Page 43 of The Paradox Club

“I’m saying,” said Tess firmly, “that I’m the only one at this address.”

The hulk reached up and pulled his glasses just far enough down so that he could bore into Tess with his deep brown eyes. “Would it be all right if we came in and looked around?” he said.

“It would not,” said Tess. “Unless you’d care to give me some identification and a warrant.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said the wisp. “We’ll be going now.”

“Good day, ma’am,” said the hulk, sliding his sunglasses back up. He turned and walked across the porch and down the steps to the flagstone path that led to the street, but the wisp stood motionless, still looking at Tess. The hulk stopped and turned back toward them.

“Aren’t you going to join your friend?” said Tess.

She had, often enough, struggled to know what to say. To a roommate about her compulsive behaviors, to a therapist about Harry, to Vivian about her stories. Tess recognized the look of someone unsure of how to proceed. The wisp seemed caught between his companion and Tess—as if he wanted to tell her something but couldn’t with the hulk listening.

“Tell Vivian Harbottle we look forward to chatting with her,” said the wisp, finally turning to follow the hulk. Tess watched as the two men walked down the street, silhouetted against the morning sun. The wisp made no attempt to catch up with the hulk and the hulk didn’t slow his pace to allow the wisp to draw even. At the end of the block, the hulk turned left onto Hudson Street and disappeared behind the Romanos’ garage. A moment later, the wisp followed.

If danger comes, you will recognize it, Harry had said. Find Vivian and get to the island. Simple enough instructions, but she had no idea where Vivian’s class was this morning. Besides, Vivian would be home in about an hour. That gave Tess time to get dressed and ready to go. She could pack a bag for Vivian, too, and maybe pull together a box of groceries. There would be nothing to eat on the island. She wondered if Vivian had sleeping bags in the back of a closet somewhere. By the time she closed the door, she had a plan in place and a mental list but as soon as she stepped back into her room and saw her laptop sitting on her old desk the list seemed to evaporate as quickly as it had materialized.

Who the hell were the men in black? As much as she knew that she should rush to prepare for Vivian’s return and the journey to the island, Tess couldn’t resist trying to find out something about them. She’d give herself fifteen minutes to dig—that would still leave time to pack. She slipped into her desk chair, shut her eyes, and slowed her breathing. She could often summon forth the stars when she did this, especially Arcturus, Harry’s star that he said would always guide her. Now, though, in place of Arcturus or Gemini or Orion she saw an electron orbiting the letters C and P. The pin that the men in black suits wore.

She opened her laptop and began to search. CP was mostly commonly used as an abbreviation for cerebral palsy, she discovered. Those men were certainly not raising money or awareness for cerebral palsy or any other illness. She also dismissed the idea that they had anything to do with Canadian Pacific Railway, Comboios de Portugal (another railway system), or the C.P. sportswear company. After searching for CP, she thought perhaps she had read the interlacing letters backward and tried PC. In addition to the obvious politically correct and personal computer she found the stock symbol for Pirelli, the Italian tire company; the Latin phrase post cibum, meaning after meals; and prostate cancer—all obvious dead ends. She tried every kind of search she could think of—even sketching out the pin, photographing her drawing, and running a Google image search. Nothing.

The clock at the top of her screen read eight thirty. Better get packing, she thought, not knowing it was already too late.

DON’T DO ANYTHING ELSE STUPID

While most of Vivian’s mind was occupied with her class on advanced quantum mechanics and the eight confused students staring back at her as they grappled with the mysteries of the universe, a small part of it turned over and over the text message she had received from Richard Pollard early that morning. Other than a quick call to let her know that he had arrived at the Lakeside Resort, Vivian hadn’t heard from Richard since he left Florida. But this morning a cryptic message had arrived. I’ll be at your house midmorning or sooner. Don’t do anything else stupid. What did he mean “Don’t do anything else stupid”? The implication was clear—she had already done something stupid. But what? Did it have something to do with Tess?

Vivian had kept Tess in the house except for the one excursion to Marie’s. Besides, no one knew who Tess was. Those few neighbors with whom Vivian had any contact had believed the story that she was Vivian’s orphaned niece. None of them would have found it odd to see Tess arrive at the house. And no one else knew she was there. Except for Marie. Had Marie told someone? Not likely. What had Vivian done to make Richard scold her? For what seemed like the millionth time in the past ten years, she missed Harry.

Vivian had frequently sat in the dark, her feet dangling off the dock into the water, listening as Harry explained some aspect of science to Tess. Had he ever tried to explain quantum mechanics? Not likely. A twelve-year-old simply couldn’t grasp the concepts. He did try relativity on more than one occasion. She remembered the second time Harry tried to elucidate the concept of time moving more slowly as an object approaches the speed of light.

“So, if you travel through space for a hundred years,” Tess said, “when you come back, we’ll be the same age?”

“Something like that,” Harry said.

“I’d miss you if you were gone for a hundred years.”

“I’d miss you, too.”

“Maybe you should stay here after all.”

“Maybe so,” Harry said.

Tess had fallen asleep on the dock that night and Harry had carried her up to the house and tucked her in. When Vivian came to bed two hours later, she was just drifting off to sleep when Tess said, “Aunt Vivian, do you think Harry will ever really travel in space?”

“I don’t know,” Vivian said. Space travel fascinated Harry, and unlike in his youth the astronaut club was no longer limited to test pilots. These days there was plenty of room in space for an ordinary astrophysicist.

“If he does, I hope he’s not gone for a hundred years.”

“I’m sure he’ll never be gone for a hundred years,” Vivian said.

But now it felt as if Harry had been gone for a hundred years. Marie might have found someone to fill the void Harry had left behind, but neither Vivian nor Tess had managed that trick. Now Vivian wanted Harry to tell her what she should do tomorrow on October 14, what she should tell Tess about the night of the fire, whether she should be worried about Pilgrim 3. Perhaps Harry could even tell Vivian what the hell she had done that Richard considered “stupid.”

Richard’s GPS informed him he had an hour to go before arriving at Vivian’s. He nudged his speed up another five miles an hour. If Pilgrim 3 and her cohorts got their hands on the radio, the results could be unpleasant at the least. But if they found Harry’s daughter, that could be disastrous for everyone, especially Tess herself. He wondered if Vivian had been in the middle of one of her stories, events that played out like an alternate reality for her, when she turned on the radio. She might not even know she had done it. The only thing in which he could take comfort at the moment was that he was a lot closer to Vivian’s house than the Paradox Club was. Even if Pilgrim 3 had sent goons to Vivian’s the second the board lit up, they’d take the better part of the day getting there. He figured he’d have time to get Tess and Vivian out of there and take them someplace safe.

He was wrong.

ONUS PROBANDI