I reached out to Vaughn a couple of times this morning, but he had no additional information about her whereabouts.Her phone was dead, and he couldn’t locate her.I sent him the phony social media accounts she’d set up online, along with a picture of her.He reported back a couple of hours later, saying that nothing was showing up so far.He used the excuse that San Clemente didn’t have surveillance cameras on the majority of streets, the way larger cities did.
Regardless of this, Avalie’s parting words kept replaying in my head.When I told her I needed to see her again, she’d said,Plan on it.
So what the hell did that mean, exactly?Did she mean, plan on meeting today?Tomorrow?Sometime in the future?Or did she mean that our current missions were intersecting and in conflict?
And why the hell wasn’t she showing up in Vaughn’s information?I didn’t want to think of her as a rogue agent.
Around midday, I noticed signs of activity diagonally across Avenida Victoria.The house’s blinds began to open and curtains were being pulled back.In the early afternoon, a delivery truck arrived in front, and the driver hurried down the driveway to the side door, carrying a package.
Sometime in the early evening, the lights inside the house began to come on.I noticed a couple of second-floor windows had been opened.From my apartment, I could faintly hear the sound of music.
Vaughn had given me his word that he’d engineer a distraction to prompt the husband’s departure.As the sun dropped into the Pacific, I continued to wait patiently on my balcony for Nadine’s husband to leave.Finally, an SUV emerged from the garage and moved swiftly up the hill toward El Camino Real.The angle and the darkness blocked any view of the car’s interior.
I waited for a few additional minutes before leaving my apartment and descending the steps to street level.Standing by my car on the street, I bided my time until an elderly couple strolled past me in the direction of the pier.As soon as they were out of sight, I crossed the street and made my way towards the house.
From the outside, nothing had changed since the SUV left.The lights were still on, the windows open, and music playing.Still, I had an uneasy feeling about this.I hadn’t seen so much as a passing shadow by a window.
Nonetheless, this was the time.
I strode down the driveway as if I owned the place and retrieved the access codes Vaughn had texted me.Surprisingly, testing the door, I found there was no need for them.The garage door was unlocked.Pulling it open, I slipped inside.
The lights were on.The garage was extremely clean and neat.The SUV was gone, of course, and the only other vehicle was a golf cart.
They only had one car.I thought every affluent family in this period had several vehicles.
I crossed the concrete floor to the door that led to the interior of the house.Once again, it was unlocked.
Trusting people.
I hesitated before going in, the memory of the young mother who’d blithely left her children with us on the beach trail came to my mind.She’d said that San Clemente was a close-knit community where everyone knew each other and looked out for each other.
If that were true, I wondered now how many people might have seen me entering the house and which of them was already on the phone to the Sheriff’s Department...or getting hold of Nadine’s husband to warn him about an intruder.
It didn’t matter.I wouldn’t need much time.My task was cut and dry.Nadine Finlay, a seasoned agent with over a decade in the Scribe Guardian division of the agency, had gone MIA after her last assignment.She was well-versed in the rules, protocol, and the potential consequences of her actions.I had a strong intuition that when confronted, she would opt to return.In comparison to Volpe and his extensive list of crimes, she posed no significant threat.No anomalies were recorded in the files and no ripples from her actions affecting history.She hadn’t stolen anything, killed anyone, or become a billionaire using her knowledge of the future.My assumption was that she would go before Judicial and likely receive a mild reprimand.
The critical question remained how soon the agency would permit her to time jump...andifthey would.That verdict would certainly be important to her.Nadine belonged to the generation of agents with terminal illnesses; she needed time travel to stay alive.
But that was not my decision to make.
Opening the steel door, I entered a short hallway that led to a set of stairs.Lights were on down here.Looking up the stairs, I could see the main floor appeared to be brightly lit too.Music emanated from speakers set into the ceilings.The lyrics were about taking a chance.Choose me.I’m the one.The only one.Oddly appropriate, I thought.
Standing just inside the door, my thoughts briefly shifted to Xander Nouri, the man Nadine had chosen to stay back with.
Vaughn had provided me with a dossier on him.He was a tech-savvy individual, self-made, rich, brilliant.Despite being relatively young—he was only thirty-nine—Xander was making a significant and positive impact in this decade through socially responsible investments.The man prioritized humanity over profit, and his political inclinations aligned with what would be deemed the ‘right’ side of history in the future.Those who knew him referred to him as private but down-to-earth in person.I envisioned him as the kind of person I would have enjoyed knowing.
But he was also precisely the kind of man I wouldn't want around while I maneuvered to take his wife away permanently.
How long they’d been together was only a guess.But Nadine’s last assignment was in Regency England.She’d successfully completed it but never reported back to the agency.This wasn’t a rare scenario, as agents occasionally died on assignment.A sighting of her in this era by another agent had caused her case to reopen.
I guessed that Xander and Nadine had been together for slightly over a year.
A year.Was that enough time to justify risking the consequences and potential prosecution?Could love really develop so deeply in that amount of time?Maybe it could.But was any relationship with another person truly worth the sacrifice of your own life?
Avalie’s face popped into my head.How easily our romance could have developed into something more.If I were being honest with myself, it’s entirely possible that our relationship could have been as problematic as Nadine and Xander’s.That is,ifshe belonged to this decade.There was no denying it.I had fallen for her hard and fast.And remembering how she’d most likely saved my life in the Surf Ghetto, I knew she had to have strong feelings about me too.How long had that taken?Two days?Three days?Damn it.I guess that’s all it took when you met the right person.
Shit!Why did I have to think about her now?
I pushed Avalie’s image from my thoughts, needing to focus on the task ahead.Ascending the stairs with caution, I made a deliberate attempt to move silently, taking advantage of the music’s cover.Xander Nouri, an adept security expert, had a monitoring system in place for every room within the house.Nevertheless, Vaughn had assured me that he would deactivate the entire system upon his departure.
