The Syndicate (Timewaves Book 1)

  Clara smiled brightly, as I’d hoped she would. In my experience, it was best to leave a trail of kindness behind when on a run. In our line of work, you never knew when people might become assets.

  The nurse and I chatted easily while Cyrus and Dr. Marie finished their discussion. After handshakes and goodbyes all around, my boss and I headed outside. Waiting until we were in the car, safely out of range of prying eyes and ears, I turned to Cyrus and gave him a dubious look.

  “Care to tell me what that was all about?”

  “You haven’t figured it out?” Cyrus asked with a chuckle. “We need to step-up your deductive reasoning training.”

  Being the mature professional I was, I stuck my tongue out at him. He snorted—very un-Cyrus-like—then started the car’s engine.

  “No, I’m afraid I don’t understand the logic behind providing a private nurse for a murderer,” I intoned. “Maybe too much time with Gaige is dulling my mental capacities.”

  “I would not be surprised,” answered my boss, the corner of his mouth quirking as he drove past the guard gate. “The alchemists will need some time to clear up the legal matters and convince the doctors that Lachlan should be released. They’ll be working overtime to solve this problem.”

  My mind briefly filled with pleasant thoughts of Ines nursing scores of paper cuts after being forced to file the paperwork for it all.

  “So…?” I asked, shaking my head to clear the mean notion. “Why put up such a fuss for a nurse?”

  “James is not a nurse,” he replied. “James is a bodyguard. Well, he will be. He’s an alchemist, but his training included the skills we need right now. James is the perfect person to watch Lachlan for us, and pretending to be a nurse is the perfect cover.”

  “Are you sending him to protect Lachlan, or to protect people from Lachlan?” I asked, marveling at Cyrus’s capacity for planning ahead.

  “Both,” my boss said simply. He gestured to the file still clutched in my hands. “Have you looked at that yet?”

  “Nope, I was busy smoothing over things with Clara.” I opened the folder and laid it across my lap. “Someone once told me that we shouldn’t leave people on bad terms, if it can be helped.”

  “Thank you for being so helpful,” Cyrus replied in a dry tone.

  “You’re welcome,” I declared cheerily.

  Turning my attention to Lachlan’s records, I pulled the meager stack of pages from the folder and began flipping through them. Other than the police report, there were only result sheets from his psychological tests and the hospital’s medical lab.

  “Lachlan does not have polio,” I announced.

  “Good to know.”

  “He also appears to be suffering from several psychological disorders,” I said, reading off the list of possibilities.

  “Or time sickness,” Cyrus corrected.

  “Blah, blah, blah, Lachlan’s only words are ‘Not my name’,” I continued.

  “So I noticed.”

  “They inventoried his injuries when he arrived. Contusions…abrasions…lacerations,” I recited, taking a closer look at the comments on his intake sheet. “The wound on his arm was indeed there then. According to this, ‘the wound appears to be self-inflicted, most likely within the past forty-eight hours’.” I looked up from the pages, incredulous. “How is it possible that they thought that? No one can cut a line that straight with their non-dominant hand, much less while enduring the pain.”

  “He was a crazy man they found wandering in the park—I doubt they thought about it too much,” Cyrus replied.

  Shaking my head, I flipped to the next page, which turned out to be the first one again. I straightened the stack and positioned it to fit the folder’s clips through the holes on top of each piece of paper.

  “That’s it, there’s—”

  I fell silent as something caught my eye. Something that made me stare intently, then frantically flip back to his intake form.

  “Find something?” Cyrus asked, his eyes darting back and forth between the road and me.

  “I…,” I began, turning back to each sheet to confirm what I’d found.

  When I’d checked each page of Lachlan’s records, I let my hands fall to my lap. Peering over at my boss, I wondered how he was going to take it.

  “I have good news and bad news,” I hedged. “Which would you like first?”

  “Good,” Cyrus replied without hesitation.

  “Lachlan is definitely not the Night Gentleman.”

  He shot me a severe look.

  “What’s the bad news?”

  “We have no idea who is.”

  “THURSDAY? ARE YOU sure?” Cyrus asked.

  “Definitely. Thursday, March 26th,” I assured him. “I noticed the date first on his police report, but the dates on all of the other pages match up with him being there from the 26th on.”

  “Well, shant,” my boss swore.

  We drove for several minutes in silence. I stayed quiet, allowing Cyrus’s hyper-speed brain to work through all of the ramifications and possibilities of this new information. When we stopped at a traffic light, my boss turned to me.

  “That was an excellent catch,” he said. Cyrus’s expression was a confusing mix of respect, worry, relief and…it looked like pride, but I couldn’t be sure. “I’m sorry, I should’ve told you that right away. You did well, Stassi. I wasn’t even going to ask for the file. I figured there wouldn’t be anything helpful in it since we already know what’s wrong with him.”

  “Just doing my job,” I replied, hiding a wide grin. Cyrus wasn’t promiscuous with compliments, which made it all the more rewarding when he gave one.

  He pointed to the bag lying on the seat between us as the light turned green.

  “Care to continue using those sleuthing skills?”

  “Ugh, really?” I asked, my smile disappearing with the thought of touching the contents. “I was thinking that you might like to do it when we get back.”

  “Not a chance,” Cyrus shot back.

  With an exaggerated sigh, I picked up the bag, clutching it only between my thumb and forefinger. I took a deep breath and held it in, then pulled out the sole item—a pair of tattered navy pants caked with mud and other substances I preferred not to think about. When my lungs began burning, I gave up and took another breath. The eau de chamberpot wafting off of the filthy fabric was so strong that I immediately reached for the handle to roll my window down.

  Glaring down at the offending pants, I wished we had sealant spray with us, or at least plastic gloves. Anything so that my skin didn’t have to come in contact with the source of the noxious odor. I wasn’t worried about germs or catching some old-time disease—the vaccines we received on the island made our immune systems practically impenetrable—it was really just the ick-factor that made me hesitate.

  Cyrus glanced over when we were stopped at another light and chuckled.

  “I don’t think a visual examination will suffice in this case,” he said with a grin. “I’m afraid you’re going to have to get your hands a bit dirty…literally.”

  My glare was transferred from the pants to my boss. He was enjoying this entirely too much. Keeping my eyes on him, I grasped fistfuls of the filthy fabric with both hands.

  “Does this make you happy, boss?” I asked.

  “Delighted,” he replied. “Now check the pockets.”

  When I complied with his request, I found only bits of pocket lint and two peppermint wrappers. As I grasped the waistband and turned to the other side of the garment to check the back pockets as well, my fingers encountered a small, square lump that made me pause. Bringing the garment uncomfortably close to my face, I peered down at the grimy fabric. Sure enough, on the inside of the waistband, a small opening was cut into the lining.

  “No way…,” I trailed off.

  “Find something?” Cyrus asked, his brow wrinkled.

  “Yeah,” I replied, looking at him uncertainly. “A runner pocket.”

&n
bsp; By that, I was referring to the small, hidden pockets found in the clothing worn by runners when we were on missions. For the most part, we used them to keep our tech from the future with us on runs that required it, though they were also invaluable when absconding with small items. In instances when we were searched, runner pockets were rarely found, since waistbands, hems, and the linings of clothes weren’t closely examined.

  I slid my index finger into the opening I’d found and pulled out a slim, silver object.

  “What’s in it?” my boss asked, one eye on the road while the other peered at my find.

  “His camera,” I replied, furrowing my forehead in confusion. “But didn’t we find his camera in the hotel room?”

  “Yeah, we did,” my boss answered, looking just as baffled as I felt.

  “It doesn’t make sense for him to have another one with him,” I pointed out. “The memory on these things is huge—it’s nearly impossible to fill up. Why would he bring two?”

  Cyrus was quiet for a long minute as I tried to turn the device on.

  “The battery is dead,” I told him.

  “We need to take a closer look at the photos on both of the cameras,” he replied, pulling the car to a stop in front of our townhouse. “There’s a reason for the second one, maybe pictures he didn’t want anyone to see.”

  “Since he wasn’t permitted to be here, wouldn’t that be all of the pictures he took?” I reasoned.

  My boss let out a deep sigh as he opened his car door.

  “That would make sense,” he said, sounding tired. “But nothing about this entire situation makes sense.”

  Movement from the sidewalk caught my eye, drawing my attention away from the nonsensical.

  “Who’s that?” I asked, pointing to a boy who was pacing in front of the townhouse. Cyrus’s posture immediately tensed. He stepped out of the car, and I scurried to follow.

  The kid looked to be in his early teens. He walked to the far window of the hat shop, his head sweeping from side to side as he kept alert to his surroundings. When he turned to begin the walk back to our doorstep again, he started when he saw Cyrus and me watching him. With a decidedly worried expression on his youthful features, he hurried over to us.

  “May I help you with something?” my boss asked in French.

  “Do you live here?” the boy replied, also in French.

  “We do.”

  A relieved smile spread across the teen’s smooth cheeks. He gestured to the steps in front of our door, where a vase sat with what looked to be several dozen roses. My blood ran cold at the sight. I didn’t know how I’d possibly missed them, even with my attention on the kid.

  “I have a delivery for Anastasia Prince,” he said, still speaking to Cyrus.

  “That’s me,” I said quietly, my gaze still locked on the offending buds. Would there ever again be a time when the sight of red roses didn’t bring a feeling of unease?

  Apparently the delivery boy’s English wasn’t great, or even good, because he simply tilted his head to the side and stared at me like a puzzled puppy when I spoke.

  “C’est moi,” I repeated, and then continued on in the boy’s native language. “Who are they from?”

  “This I do not know, miss,” the boy said. He handed me an envelope from inside his jacket pocket. The contents were weighty, something more than a simple note. The pageboy retrieved the flowers, but Cyrus intercepted him before he could hand the arrangement to me.

  Holding the vase away from him as though the flowers might bite, Cyrus fished some money from his pocket and sent the boy on his way with a handsome tip.

  Once inside, Cyrus set the vase on the kitchen counter. “Do not touch any of it until I get sealant spray,” he directed.

  My boss returned a moment later with a can of hand sealant spray, tweezers, and Dr. Merriweather. Both men wore identical my-dog-just-died expressions that made my stomach plummet. After coating his hands, Cyrus reached for the envelope I’d set on the island countertop.

  “Stassi, wash your hands,” he instructed me, before turning to the doctor. “Tell her.”

  I turned to the sink behind me and complied, waiting expectantly for Merriweather’s words.

  “What do you know about Dragon Dust?” the doctor finally asked, his voice so low, it was hard to hear over the running water.

  “Excuse me?” I sputtered.

  “Oxydryaphane,” Dr. Merriweather repeated. “The colloquial term used on the streets is Dragon Dust.”

  “Yeah, I know what it is,” I said, rinsing the soap off my hands. Grabbing a cotton hand towel, I turned back to face the two men. “It’s nasty stuff. There were some problems with it in the work camp….” I trailed off, not wanting to go back down that road.

  “I figured you’d know what it is,” Cyrus said in a low voice, not looking up from the envelope that came with my flowers. He’d already swabbed it for bio matter, and was now running chemical-testing swabs over the paper.

  “Why?” I asked. “I thought it was a modern drug. That dryaphane element wasn’t even discovered until the 2200s. That’s like three hundred years from now—what does it have to do with this mission?”

  “Gaige tested positive for it,” Dr. Merriweather said quietly.

  “No way!” I exclaimed. “You’re wrong. Test again. It must be a false positive. That can happen, right?”

  “Calm down, Stassi,” Cyrus said, looking up from where he was watching the line of swabs turning different colors. “Unfortunately, we can’t test another blood sample. Dragon Dust is fast-acting and only stays in the system for twenty-four hours. After that, it is nearly untraceable.”

  “Okay, well Gaige doesn’t use that shite,” I said stubbornly. “If you can’t confirm that with a test, you’ll just have to trust me. He didn’t bring it with him. I would’ve known, and they would’ve found and confiscated it at customs.”

  “We don’t think he brought it with him—” Cyrus started.

  “So then you know it’s a false positive!” I exclaimed.

  “Actually…,” Merriweather started, watching me with concern and apprehension. The latter wasn’t surprising, since I’d bitten his head off about a million times since we’d met.

  “We think he was dosed,” Cyrus finished for him. He moved to the old-fashioned range to our right and turned on the teakettle.

  “Wait, what?” I asked, confusion replacing the indignation. “When? By who?”

  “Given the exceedingly short half-life of the drug, there’s only a short window of time in which it could have happened,” Merriweather explained. “Gaige must have ingested it within hours of passing out. The behavior you described—mania, hyperactivity, then wooziness—suggests we are looking at an hour or less.”

  “That means Gaige was drugged at the boxing gym. Or on his way home,” Cyrus finished. “We need to account for every person he might have come in to contact with.”

  “Every person? Come on Cyrus, there are…,” I trailed off as realization dawned on me. “Wait, you guys are saying that he was drugged in 1925 with a substance that won’t exist for another three hundred years?”

  “That seems to be the case,” Cyrus replied.

  “What about the alchemists? Could it have been one of them?” I asked. “Did you check the logbooks?”

  “I took the liberty of looking over them while you were at Salpêtrière,” Merriweather chimed in. “Of those who have travelled recently, only the transporters have travelled from here to a time when Dragon Dust was available. But they never left Branson Isle, since they were not vacation trips.”

  I began pacing the kitchen, verbalizing my stream of consciousness to work through the problem. “And we don’t have Dragon Dust on the island. Another runner must have brought it here. But why? Are they selling it? Just dosing random victims for kicks?” I stopped pacing and faced Cyrus. “What are the odds that whoever had it just so happened to pick another runner to mess with? That doesn’t make sense. Gaige was targeted.
But by whom? And why Gaige? Why not me?”

  My eyes were pleading as I met my boss’s gaze. My faith in him was so absolute that I actually expected him to have the answers for me. He held up the envelope, as if they might be in there.

  “There aren’t any traces of hazardous materials, and definitely no Dragon Dust on this. Do you want to do the honors?” he asked.

  “Why not?” I sprayed sealant on my hands and took the envelope from Cyrus. There were three sheets of formal writing paper inside. Somehow our villain had found the time to pick up custom stationary, judging by the monogram on the top—the initials MTB. I unfolded the pages and began reading the scrawling words aloud.

  “My Dearest Stassi.” I shuddered at the killer’s familiarity. “Did you enjoy your visit to Salpêtrière? You are such a sweet girl to pay our Lachlan a visit. I do so worry about him; the mental health system here really is not up to the standards you and I are accustomed to. It was never my intention to harm our friend Lachlan. If not for him, I would never have become a famous figure in history. You see, I had no choice. He had something I needed, and his conscience was getting in the way of my work.”

  I looked up at Cyrus uncertainly. The Night Gentleman was apparently giving us the dramatic speech of all villains just before they committed a final heinous act. Not a good sign.

  “Did your partner enjoy my present?” I continued, my eyes widening as I took in the words. “I had planned to gift you with the same. But you know what they say about the best-laid plans, do you not? They so often go awry. Please do convey to Ms. Richardson that it was my pleasure to share with her, and she is ever so welcome.

  “Have no worries, dear Stassi. My next gift will surely find its mark and serve as a grand testament to my legacy. I sincerely request the pleasure of your attendance for my finale tomorrow night. You have made quite the impact on the Parisian social scene in your short time here, and it wouldn’t do to perform without you there. Additionally, I am including tickets for Mr. DuPree, Ms. Richardson, and Mr. Hemingway himself. There must be a fitting audience, there simply must be.