“Do you have a place here?”she asked.She couldn’t go back to her room, could she?She’d need more time to consider that.If they were agency, then they’d know where she’d stayed and possibly already searched it.
And now they knew she’d spotted them, they might figure she wouldn’t go back there.So maybe she could go back?
Red shook his head.“I was going to do something about that later.”
He must have arrived on the bus.He’d made no mention of a car.She was sure he would have.
“Let’s see if we can shake off those two guys and we can figure out our next move.”
She saw his eyes widen slightly and his lips twitched.“Sorry,” she said.“I’m making a lot of assumptions.If you want to part ways, could you cover for me in the store?”
“If that’s what you want,” he said.“But if I can help…”
Against her will, she smiled at him.She should have been screaming worried about him and who he was.He hadn’t asked her nearly enough questions.But she kept circling around to her gut instinct.
And her sense that he might be her only hope of getting out of this alive.
Even though she knew what she’d find, Stella launched the search again.It seemed that acts of futility were all she had left.
The system delivered the same result.
No data found.
It didn’t present its finding—or lack of findings—visually, but Stella imagined the gap as a ragged hole, the extraction lacking precision as Alastor hurried the process.
The time stamps were all there.His log in.His log out.What he did wasn’t in the time stamps, but then it didn’t have to be there.It was gone.It almost make her smile that he’d tried to cover that big track.
Or had he done it to taunt her?
She hadn’t known him as well as she thought she had, but she’d assumed his—empty spots had to do with some sorrow in his past.
A jagged hole not unlike the one he’d left in her research.
He’d have protested that it wasn’t justherresearch.He’d brought her here and read her into it.He’d been working on it.
And he’d been thoroughly stuck.
She’d figured it out and everything since that place where she’d started—it was hers.And that is what was gone.
It was in her head.She could do it again.Alastor knew that.He also knew it would take time.And would she remember the places where he’d sent her into side roads to solidify the concepts?
Did she need to recreate it to figure out what he wanted with that research?What did he intend to do with it?
It was about time because everything in the agency was about time.Was she making it more complicated?At its heart, her research had helped them track the impact their agents had on the timeline.
As soon as she realized the research was gone, she’d recalled everyone from the field she could.
But she couldn’t afford to shut down John’s project.The other time travelers were a different kind of threat.
She should have told John.So why hadn’t she?It wasn’t as if he had high expectations of anyone anymore.
Not knowing put him and his operation at risk.
Was she still capable of being embarrassed?
It might be that, which upped the possible level of embarrassment.But what she told herself?She couldn’t brief him on what she didn’t know.And there was too much she didn’t know about why that research and what Alastor could do with it.
So that was her story.A wry grin lifted the edge of her mouth.And for now, she was sticking to it.
