“Hints, and small pieces of information. You work with the FBI. I learned about you after the attempt on Senator Kerns more than a year ago. I was very curious how the FBI had learned of the attempt. My sister was killed that day as she drove me to the hotel for the press conference the Senators had scheduled. The story I have been able to uncover is too far fetched to believe. There are hints and rumors that you somehow can sense the future, and working with the FBI altered the outcome of that attack. The manner in which the attack took place had a direct influence on what happened to my sister that day. You might say she would still be alive if it hadn’t happened.”
Jake could sense that there was no anger directed toward him. The reporter was more curious, and wanted the claims verified. He stared at Jake and waited with a look of curiosity and not malice.
“I’m sorry about your sister,” Jake replied. “I’m not certain how the events at the hotel could have affected what happened to her.”
“The blast was extremely loud,” Ray explained. “The noise was channeled by the buildings, and she tried to see what it was. That moment of inattention caused her to swerve and drive into the back of the construction truck.”
Jake thought about it. It was possible, he supposed. Perhaps he did share some responsibility for what had happened to the girl.
“Is it true?” the reporter asked. “Can you tell what is going to happen and cause changes?”
Jake hadn’t decided in advance how to answer this question. He hadn’t been able to predict how this encounter would progress. After a moment’s thought, he decided that it would be interesting to see how the other reacted.
“I can, and in this instance I did,” Jake admitted. “In fact, I was the individual who fired on the drones and caused them to explode before they struck the Senator’s room.”
The reporter considered this. Once again, Jake sensed no outrage or true anger. He was convinced that at this time Ray had not known about Jake Waters, nor had he made any plans to have him change the past. That had to come later.
“How does it work?” Ray was asking.
Jake wasn’t certain what more he could hope to gain at the moment. It might be interesting to see how the exchange would affect how events progressed, but this wasn’t the time for such experiments. He had given Ray too much information in the process of extracting what he wanted to learn himself. It was best this interview never happened from Ray’s perspective. Jake back-tracked to the point where he’d watched Ray drive into the newspaper parking lot. Instead of pulling in, he continued on and headed home. He had some thinking to do.
Chapter 9
Karin was at work when he arrived home. There was a daycare center her office used for those with younger children, which Janna had visited a few times in the past. She was there today because Jake was uncertain when he’d be around. The house was empty and quiet, and Jake made himself lunch while he tried to interpret what he had learned. He wasn’t sure what he had expected, but the reactions he’d gotten from Ray weren’t exactly what he had anticipated. Now he had little option left but to try and follow the man tomorrow when he made his last appearance at the newspaper. Agnes had told him when he had visited with Laney roughly what time Ray had left, so Jake could adjust the time he set up his watch accordingly.
Drink in hand, Jake headed into the study. The room was entirely surrounded by other rooms, with no windows to the outside. Karin frequently complained it felt claustrophobic, but he found being cut off from the outside was serene and comforting. He set the drink down and pulled over a legal sized pad of paper and drew a vertical line along the left end. At the top he wrote “Attacks”, and at the bottom he wrote “Kerns”. He marked the distance with brackets and wrote twenty-two months. His intent was to mark out what he knew to help him picture the situation. He also thought he’d try and bounce the situation off Karin tonight.
A couple of inches from the top he made a large dot on the vertical line and added a label that marked Ray’s last day at the paper. This