Lost in Time(69)

The thought of killing Nora made her retch again.

The café door opened and a man in his mid-twenties leaned out, a disappointed look on his face. Adeline probably looked like a day-drinking college student, maybe one who had bombed a big test, or just been dumped, or just couldn’t handle her liquor.

She wiped her mouth and shrugged. He simply shook his head and slipped back inside.

Adeline ventured back out into the rain, making her way to one of the jewelry shops. If she hadn’t been there before, they probably wouldn’t have allowed her soaking wet form inside, but they knew what she had to sell.

“I found my ID,” she said as she slipped the earrings across the counter. “And I want to know what number is on the stones.”

*

Three hours later, Adeline was dry and sitting in the small living area of her extended stay hotel room. On the coffee table was approximately seven thousand dollars in cash—the balance that remained after buying what she needed: clothes from Goodwill; a MetroPCS prepaid cell phone and a Compaq Presario laptop at Circuit City; and two nights’ stay at the hotel.

There was also a small slip of paper on the table, with ten numbers written on it—the numbers that had been engraved on the earrings.

Adeline sensed that it was the other thing she needed. She punched the numbers into the phone, and a man answered on the second ring. His accent was Asian, and he spoke so fast Adeline could barely understand him.

“Shen Photo.”

“Hello. Do you have something waiting for me?”

“Name?”

Adeline swallowed. “Danneros. Daniele.”

“Spell it.”

As she spelled it, she heard him typing on the keyboard. “No.”

When she hung up, Adeline looked up the store online. There was no website and scarcely any information about it, only an address in East Palo Alto.

She turned on the TV and switched to CNBC.

Financials were hit again today, despite the Fed’s move on Friday to inject two hundred billion dollars of liquidity into markets to help stem the credit collapse. Shares of MF Global plunged sixty percent on the day, and Lehman Brothers’ stock dropped twenty percent on fears that either or both could be the next Bear Stearns. Government-supported housing lenders were also in the crosshairs of sellers as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac rushed to the exit. Even financial execution stocks were punished, with E*Trade, TradeStation, and Interactive Brokers all dropping.

Adeline smiled and shook her head, remembering those lines Daniele had said in the library: Right now, you don’t care about money because you have it. You’ve never had to wonder how you’ll afford your next meal.

Adeline looked at the stack of cash on the table. It was all the money to her name.

Daniele’s words echoed again. You’re assuming your circumstances will never change. They could. They do for a lot of people—in the blink of an eye. One minute your family is rich. The next, you’re carrying every dollar to your name in your pocket, you have no home, and you don’t know where you’re going to sleep that night.

At the rate she was expending cash—on the hotel room and food—she would be broke shortly. She glanced back to the muted television. The financial education Daniele had imparted had indeed been important.

She navigated to the E*Trade website and began opening an account. She got as far as the page that asked for her social security number. This wasn’t going to work. She would probably run into the same issue if she tried to get a normal job—any background check would likely reveal that the ID was a fake.

Adeline’s gaze drifted back to the ten numbers on the slip of paper on the coffee table.

The solution to her problem was right here.

She was dead tired. She had left her time at night and arrived in the past in mid-morning. She had probably been unconscious for a while after Daniele knocked her out, but she was still exhausted. For the most part, she had been running on adrenaline. But she knew that time was of the essence now. She had to keep pushing forward. The thing she needed would take time to make.

*

She took a cab to East Palo Alto, to the strip mall that housed Shen Photo.

It was a cramped little store, with a booth for passport photos and chairs lined up under the plate glass window and the far wall. Several families were waiting in the store, speaking Spanish and Chinese in hushed tones.

When the proprietor saw Adeline, he narrowed his eyes as if she was in the wrong place.

“Picking up?” he asked. It was the same sharp voice she had heard on the phone.

“No,” she said, looking around, still confused.

He held his hand out. “Drop off?”

Adeline shook her head. “Drop off what?”

The man grimaced, clearly annoyed, and motioned to the bags lying in bins behind him. “Film.”

“I don’t have any film.”

Adeline scanned the people sitting in the folding metal chairs then studied the man behind the counter, who was visibly nervous now.

“Okay,” he said. “You go now.”

*

Adeline did go, but she didn’t go very far. She sat outside a Starbucks in the same strip mall, at a table with a clear view of Shen Photo, watching the patrons come and go, an idea forming in her head.

When she was sure the store was empty, she walked back inside and waited until the man emerged from the back room.