Edge of Time (Langston Brothers Series) Read online

  “What were you talking about?”

  “Oh, Carolyn’s been blue lately. She hasn’t heard from her husband in weeks and Genie thought if you and I came to stay the night at her house it might cheer her up. I told Genie I needed to speak with you first.”

  Craig gave her a warm kiss. “If you want to spend the night there, then that’s what we’ll do,” he assured her.

  Marissa turned with a smile and slid four loaves of bread into the oven, then chattered with him while she fixed dinner.

  * * *

  “Holy Christ!” Craig shot out of bed and ran to the window. “Did you hear that? I think we’re being bombed!” A bright flash followed by another explosion confirmed his words. “Oh my God,” he said. “We are being bombed!”

  Marissa flinched, dragging herself from the warm cocoon of bedclothes as a resounding crash emanated from somewhere in the city around them. Genie had assured her that only the lower regions of the city would be devastated and that Carolyn’s house, and probably even Marissa and Craig’s home, should be well enough away from the cannon fire, but the reassurance did not stem the deep-seated unease quivering in her breast.

  “I’ve got to get to the hospital.” Craig was already half-dressed. “I’m sure there will be plenty of injured in need of assistance. Goddamn Yankees,” he spat, “shelling a defenseless city with few left in it but women and children! They should burn in hell for this.”

  “Craig,” Marissa said quietly, clambering into her own clothes. “Maybe it won’t be so bad.”

  “How can you say that?”

  Marissa gulped and shrank away from his blatantly angry gaze, mumbling, “I’m going to let Genie know where we’re going.”

  “You don’t need to come,” he said. “Go back to bed. It might not be safe out there.”

  Marissa pulled on her stockings and shoved her feet into her boots. “If you’re going, I’m going.”

  Craig didn’t argue.

  As Genie had predicted, only a handful of Charleston citizens were killed or wounded, mostly nearest the docks, and it appeared the city would go on more or less as before.

  Trudging home from the hospital late that afternoon with Craig, Marissa was relieved to see their townhouse had been well out of the way of the catastrophe. Marissa elected not to mention staying away longer for the scattered shelling supposedly to take place over the next couple of days.

  Craig had been pensively silent since the early hours of the morning and each time he came from the operating room, something in his face sowed a growing sense of unease in her mind. When she reached for his hand he sidestepped swiftly and clasped his hands behind his back. As they entered the house he didn’t bother holding the door for her.

  “Craig, is something wrong?”

  “Hodges!” He bellowed for his servant, ignoring her completely. When no one answered, he turned to his study mumbling, “Just as well.” Collapsing wearily into the overstuffed chair behind his desk, he wiped the flat of his palm over his face. Finally, when he met her gaze, the flicker of whatever it was—doubt? suspicion?— she’d seen in his eyes several times during the day had now turned into a dangerous blue fire. It frightened her.

  He fixed her with a steel edged glare. “You knew that was coming, didn’t you.”

  She froze, her face blank, as she sat abruptly on the edge of a wing backed chair, staring at him. “What?”

  * * *

  This is awful. Craig stared at his wife as the rumors and accusations clicked into place like all the little gears of a Chinese torture box. A box manufactured for the sole purpose of bending and twisting, contorting, into a weapon to tear his life apart.

  “Carolyn wasn’t suffering from the blues.” He made an effort to keep his voice steady. “You just needed an excuse to get out of our house in case some of the Yankee shells hit us. You knew,” he accused, slumping forward, resting his elbows on the desk, his head in his hands. He looked up again. “It’s all true, isn’t it? All the rumors and tales I’ve denied on your behalf. You are a Yankee spy! I’ve been so blind.” He groaned. “God, Marissa, how could you do this to me? I loved you, trusted you.”

  “No!” she cried. “No, Craig. It’s not like that!”

  “Then what is it like? So help me Marissa, if I find out that you helped those blue-bellied bastards murder innocent civilians—” His words choked off and he was unable to continue for a long moment. “The only way you could have known to leave the house last night is if you had inside information, and the only way you could have inside information is if you’re… one of them.”

  “No, Craig! No!” Tears filled her eyes, spilling over her pale cheeks, and it would have been so easy to believe her, except...he couldn’t. “I’m not one of them, I am not a Yankee informant. I swear it!”

  “Then tell me you didn’t know, Marissa.”

  He rose, came to her, and knelt before her, taking her hands in his hard grip. She winced, and he knew he was hurting her but refused to ease his grasp until he had answers. Her eyes were so tortured… so pained… he looked away, sickened by the inevitable truth. “Tell me you didn’t know the shelling was coming.”

  “Craig, I—I…” She began to cry, her hands cold and clammy, but she did not assure him she hadn’t known.

  The fury and dread smoldering in his gut grew to full on anger. It shouldn’t be so hard, just three little words I didn’t know. I. Did. Not. Know. “Christ, Marissa, you can’t even lie to me about it? Bloody hell, I am such a fool.” He dropped her hands in disgust.

  “Craig,” she croaked. “I am not a spy. You must believe me. It’s not what you think—”

  “Bull!” Craig leapt to his feet, wrenching himself away from her. He raked an angry hand through his hair. “So, did you sleep with half of Charleston as well? What were you doing in the woods that day, Marissa, passing off information? Did you help murder the transport detail?”

  Gasping in horror she ran to him and grabbed his forearms. “No! Please just listen to me for a moment.”

  Throwing her violently off, he shook with red hot rage, a fury that became a palpable, living, breathing thing within him. It was bitter and vile as he recognized how she’d blinded him, fooled him, used him. “We both know you weren’t a virgin when I took you to bed the first time. I was willing to accept that there had been someone else. You had been engaged, after all, but I never even asked myself how many other men may have come before me. How many, Marissa? How much of what I’ve heard is true? Tell me!”

  “Non–none of it,” she stammered, quaking beneath his outraged glare. “It’s not what you think. I don’t sympathize with the Union, not necessarily. But, you see I—I know things.”

  “And you know these things how?”

  “It’s complicated. I can’t really tell you how I know them, but—”

  “What are you saying, that you’re a witch, a seeress with visions of the future or some such nonsense?” His eyes rolled in rejection of the notion. “Oh, Marissa that is just so much more believable than your being a Yankee spy.”

  “No, I’m not some sort of clairvoyant. I don’t have ESP, I—”

  “You don’t have what?”

  “Never mind, forget I said that. It’s not important. What is important is that now I have to tell you the truth about myself. I should have done it long ago, only I didn’t see how you could possibly believe me. Even now I have only a slim hope that you will, that your love for me, mine for you, will get us through this.”

  She beseeched him with her huge dark eyes and a blow full in the chest could not have more powerfully laid him low. Please God, he thought, make this believable. I want to believe her. I love her.

  “I’m... I’m from the future,” she said, and squeezed her eyes shut as if to hide from the look of disbelief she knew must be on his face.

  “The... future.” Seconds tick
ed by before he added. “I see.”

  Marissa opened her eyes and gazed at him. “No,” she said. “I don’t think you do. I knew it was hopeless to think you might take me on trust, take my word for something so far beyond the realms of possibility that even I had a hard time accepting it when it... happened. When I was torn from the year two thousand and twelve.”

  Craig stood stock still, staring at her for several moments, and then… he exploded.

  “What did you say?”

  “I--I’m from the year two thousand and twelve.”

  His handsome face twisted in fury as he grasped her upper arms in a cruel vise. “Is this your excuse, your explanation for these accusations? Christ!” He half lifted her off the floor. “I realize I’ve been blind to the truth, Marissa, but I’m a bit more intelligent than to believe you’re from the future. And you could at least have had the decency not to marry me!” The rage, now far beyond red hot, pulsated through him, darkened his vision, and he was hard put not to wrap her throat in his hands and strangle her.

  “Tell me, Marissa, did you give up the life of a common whore after we exchanged vows or do you cuckold me every night I work late? Do you trade favors for information?”

  “You’re hurting me,” she gasped, and he shoved her away as though burned.

  He’d be damned before hanging for murdering his wife no matter how she deserved it.

  “Craig,” she cried desperately. “No, please listen. It’s true! I can prove it!”

  “Prove what? Who the hell are you, Marissa? What are you?”

  “Craig.” Bravely, she forced herself to meet his condemning gaze. “I know how this sounds, but I was born in 1986, July 8, 1986 in Chicago, Illinois.”

  He turned on a heel to leave the room.

  She grabbed his arm, refusing to release it even as he pulled away.” When I was three, my family moved to Michigan, and then down here. I’ve lived in Charleston since I was twelve.”

  “Get off me,” he growled.

  “No, Craig,” she sobbed, frantic. “All those things I know about medicine? It’s because I am a nurse! I went to school—university—for four years to become one, you know, like Florence Nightingale and—” She placed a hand over her eyes. “Oh, no. She was from England, but surely you’ve heard of her?” She gazed at his incredulous face. “In the Crimean War? Or how about Clara Barton. She is a nurse for Union troops.”

  “Ah, yes. A Union Army nurse. Is that where you learned about medicine? With Clara Barton in the Union Army.”

  “No. I swear it,” Marissa insisted. “When I came here—I’m not even sure how it happened—but I was on my way home from the hospital and I stopped to help some people whose car had broken down on the highway. I called an ambulance for them. It left without a problem, but when I tried to leave my car broke down as if it’s entire electrical system was shot, and my cell phone didn’t work, either, and there were no lights on in houses anywhere so I figured there was a huge power outage. I saw some light in Genie’s house, though I didn’t know it was hers, and went there hoping to find a working phone so I could call Triple A, and the next thing I knew I was running into you in Genie’s field and it was 1863 instead of 2012!”

  She was babbling, sobbing, rambling uncontrollably, her eyes crazed.

  He stopped, blinked. “Are you mad?”

  “No!” She cried in panic. “Genie--Genie can tell you! Genie came from the future too. We still have our driver’s licenses. I have pictures. I can prove it to you!” Marissa ran toward the door.

  “Jesus Christ,” he cursed. “Is your entire family insane? What next, is Carolyn going to sprout wings?”

  “Don’t be ridiculous, Craig.”

  Me, don’t be ridiculous?

  “They’re not really my family! Genie found me right after I bumped into you. She guessed what had happened because the same thing had befallen her, twenty years before.”

  “Marissa,” he sighed, suddenly feeling resoundingly hollow, depressed. Oh, but he didn’t want to feel hollow and depressed; he wanted to stay angry, no, he needed to stay furious. He fought to maintain it even as he realized the woman he loved was quite clearly insane. He grasped desperately at the pulsating anger, drawing it around him like a defensive cloak, for if he gave in to sadness, he’d have to admit to himself that his wife was totally mad. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, Marissa, but I am leaving.”

  “Where are you going?”

  Her whisper was so devastatingly soft and broken that for a moment his protective shield of anger faltered, wavered, and collapsed. Her beautiful, wounded eyes glowed in the center of the room as if trying to suck him into their depths, making it impossible to stay angry.

  But, without anger, what was left, despair? God, he didn’t want to feel that! Anything but that. He needed his anger. There was righteousness in it. Anger was powerful. Anger kept the billowing cloud of crushing sadness at bay. “The hospital,” he said. “I’ll take the nightshift for Dr. Rowe.”

  Exhaling on a whoosh, he crossed the room and pressed his lips to her forehead. He couldn’t help himself. “We’ll talk about this later. But I don’t want you going anywhere, not tonight, not tomorrow. Don’t even go to see Genie. I want you to stay home and get some rest.”

  Drawing a ragged breath Craig grabbed his uniform tunic and sidearm and jerked the door inward.

  “Whoa!” Craig took a reflexive step back as four pistols and a shotgun trained on his chest. Raising his hands he dropped his own gun and stammered, “What the hell is this about, Jamison?”

  Thirteen

  “I should kill you right now, you—you lecherous rake,” Mike Jamison growled. “You know damn well why I’m here.”

  “I can assure you I do not.” Craig’s eyes darted from the various muzzles to the fingers lingering at the triggers. None of them looked overly steady.

  “My daughter!”

  “What about your daughter?”

  “You son of a bitch, she’s pregnant!”

  “Christ almighty.” Craig felt the black hole of his life began to collapse in around him, and for a fleeting moment he wished for them to shoot him and be done with it.

  “Her mother and I heard her retching and sobbing this morning. She told me it’s yours. I found you in her bed, so don’t even try to deny it.”

  “I told you before that I never touched her! It’s a goddamn lie.”

  “I should castrate you here and now!” Mike’s voice rose impossibly high as spittle flew from his mouth. “You don’t really expect anyone to believe that now do you?”

  Craig looked the man dead in the eye. “Yes, I do, and so should you, considering the trick your daughter pulled the night before my wedding.”

  Jamison hesitated for the barest instant, and Craig saw confusion and doubt warring with certitude in the man’s eyes. “But I found you in her bed, you bastard. In her bed! That was no trick! You got drunk and you ruined her. What will you do to take care of her, Langston? You’re already married, but I expect you will give the child your name and support my daughter and the child you sired on her.”

  “Never!” Craig growled like a caged lion. “I didn’t father her bastard. How can you be sure if she even is pregnant?”

  “The midwife confirms it.”

  “Really? Then I suggest you look elsewhere because I am not, and will not be responsible for her!” Taking a definitive step back Craig put a hand upon the heavy door as though to close it. “If you’ll excuse me, my wife is waiting.”

  Slamming the door closed, he slid the bolt securely home and leaned his back heavily against it, sliding his own weapon back to his side as he waited for the sound of the men treading back down the walk.

  Sinking to the floor, he leaned his head against the wall. Numb. What was he going to do? As if this situation with Marissa wasn’t enough to deal with, Ki
rsten had to go and throw her dirty ace on top of the pile.

  Turning, he saw Marissa standing statue still and ashen before the winding staircase. “It’s not true,” he said.

  Catatonically she slid onto the bottom step.

  * * *

  Visions of Marne and Kirsten merged as one. Memories of Brian’s betrayal assailed her and Marissa was frozen with horror that this was all happening to her again. At this moment she felt more lost than when she’d first found herself in Genie’s field. She’d been so desperate to find solace in her tumultuous life, to be loved, to be wanted, she’d fallen for the next lying man to come her way.

  Marissa stared with empty, unseeing eyes. “I believed you, Craig. When you said she was lying… I believed you.”

  “Marissa, I never touched her.”

  “Why would she lie? And why would the midwife lie?” A woman didn’t have to be from this time—this era—to understand the fear and uncertainty, the judgmental attitude of her community that went with an unplanned pregnancy outside of marriage. Marissa knew too well the whispers of this society and she experienced a fleeting wave of empathy for Kirsten.

  Craig groaned, dragging his hands down over his face. “Don’t you see it? They’re still trying to set me up!”

  “Why would they?” Marissa asked.

  “At the beginning of the war her father converted all of his money into Confederate currency. The man is dead broke.” Craig heaved to his feet and stood in front of her. “When their plans for a shotgun wedding didn’t work out they decided to claim that she’s pregnant to coerce me coerce us into giving them money.”