Cat finally spoke up, her voice wrecked with anger. “That’s what did it? That’s why you ended up stuck in that hole? Making sure some little girl’s life was … sunshine and kittens, just so you could convince her to do what you wanted?”
“I’d hardly say her life was sunshine and kittens—”
“But taking the risk was needless. You don’t need her. I have information about another alternative,” Cat said pointedly. “I was planning to tell you yesterday, until Kaleb burst through the door and told us you were missing. Until I thought you were dead.”
He stared at Cat for a long moment. I noticed that he no longer stood straight, but slightly hunched over, as if he needed support. “Another alternative?”
el shook his head in disgust. “You’re both insane.”
Jack was quiet for a moment, his eyes calculating. “Are we really? Don’t we all have things we’d like to change in our pasts? Wrongs to right? Why wouldn’t one change devastating experiences, horrible history, if one had the choice? You know how that feels, don’t you, Emerson?”
I couldn’t speak. He’d hit too close to home.
The blue of Jack’s eyes had faded a bit, and it seemed as if his hair was no longer just blonde, but somewhat gray at the temples. “I always thought I could appeal to Grace to travel back and change things for me, if the opportunity presented itself. Kaleb dealt with so much; surely she would be sympathetic, understand my plight.”
“But she didn’t,” Michael said.
“She argued. Then she connected me to Liam’s death. I had to take action.”
My face went numb as I struggled against the nausea rising in my throat. “It was you. She didn’t try to commit suicide, or Kaleb would have felt it coming. He felt nothing. You tried to kill her.”
“I did not,” he protested politely. “I simply used my ability.”
“Your ability?” Michael asked. “Do you even have one?”
Jack laughed, a doubled-over, out-loud belly laugh. “Not an ability you’ve ever seen me use. Or rather, not one that you remember. I’ve not been allowed to use it since an unfortunate choice many moons ago. But I carry the same time-related ability gene as the two of you. Just not the travel gene.”
“Which one do you carry?” I asked, hating the weakness I heard when my voice shook. “What can you do?”
His answering smile was wide, and the creases in his face were deeper than I remembered.
“I can steal time.”
Chapter 54
How?” Michael asked. “How do you ‘steal’ time?”
“By stealing memories.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It was so easy to take Grace on a walk down memory lane. As she thought them, I took them, but only the ones keeping her alive. When she had nothing left to live for, there was a handful of prescription sleeping pills right there.” He laughed. “It’s been rather easy to keep her incapacitated. Such a waste of ability to end her life.”
“You stole Grace’s good memories. Did you steal Ava’s memories, too?” Michael pointed at Landers. “Her blackouts. You were responsible for those.”
“Yes.” He looked pleased, as if his star pupil had solved a particularly difficult problem. “I stole Grace’s memories, and Ava’s memories. And yours, Emerson.”
My nausea turned to cold dread and coated my throat.
“Mine? What do my memories have to do with this?”
“Everything, really. Grace was out of commission. I needed someone else who could travel to the past. My search for information led me to the files. The files led me to you.”
I looked up at him in disbelief. I didn’t speak. I couldn’t.
“My love, you were quite a different girl when I first found you. You mainly existed to drool and breathe, and you relived each moment of those terrible experiences every night in your dreams.” His expression took on a gracious quality, as if he was ready to accept praise. Or worship. “I took the memories of what really happened and I kept them as collateral.”
“I don’t—what do you mean, what really happened?”