The Time Collector Page 24

  Stuart’s voice was the last thing he expected to hear.

  “Stuart? Where are you—”

  “Listen. I can’t talk right now.” Stuart cut him off, out of breath. “I just managed to get free. Can you make it to our meeting place? I’ll explain everything there. Can you meet me tomorrow?”

  “Stuart—wait. I read the flowers. I’ve got your computer and the map. Are you hurt?”

  “Oh my God, thank you…” he said, his voice weak. “Thank you.”

  “Who took you? Is Gyan with you?”

  “I’m alone. I don’t know who they were.” Stuart broke down, becoming emotional. “They had me in an abandoned warehouse at the Isle of Dogs. They got a phone call and left and never came back. I was able to escape.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “I’m still in London.”

  “Can you get to Mexico by tomorrow?”

  “Mexico?”

  “The ooparts lead to Naica, Mexico. We’ve found the answer.”

  * * *

  After the wire was sent, Holly texted Roan telling him how to get in touch with the operations manager of the cave, Oscar Gonzales.

  When Roan called the man, Oscar had no idea who Roan was or how he’d obtained permission to get inside the cave. All Oscar had been told was to provide the tour and to be discreet. Roan and Sun would meet him at the mine tomorrow afternoon after all the scientists had left for the day.

  “Are you both in good health?” Oscar asked over the phone. His voice was gravelly and his English was laced with a thick Mexican accent.

  “It’s going to be three of us,” Roan corrected him. “My … brother will be there too.”

  “Is he in good health? It’s hot as hell down there. Even with a special life-support suit and gear, you can only remain in the cave for forty minutes. Without it, fifteen minutes or you’re dead. Comprende? So your tour will be short.”

  Roan had read about the challenges the cave’s explorers had faced. Not only was the Crystal Cave a thousand feet underground, it was situated on an ancient fault line directly above a magma pool. Because of its location, the temperature stayed at a steady 120 degrees with 90 percent humidity. Those conditions had created the perfect environment for the world’s largest crystals to grow, with one towering more than forty feet tall and weighing fifty-five tons. The giant Crystal Cave resembled a real-life Fortress of Solitude, even more magnificent than anything imagined for Superman.

  The cavern had gained the attention of biologists, geologists, crystallographers, cave scientists, and space exploration experts from around the world. They came to Naica to see what secrets the crystals could reveal about ancient life on Earth and its relationship to the universe. But none of them was a psychometrist.

  Roan was about to collect a whole other set of data.

  * * *

  Roan slept the entire flight, suspended above the clouds and oblivious to the turbulence as the plane arched across the globe at eight hundred miles per hour. He awoke shortly before landing in Mexico and performed the same series of deep stretches he always did before climbing. Nervous energy trilled through him at the thought of the journey he was about to make. He ended the session with a powerful Bhairava mudra, the mudra of fierce determination.

  When he stepped off the plane in Mexico, he could have been anywhere, in any time zone; the world had begun to feel that small.

  There was no meter in the taxi to Saucillo. The old man driving him negotiated in advance the fare for the hour-and-a-half ride south through the desert.

  The rusted Toyota Corolla blared mariachi music from the speakers the entire way in a rich symphony of horns, strings, and a chorus of men that filled the car and spilled out through the open windows.

  Roan closed his eyes, feeling the December sun on his face and the whip of the desert wind as the car raced down Highway 45 through northern Mexico. The long stretches of farms passed by him like a stream.

  They drove through the city of Delicias and soon after reached Saucillo, a town of eleven thousand. Roan was meeting Sun at a motel near the town’s center. They would see Stuart tomorrow at the site if he could get there in time. Roan had emailed him the oopart map, showing him just how they’d arrived at their destination.

  On the way to the motel, the taxi drove past the town square, where a charming clock tower stood, and Roan smiled. It was either the perfect welcome or an ominous sign. Hanus had died in a clock tower, and Roan had the man’s key in his bag next to Descartes’s ring.

  Roan thanked the driver and got out of the car, grabbing his duffel. The motel he was staying in was a three-story redbrick building with bars on the windows. The restaurant next door had a hand-painted welcome sign with a cow on it saying FLAUTAS and TORTAS.

  The people of Saucillo were eyeing him as he walked to the motel. They seemed to wonder what the tall stranger wearing gloves and all black was doing there.

  When Roan checked in, he found that Sun had already arrived. He went upstairs to drop off his things before meeting her. His spartan motel room had a white tile floor, a double bed, a scuffed-up old dresser, and a loud mini-fridge. That was it, but at least everything was spotlessly clean.

  He had several messages from his mother’s home number on his phone. She must have realized he’d gone off the radar. Like Melicent’s voicemails, he ignored them. Talking to either of them right now would make him second-guess his decision to be there altogether. He couldn’t allow his emotions and attachments to make him change course. He had less than twenty-four hours until he was in the cave.

  All his life Roan had felt like an astronaut, out of place in the world as he launched into the inner depths of the past. Tomorrow would be his hardest journey, but a journey he had to make. Whatever he discovered in that cave would be the collateral they could use against whoever was targeting them.

  Roan didn’t know what answers he would find tomorrow. But as he’d come to understand since the age of five, when he’d first held Leonard Slye’s guitar and seen the man’s life, anything was possible.

  34. THE KIMONO

  “IS THERE ANY CHANCE I have your ability too? Because that would be seriously awesome,” Parker called out from the breakfast room. He was sitting at the table reading something from the internet on his phone. “This article says technically everybody has it, because we’re all electromagnetic transmitters and receivers, or whatever, but some people’s brains are hardwired to be better at it. Like yours. Which to me is mind-blowing because well … you’re you.”

  “Ha ha, very funny.” Melicent rolled her eyes. She put a bottle of sparkling water on the table and went back to the kitchen.

  “Ooh, this is creepy.” Parker read, “‘Since the brain doesn’t immediately die with the heart, a psychometrist could attempt “neuro-residual recollection” and read a dead person’s last thoughts.’”

  “Very creepy. I won’t be doing that,” she said from kitchen.

  “How about tactile telepathy?” he called out. “Reading people’s thoughts in general by holding their hand. Can you do that?”

  Melicent returned with two dinner plates without answering. She and Roan had done it once with each other, but she wasn’t about to share that with her brother. “Can we eat and save the twenty questions for later?”

  She had heated up one of the many frozen pizzas Parker had bought when he and Holly went to the store. It seemed surreal that they were basically homeless and had taken over Roan’s house when he wasn’t even there.

  She glanced at Parker. Maybe this would be a good time to discuss something with him that’d been on her mind. “Listen, I want to talk to you about the house. What if we donate the land to the city and build a park, in Mom’s memory?”

  She’d been trying to figure out what to do with the property. The arson investigator had notified her the case was officially cold and the house was being released back to her. They’d sent her the fire report and she had pulled up the pictures online. She didn’t want to
show them to Parker. It was best if he didn’t see the aftermath. There wasn’t enough of the house to restore, and she wouldn’t have wanted to rebuild it even if there was—not after the memory of the fire and the man who’d set it. That night would forever haunt her, even more so if she returned.

  But she also didn’t want to discard all the beautiful years they’d had growing up. The house had been Sadie’s childhood home too. Melicent wanted children to climb their trees again, and what better way than to clear out what was left of the house’s frame, lay down new grass, and build a playground? The corner lot was the perfect location for a neighborhood park.

  “We could name it Sadie Park.”

  Parker’s eyes were bright when she finished outlining the plan, and he agreed. Her heart lifted knowing that he thought it was a good idea.

  “Maybe we should move here, to New Orleans,” Parker said. “It’s not like anything’s keeping us in L.A. anymore. I can finish school here.”

  It was a good sign that he was thinking of school again. Right now he was officially on family leave because of the fire, but he’d have to go back after the holiday break. New Orleans could be a fresh start for both of them.

  She mulled the idea. “What would I do for work here?”

  “Don’t you have like two million dollars?”

  Melicent laughed. “You keep saying that, but I still want a career.”

  “Become an antique hunter like Roan. Have you seen all the stuff in the warehouse? It’s insane.”

  She had to admit that returning lost heirlooms sounded like a fascinating job. Maybe she could work with Roan for the foundation. She hadn’t been back in the warehouse yet, and after dinner Parker talked her into going on a tour.

  When they flipped the switch, the lights turned on like the sun, illuminating the space, and her mouth dropped open.

  Roan’s world stretched out before her, filled with the thousands of stories he’d collected.

  “He’s like Indiana Jones turned hoarder.” Parker’s voice carried across the warehouse as he headed toward the back. “Check out all these candelabras. It’s so Goth.”

  “Don’t touch anything,” she called out to him. Melicent wasn’t an appraiser, but she could see that many of these pieces could grace a museum.

  The storefront on Magazine contained only a fraction of what Roan owned. The warehouse was filled with racks of paintings, ancient maps, temple doors, furniture and chandeliers, figurines and iconography from around the world, all organized by some sort of system Melicent couldn’t decipher.

  She wandered through the rows, her arms crossed with her hands tucked under them. It wasn’t that she was afraid to touch anything, she told herself, there was simply too much to choose from.

  Along the back wall were built-out offices and individual storage rooms. When Melicent opened the first door and stepped inside, she was greeted with the same hollow feeling she’d had in the back room of the Magazine storefront. She almost closed the door and left the room alone, but instead she forced herself to walk inside and turn on the light.

  When the lights came on she gasped with pleasure. The room was filled with Japanese kimonos displayed on oversized hangers that stretched out the arms to showcase the graceful T-shaped sleeves. Each gown had a matching obi and was made of heavy silk in vivid hues of red or gold. Cascading images of cranes, flowers, or cherry blossoms trailed over the fabric in delicate patterns. Many kimonos were paired with a tansu, a wooden wardrobe chest, or a kyodai, which was a dainty mirrored vanity with an array of tiny drawers and cabinets. Some of the sets had all three pieces. The whole room felt like an exhibit at a museum.

  From the lot numbers and the pages of notes next to each she knew right away that she’d found another collection for the Heirloom Foundation. Like the Lakota collection, these antiques weren’t for sale. Roan was planning to return them.

  The first kimono was a dramatic white-and-black silk with red poppies brocaded at the hem and shoulders. When Melicent touched the gown she was greeted by memories of loss so strong they felt like rain.

  A woman named Emi Tanaka had been the last person to own this kimono and the tears were hers. Emi was an American, whose grandparents were Issei, first-generation Japanese who had come to California from Japan and settled years ago. Emi didn’t speak Japanese, but she treasured her grandmother’s tansu, kyodai, and kimono. Emi had planned to give her bridal set, called a bride’s yomeiri-dogu in Japanese, to her daughter, Mary, one day.

  Emi’s plans for the future ended with Pearl Harbor. The day after the attack her family’s bank account was frozen. Hysteria gripped the nation over anyone who looked Japanese. Within two months, the government issued instructions to Emi and her family informing them that they would be relocated to a military camp somewhere.

  They would have to leave all their belongings, their pets, their cars and first go to the Santa Anita racetrack in Los Angeles, which was the closest temporary detention center. Rumors of barbed wire and armed guards were already flying. Emi couldn’t imagine what it would be like. They said that people were sleeping in horse stalls.

  She didn’t know how long they would have to stay at the racetrack before they would be shipped to a camp. They were being constructed in California, Arizona, Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and Arkansas—ten camps to hold the entire Japanese American population, 120,000 people. No one was given word if and when they could ever return home again.

  The week before Emi received her relocation orders, her husband was taken in for questioning. The FBI came and knocked on their door and took him away without warning. All the family knew was he was to be sent to a different camp, a special camp for interrogation. Emi’s husband was a schoolteacher and also wrote for the local newspaper. The U.S. government was rounding up all the Japanese American professors, journalists, and community leaders to ensure that they weren’t spies.

  Emi packed the one suitcase she was allowed to bring while her daughter watched. Mary was only three. Emi opened each drawer of her tansu and looked at all of the things she couldn’t take with her. She laid her kimono on the bed. The poppies spread across the blanket like a field of flowers, and she let her daughter’s hands touch the gown for the first and last time. Then Emi carefully hung it back up in the closet.

  The story within the kimono ended there when Emi dimmed the lights of her bedroom, took her daughter’s hand, and left with their one suitcase. They both were dressed in their Sunday best. Emi’s parents and in-laws would all leave together, walking out of their homes and into a new, dark world without hope. Emi never returned or touched her things again.

  * * *

  Melicent lifted her hand from the gown, her heart heavy. She read through the notes Roan had made for Emi’s tansu, kyodai, and kimono. Roan had found Emi’s treasures and he’d charted the imprints, enabling him to track down her descendants.

  Emi, along with her entire family, had been imprisoned in Manzanar, a camp located at the foot of the Sierra Nevada in California, until November 1945. After four years in captivity, they were released. They had no home, no money, no place to go. Their property had been taken, all their possessions gone.

  Emi’s daughter, Mary, was now eighty-one, a retired nurse who lived in San Francisco. She had one daughter and three grandchildren. Emi had died fifteen years ago.

  Melicent walked through the room, the kimonos watching her like silent women. Their voices were woven into the silk. She read every page of Roan’s notes for every yomeiri-dogu. He had worked hard to find the women who were the rightful owners of these heirlooms, and he was attempting to rebuild the bridges between mothers and daughters, grandmothers and granddaughters that had been destroyed by the war.

  Melicent finally understood Roan’s mission for the Heirloom Foundation. Roan was trying to help mend the wounds he encountered throughout history, the forgotten wounds, the buried wounds. Roan wasn’t a collector, he was a healer.

  There were more rooms like this one sequestered in the war
ehouse, filled with the dark stones of the past Roan had overturned. When she was strong enough she would visit them all.

  Now that she was trying to connect with her ability, she was touching life for the first time, looking under its skin and seeing all its facets, shadows, and light. She wiped tears from her face that she hadn’t felt fall and left, shutting the door. Her heart ached too much to stay.

  Right now she only wanted to be with the man who had built this room and found these treasures. Where was he? Was he safe? The questions wouldn’t leave her mind.

  She had left Roan so many messages, but she knew he wasn’t going to call her back. He had continued on the journey without her. He may have taken his gloves off with her for one night, but in his heart he had put them back on.

  35. THE COIN

  ROAN CAME OUT OF THE SHOWER to discover his phone, laptop, and wallet had been stolen. His duffel bag had been rifled through, but nothing else was taken. Saint-Gaudens’s model coin was still in his pant pocket and the ooparts were in the secret pouch in his travel bag.

  The irony didn’t escape him. The thief had missed not one but three priceless items and taken everything that was expendable.

  Roan put his hand on the room’s doorknob and could see the thief clearly: a twelve-year-old boy, a local, who had been tipped off by his uncle that a wealthy tourist was staying there. They had instructed him to get his wallet, cell phone, wristwatch, and whatever else he could find that looked valuable.

  The boy had squatted outside, waiting for the sound of the shower, and picked the lock with ease. His father and uncle ran a chop shop outside of Saucillo that brought in stolen cars within a three-hundred-mile radius. They were experts at breaking into anything.

  Roan sat down on the bed and rubbed his eyes. So much for locking the door. It was going to be a hassle to replace his passport and get money wired, but he’d deal with that headache after the cave. Right now a stolen ID seemed inconsequential, and no one could access the information in his phone but him.