Out of Time (Lovers in Time Series, Book 1): Time Travel Romance Page 13

  As she expected, the wondrous world of the internet impressed him the most. He had little difficulty grasping the concepts of wireless devices, email, surfing and searching. Even online shopping and banking was something that he thought had been clearly predicted by science fiction writers. On the other hand he found online friendships and dating a big step backward.

  "Ready for a demonstration? Let's start with a search for Mary Beth Johnson." There were countless links for people searches but after a few minutes without any real leads, she decided to try another route. "If she has a page on one of the social network sites..." A few more minutes and she threw out that idea as well.

  Jack snapped his fingers. "The husband might still run the family business. How about searching for him instead?"

  She typed the words "Johnson car dealership Georgia" into the search box. "Okay, here we go. There are two car dealerships owned by Jimmy Joe Johnson—one in Marietta and one in Decatur. Now let's hope his home phone is listed." Jumping over to the phone company's directory and trying a variety of name combinations, Kelly found twenty-seven possibilities near the two dealerships.

  "Really cool," was Jack's concise conclusion. He probably would have stayed glued to her laptop for hours if his stomach hadn't growled from hunger.

  Since she considered the microwave oven the finest of all inventions, she decided to use it to prepare their dinner. "Are you okay with chicken primavera and noodles for dinner?"

  "I'm okay with peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. No need to make an actual meal."

  "Follow me and be amazed again." She led him into the kitchen, opened the freezer and pulled out a red paper bag. A second later she put the bag in the microwave and set the timer for ten minutes. Jack stared at the bag going round and round in the illuminated box as she told him what little she knew about microwave ovens.

  "What would you like to drink?" she asked opening the refrigerator door.

  "One of those beers would be great," he told her with a grin.

  "Oh, sorry I don't—" She stared in confusion at the six-pack of imported beer in her refrigerator. Below it was a juicy sirloin steak covered with seasoning as though prepped for grilling. Next she checked the fresh food compartments which were filled with items she might buy but she clearly remembered removing all the perishable products before going to Charming. When she had taken the meal-in-a-bag out of the freezer, she hadn't been paying attention but as soon as she opened that door again she noticed several frozen food items that were not on her usual grocery list.

  "What's the matter?" Jack asked. "Why are you staring at your refrigerator like you've never seen it before?"

  "Can you tell me why a man who was only planning to spend a couple nights in a place would stock this much food? Or why there would be a steak ready to cook when he got off work if he was intending to move out this afternoon?"

  Jack grimaced rather than give her the answer.

  "What would you do if you were me?"

  "Since he is an old friend and I gather he's never exhibited any psychotic behavior in the past, I'd probably let him know that I thought he was lying about only being here for a few days. In fact, I'd probably check on whether his building was really being tented then confront him again. Although, catching him today might have been enough to straighten him out."

  "Geez, I hope so. Well, the good news is, he's a beer drinker." She handed him one and took out a bottle of white zin for herself.

  By the time she opened the bottle and put it, a wine glass, forks and paper napkins on the dining room table, the microwave beeped. Jack watched with a mixture of interest and distrust as she opened the bag and divided its contents onto two plates. As she carried the plates to the table, she asked, "Amazed?"

  "If it's as good as it smells, I'll be even more amazed. I tried a frozen dinner once and it tasted a lot like the tin tray it came in. I thought it was a great idea, especially as a bachelor with minimal cooking skills, but I swore I wouldn't eat another one until somebody figured out how to keep the food tasting like... food."

  She watched him sniff it, take a hesitant bite then give it a nod of palatability.

  As soon as she finished her meal, Kelly brought her pad and pen to the table and started calling the numbers on her Mary Beth list, using the portable phone for Jack's benefit. To her pleasant surprise, Jack cleared the table and washed their dishes while she made the calls. She hit the jackpot on her eleventh try.

  "Good evening. My name is Kelly Kirkwood. I'm trying to reach Mary Beth Nevers Johnson, wife of Jimmy Joe Johnson, owner of Johnson Cars and Trucks."

  "This is Mrs. Johnson. Did you say 'Kelly Kirkwood', like the author?"

  "Yes, that's right. Actually, I'm working on an article for the Atlanta Journal focusing on the wives of successful businessmen who have lived in the community for at least fifty years. Your name was given to me as someone I really must include. I can give you my personal guarantee that the intention of the article is entirely positive and would give your husband's business free advertising to tens of thousands of subscribers."

  "What would you need from me?"

  Kelly heard the suspicion in the woman's tone and tried to allay her fears. "A half hour of your time should do it. I could come to your home or meet you somewhere for lunch if you prefer. Unfortunately, I'm on a very tight deadline, so it would have to be soon." There was such a long pause before Mary Beth responded, Kelly feared that she'd hung up.

  "I suppose it will be all right," she finally said. "But I have to attend a board meeting at the hospital tomorrow and that takes up most of the day. Then the women's auxiliary has their monthly brunch the next day. If you would like to come to my house at three o'clock that afternoon, I could give you a half hour."

  "That would be wonderful." On a clean sheet of paper, she wrote down the appointment time, the address and general directions to the Johnson home in Marietta, along with the correct phone number then thanked Mary Beth profusely for her assistance. After she hung up, she filled Jack in on what he couldn't hear. "She seemed to be guarded but agreed to see us Thursday afternoon."

  "You're really quite an accomplished fibber," he said with a grin. "I hope I'm never on the receiving end. I'd never be able to tell."

  She immediately thought of the big lie she'd already told him. "I've had lots of practice," she answered with a light shrug then added, "through my writing."

  He winked at her. "Of course. So, what's next on our agenda?"

  "Well, we probably should start by making up a new agenda. It doesn't make much sense to drive back to Charming until after we've talked to Mary Beth."

  "What about the interview you were trying to set up with Reid O'Neill?"

  Her eyes opened wide. "Geez, I almost forgot about that." She quickly checked her cell phone to make sure she hadn't missed a call then glanced at the clock. "It's not quite seven o'clock yet, maybe the drugstore is still open." Since she had already given out her cell number, she used that phone to call and was relieved to hear a familiar voice. "Hi, Mr. Scanlon. It's Kelly Kirkwood. I'm in Atlanta for two days but I'm expecting a message to be left there for me."

  "As a matter of fact one was dropped off just a bit ago, from Mr. O'Neill himself."

  She weighed the time factor against privacy and figured everyone in Charming would soon know what she was up to anyway. "Could you read it to me, please?"

  "Sure thing." There was the sound of paper tearing. "It says, 'Dear Mizz Kirkwood, I am most flattered by your interest in a poor, small-town boy such as myself. If you will call my secretary at the number below, she can arrange for us to meet at a mutually convenient time.'"

  She wrote down the number he gave her below Mary Beth's information and promised to stop in to see him when she got back. "We made it past the gate," she told Jack. "O'Neill is willing to talk to me. But I think it would be best to hold off that meeting until after we hear what Mary Beth has to tell us."

  "I agree. So, what do we have on the new agenda so fa
r?"

  Jack waited patiently as she ripped off the top sheet of paper with the list of Johnson numbers and crumpled it, then flipped the new top sheet of paper to the back of the pad and printed the word Agenda on top of the next page. "Okay, tomorrow morning I call O'Neill's secretary for an appointment Friday, if possible." She wrote that down on the pad. "Thursday afternoon we meet with Mary Beth, so sometime before that we need to work out our strategy for that interview."

  He grinned. "I thought I was methodical about my note-taking. You make me look like an amateur. I think we're going to make a pretty good team. It would probably help if we went through everything we have so far, create a list of the people involved, draw up some theories and make a separate list of outstanding questions."

  "That's pretty much the way I start working on a new book," she said with a bright smile. She flipped over the Agenda sheet and applied her pen to the first line of the next page. "Let's see. We have the Ku Klux Klan—"

  "Whoa! Back that horse up for just a minute." He got another beer out of the fridge and set it on the coffee table in front of the sofa. The bottle of wine, Kelly's glass and her pad and pen were placed next to the beer. Then he made himself comfortable in the middle of the sofa. "Much better for thinking," he said simply.

  She knew it was impractical but she would have preferred to remain at the dining room table. Now that his electrical charge was gone, she figured the more space she kept between them the safer she would be.

  "Helloooo," Jack called through cupped hands. "I thought you were anxious to get our plan worked out."

  She laughed a bit nervously then sat down at the end of the sofa. Pretending not to notice the funny look on his face, she picked up her writing tools and asked, "Okay, where were we?"

  "You were about to blame the Klan for all my troubles and I was about to point out again that the problem with that angle is that an individual man raped and murdered Ginger, not a gang."

  "True, but like I said before, the frame-up could have been organized by a group of people."

  "Possible... but who did the actual deed? Even if Junior was the rapist, he never seriously injured a single one of his victims. Physical violence wasn't in his profile."

  "He could have become angry or frightened and strangled her in the spur of the moment."

  "In that case, it wasn't a premeditated plan carried out by a group."

  She twisted her mouth back and forth and wrote a few lines. "Okay, set Junior aside for a second. If there were more than one man involved, we'd have to find out which one was capable of cold-blooded murder for the protection of one or more of the others."

  "Which brings us to a scenario where an outside professional may have been hired. That one would be the hardest puzzle to figure out, almost impossible."

  "Right. So, back to Junior. Maybe he was doing what he'd done many times before, only this time something went wrong and he killed Ginger. He might have gone to daddy after the fact and solicited help to cover up his little mistake."

  "I like the sound of that one, at least from an investigative standpoint. Here's another possibility. The Imperial Wizard knew about his son's perverse hobby and being a cold-blooded creature, planned the whole frame-up, raped and strangled Ginger himself then simply used his influence to ensure my conviction and protect his son at the same time."

  "Ooh, that one's not bad either but if he was calculating enough to pull that off, I doubt if he could be easily convinced to fess up on his own. And last but not least, let's not forget ol' Reid, the cuckolded husband. It might not have been satisfying enough to force Ginger to break it off with you. He could have enlisted the aid of his Klan brothers to teach you both a lesson or maybe he even did the whole thing himself. I keep thinking about that call you swore you got from Ginger. If it was her, she claimed Reid had beaten her and she needed rescuing. In that case, he becomes the number one suspect."

  "And if we can verify that he inherited a fortune when she died, that would make the case even stronger. But I've played back that phone call in my head a thousand times and I think it might not have been Ginger. Maybe she was already dead when that call was made."

  "Could it have been a man disguising his voice?" Kelly asked.

  "Anything's possible. But I really don't think so."

  She let that sink in for a moment. "Do you realize what that could mean? If you're right, there was a woman accomplice. And that woman would know the name of the man who put her up to that phone call."

  Jack nodded approvingly. "Now if she would just come forward after fifty-one years of silence and spill her guts to us, you'd have the ending for your book and I could travel back in time, right the wrongs and live my life the way I should have."

  She smirked at him. "You still don't believe our investigation is going to make any difference, do you?"

  "Not true. It could make a big difference. This time, instead of my being spontaneously combusted and transported through time, we could both end up dead."

  "Now who's exaggerating?" Kelly asked.

  "We went over this before but I think it bears repeating. You're used to your safe, make-believe worlds, where you control all your characters' actions. I've done this kind of unofficial criminal investigation in the real world and the one piece of advice I can give you from experience is that you can never forget that if you corner an animal, no matter how gentle they normally are, they might attack you."

  She clucked her tongue at him. "And I told you, I intend to be very careful about what I say to whom."

  "And I intend to keep reminding you that you're treading on very dangerous ground in unfamiliar territory."

  "Fine." She took a deep breath and reviewed what she'd written so far. Her stomach definitely did not like being reminded that she could be getting in over her head but damned if she was going to let him know she was a big chicken. She set the pad and pen on the coffee table and changed the subject. "How would you like to watch one of the new James Bond movies?"

  "I'd rather not go back out tonight."

  "Don't worry," she assured him. "You won't have to go anywhere." She gave him the synopsized version of developments in the fields of film and television along with a quick demonstration of the remote control.

  As she selected the movie and put the disc into her DVD player, he refilled her wine glass and asked, "Any chance of getting some popcorn in this theater?"

  "Of course," she said with a smile and got a microwavable package out of the pantry.

  A few minutes later, they were back on the couch with the room smelling like hot buttered popcorn. With the press of a button on the remote, the movie started on the big-screen and the surround sound system completed Jack's latest amazing experience.

  * * *

  Jack tried to focus on the movie but his mind was leaping all over the place. What an incredible time he'd been thrown into! He could spend the entire next year just catching up.

  Having a woman as beautiful and bright as Kelly for a guide sweetened the pot even more.

  Even if they did discover how to do it, why in God's name would he purposely return to 1965 rather than remain here?

  His gaze drifted away from the television screen and onto Kelly's profile. If only she wasn't so dead set on righting wrongs of the past, he could be looking forward to an exciting future. After all, it was a wrong against him, not her. Shouldn't that make it his choice?

  On the other hand, she had taken him in, fed him, clothed him and was introducing him to the modern world. He hated to think how tough it would have been without her assistance. He clearly owed her and, at the moment, the only thing she wanted from him was his cooperation with her research. That and his dubious protection against the real bad guys were the only paybacks at hand, so he would continue to go along with her for now.

  She must have felt him watching her for she glanced at him with a question in her eyes. He smiled and returned his visual attention to the movie but his mind remained on their difference of opinion. He assur
ed himself that he wasn't being entirely selfish about this; he was thinking of her welfare as well. If he could convince her to give up this mission, he might be saving her from danger, even death. Why, that would make him a genuine hero!

  So, what action on his part would show Kelly that they should forget about the past, drop the investigation and move forward with a new plan?

  As if by divine intervention, the answer appeared on the television screen, as Agent 007 drew the woman of the moment into his arms and kissed away any doubt she had about him.

  Could he change Kelly's mind with his kisses? Could he distract her with his touch enough to make her forget about solving the mystery and concentrate on more pleasurable pursuits? Could he satisfy her so well, she would want to keep him around awhile? Seduction to achieve a goal was not a very heroic thing to do but if the end result also benefited the lady, surely it was justified.

  She seemed to be attracted to him, though she was hung up on the idea of getting a commitment before having sex. Well, he'd never lied to a woman about his preference to remain unattached and he wouldn't start now. Regardless, he wasn't in any position to make promises about the future.

  On the other hand, he felt that he had something else to offer her. He considered what she'd told him about her unhappy marriage and limited physical contact with the opposite sex. She really deserved to know that sex could be enjoyable. In fact, if he helped her get over her bad experience, he would be performing another good deed!

  Then again, considering the number of men openly declaring their love for Kelly with no success, a direct approach would probably fail for him also. He knew from his own experience that sometimes the best seduction was when the lady thought it was all her idea.

  He smiled as a plan began to form.

  * * *

  Kelly ordered her heart to stop racing. This was absolutely ridiculous. Her body was behaving as though it were anticipating a night of glorious passion. Giving in to a purely physical urge, especially under unusual circumstances, wasn't practical, and if she was nothing else, she was always practical. But even the most sensible part of her mind was betraying her with images of Jack's naked body—which she had already seen often enough to recall it in graphic detail. Of course, she hadn't actually seen him aroused but she could imagine—