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  Karen realized that she could never like most of the people in her neighborhood. They lied, they cheated, they stole, they fucked each other over like there was no tomorrow, and they didn’t seem to feel a hint of remorse.

  On the other hand, remorse flowed like blood through her veins. She would often visit the secret boxes in her mother’s bedroom, looking at her dad’s .45, hefting it in her hands, rereading his confession and then looking at the face of the innocent girl whose life he had stolen.

  And she’d cry.

  Karen shook her head to try to shake out the demons that haunted her. For some reason they worked more on her when time stopped, as if the worldly issues slid off her body and left her shrouded in her father’s guilt.

  “Stupid,” she chided herself. There was nothing she could do about the past.

  There was a party in the house down the street from the Mayberry Care Center, about twenty people scattered around the basement and plumes of marijuana smoke hanging motionless in the air. They looked like college students. Karen was a sophomore, and even though it was a long shot, she checked each person to see if she knew anyone.

  Nope.

  The bathroom door was shut but not locked. She opened it and saw a girl about her age bending over the sink. Her pants were off and her legs spread apart. A guy was fucking her from behind. He had a grizzled black beard and a joint in his mouth. His expression showed that he was only concerned about his own pleasure and didn’t give a rat’s ass about the girl he was using. She was grimacing and gritting her teeth.

  Karen moved closer and saw that he wasn’t using a condom. She doubted they’d known each other before the party, but the girl wouldn’t likely forget him anytime soon.

  Karen felt anger rush through her, and for a second, she thought about slicing Tina’s boyfriend’s cock. Surely this guy deserved the same.

  Didn’t he?

  Then a thought hit her: What makes me so perfect a judge?

  She wondered if she might turn into a vigilante, roaming the streets to take revenge for the sins she discovered.

  She left the building and walked away, trying to forget the party.

  * * *

  “You’re back.”

  “You’re very observant.”

  “Still as cute as ever.”

  Karen didn’t really want to talk to Bobby Jersey, but then again, she did.

  Fuck, I’m messed up.

  “I guess I just miss talking to somebody who understands.”

  “Yeah,” he said. “I’m glad you came back. It’s been a long time.”

  “You ever wish you were normal?” Even as the words left her mouth, she knew she really was asking herself that question, not him.

  “Nah. I figure I can have a lot of fun and nobody’s the wiser.”

  She nodded, not wanting him to elaborate on the kind of fun he was talking about. She’d seen some of it and didn’t need to see any more. He was one more asshole in a sea of assholes.

  “Can you come with me?” she asked.

  “Where to?”

  “Just a mile or so away.”

  He shrugged and laughed. “Why not?”

  On the way, Karen told Bobby about the secrets her father had kept, including the murder. He didn’t interrupt her, just listened. Karen kept looking straight ahead while they walked, so she never knew if he glanced over to her during the story or not.

  When she finished, he put a hand on her shoulder. “Sorry you had to find that out. Must be hard.”

  “I want to make it right somehow.”

  They walked through the gates of Blue Ridge Cemetery. It was midafternoon and the sun was bloody hot. She didn’t care. She needed to find Tammy Preston.

  * * *

  Karen looked down at the closest tombstone. She’d been walking for almost an hour and still hadn’t found what she’d been looking for.

  For that matter, she wasn’t sure she even knew for herself exactly what she was seeking. The one she was looking at now had a woman’s name followed by:

  Born July 4, 1960, Died December 10, 1999

  Beloved Mother and Artist

  She Brought Life to Those Close to Her

  A gust of wind blew some loose strands of Karen’s long blonde hair so they covered her view. She pushed them back behind her ears.

  “Is that the one?”

  The voice behind her was gentle but insistent.

  “Are you getting tired of looking?”

  Karen smiled as she turned to face Bobby. He stood a respectful two feet behind her, as if he were trying to give her all the privacy she might need while still being there to offer any emotional support.

  Not bloody likely, she thought.

  Bobby was nineteen years old, just like she was. Somehow, though, he looked older. If she didn’t know better, she’d peg him at about twenty-five. He was tall, rugged, and handsome, exactly the kind of guy who would turn girls’ heads wherever he went. His deep voice made her wonder if he could have had a future in radio.

  Karen, on the other hand, knew she barely looked seventeen, let alone nineteen. She was slim and short and never seemed to fill out like other girls her age.

  “Sorry, I didn’t intend to sound impatient,” he said. “Take all the time you want. Time is the one thing both of us have lots of.”

  Karen nodded. “I just need to find the right one.”

  Bobby smiled. “I know. Really, it’s okay.”

  “I’m not sure anything will be okay ever again.”

  Bobby didn’t answer. What could he say to that?

  Karen looked at him with the hint of emotion in her eyes, but she was determined not to let a single tear drop. She tried to detach herself and just concentrate on Bobby’s face—the dark brown eyes; the pitch-black, curly hair; the dimples she knew would appear when he smiled.

  She exhaled a long breath and turned back to the headstone. “I wonder what kind of art she practiced.”

  “Do you want to check? You can Google it on your iPhone. Shouldn’t be hard to find if she really accomplished anything.”

  Karen shook her head. “In a way I’d rather imagine my own truth. I think she loved to put together collages from nature, picking up stray oak and maple leaves wherever she went and then spending hours rearranging them to tell a story.”

  She knelt and touched the granite stone, feeling the etchings of some of the letters.

  “This isn’t the one,” she said finally.

  Bobby joined her as she walked past a few more tombstones. None of them interested her. Only a few had called to her so far.

  The sun was starting to set behind them, casting a long shadow through the graveyard. Karen knew Bobby just wanted her to find the right damned stone so they could leave, but it wasn’t that easy. It had to be the right one.

  If she couldn’t find it, she’d come back tomorrow, and the day after that.

  “Did you know there’re two thousand people buried here?” asked Bobby.

  She ignored him. A cool breeze blew, and she felt goose bumps rise on her arms. All of a sudden she moved to her right and fell to her knees in front of an old weathered stone.

  “This is the one,” she said. “I found her.”

  * * *

  The grave marker was hard to read but once she was close to the ground, she could make it out easily enough:

  Tammy Preston

  Died Too Young

  Never to be Forgotten

  Karen ran her fingers over the etchings and tried to imagine the loss Tammy’s parents would have felt. She couldn’t.

  “I’m so sorry, Tammy,” she whispered. “I wish I could have helped you.”

  She wiped a tear from her cheek, closed her eyes, and said a silent prayer. Even after distancing herself from her church, she needed to do that.

  It wasn’t long afterwards that she felt the calling; she had to hurry back to work before time started again.

  As she ran back, she knew Bobby was following her, but she couldn’t
do a damned thing about it.

  Chapter 8

  Karen got back just as she felt the tension rising to a ridiculously high degree. Her body was tingling and every cell was shouting at her to get back into the fucking right place!

  The calling had never been this strong. She wondered what would happen if she somehow found the courage to ignore the un-ignorable and stay where she was, out of time, out of place. She’d never been able to resist the calling, though; and if she’d been unable to do it while knowing that Bobby Jersey was following her, she surely never would.

  He knows where I work.

  The thought was followed by: He can find where I live anytime he wants to. The hospital had records that would be easy for him to find if he chose to.

  But then, why would he bother? He already knew where to find her. The next time that he was free and she was frozen, he could come over and do whatever he wanted.

  Bobby was evil. She knew that. She knew it as surely as she knew her own name, and although his smile said otherwise, in her heart she knew that he’d happily do whatever happened to cross his mind. She’d seen that side of him and she was frightened of it.

  “Go see Mrs. Jenkins.”

  Karen snapped out of her thoughts and realized that her supervisor, Maggie Kincaid, had had to repeat her request.

  “Sorry, Maggie. I’m on my way.” She smiled and hurried down the hall to Room 217.

  Mrs. Jenkins had only been admitted for a few days and was already close to death. Karen felt anger whenever she visited, because Mrs. Jenkins was thirty-two, much too young to be dying. Her husband visited her every morning and every night, and when Karen saw him, she saw confusion, fear, and anger on his face. She understood because she felt the same way. No fair God should ever allow some disease Karen had never heard of to take away such a young woman.

  “Hello,” she whispered. She took the patient’s hand. The patient, she reminded herself. Not “Mrs. Jenkins.” Dehumanize them as much as possible. That was part of her training.

  Every day when Karen left work, she felt lonely and frustrated.

  But she felt an amazing sense of tranquility by the time she got home. Every day she made somebody’s life just a tiny bit better than it would otherwise be.

  She wanted to work at the Mayberry Care Center for the rest of her life.

  “Thank you,” said the frail woman. She tried to squeeze Karen’s hand but could only manage a tiny pressure. Tubes ran from her nose and arms. There were others beneath the covers.

  “Would you like me to read to you?”

  Mrs. Jenkins shook her head, a gesture Karen barely noticed. “Just … .”

  Karen waited for her to finish the sentence, but the woman couldn’t get the words out. Her lips moved but no sound emerged.

  “What did you say?”

  Karen leaned close.

  “Just kill me.”

  Karen pulled back in shock.

  “Please,” whispered the woman. “It hurts so much.”

  “I can’t.”

  Mrs. Jenkins stared at her, her mouth clawing in bits of air. Her eyes were like accusing spikes.

  “Please let me read to you. Last time we started a Danielle Steel novel. Should we continue?”

  The woman just stared at her. “Please,” she whispered one more time.

  Karen picked up the paperback novel and flipped it open to Chapter Four, where she’d left off the day before and she started to read.

  * * *

  Forty-eight hours later, Mrs. Olivia Jenkins was dead. In those last two days, she suffered immensely. She couldn’t catch her breath and felt as if she was breathing through a straw. Her guts were full of shiny glass fragments that churned and ripped her insides, her brain assaulted by lightning bolts. Even the morphine drip did little to dull the eternal pain.

  Karen wanted to help her, but there was nothing she could do. She had little control over the medication the patients were given. After all, Mrs. Jenkins wouldn’t be at the clinic if she weren’t a terminal case waiting for death.

  That didn’t make Karen feel better. All of a sudden she realized that many of her patients wanted her help, to ease them away from the horrible last days ahead of them into a peaceful sleep. Most didn’t ask with their mouth—they asked with their eyes. She now knew the meaning of the wide-eyed stare that greeted her so often. Until now she’d thought it was fear, which made total sense to her; but now she realized it was also a plea for help.

  * * *

  One night when she was twenty-one, she lay in bed with Bonnie, both of them naked. Karen needed to hold her tightly, wanting to feel the love of her girlfriend, hoping the feelings they shared would help remove the memories of her day job.

  She kissed Bonnie passionately and rubbed her back from the shoulders down to her ass. The two girls pressed their bodies together, and Karen felt herself getting wet, the memories of the waiting dead finally falling from her mind.

  Suddenly, her arm was wrenched down to her side with a sudden jerk, and she was slammed onto her back as if an invisible giant plucked her off Bonnie and tossed her like an old Barbie doll. It happened without warning and both girls were stunned.

  “What happened?” asked Bonnie. Her voice was full of confusion. “I thought you were enjoying it.”

  “I was. I didn’t pull away. My body just slammed down.”

  “That’s impossible.”

  Karen realized what happened. She felt her belly and found a sticky spot.

  Fucking Bobby Jersey. Ohmygod, he was here.

  She knew without even having to consciously work it out. Time had frozen for Bobby, and he used his secret time to come to her. He’d found her making love with Bonnie, pushed her aside, probably fondled both of them, and masturbated on her.

  Fucking pervert.

  Tears spilled down her cheeks. “I’m so sorry, Bonnie.”

  “But what happened?”

  “I—I’m not sure how to explain.”

  “It’s okay. I’m here for you. You can tell me anything. You know that.”

  “Yes. I do.”

  And she did. She told her everything about being able to move when everybody else was stuck in time. She told her about Bobby and about her dad and her sister’s loser boyfriend. She told her about all the buried secrets she’d found over the years, and she pulled out her Secrets Journal to help convince Bonnie what she’d seen.

  The only thing she didn’t tell her was the time when Karen had spied on Bonnie herself.

  It took two hours to get her story out, and during that time Bonnie barely talked. She nodded occasionally and let the story unfold. As Karen revealed more details, she was convinced that Bonnie thought she was a freaking nut case. By the end of the story, she was sure she’d ruined the only true love she’d ever felt.

  When she finally stopped talking, though, Bonnie smiled and just said, “I love you. I want to hear everything from this point forward. No more secrets between us. Pinkie swear?”

  Karen grinned and held out her smallest finger to connect with Bonnie’s.

  * * *

  Thirteen days passed before time stopped again for Karen. In that time, three of her patients had died, and she’d had no further visits from Bobby.

  She had planned her time-freeze this time. It was the middle of the night. She snapped awake and saw Bonnie curled up beside her, like a cute little snail.

  Karen was wearing pajamas and didn’t bother changing. Nobody would see her. She went to the kitchen and picked out a sharp carving knife.

  It had taken very little effort to find out where Bobby lived. Unlike her, he was outgoing and wanted everybody to know everything about him on Facebook, Twitter, and a few other sites. Once Karen decided to track him down, she had his address within a few hours.

  He lived in the basement of an apartment owned by his mom. She broke a window, not caring if there was an alarm system. If there was, she’d be long gone before the first ring of the claxon.

  He was s
leeping naked (no surprise to her). Karen pulled the covers off him and used the knife to slice a very thin line on his belly, the same place he had defiled her with his semen.

  She’d already written a note that she left propped beside him: Leave me alone, you fucking creep. If I ever see you again, I’m going to cut your cock off. You know I’ll have no qualms about doing it.

  She left and walked to the Mayberry Care Center. The building was mostly dark so the patients could sleep, but there were still a half-dozen employees keeping track of things.

  Carlene Jameson was in room 173. She was an old woman, close to eighty, who’d been waiting to die for more than two weeks. Like most of the others, she was in pain every minute of every day and just wanted it to be over.

  Karen walked in to the drug room and filled a hypodermic with morphine. She took it to Carlene Jameson’s room and inserted it into her IV, depositing the deadly dose so it would bring the rest that the old woman desperately wanted. She’d begged Karen for help several times, and Karen no longer feared helping. She’d just needed to have time stop so she could take care of things without being caught. She’d never be allowed in the drug room normally without authorization. This way, she could help Carlene and leave no indication she had even been in the same building.

  “Good-bye,” she whispered. She kissed the old woman on the forehead and then took her time as she left the building. She walked around downtown until she felt the calling and smiled as she went back home to sleep with Bonnie.

  Chapter 9

  Four years passed.

  Karen was twenty-five, and it seemed that she’d always lived with Bonnie. Any secret insecurities Karen had felt about her relationship were long gone; she knew they’d be together forever.

  Long gone also was Bobby Jersey. After threatening to hurt him, Karen had not heard from him again. She rarely thought of him, since she no longer needed him. Once he had been the only person she could share her secret life with. Now, Bonnie shared that part of her, even if it wasn’t something she could directly participate in. It didn’t matter.