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finger into my chest.
    I sprang up from my spot in the grass and nearly plowed into the two police officers standing in front of me. The sun had completely set while I slept.
    “You can’t sleep here,” one of the officers said.
    “Sorry.” I snatched my black bag off the grass before shuffling toward the sidewalk. I wanted to throw the stupid bag in the Hudson. It felt symbolic of my selfishness. My stomach twisted in knots again. This was my punishment for ducking out. For leaving her there to die. I pressed the heels of my hands over my eyes and forced myself to focus. Stay sane. Curling up in a ball of grief two years in the past wouldn’t get me a step closer to saving Holly. Or figuring out what the hell was going on with my dad and that weird trip back to 2003.
    I crossed the street and walked into a diner. Every step was agonizing. Something must have happened, to drag me this far into a state of complete exhaustion. And pain. Like knives poking me all over.
    Food. I needed sustenance of some kind to keep me going, even though eating was the very last thing I wanted to do right now. This was like a bad case of the flu, the feverish, delusional state my mind was in. A mix of physical and emotional, and I didn’t know what dominated.
    “Is it just one?” the hostess asked.
    I nodded and followed her to a table near the door. I ran through the nightmare again in my mind. Not the craziness that followed leaving 2009, but the event just before. That was my nightmare and it was still crystal clear.
    Who were those men in Holly’s room? Why were they asking about my dad? About government people approaching me?
    That’s him, one of them had said. And could they have somehow known what I can do?
    “Can I get you something to drink?” the waitress asked.
    “Coffee, please. Oh, and where is your restroom?”
    She pointed to my left. I stumbled into the bathroom, leaned my back against the wall, and closed my eyes.
    Please let it work this time.

CHAPTER NINE
    Exhaust fumes filled my nostrils, horns honking all around. I opened my eyes and stared at the front bumper of a bright yellow cab.
    “What the hell!” someone shouted.
    I leaped off the road. “Sorry, I … tripped.”
    “Idiot! You coulda been killed.”
    Only in New York City could someone materialize out of thin air and get no more than the usual angry driver reactions.
    I raced to the safety of the crowded sidewalk, shielding my eyes from the blazing summer sun. Not easy to get your head around, when you’re exhausted and just came from a cool, dark evening.
    I leaned against a light post to catch my breath. I could still picture Holly’s face as the bullet ripped through her. The image I had just tried so hard to focus on. Obviously, it didn’t work. Again.
    Suck it up and try again, Jackson.
    I finally glanced around and recognized the streets of Manhattan. I knew where I was, just not when . The newsstand outside my building had no customers, so I stepped up to make a purchase, keeping my eyes on the revolving front door that my father almost always used.
    The doorman, Henry, glanced in my direction, squinting into the sun. I snatched a Mets cap from the rack and threw it on, pulling the front way down, concealing my face.
    “I’ll take this hat and The New York Times .” I handed the man a slightly damp fifty from my wallet.
    “Mets fan, huh? Well, I guess I’ll forgive you.” He boomed with laughter, and it must have drowned out the footsteps of the other person approaching.
    “ Wall Street Journal, please,” a very familiar voice said beside me.
    I turned my back to my father as quickly as possible, then shifted my eyes to the newspaper clutched between my fingers.
    July 1, 2004.
    How the hell did I get so far back again?
    All I could do was keep my back to him and head in the other direction.
    “Hey, you forgot your change!”
    Luckily, Dad didn’t run after me. It was safer to take the long way around Central Park before heading