Catherine Coulter: Split Second

“Dream on, Lucy. Who cares why she picked me? The fact is, she did, whatever her reasons. You were Uncle Milton’s choice, but he had no right to decide anything; the ring wasn’t his. I was Aunt Helen’s choice. You read the letter; you know everything he wrote was true. Aunt Helen was strange, it’s true, she was obsessed with the ring, and if that sent her to me, then so be it.

“Maybe you were too young to remember, but I was always over at your house after school so she could spend time with me, teach me about the ring. I’ve thought about this ring for over two decades, thought about what I could have done with it, how it could have changed my life.

“I’m thirty-eight years old now. I think it was fate you found Uncle Milton because it brought me back this ring. Now, finally, it’s mine as it was meant to be.”

“You were twelve years old when grandmother showed you the ring, showed you what it could do. You never said anything to your parents? Your brother?”

“That’s right, I never told them. Why should I? I don’t think Father even knew about it, or if he did he paid no attention. He and Court, it’ll be a grand surprise to them when I leave with the ring, since they have no idea what I can do with it. As for my mother, she always cared about only two things in her life—being my father’s wife and looking like a million bucks. She’s the perfect wife for my father, since all he ever wanted was to make more and more money and have a beautiful woman on his arm.” Her eyes went sharp and cunning. Lucy wondered if she was thinking about humbling both of them, proving she was the superior one.

Lucy kept gently working her wrist back and forth. The rope was loosening.

“I dreamed, Lucy, I dreamed for years about what I would do with this wonderful ring.” She squeezed the ring tightly in her hand. She frowned. “Is it always cold? Odd, but I don’t remember it being hot or cold.”

Cold? What was this? Lucy said, “Yes, it’s always cold. Miranda, what do you plan to do with it? You have only eight seconds. That’s very little time to change much of anything.”

“What did you do with it, Lucy?”

“I saved my boss’s life when a psychopathic killer shot him. I had just enough time to shove him down away from the bullet.”

“That must have been exciting. And your boss didn’t even know he was dead.” Miranda smiled at her. “Lucy, you are such an innocent. I bet if you had the ring you’d go through life trying to right wrongs, fighting your never-ending battle for truth and justice. Ms. Superwoman. Do try for a little imagination. Do you realize how much money I will make with this ring? Think about a trip to Las Vegas, think about playing blackjack. The croupier deals out the card and you say ‘SEFYLL,’ and you know exactly what the next cards in the deck will be. Think of roulette or poker, any game you wish. With a little imagination you could win at all of them at will. Can you imagine how rich you could become? And if you were careful, no one would ever suspect a thing, would they?”

“I didn’t think of that,” Lucy said honestly. But would she have thought of that after some time? As Miranda had?

“I’ve had years to think about all the things I could do.” She paused, closed her eyes, and squeezed the ring tightly. She looked, Lucy thought, radiant.

“Yes, I’ll be getting a lot of people to do most anything I want them to do—it won’t take hardly any effort at all.”

“What do you mean?”

“How often have you wished you could take back something you’ve done or said? I’ll be able to do just that, whenever it suits me. If things aren’t going my way, if someone doesn’t react the way I want them to, I’ll simply say ‘SEFYLL’ and try something else. Henry Kissinger couldn’t have outnegotiated me, because I’d know what he was going to say before he said it, or realized he would say it. You see how easy it is?”

Experimenting with people, manipulating them—“It wouldn’t really be living your life, more like living your own personal video game.”

“I know what I want, Lucy, and I’m smart. I know no one in my family thinks I’m worth much at all—you included—but I am smart, do you hear me?”

“You’re practically yelling it at me; of course I hear you.”

“I’ve seen my father look at my mother and shake his head. This last time I moved home, he offered to find me a job, and he has before, boring jobs that were a waste of my time and my talents. How could I care about a payroll account or checking some idiot’s job benefits after holding this ring in my hand?

“Yes, I’d sit there while Dad went on about his stocks and bonds, preening at his own brilliance, and all the while I was thinking about what I could do with eight seconds—eight whole seconds to buy or sell. I could be the richest person in the world, if I wanted to be.” Miranda kissed the ring, then thrust it up in a victory signal, and took a waltz step around the small room. She laughed.

Lucy watched her as she continued to work her wrist. Another minute. She wondered what Miranda could have become if Lucy’s grandmother had never shown her the ring. “Miranda, since you ordered those men to kill me and take the ring, you obviously didn’t think you needed me. So why did you even bother to bring me here?”

Miranda still clutched the ring in her hand. “Do you know, I regretted having paid those men to kill you. All I really wanted from you was my ring. But they said you were an armed FBI agent, and no matter what I wanted from you, they weren’t going to leave any witnesses. I should probably have done it myself.

“Do you realize, Lucy, that the real magic of the ring is that no one—absolutely no one—ever knows that anything has changed in those eight seconds? To them, time is time and what happens simply happens. You have this extraordinary power, yet no one knows you have it.” Miranda paused for a moment and frowned, then she squeezed the ring again and a blazing smile lit her face. “But you will know, Lucy, when I make it work, won’t you? You won’t experience it with me, but you’ll know, and you will believe me when I say it, because you’ve done it yourself. You’re the only other person in the world who’ll know, and understand the power of it.

“What do you think my first experiment should be? Should I shoot you, and then undo it? You won’t know, but I will. And when I tell you that you were dead eight seconds before you died, you will believe it.”

Yes, she would, indeed. Lucy swallowed. “Why not try another experiment, Miranda? Like crashing that clock to the floor and saying ‘SEFYLL,’ and then see if it’s back on the nightstand again?”

“Shooting you would be such a glorious proof.” She sighed. “But all right, it’ll be my first time, best try something easy. All right, the bloody clock.” She threw it to the floor and yelled, “SEFYLL.”

North Carolina

She’d shot him. Coop yelled with the shock of the sharp punch of pain in his side. He lay there panting, trying to get hold of himself. He felt blood spreading over his side, through his shirt, onto his shearling coat. He had to slow the bleeding or he’d die, since he couldn’t picture Kirsten hauling him to an ER.

Kirsten was smiling down at him. “Not such a big mouth on you now, Mr. Agent. All laid out and bleeding. Here, get the bleeding stopped, I don’t want to drive.” She threw him a black T-shirt from a pile of clothes she’d heaped on the backseat. “Lucky for you I kept some of Bruce’s clothes. That T-shirt ought to do it. It’s clean enough. Too bad. I was going to keep that shirt.”

Coop pulled up his shirt, eyed the wound. Thank God it was through and through, and shallow, but it was still bleeding. He folded the T-shirt, pressed it over both the entry and exit wounds, and fastened his belt around himself. That should hold it. He drew a deep breath, getting his brain to accept the pain and set it aside. There was blood on the inside of his shearling, but somehow no bullet hole. Realizing he’d even thought about his coat made him smile.