up the roll. He stood back up and came face-to-blade with a large hatchet. He froze.

Viviana held the tip of the blade against the inner corner of his right eyeball. She pushed him against the workbench and loosened the vise with her left hand. She generally avoided violence, but the stakes were too high here. She pulled the can loose and slid it into her pack.

She'd made a mistake. Could she sacrifice the roll of cash? It would teach her to be so trusting. No.

He looked down toward The Persuader—the hatchet twitched slightly with the eyeball's movement. That had to hurt. She slid the blade down just a bit, pulling the skin with it. The lower lid pulled away from his eye. Let him imagine it being sliced. He tried to blink, but only the upper lid moved. A car hissed by on the street.

He held out the roll of money. "Look. I ..."

She took it, held it to her mouth, and pulled four bills off with her teeth, no easy task. She put them on The Persuader. The roll went into her fanny pack. She zipped it shut. "From Russian mafia with love, yes?" She rolled the "r"s heavily.

She backed out of the garage and sprinted away. Taking a convoluted route through the Richmond district, she didn't stop until she was a kilometer away. Even then, she stood behind a wall and watched. No one had followed her.

This neighborhood of wood-frame houses had also been largely spared by the earthquake. Coming to a major road, she flagged down a cab. She stepped in and let out a deep breath. "Please take me out of city."

The cabbie looked at her in his rearview mirror.

"North," she said. "Take me to Marin County, please."

The driver turned, checking out her cheap poncho. "I got to see the money up front."

"How much will be, please?" She bit her lip. "I think I have enough." She looked in the pack at the thousands of dollars in cash sitting atop diamonds and gold.

"How the hell do I know?"

"San Rafael."

"Ah, jeez, probably around ninety dollars."

"Okay. Is good." Viviana slid five twenties off the roll and held them up.

When they passed over the Golden Gate Bridge she tilted her head back and closed her eyes. No one knew her name. She'd had some close calls, but sitting on her lap was the funding that would guarantee no one would ever find her.

CHAPTER TEN

Exactly one week after the earthquake, I arrived solo for a dinner party at Stan's house and, as always, marveled at the decor. In contrast to Stan himself, his house was unrealistically neat. As in, you-should-see-a-shrink-about-this neat.

Glass tables and spartan chairs sat on a mirrorlike black floor. It looked like a model home but with less clutter. No Kleenex boxes, plants, magazines, or knickknacks. It was as if the place were designed for an earthquake. Very few things to pick up afterward, unless the glass tables broke.

Mei Lin, Stan's wife and the force behind the interior design, gave me a quick-but-genuine hug, and handed me a perfectly poured microbrew. Her mind was as laconic and orderly as the house. <Eric.>

Craig had brought his family: his clever wife, Tess, and their precocious twelve-year-old, Olivia.

Mei Lin was an excellent cook, and we were soon seated around the dining table, serving ourselves from an array of exotic dishes.

"Moo shu pork is traditionally made with wood ear mushrooms and day lily buds." Olivia looked around the table.

My jaw dropped even though I'd been exposed to her before. Wood ear mushrooms?—I'd never even heard of those. It was as if Wikipedia had been implanted in Olivia's cortex. Reading her thoughts was like flipping through the pages of a dictionary.

A smile tugged at the corner of Stan's lips as he drank his Budweiser.

Olivia continued, as if thinking out loud. "The pancake is an American addition."

She must have boned up on Chinese cuisine during the day—no way she'd know all that. I threw Craig a questioning look.

He shrugged and tossed me his thought. <I have no idea why she knows that, if that's what you're wondering.>

Tess, stunning in a simple but elegant black dress, looked down at her plate. <Here we go again.> Interesting. She knew her daughter could be annoying but didn't ask her to pipe down. Good parent.

Mei Lin had placed the perfect amount of filling in her pancake. She turned to Olivia. "That's quite right, dear. I couldn't get those ingredients today."

Was she irked or impressed? Even I couldn't tell. It was like trying to read a brick.

Talk turned to the earthquake. Seven days out with no major aftershocks.

Olivia filled us in, explaining that though the quake was huge, most of the damage was concentrated in the financial district, where I lived. Lucky me. Grace Cathedral and the Ferry Terminal would be closed for a while, but all the bridges and BART tunnels were okay.

The quake wasn't even big enough to knock Viviana from the top news spot. Not surprising, since she vanished on the same morning.

We speculated about Viv's disappearance over a dessert of custard tarts. Only I knew she was a jewel thief. I alone knew her real last name, and I wasn't about to trust the FBI or anyone else with that critical information. Who knows what would happen if the Feds got their claws into her. I would find her myself.

After dinner, I'd have helped clean up, but Mei Ling allowed only Tess into her kitchen.

So, looking like male chauvinist pigs with a twelve-year-old mascot, Craig, Stan, and I oinked our way into Stan's study. This room was more like Stan: organized but messy. The perfect man cave: dark wood paneling, floor-to-ceiling bookcases, and a Persian rug.

Olivia sat on the rug by her father, playing with some kind of Barbie doll. I guess even geniuses can like dolls.

I sank down into the leather couch. "Let me show you what I found on Viviana's uncle."

I cast my tablet's display to Stan's widescreen display on the wall. It showed a grainy newspaper article. I pointed to it. "Viviana Petrescu's uncle is a man named Zaharia Dudnic, the man you see here. My theory is that he traveled forward in time in 1979. That's when he disappeared. Viv vanished in 1980."

Stan took a pull from his beer. <Time Travel. Crazy talk.>

"I realize all this sounds crazy, and if it weren't for the materialization ... well, we've been through that."

"Wait." Stan frowned. "How do you know this guy is her uncle? They don't have the same last name."

"Well, it's a long story, but—"

"One of your hunches."

"Yeah. Something like that." This was getting tricky.

Craig slipped a lock of his daughter's hair behind her ear. "So you think he created a time machine?"

"Yeah, that's my guess. I don't think it was Viviana."

Olivia's Barbie wore a lab coat and had a small stethoscope around its neck. She stood it on her father's leg and jogged it up and down and side to side as if it were talking. "Oh, my. How very sexist of you, Dr. Beckman."

I smiled at Craig, then addressed the doll. "Well, thank you, Barbie—"

"Dr. Baumgartner, puh-leeze."

"Thank you, Dr. Baumgartner. Viviana could indeed have built the machine, but Zaharia Dudnic was a theoretical and applied physicist specializing in space, time, and energy." I was careful not to sound patronizing.

Baumgartner was silent. Olivia pouted.

I switched to the next image. "Here's the critical paper, from 1978. 'Anomalous Energy Production During Deuterium Electrolysis Using Palladium Cathodes.' In it he says—"

Dr. Baumgartner jumped up and down. "Nong, nong, nong. Warning. Warning. Cold fusion. Junk science. Nong, nong, nong, warning, warning."

I closed my eyes and gritted my teeth. I was prepared for this reaction but not from a Barbie doll acting as a proxy for a twelve-year-old girl.

Craig smiled. "She has a point, you know."

"Maybe. But since the Fleischmann—"

Stan raised his hand. "Hold on, could someone bring me up to speed, please?"

"Well, around, what, 1990?" Craig looked at me with his eyebrows raised.

I nodded.

"Around 1990, two scientists, Fleischmann and Pontus—"

"Pons," Dr. Baumgartner said.

I looked from the doll to Olivia. I caught an echo of the paper's title in her mind. How could that be? How could she know all this stuff?

Craig cleared his throat. "Right, Pons. Fleischmann and Pons said they'd discovered a way that unlimited energy could be produced in a bucket."

I crossed my arms. "Not unlimited, Craig. You're making them sound like kooks." Now I felt like pouting. "A gallon of seawater holds a lot of energy. In the deuterium. Much more than in a gallon of gasoline. But it's not unlimited."

"Well, yeah." Craig leaned back. "But anyway, it turns out these guys made a mistake, screwed up somehow, and it was all bogus."

Stan nodded. "Right. I remember something about that. They botched the measurements. All bullsh—baloney."

I held up both hands. "Hold on. Not so fast. It's true the guys were totally discredited, and from then on no one wanted to touch this topic. But today, some scientists think it's worth pursuing. Research is going on right now. Anyway, no one believed Dudnic either."

"So he's another crackpot scientist," Stan said. "Where's he now?"

I shrugged. "Who knows? Viviana seemed to think he'd be here, meet her at the gate, so to speak. And now she's disappeared. And look, he's not a crackpot. Not necessarily. No one doubts that she materialized out of thin air, right?" I looked around the room.

Craig scratched his chin. "Energy production and time travel are completely different—"

"I'm just saying that if someone is smart enough to make a time machine, you can't dismiss him as a kook." I took a breath.

No responses. Even Dr. Baumgartner was quiet.

"Right. So she and those animals appeared at the ballpark. Therefore, someone has created a time machine or something equally impossible. Since she was his niece, and he himself disappeared years ago, it's a reasonable conclusion that he made a time machine. And if he could do that, he could certainly do the other. The energy thing."

Craig tapped his finger on his chin. <Eric's getting into one of his moods. Change the subject.> "Speaking of thin air, did you notice that when something materialized, it was merged with anything that was in the space? Like her finger or the bat wing. Right? Well, what about the air? If you merge air into the blood, you're headed for trouble."

One of my moods? I looked at the floor. "Who knows? Maybe the gases are pushed out of the way."

Craig said, "Too bad you didn't meet Viviana, Stan. She's an interesting woman. And I think maybe Eric has a thing for her."

Dr. Baumgartner started singing. "Eric and Vivvy sitting in a tree. K-I-S-S-I-N-G."

Why didn't anyone understand? This was important. I had to find Zaharia Dudnic.

* * *

Viviana sat on the veranda of her room in the Continental Suites Hotel in Marin County, soaking up the early-morning sun and sipping a mimosa cocktail. Ah, freedom. But that freedom wouldn't last if she didn't get a valid-looking ID.

She had plenty of money but no driver's license and no credit cards. When she'd checked in to the hotel, she said her purse and luggage had been stolen—all she had was cash. They went along with it but seemed skeptical. The longer things went on without her showing an ID, the more suspicious they became. They'd be less suspicious at a cheaper hotel, but she liked this one.

More importantly, she couldn't rent or buy a car, and she couldn't open a bank account or rent a safe-deposit box.

Her cache from the tree held ID and credit cards, and those would have worked fine had she only jumped ahead a few years, as intended. Also, in that case, she would have had contacts who could have created new documents for her. Those contacts were gone now—dead or out of business.

She reviewed the contents of her cache, neatly listed on her legal pad. A roll of twenties and two rolls of hundred-dollar bills—$48,000 in cash. Untraceable, high-quality diamonds and a half-deciliter of gold pellets.

Her five stock certificates were all worthless—she could find no record of those companies in the newspaper. Her three fake California driver's licenses, expiring in 1983, 1988, and 1990, were also worthless. She had jumped forward in time much too far.

She kept these things with her at all times in a snug-fitting, trail-runner's backpack.

The funds would last her for a while, but without an ID, she was dead in the water.

She'd made some indirect inquiries about where someone might obtain fake documents. For example, waiting in line at the grocery store she'd asked, "I've heard teenagers often carry fake IDs. Where do you think they get them?" The answer was always the same: "The internet."

So, that became priority one: figuring out what the internet was and gaining access to it. With that aim, she put on an outfit that showed off her best qualities and walked down the block to a coffee shop called Starbucks.

She ordered espresso—the closest drink they had to the Turkish coffee she was used to. Four dollars! She still hadn't acclimated to inflation. Prices had tripled since 1980, even more for coffee.

Sitting down, she drank slowly, watching the other customers working at their portable computers. Amazingly small computers. And why were they here and not in an office?

Viviana was now a platinum blonde with short-cropped hair. She'd done a quick-and-dirty job of cutting and dying her hair herself—if she'd gone to a salon and asked for a makeover when she looked like the photos in the tabloids, they would have been onto her. Once she had a new look, she went in to have the job professionally finished.

The final result, smooth and shiny, looked like something from the 1950s to her, but apparently it was the current fashion. Viviana also added a beauty mark to her cheek with makeup. The mark didn't change her appearance, but by bringing attention to itself, it distracted people from matching her to the woman on the covers of the tabloids. Finally, she wore thin gloves to obscure the fact that much of her pinkie was missing.

Her floppy hat and sunglasses were probably the most effective parts of her camouflage.

A young man came in, ordered the cheapest coffee, and started working on his computer. He was a bit of a square, with a complexion that hadn't completely cleared up and glasses that sat crookedly on his nose. His jeans and t-shirt were clean but worn.

He seemed to be doing several things at once on his computer: playing a game, working with text, and even talking on a videophone.

During a lull in his activity, she went to his table. "Excuse me. I was impressed with how fast you are with your computer. How fast you are typing, for example." She spoke slowly, trying to get every word right. Her tendency was to leave out words. "Am going to store" instead of "I am going to the store." It took a lot of effort to fight against that.

She disguised her accent by adding a bit of Texas drawl. "I have a few questions about computers. Could I join you?"

The man/boy moved his computer over, almost knocking his coffee onto the floor.

She sat and smiled at him. "May I get you something? Would you like espresso? Anything on menu you like? On the menu?" Incetineste. Slow down.

He was eager, and she got him an old-fashioned grilled cheese. "My name's Janet."

"Hi, Janet." He hesitated then shook her hand. His grip was limp then firm, as if he rarely shook hands with women. "Oh. I'm Zachary. Zach."

"Could you assume I know nothing about computers and tell me enough so I learn more on my own. I'd like to pay you."

"That could work. I'm free all day."

They talked about what he could teach her, and he suggested she pay him $200 for the day.

"Two hundred and fifty, and not a penny less." She winked.

"It's a deal." He shook her hand again and blushed. "What kind of computer do you have?"

"Well, right now, no computer. I had used my boyfriend's, but we broke up." She glanced at Zach. "I think it was an Apple."

"You mean a Mac."

She frowned. "Oh, I don't know. But just assume I never used one. I want to buy one. Maybe you could help me with that?"

"Right now?"

"Sure, if that would work."

"Yeah. I could drive you. I have a great car." He looked toward the parking lot.

"I thought you might."

He stood up, knocking against the table. "Yeah, that's mine over there." He pointed to a small convertible painted in gray primer, with a cracked windshield. "It's an oh-nine Miata. I'm fixing it up."

"I bet girls like to ride in that car."

"Yeah." He sat down. "Well, not yet, but when I get it fixed up, they will. I'm going to paint it candy-apple red."

"Where would we go to buy computer?"

"I know just the place." He stood.

"Wait, why don't we finish our drinks, and you can start teaching me."

"Ask me questions," he said. "That's usually the best way."

"Okay. First question. What is internet?"

His eyes bugged out of his face. "What is the internet?"

"Right. The internet. What is the internet?"

"Wow. Well, okay. The internet is a network of computers that—"

"Sorry. Network? I'm sorry, I don't ..."

"Wow. Okay, think of it as billions of computers that are all connected. Like a net."

"Billions, really?" She looked at him sideways. Probably exaggeration. "And where is it?"

"Where's the internet?" He cocked his head.

Was he suspicious? Question was okay. "Right. Is in—is it in Washington, DC? Maybe there's one in San Francisco?"

"No, it's like a net that extends all over the world." He held his fingertips together, then gestured to the other laptops in the room. "All of these computers are connected to it."

She looked under the table. "But your computer isn't plugged into anything."

"No, the connection is wireless. They have Wi-Fi here."

"Yes, I see that there are no wires ... Oh, is like radio? You're connected to radio station?"

"Yeah, kinda." He folded up his computer and popped the last bit of sandwich into his mouth. "You ready? You're really going to like my car."

"Sure. Am all yours."

Viviana held Zach's arm on the way out to his car. The Miata was held together with duct tape and pipe clamps, and one side was lower than the other. Here was someone who could use some extra spending money.

At Fry's Electronics, Zach directed her to buy a top-end Lenovo subnotebook. Although small and light, the FullFlect screen folded out to provide a twenty-seven-inch, touch-sensitive surface.

In the store's coffee shop, he got everything set up for her and showed her how to go online.

"And when you're online, you can use Google to answer any questions. Like this." He typed what is the internet into the Google search bar. It came back with the internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to link several billion devices worldwide. He showed her how the other "links" on the page provided more information.

"Ah. Is amazing. I think you just lost your consulting job, Zach."

He shrugged.

She spent the afternoon soaking up the information, then looked at her new G-Shock watch. "May I take you to dinner?"

She had some kind of upscale restaurant in mind, but Zach suggested the more informal Surf 'n Surf establishment that catered to people who wanted Wi-Fi with their seafood.

Out of habit, she scouted out the kitchen's rear exit on her way to the powder room. Returning, she froze. Zach's screen had her image on it. An image from the news. She jerked back into the hall and watched around the corner as he manipulated the image, cutting away her black hair and adding blonde. She ducked when he turned and checked behind him.

Would he contact the police? Had he already done that?

She came out of the hall while he was still looking. He tapped the keyboard and the image disappeared.

Back at the table, she faced him and put her hand on his forearm. "Zach, you've been very helpful all day, and I appreciate what you've done for me. Here is three hundred dollars." She leaned forward and gave him a peck on his cheek. "I just remembered something I have to do. I need to leave right away."

"Oh, no. Can't you stay for dessert? I ordered us some banana splits with chocolate mousse."

"No, Zach, I must go."

Zach glanced toward the front of the restaurant. He was expecting someone. "Wait. I can take you wherever you want to go."

The sound of squealing tires echoed from the street, and seconds later three men burst in.

* * *

I put my hand over my eyes. "No. You're going to stick your hand in there?"

"Not just my hand, Eric, my arm." Jessica turned to me and smiled. She forced her left arm into the cow's rectum, and the huge animal mooed and jumped her hindquarters around. <What the fuck is going on back there?>

Ha ha, just kidding. Animal thoughts aren't like that. Someone once complained to a famous animal behaviorist that he acted as if animals were machines. "Not so," he said. "I view animals as emotional humans." His point was that animals rely largely on emotion rather than logic or conscious thought. And I can't read emotion, only words.

But I get something from animals. It's hard to describe. If forced to put it into words, I'd say this cow was thinking, <Oh.> Probably, <Oh!!>, but the emotion was missing from what I received.

In any case, it was so gross I had to turn and walk away a bit. By "walk," I mean slip and squelch through the muck in the stall. The sagging barn seemed ready to fall down and smelled like a ruptured sewage treatment plant. So, no, not your typical first date.

Jessica laughed. "Can't take it, huh?"

She had called me the night before and asked me out. I'd been interested in her work as a veterinarian, and she invited me to come along on some house calls. I'd expected she'd be giving some cat a shot or bandaging a puppy's foot. I hadn't realized she was a large animal vet. I should have guessed. She'd told me to wear sturdy boots and old clothes.

I had been focused on Viviana and Zaharia, but after a week of investigating, I'd struck out. I didn't want to be distracted, but Jessica looked like a great prospect for a long-term relationship. Someone I could trust. I'd vowed to work on that. So, I said yes.

"Sheesh, Vi—uh, Jessica. You do this a lot?"

"I've personally done AI, artificial insemination, for hundreds of cows. Someone working with an AI company might do about three thousand a year."

"I know, this is a stupid question, but—oh, no!"

The cow started peeing. This had to be the grossest job ever. I had expected something out of the James Herriot book All Creatures Great and Small, but this was more like All Things Ugly and Disgusting.

She paused until the cow was done. "So, you have a question, Dr. Beckman?" She was pushing and moving her arm around in there with a look of intense concentration.

"I don't want to interrupt, and I know nothing about cow anatomy, but don't you have the, uh, wrong hole?"

She chuckled and put on a look of mock alarm. "Oh, gee, I knew something was wrong. No, I feel through the wall of the rectum for the location of the cervix. And ... there, I've got it now."

Like pulling an arrow out of a quiver, she drew a long, thin device from a pouch on her back.

She slid that into the correct hole. "This AI gun has to go through the cervix and just into the uterus. Wrong place and," she turned to me, "no calves. That's got it now." She slowly depressed the plunger on the AI gun. "And now several million sperm are on their happy way."

She pulled everything out, washed up, and we were on to the next house call.

In the van, she patted me on the knee. "That wasn't so bad, was it?"

I looked at her hand, and you don't know where that's been went through my head. I didn't flinch. Maybe because it had been her left arm that had been inside the cow.

She glanced over at me. <At least he didn't flinch.>

"No, not too bad. It just takes a little getting used to."

"You want to try it at the next farm?" <As if I'd let him.>

"Absolutely. Let me at it. Never know when that skill might come in handy."

"Ha. You knew I was joking, but do you think you'd—"

Her hands-free phone chimed. "Dr. Holiday, we've got a troublesome foal delivery at the Strassman farm. Sounds like head retention. How soon could you get there?"

"The one in Marshall? Forty minutes. Tell them to get the mare up and walking and to not try to pull the foal out. Very important."

"Will do. I just loaded the address into your GPS. I'll let them know you're on your way. Thanks."

"Serious?" I asked.

"Could be. The foal should come out forelegs and nose first, but sometimes the mare pushes too hard. The foal's head gets bent backwards."

"Ouch."

"Right." She nodded and exited the freeway. "We'll see."

At the farm, the mare was being led around the pasture. Then she lay down. The owner looked at us helplessly.

Jessica headed over, pushing an air of confidence ahead of her. The owner, a short, heavyset woman, rushed to meet her. <Oh, thank God. Thank God.>

The owner and I leaned against the fence. We watched Jessica examine the mare, poking and prodding and feeling. She was at home in this environment, no longer the somewhat shy woman I'd met in the bar. I couldn't help but compare her with Viviana. Jessica was supremely confident here, in the familiar environment. Viviana had that same confidence in a world that was surely foreign to her. But Jessica seemed more down-to-earth.

Jessica gave us a thumbs-up and came over.

"It looks like having the mare walk around has corrected things. Often, as soon as Mom stops pushing so hard, the foal is able to get into the right position."

Sure enough, the nose of the foal soon poked out between its two skinny feet. Before long we had a healthy foal on the ground. Thirty minutes later, the baby horse was walking around. Amazing.

In the same way, the rest of the visits ranged from cute—baby chicks—to gross—huge pig with a prolapsed uterus. I had no trouble picturing a long-lasting relationship with Jessica, if I could sustain it. I also pictured her taking a thorough shower before we made love.

At the end of our "date," I leaned over and kissed her. "Jessica, I enjoyed spending the day with you. I'm involved in an important case right now, but I promise I will call you. You can trust me on that."

She smiled. <What's to trust?>

What's to trust? I had no idea what that meant. Thoughts didn't always make sense. Or maybe my wonderful kiss scrambled her brain. No, probably not.

After she drove away, my phone demanded my attention with a high-priority alert. I pulled it from my pocket and checked the screen. Twitter alert: Viviana had been found in Marin County.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

When the three men burst into the front of the restaurant, Viviana was already most of the way to the kitchen. She glanced back at Zachary. He was pointing at her, the little traitor. She'd begun to like him. What a snake.

The first man brought something up and pointed it at her. A camera. Ah, paparazzi. Not FBI.

The cooks looked up as she sped through the kitchen and out the back door. Her compact trail-running backpack hugged her back. It had the money, gold, and more from her cache, plus a few critical tools. Her new, top-of-the-line hybrid athletic shoes gave her an edge. She'd ditched the fashionable but impractical Converse sneakers.

She flew out the kitchen exit and sprinted across the parking lot. Amazing what a little adrenaline will do.

The lead man was fast. The kitchen's screen door slammed open. "Wait, Viviana. Just one photo, please. I'll help you escape."

Fat chance. She vaulted the cedar fence at the back of the lot. Cars squealed around the building, their headlights illuminating the bare tree branches. They'd have to go back to get to the road into the housing development. Would any of them chase her on foot? From the glance in the restaurant, none had seemed particularly fit.

How many would chase her? Just a few? Of course not. She was the top news story in the world. Hundreds could be swarming around, eventually. If they cornered her, all would be lost. She needed a good hiding place, somewhere she could sit undetected for twelve hours or more.

She pulled the pry bar out of the side pocket of her pack and stopped by a car with a roomy trunk. Few realized how easy it was to pop an automobile's trunk open. She looked around. No one in sight.

She slipped the bar's hook under the lip, near the latch, and levered the trunk open. Pop. Easy.

An alarm blared and she dropped the pry bar. It sounded like some kind of spaceship. La naiba! Burglar alarms in cars. That was new. And bad. Very bad.

She picked up the pry bar and tore down the block. She jumped behind a hedge. Four cars raced toward the blaring car. Okay, nice diversion. She zipped the tool back into her pack and put another few blocks between her and the photographers.

Would climbing a tree work? Probably not. Wait. A tall oak grew next to a two-story home. Without hesitation, she ran to it and flowed up the trunk, past a window, and onto the gently sloped roof. Perfect. She tiptoed over to the chimney—would the residents hear her?—and lay back with her head on the crown of the roof. Her pack was lumpy, but she kept it on. She might have to leave in a hurry.

The sounds of rapid footsteps came to her from below. Voices, too. "No, she wasn't. I would have seen her."

The night was warm. She looked up at the sky and closed her eyes to think. Maybe she should have gotten on a bus and traveled to a remote city. Maybe she should head into some wilderness, camping in isolation until things died down.

No, her picture had been on the front page in every city in the world, and things weren't going to die down. More importantly, she had to go to San Francisco's Coit Tower on November 1. That was their meeting place. She had to locate Zaza.

The voice came from above her. It was filled with triumph.

"I found you!"

* * *

"But you're not an expert on energy production." I crossed my arms. "Come on. How can you be sure this is bogus?"

Dr. Diallo, my time-travel expert, wore a black and white head wrap with a colorful African dashiki and skirt. Only her intelligent eyes hinted she was a world-famous physicist. I'd bribed her with dinner at Chez Panisse, and my long day as a veterinarian's assistant made me a little short tempered. We faced each other over a spread of grilled lamb with basil pesto, eggplant confit, romano bean fritters, and a mesclun salad. I wasn't getting much support for my theories.

"True, Eric, that's not my specialty, but I do know a bit about science." She raised one eyebrow. "Fleischman and Pons weren't careful enough—"

"This work has nothing to do with them. Dudnic's papers came out ten years before their work." I stabbed the printout of one of his experiments with my finger.

To be honest, I hadn't been totally convinced that Zaharia Dudnic's work was important, but the more resistance I received, the more I was sure it was worth looking into. Everyone dismissed it without giving it a chance.

I continued. "Did you read that article about him demonstrating his device?" I'd uncovered a news article about a demonstration that Dudnic put on at the Paris Expo in 1979. He'd brought a football-sized device onto the stage and powered a room full of lights, fans, and air conditioners.

"Right. The device failed." Dr. Diallo sat back and crossed her arms. <Eric didn't mention that part.>

"Yes, but that was just a technical glitch. It worked fine for a while, just like the Tom Thumb."

"The steam engine?"

"Right. The first steam locomotive lost a race against a horse-drawn carriage when a belt slipped off a pulley. Didn't mean steam locomotives wouldn't work. They did, and they dominated freight transport for over a hundred years."

She held up her hands. "Okay, let's say you're right, Dr. Eric Beckman. I don't buy it, but let's say that in addition to creating a time machine, Dudnic discovered a simple solution to our current energy catastrophe. Big deal. It won't help us. The critical details we'd need to reproduce his experiments were lost when his lab burned down. Maybe if we had his prototype to examine, we'd know more. But most importantly, there's no Dudnic. Where is he?"

I puffed out my cheeks. She'd put her finger on the problem. Zaharia Dudnic had disappeared soon after his demonstration had failed. Where are you, Uncle Zaza?

* * *

Viviana snapped her eyes open.

The source of the voice was silhouetted against the stars. "I knew you'd be here."

A small girl, perhaps ten years old, stood with her arms by her sides. She wore pajamas covered with lions and tigers.

Viviana sat up and took her hand. "Aren't you scared to be on roof?"

"Nah, I come here all the time." She put one hand on her hip.

"Even at night?"

She nodded. "I saw you climb up the tree past my window, so I came up, too. Are the papanazis after you?"

"Paparazzi?"

"My mom calls them papanazis. She hates them and I do, too. Because they killed Lady Di."

Ce? Viviana frowned. "Was Lady Di your dog?"

"What?"

"Did papanazis kill your dog?" This new term for the photographers matched Viviana's current feelings about them.

"No, silly. Lady Diana, the English princess."

"In book."

"No. You're weird." The girl sat down on the crown of the roof. "In real life. Mom heard about you on Twitter. She said the papanazis were chasing you right in our own neighborhood. That they caught you eating dinner at Surf 'n Surf." She turned and pointed. The lights from the strip mall glowed in the distance. The sounds of more and more cars filtered up to the two figures on the roof.

"What's your name?"

"I'm Diana. My mom named me after Lady Diana."

"Well, am honored to meet you, Diana. Do you think your mom would help me hide from papanazis?"

"Of course! But don't tell her I was up on the roof, okay?"

Diana hurried back to the edge of the roof and disappeared.

"Be careful!" Viviana called out softly. Some of her own childhood climbing mishaps flashed into her mind.

A new noise, the boom of a helicopter, throbbed through the neighborhood. Probably FBI. As it approached, a dazzling searchlight skittered over the ground. It would arrive soon. Viviana bit her lip and squeezed in close to the chimney.

A shoebox-sized thing with multiple helicopter blades buzzed by to her left. What the hell was that?

Finally, Diana's loud whisper echoed up to the roof, and Viviana climbed down. She hurried around to the back door.

Diana's mom, Fergie, treated Viviana like the celebrity she was and got a kettle of tea going. A commemorative plate on the wall showed Queen Elizabeth—not same one?—who looked to be at least ninety. Two corgis rushed around the kitchen and stopped barking only when Fergie told them to hush.

She sat down at the kitchen table and leaned forward. "So, are you really from 1980? And you don't know about anything that happened between then and now?"

"That's right. Have been reading the papers a bit—"

"Not the internet?"

"Is on my to-do list."

"Well, I'm glad Diana saw you hiding in the tree." Fergie poured three cups of tea.

Diana and Viviana shared a smile.

"I hate the papanazis." Fergie gritted her teeth. "That's what I call them. I hate them with a passion because of what they did to Lady—oh, wait, you don't know anything about that, do you?" She filled Viviana in on what had happened. "So you can see why we don't like them."

Fergie leaned forward and whispered. "Let's see if we can fool them."

* * *

A month after Viviana eluded the paparazzi, my shortcomings as a private eye were all up in my face. I knew her real name—I could read minds, for God's sake—but it wasn't helping. She'd disappeared like a wisp of smoke in a tornado. Like a good idea on a bad night. And sitting in my office making up film-noir similes wasn't helping, either.

My only consolation: The FBI wasn't doing any better.

And I had a new problem: I was running low on funds. I'd built up a nest egg—remember the poker playing—but I'd eaten through most of that.

It was my fault Viviana got away—partly, at least—and I wanted to clear the decks and find her. I had no time for everyday cases. Not that I actually had any everyday cases, but I didn't want to waste time trying to get them.

Time for one of my fallback funding options.

People with confidential information about a stock are not allowed to buy or sell it. Insider trading is against the law. But by preventing those who know most about a stock from trading, you impede the market from setting a stock's fair price. Sounds reasonable, right?

Also, one kind of insider trading is legal. If someone decides, based on confidential information, to not buy a stock, he's done nothing illegal. So, it happens, lawfully, all the time.

Anyway, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it. My not-a-saint conscience is sticking to it. It was time to go out and mine a few brains for confidential stock information.

Sure, I'd need a bit of luck, but in a crowd of financial types, stocks are a common topic of internal discussion. My fishing trip started in the financial district around quitting time. I stood on the sidewalk as the crowd of wing-tipped salmon streamed past me, and I cast a wide net.

Wielding my talent in a situation like this is unimaginably pleasurable. It's like being really good at a video game in which you need to pay attention to many different targets. I flitted from one thinker to the next, grabbing a thought and moving on. Not letting a single mind pass by unexploited, that was the challenge.

I soon got a nibble. <Our stock's going to tumble.>

The thinker was a portly executive in an expensive suit. I turned and followed him into the subway station.

<They have no idea how bad it is. I should just stay home tomorrow.>

This was promising.

<We'll drop like a rock. Seventy percent.>

A stock price was going to drop. I could sell it short and make thousands. But which stock?

I stood near him while he waited for the BART train. Come on, buddy, think some details. But he just ran through those same thoughts over and over. He needed some kind of self-help book: how to stop ruminating on negative thoughts. The train would soon arrive. Time for escalation.

I turned to him and jerked my head back, as if discovering a lost buddy from high school. "Hey, I know you. James, is it?" The most common name.

He looked up slowly, probably having trouble disengaging from his spiral of negativity. He'd been a little heavy with the aftershave. "No, I don't know you." <Definitely don't know him.>

"Aren't you involved with that company? They're going to announce tomorrow. What's that company?" I snapped my fingers rapidly.

He watched the train approaching the station. <Is this some kind of scam?>

The wind from the approaching train cars ruffled my hair.

He ignored me and got on board. He glanced at me through the window as the train departed. <Our stock's going to tumble. They have no idea how bad it is. >

Ah, well. Win some, lose some. Told you it was a hit-or-miss thing.

I had two more failures. One man was excited about a stock, but I finally gleaned that it was just a hot tip from his broker. Those things weren't reliable enough. Another was the owner of a racehorse named Wise-Ass. Apparently the horse was getting sick or something. Not my thing. Not today, anyway.

The crowds were thinning out when a competent-looking redhead stepped off the train. She had a bounce in her step that resonated in her shiny hair. <I will be the financial story of the year.>

This could be interesting.

<No one saw the worth of my company.>

I followed along, keeping her just in range. She was a good thinker for my purposes. That is, her thoughts were especially well organized, as if she were a writer composing a story in her head.

<This will show them. A perfect black swan. When Sillman acquires us—me ... Hey, I think I'll celebrate and take the cable car.>

She grabbed the last spot on the car going up California.

"Sorry sir, you can catch the next one."

Ach! I ran after it. She was getting out of range. <That asshole, Dick something, something, he'll be sorry something something tomorrow morning.>

I caught up to the cable car after a block. Someone got off and I got on.

A lot of thoughts spilled over me. I blocked all but hers.

<Dick laughed at my company. Stupid name, he said. Carbock, ha. Not any longer. Asshole.>

I let out a breath. I had something to sink my teeth into. I stayed with her a while, but her thoughts turned to what she was going to do with her money. I jumped off.

Carbock would be acquired by someone named Sillman, and it was a big deal. A black swan event, whatever that meant.

Wasting no time, I popped into a coffee shop, ordered a drink, and brought out my tablet.

Carbock Industries was a one-person company run by Collene Montoya. I Googled the name—yes, that was her. Handsome woman. I didn't find anything on Sillman. Carbock "provided database management services and website design for health-care and publishing entities." If it were to be acquired, its stock, CDBX, trading at one cent per share, would rise dramatically.

I checked my available balance: $1,500. How much should I risk? With my line of credit, I could automatically borrow up to twenty thousand. Could I have misunderstood my new buddy, Collene?

Just to see how it would look, I used my brokerage app to set up a purchase of $10,000 worth of CDBX. One million shares. Wow. I held my finger over the trigger, had a moment of recklessness, and tapped "Submit." As soon as I did, I wanted to take it back.

Worse, I had another bad thought: Would the SEC see my purchase and investigate? It would have to look suspicious. So, I bought $4,000 worth of a few other penny stocks that had received recommendations. Pretty thin camouflage.

What a mess. What had I been thinking? The brokerage fees were high for this kind of trading, so backing out now would be messy. I went to a bar nearby and had a gimlet. And then a few more.

* * *

The next day I found it hard to concentrate. Hangovers will do that. Hangovers and waiting for the results of iffy stock decisions. Plus, I had a lot on my mind.

I was low on funds. The FBI had millions of dollars. Mind reading was my only advantage over them, the only thing that gave me a chance to find Viviana first. So far, that was working, apparently, because I was the only person who knew her real name. And I was going to keep it that way.

I thought back to the shape of Ms. Petki's body. I wasn't daydreaming—this was a lead. She was exceptionally fit, with well-defined, toned muscles. Even after days in a coma she looked like someone on the Romanian gymnastics squad.

Was she some kind of super-human? Some strange race that was superior and able to fly through time? No, that didn't fit. I already knew: She was a jewel thief with a genius uncle.

Jewel thieves and other normal people usually get bodies like that where? At a gym. So maybe she spent a lot of time at a gym.

That's why I was checking health clubs in the Bay Area. I started with CrossFit gyms since they emphasized things like climbing and strength. Things a jewel thief might need to be good at.

Even if she'd retired from jewel thievery, she'd probably still want to keep in shape. Once a gym rat, always a gym rat. I didn't have much else to go on.

I visited six CrossFit gyms in the East Bay. I showed photoshopped photos of Viv and described her, based on my personal time with her. If she looked anything like her pictures in the media, they would have already turned her in for the reward. I struck out, but at least my mind snooping let me know for sure that no one I talked to was lying.

I checked my stock app every five minutes. Nothing. No trades of CDBX.

My ToodleDo alarm sounded. I was late to my first Romanian lesson.

I know, how much could I learn with a few lessons? But maybe I could recognize some words. Maybe if I got used to how the language sounded, I could memorize longer stretches. Grandmasters can memorize a chessboard, as long as it is a real game, in seconds. I just needed some structure to hang my memory on.

Arriving at her trailer-park residence, I explained to Ms. Ibanescu that I only needed to recognize Romanian. I didn't want to speak it, write it, or read it.

She was a babushka, right down to the head scarf. She squinted at me. "Only recognize?" She talked like Viviana. Good. I'd come to the right place.

"That's right. I want to understand what I hear on the radio."

She thought that was silly. <Silly man but look nice.> I was paying a premium, so she went along, but she insisted I at least learn how to spell the words I recognized. "So can take notes."

After the lesson, in which I learned how to understand phrases such as "My name is Imanuela" and "You are a silly man," I sat in my car looking at my tablet. The seconds ticked down and the stock market closed for the day.

CDBX was still at one cent per share. At least it hadn't gone down. I didn't even know if that was possible. In any case, I was broke.

CHAPTER TWELVE

The next day, I put my financial concerns aside. I spent my time burning shoe leather searching for Viviana at fitness gyms. With few phone calls coming in, Peggy convinced me to let her assist in the field. I warned her that at Beckman Investigations, assistants didn't earn any more than secretaries.

Gyms crowded the Bay Area, and we were hitting them all. And striking out.

I had just followed Peggy into Armageddon CrossFit, in Los Pulgas Hills, when the thoughts hit me:

<Ahm nevoya something something alpinism mao.>

It didn't matter what it meant, it was Romanian—from my lessons, I recognized the sound of that language. It came from behind me. My heart jumped.

I made a huge blunder. I turned around, stopped the door from closing, and poked my head out. I shouldn't have let her see me. Stupid, stupid.

Viviana looked like someone in a haunted house after a monster pops out of a closet. <Is Beckman. No. La nay ba.> She had just pulled into the gravel parking lot in an antique Porsche 911 and shut off the engine. Based on the perfect "O" her mouth made and the raised eyebrows, each of those thoughts ended with an exclamation mark.

She looked different. Without hearing those thoughts, I wouldn't have recognized her. She had red hair and had altered her face somehow—plastic surgery? That would explain the small bandage on her nose. She was less striking than before. That woman was a chameleon. No wonder no one had found her.

She stared at me. Was she thinking the game was over? Maybe she was happy to stop running. All my work had paid off.

But new thoughts reached me. <Du te something ah each? Du te something ah each?> "Du te" meant go. Was she deciding? Go or stay, go or stay?

How could I put her at ease? If she left, I'd never catch her—back to square one. Here she was, ten feet away.

I waved, smiled, and held my breath. How do you put "your secret's safe with me" into a gesture? I mimed zipping my lips closed, but maybe in Eastern Europe that means "Can I borrow your lipstick?"

Why hadn't I just waited inside? When she came in, I could have, what, grabbed her? Too bad I'd never thought ahead to what I'd do after I located her.

Peggy came out behind me. "What's going on?"

"We found her." I kept the idiotic smile on my face and tilted my head toward the Porsche.

Viviana looked down at her dashboard. <Du te. Du te.> She'd chosen. Go. The starter motor kicked on, but the engine didn't catch. What do you expect with a forty-year-old sports car?

I ran over and squatted down by her window. "Viviana, wait. Trust me! Let me talk to you."

The engine caught, the wheels spun, and she backed up, shooting into the street. A cloud of dust blew over me, and an angry motorist slammed on his brakes and leaned on his horn.

I ran to my car and yelled for Peggy. "Get in!"

Peggy dashed over, stumbling once in her high heels, and jumped into the passenger seat. "Are you sure that was Viviana? She looked different."

"Keep an eye on her. We're going to chase her."

"Good idea. We'll catch up to the Porsche with this zippy Yaris."

"Yeah, well I left my Ferrari at home. And it's not an issue of speed."

"Right. Good attitude, boss."

I followed in Viviana's trail. "Which way did she turn up there?"

"Left."

We got to the intersection and looked left. The sports car disappeared around a curve a half-mile away. I accelerated into the turn and understood why Consumer Reports had said the Yaris handled like a Tilt-a-Whirl.

We barely held on to the road around one last curve and came to a straightaway. No sign of her. I slammed my palm against the steering wheel. "She was so close. We can't give up. Where would you go if you were her?"

"Well, she'd pretty much have to turn down this road here on the right. This one, this one, this one!"

I slammed on the brakes, and the car slewed to a stop. I backed up and made the turn. Good thing no one was behind us. The roads were narrow and windy, perfect for a Porsche, despite what I'd said.

"I've been here before." Peggy braced herself against the dashboard as the road turned and dipped. "She has go here and through a little town to get to the freeway."

As we entered the town, we came to a small park.

"Stop! There she is." Peggy pointed to a line of cars across the valley. The park lay between us and Viviana.

She was in a traffic jam. Morning rush hour on the road to the freeway.

"We could just cut across the park." Peggy had a twinkle in her eye.

"No way." A wide set of stairs made with railroad ties headed down to a field.

"Sure. Down the stairs. Don't you watch the movies?"

If I did nothing, all would be lost. I looked around. No police. I gritted my teeth, drove across the sidewalk, and let one front wheel drop over the first stair. The side of the car banged onto the ground.

Peggy's smile disappeared. She put her hand on my forearm. "I, um—"

"Right. Faster." I stomped down on the accelerator. We were at an angle to the stairs, so the motion threw us back and forth as well as up and down with each step. My head cracked repeatedly into the window as if we were sitting in a giant's paint shaker. Ow, ow, ow.

"Is she still stuck?" It came out like "Is-s-sh-e-sta-i-ill-st-ah-ah-ka?" The rear wheel went over the last step.

"Yes. She's barely moved."

After the stairs, a paved walkway led us across the park. I honked at an elderly woman who blocked our way over a narrow bridge. Road hog. Peggy leaned out her window, watching the wheels. "You've got about two inches to spare on this side."

A barrier pole blocked our exit onto the street, but a detour through some struggling new plants got us back into legal territory. We dropped over the curb and were soon up to the traffic jam. Five cars separated us from Viviana. The jam wasn't moving.

I pulled the emergency brake. "Stay here."

"Will do, boss. Great idea."

I jumped out and closed the distance to Viviana's car, catching her frustrated thoughts. <La nay ba.> I'd have to ask Ms. Ibanescu what that meant.

Viviana must have caught sight of me in her side view mirror. She stuck her head out, looked back, then gunned the engine and pulled out onto the shoulder. I should have parked there to block her in.

I sprinted back to my Yaris, jumped in, and did the same.

Viviana had gotten a good head start, but I was pulling out all the stops and catching up to her. Then a woman jerked her tiny Kia Kilowatt onto the shoulder in front of me and I slammed on the brakes. I couldn't go around her.

She got out of her car. "You think you're more important than us?" She put her hands on her hips.

I leaned out my window. "I'm a detective. I'm chasing someone."

"Oh, right. Ha. Nice try. You think your time is more valuable than mine, don't you? You can cut ahead of me. You're too good to wait in line with everyone else."

I got out and stood up, looking past the woman. I watched Viviana squeeze around a car accident and onto the freeway. She zoomed off, soon out of sight.

My tormentor nodded. "Nothing to say for yourself, huh?" <Asshole.>

I got back into the car. Steam rose from the hood.

Peggy gave me a punch on the shoulder. "That was fun, right?"

I put my forehead on the steering wheel. "What was fun? The part where she got away?"

"I liked the part where we drove down the stairs." She chuckled.

I turned to her. "You mean because you told me what to do, and I did it?"

Peggy was really laughing now. "No, because I was just joking. Like 'Ha ha, let's drive down the stairs like in the movies.' I didn't think you'd do it."

I smiled but felt like crying.

* * *

Viviana sat on her balcony in the afternoon sunshine. She sipped strong coffee and ate papanash with sweet cow cheese. Well, she could never go to that gym again. How had Beckman found her? The FBI and thousands of paparazzi were after her, yet he pops up. Interesting fellow. Should she have talked with him? Let him get in the car?

Too bad about the gym. It had been the perfect place to work on her rope and wall climbing. She could find another, but it would be too risky since Beckman must have found her by checking gyms.

Her workouts kept her sane. They distracted her from her compulsion. Her urge to go on a job. Do a heist.

She should get another car, but she liked her Porsche. Just like her old one. And she should have fixed that starting problem. Prost. Stupid.

But the fake plates had paid off. Now she'd have to buy another set.

Her house she'd keep. The landlord usually rented out houses to marijuana growers who didn't have permits, so everything was under the table. He didn't even ask for her name. On the other hand, the rent was high.

Uncle Zaharia was close by—she could feel it—but she wasn't having any luck finding him. If she could trust Beckman to keep her secrets, could he help? She gazed at the empty chair beside her. She pictured Eric in it, sharing her brunch. Am lonely.

Viviana opened her laptop and read through the news. Such an amazing thing, this internet. She could never have imagined it.

The energy catastrophe was getting worse. The Burgan field in Kuwait was the latest to become infected, and experts now believed ecoterrorists were poisoning fields with genetically engineered bacteria.

In addition to rolling blackouts, new electric meters would soon restrict electricity usage by individual users. Zaza could fix this situation. She knew he could.

She smiled at CNC's daily feature: "Where in the World is Viviana Petrescu?" Each day brought new false leads. Yesterday, someone reported spotting her in San Diego at a Scientology meeting. This was good. Would Beckman's sighting show up in tomorrow's column?

She looked at her fingertips. They wouldn't match her immigration fingerprints from 1972. The time machine had apparently turned her into a mirror image of her old self. She touched the old gunshot wound that was now on her left side. Was really possible? They'd certainly taken her prints at the hospital.

Eying the newspaper folded on the table, she shook her head. Why couldn't she throw it away? She snatched it up and turned to the society pages. De ce sunt eu atât de slab-voit? Why am I so weak-willed?

The society pages were a catalog for jewel thieves—people did not realize that? The society women loved to display their jewelry. It was as if they wanted someone to steal it.

No. She slapped her hand on the table. No more heists. She didn't need the money. She was set for a long time.

A month after the earthquake, the church had repaired the columbarium, and she'd returned to it in the middle of the night. With the proper tools, she'd popped open the niche, dumped out the contents of her urn, and put it back. She rotated it ninety degrees as a signal to Uncle Zaharia, but that seemed pointless. He'd know from the news coverage that she was here.

Taking a sip of coffee, she looked at the full-color photo in the paper. This widow, a Ms. Florence Adair, often caught Viviana's attention. She not only had expensive jewelry, she rarely wore the same items twice. And she went out often—openings, operas, charity events.

Just for fun, Viviana used the internet and located her home: on the top floor of a secure, high-rise apartment building. Perfect. The socialite would feel invulnerable.

Viviana put her laptop down, went in through the sliding glass doors, and opened the hidden compartment she'd built into her closet. She unzipped the slim backpack and went through her tools. A glass cutter, lock picks, climbing rope, gloves, and a folding titanium grappling hook. All top-of-the-line and exceptionally light. She picked up each item and felt its quality. Too bad she would never use them.

No more heists. It was a disease, a compulsion. But maybe a little research. No harm in that.

* * *

Peggy came into my office and shut the door. "You got a rough one out there, boss."

"Rough?"

"Yeah. A Mr. Garrett Jarmin."

I frowned. I didn't want any new clients, but I needed income. My big stock purchase of two days ago was a bust. "Never heard of him. How is he rough?"

"Skinhead, and I think he has a swastika on the back of his neck. He wants to thank you for something."

Ah, yes. Our tussle on the Golden Gate suicide barrier played back in my mind. I opened a drawer and checked my revolver. "Send him in."

Mr. Jarmin wore a polo shirt that bulged at the shoulder seams. The Extreme Force Gym's logo stretched across his pectorals. He didn't offer to shake hands, crossing his arms instead.

I thought back to that day on the bridge. He'd been a taciturn guy with slow thoughts.

"Thank you for saving my life." He didn't look me in the eye. "My shrink told me to come here. I'm, uh, sorry I beat you up. Tried to beat you up." <I would have beat him up, but he was fast. Too fast. Like a, what, rocket? A socking rocket. A rock 'em, sock 'em robot. Sock it to me, motherfucker. Fuck it to me, socking rocker. Sucking rock mocker.>

Whoa! So much for slow thoughts. These sounded like sped-up rap music. Not so depressed anymore.

"So, you've inspired me." He sat down in my visitor chair, lurching back because of the spring I still hadn't fixed.

"I inspired you?"

"Yeah, that's right. I figured if a pip-squeak like you could beat me up, I needed to get serious about my fighting and I've been taking courses in fighting, several a week. Aikido, Krav Maga, Taekwondo, you name it, well, I name it, I named it—them. Named, named the fighting courses." <Named the famed courses, framed the famed named courses, of course, the coarse courses with driving forces. Extreme forces like hoarse horses. Mothafucka.>

Okay, maybe bipolar disorder. Perhaps his depression hasn't improved; he's just in the manic phase today.

"I was glad to help, Garrett. You have a good shrink?"

"Yeah, she's the best. She's got me on, okay, let's see, Tegretol 400 milligrams in the morning, 600 milligrams in the evening. They have me on Seroquel, 100 milligrams in the afternoon." He counted each drug on his fingers. "Trazodone, 50 milligrams in the afternoon, Zyprexa, which is packaged with style, 2.5 milligrams in the morning, 5 milligrams at night, hydroxyzine, 2.5 milligrams three times—"

I put up my hands. "I get the idea. So, you're happier now." Definitely bipolar.

"Fucking right I am. Today, anyway. I'm the king of the world. I feel good. A little too good. I don't always feel like that, no one does." <Don't and won't, as is not my wont and not my want, as says my aunt. I'm manic bananic but not in a panic. A wanky monkey and never funky. Motherfunker.>

Wont? He had a bigger vocabulary than I had suspected. "So, no more suicidal thoughts?" Hold on, I'm not his shrink.

He stared at me. "Have you ever worked on a long-term project, like maybe a school assignment? You feel guilty that you haven't done enough on it, maybe. Right? Or a work project? You worry about whether you can finish it. You have a lot of loose ends, and you're struggling to tie everything up? The project is a struggle."

"Sure. I'm working on something like that right now."

"Right. And have you ever had a project like that canceled? All of a sudden, like, 'Okay, kids, you know that term paper you've been working on? Well, we decided to scrap that. You no longer have to finish it.'"

I nodded slowly. "Okay."

"All of a sudden, all your problems are solved. Like that." He snapped his fingers. "You know where I'm going with this?"

"Not really."

"That's like life. You've got all these things you worry about, past, present, and future. And you know what having that project canceled is?"

I looked at him. Now I knew where it was going.

"Suicide." He nodded repeatedly.

"Well—"

"No, that's exactly what suicide is. You cancel this project, this motherfucking life project that you've been struggling with. All of a sudden, just like that," he snapped his fingers again. "all your problems are solved. Think you have insoluble problems? No. There's always suicide. Always, always. But where do you draw the line? Girlfriend leaves you? Commit suicide. Miss the bus? Commit suicide."

"Garrett—"

"But maybe you need someone else to cancel the project, the life project, for you. You think ... you wish that you'd witness a robbery at a convenience store. You could go up to the guy with the gun. 'Shoot me asshole, 'cause if you don't, I'll kill you with my bare hands.' Maybe he'd cancel the term paper. Right?"

He was deeper than I'd given him credit for. I guess the swastika threw me off. We both sat there in silence. My out-of-balance ceiling fan made creaking noises.

"What's the name of your psychiatrist?" I asked.

<Dr. Gulata.> He laughed. "Nice try. You'd call her up and tell her I'm big-time suicidal. They might lock me up. Thanks, but no thanks. I'll keep the suicide option open for now, fuck you very much. You don't realize the comfort it gives me to always have that solution available. It helps me go to sleep at night. I've always got the suicide option. The canceled-project option."

With that, he stood up and pulled out a card. "I'm giving this to your secretary and telling her to call me if you need help with something. Something that lets me use my new fighting skills would be appreciated."

Since when did skinheads have business cards?

After he left I sat for a while then pressed the switch on my intercom. "Peg, could you locate a Dr. Gulata and get her on the line?"

I was soon speaking with a woman with a subtle Indian accent.

"How may I help you, Dr. Beckman?"

"I'm the man who—"

"Yes, I know who you are."

I leaned forward over my desk. "I just wanted to—"

"Did Mr. Jarmin give you my name?" She sounded annoyed.

I thought shrinks let people talk instead of interrupting. "Not exactly. I just wanted to let you know that in speaking with Garrett, I—"

"I'm sure you're aware, Dr. Beckman, that due to confidentiality, I cannot speak with you about his case."

I took a breath and rubbed the back of my neck. "No, certainly not. I'm just letting you know—one-way communication here, you don't have to say a thing—that he is still talking and thinking about suicide."

"And how is it you know what he's thinking?"

Right. Good question. "Well, of course I'm just inferring from what he said."

"Are you a psychiatrist, Dr. Beckman?"

I generally enjoyed listening to someone speak with an Indian accent. Not this time. "No, I'm not a—"

"Well then, I do not think you are capable—"

"Thank you for your time, Dr. Gulata. I hope you will take what I said into consideration. He's suicidal. I have an emergency here right now and am going to have to hang up right away." I pressed the phone's off button but held the handset in front of my face. "... That emergency being that I HAVE TO SCREAM BECAUSE I CAN'T STAND PEOPLE LIKE YOU!"

Peggy popped in and cocked her head.

I stood up and fluttered my arms as if trying to shake off water. "It's okay. I've just been speaking with the world's worst psychologist, and she was driving me crazy."

Peggy nodded. <Maybe not such a long trip.> "Someone's here to see you. Someone from the SEC."

Whoa! That pulled me in two directions. SEC wouldn't be here if my stock hadn't gone up, but also they wouldn't be here if they weren't suspicious of me.

"Give me a sec, Peggy."

I brought up my financial app, which displayed the trading price of CDBX: $1.83 per share. What? I rubbed my eyes. An accompanying news note said, "Acquired by Sillman Corporation."

I could have done the math in my head, but I was too shocked—didn't trust myself. I put it in the onscreen calculator: one million shares at $1.83 per share, $1,830,000.00.

Almost two million. Holy crap!

Okay, hold on. How to act in front of SEC person? I'll read his thoughts, know where things are going. I'll be honest, to a point. No one did anything illegal. Technically. Maybe.

My surprise and shock were honest. "Thanks, Peggy, show him in."

It was a her. A Ms. Ulla Yates. She was young—late twenties. Pinched face and fighting a losing battle with her waistline. She wore a conservative pantsuit.

I shook her hand, making no attempt to hide my trembling. "Excuse me, but I just found out about CDBX, I guess that's why you're here."

"And why do you assume that?" <Come on, hang yourself.>

"Just a second. Please have a seat. I need to sell these shares before the price goes down. I'm not a sophisticated investor." I sat down behind my computer and quickly executed the sell instruction in my financial app. The price had gone up a little more as we spoke.

"How much did you make, Dr. Beckman?"

I took some deep breaths. "A lot." One point eight five million, minus fees. "Excuse me, I need to go to the bathroom."

"Don't be trying to escape." <This guy must be smarter than he seems.>

I looked at her. Yes, she was joking. I think. Couldn't tell from her thoughts.

I finished up in the bathroom and splashed water on my face. I went back to my desk and sat, putting on a big smile.

"Well, do I need a lawyer?"

She crossed her arms, "You tell me." <C'mon, hang yourself. I need this.>

I chuckled. "I'm not surprised you're here. Well, I'm a little surprised you're here so quickly. As you know, and as I just learned now, I made a lucky bet, based on a hunch I had, and—"

"Dr. Beckman, this isn't the first lucky bet you've made. Ten years ago—"

"Ms. Yates, I've read enough legal thrillers to know I shouldn't say anything. But I can't resist saying—no, I'm sorry, I have nothing to say. No comment."

"I see. That's too bad, Dr. Beckman." <I shouldn't be over here. Jared would kill me if he knew.> "Just know we are keeping an eye on you." <Oh, that was so stupid. Why did I say that? I shouldn't have tipped our hand.>

I buzzed Peggy. "My assistant can show you out."

I put my feet up on the desk and thought about how this development could help me track down Viviana. A faster car wouldn't hurt. And we could hire virtual researchers to chase down leads.

Peggy's voice came over the intercom, telling me Craig was on the phone.

I put my feet back on the floor and picked up the phone. "Hey, Doc, how's it going?"

"You sound chipper, what's up?"

"I just made a lucky stock trade." I smiled again at the thought.

"Did you use—"

"Hey, stop! I used that trading app I told you about. Yes." Could the SEC be bugging the phone? Stupid, I shouldn't have brought it up, and Craig should have known better.

"Gotcha. I told you that was a good app. I was just wondering whether you used it to, uh, make the trade. That's what I was going to ask. About the app."

Craig was never good at the acting thing.

He continued. "Uh, it doesn't matter about the stock stuff, Eric. Are you sitting down? I got a call from our lawyer, and Biotronics has made a new offer for the EZ-Sleeper."

"How much?" They'd offered us twenty million for our device in the past, but over Craig's objections, we'd turned it down. I had been sure we could make much more than that. Then the lawsuit hit.

"Eric, I really think we should take this. What do we know about bringing a device to market? Let them worry—"

"How much?"

"It's less than the last offer."

"How much, Craig?"

"Fifteen million."

What a day. I answered right away. "I'm in. Let's take it."

"I really think we should accept. It would be better to take the money and run. You never know what—"

"Craig, I said take it. Set it up. I was wrong to insist we turn it down last time, and I apologize for that."

"We decided together."

"Well, kinda. Congratulations. How does it feel to be a multimillionaire?"

"Nothing's signed yet, so let's not celebrate until everything goes through."

"You never stop worrying, do you, Doc?"

Craig gave me the details, and we spent some time patting ourselves on the back.

After I hung up, I pulled a bottle of whiskey out of my bottom drawer. If I wanted, I could close the business and retire to a life of luxury. Not a chance. With my new funds I had a real shot at succeeding where the FBI and the paparazzi were failing.

I invited Peggy in for some celebratory drinks. We went over how we could use the new funds to take my investigation to the next level.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Viviana wore a simple but stylish navy dress with gold hoop earrings and a wide hat. She stepped out of the real estate agent's Cadillac and looked up at the building at 20 Hollywood Place. Her eyes settled on the communal balcony on the second floor and a smile tugged at her mouth. Perfect. She still wasn't committed to the heist, but two condos in the building were up for sale. What an irresistible opportunity to take a look inside with no risk.

It was the end of November, almost a month and a half since she'd escaped the paparazzi. She'd had her nose surgery on Halloween and had finally been able to remove the bandage. That hadn't been pleasant, but the result was worth it. Her face had a whole new look.

She had a full set of top-quality forged identity papers, courtesy of the Dark Web. These included a California driver's license and registration for her Porsche under the name of Victoria Ivanov.

Viviana had spent several days tailing her mark, Ms. Adair. The most important observation: Adair didn't visit the bank preceding her engagements. Favorabil! It meant she didn't retrieve her jewels from a safe-deposit box—she kept them at home.

Viviana gestured to the building. "And this one has best security of all?" She had made it clear she was concerned about burglars. The two women walked toward the entrance.

"Absolutely." The agent—You must call me Barbara—was in her fifties and overly perfumed, with her hair pulled back into a bun. Artificial diamonds peppered the bird-shaped brooch on her pantsuit. She put her hand on Viviana's forearm. "You'll be very impressed."

Barbara pointed to a space above the main entrance. "We have a security camera right there—see it?—plus a motion sensor that will alert the guard at the front desk."

Viviana looked closely at the camera and turned to evaluate its field of view. "You have guard who does rounds at night? How old is. He?"

Barbara laughed. "Wilfred is experienced. We haven't had a single burglary while he's been on duty."

"Do you have central safe I could put jewelry in?"

"Oh, no, Victoria. You wouldn't want that. You can have a safe installed right in your own condo. That's much more convenient, don't you think?"

They took the elevator up to the top floor. "Now, Victoria, you'll have to excuse the mess in this first condo. It's just been vacated and is being completely redecorated. Now, I don't know about you, but there's nothing I like better than that new-house smell. Do you know what I mean? I guess it comes from the paint. I love that smell." The agent jingled through her set of keys.

Coming off the elevator, the two passed the door to Florence Adair's residence. Viviana glanced at its high-quality locks. Not good. Adair had had special locks installed, apparently not satisfied with the ones that came with the condo.

Barbara unlocked the neighboring, vacant condo. The paint smell washed over them. The agent walked her high heels across the drop cloths and slid open the glass door to the balcony. "And look at this view, Victoria."

Viviana checked out the view and examined the distance from the balcony to the roof. Adair's balcony was on the other side of the building. "Is very nice here, Barbara." An image of drinking wine on the balcony appeared in her mind. With Eric Beckman. That was strange.

After exploring all the rooms, the women left the condo, stepping back into the hall. Viviana opened the door to the stairwell. No locks. The stairs continued up toward the roof.

The agent came over to her. "Oh, you're worried someone could come up through the stairwell. Don't worry. The door into the stairwell on the ground floor is locked, and remember, we have a guard at the front desk twenty-four seven."

Barbara rapped on the heavy door with her knuckles. "We can't lock these doors due to fire safety regulations, but soon we're installing a new system. The doors will be locked, but if there's a fire, they'll automatically unlock. That's so if there was a fire, heaven forbid, and you went down the stairs but were blocked by smoke, you could get out again. Understand?"

"When install that?"

"I think they start in two weeks."

Hmm. A time limit. She wasn't going to do it, but if she did, it would have to be soon.

* * *

A bit before Thanksgiving, a freckle-faced beauty walked into my inner office. I slapped my forehead. Jessica Holiday. My last words to her—I'll call you. You can trust me on that—echoed in my mind.

"Jessica, I'm sorry."

"Didn't you get the order wrong?" She was smiling.

"The order?"

"Right. The guy's supposed to not call after he sleeps with the woman."

I looked at my hands. "Right, right." I jerked my head up. "I mean, not right, but ..."

She tilted her head and raised one eyebrow. <I'll just let him struggle here.>

"I mean. Well, I've ... I'm in the middle of an intense case, right now. You totally slipped my mind." Oops. I wanted to bite back those words.

"You're telling me I'm totally forgettable." <Now I feel bad. I shouldn't have come.> She sat down in my visitor's chair, and lurched backward.

"No, not at all. I mean, who could forget the, uh, cow thing ..." I cleared my throat.

"Okay, got it. Help me out here. Am I a close second place to the cow's rectum, or a distant second? This could be a good thing for a girl to know. Or maybe I'm third. Maybe there's something less memorable than a cow's rectum, but still vastly more memorable than I am. Let's see. Maybe bird shit? Or just mud." She stopped and closed her eyes. <This sucks. I came here just for fun. Is there something wrong with me? I'm not going to cry.>

"There's nothing wrong with you, Jessica. I just—"

She jumped up, shouting now. "Oh, great. What a wonderful endorsement. Jessica Holiday—there's nothing wrong with her. Maybe I should put an ad in the personals. Single white female likes long walks and has nothing wrong with her. I bet that will get me lots of—"

"Jessica, please. You're funny and smart and—"

"Spare me. I guess I have a great personality, too." <Now I know there's something wrong with me.>

"May I take you out to lunch—"

"Gee, let me think about that—no. Look, I didn't come here to get a new date. I wasn't even that impressed with you." <Now I sound like sour grapes. This is a bad, bad day.> "I just thought ..."

Jessica stood for a few seconds, tears rolling down her cheeks, even dropping to the floor. She turned and ran out, slamming the door behind her.

I stared at the wall. My out-of-balance ceiling fan made accusatory creaking noises. Peggy apparently had the good sense not to come in.

Could I have done any more damage? Hearing her thoughts made it so much worse. And the pile driver I'd applied to her self-esteem was undeserved. She was indeed cute, smart, and funny. Had it not been for Viviana, I'd have fallen for Jessica in a big way.

Could I write her a letter? Get her to see the truth? No. Even if she didn't burn it, it would only make things worse.

* * *

Dressed head to toe in black, Viviana approached 20 Hollywood Place from the side, confident she was out of the range of the camera and motion sensor. Her heart rate kicked up a notch as the old thrill of being on a job spread through her body. What was that new term she'd heard? Adrenaline junkie? Da, that was her. Bungee jumping didn't satisfy her. No skill involved. Rock climbing used her skill, but the payoff wasn't big enough. A heist was her only fix.

She cast the rubber-coated grappling hook to the railing of the communal balcony on the second floor. She climbed up easily, her thin gloves gripping the top-quality rope. Within seconds she had bypassed all the security arrangements—locked doors, cameras, and security guards—of the first floor. The security arrangements that made all the residents complacent. Hopefully.

After stowing the rope in her pack, she inserted a special, thin-bladed spatula into the jamb of the balcony door. The latch refused to budge. Would she have to give up so soon? She pulled the blade out and inserted it from below. The latch slipped back and she was in.

After listening for noises, she glided through the hallway and into the stairwell. She padded up toward the roof. This was going too well. Once on the roof, it would be easy to abseil down to Adair's apartment.

She checked her watch. The night guard would start his next round from the ground floor at one-thirty. Forty-five minutes to go. She'd staked out the building on several nights, and his routine never varied. Stupid.

Viviana had seen Ms. Adair leave for the theater. According to the society pages, Adair was expected at an after party given by the play's director.

Shining her penlight on the lock on the door to the roof, she shook her head. Surprisingly expensive. Someone understood how burglars operated. Putting on her headlamp, she pulled out her lock pick set and went to work.

She inserted the tension tool at the bottom of the keyway and exerted gentle pressure. No lock is machined perfectly, and she closed her eyes, picturing the one pin inside that would prevent the cylinder from turning. Sliding the pick tool in, she moved the individual pins, testing the resistance of each. Click! There. She'd located that first pin. On to the next.

In theory, lock picking is simple. Continue freeing pins until the final one lines up, and the lock will open. In practice, though, it's an art. Viviana had mastered the art, but this lock wasn't cooperating. As she'd suspected, it had at least one sophisticated feature: spool, serrated, or even rotating pins. She shouldn't have wasted her time on it. On to Plan B.

Back down on the eleventh floor, Viviana put her ear against the stairwell door. No sounds. She pushed into the hallway. It had black and white checked tile and a lemon scent.

This floor had three condos. Ms. Adair's, the unoccupied suite next to it, and a third residence across the hall. She listened at the third door. If anyone was home, they were making no noise, probably sleeping.

She went to work on Adair's lock, but it was hopeless, too. Much too good. Maybe she could open it in an hour. Who had that much time? She stood up, a twinge shooting up from her knees. She had been born seventy years ago, after all. She chuckled without smiling.

With every minute of delay, the muscles in her neck tightened. A quick stretch, and she kneeled down at the door of the neighboring condo. This was a plain-vanilla lock probably installed by the building owner. No one had paid to have a high-quality replacement put in. It would be easy.

Voices came from the third condo and she whipped her head around. Should she duck back into the stairwell? She heard no shouting, no alarm, just relaxed speech. Would someone come out at this time of night? If so, her clothing would give her away. No way to charm her way out of it.

She turned back to the lock for the neighboring condo. Much simpler than the others—maybe she could get it opened quickly. She put tension on the cylinder and raked the pins. Bingo. The lock opened just as the neighbor undid his dead bolt. She whipped the door open, spun into the condo, and whipped it closed again, easing it into the jamb.

She watched through the door's peephole viewer and held her breath. A tall man stepped out of the apartment. He closed his door and stopped. Did he notice something? Had he heard her? He walked toward her door. Would he check that it was locked? She turned the dead bolt latch slowly. Too loud. It caught. She pressed the door in slightly. There. That got it. She slipped the dead bolt home just as the man reached for the knob. Phew!

He turned the knob and rattled the door. He probably figured that if someone had entered the vacant condo, the door would have been left unlocked.

He tried to look in through the peephole. Viviana froze with her eye against her side of the viewer. If she didn't move, the light on his side wouldn't vary. He wouldn't be able to see anything. Still, he was only inches away. A drip of sweat tickled its way down her torso.

Neighbor man then turned his head and put his ear up against the door. Vivian moved her body back, as if the pounding of her heart could be detected from the hall. She held her breath. He pulled away and went to Adair's door, going through the same procedure. The two doors were at angles to one another. Through the viewer's fish eye lens, she watched his every move. After twenty seconds, he headed to the elevator.

She watched his body language. What was it saying? Hopefully, "just the wind." But would he report it at the guard's station? Call the police? Unlikely. Buildings make little noises all the time, yes? Back to work. She should leave, but she wouldn't. Did she want to get caught? Put an end to her compulsion?

Once he was gone, she unlocked the door—she'd need to reenter it later. Leaving the lights off, Viviana tapped on the wall. Only two layers of drywall and some insulation separated her from Ms. Adair's jewelry, but that route was messy. It left too many clues. She preferred to leave no evidence she'd been there. Best to keep the detectives guessing. Like Detective Beckman. She smiled. Why did her thoughts turn to him so often? She pictured him—stop! Daydreaming on the job?

She shook her head and slid open the glass door. Out on the balcony, she looked up. A strong, gusty wind blew clouds across the half-moon. Somewhere a rope slapped against an aluminum flagpole. Ding, ding, ding. That would help mask her noises.

The roof was farther away than she'd remembered. Nici o problema. No problem. She cast the grappling hook up, but when she pulled on the rope, it slid off the roof without catching. On one throw, it held on the edge of the roof, but with some weight on the rope it popped off.

After ten throws, she looked at her watch and almost stamped her foot before catching herself. Am not giving up. If she waited past the night guard's rounds, she ran the risk of Adair returning. She could abort and be home in ten minutes. Maybe this interrupted escapade would satisfy her compulsion.

She prepared to throw the hook once more, then stopped. A ladder. She'd passed a four-section, folding ladder in the condo. She went in, brought it out to the balcony, and unfolded it. It wasn't long enough. Up against the side of the building, it came six feet short of the roof. There must have been some kind of storage space or attic between this floor and the roof.

She climbed up but couldn't quite reach. Could she jump? No way. If she missed, she couldn't be sure to land on the ladder again. She might tumble down to the balcony, breaking her legs or worse.

She climbed back down and checked the condo. No furniture to boost the ladder up. Back on the balcony she looked up. She only needed a few extra feet.

The railing. No, that would not be professional. What was the expression? Donald Duck? No, Mickey Mouse. Would be a Mickey Mouse operation.

She examined the bottom of the ladder. It had two round rubber ends with deep grooves. It wouldn't hurt to try it out. If it was too silly, she'd put things back and be on her way.

She lifted the ladder, sliding the top up along the rough stucco surface of the building. It rattled with the sound common to all aluminum ladders. The grooves fit neatly into the inner edge of the steel railing. Hmm, that could work. If only she could skip the first few steps, when her weight would be directly above the ladder's feet, pushing it straight down.

She vaulted onto the railing, holding the ladder lightly for balance. She flashed back to her 1966 gymnastics training with Béla Károlyi, the world-famous coach for Romania. She put her foot on the railing between the ladder's feet and stepped onto the first rung. So far so good. She'd seen Chinese acrobats do much crazier things. Two more steps. This can work, yes? The ladder reached to three feet below the roof.

With a clang, the ladder spun around its long axis. Viviana's foot slipped off, falling through the rungs. She bashed her inner thigh and cartwheeled to the cement floor of the balcony. Pain shot up from her leg and arm. Stupid! She lay motionless, listening. Had residents below heard that? Lucky the wind was making such a racket.

She looked at the ladder's feet. One had slipped off the railing, and the first rung had crashed onto the railing.

Why am I doing this? Time to give up and go home. But she looked up to the roof. She'd been so close. Once on the roof, she'd be done with the Mickey Mouse ladder arrangement.

She'd try once more, with her weight centered this time. I have compulsion sickness.

She set it up again, making sure the weight was evenly distributed on the two feet. It looked almost reasonable, and she climbed to the roof quickly before she could change her mind.

This time, both feet flew off the railing out into space, and the top slid down the stucco. She jumped up—she had no choice—and got one hand on the lip of the roof. Just three fingers.

She looked back over her shoulder. Would the ladder slide off the balcony and drop eleven floors to the ground? No, the ladder teetered, then tipped onto the balcony. Had it made too much noise? She looked down, choosing a landing spot. It was too far, and she might even land on the ladder. La naiba!

The tendons on the back of her hand stood out. She had been the youngest gymnast on her squad to do a one-armed giant swing on the unevens. She could do this. With a sideways lurch, she got her other hand onto the roof's edge.

The throb of a helicopter sent a spasm through her gut. It was loud and coming her way. Coming for her? They'd send a police car first, yes? But even a traffic copter would notice her if she pulled herself up.

Her fingertips and shoulder joints all screamed for her attention as she hung there. Bits of stucco came loose from the lip of the roof, threatening to slide her fingers loose. She took deep breaths and visually scouted out the best landing spot. The fall would be disastrous.

The helicopter roared over her and continued on its course. She clenched her teeth, held her breath, and muscled herself up. She collapsed on the edge taking ragged breaths and flexing her arms, forcing the blood back into them.

With no time to lose, she limped over to Adair's side of the building, found an irregularity at the edge of the roof, and set her grappling hook. Abseiling down to the balcony, she leaned back and flipped the rope, releasing the hook. She caught it neatly and coiled and stowed the rope in her backpack. This was more like it. She would try to forget the episode with the ladder.

She checked out the sliding glass door. Burglar alarm. Would there be one? Oof. She'd never liked them in the seventies, and her internet research showed her how much they'd improved since then. She checked all around the edges of the door. No magnetic sensors. She cupped her hands against the glass and looked in. No blinking red lights on the wall.

She jimmied the door open—who puts a good lock on a door that's eleven flights up?—and held her breath. No beeping or alarms. She checked her watch. If she didn't finish in a few minutes, she'd encounter the night watchman on her way down.

She shined her headlamp around. Fine furniture, exquisite rugs, and huge paintings—everything screamed money. The residence had been professionally decorated. The subtle scent of furniture polish was a pleasant change from the paint vapors next door.

She padded through the master bedroom and into a walk-in closet, the most common location for a safe. There. It sat on a shelf, wide open and empty.

Viviana shook her head. Typical. Someone who thought the building security was good didn't feel the need to keep things constantly locked away. Especially someone who needed her jewels frequently.

Back in the bedroom, she found the safe's velvet-lined drawers on the bed. Some of the jewelry was spread out on the comforter.

She scooped it all up and put it in a pocket of her backpack. Next, she slid the shelves back into the safe. Smiling when she noted the safe's brand, she pulled the appropriate change key from another pocket. She'd purchased change keys for the four most common brands of safes.

She slipped it into its hole on the back of the safe's door, rotated it, and modified the lock's combination. She pictured the owner's confusion at not being able to open her own safe. I se va merge cu siguranță în iad atunci când voi muri. I will surely go to hell when I die.

After checking that everything else was as she found it, she peeped through the door viewer into the hall and left the apartment. Back in the condo undergoing renovation, she brought the ladder back in and folded it as it had been.

A noise. Her heart knotted. The elevator. Someone had heard her? The neighbor with the police? If so, she'd be trapped. Maybe they'd go into Adair's condo and she could slip out. She couldn't abseil down; she was eleven floors up. She considered a hiding place, under a tarp, but watched through the peephole. What a slow elevator. She rolled her shoulders, but they remained tense.

She could wait in the condo until the night guard finished his rounds. No, too risky. She'd already spent too much time on this job.

The elevator door slid open. Ms. Adair clung to a tuxedoed companion. Okay, this could work. Was she tipsy? She'll be too confused to raise the alarm tonight.

Viviana had a fish-eye view of the hall. Adair and her male friend walked to the dowager's condo. Yes, she was drunk, leaning heavily on the man. She pulled out her key and handed it to him. He inserted it into the lock and, after a delay, opened the door. Good. He probably didn't notice it was already unlocked.

In a flash, Viviana was out the door. She inserted her plug spinner into the lock, relocked it, and then dashed through the hall and into the stairwell. She'd gone down only two floors when a door click echoed up from below. La naiba. The night guard, a few minutes early. She'd taken too much time.

Watching from a block away, she'd been unable to tell what his routine was, only when he started. Did he go all the way up and then work his way down, checking each floor? What to do? She could exit into a hallway and hope he'd bypass her. Very risky.

She continued downward until she was one floor above him. His tuneless humming and plodding steps let her keep track of him. She'd keep one level above. If he reached the sixth floor, she'd assume he was going all the way, and she'd go into the seventh floor hallway and wait for him to pass.

He reached the sixth floor. She started through the door to the seventh, but then the rattle of his door opening reached her. He was exiting the stairwell. When the door clicked shut, she flew down past it, all the way to the second floor. Phew.

On the common balcony, she waited until a late-night dog walker passed, then pulled out her rope and looped it around the railing in a double strand. Fastened to itself with a fisherman's bend, she rotated it so that the knot was at the bottom and climbed down to the ground. She undid the knot and pulled the rope until it slid off and collapsed into a pile by her feet. She smiled, reached down, and started coiling it. The job had been messy, but she'd lucked out. This was her last heist! Definitely.

A metallic click right behind her made her gut clench. Armă! Gun.

"Freeze. Hands in the air. Don't turn around."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

I pointed my gun at the ground and cocked it. She got the message. <Arma.>

Arma. Gun. Thank you, Ms. Ibanescu. Three cheers for Romanian lessons. Viviana stiffened dramatically. Someone had shot her in the past, based on the wound I'd seen in the ICU. Being shot wasn't an abstract concept for her.

"Freeze. Hands in the air. Don't turn around." I kept my voice low—I didn't want to wake anyone.

She wasn't going to get away this time, but I wasn't going to shoot her. I kept the gun pointed at the ground.

Her mistake had been in buying a distinctive Porsche. One from her own era. I'd investigated every sale of a vintage Porsche 911 in the Bay Area. The break came when I interviewed a guy who'd sold his silver 911 on Craigslist to a woman with an interesting accent. "She was like Natasha in the flying squirrel cartoons, you know? Like, 'Must get moose and squirrel, dahlink.' She had a bandage over her nose as if she'd been punched."

Not punched. She'd probably gotten a nose job. That's why she'd looked so different. The timing worked. She'd escaped the paparazzi mid-October, a month before purchasing the car. Plenty of time to have cosmetic surgery.

The color of the car threw me off at first. At the CrossFit gym, I'd seen her in a maroon Porsche. So, my stable of assistants, managed by Peggy, fanned out and located a shop that had painted a 911 on November fifteenth, just one day after the purchase. Old color, silver. New color, maroon.

The address she gave the shop turned out to be a fake, but they did have her cell phone number. I bribed them to call her and set up a free touch-up and detailing appointment. She came in and I followed her home.

I was staking out her place when she left at midnight and drove to Hollywood Place and parked.

I should have stopped her then. Instead I followed her to a high-rise condo building. She was up the rope before I realized what was happening. Another jewel heist. Why would she do that?

I'd waited an interminable sixty-five minutes for her to come back out. It gave me time to think about my motivations. She was certainly stealing jewels, based on her history, but I wasn't trying to recover them or turn her in. Did I just want to be with her? I wasn't in love with her, was I? I hardly knew her.

She put her arms up, and I kept the gun pointed down. "Viviana, you have to put it back."

At the sound of her name, she spun around. "Dr. Beckman! Is you. I thought I recognized voice." She lowered her hands and smiled. She was breathing heavily and shaking, too. She kneeled down, coiled up the rope and put it in her backpack. <El nu va trage.>

What did that mean? Trage meant shoot. He something something shoot. He will not shoot? "Viviana, you will ruin everything. Trust me, you cannot get away with this. They can't prosecute you for your other crimes, but for this you'll go to jail. I can't protect you. I can't help you if you don't put it back. Whatever you stole." Yeah, right. Like she would go back up into the building to return the goods.

She stood, staring at me. <El este corect.> He is right. "Okay, we go to other side of the building. Trust me."

"I don't trust you." I started around the front.

"No! This way." She grabbed my jacket and led me around the back of the building. She looked up to the top of the high-rise, then removed one strap from her backpack, brought it around, and unzipped a side pocket. She pulled out watches, necklaces, and bracelets and tossed them out onto the ground. I picked up a women's Rolex watch, the dial encircled with diamonds. The real thing. I dropped it back on the grass.

Her strategy wouldn't help much if someone came by and made off with the jewels. At least she wouldn't have the stolen property on her. What a mess!

She felt around in the pocket, then took my arm. "Time to get hell out of Dodge, don't you think, Dr. Beckman?"

I wanted to run, but she held me back.

"We are out for stroll. Lovers, maybe. No hurry." She was still trembling.

I didn't want to leave either car at the scene, but I wasn't about to give her a chance to drive away again. I knew where she lived, but still. We took her car, and I drove. Why did I feel she was just letting me think I was in control?

Viviana pulled a throwaway cell phone out of a bag. She consulted a pad from the glove compartment and dialed a number. After a delay, she held a device between her mouth and the phone and said, slowly and distinctly, "The bishop threw the jewelry off your balcony."

The device modified the sound of her voice. She sounded like a cross between a robot and Darth Vader. She lowered the window and tossed the phone out.

She turned to me. "How did you find me?"

"The bishop?"

She smiled. "Extra confusion. She will find jewelry. If am lucky, she won't report it."

"Viviana, why did you do it? You don't need the money. You are the most famous person in the world. You could write a book and retire."

"The car." She slapped the dashboard. "You saw the car and traced it. I should have sold it or abandoned it. What is wrong with me?" She smiled. "But is nice car. You like?"

I ignored her and kept driving. A leathery, old-car smell filled the Porsche's interior.

After two minutes, she broke the silence. "I am sick."

I looked for a place to pull over. "You're going to throw up?" Maybe she wasn't as cool as she seemed.

She laughed, but only briefly, then looked down at her hands. "I have sickness. Am kleptomaniac—good word, yes? I can't help it, I must steal. I only feel alive when I am on job, and even then, only when things go wrong. I know, is crazy. I try to resist. I can't."

"You don't feel bad for the people you steal from?"

She shrugged. <No.>

We pulled into her driveway. She pressed a button on the visor, and the garage door opened.

Inside, I shut the engine off and we sat. The car ticked as it cooled.

She sighed. <Acum chay?>

Ce, pronounced "chay," meant "what," and I was pretty sure acum mean "now." "Does that mean, 'now what?'"

She frowned and cocked her head. "Does what mean 'now what?'" She looked at me sideways.

Oops. She had me flustered now. I never make that mistake. "Your face. Your expression. It looked like you were thinking 'Now what?' Is that what it meant?"

She leaned over and gave me a quick kiss on the lips.

I jerked my head back. "What was that?"

She smiled. "Just a little kiss. Are you prune?"

Now I frowned. "What?"

"You know, prune. Are you prune? Someone who is scared of sex."

"Prude. Prude, not prune." I blushed. "I just don't know you—I don't know what to think. I don't trust you. You tricked me at the hospital."

"How tricked you?"

"You pretended you liked me, but you were just trying to get infor—"

"I do like you." <Foarte mult.>

Foarte mult, foarte mult. I rehearsed it so I could look it up. Maybe it meant "I like you" or maybe it meant, "what a moron." This was key.

She got out of the car. "Let's go in and have some wine. We can talk and maybe you can get to know me."

Said the spider to the fly.

* * *

"You investigate. You know, snoop around. I change out of burglar clothes, yes?" Viviana disappeared into a back hall. She was limping.

I paced around her living room. The house seemed to be furnished entirely from Ikea. Possibly from one massive shopping trip. A leather couch sat on a brown-and-tan checked rug. A simple coffee table held her laptop and an issue of Climber's World magazine.

She called out from the back room. "Be like at home. Start fire. Open wine."

Was she this calm, or was it all an act? I froze. She was escaping out the back window. I ran back into the hall, and she came out of the bedroom, bumping into me. She wore a cozy brown sweater and warm-looking slacks.

Her frown turned to a smile. "Ah, you are worrying I am running away again." She patted me on the chest.

I rubbed the back of my neck. "Can you blame me?"

She took my hand, led me into the living room, and pushed me onto the couch. She put some small logs into the woodstove and got the fire started. "I am going to get some wine and snacks." She pointed to the open kitchen. "You can be watching me. I understand you don't trust me. Yet." Her thoughts were all Romanian gibberish to me. She dimmed the lights.

While she bustled around the kitchen, I tried to remember what she'd thought after saying "I like you." What was it? It was important. Ah, yes, "foarte mult." Almost lost it. I guessed at the spelling—Ibanescu was right to force me to read as well as understand—and entered it into my tablet. Translation: "Very much." She'd said, "I do like you," and then she thought, "Very much." Huh. You would never lie in your own head unless you thought someone could hear your internal monologue.

Wow. So, maybe she meant it after all. Maybe I could trust her. Was I fooling myself because of my unwarranted affection for her?

She came in with a bottle of merlot, two glasses, and a plate with chunks of thick bread. The plate also held a bowl of the darkest olive oil I'd ever seen. She looked at me. "Face is red, Eric. Is fire too hot?" She put her hand near the woodstove. The logs had barely started burning.

"I'm fine." I folded my tablet and put it in my pocket. Get a grip, here, Beckman.

She went out to the kitchen and came back with a plastic bag of ice. Sinking down next to me on the couch, she put the ice on her inner thigh.

I pointed to it. "Did you—"

She put up a hand. "Don't want to talk about it. And no jokes, please."

I poured wine into the glasses, gave her one, and said, "Acum ce?" in my best Romanian accent. I had the memory of how it had sounded in her head, so maybe the accent was pretty good.

She froze for a second, then turned so suddenly that she spilled wine on her slacks. "Oh, you are full of the surprises. How did you do that?"

I went into the kitchen and got a towel with some water and salt on it. I came back and handed it to her.

She pointed to the stain. "You can do it. Was your fault. Or maybe you are too prune."

"Prude. Prudish." I folded my fingers under the fabric and rubbed the stain. Nothing sexual, but her leg did feel nice. Firm and soft at the same time.

"Do you know what means, 'Acum ce'?"

"It means 'Now what?' ... uh ... right? Either that or 'Your grandmother is sexy.'"

She ignored my joke. "And how did you learn these Romanian words?"

I shrugged. "Just something I picked up. But have more important things to talk about, yes?" Sheesh, now I was talking like her. "But we have ... things—"

"Yes. We have much to talk about." She picked up a chunk of bread. "Eric, I am glad you found me."

She had more Romanian thoughts. I didn't catch any of them. If only I could get her to think in English more often. "You didn't seem glad last Saturday, at the CrossFit gym."

She sipped her wine and stared into the fire. "You saw me hesitate, yes?"

I relaxed back into the couch. "Yes. You looked like you were deciding, stay or go." Stop showing off. Do you want her to figure you out?

She turned to me. "Yes, exactly. You guessed my thoughts. Is very perspective of you." She took a deep breath.

I heard her organizing her thoughts. I was in no hurry to get the answers. It was too nice to sit here with her. The lights were dim; the fire was warm. I didn't want this to end. Sure, she smelled a little sweaty from whatever she'd done up in that building, but I was okay with that. Was I thinking with my ... heart?

She put her hand on my thigh. "I didn't want to be found by anyone. I don't want to be celebrity. I like my freedom. But now you have found me, Eric, and I am thinking you will not turn me in." She leaned in to me, just a little. "Being on run is very lonely."

I would have been sure she was manipulating me, her words sounded so phony. But I had to trust in those two words she had thought. Foarte mult. She wouldn't have thought that if she weren't genuine. Right? I decided, then and there, to trust her.

"Viviana, you are the most sought-after person on the planet. I'm amazed you've stayed hidden so long. Did you have your nose changed? An operation?"

She nodded, put her finger on it, and wiggled it. "I got new nose on Halloween. You like? Very much or no?"

"I liked your old nose." I looked between the couch cushions. "Do you still have that one around somewhere?"

She put on an exaggerated pout. "Silly. My hair I can grow again. You liked that, I know."

"And you are renting this house?"

She chuckled. "Am spending very much on rent. Landlord thinks am growing the marijuana here. Everything is under counter."

"Under the table."

"Yes, under table. He didn't even ask my name. I had to clean it up." She leaned forward, soaked some bread with olive oil, and put it in my mouth. Her finger lingered on my lip. I took a sip of wine. We'd gone through half the bottle already.

"Well, Viviana, I'm not sure what we will do." I glanced at her when I said "we." She seemed to accept it. "But please, first, tell me what happened, where you came from. Start at the beginning."

"Is much to tell. Are sure you want to hear it?"

"Foarte mult." Time to check my understanding.

"Oh! Very much." She looked sideways at me. "How do you do that? You are holding on me, I think."

"What?"

"Not telling me something. Can I trust you, Eric?"

"Ah. Holding out on you. Yes, I have a few secrets, but you can trust me, Viviana." I enjoyed saying her name, like a teenager in love. Was I going to start writing it down with hearts around it?

"Let's see. I was born in Romania, not Moldova. In 1950. My real name is Viviana Petki." She turned to me. "Are you angry I lied to you?"

"No. I understand." She was trusting me with the truth now. That was big.

"Uncle Zaharia raised me. His wife, Lia, had ... died." Her face darkened. "More on that later. I am tired now."

I checked my watch. Four a.m. I took her hand in mine, and we sat in comfortable silence. "I have many questions, but we don't have to talk now."

She lay down on the couch and put her head on my lap, her eyes closed. Her words came out faintly as she drifted away. "Yes ... long day ... sunt foarte somnoros ... hunted his wife ... killed her like pig ... care se încadrează la o scară ..."

Whoa!

* * *

I woke with the sun in my eyes. I was still on the couch, but Viviana was gone. I ran to the garage, and the Porsche was still there. Come on. Trusting, remember?

I walked to the hall. The shower was running. That made sense.

I checked out the kitchen and found top-quality cookware and utensils. Where did she get her money? I found plenty of materials for a bacon, brie, and avocado omelet—did Romanians eat that kind of thing for breakfast?

While I was setting the table, Viviana walked from the bathroom to the bedroom wrapped in a towel.

She came out minutes later in a yellow dress. I guess it's called a sun dress. She came to me, pulled me down, held her mouth against my ear, and whispered, "Am glad you are here, Dr. Beckman."

Some heat rose into my cheeks—would it show? Come on, grow up, Beckman.

She pecked me on the cheek. "That's for cooking. I like omelets. You do, too?"

"Foarte mult."

She sat down and crossed her arms. "Am not talking until you say how you know so many Romanian words."

"I only know a few. I counted on my fingers. Foarte, mult, acum, ce. Only four. Not so many."

She put her hand over her mouth and shook her head.

I took a few bites. Not bad. She hadn't moved. "Okay. I've been taking Romanian lessons. To help me find you."

She started eating her omelet and then buttered her toast. "That makes no sense. That wouldn't help you find me. And how is it you found me, but the FBI couldn't?" She pointed her fork. "You are holding ... out ... on me. You don't trust me. Yet."

I nodded. "Yes, I have some secrets, but I have to hold them for now. I will tell you when the time comes. I promise."

"You have some special, secret skill for finding people?"

I looked into her deep brown eyes and nodded. Sheesh, I had really fallen for this woman.

She got up and moved to the chair next to me. She put her hand on my forearm and squeezed. "Will you help me find my uncle? Uncle Zaharia?"

"I will, yes. I've wanted to find him also. I think he may hold a solution to the energy catastrophe we're having."

"Yes! Yes, he does. He has device that pulls energy out of seawater. I've seen it work. We had it in our house. But no one believed him."

Right. His demonstration at the Paris Expo had failed, and he'd been ridiculed.

"And he made the time machine," I said.

"What time machine?"

What? "The machine you—"

"Am just kidding, Eric. Am so bad." She laughed. "You should have seen your face. Am surely going to go to hell when I die. Yes, of course he made time machine, too. He said time machine and minge de energie, energy ball, worked on same principle. Some kind of physics ... scurtătură. You know that word?"

I brought out my tablet. She told me how to spell it. "Shortcut."

She snapped her fingers. "Yes. That's it. Physics shortcut. Nobody believed him."

"Is that why he went forward in the time machine?"

"Yes, partly. He figured he was ahead of his time—he was—so he wanted to fix that. Someone in future would listen to him. Time machine wasn't perfect, but he finally was—how do you say?—fed up, and he just went. That was in 1979, one year before I jumped."

"Maybe he hasn't arrived yet."

"No, no." She told him about their system with turning the urns. "I went to meeting place, Coit Tower, on November 1 at noon, day after my surgery. He wasn't there. But he's here and he's alive. I can feel it."

Her face darkened. "I think maybe he is sick again. Sick in the head."

"Like when he hunted his—"

Viviana's nostrils flared, and she snapped at me. "What? What do you know?"

I made a mental note to never make her angry in the future. "I'm sorry, Viviana. As you fell asleep on my lap, you were talking. Talking in your sleep." I took her hand. "You said he hunted his wife and killed her."

She took a deep breath. She came to me and sat in my lap. I was surprised, but I went with it. I held her close. It felt natural and right.

After a while she spoke. "It was rumor. No one knew for sure. In 1940, when he was twenty, he got some brain disease. I don't know what it was. Maybe you would know. This was before I was born. He went mad. They say he got angry at his wife, Lia. They say he let her loose into forest and then ... then he hunted her down and killed her. He was never convicted."

She buried her head into my neck. Not sobbing. She just held herself there. I felt guilty for taking pleasure in the feel of her body when she was apparently just seeking comfort. A lot of pleasure, actually.

Finally, she raised her head and looked at me. "But they fixed him. He had some kind of operation, and he quickly became himself again. When I was child, he was wonderful, loving parent to me. And he was smartest person in the world. Does that make sense to you?"

I nodded. I had the germ of an idea about what had happened. "What about you? How did you use the time machine?"

"Right. Had always helped him out in the lab. I knew how to use it. Kept lab going even after he left."

She was quiet, then continued. "I did one heist too many. My sickness." She held her hand up. "I promise I am done with that now. Had planned ahead of time to use the machine. When the police were about to catch me, I got into the machine, and ... you know the rest. Will you help me find him?"

"Yes, I will. I've already started, in fact."

Her sunny disposition was back. She wore a sly smile. "And, Dr. Eric Beckman, I have important question to ask you."

I raised my eyebrows.

She put her lips against my ear again, kissed me, and asked, "What is hard thing I am sitting on?"

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Viviana and I spent the next day, a cozy Sunday, getting to know one another. We left her house only to retrieve my car. To be honest, we spent a lot of time in the bedroom.

Early Monday morning, sunlight streamed onto the bed's purple comforter, and the scent of woodsmoke drifted in the open window. A pair of blue jays made a racket, but Viviana slept on.

I started to get up, but her arms tightened around me. Not asleep, apparently. Her body fit mine as if designed for nothing else.

With her head buried against my neck, I stared at the ceiling. What were my priorities? One, help Viviana stay hidden, for now at least. Two, find her uncle, if he was alive. Three, get Uncle Zaharia to present his device to the world. The global energy catastrophe was getting worse by the day. Right. Eric Beckman saves the world. I chuckled.

"What funny?" Her voice was deeper in the morning.

"We've got a lot of work to do today."

No response. Had she fallen back to sleep? She pushed her new nose farther into my neck. "Coffee first."

I kissed her forehead. "I think it's your turn to make coffee."

Another pause. "Make stronger today." Apparently, more demanding in the morning, too.

After forty minutes of what I hoped would become our morning routine, we cleared away the breakfast dishes and sat side by side with our computers.

I brought up my browser. "Okay. First, we're going to follow the money."

"All the President's Men."

"What?"

"'Follow the money,' comes from movie. Before your time?"

I Googled it. A 1976 movie. Four years before I was born. Would I ever get used to this? I'd just had sex with a woman born seventy years ago.

"Okay, stocks. I'm not sure your uncle could have just turned in those paper stock certificates. The world has moved away from unregistered stock purchases, but what are the stocks he had?"

From memory, she listed the ten stocks her uncle held. She even remembered the number of shares for each. Her intellect shouldn't have surprised me. After all, she shared genes with the physicist who'd invented a time machine. I entered each stock into my computer. Yes, all worthless.

"So much for that." I ran my fingers through my hair. "He had gold and diamonds in his urn?"

She shook her head. "Some. Not like me. I couldn't give him mine. He didn't know I was thief."

"The smartest man in the world, and he didn't know?"

She turned to me, frowning, her jaw clenched. Uh-oh. Then she softened. "Maybe he knew. He never said."

"So he didn't have your ill-gotten—"

I stopped when her eyes flashed again.

She pulled on her ear. "He was rich. He put gold in urn ... wait. Stocks worthless, when?"

"What do you mean?"

"His stocks are worthless now, yes?"

"Yes. I entered in the symbols, and the companies don't exist anymore." I pointed to my screen. "You'd have to be lucky—"

"Worthless now. But maybe not when he arrived."

I stared at the ceiling and nodded. Right. He could have jumped back to the real world any time after 1980. I plotted the stock prices of all the companies. All had done well, for a while. One had made incredible gains before crashing.

If Zaharia had redeemed that one at its peak, he would have made—whoa—$10 million. But it was iffy. No way he could have walked into a brokerage with anonymous bearer shares and walked out with millions. Maybe with a good lawyer ...

I leaned back and tapped a finger against my chin. "I'm not sure the stock certificates would have worked out for him. Maybe. What else did he have in his urn?"

"Stamps."

"You mean like—"

"Rare stamps. He was collector. His collection was famous in Romania. He started when he was child. He put many stamps in the urn."

That made sense. Stamps were small, light, and valuable. "Did he own any that would have been newsworthy if he sold them?"

She shrugged. "Was boring to me." Viviana went into the kitchen, pulled a pack of Peet's coffee from the cupboard, and loaded the espresso machine.

We worked for hours, looking for anything unusual. Peggy called my cell, asking where the hell I was. I'd have to deal with that later. I told her I was working on a hot lead. She sounded skeptical.

After lunch, I found what we were looking for: a news article from 2009.

San Francisco Chronicle Archives

March 7, 2009: Millions in Rare Stamps Sold

A Mr. Emil Dobra today auctioned off his rare stamp collection at the annual meeting of the American Philatelic Society, receiving a record eight million dollars. The star of his collection was a Mauritius stamp from 1847, a stamp featuring a prominent typo.

The article went on to describe Dobra as a foreigner with a marked Eastern European accent, around fifty years old. It included a photo. I could understand why Viviana had used a false name. Why had Dudnic?

I turned my tablet to Viviana.

She jumped up. "Da! That's him. Oh, Eric." She gave me a well-deserved kiss.

"He looks pretty good. Perfectly healthy."

Viviana nodded. "Age fifty-nine then, if he landed in 2009."

"Now don't get your hopes up, yet." I pulled her onto my lap. "That was eleven years ago."

But with his name, we made rapid progress. He had purchased an estate in the Santa Cruz mountains with a huge tract of wilderness.

"It's only an hour away." I looked at my watch. "We can go tomorrow, first thing."

"What you mean, tomorrow?" She scowled and put her hands on her hips. "We go right now. Come."

Viviana was high maintenance.

* * *

We drove to Zaharia's in her Porsche. A nondescript car is a better choice when investigating, but when I suggested we take the Yaris, Viviana laughed.

She drove well but a bit too fast. Just eager to see her uncle again? I looked in the glove compartment. "You don't have a GPS?"

She frowned at me. No, of course not.

This place was as isolated as a vampire's castle. The dense forest held only bare trees, with brown leaves covering the ground. A perfect setting for a Gothic horror movie.

Coming to a T intersection, she stopped the car. Ahead of us stood an eight-foot-high, chain-link fence topped with barbed wire.

I rolled down the window. "What is he protecting? Why does he think he needs this big fence?"

Viv shook her head. We turned left and followed the road until a guardhouse appeared around a corner. It stood just behind a broad iron gate. A closed gate.

We were miles from the last power lines we'd seen. Unless they were underground, this had to be off the grid.

A huge man stood by the guardhouse, staring straight ahead as if we weren't there. Muscles made his neck as wide as his head, and he wore a white shirt, open to his chest, with a leather vest. We'd seen no other cars for miles, yet here stood a man at attention.

Viviana pushed her fingers through her hair. "Is Tigan."

"What?"

"You say Gypsy."

His massive hook nose jutted out from his face.

"He's probably thinking about getting a new nose," I said.

Viviana punched my thigh.

His thoughts were all Romanian. I was pretty good at recognizing the language by now. I couldn't understand a word. We'd come to the right place.

We got out and walked to the iron bars of the gate. He didn't even turn toward us.

I acted as if this were a normal situation. "Hello, sir. We would like to see Mr. Dobra."

He shook his head. Didn't even look at me. Did he understand?

Viviana set her jaw.

She put her hands on the bars and let out an angry stream of Romanian. I recognized the words "Zaharia Dudnic" and "oncle."

That got his attention. He came to the gate. He had a flattop haircut and a cauliflower ear.

They shouted back and forth in a heated exchange. He shook his head a lot.

Viviana grabbed for him through the bars. He jumped back. I pulled her away, and she stormed to the car. When I got in, she yelled at me in Romanian and we fishtailed down the road.

Once I had a loving cat that had been in a fight. When it came inside, it attacked my foot, having trouble turning off fight mode. Apparently, that's how it was with Viviana.

I put my hand on hers as she shifted into third. "Viviana, please stop!"

She slammed on the brakes and turned to me, breathing hard.

I reached out and switched off the ignition. "Viviana, don't be angry at me, okay? Take a deep breath and tell me what that was all about."

She stared out the windshield. "He refuses to let us in. He refuses to even tell Zaza that we are here."

"Did he say why?"

"No."

"But Zaharia's in there? He's okay?"

"He wouldn't tell me." A vein pulsed in her forehead.

"Okay, let's think." I held her hand. "This has got to be his place. He bought it, using his alias. The guard is Romanian."

She leaned out the window, peering up at the fence. The light was fading. "I will go in there, look around."

I pictured her meeting the guard without an iron fence separating the two. "Let's wait on that. We'll drive around the perimeter, then watch the guardhouse from a distance. Maybe he lets some people in."

We followed the fence around the property. Much of it was dense forest. The road was bad, especially in the Porsche with its low clearance.

Viviana stopped the car and pointed. "Look!"

Almost a mile inside the fence, a one-story building stood in a clearing. Exterior lights were on, even though it wasn't dark yet. Because of the energy catastrophe, that was rare. Close to us, a man moved around. Gliding along. Was he hovering?

Viviana jumped out of the car and ran to the fence. She yelled, "Zaza! On keel Zaza!"

The man stopped, then resumed his ghostly gliding movement. Viviana yelled again.

This time, he turned and moved toward us. He traveled fast, about as fast as a runner might. It turned out he wasn't hovering; he was on some kind of Segway device. Instead of wheels, it had tracks like those of a tank.

Near the fence, he stepped off the device and came to us. He wore a Russian hat—ushanka?—deep brown with earflaps. A white beard covered his jaw—more like a week's growth of stubble, really. His cheeks were sunken like an inmate of a Russian gulag. He was a broken-down shadow of the man in the news photo.

His gait indicated a neuropathology. It looked as if he were walking on the deck of a ship in rough seas. Impossible to narrow it down without a clinical exam, but some of the possibilities included Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, NPH, and Creutzfeldt-Jakob.

Viviana had her fingertips clawed into the chain-link fence. "Zaza. Sunt eu, Viviana!"

I'd seen Parkinson's patients with his same lack of facial expression.

"Maria. Cum?" He looked back toward the building.

"Nu, Zaza—"

Nu is Romanian for no. I put my mouth close to her ear and whispered, "Don't correct him."

He turned toward his scooter device.

Viviana pleaded with him in Romanian. They spoke back and forth. I couldn't understand the words, but based on his tone of voice, he was confused. At one point in the conversation, he pointed at me.

His thoughts were poorly organized. Romanian and English bouncing around in there, but his brain wasn't working right.

He got back on his scooter and left. He was fast on that thing. The guy could barely walk, but on the scooter, he flew, bouncing over irregularities in the trail.

I turned to Viviana. She buried her head in my shoulder. "Oh, Eric. What has happened to him?"

"What did he say?"

She looked up at me. Tears glistened in her eyes. "He invited us to dinner."

I stood up straighter. "That's excellent. Will the guard let us in?"

"I mentioned the guard, but I'm not sure Zaza understood. He just said to come tomorrow at five. He pointed to you and said, 'Adu-l Ivan.' Bring Ivan."

"Ivan?"

She put her face against my shoulder again. "That was my father's name. Maybe he thinks I'm Maria, my mother. But my parents both died in 1950, when I was born. He also called me Lia at one point."

"She was ... his wife."

She sighed. "Da. His wife."

* * *

The next morning, I drove solo to my condo and picked up some clothes and other personal items. The building next door had been red-tagged—the earthquake damage had made it uninhabitable. Demolition would take place in a month. This was now a lousy place to live. Another reason to move in with Viviana.

I stopped in the middle of filling a suitcase and sat down on the bed. Was I making the right decisions here? I was keeping Viviana and Zaharia's existence as my own private secret.

Did I really think that was the best way to get Zaharia's energy ball and solve the energy catastrophe? Or was I being led around by my feelings for Viviana? Maybe I just wanted to be the hero and show all those people who didn't listen to me. Look what I found, Dr. Barbie Baumgartner, an energy ball. See, it wasn't junk science after all, so there! Told you so.

I resumed packing. Viviana and I would have dinner with her uncle, and I'd learn more. I could decide then. Of course, I would never turn Viviana over to the government. I didn't trust them.

Next, I traded in my Yaris for a Tesla Stealth. It was what all the new millionaire PIs were driving. So much for blending in with a nondescript car. I spent some time setting up the features, including things like communications and driving preferences.

I drove to my office and parked out front. Another decision. Tell Peggy I found the Romanian time travelers or leave her in the dark? I trusted her, but the fewer people who knew, the better. I could tell her later. Another decision kicked down the road. I pulled out into traffic and pointed my new wheels back to my love nest, south of San Francisco.

On the way, I made one final decision: I would tell Viviana about my special talent.

She met me at the door like a 1950s housewife greeting her executive husband after his hard day at the office. Really just a hard morning of putting underwear in a suitcase, but it felt good.

After a delicious lunch of sarmale, a type of Romanian cabbage roll, I led Viviana over to the couch. We sat facing one another.

"Viviana, I'm going to tell you something I've never voluntarily revealed to anyone else."

"Voluntarily?"

"One other person knows, but he figured it out on his own."

She smiled but knitted her eyebrows and cocked her head. "Is some kind of joke?"

"No."

She patted me on the knee. "Okay. Am all ears."

"I'm revealing this to you because I trust you." I took a deep breath. This was the point of no return. "I can read minds."

She laughed. "Yes, I saw. You could tell was thinking 'stay or go.' At gym. You told me."

"No, I mean I can really hear your thoughts, when you are consciously thinking something."

She crossed her arms. "Prove."

"Okay, think something, in English, and I will tell you what you're thinking."

She smiled at me. <I love you, Eric Beckman.>

I jumped back and blinked. I hadn't expected that. I leaned in and kissed her. "I love you, too, Viviana Petki."

She put her hand to her mouth and blushed. "Yes, you are good. How did you do that?"

"You don't seem shocked. And do you really love me?"

"Yes. Of course I love you, Eric. No, not surprised. You are very good guesser. Clever." She got up and put the lunch plates in the dishwasher.

I followed her. I took her by the shoulders and turned her toward me. "I'm not guessing. Think something random, in English. Something I'd never guess."

"Okay, okay." <The color red and the number nine.>

"The color red and the number nine."

Her face turned white. She slapped me and backed away. <El este un monstru.>

"El este un monstru. But I'm not a monster."

Her nostrils flared and she clenched her fists. She glared at me. "And you lied. Said you only knew few words of Romanian." She backed away farther.

"No, I didn't lie. I guessed at what that meant. I heard you think it, and I guessed at the translation. Monstru, monster, right?"

She put her fists on her hips. "Have been reading mind all the time?"

"Only your conscious thoughts. What did you want me to do? Tell you right at the start? Tell everybody?"

She crossed her arms. "You knew my name was Petki all along."

I put my hands up. "I wasn't the one who lied about it."

"I had to lie."

"I'm not judging you. I understand your motivations."

She ran into the bathroom and closed the door. <Poti citi something something prin usa?>

I followed her and spoke to the door. "You have to think in English."

She opened the door and glared at me, then closed it again. <Can read mind through door?>

"Yes, Viviana. I can read your mind through the door."

Her gasp was so loud I heard it in the hall. After a pause, she thought, <Is why he pleasured me that way.>

"Yes, I knew what you wanted me to do. You thought it in English. Please let me in."

She came out but sidled past me, holding me back with her outstretched arm. "You lied about this."

"I didn't tell you, but what could I do?"

"You told me I said 'Zaza' in coma. But you heard in brain." She stormed around the living room. What a temper.

I shrugged. "Yes. I lied about that. I'm amazed you remember that."

She tapped her forehead. <Nu ma subestima.>

"English. Please."

She leaned forward and with her teeth clenched, shook her finger at me. "You don't tell me how to think."

We looked at each other for a few seconds. The corners of her mouth quivered, and then we both burst out laughing.

I put my arms around her, but she pushed me back. "Am not ready."

"Viviana, I love you. You just told me you loved me. Has that changed?"

She lowered her head. "I need to think." <Yes. I still love him. Wait!> She whipped her head up. "You heard that?"

I nodded.

"Can you turn off? Not listen?"

"I can."

"Turn off now, please."

"Okay."

"How will I know?"

"I'm afraid you won't. You'll have to trust me."

The doorbell rang.

We exchanged a glance and tiptoed over. I put my eye to the viewer and opened the door.

Peggy bustled in and punched me in the shoulder. "Thought you'd be here, boss. Why didn't you trust me?" She walked to the center of the room and crossed her arms. She tapped her foot.

"Viviana, I'd like to introduce my investigative assistant, Ms. Peggy Barbera. Peggy, this is Viviana ... Petki."

Viviana shook her hand. "Yes. I saw you at gym. Nice to meet you." She looked at me and squinted. <Is man, not woman, yes?>

I nodded slightly.

Viviana jutted her chin out and peered at me sideways. <I thought you turn off mind reading.>

I shrugged.

Peggy looked from one of us to the other. "What's going on? You guys have some secret lover communication already?"

I headed into the kitchen. "You found me from the—"

"Yeah, boss. That's a funny story. Someone's fancy new Tesla started sharing its location with your network. Our network. I'm thinking, hmm, maybe someone made a mistake, but then I see that the car is sitting right outside the office. I look out the window, and I see it. Guess what clueless PI is sitting in the driver's seat?"

Yeah. I should have read the manual. Viviana and Peggy sat on the couch, and I got a trio of beers from the fridge.

Viviana stared at me. <Ah. So that's why you learn Romanian. To understand my thoughts.>

I gave a tiny nod as I popped the tops off the bottles.

Peggy clapped her hands once. "Hey! Will you guys cut that out?"

I filled Peggy in, telling her about Zaharia, the energy ball, and our upcoming dinner engagement. I didn't mention the mind reading, of course.

Peggy played with the label on her bottle. "Have you got a plan here?" She looked at Viviana, then at me. "I mean, the Gypsy sounds like trouble, and the uncle might have murdered his wife, right?"

I shrugged. "The plan is to find out what's what at the dinner and go from there."

"Why don't you just call the FBI? Sure, the old man hasn't done anything illegal, but the Feds are interested. They go in, get the doohickey, case closed."

Viviana turned to me. <Maybe is bad for Zaharia. What is doohickey?> She'd gotten the hang of talking with her mind, but it was tricky for me. I had to follow two conversations at once.

I put my beer down. "If we got the police involved, maybe is bad ... maybe it would be bad for Zaharia Dudnic."

Peggy shook her head. <Now he's talking like her. Sheesh, he's really hooked.> "If this was a horror movie, you know what the audience would be thinking, right?"

I sighed. "Don't go in there."

Peggy pointed a finger pistol at me and pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Viviana took my breath away in a maroon, form-hugging dress. She modeled her high heels, and I liked them, but she settled on more sensible shoes, in case we had to run for it.

"Maybe you can wear the heels when we get home." I winked.

She rolled her eyes but smiled. "My uncle is excellent cook. You will be shocked."

I saw disappointment ahead. I couldn't picture the slow-moving man we'd met yesterday whipping up a wondrous feast.

We took my new car—what a dream. I turned on the active cruise control. "Are you ready for my plan?"

"Am all ears."

I'd never seen her so happy. "Okay, here's how it will work. The Gypsy thinks only in Romanian. Your uncle thinks in Romanian and English. When I read their Romanian thoughts, I will say them, phonetically, to you. I'll try to do it softly, so they don't notice."

"Sounds tricky."

"You translate and think the English version of what they said. I will then read your mind. Got it?"

"Da. Maybe will work." <Is why you told me about your talent?>

I shook my head. "I wanted to tell you. Maybe I wanted to demonstrate to myself that I trusted you. But this is why I told you today. Let's practice, you—"

"Got it. Here goes." She puffed herself up and held her head back as if she were the Gypsy. Her thoughts flew past me, sounding like an Uzi on steroids.

Whoa, this was hard. She thought it so fast. Ack! "Sunt aht ety put ur ack. I can't do it. Mundoa."

Viviana shook her head. <I am so ... strong?> "No, that isn't going to work. You only got a few words. Accent good, but will only work for short thoughts."

"Does everyone in Romania think so fast?"

"How hell do I know? Sorry, but is stupid question. 'Yes' would be my answer. Maybe ask Gypsy to please think slower."

So much for my brilliant plan. We practiced some more, but I couldn't remember many of what were, to me, nonsense syllables.

We arrived at the gate, and the Gypsy stood at attention, exactly as before. This time, however, he unlocked the gate and pulled it open. When we drove in, he stood in the middle of the road and pointed to a parking spot by the guardhouse.

I read his thoughts as he relocked the gate. I whispered, "Frum washa masheeno."

Viviana nodded. <Nice car.>

Good, that worked. I got out, walked around the Tesla, and opened the door for my beautiful date. "Ask him to speak English."

She said a few words in Romanian, and he shook his head. <Nu.>

No translation necessary.

The gigantic Gypsy led us up the long road toward the house. Something in the forest caught my eye. A man? No, it was a target. A man painted in black on a white background. A bull's-eye pattern covered the heart. Viviana had said that Zaharia had been a hunter, but he was in no condition for that these days.

I spoke softly to Viviana. "What is the Gypsy's name?"

She asked him in Romanian.

"Ferka." He turned and walked backwards a few steps, looking Viviana up and down. It was a look I didn't like. <Viol.>

Apparently, Viviana noticed the look as well. I sensed the anger building in her. When Ferka turned back, I whispered his thought to her.

She stiffened more. <Viol?>

"Yes. Think the translation!" I kept my voice low.

She shook her head.

"It's important."

After a few more steps, she turned to me. <Rape.>

A terrible image flashed unbidden into my mind. Every muscle in my body signaled its readiness for murder. I pushed the unwanted image from my brain with a picture of me sending a bullet into Ferka's head. I stopped and let him walk ahead. "Fuck this. We're outta here. This isn't safe."

Viviana squeezed my hand. <Don't worry. You have gun. I must see Zaza.>

Ferka glanced back and we continued on.

The house was a sprawling, one-story structure with angled walls of rounded stone, almost like a bunker. The front had only two small windows up near the roof.

Viviana was so busy scanning the details of the house, probably checking security features and such, that she almost tripped on a bump in the path.

Ferka opened a door and led us in, then disappeared into a hallway without a word.

The floor inside the house was hard and shiny. In the middle of the room, Zaharia sat on a scooter. It was like the things you see elderly or disabled people riding at Walmart, but this one was hovering.

It floated a few inches above the floor, with wisps of smoke around the base. Prototype hoverboards had been around since 2015, but their high power consumption made them impractical.

Viviana ran to him and hugged him. The scooter rocked a bit. She held him for a while.

His face remained passive. <Plăcut.>

I knew that word. It meant nice.

Viviana kneeled beside him, beaming. "Uncle Zaza, do you think you could speak English tonight?" She waved for me to come over. "Zaza, this is Eric Beckman. He is special to me. He doesn't speak Romanian."

I put out my hand. "It's an honor to meet you, Dr. Dudnic. Thank you for inviting us here tonight."

At a glacial pace, he moved his hand up and clasped mine. His muscles were atrophied, and I did most of the shaking. For a moment, his thoughts were clear and slow. Viviana stood, and I whispered, "Um row."

She looked at me, eyebrows raised. <Bad man.>

She gripped my arm. "Uncle, Eric is a saint. He is very nice person."

He frowned, just a little bit.

I whispered to her, "Femaya ra."

Her eyes widened, and the blood drained from her face. <Bad woman.>

She knelt again and hugged his arm. "Zaza, don't you remember me? I'm Viviana." She kissed his sunken cheek.

A little life appeared in his eyes. <Viva.>

It sounded like the "viva" in "Viva Las Vegas." I leaned over and put my lips close to her ear, "Viva."

Viviana whipped her head toward me then back at Dr. Dudnic. "Da! Viva. That's what you used to call me. You do remember." She smiled up at me, and tears ran down her face.

"I show you ... casa." He glided away, and Viviana let go of his arm and took mine.

The house smelled stuffy, like the home of a shut-in. Dust covered everything. A few cobwebs near the floor danced as the scooter passed.

We hit the mother lode in the fourth room. There, in the corner, sat his minge de energie. The energy ball. It looked remarkably like a football, narrow at the ends. Thick wires emerged from its middle and passed into the house's breaker panel.

A box of thick Plexiglas with a padlock encased it. A tube ran from a tank by the ceiling into the box. Zaharia had seemed to throw off much of his bradyphrenia or slowness of mind, so I asked him about the tank.

He answered slowly. "The world doesn't deserve this. If threatened, I will release this corrosive acid mixture." He pointed to the tank. "The device will be destroyed."

Whoa. I added paranoia to his list of symptoms. Why build it if the world didn't deserve it? Had he recreated it and then gone crazy? I knelt down and put my hand on the case.

"Nu atingeti asta!" Zaharia screamed.

Viviana yelled out her translation. "Don't touch that!"

I yanked my hand off the case and looked at it. Too late. A gel coated my palm and the inner surfaces of my fingers. I smelled it. A pungent, garlic-like odor hit me and I sneezed. I wiped my hand on my pants. I hadn't felt any buzzing or charge.

Dudnic raised his arm, pointing to the door. "Wash."

When I came back from the bathroom, the door to the power room was closed and locked. Shoot! I found Viviana sitting alone in the dining room.

I sat next to her. "What was on that case?"

"I don't know. He couldn't say. After outburst, he retreated into shell again." She took me by the wrist and looked at my palm. "Does it hurt?"

"No, not at all. But I have a strange garlic taste in my mouth."

"Yes, have bad breath, too."

"Did I before we came?"

She shook her head.

I smiled and went to give her a kiss, but she shook her head and put a finger on my lips. "Not tonight, dear. Have headache."

"Where is your uncle?"

"In kitchen. Making dinner. You will like."

I looked around the dining room. An interesting pattern covered the ceiling. "The colors in here are magnificent."

Viviana followed my gaze and frowned. "Why do you think—"

The swinging door to the kitchen banged opened, and Zaharia pushed through on his scooter. He'd stacked three plastic trays on the shelf in front of his handlebars. He floated over to the table, and Viviana frowned.

I recognized the trays immediately: Hungry-Man frozen dinners. Some kind of beef patty. Salisbury steak?

Before I could say anything, a movement from the hall caught my eye. A person. Someone other than Ferka. My gut constricted. Something wasn't right. This was important.

Jumping up, I ran into the hall. I caught up with him right outside the power room. His mind was a blank—no thoughts.

He stopped and stood at attention, facing away from me. "Are you ready for a shock?" His voice was familiar.

"Who are you?" I had a bad feeling about this.

He turned, and I jumped back against the wall, knocking my head. I may have screamed, I'm not sure. I think I called for Viviana. I tried to back away. I couldn't. My feet just slid on the floor. This wasn't happening.

My own face stared back at me. His thoughts slammed into my head. <Yes, that's right, Eric. I'm you. Get a grip, Beckman. This is important, and we only have a few seconds—>

* * *

I blinked and the copy of me was gone. What universe was this? Sounds came from all around, echoing like baying hounds in a cavern. I gagged from an overpowering odor of garlic and alcohol. A brilliant beam blazed into my eyes. Slamming my lids shut, I tried to raise my arms and push it away.

When the light went off, I opened one eye. An absurd creature had his face inches from mine. Or was he a mile away? His eyes were pulsing, breathing. First one, then the other. Every surface of his head drummed with Egyptian hieroglyphics. I shifted my head to the side, looking past him. Beautiful shifting symbols covered the ceiling. I couldn't read them. A computer display projected onto every surface in the room? A technology far beyond our own. Had I gone through the machine? Centuries ahead of my time?

The indecipherable thoughts of a dozen creatures careened around my brain—a flock of hostile geese, harassing me. I flipped up my filtering wall, but the thoughts crashed through.

How did this make any sense? I'd seen myself. Had a future me traveled back in time through the machine? But now I was on a different planet. Or in a different dimension or time. The bug-eyed creature made weird gestures. My arms struggled against the restraints. Pulling and pushing. Too tight. So many tubes and wires. I screamed and screamed. My lungs collapsed. The creatures scattered, and the lights went out.

A year passed, or was it only an hour? A familiar voice made my ears twitch. The voice wasn't mine this time, but it was human. "Eric, it's okay. You're safe. You're in the UCSF med center. It's me, Craig."

I shook my head.

He spoke calmly. "Eric, someone gave you LSD. What you are experiencing will end soon. You'll be okay. You won't have any brain damage. Can you take some deep breaths for me, buddy?"

Why was it telling me these lies?

An orange-headed woman flubbered my cheek with something gooey. "I'm here, Eric. You'll be okay. I love you."

Hours after that, I made a safe landing on planet Earth. In the hospital. I couldn't shake the vague feeling something was after me, but Viviana convinced me I was safe. We were alone in a private room. The lights were dim.

She held my hand and filled in the gaps. "You ran into hall after Ferka. You screamed and called my name, and then you must have passed out."

"You saw no one else? Are you sure?"

"No one."

"You didn't see someone who looked like me?"

"No. Was drugs." She put her hand on my cheek. "I made Ferka carry you to car, and I drove here." Viviana got into the hospital bed with me and snuggled up.

"He was reasonable about that?"

"No, I had to threaten him."

"You threatened the huge Gypsy? How did you do that?"

Viviana nibbled on my ear. "You haven't seen me angry."

That was a scary thought. "But Ferka—"

"And I had your gun."

I nodded. "How did they get the LSD into me?"

"Oh, wait." She climbed out of the bed, got something from her purse, and climbed back in. "Toxicologist explained. Here. Someone mixed ... DMSO ... you know what that is?"

"Yes. Dimethyl sulf—"

"Yes. Someone mixed LSD with DMSO and put it on the plastic case to the energy ball. When you put your hand on it, the mixture entered through your skin. Very fast. That's why you had garlic breath. You got a big dose." She did a good impression of a Romanian Cheech. "Heavy trip, man."

"But that's nuts. If he just wanted to protect the device, he could have chosen a better way. And why LSD? And where did he get it?" I shook my head and stared at the ceiling. We sat quietly for a few minutes.

I pulled her close. "Does anyone know who you are?"

"Dr. Porter only. Disguise is good." She touched her nose. "He will keep quiet?"

I nodded. "He is trustworthy."

"Eric. What do we do about Uncle Zaharia? He needs treatment, yes?"

"Absolutely. We might not be able to make him better, but he's only going to get worse eating those Hungry-Man dinners every day."

She pressed her head into my neck.

I sighed. "The Santa Cruz sheriff can make a wellness check, and I'm sure they'll decide he has to be institutionalized. I have a friend who can talk with the sheriff and make sure your uncle's treated well."

"But he will destroy device."

I took a deep breath and lay there with Viviana in her beautiful dress snuggled up against my hospital gown. The politically correct thing to say was that his health was more important than any electronics. But it wasn't true.

I looked out the window at a blacked-out sector of the city. If the device worked, then, as Bogart said, "The problems of three people didn't amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world." The energy ball mattered. I was sure of it.

I pictured a Navy Seal team snatching him before he knew what was happening. Good luck setting that up. Even millions of dollars can't buy a private army.

Viviana whispered in my ear. "I have idea." <I get.>

"No, I don't want to hear it. It's too dangerous. Plus, this is a nuclear reactor we're talking about."

"Not dangerous. Is safe reaction, almost like battery. We had at Zaza's house in 1978. Not even heavy. I go in, steal device, we send in sheriff. Easy." <Except for Tigan.>

"Right. Except for the Gypsy."

She pushed herself up and faced me, her soft body suddenly hard and angular. "Hey. I thought you turn off mind reading."

"That was yesterday. You want me to turn it off always?"

"Turn off now."

I put my hands up in surrender. "Okay, but you are definitely not going in there. No way."

Viviana laughed.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Viviana and I drove up to Zaharia's estate with the headlights off. Thick clouds covered the moon and stars, and a slight drizzle fell on the windshield. I'd recovered completely from my mind-expanding LSD experience, and we'd spent three days planning the heist.

We didn't need much preparation, according to Viviana. "Is simple. Go in. Avoid Gypsy. Get ball. Go out."

The night was so dark I had to navigate using my Piksi II GPS system, accurate to the inch. Unable to trust it completely, I frequently opened the door and checked the edge of the road with my penlight. My black Tesla Stealth was silent. The only noise came from the tires crunching along the dirt road.

We parked by the fence a few hundred yards from the entrance and climbed a hill that, based on the contour map, would overlook the guard station and the house.

Viviana stopped me halfway up the hill. <You walk like elephant. Move feet like this.>

"Got it." I spoke to her with whispers. She spoke to me with her thoughts.

At the top of the hill, our night-vision scopes gave us a view of the guardhouse through the leafless trees. No one there. So, Ferka the Gypsy was probably in the house. Hopefully sleeping.

We snuck back down the hill and over to the fence. She climbed up the chain-link portion, snipped the barbed wire, and hopped back down.

I brought up the checklist app on my phone. "Do you have the gloves?" We'd bought some special, DMSO-resistant gloves.

Viviana hugged me. "Stop worrying. Have been doing this since before you were born."

Well, kinda. She refused to wear the Kevlar bulletproof vest—"don't need." She had a radio in her pack. She'd call me if she got into trouble.

She seemed calm, but a slight trembling came through in her hug.

"Now remember, give me plenty of time." She checked her watch. "Is three o'clock now. Give me till five-thirty. May need to wait for Gypsy to fall asleep. Be awake and ready in case they are chasing me."

Like I was going to fall asleep. I'd be a mess if she wasn't back within an hour.

One final kiss and she was over the fence, disappearing from sight after only twenty yards. I put on my night-vision goggles and watched her slip through the trees. She passed out of range for reading her thoughts.

In the distance, less than a mile away, the bunker-style house was lit up like an airfield, overwhelming the goggles. Thinking about the LSD-covered case, I worried about what other bizarre defenses the demented old man had concocted.

I'd learned not to try to do everything myself, and here I was, watching the woman I loved creep through the spooky landscape, all alone.

* * *

Viviana kept her eye on the house as she moved through the trees. The scent of rotting leaves reminded her of camping trips with her uncle back in Romania. Why couldn't he be like he was back then?

She'd seen no dogs on the estate. That was a good thing. She put a tree trunk between herself and the house and lit the dial of her G-shock watch: 3:07 a.m.

She tried to treat it like any other heist, but maybe she'd be matching wits with her uncle, the smartest person on Earth.

His mind wasn't up to speed now, though. Could he have rigged booby traps back when he was healthy? She'd watched him speed over the trail, not something he'd do if he'd ever set out trip wires. Unless he forgot about them. Am thinking too much.

She stopped at a rough wooden table and pulled out her red-beamed penlight. Bones and bits of hide lay on the ground. She picked up a piece of hide and felt it. Coarse fur. From a wild boar like the ones her uncle had hunted in Romania. Maybe they released them on the grounds for hunting and did the butchering here.

The house lay in the center of a wide clearing. Only one-story high, the area around it was illuminated with floodlights.

Did it have cameras? She hadn't seen any during her visit. But Zaharia was different. What was the new expression? He thought outside the box.

He'd always been that way. He'd challenged her with puzzles, encouraging her to think of unusual ways to solve them.

She approached from the corner of the house where the forest came closest to the building. She'd be exposed while crossing a five-meter gap of short grass. Couldn't be helped. She took a calming breath.

She'd seen no evidence anyone but Zaharia and Ferka lived here, so she doubted someone would be monitoring video.

She flowed from the nearest tree to the corner of the house and up onto the roof. With the angle of the wall and its protruding rounded rocks it was as easy as climbing a ladder.

She moved slowly, like a sloth, gradually putting her weight into each step.

The roof had three skylights. She crept to the first and looked down through the wire-mesh security glass. Uncle Zaharia sat at a desk working intently under a lamp. The rest of the room was dark. Smoke from his pipe swirled toward her.

Was he working on some kind of a schematic or blueprint? It involved a lot of curved lines. Had she and Eric underestimated his mental state?

She pulled out a pair of small binoculars and focused on his work. His body blocked her view until he reached over for a glass of water.

She sat back and sighed. Oh, poor Uncle Zaza. Winnie-the-Pooh. A coloring book.

She tiptoed to the second skylight. LEDs and numeric displays blinked below her. She pulled out her night-vision goggles. Ah, the power room. If it weren't for the security glass, this would have been easy. Get through the window, abseil down, pick the lock, steal the ball.

The final skylight overlooked Ferka's room. She peered in with the night-vision goggles. He lay on his back on an elaborate hammock. His breathing was regular. She pressed her ear against the glass. He was snoring.

Could she wait for Zaharia to fall asleep? His skylight was still lit. Could she break in without alerting him? She'd told Eric to give her until 5:30. Plenty of time.

She examined each of the seven windows. One was different from the others, a little larger with an awning-style opening mechanism. That would be easiest to get through.

After a long wait, the skylight went dark. She waited ten more minutes then went to work, climbing down and standing on protruding rocks below her chosen window.

She looked in. It was a storeroom but with only a few boxes around the edge of the floor.

The room's door was conventional. She'd slip through that and into the power room. She saw the layout of the house in her mind.

She took out her glass cutting kit, set the suction cup, rotated the cutter, and tapped the disk of glass. With the familiar work, the tension in her muscles melted away.

Because of the ungainly DMSO-resistant gloves, the disk and suction cup assembly slipped from her fingers and fell inward. She caught them, and her heart skipped a beat. What was it Eric said when talking to himself? Get grip! Get grip, Petki!

She placed the glass disk on the roof, reached through the hole, and undid the latch. She opened the window wide and climbed in. Hanging down with her hands on the sill, she dropped to the floor, bending her knees deeply to avoid making a noise.

Something snapped. What was that? Still wearing the goggles, she looked around and at her feet. She hadn't hit anything. Did she imagine the sound?

She went to the door and slowly turned the knob. It just kept turning. It wasn't connected to anything.

That snapping sound! She looked up to the window. Covered. A steel plate had apparently slid over it the instant her feet hit the floor.

A trap. Let an intruder find the easiest way in and trap him. Why hadn't she seen that? Because she wasn't thinking outside the box. She clenched her jaw and growled.

She pulled her grappling hook out of her pack. How long before the door opened? Did she have the element of surprise? No, but if she was unexpectedly fast, maybe she'd have a chance.

She held her weapon above her head and waited, listening. One minute, two. Maybe they'd leave her in here all night. Or maybe they didn't know the trap had been sprung. The tension in her gut increased with every passing minute. She breathed deeply but couldn't calm herself.

The door opened. She couldn't strike blindly; it might be Zaharia. She could never hurt him.

It was Ferka. She swung the tool with all her might, but her hesitation defeated her.

He grabbed the shaft of the hook. "Da. Esti a mea acum." You are mine now.

Viviana yanked down on the rope, putting all her weight into it. The hook slipped from his grip and jolted into his mouth. One of the four tips clacked against his teeth and sunk into the space between his lips and gums. For an instant he was a hooked fish. Viviana dashed past him, her heart in her throat.

Ferka roared and reached out, grabbing her backpack. She wriggled out of it. Ferka was strong but not fast. If she could just keep out of his grasp, she could survive.

Shedding the backpack had taken too much time. Ferka wheeled around and grabbed a fistful of her hair. She twisted, jumped, and spun. Her hair was slipping from his hand. She wouldn't let him get a better grip.

Her hair was short, thanks to her successive disguises. To keep from losing her, Ferka had to play her, giving her some slack when she jerked fastest. She forced him to follow after her as she moved down the hall.

Bolts of pain shot from Viviana's scalp with each tug.

She yanked, twisted, and ducked forward at the same time. By hunching her back and snapping her chin to her chest, Ferka's wrist hit her shoulder blades. It was stopped cold, and the move gave her the leverage she needed. Some of her hair ripped out of her scalp, and the rest slid from his grasp.

She tumbled through an open door into some kind of workshop, smashing her head against a trestle table. Ferka followed her in, turned on the light, and slammed the door.

She rubbed her scalp and looked at him through her tears. His smile was triumphant. She could not escape.

He came toward her.

Moving only her eyes, she examined the tabletop. It was covered with dusty tools. Could she grab a makeshift weapon before he was on her?

A small pair of scissors, no bigger than nail clippers, lay by the edge. She grabbed them and, with her other hand, reached for a better prize, a box cutter. He intercepted her, wrapping his huge hand around her forearm.

The vulnerable underside of his wrist was uppermost. A perfect target. The advice to suicides flashed into her mind: Cut down the road, not across the street. She stabbed the scissors into his wrist and raked them toward his elbow. But the outside edge of the scissors was blunt. Instead of slicing up his arm, they flipped from her grip, rattling onto the workspace. Blood flowed from the stab wound, but not enough to end the fight.

He howled and released his grip. She picked the scissors up again and pushed off from the table. By slipping her index and ring fingers of her right hand into the holes in the handles, she had a set of brass knuckles with two small but sharp blades. She sucked air in and out through her teeth. Her left hand clenched and unclenched.

She got a good jab into his midsection, the blades slipping deeply into his flesh. He wore only flannel pajamas.

Dancing around, she took advantage of her superior speed and gymnastic ability, jumping in, stabbing, then bounding away to avoid his deadly grasp. He flailed around like a bear in a tar pit.

Da! She landed a few more in his gut, one in his buttock, and one in his cheek. The prize was his neck or eye, something to put him out of commission long enough for her to get out the door.

He lumbered back and guarded her only escape route. Was he moving more slowly? It was the chance she needed. She tensed her muscles and dove for the box cutter.

She got her hand around it, but his body crashed down onto hers, knocking the wind out of her. The heavy table teetered and then tipped back, crashing to the floor. They both slid off among a clutter of tools and lamps.

He had her in a bear hug from behind, one hand crushing her breast. He shifted and pinned her arms at the elbows.

She slammed the box cutter down onto his thigh, but the blade protruded only a little, barely enough to get through his pajamas.

She threw her head back, connecting with a crunch. Probably his nose. Maybe that wiped away the leer she pictured on his face. In spite of the pain, she did it again.

With her thumb, she pushed the cutter's blade out as far as it would go. Five clicks. She glanced at it. She had a knife with a six-centimeter blade. If only she'd had that when standing free.

She raised her forearm up, gritted her teeth, and smashed the blade down into his sensitive inner thigh. There was a big artery down there somewhere.

But a box cutter isn't a knife. The blade has little stability side to side. It's designed to snap off when a new, sharper point is needed. Instead of sliding smoothly into the flesh of his leg, it hit at an angle, and the blade cracked off with a pop.

She threw her head back again but didn't connect. Ferka must have held his head to one side. She wound up to do it at a different angle, but he lurched forward like a mating elephant seal and jammed her head into the corner.

Crushed against the floor with her head bent at an unnatural angle, she couldn't get enough air. Eric, help! He was surely out of range.

Ferka shifted his grip, pinning her arms completely. She kicked him, but after all the exertion, and weakened from the lack of oxygen, she couldn't get any power into it.

With little jerks he rolled over onto his back with her on top. Viviana gulped in air. Without releasing her, he sat up, then pushed against the wall and stood.

Blood and dust covered them both. Most of the blood was his. It dripped from his nose and jaw, and oozed from the many scissor cuts. It didn't matter. She'd lost.

Her uncle sat, expressionless, on his scooter in the doorway.

"Unchiul Zaza rog ajută-mă!" Help me!

Ferka squeezed her, cutting off further words. Her feet weren't even touching the floor. He was too strong.

Zaharia hovered over to the upturned table. He spoke sadly, in Romanian. "Lia, you betrayed me. You and Andrei fornicated in the woods, like pigs." He stared at the floor. "I know what to do with pigs."

If she could talk, she'd convince him she wasn't his dead wife. But Ferka held her in a death grip.

The huge Gypsy nodded. "Vâna." Hunt.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

Pacing back and forth outside the fence, I clenched my fists. The sky had cleared and moonlight filtered down through the bare branches.

I couldn't call Peggy. The phone had worked here before. Did Zaharia have some kind of signal jammer? Damn! Each time I'd considered driving away to get more bars, I pictured Viviana running out and finding me gone.

What was the last thing I'd said to Peggy? Don't send in the cavalry unless you hear from me. I was worried the police would go bustling in and Zaharia would destroy the device.

Peggy and I had argued. She'd said we should have a time limit. I should have listened to her, but the more she objected, the more resistance I'd given her. Too late to change my instructions now.

I checked my watch for the fiftieth time: 5:29. One minute to go. The last hours had been the longest of my life.

I went through my checklist. Backpack, dark clothing, pistol, night-vision goggles, night-vision scope, radio, long-range wire-guided Taser. The last one had set me back $100,000. It had a range of sixty feet, and as long as I kept the laser dot on the target, I couldn't miss.

With the night-vision goggles on I made one more check. Nope, no Viviana. Time to go.

I climbed the fence, dropped down on the other side, and jogged toward the house. It was almost a mile away, the bright lights barely visible. Heaven help anyone who got in my way.

Running like an elephant, I soon reached the edge of the clearing around the house. I had to do everything right, even though I wanted to rush in there, guns blazing. Breathing hard, I worked my way to the back of the residence. 5:41.

* * *

Uncle Zaharia would hunt her just as he'd hunted, and killed, his wife. Viviana pleaded with Zaza that she was Viva, his loving niece, but she couldn't get through. Her tears didn't soften him.

She spoke to Ferka, who continued to hold her from behind in a bear hug. "You're not insane, are you? You can stop this." Turning, she caught a glimpse of his leering smile. She couldn't expect any help from him. Worse, the hardness pushing against her leg suggested Ferka had a different objective than hunting down pigs.

Zaharia stepped off his hovering scooter and came over to her in his slow, shuffling gait. He bent down and reached for her shoes. She kept them away from him until Ferka applied so much pressure that she couldn't breathe. Zaharia laboriously undid the laces and tossed her shoes away, then stood, pulling himself up using her body and Ferka's.

She tried one more time. "Zaza. It's me Viva. Viva."

He pulled out a syringe and plunged it into her arm, slowly depressing the plunger. La naiba! She kicked him in the shin and wrenched her shoulder down. Zaharia looked at his legs. The hypodermic popped out of her arm and half the dose dribbled onto her skin. Okay.

Ferka carried her to the door. He opened it with a push of a button and let her go. "Zece minute." Ten minutes. She checked her watch: 5:41.

Bursting from the front of the residence, she sprinted toward the fence. She hadn't gotten the ball, but escape would be easy. She had a ten-minute head start, and the fence was only minutes away. She'd be fine as long as the shot they'd given her was slow to take effect.

Leaving the well-lit area around the house, she slowed down. In the moonlight she was able to follow the trail. She ignored the pain from her bare feet. A few minutes more and the fence came into view. This was going to work. She yelled, "Eric, help. We ha wo go. Day chayz."

Her words were slurred. The shot! Her thinking was fine, but her muscles didn't work right. She stretched her mouth open and shut like a fish. She spread her fingers and then made a fist. They responded slowly. It was as if she were really drunk. Thinking works okay. She looked down at the leaves. Would be nice to sleep.

She coughed. A hacking cough. Her mouth was dry. She tried swallowing. It didn't work quite right.

At the fence, the windshield of Eric's car reflected some light from the sky. Good. She screamed, "Eric, where are you?" but it sounded more like the yells of a zombie.

She looked at her watch: 5:49. She'd told Eric to give her until 5:30. He must have gone in to rescue her. Could she drive? Could she leave without Eric?

She started up the fence and immediately fell back. Would the effects of the shot get worse? Twice more she clawed her way up then fell back. She kneeled and leaned her forehead against the fence, hyperventilating.

The whine from the tracked, high-speed Segways snapped her from her thoughts. She had to succeed this time. Her legs were okay. Could they do most of the work? She took a huge breath and started again.

Clawing the chain-link, she poked her toes into the fence and extended her legs. She kept her body right up against the mesh. Deep breath, repeat. This might work. She paused, listening. Was the double-note whine coming closer? Shaking out a free hand, she reached up for the next claw-push cycle. She eyed the top. Maybe would work.

She extended her legs one more time. So tired. Images of her marathon gymnastics sessions swam in front of her.

There. She got her elbow over the top. Is good. Her arm muscles worked pretty well. Once over the top, she'd just fall to the other side. That was okay, she could take it. She could roll under the car and hide.

She raised her leg and put her toe into the fence. One more push and she'd be over.

* * *

A garage door at the back of the house opened. I ducked behind a bush.

Once again, here I was trying to do everything myself. Well, Viviana and I were. She shared my lone-wolf instinct. Perhaps if we'd gone to the FBI and told them everything, they would have sent in a commando squad and grabbed Zaharia in his sleep. He wouldn't have had a chance to destroy the device.

That was a good plan, and it was going to be our next step. After Viviana snatched the device. At least I had filled Peggy in; I was making some progress on my trust issues. Of course, if Viviana had returned after fifteen minutes with the energy ball, we'd be patting ourselves on the back. As it was, I wanted to kick myself in the butt.

I'd just finished a circuit of the house, figuring out how I'd get in, when the door opened.

Two men came out on their tracked Segway-type devices, stopping at the entrance and talking. Zaharia and Ferka. Holsters on the scooters held crossbows.

They were well within the range of my Taser rifle. I pulled it out and put the laser dot right in the center of Ferka's mass. This was a piece of cake. With Ferka down I was sure I could handle Zaharia. He wouldn't get a chance to trigger the corrosive cascade that would destroy the energy ball.

I had just begun squeezing the trigger when the pair took off. They traveled at the speed of a runner, but I was okay. No problem. I re-centered the dot on Ferka's wide back and pulled the trigger. The darts would find their goal as long as I kept the laser dot on the target.

The two darts flew, making midcourse corrections like a pair of fighter jets. Once Ferka was down, I'd zip-tie his hands and deal with Zaharia. Right on target.

The rifle jerked forward, just enough to feel. The darts had reached the limit of their range and tugged on the wires. Failure.

Should I follow the pair or go into the house? Was Viviana inside? Perhaps I could load a new cartridge while running and get a closer shot. The garage door started closing. If it closed all the way, I might not be able to get in. Decision time.

I ran to the door and rolled under it just in time.

I pulled on my own pair of DMSO-resistant gloves and yelled, "Viviana! Where are you?"

No sounds. No thoughts. I searched the house, careful not to touch anything. Her backpack lay at the end of a hall. I ran to it. A pocket held her radio. Where was she?

One room was a mess. An overturned table with tools all over the place. And blood. A lot of blood. I screamed and kicked the wall.

Where was she? Either she was restrained here or she'd escaped and they were after her. If she was inside, where were they going at six o'clock in the morning? Okay, I'd made the wrong decision.

But I went through the house calling her name. If she was conscious, I'd have heard her thoughts, even if she was gagged.

I stepped into the power room. The case to the energy ball was still locked. If I had Viviana's lock picking skills, I could get it. Or I could try breaking the case open.

I looked up at the tank of corrosive liquid. One mistake and that liquid would cascade down and dissolve the device.

It didn't matter. The device may have been more important than Zaharia's health, but it wasn't more important than Viviana's life. To the world, maybe. Not to me.

The picture of Ferka forcing his will on her popped back into my mind, and I charged out of the room. Wait!

Something caught my eye. Something on the side of the chute from the acid tank to the device, something red. A countdown timer. A timed dead man's switch. A self-destruct mechanism. It was a cliché, but it made sense, given Zaharia's paranoia.

One and a half hours to go. I checked my watch. We had until 7:35.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

Viviana's toe slipped out of the chain-link fence. The jolt was too much for her aching forearm gripping the top, and she tumbled to the ground, still inside the compound. She had been so close.

Mind is working, but am so weak. She looked at her watch while wiggling her fingers. They barely responded to her commands. 6:05.

Am tired like marathon. The effect came and went. She stared westward toward the house. The bright lights from the scooters moved and stopped repeatedly. Were they looking for her trail?

Run or hide? She stood up. Run. Put some distance between her and them.

She'd made no attempt to hide her trail; they'd locate it soon enough. She did a few jumping jacks, anything to shake out her lethargy and clumsiness. She shuffled south for forty meters, disturbing the leaves as much as possible, then retraced her steps and headed north, stepping lightly. She checked behind her. They wouldn't be able to follow that trail.

She settled into a strange lumbering trot, her arms hanging straight down. Like a running zombie. Occasionally she'd slow down, her body desperate to take a break. Nu! She pushed herself harder.

What range did Eric have? She had no idea. Eric, help me. Am in forest!

The whine from the scooters changed. She stopped and turned her head, listening. The sound had been intermittent, but now two steady tones sang through the forest.

She zombied up a rise, and from behind the trunk of a tree, watched their progress. The headlights flickered through the branches of the trees. They'd found her trail, heading right to the fence where she and Eric had cut the barbed wire.

After a pause, they headed southward. Good. Her misdirection had worked. Maybe while they followed the false trail, the effects of the drug would wear off.

Without waiting to see how far they'd go before discovering their error, she took off again with her strange gait. She needed to put more distance between her and them.

Where was Eric? Since the car was there, he hadn't left. He'd surely gone to the house.

Up another hill, she squinted and made out the lights from the residence. She leaned toward it and yelled with her mind. ERIC HELP ME! She shook her head. So strange.

Back to running. This was a huge property. Would they figure out that she was following the fence line? Maybe she'd find a way to scale it. If only she could climb.

There. A tree with a branch that extended over the fence. With her normal abilities, she'd be over and out in seconds. They wouldn't be able to follow on their scooters.

No point in thinking about it. She couldn't climb the tree. Would exertion get the drug out of her blood faster? Didn't matter. She was already running as fast as she could.

Her foot splashed into a stream. Little more than a trickle. She stopped and kneeled down. Maybe water would help flush the drug from her system. She found a depression where the water had pooled and sucked in as much as possible. Sure, she might get giardia later. If she lived past tonight.

Back up and running, she flexed her arms to get the blood flowing. She swung them a little more. Did they feel better? Yes. Too soon for the water to help, maybe, but definitely better. She repeatedly made fists and released them. She was also coughing less. If she'd gotten the full dose, she'd have been in trouble.

She kept her ears tuned to the sound of the scooters. One was louder than the other. They once again seemed to be hunting for her trail. Starting and stopping. An image of Uncle Zaharia showing her the carcass of a wild boar when she was young appeared in her mind. He'd loved hunting. He must have been a talented tracker.

Her arms had regained about half their strength.

There. The perfect tree. She must have some cat in her—she instinctively wanted to gain height. She needed to rest. Could she fool them? Time to hide.

She ran farther on, then doubled back. The trunk leaned over and the bark was easy to grip. Getting to the first branch was the hardest part. She fell once, scraping her shoulder. The scooters were silent. With the next try, she reached the first branch, and it was easier from there. She climbed to a height of about five meters.

She lay facedown on a wide branch, her arms dangling like the paws of a sleeping leopard. After fifteen minutes of glorious rest, the whine from the scooters resumed. They were coming toward her, but not fast. Probably keeping an eye on her trail. She pulled her arms up, trying to blend in with the branches. In the summer, she would have been completely hidden by the leaves.

They passed below her and continued on. Maybe she could stay hidden here forever. Or until the drug wore off.

They passed five meters along her latest false trail and stopped. Ferka got off his scooter and squatted down looking at the ground. So, he was the tracker. Zaharia stood frozen on his machine. Silence.

What if she coughed? With that thought, a tickle in her throat caught her attention. No problem. She only had to hold off until they continued along her track.

Ferka pointed north along the false trail, and Zaharia nodded.

Viviana nodded. Da! Du te, du te! When relief seemed imminent, the urge to cough built. Ridiculous. How hard could it be to simply not cough for twenty seconds? Her body had other ideas. She dedicated her entire mind and will to not coughing.

Ferka stood and gripped the handlebars of his machine.

She couldn't deny the cough. It was going to happen. Perhaps she could just clear her throat a tiny bit to keep the cough at bay for, what, ten seconds more? She tried to do a tiny rumble in her throat, like making a "K" sound with closed lips, but it escaped her lips. It wasn't loud, but it was a cough.

Ferka froze and whipped his head around, looking at the base of the tree. Her tree.

Eric! Eric! Help!

Ferka's gaze climbed the trunk toward her.

* * *

My own name flashed into my head. What was that? It wasn't like hearing someone's thoughts; it was more like my own thought.

I'd come out the front of the house, convinced Viviana wasn't inside. I'd have heard her thoughts. Even if she'd been knocked out I might have gotten something. She must have escaped, and they were chasing her. I'd wasted too much time trying to get into some locked rooms.

I tilted my head and lowered my jaw to clear my eustachian tubes, making my ears as sensitive as possible. No sound from the scooters, only a squirrel chattering and some birds chirping. The sun would rise soon.

Could my name have been Viviana calling to me with her mind? Normally I could sense the direction to the thinker, but if this was her thought, it was too faint for that.

Maybe she was indeed tied up inside, and she'd just regained consciousness. Perhaps her thoughts were muffled by the rock walls.

I turned to go back inside but then caught more thoughts. Jumbled thoughts. It was like hearing someone's conversation from another room. I climbed up the angled rock wall of the house and stood on the roof, concentrating. I couldn't understand a single word. Was it Zaharia, Ferka? Couldn't even tell if it was Romanian or English, but the manner of the thoughts was familiar. Someone I'd encountered briefly?

Was it someone new? I checked for Egyptian hieroglyphics. None. I wasn't hallucinating.

I climbed down and went back inside. Back to those locked rooms.

* * *

Ferka's gaze started up the tree, but he stopped and smiled. That leering, evil smile again. He heard her, yes? He might have even seen her although he didn't look directly at her branch.

He stepped onto his scooter. He gestured down her false trail and yelled, "Du te." They whined away without looking back.

The terrible conclusion was obvious. He wanted her for himself. He'd be back without Zaharia.

She fluttered her fingers. Much better. The water or the exertion or the rest had helped.

She climbed down the tree with her former grace and sprinted off to the house. Eric must be there. It was probably about two kilometers away. Eric, where are you?

Running felt good now. With the drug, she'd had to consciously direct her feet, but now they flew along automatically, even avoiding the exposed roots she barely noticed with her eyes.

She kept her ears focused on the sound of the scooters. She burst out of the forest, into the wide field that stretched between her and the residence. Nowhere to hide now.

The sounds of the scooters changed. She stopped and turned her head. Both scooters went silent. After a pause, they started again, but the two sounds were diverging. Was Ferka heading back to the tree?

She resumed running, and the sound from one of the scooters suddenly became louder. She turned her head and looked back. There it was. It had just rounded a hill and was headed directly for her. It came at an angle to her path.

She glanced back again. Yes, it was the huge Gypsy on the noisier of the two scooters.

He would cut her off before she got to the house. She changed course toward the spot in the fence where she'd cut the barbed wire.

The scooter wasn't any faster than she was, but it didn't get tired. She'd have to have enough of a lead so that she could climb over the fence before he could grab her. Then she'd be free. Yes, he might climb after her, but without his scooter she'd leave him in her dust. No contest.

She needed more of a lead, though. She entered the forest.

The whine went down in pitch as if running out of battery. Was he slowing? She looked back to check. He wasn't gaining on her. Falling back in fact. Maybe this would work.

Looking back was a mistake. Her foot hit an exposed root and twisted. She brought her other foot forward to catch herself, but it hit the same root. She flew forward and threw out a hand instinctively to grab the trunk of a small tree. That only twisted her and she fell hard on her shoulder, the same one she'd injured earlier.

She looked back as she rolled. Ferka had gotten a lot closer. Too close. But her legs were in hyperdrive, and she popped to her feet and continued running. Everything was working now, all vestiges of the drug gone. With the adrenaline she had superpowers. Ferka was so close, though.

The trees here, away from the trail, gave her an advantage. Ferka had to slow to avoid them. But the trail lead directly to the place they'd cut the wire. She needed that. She couldn't climb over barbed wire fast enough. Ferka would grab her. The trail it was. She changed course.

He was close enough to shoot her with the crossbow, but that wasn't going to happen. Viol. That was his goal.

Not much farther. She glanced back. He had slowed. He wasn't far behind her, but she would run right up to the fence, leap high onto it, and climb over. He'd have to stop and get off his scooter. That might give her the extra seconds she needed.

Once she was over, he might decide to shoot her. But that would be better than being violated by that disgusting creature. Even if she lived, she'd wish she hadn't.

He'd have to climb to the top to shoot her. He couldn't do it through the fence. Not with a crossbow. She could be far away by then. But she'd have to hit it just right.

Ferka was about seven meters back and matching her pace.

Now. Without slowing, she jumped high onto the fence. She hit it dead center between the posts, and with a rattle, it absorbed her momentum. Even before it stopped shaking she'd scrambled to the top. If only she'd been able to climb like this earlier in the morning.

Soon her waist was to the top and she started her flip. Da!

But Ferka didn't stop his scooter and step off. He drove full steam into the fence, jumping up as he hit it.

His huge hand fastened onto Viviana's ankle. She looked at him through the chain-link. He had that same disgusting leer on his face.

He had her. He took his time, apparently enjoying himself.

She had her waist bent over the top of the ten-foot fence, her fingers clawed into the chain-link on the outside. Even missing a finger, it was a grip no one could break by pulling down on her ankle. The top of the fence cut into her belly. Her pounding heart echoed in her ears.

He reached up and pulled her spandex pants and her black panties down to her ankles. It didn't matter. Getting loose mattered.

A strand of barbed wire hung down by her face. It was still connected at one end, but she had plenty enough free for her purposes.

She released her grip, grabbed the wire, and whipped Ferka in the face.

He roared, let go of the fence, and put a hand up to his cheek.

She whipped him again, the wire whistling through the air. She caught one of his eyes. Surely that would put him out of action.

He fell back but didn't let go of her ankle.

No longer having the advantage of being bent over the fence with her hands welded to the wires, his weight pulled her down. She fell on top of him.

Viviana raised her leg high and brought it down, smashing her heel into his face. Then she bent her knee, and thrust her foot toward his head with all her strength. Her heel landed right below his chin and whipped his head back.

Another kick to the throat could finish it. Maybe his breathing tube would swell up and cut off his air. But he grabbed her other leg. He rolled on top of her. He must have been dazed and in pain, but his great weight incapacitated her.

As when they'd slid off the table in the workroom, she was once again under him, her face pressed into the rotting leaves.

The sound of his belt being unbuckled gave her a burst of energy. She snapped her head back, but he'd figured out that trick from before. She smashed into nothing but air and hurt her own neck from the whiplash effect.

She elbowed him in the gut but couldn't get any power into it. La naiba!

He reached around to her front and put his head next to hers. His stinking cabbage breath flowed over her.

Apparently overcome with lust, he started shaking.

* * *

My two Taser darts drilled into Ferka's face. He started shaking, and I ran up to him. One dart was embedded in his temple, the other deep into his eyeball.

I roared as I sprinted the last twenty feet and kicked him in the temple. I rolled him off Viviana.

She scrambled up, a jumble of Romanian thoughts in her head. <Asasina.>

In a flash, she grabbed my pistol from its holster, pointed it at Ferka's head, and pulled the trigger. But her thought had given me the warning I needed. I pushed her arm, and the bullet slammed into the dirt.

I pulled the gun from her hand and put it back in my holster.

I pulled up her pants and hugged her. "It's okay, Viviana. It's all over. You're okay."

She didn't respond. Her mind was blank. She shook harder than Ferka, and she hadn't had 50,000 volts running through her. The current flowed only between the two darts, not through to the ground.

I wanted to continue holding her, but I had to make sure the huge Gypsy was out of the fight.

I sat her down on the leaves and before Ferka could recover his wits, put a sturdy zip tie around his wrists, behind his back.

When I stood up, three things hit me. The whine of a scooter, a burst of Romanian thoughts, and those crazy, jumbled thoughts I'd detected back at the house. I'd heard that person thinking before but couldn't place him. Or her. The Romanian thoughts were loud and clear, but I couldn't understand them. A rustling of leaves also tugged at my attention, but my mind was already overloaded.

Viviana jumped back up and we both turned. Zaharia stood on his scooter, pointing his deadly crossbow at my heart. He delivered a long string of Romanian in a monotone.

Viviana replied with a pleading tone then glanced at me. <He thinks I am his wife, Lia. He thinks I have been unfaithful with you, here in the forest.> "Zaza, este Viva. Este Viva!"

His glance shifted to me. He began squeezing the trigger.

A shadow flew in from my left, between Zaharia and me. A man. He jerked and stumbled backwards. The point of an arrow bloomed through the back of his neck. The point pierced the center of his swastika tattoo. I caught him as he fell.

The thoughts I'd detected. The rustling I heard. Garrett Jarmin, the suicidal skinhead. He'd gotten his wish. <Thank you, Eric.> But how did he get here?

I looked at Zaharia. He struggled to load another arrow.

I sprinted toward him, my heart in my throat. He got the crossbow cocked and brought it up, aiming directly at Viviana. He pulled the trigger.

I jumped into the path of the arrow, trying to make the sacrifice for her that Garrett had made for me, but I missed. The arrow whistled past my ear. Perhaps it actually touched my head, the feather end brushing me.

I hit the ground, then jumped back up and tackled Zaharia. He felt as feeble as he looked, and I put a zip tie around his wrists. I looked up toward Viviana. It was the sight I most dreaded. She stared into the distance and fell to the ground.

I ran to her. The arrow was deep in the left side of her chest. I screamed her name. I wanted to rip the deadly thing out, but my brain overrode my arms.

All the blood had drained from her face. I felt her back. The arrow hadn't gone through. Had it angled over and hit her spinal column? I put pressure on the entry point, feeling her blood flow out.

Peggy jogged over to us, and an ambulance appeared outside the fence near my position-broadcasting car. She must have disobeyed my orders. Good. Had she gotten Garrett involved?

One of the EMTs climbed over the fence with his kit, and Peggy told the other how to get to the entrance. The EMT started working on Viviana. I didn't want to leave her side, but I owed my life to Garrett. I went over to him.

He was still conscious, but he wouldn't live long. He seemed to want to say something.

I whispered in his ear. "Thank you for saving my life, Garrett. You are a good man. I can read your thoughts. Is there anything ... are there any messages you want me to pass on?"

<Project was canceled.>

"Yes, that's right. Your project was canceled. No more struggling against life." I held his hand.

His eyebrows went up. <You can read my thoughts. That's how you won our fight at the bridge.>

I nodded.

<Tell Helen it wasn't her fault. It was no one's fault.>

"I'll tell Helen it wasn't her fault. She'll understand. Thank you, Garrett."

Tears fell from his eyes. He gave a weak chuckle, raised one hand, and then dropped it. No more thoughts. No more pulse. He was gone.

The other EMT came up and started working on Garrett. "The helicopter will be here any minute."

I went over to Viviana. She'd lost consciousness.

I whispered in her ear. "I'm here Viviana. Everything will be okay. I love you."

Nothing. No thoughts that I could detect. Even when she'd been in the coma, I'd gotten something.

When the helicopter touched down in a clearing, the EMTs loaded Viviana into it.

I kept one hand on her arm, hesitated, and then pointed to Zaharia with the other. I yelled over the sound of the rotors. "Get the old man, too."

"Was he injured also?"

"No, but he has a neurological problem that needs attention." I would have been happy to let him die, but again, my brain overrode my heart.

"He dangerous?"

"Leave the cuffs on him."

"What about that guy?" He pointed to Ferka.

"The police will deal with him," I yelled.

I wanted to stay at Viviana's side, travel with her, but I had to take the chance that I could save the energy ball from destruction. I kissed Viviana's cold lips, told her goodbye, and watched the helicopter take off. Garrett didn't need speedy transportation—he was long gone.

I checked my watch: 7:19. Sixteen minutes to go before the acid mixture would be released.

Peggy gave me a hug. "She'll be okay, Eric." <Probably not.>

"Come with me." I couldn't let this whole adventure be for nothing. We jogged toward the house.

"Good thing I didn't listen to you, huh, boss?"

"How did Garrett get here?"

"Poor guy. He's been bugging me to let him help. I called him last night, and he came right over to the office. Paced around, driving me crazy. Kept talking about canceling a project. Your fancy car reported its position. It hadn't moved since two-thirty. When you didn't call, I decided you had forgotten to charge your phone or something, and we drove down here along with the private ambulance."

"How did you know we'd need an ambulance?"

"I didn't. But we have plenty of money, so I hired one, just in case."

"Police?" I jumped over an exposed root in the trail.

"They'll be here soon. So, let me finish. As soon as Garrett and I drive up, he's out of the van like a shot, climbing right over the fence. We could hear the whine from those scooter things, but I guess it took him a while to find you."

"How'd you get in?"

"I smashed through the gate with the van. It wasn't pretty."

We arrived at the house and went into the power room.

"So this is what all the fuss is about?" She walked toward the energy ball.

"Don't touch anything."

"Right. You told me that already. This doesn't look like it can solve the world's problems."

I snapped at her. "Well, this thing is powering the whole house. Do you see any external power lines?" I stifled a sob and rubbed the back of my neck. "Sorry, Peg, I've had ... You saved my life—"

"By disobeying your orders."

"Well, yeah, but you saved my life, and here I am yelling at you. If you hadn't thought of Garrett ... yeah, it's a good thing you didn't listen to me."

She put her hand on my arm. "It's okay, boss." She pointed to the tank by the ceiling. "So, that's the acid that's going to destroy it?"

"It's not just acid. It's some kind of super-corrosive liquid the fucking, paranoid, evil doctor cooked up. And it's not going to destroy it, because I've got a plan."

She pointed up to the display next to the tank. "Well, you'd better hurry up. Two minutes and counting. Let's not leave it till the last second. This isn't—" <It isn't TV. No, I shouldn't joke. His girlfriend just died.>

My heart wasn't in it, but I tried once more to pry open a seam in the Plexiglas box with my knife. No dice. One minute to go. I'd learned in PI school that shooting a padlock off only works in the movies.

I loaded the last Taser cartridge into the rifle and pointed it at the timer electronics box.

Peggy put her hand on my arm. "But what if—"

I pulled the trigger, and the darts flew into the box. Meant to travel up to sixty feet, they slammed into it, easily punching through the plastic housing.

The rapid rattlesnake-like clicking of the electrodes filled the room and the display shut off.

"Okay, the world's been saved. Let's go to the hospital." We started out the door.

A snap made me jump, and we both turned. A valve opened, and the corrosive solution whooshed down the pipe, engulfing the minge de energie. I expected fizzing and hissing, maybe an explosion, but the reaction was slow. Some bubbles appeared from the submerged ball, and the fluid turned brown.

"Stand back." I pulled out my pistol and shot holes in the bottom of the Plexiglas. Too late and way too little. Some of the liquid dripped out, but the damage was done.

The lights in the house went out. I pulled out my penlight and shined it on the Plexiglas container. The reaction was accelerating and, in fact, the Plexiglas itself was dissolving from the inside.

CHAPTER TWENTY

Two hours later, I sat in a waiting room at UCSF with my elbows on my knees, staring at the floor. Viviana was still in surgery. Peggy sat down next to me with three large Peet's coffees.

"Thanks, Peg. Who's the third one for?"

"Your neurosurgeon buddy, what's his name?"

"Craig."

"Right."

Appearing down the hall, Craig caught sight of me and thought, <Still in surgery. She's not out of the woods yet.> When he got to us, he suggested I sit down. "She was very lucky, Eric."

"Because of the heart?" I asked.

Craig nodded. "If her heart had been on the left side, she would have died, almost instantly."

"Is she going to make it? Is she going to be okay?"

"I've talked to the trauma surgeon and the thoracic surgeon. I don't want to get your hopes up. We won't know for a—"

"But what do you think?"

<I think she's going to pull through.> "You should prepare yourself for the worst, buddy."

I breathed a sigh of relief. Peggy squinted at me. Wrong reaction to his words. Right reaction to his thoughts.

I jiggled my leg. "I hadn't mentioned her mirror-image, heart-on-the-right thing to the EMTs. I wasn't firing on all cylinders. Do you think that—"

Craig patted me on the knee. "No, they figured it out soon enough. It wouldn't have made any difference if you'd told them. But she's not out of the woods yet. She lost a lot of blood, and her left lung collapsed. Dr. Thomas finished operating, but she started bleeding again in the ICU, so they're working on her now."

"Brain damage?" I raised my eyebrows. I'd take care of her no matter what happened, but I wanted the old Viviana back.

"I doubt it." <Absolutely not.> "You just have to be patient. Any more questions about her?"

I shook my head.

"I examined the uncle." Craig glanced at Peggy.

"Craig, let me introduce my investigative assistant, Peggy Barbera. Can we pretend that privacy laws don't apply to time travelers? You can trust her to keep this under her hat."

She winked and handed him his coffee. "I guessed that you like it black."

Craig nodded and thanked her. He turned to me. "So, Eric, got an idea what's wrong with him?"

"NPH. Missing shunt?"

Craig smiled. "Bingo."

Peggy held up her hand. "I know I'm just an observer, but, since I brought the coffee, maybe you guys could talk English?"

Craig took a sip from his coffee. "NPH stands for Normal Pressure Hydrocephalus. Cerebrospinal fluid is produced in chambers in the brain and it flows through some narrow channels and out around the brain and the spinal column. With me?"

Peggy nodded.

"Sometimes too much fluid is produced or one of the channels is blocked. The fluid buildup squeezes the brain, resulting in decreased cognitive function."

"So, that's why Zaharia was crazy," she said.

"That's what was causing his cognitive problems, yeah." Craig continued in his lecture role. "It also made it difficult for him to walk and explains why he was wearing a diaper when they brought him in."

"But that's not the most interesting part." I looked at Craig and raised my eyebrows.

He gestured with his hand. "Go ahead." <Show off in front of your employee.>

"NPH is treated with a thing called a 'shunt.' That's essentially a tube that drains the excess fluid from the brain. From what Viviana told me, it sounded like Zaharia had NPH back when he was about twenty years old. Around 1940. He had cognitive issues back then, and—"

"That's when he went nutso and hunted and killed his wife," Peggy said.

"Well, yeah. So they put in a shunt, and he got better. Better enough to invent a time machine and the energy ball."

Peggy looked at Craig. "They had shunts back then?"

He nodded. "Not as good as they are today, but, yes, the first permanent shunt was installed in 1893."

Hmm. I didn't know that. I leaned forward. "So, the real, real interesting part is that—"

"When he jumped forward in the time machine," Peggy crossed her arms, apparently enjoying stealing my punchline, "his shunt stayed behind."

Craig crossed his legs. "Exactly. We did an MRI of his brain today, and it shows a faint suggestion that a shunt had been implanted in the past. That's not definite, but it is clear he has NPH. I'm putting in a new shunt tomorrow morning." He closed one eye. "But there's something I don't get."

"What's that?" I took a sip of coffee.

"He was a smart guy. Shouldn't he have known that his shunt wouldn't travel forward in time with him?"

I put my coffee cup down. "Well, they only sent animals forward, and I'm not even sure how many of those they recovered. So, unless he had a bunny with an IUD or a beaver with dental fillings, he wouldn't have known that foreign material inside the body got left behind."

"But still." Craig tapped his nose. "You'd think he'd soon realize his mental function was going downhill and go see a neurologist. Why didn't he do that?"

Peggy raised her hand. "I know."

We both turned to her. I frowned. "You know why he didn't do that?"

"No, but I know how to find out. We'll just ask him when he gets better again."

Craig shook his head. "It's not clear how much he'll recover. We'll just have to see."

<Eric, where are you?>

"Viviana's awa—" I looked at Peggy. "I'm going to check to see if Viviana's awake yet."

Craig turned and pointed. "The ICU is right there." <Or you can just follow her thoughts, wink, wink.>

It took me a long time to get in to see her. It was frustrating, because I could hear her thoughts from the next room: <Eric, are you here?>

The nurse explained that Viviana had a throat tube in, so she wouldn't be able to talk, and finally let me in for a few minutes.

Viviana looked terrible: pale and sick, with tubes and wires everywhere. It was an image that would stick with me for a long time, along with the picture of the arrow sticking out of her chest. She smelled like hospital chemicals. Her eyes turned to me, though she didn't turn her head. <Eric. Am glad you are here.>

I kissed her on the forehead, sat by the bed, and whispered in her ear. "Everything is going well. You're going to recover."

<What about Uncle Zaharia?>

"He's okay. He's here in the hospital. Craig knows what's wrong with him, and he's going to get an operation that's going to help. How do you feel?"

<Is stupid question.>

I laughed. That was the Viviana I knew. "Do you want more pain medication?"

<Yes.>

"Okay, I'll tell the nurse. Everything is good. You just rest and get better. You don't have to worry about anything."

<Does world know about Zaza and me?>

"Yes, but that's okay. It will work out fine. Is there anything you want me to tell the nurses? Do you want some coffee?"

<Not funny. I sleep now. I love you.>

She closed her eyes and I kissed her on the ear.

* * *

Twenty days later, we had the Christmas party in Zaharia's mansion-slash-prison. The government set him up with a huge laboratory that included an attached residence. Until his legal status was fully resolved, he was under house arrest. According to his lawyers, he would be completely free soon. In the world's speediest of trials, he'd been judged not criminally responsible for his acts. The legal system still had to work through some formalities.

The guards outside were more for keeping the paparazzi out than for keeping Zaharia in.

The statute of limitations prevented Viviana from being prosecuted for any of her past burglaries. There was no limitation on possession of stolen property, but she promised me that she had liquidated all of her ill-gotten assets. I hoped I could trust her on that.

Ferka, on the other hand, turned out to be a convicted rapist and murderer. He would be extradited back to Romania where he would remain in prison for life.

The great room looked nothing like a government installation. Heavy beams supported the vaulted ceiling and a fire crackled in the huge, inefficient fireplace. The scent of vin fiert, Romanian mulled wine, combined with that of the towering pine tree to put everyone in the Christmas spirit.

Craig and I were especially joyous, since the sale of our EZ-Sleeper had gone through.

Zaharia and Viviana sat together on the leather couch, their matching walkers nearby. With the aid of Hyperfix, both were recovering rapidly. As I prepared gin gimlets for Peggy and me, I looked over at my fiancée and her uncle. Zaharia's intellect would probably never match that of his pre-time-jump self, but he'd recovered enough to guide the construction of a new energy ball. A prototype was only weeks away.

He'd been able to convince the scientists, even Dr. Barbie Doll Baumgartner over by the fireplace, that the device had worked and would work. The prospect of a solution to the energy catastrophe was enough to stop the erosion of the financial markets. Even without the prototype, factories around the world were gearing up to mass produce the device.

In addition, a smaller wing was devoted to his time machine research.

Yes, Viviana and I were to be married. I'd finally overcome my trust issues and our long-term relationship was off to a good start.

I went over to the couch and sat. Viviana barely paused in her Romanian jabber-fest with her uncle and my Romanian tutor, Ms. Ibanescu. Viv transferred her skinny butt onto my lap and took a sip of the gimlet. <Uck. Too sweet.>

She'd lost twenty pounds after the shooting but was working hard to gain it back. She didn't need the walker any longer. I suspected she had it there just so she could drink more vin fiert and still get around.

Concerning the shooting, we'd tried to keep it from Zaharia, who remembered nothing, but that was impossible. The story was all over the news. Intellectually, he understood he wasn't responsible for his actions, but I know his heart ached over the death of Mr. Jarmin and the near-death of his niece.

Zaharia held up his hand. "Let us switch to English for the benefit of Viva's future husband and his friends."

His accent was strong, but unlike Viviana's, his grammar was impeccable—better than mine.

He continued. "I was describing my experience in the time-shortcut machine. I arrived in February of 2009, waking on the baseball field, naked and with a terrible headache. I managed to get my life in order, and reconstructed the minge de energie, what you call the energy ball."

"But you didn't present it to the world." I put my empty gimlet glass on the side table.

"No." Zaharia took a deep breath. "No, I'm sorry to say that I did not. A sense of paranoia was growing in me, clouding my judgment. I finally realized that my shunt was gone, and I planned to consult a neurologist, but then I caught the influenza. The disease greatly exacerbated my condition, and everything after that is a bit fluffy."

"Fuzzy!" Viviana said.

He smiled. "Yes, fuzzy. Excuse me. On a happier topic, Ms. Ibanescu tells me you are an excellent student, Eric, although somewhat stubborn. That may prove a source of difficulty in your marriage, since Viva is also stubborn."

"Si cerând."

Zaharia and Ibanescu laughed.

Viviana punched me in the shoulder. "Am not demanding."

"Demanding? Is that what it means? I thought it meant 'affectionate.'"

"Affectionate is drăgăstos. Very different." She frowned.

"Right." I snapped my finger. "Drăgăstos. Isn't that what I said?" I squinted and cocked my head.

She punched me again but smiled.

I rubbed my shoulder. "See? Foarte drăgăstos."

Stan stood by the fireplace, finishing up a conversation with Craig and his family. He looked over at me. <This should be interesting.>

What? I excused myself, uninstalled Viviana, and went over to him.

He grunted his hello. For Stan, that's small talk.

"I got an interesting report the other day." He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. "Seems like a jewel thief went into some old lady's condo on the peninsula and threw all her jewelry out the window. Report here says your fingerprints were on one of the watches." He looked me in the eye.

I flashed on an image of me picking up the Rolex and dropping it back onto the ground. Heat crept into my cheeks. Would Stan notice? It was now common knowledge that Viviana had been a jewel thief. Had Stan put things together?

"Was anything stolen?"

He shook his head.

"Is the woman going to press charges?"

Another shake.

"Well, beats the hell out of me. Must be some kind of glitch."

Stan shrugged. "Yeah, that's what I was thinking." He tossed the paper into the fire and clapped me on the shoulder. "There's something ... strange about you, Eric, but maybe you're not such a lousy PI after all. I'm going to trust you on this."

He looked over at Viviana. <But I sure as hell don't trust his kleptomaniac fiancée.>

She sat on the couch, gorgeous in a cozy sweater, sipping her vin fiert. We loved each other, and that meant I could trust her. I took a deep breath.

I could, right?

REQUEST FOR REVIEWS

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I'm so grateful for the help I've had with this book.

Special thanks (multumesc) to Dumitru Cristian Ioan, my Bucharest pen pal, who corrected my Romanian translations and gave me suggestions on wording.

My critique partners saved me from plot holes, logical errors, and embarrassing grammatical mistakes. Many thanks to Allison Maruska, Pamela Bedore, SJ Richards, Bob Ferguson, Laura Eve, P Mathison, Janice G, Tonin, Auraxx, Jaramsli, and others.

I had a great beta-reader crew pulled from my newsletter subscribers. Maryann Banning-Witters had wonderful suggestions on wording and plot. Sheri Cartwright had tips for this book, and gave me ideas for the next. Thanks to all my beta readers, especially Gail Summerville, Teri Miller, Tod Wicks, Frederick Randy Ross, Mia D, Bob Crane, Amanda, Linda Johnson, and Lena Macy.

My proofreader, Julie MacKenzie from FreeRangeEditorial.com, did such a good job, she blew my mind. If there were a grammar version of Jeopardy, she'd be the champion.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Al Macy writes because he has stories to tell. In school he was the class clown and always the first volunteer for show and tell. His teachers would say, "Al has a lot of imagination." Then they'd roll their eyes.

But he put his storytelling on the back burner until he retired and wrote a blog about his efforts to improve his piano sight-reading. That's when his love of storytelling burbled up to the surface, along with quirky words like "burble."

He had even more fun writing his second book, Drive, Ride, Repeat, but was bummed by nonfiction's need to stick to "the truth" (yucko). From then on it was fiction all the way, with a good dose of his science background burbling to the surface.

Macy's top priority is compelling storylines with satisfying plot twists, but he never neglects character development. No, wait ... his top priority is quirkiness, then compelling storylines, then character development. No, wait ...
