Earthbound

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

“Hey, Baklava, we’re here,” Benson says, poking my ribs.

I must have fallen asleep. “Did you seriously just call me Baklava?” I grumble, throwing my arm over my eyes as I blink against the midday sunlight.

“Don’t sweat the small stuff—I found a library.”

I grumble something that was probably better unheard.

“Your phone rang a bunch of times while we were driving,” Benson says, ignoring my mutterings. “I couldn’t get it out of your pocket to turn it off.”

And I was apparently so zonked I didn’t even hear it. I take my phone out and check the screen.

Six missed calls.

“Jay,” I mutter as I shove it back into my pocket. “The man doesn’t give up.”

Once inside, we make our way to the microfiche lab and I realize I feel better already. Benson is someone who’s proved I can trust him, and a library—even a new one—feels like a safe haven. While I’m here, with him, I can deal.

As Benson predicted, when we look up the names in the database, there’s one reference to a Rebecca Fielding, and seven to Quinn Avery.

“Captain Quinn Avery,” Benson says. “Looks like he owned some kind of boat.” He writes down some references, then starts pulling tiny films out of file cabinets with a practiced efficiency. “Here,” he says, handing me the first film. “You start while I pull the others.”

Library nerds are the best.

“There’s a whole story on him,” I say, skimming an article. “You were right—he was the captain of a shipping boat.” I keep reading as Benson opens and closes file cabinet drawers. “Weird,” I murmur, then louder, so Benson can hear me, I add, “So this article says that just as he was really starting to make a name for himself in the shipping biz, he disappeared.”

“Disappeared?” Benson asks. He places a small stack of films on the desk beside me and pulls up another chair.

I point at the screen as I keep reading. “Yeah. He lived at the edge of Camden—that totally explains why Psycho Quinn told me to go there—and one night there was a huge disturbance, gunshots and tons of noise. Neighbors went to his house, and all four walls were, like, totally riddled with bullets, everything inside ransacked and destroyed, but the house was empty.” I lean forward and keep skimming. “They never found any bodies, but neither he nor a local banker’s daughter was ever heard from again.” I turn to Benson. “Do you think that was Rebecca?”

“It seems likely,” Benson says, his eyes fixed on the screen.

“This would have been a major scandal, right?”

“Murder and an illicit love affair in the early 1800s? Oh yeah.”

“Can it be a coincidence?”

“What?”

“That the original Captain Avery seduced women and may have either murdered them or been murdered for his deeds?” I ask, fear fluttering in my chest again.

“Coincidence? I doubt it. But the question is, did today’s Quinn choose this identity because of its sordid past or did he just find someone in history to match his preferred crimes?”

Crimes. I hate using that word to describe Quinn.

What is wrong with me? Even after last night, I’m still trying to find a way to justify his actions.

“And why me?” I ask quietly. “I don’t see how any of this relates to me.” I read another paragraph, then turn fully to Benson. “Do you think he tracks down people who can do what I do? Do you think there are more people like me?”

“It seems possible,” Benson says hesitantly.

I wonder if he found any. If they’re still alive.

I swallow hard and scroll down farther. Suddenly the world swirls around me and I can’t stifle the loud gasp that escapes my throat.

It’s him.

It’s a sketch, not a photo—possibly done after his disappearance. But it’s definitely him. I can’t tear my gaze away from those eyes. Soft green eyes that the artist has captured well, even in monochrome. I reach out and touch his sharp cheekbones, then am shocked when I have to hold my breath to stifle a sob. My emotions are a hurricane inside me fighting to get out.

“That’s him, Benson!”

“Quinn? Like, the guy you saw last night?”

I can’t speak; I only nod. Before I have time to process the thought, I hit the print button.

“That is seriously weird,” Benson says. “You’re sure?”

“That’s exactly what he looks like,” I say, and my voice is unsteady.

“This guy must be way hard core,” Benson says, leaning in close to the picture.

Zac Brown Band starts playing, and it takes about five seconds before I realize it’s my phone’s ring tone. Instinctively I hit the talk button and put the phone to my ear, my gaze still fixed on the microfiche screen. “’lo?”

“Tavia, thank goodness. Please don’t hang up.”

I freeze as Reese’s voice sounds in my ear, pouring jagged ice down my spine.

“I just got back and Jay told me. Please let us talk to you. You’re in so much danger. Where are you? Just tell us—”

I hit the end button with a shaky finger and feel all the blood draining from my face. I answered my phone? What the hell was I thinking? That’s the kind of mistake that could get me killed. Me and Benson. “I have to get rid of this,” I say, and I’m not sure if I’m talking to Benson or myself. It’s been easy to push Reese and Jay into the back of my mind since leaving Portsmouth—my head has been full of Quinn.

But my phone is a tether to them and I can’t keep it anymore.

I walk over to the printer and gather up the small handful of papers and clutch them to my chest. “I gotta go,” I mumble, not sure who I’m talking to. What I’m doing.

The phone.

Get rid of the phone.

Completely distracted, I turn to walk out and almost yelp when I feel Benson’s hand on my arm. My instinct is to yank it away, but rational thought wriggles into my consciousness and I remember who he is.

He’s Benson. He’s helping me.

He’s the only one who can.

“Tavia?” His hand is still on my arm.

I slow my breathing and make myself focus, feeling a semblance of calm start to fill me again. “Yeah?”

“Wait for me,” he says quietly. “Let me grab my stuff.”

Everything I’m feeling about Quinn and Reese and Jay and Elizabeth right now is too big. It fills my mind and heart until I’m too full to feel anything for Benson. And I can’t be around him when I feel this way.

Flee! my mind is shouting at me, and my breath is shallow and short. The desperation to get rid of my phone—to cut off all contact with Reese—is like a compulsion it almost hurts to resist.

As soon as he turns, I start walking again—making my way to the doors.

“Miss, miss?” It’s not Quinn’s voice, but the memory of the words he said last night covers me, smothers me with despair. I duck my head and walk faster.

“Tave!” Benson’s voice is too loud for a library, but still I don’t stop. I know I’m running away, but it’s too much. I can’t stay in there, not one second longer.

“You need to pay for your copies,” the librarian calls after me, scolding.

As I pull on the doors, I chance a look back at Benson, standing by the reference desk with desperation in his eyes and pulling out his wallet in a panicked hurry.

It’s now or never.

The wind hits my face as I exit the library and stride out onto the street. I don’t know anything about this town, so I just pick a direction and start power-walking with my head down, my phone clutched in my hand.

I wish I could close my fingers and crush it to pieces.

Once I’m out of sight of the library I pause to catch my breath and lean against the red-brick wall of a nondescript office building. I glance down at the printouts, now wrinkly from being crushed against my chest. When I hold them out to get a better look, a big raindrop plops down, smearing some of the text. I gasp my dismay and jog a few more steps to the shelter of an overhang before crouching down against the wall. At least it’s not snowing. Yet.

My thoughts whirl as I stare at the sketch. It looks exactly like Quinn. I mean, it’s not a photograph, so there could be subtle differences, but they would have to be damn subtle. Their faces are the same, right down to the bone structure. I’ve drawn the shadows beneath that prominent brow, the rise of those cheekbones, the square straightness of that jaw. You can’t fake that kind of thing with a costume and a dye job.

I’m not sure you could reconstruct it even with surgery.

Who the hell is Quinn Avery?

As if hearing his name in my thoughts, Quinn walks around the corner of a building, kitty corner from where I’m crouched. My head turns to him, and I realize I don’t need to see his tall, lanky form to know when he appears; I feel him. He’s walking my way and my eyes find his face. He looks right at me and the purpose in his eyes terrifies me.

Paralyzes me. My limbs are stone. He’s still coming, his steps long and leisurely. I finally jerk into action when he’s less than twenty feet from me. The clatter of my phone hitting the sidewalk and shattering means nothing as I spin around, running in an instant.

I don’t know where I’m heading, only that it’s away from him.

But then the screams start.

My eyes widen and time seems to slow as I look back to see a dark blue car slam into Quinn’s body and pin him against a wall for an instant. An endless, slogging instant. Then a sharp crack reaches my ears, fills my world, the wall giving way and burying Quinn in a mound of broken bricks.

The last thing I see before my world begins to spin is a familiar face. The face that means they’ve found us again.