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May 26th, 2001 Little Piece, NY
ANYA watched the iron bars swing shut in front of her, but she didn’t despair. With the little cell right there out in the open, she didn’t feel closed in—and with her lawyer locked in with her, she wasn’t alone. He’d wanted a private word with her, and this was the best he could get.
Mr. Hollingsworth stood a foot taller next to her and had to bend down to speak softly into her ear. “One of your friends has explained to me all about those watches.”
“What do you mean by that?” She couldn’t imagine any of her helpers telling all about the devices, even to someone who was trying to help them.
The lawyer narrowed his eyes. “Another trust recipient explained how your watches can generate the code that matches what the bank has on file for any given day, providing you with access. You know this Page? That information is correct?”
Anya nodded. Remembering her previous conversation with the lawyer, she knew he didn’t want her to tell him some things—and she had to judge what she needed to withhold. What it was better for him not to know. Page is alive.
He continued. “She showed me how to work it. All I have to do is be able to demonstrate that you can generate the code with your own watch. Then you wouldn’t need the professor’s and didn’t have a motive for murder.”
He straightened and stepped closer to the bars, calling out across the room, “Sheriff, I need to examine Miss Walker’s watch.”
Anya gave a small start and was grateful there was nobody else close enough to see her surprised reaction. She assumed it must have been Page that had given her a last name. She felt relieved one of the other leaders had found her, but it seemed reckless to make up a name without documentation to back it up. On the other hand, Anya couldn’t imagine Mr. Hollingsworth going along with anything so dangerous. It made her even more curious to know what was going on.
The sheriff sidled over to the little cell with an evidence bag in his hand. He squinted at them both but didn’t hand anything to the lawyer.
“Miss Walker?”
Hollingsworth smiled wide. “Did she neglect to give you her full name? Well, now you know.”
The sheriff’s expression didn’t alter. “You don’t happen to have any ID for the lady, do you?”
“We can get to that in a bit. First I need to verify some information about her watch.”
“Surely you don’t think I’m just going to hand over evidence in a criminal investigation?”
“Not while I’m standing here in this cell. If you would care to let me out?”
The sheriff grunted, but he pulled a ring of keys off his belt and unlocked the door. He stepped back and let the lawyer open the cell and close it behind him. Then the sheriff held up the bag at the lawyer and pointed at the big black letters and read them aloud. “Evidence. Says so right on the bag.”
“As legal representative of an interested party, according to the allegations leveled by the authorities, I’m entitled to review the evidence. As I’m sure you’re well aware. And surely you don’t imagine I’d abuse my position as an officer of the court? Not that I’m conceding that Miss Walker’s property is evidence.”
“Not evidence?”
The lawyer shook his head. “While I’m sure you followed proper procedure in confiscating what she had in her possession when you took her into custody, the fact that she had something on her person doesn’t automatically make it evidence.
“Considering the nature of the allegations made against her, that smashed watch might properly be termed evidence. But under what theory is her own watch evidence of a crime? Though it may be exculpatory evidence, and in that regard Miss Walker has given me permission to inspect it in my official position as a representative of the Travelers’ Trust.”
The sheriff snorted and stood there stubbornly for a long moment before shrugging and removing her watch from the evidence bag. He handed it over with a warning. “That’s still her personal property, as you say. It’s been logged in, and I’ll need it back.”
Mr. Hollingsworth didn’t respond, he just took the watch over to hold up in front of Anya between the bars. “Now Miss Walker,” he said in his clear, carrying voice, “if you’ll please demonstrate for me how you produced the access code for receiving the stipend from the trust? Show me today’s code.”
Anya nodded and hit the buttons to bring up the account screen and generate the code. The lawyer took the watch back and compared what was on the screen with a piece of paper he pulled from his vest pocket.
He turned back to the sheriff. “I’ll state for the record that the sequences match. I think you ought to see it for yourself.”
Mr. Hollingsworth held the watch and the piece of paper up in front of the man and let him squint to read. Then the lawyer returned to Anya. “Since I’ve proven you’re a legitimate trust recipient, I can now offer my services to represent you in this matter. Do you accept?”
She nodded with a smile. “Of course I welcome your assistance.”
He winked at her then. “I need your formal authorization to take possession of your watch for you. Temporarily, of course.”
“You have it.”
“Good girl.”
She ignored the patronizing tone and lowered her voice. “But what about the other watch? I don’t want the authorities to keep it.”
“I understand your friends have a plan to take care of that, but it’s probably nothing I should know about. At least your nephew says he can do something. Matt?”
My nephew Matt? The lawyer must have seen the confusion on her face, but he didn’t ask. “He did tell me to tell you to watch the watch.” He grinned at that, but Anya didn’t mind. She was busy trying to think.
The sheriff had stepped away to frown down at some paperwork on his secretary’s desk. Mr. Hollingsworth backed away from the bars and walked over with a smile that seemed to have transformed somehow from personal to professional.
“If you need me to sign a receipt for her watch, I’ll be happy to oblige.”
The sheriff shrugged as he picked a sheet of paper off the desk and handed it to the lawyer. “As you say, it’s not evidence against the lady. It seems you represent her—and if it could be an exhibit for the defense, I prefer your having the responsibility.”
Anya saw Mr. Hollingsworth review the paper and take a pen from his shirt pocket. He initialed something and dashed a quick signature and gave it back to the sheriff with a handshake. “Now I’ll go see what I can do about getting Miss Walker out of this mess. If you’ll excuse me?”
The sheriff nodded. “But don’t think you’d be able to pull the same stunt with the smashed watch. It is evidence, and the city boys will want it.”
The lawyer walked to the door but stopped as he was pushing it open, looking back over his shoulder to where the sheriff had started to transfer the professor’s device to a second evidence bag. “I suggest you keep that watch good and secure, Sheriff.”
Anya stared at the door closing behind Mr. Hollingsworth for a moment before she recalled what he’d said to her earlier. Then she shifted her gaze to the sheriff. He was sealing the evidence bag, after which he made some notations on the outside and signed over the top of the seal itself.
He laid the bag on his secretary’s desk and set a paperweight on top of the seal to hold it down. He lifted his eyes then to look at Anya for a moment, a neutral expression on his face.
He then handed the bag with the remainder of her possessions to Mrs. Salisbury, who tossed it in one of her desk drawers. Then he summoned the deputy who’d been hanging around, and the two of them moved into the back office, closing the door behind them. The secretary frowned at the object sitting on her desk, then started in on some paperwork. Anya stared at the watch in the bag.
Her brain was working overtime. Who is Matt? Could it be Turner or Bailey using a different name? She thought the plan had to be to Travel the professor’s device away using her own watch or Page’s, but she saw three problems with that. It might not work at all since it had been smashed. Any charge it had left would likely be minimal since she hadn’t been wearing it. And it was meant to be used to generate a field through a human body and might not be able to Travel on its own regardless. She’d been afraid a device could Travel on its own when Nye was in that hospital. Now Anya worried that it couldn’t.
There was also the question of where the watch might end up. If the leader device was the one generating the primary field and the professor’s did actually Travel, it should suffer the same spatial displacement they’d all experienced. Finding it again would be no small feat.
Anya was wondering when the attempt would take place as she continued to stare, thinking she’d be straining her eyes a long time if it never worked, when suddenly the watch wasn’t there anymore. Its blurry shape had been a visible lump in the bag and then hadn’t. Thankfully no one else had noticed.
It was also a blessing she was locked up in this cell and couldn’t be suspected of absconding with it. Neither could Mr. Hollingsworth, who had left before the sheriff had sealed the device away.
Not knowing what to do with herself now, Anya sat on the cot in the cell and went back to exercising her brain. Page had found Mr. Hollingsworth. But how? And not only that, but she’d found out about the trouble Anya was in before she knew herself, in order to send the lawyer on his way to Little Piece so early. Page must have learned what was going on at the bank.
Someone there had turned into a real talker—that Ms. Dervan, perhaps. Turner had likely headed straight for her as soon as he got into the city, and she could have passed the word to Page.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Verity had lost her head over Turner, but Anya worried that her helper was losing his perspective. He might be confiding too much in that woman.
Anya sat and stared into space pondering Ms. Dervan and Turner, Page and Bailey, Tate and Nye, for what felt like forever. Until her train of thought was broken by Mrs. Salisbury with a tray—a nice cup of tea and some toast with butter. And jam.
Anya was just finishing the snack when Mr. Hollingsworth made his triumphal return. The man’s grin was so smug it made her want to slap his face. Even if he was on her side.
The deputy had long since left on some errand, and the sheriff sat back behind his desk, the door to his office wide open. Her lawyer paused in the middle of the room and started speaking in what must have been his courtroom voice.
“My office has provided the New York City District Attorney with a certified birth certificate for my client. They’ll soon be faxing you a copy, Sheriff. I also just had a conference call with the D.A. and the State Attorney General to arrange for a plea deal for Miss Walker. To cover her unfortunate lapse in not staying at the scene of the accident. And her failure to assist the authorities.”
Anya shook her head. The man wasn’t just theatrical, he was an incredible ham.
The sheriff hadn’t bothered to budge from his chair and now sat squinting at the lawyer. “I’m sure you got your client a sweet deal, and I can see how you’d have demolished the suspicion of murder, but how did you get around her pilfering from the body—especially when we’ve got the evidence?”
Mr. Hollingsworth looked straight at the man. “It seems you were a little deceptive with my client. The video you told her about doesn’t show her taking any watch, or anything else. Granted the angle makes it unclear what she might or might not have done, but where’s the proof she took anything?”
The sheriff looked to Mrs. Salisbury out at her desk. “Nothing’s happened to that evidence bag has it?”
The secretary shook her head. “No, it’s right—”
“What?” The sheriff bounded to his feet, rushing out of his office to look for himself. Of course, they were both staring at the bag under the paperweight. The empty bag that would still be sealed.
Anya fought to keep a straight face. Particularly when her lawyer declaimed, “Have you lost something, Sheriff?”
The sheriff’s smile was grim. “You’re a bloody magician, Hollingsworth.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The lawyer held his arms out wide. “Search me if you’d like. Then I’d like you to release Miss Walker.”
The sheriff scowled. “My secretary can swear she took a smashed watch off your client. And my deputy and I can both swear that we had it in evidence.”
Mr. Hollingsworth dropped his arms. “As can I. And as an officer of the court, I’d have to. Are you sure you’d want that though, considering how you’d be at a loss to explain its disappearance? But since the New York City authorities no longer have any issue with Miss Walker, what would be the point of making an issue about this missing watch?”
“I’m not about to take your word for what they do or don’t want to do about our Miss Walker.”
So Anya and her lawyer had to wait while he put a call through to his law enforcement colleagues in the city. And while he waited for them to confirm it with the D.A.’s office.
Then he came and unlocked Anya’s cell. “The material witness warrant out for you has been voided, and I’m told there are no charges pending and the New York detectives have no interest in coming to question you.” He said it all as if would be news to her.
Mrs. Salisbury came to hand Anya her keys and her cash and made her sign a number of papers—after Mr. Hollingsworth had carefully looked them over. Which made the sheriff’s face grow sour, and no wonder.
So with little fanfare Anya and her lawyer were allowed to walk out of the building and into the blue sky and its bright sunshine. And standing there by a green sports coupe were Page and Tate, waiting.
Mr. Hollingsworth turned and gave Anya a little bow. “You’ll have to appear in court at a later date, when the plea is formally entered. I’ll let you know when. Make sure you show up—you’ll have to plead guilty to a misdemeanor and pay a big fine. But I believe that shouldn’t be a hardship. Otherwise it’s all over, until you get into more trouble.”
With that last word he smiled, turned, and got into the back of his luxury sedan, then was whisked away while Anya stood there blinking in the bright sunlight. Page was still leaning back against the car she’d hired, while the poor driver baked inside.
Tate came up to Anya and took her hands in his. “As soon as I got back to the house I called Turner, but he told me that Mr. Hollingsworth was already on the way.”
Anya squeezed his hands and turned to look at Page. “I hardly expected you to come to my rescue. Thank you.”
“Let’s save the conversation for the car.” Page opened the door and slid into the passenger’s seat next to the driver.
Anya got into the cramped back seat, and Tate joined her on the other side. The young driver began backing out, but Anya held her tongue and tried to decide what questions would be safe to ask. Even in front of an audience she should at least be able to find out about the others.
“Where are Turner and Nye? And Bailey?”
Page turned her head halfway. “We left Turner and Nye in the city with Verity. Your helpers would only have been in the way. As for Bailey, that story will take some time to tell.”
“Tate’s never in the way.”
“Well, he’s my helper, remember? As is Matt.”
“Matt?”
The driver looked into the rearview mirror and flashed her a grin. “Your nephew. Although you’re younger looking than what Page described. I don’t know if the lawyer specified your relationship to the cops, but there may still be time to turn you into my cousin. I’d rather call you Cousin Anya.”
“But who are you?”
“One of the natives you’re studying. I identified your late professor as my grandfather. We’d gone back in time and established you as the daughter of one of my grandfather John’s younger brothers. But we can still change that and make the professor your grandfather as well.”
Anya was left speechless. There was too much there to really digest all at once, so she turned and looked out at the scenery rolling along.
When she was ready to ask her next question, she ignored her new cousin and shifted her focus to Page. “I presume you found out about me and the trouble I was in from that Ms. Dervan? How we’d arrived in the present from Turner?”
Page nodded. “He also told us you were carrying around the professor’s device. So we needed to come up with an ad hoc plan to get it away from the authorities.”
“I’m surprised you were able to manage it. The watch had been smashed, hadn’t been recharged—and no one was wearing it.”
“That was Matt’s idea. He wore your leader device in addition to his helper watch. It increases the field strength. We weren’t sure it would work, but it had to be tried.”
Anya glanced again at the laughing eyes in the rearview mirror. “And is he going to search for the device now it’s been Traveled who knows where?”
Page slid on a pair of sunglasses and leaned her head back. “He’s had enough experience already to calculate the spatial dispersion and estimate where the professor’s watch would land.”
The young man held the smashed watch up in the air for Anya to see before stuffing it back into his jeans’ pocket. She suddenly felt old enough to be an aunt, and she was certainly a spinster.
“You might as well leave me as your Aunt Anya.”
The car was already pulling onto the dirt road that led home. Anya felt as if she’d been away for years.
Page glanced around at the property with a bit of scorn. “That Ms. Dervan you dismissed so easily helped Matt and I understand some of the things we needed to do in order to establish a really credible identity for you. For the rest of us, too. Well, we’ll have to go back and take care of Tate and Nye and Turner once they decide on last names.”
Matt pulled up in front of the house. He parked the car, and they all got out with much slamming of doors. A harsh sound in this quiet country.
Page nodded at Matt and Tate. “You two go on in and make yourselves comfortable. I need to talk to Anya.”
The two men sauntered up the steps, and Anya confronted her junior. “So you’ve given that Matt a helper device and taken him Traveling. You confided in a contemporary and made him your helper.”
“I exercised my prerogative. As you did appropriating my helper.”
“The professor’s death left me in charge—so I did what I needed to do.”
Page stared at her for a long moment, and with those sunglasses on, Anya had no inkling what the woman was thinking. “I see you’ve grown attached to Tate. I’ll tell you what I’ll do—”
Anya interrupted. “I told you I’m in charge.”
Page bared her teeth. “You have seniority, and I’m quite willing to listen to what you have to say, but you’re not in charge of me. We’re both research leaders. I have the authority to make my own decisions, and I’ll do just that.”
Anya forced down her initial reaction to Page’s brazen assertion. Anya had been promoted to associate professor before they left and was more than just Page’s senior. But that battle would need to be postponed. “So what are you going to decide?”
Page took off her sunglasses and looked at Anya. “I understand wanting a base of operations, but I’d rather work out of the city myself.”
“So you’re planning on sticking around and doing some actual research?”
“This is the transition to a new period of history and a lot of changes are taking place, a lot of social changes. That includes dating. Studying the changes in those customs will help me better understand the twentieth century rituals.”
“I take it young Matt is going to be assisting you with your research? Why don’t you take Turner as well? In exchange for Tate.”
“That’s just what I was going to suggest. Tate wouldn’t be particularly helpful with my research.”
Anya frowned as she recalled the year. “Just be sure you all get out of the city in time.”
Page stared back. “And if we decide to stay and help? We can’t stop what’s going to happen, but we shouldn’t turn our backs on their suffering.”
Anya closed her eyes. “You don’t know what it will be like. I’ve seen my share of suffering, and I’d like to spare you and the others.”
There was a moment of silence, and when Anya opened her eyes again, she saw Page’s face had softened. “I understand why you’d feel like that, but I still want to help with the aftermath.”
They both stared at each other as they thought about what was coming. Something that never got left out of any history book. But until the time came to deal with it, they had other things to work on.
Anya sighed. “So where’s Bailey? And how do we find out what happened to Harold’s team?”
Instead of answering, Page drew a letter out of her bag and handed it over.
Unfolding the single sheet of paper, Anya began reading silently and realized it was from Samantha.
Dear Anya or Page,
I don’t know why no one’s come looking for us yet, but I know everything has gone horribly wrong. After you’ve read this, you’ll have to decide for yourselves what you’re going to do, but I’ve done what I needed to do.
I saw Kirin murder Harold. She took his device and fled. I couldn’t let her escape justice, so Bailey and I chased her down. She was using the access to the money from the trust and the ability to Travel to make herself rich. But now she’s dead, too.
That makes me a leader now. Bailey has volunteered to be my helper. (Sorry, Page, but you’ll have to make do with only one. So will I.)
I’m leaving you this letter and my helper device so you can know what happened. Also that the only way we could keep following Kirin through time was because she wore Harold’s device while she kept her own. Which somehow increased the size of the field for Traveling. I’m sure you’ll understand that better than me, and maybe it’ll be helpful. (I don’t know what became of Kirin’s helper device.)
Until the professor comes and says otherwise, I’ll be Traveling with Bailey—who knows where or when, or to do what.
Sam
Anya re-folded the letter and stared at it in her hands. “So now there are six of us—here, at least. Without the professor’s watch working, we have no way to find Sam and Bailey, and it doesn’t sound as if they’ll be searching for us. So much for leaving those breadcrumbs.”
Page smiled. “I noticed you counted Matt.”
Anya needed to reassert her authority. “You’ve the right to replace Bailey. And that young man of yours seems resourceful enough, so I’ve no objection. Now, about the professor’s watch...”
“Matt is quite brilliant. Between us we may be able to repair it. Then we’d be able to find Sam and Bailey, and we could return home. If and when we want to.”
Anya nodded. She’d have been better off not to carry the thing around anyway. “Alright. You can keep it. And I’ll let you have Turner in exchange for keeping Tate.”
Which was a better deal for her. Tate was completely reliable, but she didn’t think the same could be said for Turner. Not anymore.
“That’s settled, then.”
Anya smiled. “One more thing. Nye will want to spend a lot of time researching in the city. You can supervise her while she’s there. Of course, I’ll make sure she knows to make herself available if you want her help.
Page pursed her lips, then nodded. It was done, and Anya had managed to come out well enough. If only three of them hadn’t died and two weren’t lost in time.
But Anya still had hope.