Kellerman had departed for his flight to North Dakota, and Chief Ricard looked to be knee deep in a pile of radar data from the last twelve months, to ensure they hadn't missed any additional pods.

  Charlie sat at her desk and contemplated the possibility Angel had come from a different time. Her mind could barely comprehend it. How could someone from the fifteenth century blend into the twenty-first with almost no one suspecting a thing? He hadn't confessed to it, but he'd implied it with some of what he'd revealed to her earlier. Could he be found in the Voynich text? Or some evidence he was connected to it?

  She opened up her work. The colorful pages were familiar yet she saw them in a new light with the recent revelations about Armas and Angel's possible connections to it. She dove into translating every page—from the beginning. A need to understand everything about the text grabbed hold of her like a magnet did an iron filing. The answers were in here somewhere. She knew it. All she needed now was time and focus.

  Charlie paused in her analysis. Her eyes burned from staring too long at her computer screen. Tipping her head from one shoulder to the other, she waited for a pain-relieving crack.

  "Let me help." Angel gently massaged her neck.

  How long had he been behind her?

  A flood of heat hit her at the touch of his warm hands. "Wow, you're good at that." Her tight muscles relaxed as he kneaded with his thumbs.

  What would her co-workers think about such intimacy between them? But Angel's hands were working miracles on her neck, so why did she care? She closed her eyes and a long sigh escaped her lips.

  He leaned down and whispered in her ear, "There's only three of us. Kellerman's gone, Chief finished his analysis, and Orr's making phone calls to Minot."

  Her eyes snapped open. Although she wanted to let him continue his massage, which had developed into more of a caress, she had too many questions in her head. She covered one of his hands with hers. "I need more answers."

  His hands stilled. "I know."

  Did she detect a tremor in his voice? "You said you trusted me. I want to help, but I need to know more."

  Her phone vibrated on her desk. A text from her brother.

  Crap. What poor timing.

  Glancing at the time on her desktop, she knew Angel's story would have to wait. "I have this family dinner to go to." She scooped up her phone.

  Beep, beep! I'm outside.

  "My brother's picking me up, and it looks as if he's early." She flashed her phone screen so he could see the text.

  Angel's unblinking gaze unnerved her. Then he slowly nodded. "Right. Family. I understand."

  No way was she going to give Angel the chance to clam up. She'd finally gotten him talking, and a family dinner wasn't going to get in the way of finding out the answers she needed. "How about we meet tonight when I get back? Before we're back in the office with interruptions and assignments and—" She glanced at Orr still busy in his office. "Other people."

  He bit his lip and searched her face. "All right. Tonight. I'll pick you up?"

  She nodded. "I'll text you when my brother drops me off."

  He gave her a slight smile and took a few steps back. "Okay. I'll explain everything. Tonight. I promise."

  "If I can handle pods falling from the sky and a time traveling boy, I'm sure anything you have to tell me can't be any worse."

  Angel gestured at her phone. "You'd better answer him before he starts wondering where you are."

  "Right." She tapped on the phone screen and quickly texted Chad to wait a few minutes.

  Angel retreated, heading toward the door.

  "Wait, I wanted to share something with you." How could she forget? He'd been so interested in her translation work and what else she might find. Although a majority of the deciphering revealed mysterious formulas and plant biology, she'd uncovered something intriguing.

  He approached her desk.

  "I think I found another name." She clicked through the Voynich pages she'd been working on. "Right here. A signature, I think."

  "Show me." Angel's voice shook.

  She enlarged the page with a few clicks. "See here? Ree-sa. A name. Do you think this could be Armas's mother?"

  In a daze, Angel knelt next to her and touched the name on the screen. "Risa. Oh, my God. It can't be true."

  CHAPTER 10

  Charlie's body tensed. "You know that name?"

  Angel scrubbed a hand over his face. "I imagined it was possible, but I hoped I was wrong." He stared down at his lap. "I never should have done it. Never."

  "Done what? Who's Risa?" She grew lightheaded. Thoughts swirled in her mind. None of this made any sense. How could she leave to meet her brother when Angel had just confessed he knew the name she'd uncovered?

  He winced. "I'll explain everything, Charlie. I will." His usual resonant voice weakened to a thin whisper.

  Commander Orr's booming voice interrupted them both. "It's five o'clock. I think we've done enough for today. I'd like to lock up."

  "Right. Five o'clock." Angel stood and stepped away from Charlie as if in a daze. "You need to go meet your brother, Cutter."

  "You have plans, Petty Officer?" Orr ignored the strange actions of his security specialist and focused in on Charlie.

  "Just a family dinner." How could she possibly set aside what she'd learned about Risa and Angel and pretend everything was normal at her parents' house? The idea of it was ridiculous. Impossible. Not doable.

  "Delightful. Families are important, wouldn't you agree, Demarco?" Orr clapped him on the back.

  Angel's shoulders curved inward. "Yes, sir, very important." He couldn't meet Charlie's eyes.

  "Well, let's skedaddle then. I'll lock up behind you." Orr pointed at Charlie's computer. "Shut that down, and let's go."

  "Yes, sir." Charlie saved her work and turned off her desktop.

  The two men made their way to the door. To anyone who didn't know him, Angel appeared steady, quiet, and thoughtful. But Charlie noticed the stumble in his step, the weakness in his profile. As if all the bravado and rigidity had been sucked out of him.

  After she shut off her monitor, she followed them into the hall. Her questions would have to wait.

  Chad honked on his horn three times in a row when he saw his sister approaching.

  She jumped at the noise, her mind still buried in thought.

  Her brother leaned across the passenger's seat and popped open the door. "Hurry up! We're going to be late."

  "Sorry." Charlie slid in and closed the door of her brother's Honda. "I had to work today."

  "Work?" He scanned her casual outfit. "Since when do Navy linguists wear civvies to the office?"

  "It's Sunday."

  "So?"

  "We're a mixed office—some civilian, some military. It has a different dress code."

  "If I were the Officer-in-Charge—"

  "You're not, okay? Commander Orr is in charge, and what he says goes. He has zero problems with me wearing this." Why did she let her temper get the best of her? Chad didn't know the bizarre details of her job and her personal life and how they were mixing together in a very uncomfortable and confusing way, but he could sometimes be a bit of an annoyance.

  The good brother. The obedient brother. He was the boy her father always wanted; she was the girl her father always butted heads with.

  Tonight's dinner at her parent's house was to celebrate Chad's new orders, his career taking off, the amazing responsibilities he'd have...and no one would know anything about what she was working on, nor how important it was. Regular military life seemed so boring and trite in comparison to the truths she encountered in merely one week at her new assignment. Pods, time travelers, a boyfriend who may be a time traveler...who may even be connected to the death of another time traveler.

  Chad snapped his fingers in front of her eyes. "Hey, sis, where did you go? I thought you were about to give me a royal thrashing, and you just disappeared there. Hello! Earth to Charlene."

  She slapped his hand away. "It's been a long week, okay? Let's go. If you're so worried about being late, let's drive. The traffic can't be that terrible on a Sunday afternoon, can it?"

  Chad let his hand drop. "Fine." He drove toward the beltway and their parent's place in Columbia, a high-end suburb between Baltimore and Washington D.C.

  Charlie had only visited once before. Halfway through her second year of grad school, her mother had bought her a plane ticket for Christmas. Her father had received new orders from Texas to the National Security Agency on Fort Meade twelve months earlier. Not exactly a family home to her. But most military brats lived similarly—constantly on the move, always starting over, unpacking, repacking. Lather, rinse, repeat.

  "Have you found out yet whether you can live off-base?" Chad smoothly transitioned to a different topic. If he ever got married, he'd know exactly how to handle a wife in a prickly mood.

  "Should find out soon." She stared out the car window at the stuttering traffic—stop, go, stop, go. The traffic in D.C. never seemed to improve no matter what time of day or night. "Rumor has it they don't have any space in the barracks for another female sailor."

  "Hope you can find a decent apartment. Pricey around there." Chad flicked on his signal for a few seconds and merged like Jeff Gordon on the Talledega Speedway to make the exit ramp for 95.

  Charlie gripped her seat. "I'd like to make it to Mom and Dad's in one piece, please."

  He snorted. "Everyone drives like that around here."

  Her mind flashed to last night when Angel had almost run them into the orange barrels on the way to the pod. How similar these two men were. "Are we really in that much of a hurry for Mom's meatloaf?"

  "She making ham." Chad ran a hand through his short, brown hair. "I know Dad can get under your skin, but can I ask you to just lay off tonight?"

  "He doesn't get under my skin."

  Her brother gave her the side eye. "Yeah, right." He sped up to pass a minivan that had slowed down for a merging vehicle. "For Mom's sake, let's keep the topic of conversation on easy stuff."

  "Like?"

  "The food, the weather, her latest knitting project—"

  "Mom's knitting again?" Charlie had a hard time holding back a laugh.

  "Yeah," Chad said with a smile. "Prepare for all of your Christmas presents this year to be 'handmade' yarn nightmares. She's been taking a class at some yarn shop near their house."

  She could do this. She could forget for a few hours the weight of the knowledge she held. Chad was right. Talk about easy stuff. Silly stuff. Things that didn't matter. Anything but Angel Demarco and his mysterious background.

  Charlie fiddled with the radio finding nothing but cheesy pop music, bro country, or static. Light conversation had dropped off. Any minute her brother was going to ask about it. She could sense it. Just like she always could. Almost as if she could hear the gears of Chad's mind cranking through his questions and curiosities about her. When had there been a time in her life without this odd twin connection? She couldn't remember.

  "Shut that thing off, would you?" Chad brushed her hand away from the dial. "If you really want to listen to something decent, I have loads of good music." He paired his phone with the car stereo system, and the interior filled with an acoustic guitar cover of 'Hungry Like the Wolf.'

  Settling in the passenger's seat, she stared out the window at the lush green shrubbery that lined the freeway. "I feel as if I'm being hijacked."

  "Hijacked?" Chad's brows came together. "If you don't like my music, that's fine. We can drive in complete stupid silence for thirty minutes." He tapped on his phone's screen.

  "That's not what I meant." Crap, a few days before her brother would be heading to Europe, and she had to step in it. "The dinner. Mom and Dad—"

  "This isn't about them. You can't BS me, Char. You've always butted heads with Dad. What's really bugging you?" He poked her side. "What is it you don't want Mom and Dad to know?"

  Charlie shrugged. Damn, Chad, and his spidey senses.

  He mocked a shocked face—round eyes, open mouth, a hand to his cheek. "Wait, are you seeing someone?"

  Her whole body flushed. "Maybe." Her mind already skipped ahead to later that night, a rendezvous with the sexy agent, and a chance to question him more deeply about his past. How did Demarco manage to equally attract and fascinate her?

  "Who's the lucky guy?" he asked.

  They drove right by the exit for Fort Meade. A sign read: NSA Restricted Entrance. The National Security Agency lay less than a mile from 95. A regular-looking office building stood surrounded by trees and, ever since 9/11, a very solid infrastructure of fences and gates and guarded access points.

  Her heart thumped in her chest. Their samples were somewhere inside that facility. Right now, people were possibly analyzing the blood taken from the North Dakota pod site. So tantalizingly close to answers about Armas, the body in the woods, and more.

  "Well?" Chad prompted her.

  She snapped back to the conversation. "A co-worker."

  "God, I hope he's not an officer," he muttered.

  Of course that would be his biggest concern: an enlisted person dating an officer. Chad rigidly adhered to military rules and standards without question. When had he not followed every directive ever given to him by parent, teacher, or coach? "No worries, Chad, I'm not dating one of your peers. You're safe from scrutiny."

  "That's not what I—" His shoulders bunched up. "I've just seen some really bad outcomes when you cross ranks like that. It's not worth it. No matter how great the guy is. It's a mess not worth getting into."

  The tone of his voice made her wonder if perhaps Chad was not such a rigid rules follower after all. A personal experience with an enlisted woman, perhaps? Something to ponder.

  "I'll take that into consideration if the opportunity ever comes my way." She carefully controlled her voice to correct him, "His name is Angel Demarco. He's the head of security in our office. Non-military. Which would make you happy, I would think."

  "Angel, huh? Sounds like a movie star name."

  She chuckled—although the special agent did have the body of a leading man. "He's different."

  Chad chewed on that description for a few moments. "So he's not a quiet, librarian type who hangs on your every word?"

  "What?"

  "Every guy you've ever dated has been such a wimp. Like, absolute loser material."

  "And your girlfriends have been perfect?" A few of the women he dated ran through her mind. "Remember Erin? Tall, brunette, and bratty."

  "Bratty?" he said with a laugh.

  "A girl knows—" Erin had been annoying and clingy and horrible. When her brother had ended that relationship a few years ago, Charlie had let out a joyous shout at the dinner table—when her brother had been ripped to shreds over the break-up. "And I'm sorry she dumped you."

  "She didn't dump me."

  "Yes, she did. She specifically texted you those words: I, Erin, dump you, Chad."

  "I don't remember it quite like that." He stared ahead at the road.

  "She broke up with you in a text. That part is true."

  "Okay, how did you turn this around on me?" he asked. "I am supposed to be grilling you about your angelic boyfriend."

  "His name is Angel. He can't help what his name is." Or could he? If it was true that he was a time traveler, would he have been able to use his given name? Or would he have to take on a new identity to blend into modern society? She sobered at the thoughts that ran through her head. Who was Angel really?

  Chad took an exit off of 95 toward their parents' home. "You have exactly five minutes to tell me everything about him or I'll let Mom know."

  His teasing took her mind off her speculations. "You wouldn't."

  "Do you really want to risk finding out?" He waggled his eyebrows.

  She crossed her arms in faux outrage. "Fine." Didn't she deep down want to tell someone about Angel? He was one part mystery, one part hunk. A man who challenged her, confounded her, and attracted her. A dangerous combination. "I'll tell you about him. But no mention of him at Mom and Dad's."

  Chad raised a hand. "I swear."

  "Sweetheart!" Angela Cutter enveloped her daughter in a warm hug. She smelled like fresh-baked bread and merlot. "You're wasting away to nothing." With a firm grip, she held her daughter a foot away to examine her head to toe. "Are you eating three meals a day?"

  "Yes, mom, I'm eating." Charlie didn't tell her mother she also was obsessively swimming in the evenings to burn off nervous energy and clear her head. "You rearranged the living room."

  "That was months ago." Her mother stepped away to give her brother a similar greeting. "Tall, dark, and handsome. I'm sure all the girls have googly eyes for you, honey."

  "Mom." Chad's face reddened. "I'm almost twenty-six. You make it sound as if I'm still in the seventh grade."

  Angela shook off the criticism and locked arms with her twin children. "Harrison, the kids are here. Time to be social."

  Daisy, the aging and prickly family cat, rubbed against Charlie's legs and meowed.

  Charlie's mother marched her and her brother into the dining room and pointed to a seat on the left side of the table. "You sit here, Charlie."

  A decorative ceramic platter filled the middle of the table laden with steaming roast beef.

  "I thought you said we were having ham?" Charlie shot an accusatory look at her brother who took his seat opposite her.

  "Ham?" Her mother trilled her usual high pitched laugh. "Your father hates ham. Too salty or something. I can never remember."

  As much as Charlie loved her happy-go-lucky, absentminded mother, her inattention to detail sometimes landed her in hot water with her husband and her children.

  Captain Harrison Cutter entered from the opposite doorway. "I love ham. I can't stand lamb. Ham, lamb. Hmmm." He kissed his wife on the cheek before taking a seat at the head of the table.

 

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