He paused for a second, processing the barrage of questions, and then gave me a small, slightly crooked smile. “Okay—I’ll answer them in order. I’m Kiernan Dunne,” he said. “I was not following you. I was following Simon. I’m not supposed to be here. Simon—the guy who took your bag—is not my friend, Kate. And this key,” he finished, pointing at the medallion on his chest, “is not from your grandmother’s collection. It was my father’s.”
He raised his hand and I flinched instinctively. His eyes grew sad and his smile faded as he moved his hand, more slowly now, to brush the right side of my face with his fingertips. “I’ve never seen you this young.” He reached around and pulled the band loose from my hair so that it fell to my shoulders. “Now you look more like my Kate.”
I opened my mouth to protest, but he held up his hand and continued, speaking more quickly now. “We’re close to your exit. Go straight to your grandmother’s house and tell her what has happened. At least you still have this.” He touched the black cord around my neck. “Keep the CHRONOS key on you at all times.”
“CHRONOS key? I don’t have…”
“The medallion,” Kiernan said, again touching the cord.
“I don’t have a medallion.” I pulled the cord out of my blouse. At the end was the clear plastic holder that contained my school ID, a Metro pass, a few pictures, and two keys—one for Dad’s cottage and one for the townhouse. I flipped the holder around so that he could see the plain silver keys through the back. “And these are the only keys I have. Could you stop talking in riddles?”
The color drained from Kiernan’s face and panic filled his eyes. “Was it in the bag? You should keep it on you.”
“No,” I repeated. “I don’t have a medallion. Until now, I thought there was only one, and to the best of my knowledge it’s at my grandmother’s house.”
“Why?” he asked. “Why in bloody hell would she send you out with no protection?”
“I don’t know how to use it! Yesterday, I nearly…” I blushed, thinking back to the scene in the kitchen. “I saw you when I held it. Why? Who are you?”
The train began to slow. Kiernan closed his eyes and rubbed his first two fingers against his temples for a few seconds before looking up and shaking his head. “I didn’t plan for this, Kate. You’re going to have to run. Take a cab. Steal a car. Whatever you do, get to her house as quickly as you can and do not leave.”
He moved us both toward the doors and then turned, pulling me toward him. “I’ll try to stall them—but I don’t know exactly what they’re planning, so I have no idea how long you have.”
“How long before wha—” My question was silenced as his lips met mine, gentle, but urgent. My body was swept with the same sensations I had felt earlier when I held the medallion—heart pounding, unable to breathe, unable to move, unable to think.
After a moment he pulled away, a small smile lifting the corners of his mouth. “This wasn’t supposed to be our first kiss, Kate. But if you do not hurry, it will almost certainly be our last. Run. Run, now.” As the train decelerated, Kiernan reached into his shirt and closed his hand around the medallion. The dark green band that he had pulled from my hair was now on his wrist. And then he vanished.
The subway doors chimed open and I ran.
There was, of course, no cab outside the station. A glance at the schedule told me that a bus wouldn’t arrive for twenty minutes, and I wasn’t sure that I could run over three miles in my current state. On top of everything else, my toes hurt like hell from being stomped by Pudgy. I hobbled three blocks in the opposite direction to the Marriot and, after a panicked look at the empty cab stand, was relieved to see one just pulling up to the curb.
I slid into the back and gave him the address.
“You got money hidden somewhere, kid? ’Cause I don’t see no purse or no wallet and this is rush hour.”
“This is an emergency. It’s just off Old Georgetown in North Bethesda and I need to get there as quickly as possible. My grandmother will pay you.”
He looked as though he planned to protest further, but something in my expression must have convinced him to start the cab and pull back onto the main road. He drove as fast as traffic allowed, which was often only slightly faster than I could have run. I clenched my teeth in frustration.
“Sure you’re not runnin’ from the cops or something?” he asked, peering back at me through the rearview mirror. “You look like you’re runnin’ to me.”
“I was running to catch a cab to take me to my grandmother’s house. She’s… sick, okay?”
“Yeah, right.” He took a left at the next corner and then said, “Okay, Red Ridin’ Hood. I’ll get you to Grandma’s house ahead of the Big Bad Wolf. But she better have some money in her basket or I’ll be calling the cops myself.”
I rolled my eyes at that lame bit of witticism and settled back in the seat. I wasn’t sure why Kiernan thought I was in danger, but there was no mistaking the fear in his eyes. I touched my hand to my lips, remembering his kiss. It wasn’t just our first kiss, but my first kiss ever. Even with my total lack of experience, I could tell that there was strong emotion behind it. He knew me, somehow, from somewhere or some time, and he cared about me. As confusing as it was to think that I had a past (or was it a future?) that I didn’t remember, I couldn’t doubt that Kiernan was desperately afraid for me. I clutched the edge of my plaid skirt as the cab inched a bit closer to Katherine’s house and, hopefully, toward some answers.
I was out of the cab before it came to a full stop. I ran to the door and banged on it frantically. Connor’s face appeared moments later.
“Where is Katherine? Let me in.”
“Yes, of course!”
“Can you pay the cab? He stole my bag.”
Connor looked confused. “The driver?”
“No—a guy on the Metro.” Daphne was barking loudly, and Connor held her collar to keep her from dashing out the door.
“Yes, yes, I’ll pay him. Take Daphne.” He grabbed shoes from the hall closet. The driver began honking, inciting Daphne to ratchet up her noise level as well. “Katherine! Come down!” Connor called as he headed out the door. “Kate is here.”
Katherine appeared at the top of the stairs a few moments later, pulling a robe over her nightgown as she hurried down to greet me. “Kate! Why aren’t you at school, dear? You look frightened. What on earth? Sit down, please.” She motioned toward the sofa and slapped her hand against her thigh. “Daphne! Outside!”
She led Daphne to the kitchen door and I sat down, trying to catch my breath. I peeled off my shoe to inspect the toes that had been crushed by… Simon, Kiernan had called him, although I still thought of him as Pudgy. Two of the toes were a deep angry red, and one toenail had been squished so badly that it was ripped down to the quick. I gritted my teeth and pulled off the nail fragment to keep it from snagging on my sock.
Connor reentered the house just as Katherine came back in from the kitchen. I saw a soft blue glow through the threads of his jeans pocket and was relieved to know that he had a medallion. It hadn’t occurred to me that he, too, might be in danger.
He sat down in the armchair across from the sofa. “Did you find out who robbed her?”
“Robbed?” Katherine exclaimed. “Kate, what happened? Are you okay?”
“I’m fine,” I said, pulling my sock back on carefully. I slipped off my other shoe and slid them both under the coffee table. “Some guy on the Metro now has your diary, however—and my iPod and textbooks. I’m sorry, Katherine. I would have tried to fight him off, but the Metro was crowded and… he had a gun. Or something that felt like a gun, poking into my side.”
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “You did the right thing. I have several other diaries here and that volume is backed up in the computer system.”
Connor nodded. “We can track the original, too—so we may be able to get it back. I doubt a mugger will be too concerned with looking at an old diary, anyway. And he won’t be able to activate it.”
“Does this happen often on the Metro?” Katherine asked.
“What?” I shook my head. “No—I mean yes, people get mugged occasionally. I never have—the Metro’s safe, really. But this wasn’t just somebody grabbing a random backpack. He knew what he was doing. He wanted the diary. He saw me with it yesterday. And I think he had a medallion—like yours.”
Katherine looked at Connor skeptically, then back at me. “Are you sure? I don’t think—”
“No, I’m not sure about the mugger. But he did vanish into thin air—twice. And I saw a medallion under Kiernan’s shirt—” I stopped as Connor and Katherine simultaneously drew in sharp, startled breaths.
“His name was Kiernan?” asked Connor. “How do you know that?”
“Yes. Kiernan… Dunn or Duncan, I think. But he was not the mugger. He’s the one who told me to run. Dark eyes, dark hair, tall, and…” I trailed off, sure that I was blushing. “Why? Do you know him? He wanted to know why I wasn’t wearing a medallion. He told me to get here, to your house, as fast as I could, that something was about to happen, but he would stall them if he could, to give me time.”
Connor and Katherine exchanged another look. “Kiernan Dunne was my great-grandfather,” Connor said after a moment. “And I find it unlikely that he would be doing anything to help us.”
I had forgotten that Connor’s last name was Dunne, and I can’t say that there’s much resemblance between the two of them, except perhaps around the nose. And Connor was at least thirty years older than Kiernan—or, at any rate, at least thirty years older than the Kiernan who kissed me on the Metro. I sank farther into the couch.
“Maybe you should start from the beginning,” Katherine suggested.
I recounted my steps from the time I left Katherine’s house on Monday morning until the cab brought me back to her doorstep. I glossed over a few bits—I wasn’t sure how she would feel about Charlayne reading the diary and our experimental efforts to determine its composition, and I most definitely was not ready to share the kiss. It wasn’t something I wanted to discuss in front of my grandmother, or for that matter, in front of someone who claimed to be the great-grandson of the guy who had kissed me. Things were weird enough without complicating matters further.
When I finished my summary, I turned to Katherine. “Whether you believe Kiernan’s information or not, there’s a lot going on that I need to know about. And I think perhaps my dad should be in on this. Or mom…”
I felt a bit like the accused claiming my right to an attorney, but maybe that wasn’t so far off. I didn’t know either Katherine or Connor well enough to feel that I could completely trust them, and Dad—well, he’s my dad, and I know whose interests he’d put first. And while my relationship with Mom is a little more complicated, she would do the same.