LOST
IN
TIME
B
Y
A.G. R
IDDLE
The Atlantis Trilogy
The Atlantis Gene
The Atlantis Plague
The Atlantis World
The Extinction Files
Pandemic
Genome
The Long Winter Trilogy
Winter World
The Solar War
The Lost Colony
Standalone
The Extinction Trials
Lost in Time
A.G.
RIDDLE
LOST
IN
TIME
First published in the UK in 2022 by Head of Zeus Ltd,
part of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Copyright © A.G. Riddle, 2022
The moral right of A.G. Riddle to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act of 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.
This is a work of fiction. All characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN (HB): 9781804541760
ISBN (XTPB): 9781804541777
ISBN (E): 9781804541753
Head of Zeus Ltd
First Floor East
5–8 Hardwick Street
London EC1R 4RG
To the many readers who have invested their precious time in my novels—past, present, and future.
CONTENTS
By A.G. Riddle
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
PART I: A DISCOVERY ABOUT TIME
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
PART II: A MYSTERY OF PAST, PRESENT, AND FUTURE
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
Thirty-Seven
Thirty-Eight
Thirty-Nine
Forty
Forty-One
Forty-Two
Forty-Three
PART III: ALL OUR FORGOTTEN TOMORROWS
Forty-Four
Forty-Five
Forty-Six
Forty-Seven
Forty-Eight
Forty-Nine
Fifty
Fifty-One
Fifty-Two
Fifty-Three
Fifty-Four
Fifty-Five
Fifty-Six
Fifty-Seven
Fifty-Eight
PART IV: ENDINGS, BURIALS, AND BEGINNINGS
Fifty-Nine
Sixty
Sixty-One
Sixty-Two
Sixty-Three
Sixty-Four
Sixty-Five
Sixty-Six
Sixty-Seven
Sixty-Eight
Sixty-Nine
Seventy
Seventy-One
Seventy-Two
PART V: ABSOLOM ISLAND
Seventy-Three
Seventy-Four
Seventy-Five
Seventy-Six
Seventy-Seven
Seventy-Eight
Seventy-Nine
Eighty
Epilogue
Author’s Note
About the Author
An Invitation from the Publisher
PART I
A DISCOVERY ABOUT TIME
ONE
On the anniversary of his wife’s death, Sam Anderson visited her grave.
It was a crisp spring morning in Nevada, with dew on the grass and fog rolling through the cemetery. In one hand, Sam carried a bouquet of flowers. In the other, he gripped his son’s hand. Ryan was eleven years old and strong-willed and introverted, like his mother. After her death, he had withdrawn, spending even more time alone, playing with LEGOs, reading, and generally avoiding life.
Counseling had yielded little help for Ryan. At home, Sam had searched for a way to get through to his only son, but he had to admit: he wasn’t half the parent his wife had been. Most days, he felt like he was simply reacting to his children, making it up as he went, working on a mystery without any clues.
He hoped the visit to Sarah’s grave this morning would be the start of turning that around.
Sam’s daughter, Adeline, gripped Ryan’s other hand. She was nineteen years old, and to all outward appearances seemed to have coped better with her mother’s passing. But Sam wondered if Adeline was just a better actor than Ryan or himself. He worried about that too, about her bottling it all up and carrying the burden of unaddressed grief.
Last night, he had seen a glimpse of her hidden rage. Adeline was still furious with him over the evening’s argument. So angry she wouldn’t even hold his hand or look at him. Hence, Ryan walking between them.
But she had agreed to be there that morning, and Sam was thankful for that.
They walked in silence through the cemetery much like they had floated through life since Sarah’s death: hand-in-hand, trying to find their way through it all.
Fog drifted in front of the headstones like a curtain being drawn and opened. Across the cemetery, sprinkler heads rose and began deploying water. The cemetery likely cost a fortune to irrigate out in the Nevada desert, but of all the problems Absolom City had, money wasn’t one.
At the edge of the grass, Sam thought he saw a figure watching them. He turned his head, and yes, there was a man there. He wore a dark uniform, though Sam couldn’t make it out from this distance. Fog floated in front of the man, and when Sam looked again, he was gone.
Ryan must have felt his father slow down.
“What is it, Dad?”
“Nothing,” he muttered, resuming their pace, tugging on his son’s hand.
Near Sarah’s grave, Sam spotted a man and a woman standing on the other side of the cemetery. They were also wearing dark uniforms. Sam’s first instinct was that they were here for a burial service. But they didn’t move deeper into the maze of graves. They stood there, staring at Sam and his family.
He set the flowers at the base of Sarah’s headstone and tried to put the figures out of his mind.
Mentally, he had rehearsed the lines he wanted to say a hundred times. And as he spoke the first words into that foggy April morning, they sounded just like that to him: rehearsed and passionless.
“I’d like to say something.”
Adeline’s gaze shifted away from him. Ryan stared at his shoes.
Sam decided right then to drop the speech and say the first thing that came to his mind. That thing was a memory.
“I want to tell you what your mom said to me one of the last times I saw her.”
Adeline’s head turned quickly. Ryan looked up.
“She told me that it would make her very sad if she was what kept me from being happy after she was gone. I think she meant that for all of us. She was selfless like that—in life and even after.”
Adeline closed her eyes and raised her fingers to her eyelids. A warm wind blew across the three of them. A tear leaked from the edge of Adeline’s right eye and lingered there, soaking itself in mascara, and slowly began painting its way down her cheek as if an invisible hand was drawing warpaint on her face.