Timepiece (Hourglass 2)

“Yes.” I put the guitar back in the corner. “I’ll get out of your way.”

“No, sit. I wanted to talk to both of you. About Jack.”

I warily lowered myself into a chair shaped like a giant baseball mitt. Cheerful Em made me nervous.

Putting down her glass, she cleared her throat. “I’ve been thinking about Liam, and how he doesn’t want our help to find Jack.”

“He has reasons.” Michael’s fingers curled around the edge of the bed.

“Oh, I know he does,” she said. “But I don’t like them.”

I snorted.

Em grinned at me. “There’s one easy way to find Jack, and that’s to travel through time to somewhere he could be intercepted. Dune tracked Jack and Cat making a cash withdrawal in New York and then buying plane tickets to Heathrow, so we have times and places to look.”

“But traveling is impossible without exotic matter,” Michael said.

“Which gives Liam a good reason to be in the lab, searching for what’s missing from the exotic matter formula. Michael and I need to be there to help him.” She turned wide, innocent eyes on me. “That’s where you and Lily come in.”

“I thought you didn’t want her to help,” I said, more than nervous. Almost twitchy.

“I didn’t. Then she yelled at me.” Em winced at the memory. “A lot.”

“What does that have to do with me?” I asked.

“She’s never really used her ability outside Murphy’s Law. She also told me that she can’t track things unless she’s seen them, so to find Jack, she’ll need to see something he keeps with him. All the time.”

“That’s impossible, unless we track him down.” Michael looked at Em as if she’d lost it.

“No, it isn’t,” Em answered smugly.

“How?” Michael asked.

“You forget Lily was at the masquerade. Kaleb pushed her under the stairs, but she got a good look at Jack first.” She waited for the answer to register, and we spoke at the exact same time.

“The pocket watch.”

Chapter 13

I took a picture of Jack and the pocket watch to Murphy’s Law on Monday afternoon. He’d always carried the watch with him. I thought it was pompous, but I also thought he was a tool, so I hadn’t paid much attention.

I waited for Lily at a table in the back. She took care of her customers with efficiency and a smile. Confidence. The Hourglass school was too small to provide complications like popularity and gossip, but I knew other girls who were caught up in all that. I’d bet Lily wasn’t.

She knew what she wanted, and she was all about achieving it.

“Where are Em and Michael?” Lily asked when she finally made it over to me. She stretched, rubbing the small of her back. She was wearing the Murphy’s Law apron again, and the strings were wrapped around her waist and tied in the front.

I focused on the bookcase just behind her and tried not to notice how curvy she was. “Dad needed them after school for some research.”

“So they sent you?” She sounded disappointed.

“Calm yourself, you’re going to scare the customers,” I deadpanned. “This seems to be a persistent problem with our interactions.”

“This is where I remind myself how much I love my best friend. Abi’s at the farmers’ market in Nashville, so I have a couple of hours.” She sighed and took off the apron. “Let me get rid of this so no one asks me for help.”

I watched her walk away. Such a hot little package.

Such a pain in the ass.