Page 62 of I Know You

Dr. Cooper and Burke arrive at Ben’s New York home mere minutes after Ben and I do. Our suitcases are still in the front hall when Ben opens the door and brings the men into the formal living room at the front of the house.

The reluctance in Dr. Cooper’s handshake when he meets me as I stand from the couch, his hesitance in sitting down, and the look he shares with Burke before they both sink onto the couch at the same time unnerves me.

“Some kind of bad news?” Ben asks, perching on the edge of the loveseat he shares with me, opposite of the two men.

As I take in the scene in the room and compare it with the one from last summer in my condo at The Villa, it dawns on me why they insisted Ben and I come to New York now and why they look so displeased about it. It’s not just news of Gibbons.

“Gibbons went back in time again,” I say.

Burke nods. “Six hours ago.”

“Of course,” Ben says, nodding. “It would make sense why we never found anything or how nothing has changed. He went in preparation.”

“That seems most likely,” Dr. Cooper says. He lays a folder on the table between us, a shiny cherrywood piece that’s probably over a hundred years old and immaculately taken care of. Whoever has kept this house for Ben has done a fine job of blending modern pieces with those that have been here for a century.

“1938,” Burke says in his deep, reverberating voice. So fitting, since the year rings in all of our heads.

“Right before World War II. So he’s planning something big.” Ben growls to himself as he picks up the folder. “We couldn’t even find a trail of him before—how are we going to stop whatever he’s got planned now?”

“I don’t know—but Burke and I aren’t any better equipped to go back in time than you. You’ve proven you can blend in, and someone has to stay behind here in case Gibbons does succeed.” Dr. Cooper holds his hands in defeat that matches his tone. “If this were a criminal working in this time period, we’d be able to track him with security cameras and computers and bank records. But he’s got something up his sleeves—something bad, judging by how eager he was to convince you to leave him alone—and he’s working his angle from the past in a way we’re unequipped to defend ourselves, which I’m sure is his purpose.”

“Where did he travel from?” I ask, leaning forward. It’s so different from the last time, when Ben and I were skeptical and hesitant. Now we both know we have to go. We have to find him. “Somewhere in Europe?”

Dr. Cooper shakes his head, and then blushes, which I can’t account for at all. “From the Allen house. I suppose in your haste to get out last time—” He glances apologetically at me. “—you didn’t notice that it basically became a time-traveling mirror depot.”

“A depot? What do you mean?” Ben asks.

Dr. Cooper looks at Burke, who shakes his head, declining to comment, but why I can’t guess.

“Quint Allen bought four mirrors a year from 1929 to 1938. One every season.” Dr. Cooper pushes a magazine article, printed from an internet archive, across the table. In the picture that spreads full across the top of the article, I recognize the upstairs hallway of the Allen home, where littered among the Allen family portraits are an assortment of tall mirrors.

I freeze, staring at the picture. The piece of me still in love with Quint has grown smaller and smaller every day, until I thought I’d tucked him into the back of my heart like a fond thought. But the knowledge that he’d purchased four mirrors a year until he gave up and married? That piece of me—much larger than I’ve led myself to believe—swells and lodges itself in my throat. He believed I’d come back. I cover my mouth with my hand and try to breathe deeply. A glance at Ben tells me he’s gone still as well.

“I see,” I say in the best-controlled voice I can muster. “Then how do you know the year? Are the energy spikes that precise?” I try to sound indifferent to the knowledge of Quint’s constancy.

“No. The Allen home has security cameras in this hallway because both the art and the mirrors are worth a lot,” Burke explains. “They show which mirror Gibbons went into, and it didn’t take a lot of research to match it with the one of the mirrors Allen bought in 1938.”

“No one was hurt when Gibbons went back?” I question first. He showed his respect for human life to be minimal, and speaking of objective facts will save me from swirling too far down into regrets—pointless regrets.

“The house seems to have been empty. Porter says that the family spent little time there after 1935 except for when Isabelle and William lived there during most of World War II. In any case, there were no reports of incidents there that we could find.” Burke’s deep voice sounds comforting, which almost makes me want to smile as I think of how Ben once jokingly referred to him as a teddy bear.

“That’s a relief,” I say, and my voice sounds foreign, even to me. “Hopefully that means we won’t have to meddle in their lives more than we already have.”

“Clara…” Ben’s hand finds mine, and his voice is so tender and understanding that it almost makes me melt into him to cry for a while. I squeeze his hand and pull away, unable to stomach his compassion for me when all I ever do is use him. For a place to live, for clothing, for comfort.

“We should go as soon as possible, don’t you think?” I ask, continuing on my businesslike track in order to shove away the possibilities. We won’t see Quint, and that’s for the best. I’ve damaged him and Ben enough to last a lifetime. “The further we get behind Gibbons, the harder it will be to follow him.”

“I agree,” Dr. Cooper says in a firm voice. “We’ll have everything you need as soon as possible. The team has been working on things since we discovered the jump.”

Both Ben and I nod our agreement, and I wait through a tense few minutes before the men leave.

“Come here,” Ben says when we’ve seen them to the door and then closed it behind them. He wraps his arms around me, pulling me to him.

“Oh, Ben. Stop being so good to me,” I cry, but I accept his hug, tightening my arms around his waist.

He laughs. “I’ll always be good to you. That’s my job.” He pulls back a little and tips my head to look at him. “This is going to be easy. We’ll use the house to get there and slip out into the night, like we did at McCann’s.”

“Right.” I force firmness into my voice and swallow back my desire to admit that I want to find Quint.