Page 68 of I Know You

“Thank you,” I say with too much sweetness to be taken as genuine, and I catch Quint hiding a smile as he takes a bite of his toast.

“Well, you can’t go alone,” Ben says.

“You go with her,” Quint suggests. “I’ll stay here and talk to my people. Ring me up at lunch to tell me what you find.” He lays down his half-eaten toast and scoots his chair out. “If you’ll give me that photograph, I’ll run upstairs and do a quick sketch to show around here.”

“No need,” Ben says, taking another from his jacket. “We have spares.” Burke and Dr. Cooper’s people had photoshopped Gibbons’s picture to look like a standard portrait of the 1930s, and if I hadn’t seen the original myself, I’d think him a regular fellow.

“Well, I’ll get started, then.” Quint nods to us and leaves the room.

“If I didn’t know better, I’d think he doesn’t like my company,” I say dryly. Ben’s response is to snort with laughter, and though I join in, it’s only to cover the heaviness in my heart. Had I expected that I could pick up where I left off with Quint for another few days? The aftermath of that would wreck any hope of normalcy with Ben when we return. I have to grit my teeth and bear Quint’s distance and hope it’s enough to salvage my relationship with Ben. After everything we’ve built together in the present, I don’t want to lose him too.

Gibbons stayed at a nearby hotel, but the clerk hadn’t seen him since he left early this morning, and a search of his room shows he’s taken all his things—if he brought any things at all. We canvass the nearby restaurants and find that he ate at one close by as well.

“Coffee and a stack of pancakes,” the waitress tells us, and the way she pats my arm in commiseration proves my instincts right about me being better at getting information.

“Did you see where he went when he left?” Ben asks.

“Took a cab.” The waitress points outside to the street. She turns to a man at a nearby table. “Hey, Eddie. Where did you take that fella that ate all the pancakes this morning? The one kept saying how they were the best thing he’d ever tasted?”

Ben practically falls over with giddiness over such a development. The waitress goes on, though, before Eddie has a chance to answer. “He didn’t look too down about missing his family though, miss.” Her pitying expression grows even more sympathetic at the idea of a young woman searching out a man who doesn’t want to be found.

“He doesn’t know yet about our father and his … health,” I say, biting my bottom lip as though it’s an effort to keep back tears.

“Oh, poor soul,” the waitress sighs. She nods to Eddie, who’s gone back to his coffee. “Eddie will tell you where he took ’im.” She gives me another pat and goes back to work.

Eddie does indeed give us an address in the city, and Ben almost skips to the pay phone to call Quint with the news. Quint arrives in his car, looking as jubilant as Ben.

“The servants saw him,” he says, getting out of a sleek black Chrysler sedan with whitewashed tires. The round top and curved wheel wells are classic and glamorous. “But none of them have any idea where he went. What luck the cab driver was here.”

Ben rounds the vehicle to hop into the passenger side. “This is a much better start than when we came last,” he says, sliding in.

I stand on the sidewalk, eyeing them both and reminded of the charming delight of Quint’s personality. Thank heavens he hasn’t lost it, though his somber mood around me made me fear he had.

“Forgive me, Miss Granville,” Quint says, becoming subdued almost if on cue. He holds open the door of the back seat for me to get in.

Both of them forget me as they drive into New York, discussing who Gibbons could be meeting in the city or if it’s just a stop on the way to Europe, where bigger and more threatening things are happening. Ben cuts himself off numerous times before giving Quint information on coming events. I shrug their inattention off for now. Not having the awkward tension in the air is refreshing, and I don’t have anything to add yet anyway.

Gibbons was dropped at the Plaza. Knowing that it wasn’t a coincidence that he’d been there in 1928 serves to brighten Ben’s mood further. “We were on the right track,” he declares, full of optimism that makes me grin.

It takes us a half hour to establish that he came to the Palm Court Restaurant, where he sat for a few hours and then left.

“What do you suppose he was doing?” Quint asks.

“Meeting someone, I’m sure, but no one was here for him to meet.” Ben taps his fingers on the table we’ve gotten on the fringe near a marble column, in case Gibbons comes back, and ignores the Coke he’s ordered. (He took one sip and shared a surprised look with me about its taste before pushing it aside.) “He can’t have known an exact time when he’d arrive, so there must be some kind of arrangement…” He clears his throat and gives me an apologetic look before asking Quint, “How long ago did you buy that mirror?”

Quint colors and swirls the ice in his own Coke with his straw. “When I came into town last week. It’s something of a habit now.”

“Not anymore,” I whisper to myself. It’s the last one he bought. Soon he’ll be married and living in England. Quint catches my words, and we share a gaze: his full of questions, mine full of I’m sorrys. He turns away without any forgiveness coming into his expression. Not that I expect it. Or should want it.

“So Gibbons knew he’d be coming back sometime within a week or so of that—but did he know that when he came the first time?” Now Ben stares at me, the wheels in his head working out the problem he won’t dare mention. How had us following Gibbons the first time altered what he knew about 1928 when he made his first trip there? Had he known of Quint’s mirrors then—had there been any mirrors to know about? Quint bought the mirrors after meeting me, who came from the future. The paths are so circular it makes my head hurt thinking about it.

I stand. “Bergdorf’s is nearby, and I don’t want to scandalize Kitty and Florence by appearing in their company in the same clothes every day.”

Both Ben and Quint stand as well, a gentlemanly habit that never wears on me, and then stare at each other, deciding, I presume, who will accompany me. Heaven forbid I shop alone.

“You’d better stay here and watch for Gibbons, if he returns,” Quint says, with far too much reluctance for my taste. “I’ll go.”

“Alright.” Ben looks relieved. “I think I’ll stroll around and watch the lobby. Gibbons will likely return to the hotel that way, and I want to see him before he sees me.”