Killing Time Read online

  She made a wry face. “Rebecca would likely fuss at him for waiting this long. They were good together; it was like they were two halves of a whole. They fit perfectly. She would want him to be happy. That makes me feel so selfish, but—”

  “But?” he prompted, when she was silent for a moment.

  “I feel as if I’ve lost him, too. He tried so hard to bring her back. The medics told me that when they got there, he was so exhausted from doing CPR that he just rolled over on his back; he couldn’t even get up. And he was crying. Until now, it was as if we shared this—this emptiness where she had been. As if I didn’t have to bear it alone.”

  He paused, then delicately asked, “Your husband doesn’t—?”

  She laughed, the sound bitter. “Oh, he cried, but when she was buried, that same night he went out looking to get laid. If he grieved, he showed it by doing what he’s always done, chasing after every woman who’ll look at him.”

  Byron’s hand moved gently on her belly. “I would say I’m sorry, but if he were a perfect husband, then you wouldn’t be here with me. I’m sorry I didn’t meet you before he did, but would it be terrible if I admitted that I’m glad you’ve been unhappy with him?”

  She gave him a tender smile. “No, it isn’t terrible. It’s honest. And flattering.” Ruth snuggled close to him, turning so she could curl one arm over his shoulder and touch his hair. She loved touching him. Until Byron, she had gone so long without touching and being touched, without love or sex or any combination of the two, that she had felt like a virgin going into his arms. Everything had been new, and frightening; she had been so nervous that she hadn’t been as ready as she might have been, and the first time had been a little painful, just as if she truly had been untouched.

  To tell the truth, she had never felt like a very sexual woman; she had gone for security instead of love, and shut down those feelings. The choices she’d made had given her Rebecca, but when her daughter died, she had been left empty and bitter. All her days had passed in bleak sameness, without hope, until she’d met Byron. He had given her the affection for which she was starved, but even more, he’d given her a reason to live, to undo the pain and loss of the past.

  There were a lot of things she liked about him. For one, he wasn’t local. When they met, it wasn’t in Pekesville, but in the next county to the west, so she didn’t have to worry about running into someone she knew. To some people the next county might be considered local, but she’d lived in Pekesville her entire life and never traveled much at all, so local meant something different to her.

  He wasn’t a tall man, only a few inches taller than she, and Ruth found she liked that. They fit together very well, and Edward was a tall man, so she was glad that nothing about Byron reminded her of her husband—except that they both had penises, of course, but the way they used them was very different. Edward had always been sexually selfish; Byron was the opposite, kind and patient in bed, willing to give her satisfaction no matter how long it took, or how. He didn’t seem to think his penis was the sole purveyor of pleasure; he loved her with his entire body.

  He was younger than she, almost six years younger. She enjoyed that, too; it was a subtle stroke to her ego that she hadn’t known she needed. Byron liked books, and movies, and taking quiet walks during which he held her hand almost the entire time. He would occasionally, and absently, lift her hand and kiss it, a spontaneous and unconscious giving of affection that almost made her burst into tears the first time he did it. He liked talking to her, and he was intelligent. He had theories and experiments that he explained to her, demonstrated to her, showing how much he appreciated her own intelligence. There were some details she didn’t quite understand yet, but at this point she trusted him implicitly. If he told her something would work, she believed him.

  “Who was the woman you saw with Davis?” he murmured against her temple. “Do you know her?”

  “No, I’d never seen her before. She’s some blond named Tina. He introduced us, but didn’t mention her last name. They were in Wal-Mart, shopping—before eight this morning. I think they’d spent the night together.”

  “Because they were at Wal-Mart?” he asked, his brows wrinkling in confusion.

  “No, because they were shopping together at Wal-Mart before eight, and she was buying clothes and underwear, makeup, ordinary stuff like that. You might run into the store that early to pick up one item that you’re out of and need, but you don’t go shopping, especially together. I think she spent the night with him, and didn’t have what she needed this morning, so they went out to buy it.”

  “But why wouldn’t she just go to her home?” He still had that confused look.

  “I don’t know.” That solution did make more sense. “Maybe she doesn’t live here. But in that case, why would she be with Knox? Why wouldn’t she just drive her own car to the store? I mean, she would have to go home and get her car before going to work, or she’d be stranded. So there was no need to go shopping if he was taking her home anyway. That doesn’t make sense.”

  Byron was really frowning now, the way he did when he was working out equations on his computer. “What did you say her name was?”

  “Tina. Why?”

  “And she’s blond?”

  “Do you know a blond named Tina?”

  “No, nothing like that. I was wondering . . . that woman he was with yesterday . . . supposedly she left town.”

  “Yes. Jason MacFarland said that Knox told him she’d decided their cases weren’t connected after all, so there was no reason to stay.”

  His brown eyes were kind as he stroked her hair. “But we know she wouldn’t have said any such thing, don’t we? She wouldn’t leave, because Pekesville is where she needs to be. She and Knox spent a long time together yesterday. And it’s very easy to change one’s hair color, after all.”

  Ruth gasped in horror, sitting up in bed and twisting around to stare at him. “You think that Tina is— Are you certain?”

  “No. I’ll have to see her before I can tell. But I think there’s a good chance she’s the same person, don’t you?” He smiled. “If so, then knowing that’s to our advantage. If you know where Knox lives, I can set up surveillance on the house. We’ll know the truth very soon.”

  19

  In less than an hour Nikita had gotten all the names of the city councilmen and county commissioners in 1985; because she had time on her hands and was nothing but thorough anyway, she also pulled up the article reporting the suicide of Howard Easley. The reporter, Max Browning, had nicely captured the shock and grief of the high school students and his fellow teachers, but especially that of the football team. Coach Easley had been a popular man. A sidebar listed the symptoms of depression, and warning signs of suicide. The obituary told where he’d been born and gone to college, how long he’d been coaching, where he went to church.

  The list of pallbearers was interesting, in that some of the councilmen and commissioners mentioned in Nikita’s list of names had carried Coach Easley to his final resting place. She made a copy of the obituary and article for Knox to read. She couldn’t think how it would be relevant, but Knox had lived here most of his life and he might notice something amiss that went completely over her head.

  Her official work finished, Nikita then spent a very happy couple of hours wandering the stacks. She slipped her miniature camera out of her bag and very discreetly filmed things she thought would be of interest in her time. The camera needed no additional light to take high-quality photographs, and the entire mechanism—indeed, everything she had brought with her—was specially made to mimic organic compounds in composition, so it would transit between times.

  That human beings were carbon-based life-forms had greatly complicated matters for the scientists when they were working out the theories and practical applications of time travel. The matter of clothing was the easiest, because after all the fabric didn’t have to do anything except hold together and provide reasonable covering. Adapting all their