Twisted Fates Read online

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Part One

  1. Dorothy

  2. Ash

  3. Dorothy

  4. Ash

  5. Dorothy

  6. Ash

  7. Dorothy

  8. Ash

  9. Dorothy

  10. Ash

  11. Dorothy

  12. Ash

  13. Dorothy

  Part Two

  14. Ash

  15. Dorothy

  16. Ash

  17. Dorothy

  18. Ash

  19. Dorothy

  20. Ash

  21. Dorothy

  22. Ash

  23. Dorothy

  24. Ash

  25. Dorothy

  26. Ash

  27. Dorothy

  28. Ash

  29. Dorothy

  30. Ash

  31. Dorothy

  32. Ash

  33. Dorothy

  34. Ash

  35. Dorothy

  36. Ash

  37. Dorothy

  38. Ash

  Part Three

  39. Dorothy

  40. Ash

  41. Dorothy

  42. Ash

  43. Dorothy

  44. Ash

  45. Dorothy

  46. Ash

  47. Dorothy

  48. Ash

  49. Dorothy

  50. Ash

  51. Dorothy

  52. Ash

  53. Dorothy

  54. Ash

  55. Dorothy

  56. Ash

  57. Dorothy

  Part Four

  58. Dorothy

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Books by Danielle Rollins

  Back Ad

  Copyright

  About the Publisher

  Part One

  Once confined to fantasy and science fiction, time travel is now simply an engineering problem.

  —Michio Kaku

  1

  Dorothy

  MARCH 18, 1990, BOSTON

  Dorothy sat in the passenger seat of a red Dodge Daytona, fingers tapping her crossed legs. Roman had driven, and now he was leaning against the driver’s side door, staring out at the dark city streets beyond the windshield.

  The inside of the car wasn’t particularly pleasant. The air felt stale and smelled of old french fries and gasoline. They hadn’t bothered turning on the heat, and a chill crept in through the windows, making the hair on Dorothy’s arms stand up.

  Oh, and the radio didn’t work. If they wanted music, they had to play the tape currently stuck in the deck, a single of Paula Abdul’s “Cold Hearted.” They’d already listened to it at least fifty times over the last few days.

  “He’s a coldhearted snake,” Dorothy thought, playing the song in her head. And she must’ve started humming because Roman shot her an irritated look.

  She glanced at the clock on the dashboard as the red numbers flicked from 1:18 to 1:19 a.m.

  She looked up at the rearview mirror, studying the street reflected behind her. There’d been a Saint Patrick’s Day party in an apartment building a few yards back, but most of the guests had trickled out by now. The door had stayed closed for the last twenty minutes. Now the street was empty, a slick of rain glistening on the pavement.

  Her heart started beating faster. She inhaled long and slow, nose twitching at the smell of french fries.

  “It’s time,” she said, reaching for the door.

  Roman cut his eyes at her. “Fix your mustache first.”

  Dorothy twisted the mirror so she could see her face. The wax mustache perched above her upper lip was part of her disguise, but the damn thing wouldn’t stay put.

  She pressed it down, grimacing as the glue took hold. The skin above her lip itched. “Better?”

  “You’re too pretty to pass for a man,” Roman said, studying her.

  Dorothy’s mouth quirked beneath the mustache, dislodging it again. It was a joke, sort of. She used to be pretty. But then she fell out of a time machine and got sucked into a tunnel through time and space. Her hair had turned white, and a spare bit of machinery had sliced up her face, leaving her with a jagged scar that stretched from her temple, over one eye and past her nose, and ended at the edge of her mouth. Pretty was no longer a word anyone would use to describe her.

  Now she was . . .

  Interesting.

  “I could say the same thing about you,” she said. This wasn’t a joke. Roman was prettier than any man had a right to be, with his cool blue eyes and dark skin and messy black hair that had a way of looking intentional even when the wind had blown it into knots.

  “Touché,” Roman said. He’d grown a real mustache just for tonight, and he was wearing a pair of fake, gold-rimmed glasses to make himself seem older. He used the glasses to full effect now, letting them fall down the bridge of his nose so that he could peer over them, eyebrow cocked rather seductively.

  The effect had him looking more like a movie-star version of a college professor than a cop.

  Dorothy was far past being taken in by Roman’s beauty. She made a gagging noise that caused his eyes to move to his reflection in the car window, brow creased in concern.

  “Too much?” he asked, flicking a strand of hair off his forehead.

  “You aren’t going to find any admirers in an empty museum at one in the morning,” said Dorothy.

  “Ah, but there will be security cameras. And didn’t you say something about a police composite sketch?”

  “You want to look your best for a police composite sketch?”

  “In the movie version of this heist, I’d like to be played by Clark Gable.”

  Despite herself, Dorothy grinned. No one could accuse her partner of false modesty.

  “You have your dates mixed up,” she said, throwing her car door open. “Clark Gable died in 1960. This is 1990.” She hesitated, pretending to think. “Maybe Ben Affleck?”

  Roman shot her a murderous look.

  They climbed out of the car and crossed the street, stopping outside a wrought iron gate. A brick building hovered just beyond the trees, barely more than a dark shadow under the dim, yellow streetlights.

  The Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Dorothy thought, looking up. She frowned. In the photographs, it had seemed so much bigger.

  A black box hung from the brick wall outside the gate. A year ago, Dorothy wouldn’t have known that it was an intercom, but, now, she leaned in close, pressing down the button with her thumb.

  Static, and then a man’s voice. “Can I help you?”

  “We’re with the Boston police,” Roman said. “We’re here to check on a disturbance in the courtyard.”

  He flashed a small, gold badge at the camera that Dorothy had told him would be hanging above the fence. The security guard on the other side would see exactly what she wanted him to see: two Boston cops, dressed in stiff blue uniforms.

  The buzzer emitted an angry growl that told her the security fence had been unlocked.

  A familiar, tingly feeling of déjà vu worked its way through Dorothy’s shoulders. She had a composite sketch of the thieves taped to her mirror back at the Fairmont. It was rough, but she was convinced that the smaller of the two thieves was her, dressed as a man. She’d read every news article that existed about this heist, and each one had said the same thing: the thieves were never caught.

  Which made sense. If the thieves were time travelers, they never could be caught.

  Silently, they moved down the sidewalk and toward the museum’s entrance. Dorothy glanced at the twin stone panthers that guarded the front doors and felt a thrill of excitement. She’d seen them in photographs before, but now they were
here, in front of her. She’d never get over that rush, when the things she’d seen in newspaper articles suddenly became real.

  They pushed open the front door without knocking and walked inside, footsteps echoing against the marble. An older, African American security guard stood behind his desk. He was tall, with broad shoulders and a beard shot through with white. His eyes narrowed at them, suspicious.

  This would be Aaron Roberts, then.

  “I’m, um, I’m really not supposed to let people in here,” Roberts said, blinking. “But you said you’re with the police?”

  Roman nodded. “You did the right thing, son. We had reports of a disturbance in your courtyard, and we need to check it out. Could you . . .”

  Roman hesitated, tilting his head. “Well, now that’s strange.”

  The security guard twitched and then glanced over his shoulder, like he was expecting someone to appear out of the shadows behind him. “I’m sorry. What’s strange?”

  “You look an awful lot like a man we’ve been searching for.” Now Roman was rubbing his chin. He jerked his head toward the guard, eyes on Dorothy. “Doesn’t he look like Dean Morris?”

  The name was made up. No one had mentioned it in any of the reports or books or articles, so they’d plucked it out of thin air. The security guard blinked.

  “Morris?” he murmured.

  “Would you mind stepping out from behind that desk and showing me some ID?” Roman said.

  This was pivotal. There was a button beneath the desk that sounded the security alarm. It was the only one in the building. Once they got the guard away from that button, they were safe.

  Aaron Roberts stepped out from behind his desk.

  “I’m not this Dean guy,” he said, pulling out his wallet. He tugged his driver’s license loose and flashed it at Roman. “See?”

  Roman barely glanced at it. “Sure you’re not.” He unclipped a pair of heavy-duty handcuffs from his belt, nodding at the wall. “To be safe, why don’t you go ahead and face the wall for me, Mr. Roberts. Just until we get this all cleared up.”

  The security guard turned automatically. “But I didn’t do anything.”

  “Don’t worry, son. As long as you cooperate you won’t be in any trouble at all.” Roman clipped the handcuffs over Roberts’s wrists.

  Dorothy smothered a smile. It amused her to hear Roman call a man older than him “son.”

  “What the hell?” murmured a voice behind them.

  Security guard number two, Dorothy thought. It was happening just like she’d read it would, just like she’d planned. It felt a bit like playing God.

  She wanted to smile, but she bit the inside of her cheek, stopping herself. Moving her lip seemed to dislodge the mustache, and she couldn’t risk blowing her cover, not when they were this close.

  Nothing she’d read had mentioned the second security guard’s name or anything about him, so she hadn’t known what to expect until this moment. She turned—

  And breathed a sigh of relief. He was barely older than they were, with long, gangly limbs and a spattering of acne on his forehead. Not a threat.

  He looked at Roberts. “Aaron—?”

  “There’s been some kinda disturbance,” Roberts muttered. Then, frowning, he added, “You didn’t frisk me. Aren’t you supposed to—”

  “Sir, I’m going to need you to come here and stand next to your partner,” Roman said, cutting off Roberts. “We’ll have to call your names in before we move on.”

  Guard Number Two was staring at Dorothy, eyes narrowed.

  “Sir?” Roman said again, approaching him.

  The guard pointed. “His mustache is falling off.”

  Blast.

  It seemed to Dorothy that Roman stiffened as her own fingers flew to her face. Sure enough, the damn mustache was askew. Her first impulse was to fix it, but it was too late. The second guard was already shaking his head, backing away. His eyes flicked to the security desk. The alarm.

  She felt Roman’s eyes on her, questioning, and she could hear what he was thinking as clearly as if he’d actually spoken the words out loud. It’s not supposed to happen like this.

  History was supposed to be on their side. Dorothy had spent so long preparing. Night after night falling asleep with a musty old book as a pillow. Hours spent staring at a computer screen, until the words all blurred and a dull headache beat at her skull. They weren’t going to be caught. They couldn’t be.

  Dorothy moved between the guard and the alarm, reflexively. He was larger than she was, and she saw his eyes narrow as they moved over her body, sizing her up. He could push through her, he was thinking.

  Well, he could try to.

  Dorothy had learned many things during the last year she’d spent with the Black Cirkus, but perhaps the most useful was the location of the esophagus. There was a spot on the human body where the esophagus peeked out from behind the collarbone, all frail and weak, and if she happened to, say, jam her fingers into that spot, she could make a man twice her size cry for his mother.

  This man was not twice Dorothy’s size, but he still lurched at her, and so she calmly stuck two fingers into that tender spot just below his neck and hooked them in and down.

  He jerked backward, gasping, hands grabbing at his throat. “What the—”

  Dorothy used that second of surprise to spin him around, wrenching both arms behind his back. He twisted, all red-faced and wide-eyed, trying to see her face.

  He looked at her then, really looked at her, and she saw him take in the scar. The white hair.

  “Jesus,” he choked out. “You’re not a—”

  Before he could finish, she’d jerked his arm upward so it would hurt.

  “Watch it!” the guard shouted, but he didn’t fight as she slapped the cuffs over his wrists. “You’re not even a cop, are you?”

  “Not remotely,” said Dorothy. She shoved the guard up against the wall, beside his partner. Now that they were both cuffed, they were no longer a threat. “This is a robbery. You don’t know it yet, but it will go down in history as the greatest robbery ever performed.”

  Dorothy and Roman led the guards to the basement, handcuffed them to pipes, and wrapped duct tape around their hands, feet, and heads. Then they headed upstairs to the Dutch Room.

  Dorothy had practically memorized the Dutch Room. She’d spent hours poring over photographs, wondering if the tile floor would cause her to trip in her oversize boots, if their voices would carry through the high, arched windows and into the courtyard below, if they’d be able to see in the near-perfect dark.

  Her flashlight’s beam bounced off green brocade walls and gilded gold frames holding the most famous artwork in the history of the world. Chairs and heavy wooden furniture had been pushed up against the walls, almost like someone had cleared the center of the room for a dance. Dorothy grinned a little at the thought. It was the 1990s. The kind of dancing she was thinking of hadn’t been popular for a hundred years and the nonsense that had taken its place . . .

  Well. It seemed more like convulsing than dancing, to her.

  “We have a little over an hour,” she said as Roman headed for a framed Vermeer.

  “You’re the boss.” Roman pulled a box cutter out of his pocket and began cutting the painting from its frame.

  Isabella Stewart Gardner had bought that Vermeer in 1892, for 29,000 francs, Dorothy thought, remembering her research. Now it was worth millions.

  She tilted her head to the side, studying it. It was smaller than she’d expected it to be. Why was everything so much smaller in real life?

  They packed up paintings by Vermeer, Rembrandt, Degas, and Manet, along with an ancient Chinese gu vase and a bronze eagle finial that had sat atop a framed Napoleonic flag (the flag stayed stubbornly attached to the wall, no matter how hard they tried to remove it).

  Finally, Roman checked his watch. “It’s been seventy-nine minutes.”

  “Fine,” Dorothy said, stowing the final painting away in her bag
. “Let’s go.”

  His eyes narrowed. “And the guards?”

  “The police will be here in six hours. I’m sure they’ll let them out.”

  “You’re terrible,” Roman said. But he smiled in an amused sort of way that let Dorothy know he approved.

  “Come on,” she said, hitching her duffel farther up her shoulder as she started for the museum doors.

  The Black Crow waited for them in a nearby park, its bullet-shaped body and finned tail hidden by tree branches, tall grass, and the night’s long shadows. Roman loaded the stolen artwork into the cargo hold while Dorothy climbed into the cockpit and began their preflight check. Roman had spent the last year teaching her to fly the time machine. She couldn’t handle the ship quite as well as he could yet, but she was getting better every day.

  “Wing flaps,” she murmured to herself, fingers flying over the control panel. And the carburetor needed to be moved into position, the throttle opened. She checked the EM gauge and saw that the dial was trained on full. They’d been going back in time nearly every day for weeks and, still, the store hadn’t been depleted. How strange.

  She sat back in her seat, eyes still on the gauge. The time machine had been Roman’s doing, built using the blueprints he’d stolen from Professor Zacharias Walker, the father of time travel. But a time machine would blow apart the second it entered an anil if it didn’t have any exotic matter—or EM—to stabilize the volatile winds of the tunnel. And Dorothy had provided the EM.

  She felt a flush of pride as the memory rose in her mind, strange as always:

  My name is Quinn Fox. . . . I have something you need.

  Those were the words that had sealed her fate one year and two weeks ago. Just moments before, she’d been on board another time machine, begging a pilot with gold eyes to let her stay in New Seattle, with him, instead of returning her to her old life back in 1913.

  And then a storm ripped her away and blew her through walls of time and smoke. She’d landed on the docks at Roman’s feet a year before she would meet that gold-eyed pilot, Ash, and well over a hundred years after her mother, along with everyone she’d ever known, had died.

  Dorothy could still feel the chill of the dock that she’d woken up on, and she could remember the fear that’d beat beneath her chest when she realized how alone she truly was. She’d really had only two choices: