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Among all that beauty, the Girard house was best described as nouveau riche penitentiary.
A big guy with a holstered firearm buzzed us through the gate and inside the front door. The air smelled like money. After a few seconds, we were led to Paul Girard’s “library.”
o;You can’t have years. Liam and I are going to Louisiana in five days.”
“You’re going to help her. I can get on board with that.” Nate nodded thoughtfully. “But if Teague’s her mom, how are you going to get to her?”
“Teague isn’t involved in her life. She lives with her dad, and he has a badass reputation. Sort of a … mobster.”
“A mobster who’s the true head of Chronos,” Michael added.
“So you’re going to New Orleans to meet a gangster and his … legendary daughter, and this requires short hair and a beefcake, hipster vibe?” Nate didn’t sound convinced.
“It requires that I look responsible. This guy has to take me seriously, and his daughter needs all the help she can get. And I’m not a hipster.”
“Hipstercrite, maybe. Hold on a second.” Nate held up a hand. “Why was Teague looking for the Infinityglass if the Infinityglass is her daughter? Surely she knows?”
“Teague wasn’t looking for the Infinityglass. She was looking for Jack, who was looking for the Infinityglass,” Michael explained. “Teague was either trying to keep Jack away from the truth, or there was something else she wanted on the Skroll.”
“It sounds like Teague is protecting her daughter.” Nate leaned back on two chair legs again. “Why are you going to New Orleans? Why not just make a phone call?”
“Because every source tells us that Teague isn’t to be trusted, including her husband. Liam talked to him. He wants us to come to NOLA as much as we want to go. I might be staying.” I ran my hand over my head. “Hence the hairdo.”
A sudden blast of music made us all jump, and the bass thumped hard enough to bounce a couple of pencils off my desk.
Grateful for the interruption, I asked, “Is that …?”
“New Kids on the Block,” Nate said, already dancing in his chair.
I looked at Michael. “Em’s going to make me spin around, isn’t she?”
“Oh no, my man.” Michael clapped me on the shoulder. “She’s going to make you twirl.”
Five days later, Liam and I were in his truck, heading for the Nashville airport.
The blasting heat inside the cab made the skin on my face tighten. An early winter had settled into middle Tennessee with a passion. Seventy-five degrees on Halloween, twenty-nine the next day, and it hadn’t warmed up much since.
“Not to mess with your creaky old-man bones,” I said, “but I’m already a sweat puddle.”
Liam smiled and turned the heat down. “You don’t need to worry.”
“I’m not worried, just hot.” I might have believed it myself if my voice hadn’t cracked in the middle of the sentence. “Are you sure about this?”
“I am.”
As he merged onto I-65 north, I fidgeted with the seat belt, pulling it above and below my shoulder to find a comfortable position. Finally, I just sat on my hands to keep them still. I was too broad in the shoulders to get truly comfortable, anyway.
Liam checked his rearview mirror. “I know switching the Infinityglass paradigm from object to human has been difficult.”
“What hasn’t been difficult this year?”
The dead had come back to life. Time had been rewritten.
The space time continuum had been damaged. Anyone with the basic time gene could see ripples; imprints of people from the past, which had turned into entire scenes, streets full of people, even buildings. These rips were getting worse. Their latest evolution had trapped Michael and Em inside one, and they’d barely escaped.
Liam’s answering smile was more of a grimace. “Too true. There is one thing we haven’t discussed, and it should’ve had priority. Is it going to be difficult for you to be near so much water?”
I stared out the window and thought about the question. Frost covered fields like powdered sugar as we passed everything from mansions to tiny farmhouses. Livestock stood in huddles to keep warm, their breaths rising into the air. Half-frozen ponds waited for spring.
