Tempest. Part 35

As expected, he had no facial reaction. "Why? To convince your girlfriend? I think Adam Silverman could produce authentic enough identification to convince her. You don't need my help with that."

"I'm talking about actual agent training." I ground my teeth together, trying to control my anger. Chief Marshall wasn't exactly my favorite person. "I know about Jenni Stewart. You let her in when she was nineteen."

"I don't think your father would be very happy with me."

"He's not my father, and why do you think I left him out of this conversation?" I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to come up with something more convincing. "I know Agent Stewart has a couple months left of training. You can throw me in with that group."

"As a time traveler, right? That's your contribution?" He had that same greedy look he'd had in 1996. "You could add some more a.s.sets to the list, since you've been to October of this year. You must know something about the next few months."

He must have gotten debriefed quickly because he sure seemed to know every detail.

I shook my head. "No, I'm not gonna let you use me for that. I don't want anyone to know. I'm sure my family connection will be convincing enough."

He crossed his arms and I could see the ideas and theories whirling around in his head. "I won't agree unless I know your motivation."

I snorted back a laugh. "Wanting to kill some EOTs isn't enough for you?"

"Not if it's a lie."

I let out an exasperated breath. "Fine, the reason is simple, I have to choose a side. That's my only motivation right now."

He nodded and stuck out his hand, and I took it, tentatively. "Exactly what I wanted to hear. I'll talk to your father, but you do realize everything about your life is about to change, right?"

"Hasn't it already?" I said with a shrug.

I left him and returned to Holly and Adam. I intentionally avoided eye contact with Dad.

"I'm totally beat. I was up all night," Adam said a little while later, when the sun had started to set. "Your dad got me a room already, so I'm gonna crash."

"See ya later, Adam," I said.

Holly nodded toward the poolside bar where Freeman and Dad were still sitting. "So, you're still mad at him?"

"It's complicated."

Her forehead wrinkled. "Explain, then ... he is still the man who raised you, right? That has to count for something."

She waited patiently and I had a feeling this was the kind of information she wanted most from me. More than the CIA secrets. "Yeah, it counts for something ... but I'm still not sure I can trust him."

"Maybe you will ... eventually. You won't have as many secrets now."

"I hope so." I moved my hands to her face, looking into her eyes. I wanted so many things at that moment. Things I'd never wanted before. But mostly I didn't want to lose this memory. Or for her to lose it. "You ready to go inside?"

She smiled. "Definitely."

We left the bar and walked quickly back to our room. The second I turned the lock on the door, Holly was right in front of me, unb.u.t.toning my shirt.

"Look who's lacking patience today," I teased.

Even in the dim light, I could see her cheeks turn pink. I loved that I could still make her blush.

My fingers found the zipper on the back of her dress and I slowly brought it down and nudged the shoulder straps farther down her arms until the dress fell to the floor next to my shirt.

"Just so you know ... I haven't done this in a while." I picked her up off the ground and her legs wrapped around me.

She laughed loudly as I dropped her onto the bed. "Seriously? What crazy world are you living in? It's only been-"

I touched my fingers to her lips. "Let's pretend it's been a long time ... weeks."

"Like you were lost at sea?"

"Exactly."

Around midnight, the sound of my phone buzzing jolted me awake. Holly was curled up against my side but barely stirred when I reached under the pillow to pull out my phone.

"Dad?"

"Sorry if I woke you. Think you could meet me downstairs at the bar?"

No hiding out now. If I didn't go, they would just come in here and put a rag over my face or something.

"Give me five minutes."

"Take as long as you need," he said.

I shook Holly a little and rolled on my side to face her. "Hol? Holly?"

Her eyes peeled open. "Huh?"

"My dad wants me to meet him at the bar, okay? He wants to talk or something."

She flipped over on her other side and pulled the covers up to her chin. "Sure."

"I won't be long." I moved her hair from her face and touched my lips to her cheek. "I love you."

Her fingertips rested on my face and she smiled. "Me, too."

I got dressed quickly, making sure to grab Freeman's gun.

When I walked into the bar, it was completely empty except for Dad and the bartender, who was laughing at something Dad had just told him.

"Are you alone?" I asked him.

He turned to the bartender. "We'll take our drinks over to the booth, if that's all right?"

"Sure thing."

I followed him across the deserted room to a booth. He slid a beer in front of me and I could tell by looking at his face that he'd already had quite a few. Not typical for an agent on duty.

"I'm alone," he said. "Freeman and Melvin are ... detained."

"Okay," I said slowly.

"Melvin told me everything you talked about. Look, Jackson, I've been going over this for hours and you shouldn't be forced into this life just because you think there's no other way."

"You wanted to teach me stuff in 2007," I pointed out.

He chugged the rest of his beer, then shook his head. "I don't know. Maybe I thought you would be safer under our watch or that you needed training."

"And now?"

"I'm not sure you have a good grasp on the sacrifices it takes to devote your life to something you can't tell anyone about. Not even your own children."

For a few seconds, he had me. The intensity in his eyes. I wanted to believe every word, to tell him I loved him, but I couldn't be one hundred percent sure he wasn't still playing games. "I can't help people I don't trust. I don't want to be tricked or fooled into things."

He leaned back in his seat and drew in a deep breath. "We were just trying to protect you. It's a lot to accept all at once."

"I get that. But now I'm at the point where I'd rather you just tell me. No matter how bad it is. Killing people or whatever." The horrible memory of Chief Marshall giving Dad orders to shoot that Harold dude came flooding back. "How do you even do this ... kill people and go on living, not feeling any guilt? Is everything an act to you? Even being a father? It was your a.s.signment, right?"

I expected him to get angry, like I was. But he just nodded and looked down at his hands before meeting my eyes again. "There's something I want you to see. Something in the past. But you only have to watch, no tricks. It will answer a lot of your questions. Just do the half-jump. The one that won't affect history."

"I guess Adam told you about half-jumps?" I asked, and he nodded. "When am I jumping to? What's the date?"

"October second, 1992," he said. "About three in the afternoon."

"That's further than I've ever gone back. It's going to make me sick. Really sick. And I don't know how long I'll be able to stay."

"I know. It's up to you if you want to try or not."

All I could see in his expression was pure grief and exhaustion. This wasn't the excited energy that 007 Marshall, Melvin, and Dad had when I had given accounts of the past or the future. He pulled a pen from his pocket and drew a little map of Central Park and circled an old playground. Then he handed me what looked like an MP3 player, but I knew it magnified sound from a distance. Jenni Stewart had shown me hers that day I wrote a Spanish paper for her as a bribe for secrets.

I closed my eyes and let the warmth of the room dissolve.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO.

OCTOBER 2, 1992, 3:00 P.M.

I stood in the middle of the baseball field, not far from the tree I would fall out of and break my arm in four years. From a distance, I could make out one of the playgrounds I remembered spending a lot of time at as a kid. Either with Dad or whatever nanny we had at the time.

As I walked closer, a man about my dad's size pushed a little person with a bright pink sweater on the swing. A little boy with brown hair attempted to climb the slide, while a woman with lighter brown hair shoved his rear end up every time he slid back down.

Courtney and I would have been two years old on this day ... it had to be us. I sat down at a picnic table and turned on the little device Dad had just given me. Then I slipped my earbuds into place.

Dad was definitely the man pushing Courtney in the swing, but he looked so young. Maybe twenty-four or twenty-five. The map Dad had given me was folded up inside my back pocket. I pulled it out and laid it on the table so it looked like I was studying something.

He took the redheaded toddler out of the swing and carried her toward the sandbox. Then the woman picked the younger me up and joined them in the sand. It was so weird to see myself, still in diapers, toddling around, trying to climb up the steep slide like Spider-Man.

Dad sat on the edge of the sandbox, Courtney at his feet. I could hear her singing. It sounded like gibberish at first, but then I realized she was singing in French while chewing on a shovel covered in sand.

A woman's voice joined in with Courtney's song and it was familiar. Or maybe just pleasant enough to feel familiar. She must have been a nanny or babysitter. She almost looked young enough to be a college student. Maybe she worked for Dad while going to school.

She sat on the bench next to the sandbox. My toddler self jumped into the sand and continued to hop all the way across.

"Do you want a bucket?" Dad asked Courtney.

She nodded her head, shaking the little pigtails that stuck out sideways, and kept on singing. Dad set the blue bucket in front of Courtney and then glanced at the woman and smiled. It wasn't the kind of look you'd give your hired help or even a secret-agent partner.

It was something more.

The little me hopped right behind Courtney and grabbed a fistful of sand, then sprinkled it onto her head. "Raining, raining."

She slapped her chubby hands over her face and screamed, "No!"

For a moment I was captivated by my two-year-old self's ability to produce the most innocent yet devious look ever. It was as if I lived to make Courtney shriek like that.

"No, Jackson," Dad said.

Courtney turned around and pushed my face away with both hands. "Stop!"

She pushed the little me so hard, I fell down on my b.u.t.t. Little me stood up right away and grabbed a dump truck and started driving over the mounds of sand.

"Let's make a castle for Princess Courtney," Dad said.

I rolled my eyes. So that's how it started. My entire childhood, it was always, "I'm the Princess, so I'm in charge. Daddy said so."

Dad filled a bucket using Courtney's shovel, but I could see him scanning the trees beyond the park, checking for something. Working. Courtney grabbed handfuls of sand and tossed them into the bucket. She patted the top and then pointed to Dad and said, "Kevin."

Only it sounded like, "Kebin." But she wasn't calling him Dad. I didn't have a chance to contemplate that because the woman on the bench got up and sat right in the sand. "Jackson, you can decorate me. I don't mind."

She had a Scottish accent. The little me grabbed some sand to sprinkle over the woman's head. She just laughed and leaned her head back, eyes closed. I could see her face clearly now from where I sat. She was very pretty, radiant in a way, but also plain. Maybe she was just happy. Happy about a little boy dumping sand over her head.

The woman s.n.a.t.c.hed the little me in her arms and started kissing my face while the younger me laughed this loud giggle that rang through my earbuds.

"We can make sand angels," she said.

I watched with fascination as she lay back in the sand next to little me, spreading her arms out and flapping them like she expected to fly away. Courtney looked up from her castle and giggled, then crawled over next to me to make her own sand angel.

"You'll be shaking sand out of their heads for days," Dad said, turning over Courtney's bucket. "This is just like the finger-paint that never made it to the paper."

His voice was filled with affection, not annoyance.