Erased, page 7
It was just one guy, she told herself, shaking off the uneasiness. Maybe he had something on his mind. Maybe the sun had blinded him.
She pushed through the door to the inside and walked across the lobby to a side room where she knew she could grab a cup of coffee. Two female officers sat inside talking. She didn’t recognize them, so she just smiled as she filled a disposable cup. On a table by the window was the collection box for their Make-A-Wish sponsorship. They were collecting to send a ten-year-old girl, Lydia, to London. Her picture, sweet little kid with braids, was on the front of the box, superimposed over a skyline scene that included Big Ben and the London Eye. Lydia had leukemia. To send her family to London for a week would cost about ten thousand dollars. According to the hand-drawn thermometer beside the box, they were creeping up close to one thousand. It was slow going. Dani wondered if that poor kid would ever see Buckingham Palace.
After a deep swallow of coffee, she left the room, having decided to find Sergeant Hudson. He’d fill her in on Darius. At the security door, she swiped her ID badge over the reader and banged up against the door, spilling some of the coffee when the door unexpectedly resisted. The light on the reader remained red. She swiped her badge again more carefully and watched for the green light, but it remained stubbornly red.
She took a step back, noticing her anxiety returning. There’s something wrong with the reader, she told herself. No need to panic. It happened sometimes. She wiped the coffee from the floor with her napkin, then looked around at the bustling station lobby with its cops and citizens going about their business like any other day.
As she was trying to decide what to do next, the security door opened and Sergeant Hudson himself stepped through. She felt her body nearly physically lift off the ground in relief to see him. “Sarge!”
He turned to face her, his weathered, clean-shaven face expectant. “Yes, Officer, what can I do for you?”
There was no recognition in his face. Dani balked, thrown off guard. She stuttered, having forgotten what she wanted to see him for.
“What’s on your mind?” he prompted.
She recovered herself enough to ask her question. “Sarge, what’s the situation with that bomber Darius? Did we catch him?”
He pursed his lips and shook his head. “Somehow he got away. But we’re all over him. Don’t worry, we’ll get him.”
“What about our guys? Is everybody accounted for?”
“Yeah. We never got near him. Agent Bryan of the FBI, though, that’s another story. None of our people got there in time. Perkins found the body.”
Perkins, she thought, bewildered. But she had found the body, not Perkins. He arrived after her.
Hudson put a hand on her shoulder paternally. “Carry on, Officer.”
He strode across the tile floor, his shiny shoes clicking out a regular beat. Sweat broke out on Dani’s forehead and her palms went clammy. Everything looked normal. Everybody was acting as if it was an ordinary day. But there was nothing normal or ordinary about this situation. She was becoming truly frightened now.
She walked up to the duty officer, a young man she knew only slightly, and, trying to sound casual, said, “Can you look up something for me?”
“What is it?”
“I ran into this officer of the twenty-first precinct and want to verify her ID.” She made sure her badge was obscured from his view through the window.
“Name?”
“Daniella Barsetti. Badge number 65991.”
After a moment of intimacy with his computer screen, he replied without looking up. “No such officer.”
Dani managed to suppress her alarm, though she could feel her throat closing in.
The rookie looked at her and said, “Impersonating an officer? Do you want to file a report?”
She shook her head. “Not yet. Thanks.” She forced a smile, then turned and nearly ran from the building.
Back on the street, she leaned shakily against the wall of a building and cradled the mysterious silver tube in her palm, trying to wrap her mind around what was happening. According to the police department, Officer Daniella Barsetti didn’t exist. The young scientist in the future, Gavin Hale, had said even her mother wouldn’t know her. She must still be dreaming. That was the only explanation. She closed her eyes and willed herself to wake up. Sometimes that worked. But it didn’t work this time.
It was now nearly four o’clock. Her sister was expecting her to help pick out her wedding dress. She had only a half hour to get to the bridal shop. She checked her phone. Still no service. Damn! She needed to call Gemma just to hear her voice and hear her say, “I love you.” If only she could hear Gemma’s voice, she knew everything would be okay.
When she got to the bus stop, she waited alongside a man in a cheap business suit who was talking on his phone. The faint but unmistakable odor of urine wafted by every few seconds, bringing back the nausea. Dani glanced around to see a crumpled heap of dark clothing in a doorway. No doubt there was somebody sleeping there. Like any big city, this one had its problems. But it was also beautiful and vibrant. Dani had never lived anywhere else and had never wanted to. As a kid, she had read The Wizard of Oz, and when she came to the description of the Emerald City at the end of the yellow brick road, she pictured San Francisco at the end of the Golden Gate Bridge, the water at its feet sparkling like precious gemstones. This was her home and she loved it. She loved the city and she loved her life. At the moment, anxiety barely under control, she loved it more passionately than ever.
When the man in the suit had finished his call, she asked, “Sir, can I borrow your phone for a minute?”
He looked momentarily surprised, then thrust it toward her. “Sure, Officer.”
She dialed Gemma’s office, waiting for her assistant Shelley to answer with her customary greeting: “Mettler Consulting, this is Shelley speaking.” But it wasn’t Shelley who answered. It was a recording. “We’re sorry. Your call cannot be completed at this time.” What? She ended the call and dialed Gemma’s cell phone number instead. It went to voice mail and Gemma’s recorded message. “I’m not available right now. Leave a message.” Even if Gemma hadn’t answered, it was so good to hear her voice! Dani gulped back the emotion, determined not to give Gemma any reason for concern.
“Hi, honey,” Dani recorded. “It’s me. I just wanted to say hello and let you know something’s wrong with my cell phone, so you won’t be able to call me back. I’m on my way to meet Rachel at the bridal shop. Wedding dresses, yuck! See you later. I love you.”
She returned the phone to its owner and asked, “How much longer until the bus gets here?”
“Fifteen minutes.”
If she waited for the bus, she’d be late. It was quicker to walk anyway, she decided, and she took off on foot. Walking made her feel better. She nodded to people she passed and they nodded back. It was a beautiful day.
When she arrived at the bridal shop, Rachel was already there and already wearing a gorgeous white gown with lace everywhere, a train of satin on the floor at her feet and two middle-aged women fussing over the details. Dani stopped short in the doorway, stunned at how beautiful her kid sister looked with her hair tucked into a filmy headdress and her face flushed with excitement. Her brown eyes shone with a glossy mist. The scene took Dani’s breath away.
All three women looked up as Dani entered. She hadn’t had time to go home and change, so she swept off her cap to diminish the impact of her official appearance.
“Rach,” she said brightly, stepping inside. “You look gorgeous!”
Rachel looked directly at her, one eye squinting in concern. She looked about to speak when another woman came out from behind a rack of dresses holding another dazzling white beauty on a padded hanger. Her long black hair dropped to her petite waist, which was encased in a tightly fitted, thigh-length purple dress. It was Patty, Rachel’s best friend. Why did I have to come if she was going to be here, Dani wondered with annoyance. Rach knows I don’t like this kind of thing.
“Look at this one!” Patty announced, then stopped short when she caught sight of Dani. “Oh, what’s going on?”
“Can I help you, Officer?” asked one of the older women.
Rachel was still staring at her with mild curiosity and absolutely no recognition. Dani swallowed, not knowing what to say. She couldn’t get over the way Rachel was looking at her. Everyone waited for her to explain her presence.
“Sorry,” she finally said. “Wrong shop.” She stepped backward toward the door, noticing the puzzled look on Rachel’s face. She must have heard Dani say her name. Maybe she’d think she had misheard it. “You’re very beautiful,” Dani said. “That’s a magnificent gown. Congratulations.”
“Thank you,” Rachel replied uncertainly.
Dani quickly exited out of sight of the shop windows and pressed herself against the stone wall, in need of support. Oh, God, she thought, this can’t be happening! How could my own sister not know me? After a few moments watching and listening to the traffic, she was able to gather herself together enough to walk away from the shop.
What should I do now? she wondered. Where should I go?
She got out her keys. Her apartment key was there on the ring where it always was. So was the car key and all the rest. She could go home, have a shower, hug Tucker and think through what to do next. Gemma would be home in about an hour. She wanted so badly to see Gemma.
It was too far to walk, so she waited at the Muni stop with an elderly woman and a young man with an unkempt beard and a worn brown coat.
When the bus came, she let the other two board ahead of her, then passed her Clipper card in front of the reader. It didn’t register, so she held it more precisely, but the card wasn’t recognized. “Shit!” she muttered under her breath, then reached into her front pocket to see if she had any change. She came up with a quarter, two pennies and a lint-covered Tic-Tac. She looked apologetically at the driver, a no-nonsense woman with metallic black hair and bright blue eighties-style eye shadow over languid brown eyes. The woman jerked her head toward the back of the bus. “Go on,” she said flatly.
“Thanks.” Dani walked down the aisle as the bus pulled into traffic, drawing the glances of the other passengers, who must have wondered what a uniformed cop was doing riding the bus. She found a seat at a window beside a young woman in a pink sweater and white-rimmed glasses. She was engrossed in her phone and didn’t look up, no doubt hoping that whoever it was would move on.
Dani stepped over the woman’s knees to get to the open seat, then settled in for the ride. She was sure she’d put a twenty somewhere and began to systematically search the compartments of her duty belt. She hoped she could find it because at this point she was beginning to worry that she was about to learn the hard way that her debit and credit cards were not going to work and she’d be cut off from her bank account. A twenty wouldn’t go far, but it was something.
When she got to the glove pouch, there were no gloves inside. Instead, there was a thick wad of money. She unrolled it to find that all the bills were hundreds, hundreds of hundreds, all of them worn, circulated. That’s when she remembered the woman in charge of the science lab, Pamela Swenson, handing her the cash, antique paper money that they’d gotten from some archive, carefully selected to predate the current year. Money like this wasn’t that rare, she’d said. It turned up all the time inside walls when old buildings were torn down and in containers buried long ago in people’s yards. It was worthless as currency in the future, Swenson had told her, and not worth much more even to collectors. “You might need to buy a few things,” she’d said.
Dani glanced at the woman beside her, who was staring at the money in her palm in astonishment. She quickly folded the loot and stuffed it back in the pouch, then looked out the window, pretending nonchalance. In her mind, she couldn’t have been farther from it.
When the bus made it to Cow Hollow, she got off and walked another block to the apartment. All she could think of now was getting home. If she could just get home and lie down in her own bed, when she woke up this nightmare would be over.
Walking up the steps, she thought what she always thought. The house needed a little TLC. The windows, with their wavy old glass, were so hard to open and close that she and Gemma rarely tried to shift them. A fresh coat of paint would have worked wonders on the place, but the landlord, an elderly Polish man, had lost interest in the property long ago. He had his own troubles. Dani kept meaning to paint the building herself, but she hadn’t gotten around to it. She was sure the old guy wouldn’t care.
She put her key in the front door lock and turned it. It didn’t budge. She tried again, but no luck. Her key didn’t work. She examined it to make sure it was the right one, the Schlage. Then she stared at the lock. She’d replaced the deadbolt four months ago, but this lock was tarnished and scratched. In fact, it looked exactly like the lock she had replaced. She rubbed her face with her hand, feeling like her brain was going to explode.
The key wasn’t the only thing bothering her. Normally, when somebody was at the front door, Tucker would run to it and bark. She listened and heard nothing. She banged on the door in case he was asleep. Still nothing. She rang the doorbell and waited. There was no noise inside. She sat on the steps, sitting in front of her own home, locked out. An unwelcome thought occurred to her. Maybe it wasn’t her home. If she no longer existed in this time, maybe Gemma didn’t live here anymore. Anything could have happened. Gemma might have given up the apartment when her mother moved to the nursing home. Gemma might be living with someone else, somewhere else.
That can’t be true, though. It just can’t!
Not knowing what else to do, she decided to wait for Gemma. Today was the day she had her interview with North Bay Healthcare Services. Dani was sure it had gone well. Gemma had a good system and she came off as sincere, passionate and capable when she talked about it. She’d be home any minute. Then they’d go out to dinner to celebrate. It would be great. It would be fine. Everything was fine.
Dani sat on the front steps and thought back over the last few days and the events leading up to today, all of which she remembered clearly. What was less clear, however, was where reality left off and dreaming had taken over. On Friday she’d met FBI Agent Bryan for the first time. He called a task force together to capture a dangerous man, Leo Darius, a man he described as “an evil genius.” That was the day Darius had blown up a building. But did Leo Darius even exist? For that matter, did Agent Bryan exist? In her dream, he was a visitor from the future. Maybe he had only existed in the dream. Maybe her dream had already spanned several days.
She checked her phone for the time. That was about all it was good for. Gemma was late.
She sat with her muddled thoughts and watched ordinary life in progress, feeling numb. Cars went by. People came home from work and left for evening activities. They rode bikes and walked their dogs. They went about their non-dreamlike activities on a lovely, mild October evening in San Francisco. In the twenty-first century.
Chapter Eight
Gemma read through her email, delighted that the final hour of the workday had finally arrived. Lois typed rapidly on her keyboard while streaming tunes from her iPod. There was an expression of serene satisfaction on her shiny round face. And of course a barely audible humming issuing from her throat. Gemma tried not to listen, tried to block it out. Lois believed she was being graciously polite to her coworkers by listening to her music, all oldies, all the time, in silence. Except that she wasn’t silent. There was the ever-present hum. Sometimes it became distinctive enough that Gemma could actually make out the song, invariably something by Elton John, the Bee Gees or the Eagles.
Her fifty-something neighbor had other annoying habits too, but the humming was the most irritating of all. Gemma had tried to drown it out with music and earbuds of her own, but was only minimally successful. Lois would be retiring soon, or so she promised, and Gemma would inherit a new cube mate. She both happily anticipated and dreaded that day; the new coworker invariably would have his or her own bad habits, and for some reason, the new, unknown bad habits seemed potentially scarier than the known ones. Gemma was sure she too had bad habits that annoyed people. People who lived alone were especially prone to that, she had heard. Even more so, women who lived with cats.
All in all, she liked Lois, except for the humming. She was single too, long divorced, with two grown kids. She was pillowy with the shapelessness of middle age and had wiry, bronze hair with nearly perpetual storm-gray roots. Her eyelids drooped down over her eyelashes, giving her a somewhat mournful look when her face was in repose, but she wasn’t a mournful person. She was garrulous and upbeat and seemed fond of Gemma in a maternal sort of way. The workplace did this to people, threw you together day after day with someone you should never have known, someone you would never have spoken to or come across in your regular life. And over time, somehow, with your excruciatingly opposing political, religious and social views, you became two people who had a genuine emotional attachment to one another. You knew more about this person than you knew about your own parents and siblings because you spent all your days together for years and years. Gemma had been rooming with Lois for years here at the FDA’s district office.
Her phone ringing broke through her irritation with Lois. “Hello?”
“Hi, Gem,” said her friend Miko. “I’ve had a hell of a day. Can you meet me at Stormy’s for a drink?”
“Sure. I’ve got no plans.” Gemma chuckled. “Like I would have plans.”
“People say miracles do happen.”
If you were a student of sarcasm, Gemma thought, you would do well to study at Miko’s feet.
“See you there.”
After ending the call, she noticed she had a voice mail message. “Hi, honey,” a woman’s voice said. “It’s me. I just wanted to say hello and let you know something’s wrong with my cell phone, so you won’t be able to call me back. I’m on my way to meet Rachel at the bridal shop. Wedding dresses, yuck! See you later. I love you.”
