“Not ever?” Iffy asks.
“Not ever. It’s over.”
She looks at me. “So you’ve decided to let my world hang around for a while?”
I smile. “Don’t you mean our world?”
Ellie still hasn’t completely accepted what’s going on. Who would in her position? Instead of being two years younger than she is, I’m now five years older, and the world she knows and understands is gone.
Iffy has helped me get an apartment in San Diego, where I live with my sister while she’s getting treatments. It is cancer, after all. But the doctors have caught it early and feel confident about a full recovery. It all costs money, of course. Let’s just say with Lidia’s Chaser (after I figured out how to link to it) and Iffy’s native knowledge, there are plenty of places to find cash. The illegal drug business is one of my favorites. It’s ugly yet lucrative, so I have no moral problem taking from drug merchants. My only criteria is that those I “visit” must be thousands of miles away from San Diego.
I’m thinking about using some of the cash to attend college soon. Not sure what I’ll study. History would be the natural subject, but, well, I should probably branch out a little. We’ll see.
The other thing I’ve used Lidia’s Chaser for is to create identities for Ellie and me. After a bit of research, I’ve even planted records in the court system, officially making myself my sister’s guardian.
Iffy is in San Diego, too, living again at her parents’. She and Ellie have become good friends, and sometimes when the three of us are together it almost feels like this world is the only one that’s ever been, and I can, for a little while, forget what I’ve done.
On June 20, Iffy and I drive back to Los Angeles. The traffic is horrible and I’m worried we’ll be late, but we reach Santa Monica Pier by a quarter to four.
“Do you want to do this alone, or…?” she asks after we get out of the car.
I take her hand. “I want you to come with me.”
We walk on the wooden boards high above the ocean. Unlike the last time we were here, the amusement park is open. Bells and music and laughter all but drown out the crashing waves below us. I scan those we pass, looking for faces I know, but see none.
We reach the end of the pier two minutes before four o’clock. I lean against the railing again, searching the crowd, certain that at any moment Marie will appear. But the top of the hour passes without her or Sir Gregory or Other Me showing up.
“Maybe she forgot,” Iffy says.
“Could be,” I say, but I know Marie would have never forgotten. My fear is they were unable to get away.
We wait another thirty minutes before we start walking back. Halfway down the pier, someone walking about fifty feet in front of us glances back in our direction. I slow in surprise, thinking it’s Marie. She’s walking with a man who, from the back, looks a lot like me.
Within moments, they disappear into the larger crowd in front of the amusement park.
I rush forward, pulling Iffy along behind me, but though we look everywhere, we don’t find them. I insist we wait until dark, but still the others don’t show up. With much reluctance, we head to the car.
As we climb in, Iffy says, “How about some dinner?”
“Why not?” I say, though I have no appetite.
“Peruvian?”
This brings a smile to my face, and a faint growl to my stomach. “That would be perfect.”
Slipping her arms around me, we kiss, and my disappointment begins to fade.
Maybe the people I saw were Marie and Other Me. Or maybe they’re out there somewhen else.
And maybe, just maybe, I’ll find them someday.
After all, there’s always time.
Acknowledgments
I am greatly indebted to my editor, Elyse Dinh-McCrillis, for her tireless work; to my friends and two of my favorite authors, Tim Hallinan and Robert Gregory Browne, for their insight and encouragement; and to Dawn Rej, Jill Fulkerson Marnell, Corri Gutzman, Steve Manke, Paulette Feeney, and the “street team” for being early readers, and helping to make this novel even better.
I’m glad the story didn’t make any of your heads explode.