I put my hand on the file, twist the dial again.
Outside the room, someone is yelling, something about an accident.
I’m trying to focus. I let myself go to the park, where she’s found, imagine myself standing on the path…
The sound of pounding feet washes over me. One of the dispatchers has sprinted down the hallway. She sticks her head into the room. “Rembrandt—it’s your car!”
My car? I stand up. “What are you—”
“It exploded. Right on the street!”
I stride to the window.
The 911 is in the parking lot, flames licking out of the broken windows, the hood, spiraling black into the sky. Sirens scream in the distance. Officers are trying to approach the car, their hands over their faces to shield them from the heat.
Oh my—“Burke!”
I turn to sprint out of the room, and slam into my table. My files knock to the floor, and on instinct, I turn to catch them, the files, my satchel—all of it as they tumble to the ground.
Forget it. They scatter about and I ignore them, stepping on them as I run toward the door.
I hear thunder, and maybe it’s an explosion outside, but the room suddenly starts to tilt, and glass is shattering, and I am falling.
Burke!
Then the locomotive rolls over me, and I plunge face first into time.
6
I’m not exactly falling because I can still feel my feet beneath me, but there’s wind and shouting and my stomach upends.
Then time blinks and I’m standing in the middle of Quincy’s, the rank odor of sweat rising around me. Boston is telling me it’s more than a feeling through overhead speakers, and I’m trying to find my footing just as a gloved fist slams through my periphery.
I don’t have the clarity to duck and the blow lands square on my jaw, knocking me back.
What the—I round on my assailant and swing hard.
It’s an uppercut that snaps his head back and he drops like a stone.
“Seriously, Rem. What was that?”
I clear my head and Burke—the young Burke, with the soul patch and hair, his body lean and defined, gets up. “I thought you wanted to play it easy.”
It’s then I remember the fire, the explosion.
My Porsche, Burke at the wheel. I desperately hope that I’m going to overwrite his death.
“Easy? Then what was that?” I say, trying to buy myself time.
“You let down your guard.”
“I…” And probably he’s right, so I grind my jaw.
He lowers his hands. “You’re still recovering from that stab wound, dude. Let’s call it.”
Stab wound.
I crane my neck and sure enough, there’s the wound, a bright red pucker, on my hip where Ramses Vega’s knife slid in behind my kidneys, just missing major organs.