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October 17th, 1927 American International State Bank
PAGE had blinked but nothing had changed, nothing she noticed right away, other than the fact that she and Matt were no longer closely entwined. Now they held each other at arm’s length, but it was less of a separation than they’d experienced on some of their journeys. Then Matt was bending his face toward hers, his lips coming close to hers. And when she turned her head to avoid the kiss, she saw that Mr. Douglass’ body had disappeared from the floor and realized the bomb had vanished too. And now the door to the vault stood open.
Well, Matt had finally made his move, but he’d chosen the worst time and place for it. It was progress, she supposed, but at the moment they needed to get out of there before they had to face any awkward questions. Because they didn’t have answers to give.
She was a bit surprised they were still alive and weren’t standing on a pile of rubble, either. Which she’d half expected. And it looked like the same old building they had presumably left three years in the past instead of being a brand new structure erected on the same site. Apparently Matt had actually disarmed the detonator. The bomb had not exploded, anyway.
Disengaging from Matt’s arms—he hadn’t tried to kiss her again—she turned toward the exit. And realized they had a problem. The metal gate on the other side of the door to the vault was closed. They were still locked in.
Of course now they could be heard if they yelled for help, but what would anybody who came to find them there think? She looked at the watch as Matt strapped it back onto his wrist and saw they had indeed Traveled exactly three years into the future. It would make today a Monday, and the bank should be open for business. Hence the open door to the vault.
Then Matt rolled the cuff of his sleeve down, to cover the anachronistic device, and gestured at the locked gate that kept them from just walking out of there. “Even if we used your watch to Travel again, we’d keep landing in the same place, and I don’t see how that would help. Any bright ideas?”
She nodded. “If we were standing farther apart when we Traveled again, the spatial separation factor should put one of us outside the vault.”
He sighed. “But neither of us has the key.” He looked toward where Mr. Douglass had lain lifeless just a few moments ago. “And we can’t get it now.”
“So you’d have to find somebody who could let me out, and that would be just as awkward as asking for help now, so we might as well wait to Travel until we want to. Or have to.” Then another brainwave came to her. “Or we could switch batteries as we did before, and you could Travel again using the professor’s watch. Since with it you can select specific geographical coordinates for our destination.”
“Too risky.” Shaking his head at her, he moved past the open door to the vault and up to the metal gate. “We know the more advanced functions don’t work properly. The last thing we want is to land in the middle of the Pacific or something, especially if we weren’t to land in the same place.”
Indeed. Matt had thought he’d fixed the device previously, but when they’d tested it found out how wrong he’d been. Now the only way they could use it was by limiting any Traveling to a simple subroutine that could only Travel three years at a time. If they wanted to get where and when they were aiming at and not get separated in time and space. And Page didn’t want to lose him again.
Staring at his back as he gazed out through the bars, she wondered why he hadn’t suggested sending her on ahead before trying to defuse the bomb. She could’ve Traveled into the future and been safe whatever happened while he stayed in the past, but she’d have had to take his watch with her when she left, and then Matt would’ve been forced to take the slow path for three years to catch up to her. Had it not occurred to him? Or had he thought of it, then dismissed the idea? She would have liked to know which, but she couldn’t ask him.
Not that she’d have gone along with such a suggestion if he’d made it. “It’s ironic, isn’t it? The one time we might welcome an accidental shift in space and we end up right where we’re supposed to. And exactly where we don’t want to be.” Looking at the gate barring the way, she sighed. “You can’t use one of the tools on your little knife to pick that lock? It wouldn’t be breaking and entering as we’re already in and trying to get out.”
He shook his head. “I wouldn’t know how. Not a clue. I think the only thing we can do is start calling for help.”
She frowned. “It’s hardly a brilliant idea, but if we can’t come up with anything better...”
Grinning, Matt shrugged. “I never said it was a great notion. Of course we could continue to stand around waiting for somebody to happen along. But we’d still have to explain how we got locked in here, how we got in in the first place. And I don’t want to wait.”
“We could say we were let in earlier and left behind. It has the benefit of being the truth.”
“And the reason no one will recall letting us in? Mr. Douglass is dead, but even if we could corroborate it, we wouldn’t want to claim we were brought in here three years ago anyway.”
Page narrowed her eyes at him, suspecting that he was attempting to be amusing. “You’re not helping.” It looked like this would be the first time disappearing into thin air would lead to a need for explanations. And rather awkwardly, they had none. Not that they could use.
Matt glanced out through the bars again. “Let’s hope no one remembers the last time we were here and jumps to the conclusion that we’ve been hiding in the vault for the past three years.”
“That would be absurd.” She strode across and joined him at the gate and peered out. The tiny bit she could see of the hall was empty. “And as we are valued customers, I don’t believe they’ll ask us any embarrassing questions.” She certainly hoped not, anyway. Clearly their only option was to call for assistance, but she wasn’t going to leave that to Matt. He’d probably start yelling loud enough to cause an alarm. So she projected her voice out into the hallway at a reasonable level. “Hello? Is there anybody out there?”
She waited a minute, but when there was no response, she called out again but slightly louder this time. “Anyone? We seem to be stuck in here.” And despite Matt watching her with an amused expression, she went ahead and raised her volume, crying out, “Hello!” loudly enough somebody had to hear. Pausing, she soon heard the sound of shoes swishing swiftly along the carpeted corridor.
The man who appeared on the other side of the metal gate was short but compact, wearing a brush mustache and a blue three-piece suit. He was obviously a banker, but he was goggling at her and Matt in a most un-banker-like way. He quickly regained his composure though, and turned his head to bellow down the hall in a deep, gravelly bass. “Frank!”
A rapid series of thuds coming down the corridor heralded the approach of a big, muscular man, presumably Frank, wearing some sort of guard uniform. His hand on the butt of the gun holstered on his belt, he rushed to the side of the banker. “What is it, Mr. Parker?”
The banker simply nodded and turned to stare at her and Matt, give them a grim going over before finally speaking. “Who are you? And what are you doing in there?”
Page, who already had the advantage of an inch or two on this Parker, drew herself up a little taller and glared down at him. “And I’d like to know just who you are. As for what we’re doing in here, wanting to get out, obviously. Now, go get the manager to open up.”
The man took a deep breath and stood straighter and met her eyes with a steady gaze. “As it happens, I am the manager. And you are going to stay right where you are until I get some answers. How did you get in there? And who the devil are you?”
“Language, please! Mr. Parker? I take it you’ve replaced Mr. Douglass then?”
“Yes, I—” He cut himself off and appeared annoyed for starting to answer her. “And do you want to get out of there or not?”
“I said so, didn’t I?” Page softened her tone. “I apologize if I offended you, but we haven’t been introduced, so I truly didn’t know who you were, and we’re used to dealing with Mr. Douglass. Although the last time was a little over three years ago.” She paused a moment in silent respect for the late banker. “My name is Page Reader.” She gestured at the grinning goof beside her. “And this is my assistant Matt Walker. We’re both valued and long-standing clients here, as I’m sure you must know.”
She could feel Matt rolling his eyes at her, but if he wasn’t going to help he couldn’t complain about how she was handling the situation. Which was assuredly awkward, but she was startled by the banker’s reaction to hearing who they were.
Mr. Parker turned to ‘Frank’ and said, “Call the police. Tell them Matt Walker and Page Reader are locked in our vault. And make sure to say they can come in the back way, and not to use those blasted sirens of theirs.”
Thankfully the armed guard nodded brusquely and started back down the hallway—that gun of his made Page nervous, and she was glad he was going away even for a short while. Better still, her helper finally decided to do something helpful.
Pushing his face into a gap between bars, Matt called out after the man. “Make sure you ask them to send Lt. Cross!” ‘Frank’ stopped and glanced at Mr. Parker, who nodded, and Matt pushed his luck. “And if Kelvin still works here, bring him back with you.” But since the guard’s retreating back did not respond, it remained unclear if he’d even heard.
Page locked eyes with the banker. “Does young Kelvin still work here? I’m sure he’ll be able to identify us for you. The police won’t be necessary.”
Parker scowled. “Whether he confirms you are who you claim to be or not makes not a bit of difference. So you’ll have to wait until they get here.”
“But you said you’d let us out of here if we told you who we are.” Page didn’t think the new banker was nearly as nice as poor Mr. Douglass.
The corner of the man’s left eye started twitching. “I made no guarantees. And you still have not explained what you were doing in the vault.”
“Or how we got locked in. You don’t seem nearly as curious about that.”
Before he could repeat his demand for explanations, Kelvin came running down the corridor, and it was immediately apparent he recognized her, despite three years having passed by for him. Probably the dramatic nature of what had taken place on that dreadful day would have indelibly etched those events in his memory. For better or for worse.
He still looked like a young man, especially gaping at her as he was. “Miss Reader, you’re alright!” He glanced briefly at Matt but returned his gaze to Page. “I don’t understand. Where did you two disappear to? And what are you doing in there now?”
Mr. Parker made a growling sound deep in his throat. “That is precisely the question which I have been attempting to get them to answer. I presume then that you can confirm the identities of the couple inside the vault?”
Kelvin swallowed and suddenly became formal. “Yes, sir. These are Mr. Matt Walker and Miss Page Reader. Our clients. The last time I saw them—”
The bank manager cut him off. “Save it. You’ve already gone through all of that often enough. And if the police want to hear it again, they’ll ask. But I imagine they will be a lot more interested in asking questions of these two.” Then the guard came ambling back to inform them that the police had been summoned.
Apparently satisfied the situation was now well in hand, he sent Kelvin back to his regular duty and ordered ‘Frank’ to stay and watch Matt and Page as if they were animals in a cage. While Parker strode down the corridor in the direction of the employee entrance at the rear of the building. Presumably to let the police in when they arrived. And there really was nothing to do then but wait for the authorities and hope she and Matt could be convincing enough without resorting to the truth. Which would never be believed.
Matt might not mind so much, but Page didn’t care to be hauled away in handcuffs, dragged down to the police station as if they were criminals. “We are respectable citizens, bank customers with every right to visit the vault. It’s not like we haven’t been back here before. Only this time we got locked in—and that’s hardly our fault.”
She had been speaking half to Matt and half to the guard, but ‘Frank’ merely shrugged as if it were none of his business and her helper gave her one of his infuriating grins. “I don’t think Mr. Parker will agree we’ve got the right to be in here, although Kelvin might, since he seems pretty taken with you.”
She shook her head. “What will matter is what the authorities think, which is why I hope Lt. Cross comes—he won’t imagine we were trying to rob the bank or any other such nonsense.”
“I’m sure he wouldn’t, but I couldn’t even begin to guess what might go through the minds of other cops, so keep your fingers crossed.” Glancing at the guard watching them, he lowered his voice. “And if you can think up a good story, even better.”
She didn’t bother to lower her volume. “I think we should tell them the truth.”
Matt boggled at her, and it was quite satisfying in its way. “I suppose you’d rather be taken to Bellevue than be thrown in prison, but neither should be necessary. I know I’ve told you New Yorkers won’t pay any attention to lunatics, but if we try to tell the cops that...” He trailed off, and Page knew what he was thinking, that she had meant telling the police they were time-travelers from the future. “Though I suppose we could demonstrate, if they’d let us.”
“And then where would we be?” She shook her head at him. “We can’t do that.” The police might confiscate their watches before they could Travel if they tried that, and that would be disastrous. “But if we just leave out a few awkward details—”
Matt suddenly held his finger up in front of his lips, and she stopped and could hear voices coming down the corridor. Then, in a clear, carrying tenor she heard, “It’s not like those two are a pair of desperados, Mr. Parker.” That was followed by a bass rumble she knew belonged to the banker, but what he said she couldn’t say. But she heard the lieutenant’s reply. “I sympathize with your concerns, and we’ll handle this very quietly.”
There was the sound of several people walking their way but no more conversation for a brief time and then the bank manager appeared with Lt. Cross at his side and another man following behind, probably another plainclothes policeman.
The lieutenant looked through the bars at Matt and then her, but he spoke to Mr. Parker. “But I’ve got a lot of questions to ask these two, and we may as well all sit down and be comfortable. Where can we do that?”
“Are you sure it’s safe to let them out of there?” The manager pursed his lips. “What if they’re carrying concealed weapons?”
Page felt compelled to say something. “Really, Mr. Parker. I have to say our relationship isn’t getting off to the best start. Perhaps I’ll take our business to a different bank.” But while she could move her money to an account at any bank, the Travelers’ Trust would always be administered by this one. So she couldn’t quit them entirely. Better if she could get Mr. Parker to be more accommodating. But for the moment, he was ignoring her.
Lt. Cross shook his head. “Don’t worry. Frank there is armed, and so are Constable Murphy and I, if it comes to that, which it won’t. These two won’t cause any problems, not of that sort, anyway.”
The bank manager sighed. “But what if they’ve stolen something? They should be searched before being allowed to run loose.”
“I thought you might think that, which is why I brought the female officer along.” He glanced back down the hallway at somebody she couldn’t see. “I can have her take the young lady to the employee’s restroom to be checked for the crown jewels, while Murphy here goes over Matt. And once that’s done I’ll want that room where we can interview them in comfort and privacy.”
With a sour expression, Mr. Parker took a ring of keys, unlocked the gate, and swung it wide to let Page out and the young policeman in. As she saw a pretty woman in civilian clothes waiting a little further down the corridor, Page accompanied her into the employee’s restroom, leaving Matt behind to be searched in the vault, apparently. She had to wonder what the men would make of his digital watch, though hopefully her helper had had enough sense to turn it off before the police came.
The woman was swift and efficient in searching her, but Page never carried much on her. Her keys and a wad of cash for cabs and gratuities and making purchases that couldn’t be put on account. And her watch of course.
Page pre-empted any question about it. “What do you think of my bracelet? It’s a memento. Miss—what’s your name?”
The officer shook her short brown hair. “I’m a sergeant. Sgt. Collins.” But she didn’t comment on the ‘bracelet’, which was probably for the best. She then took Page out and back down the hallway and around the corner and along to the door to the conference room. Where Matt and Mr. Parker and the two male officers were waiting. Sgt. Collins nodded at her superior and reported. “Nothing of note, sir. Some money, but no more than you’d expect someone like her to carry. Certainly nothing like what a thief would take from a bank vault. Anything on the male subject?”
Cross smiled. “Nothing of note, Sergeant. Unless you find his hobby of tinkering with electronics suspicious.” He motioned the two women to sit before turning to the manager. “Feel free to stay and listen, Mr. Parker, since this concerns your institution.”
Page and Sgt. Collins took seats at the mahogany table, then Matt and the two other officers sat as well, but the bank manager just closed the door and stood against it with his arms folded in front of his chest. Perhaps he was afraid she and Matt were going to try to escape. Her opinion of his intelligence took a nosedive.
Constable Murphy took out a pencil and a notebook, but before the lieutenant could ask any questions, Mr. Parker had the gall to say, “Good luck at getting any sense out of them.”
Lt. Cross ignored that and turned to Matt. “To start, three years ago you sent me a terse telegram, warning that this bank was about to be robbed, but you neglected to give me many helpful details. Why didn’t you call or come to the station and give me a full report? What had you meant to accomplish?”
Her helper looked uncomfortable, and as usual he tried to hide that with humor. “Considering you have to pay for every word you write, I had thought I was being quite verbose. It was intended to warn you about what I had reason to think might happen that morning, so you could take appropriate action in case it did. But I didn’t really know it would, and I didn’t have a lot of helpful details to share. And I figured you could contact me for more information if you needed it.”
The lieutenant looked irritated. “I tried to, but you weren’t at the hotel—no, you were here right in the middle of the robbery as it was taking place and then disappeared. Don’t you see what it might look like?”
Matt’s eyes opened wide. “Surely you don’t imagine Page and I were in on it? I warned you before it happened, so you could do something about it.”
The lieutenant’s smile was wry. “Terrorists often like to warn the police ahead of time, and those weren’t merely robbers but ‘revolutionaries’. So by not coming fully forward prior to the incident, then vanishing in the aftermath, we have to wonder what exactly your part in it was. How did you know what was going to happen, that it would be this bank on that particular morning?”
Page thought she saw a glint of suspicion in the man’s eyes, but if so it disappeared as her helper recounted the adventure he’d had that one night three years ago. She was hearing it for the first time herself, but then it had been only the night before from their point-of-view. Matt described how he’d been volunteering for Hawthorne’s immigrant charity to check it out and how he’d staked out the warehouse and what he’d seen and heard watching that group of men meeting there. She could tell he was leaving a lot out of his account, but she didn’t know what—or whether the omissions were due to the presence of the police or her sitting by his side. She’d have to get those details from him later, and deal with him accordingly.
Lt. Cross shook his head as Matt told him how he’d returned to the Ngaio and found the note Page had left for him—thankfully not mentioning where she’d left it—and how he’d then rushed to the bank half-cocked. “At that point I wasn’t really thinking about you or the bank, only getting Miss Reader out of here.”
The policeman snorted. “Doesn’t sound to me as if you were thinking at all.”
“Anyway, I was too late. We got caught up in it before we knew it had begun.” Matt went on to describe the sudden appearance of the man wielding a shotgun and shoving poor Mr. Douglass along and everything that occurred from that point on with an admirable economy of detail. He ended with an explanation of how he’d disarmed the bomb.
“It would’ve been nice if you’d stuck around, to give us all this information then, when we were trying to figure out what all had happened.” Lt. Cross sighed. “But how did you get out of the vault without anyone seeing you? Away from the bank entirely without being stopped?”
Page stepped in swiftly, worried Matt might do something crazy like mention time travel and try to pass it off as a joke. “He can’t explain that, Lieutenant, and neither can I.” Literally. “We just left, and everything was so chaotic at the time, nobody tried to stop us. We just wanted to go home.”
None of the officers looked pleased about that, or satisfied with her explanation, but it was all they were going to get. Lt. Cross returned his attention to Matt. “Yet you didn’t go home, we checked. You left town and never bothered to get in touch to share your story.” And if there was some sarcasm in how he said ‘story’, that was understandable.
Her helper nodded. “I’m sorry about that, but I didn’t think you’d need us, and we really wanted to get away.” He put plenty of genuine emotion in the last bit of that, though it wasn’t meant the way they would think.
The lieutenant waved at his constable, who began to close his notebook and put it away. But Mr. Parker stepped forward and spoke in a tone of irritation and with an unhappy twist to his lips. “None of that explains how these two managed to get into our vault this morning.”
Page wondered why the man still seemed so upset with them. “It’s quite simple. As soon as we arrived in town—” The moment after they’d left. “We went straight to the scene of the tragedy, where Mr. Douglass, that poor man, met his end. He’d been a true friend.” Unlike their new banker. “And we just walked right into the vault. What I can’t explain is how that gate got locked and trapped us in there. I was hoping you could tell us something about that, Mr. Parker.”
The manager’s face had grown rather red. “No, I can’t, and I resent—”
Lt. Cross stepped in smoothly. “Now, Mr. Parker, there’s no reason to be upset anymore. Surely you can see that if young Matt here had not alerted us, things might have turned out much more tragically. It’s sad about your predecessor, but it’s good that none of the other bank employees were injured or any of your customers. And if it weren’t for Matt this whole building might have been brought down. As it is, you didn’t even lose any money.”
Matt looked intently at the lieutenant. “I hope none of your men were killed in the confrontation.”
The senior policeman shook his head. “A couple of constables received minor injuries, but all the robbers were shot and killed, so we were never able to ask them anything. Which was why we would’ve appreciated having your information when we were investigating what happened here three years ago.”
Her helper nodded. “Because some of the people involved might not have been at the bank. You know where to look now, though. The charity.”
Lt. Cross sighed again. “The trail is too cold by now. But the BOI has continued to investigate possible radical associations there, and I’ll pass all you told me on to them. So don’t be surprised if federal agents pay you a visit.”
“Thanks for the heads-up.”
The lieutenant stood, and then started moving toward the door, making Mr. Parker step out of the way. “Don’t worry, sir, we’ll leave through the back. And as we already know the way, you don’t need to show us out.”
The sergeant and constable followed their superior and left Page and Matt alone in the conference room with the bank manager. Grunting, he looked at the pair of them as if waiting for them to get out too. That sort of attitude could not be permitted to continue.
Page didn’t suppose Riggleston would be an issue anymore, and she certainly wouldn’t get any information about his trust out of Parker, but she did need to claim more funds from the Travelers’ Trust and might as well take care of that business now.
She stared firmly into the manager’s eyes. “It’s taken some time, but I’m ready to conduct the business I came here to do.” She’d let Matt distract the man with that, while she worked on Kelvin again to see if she couldn’t find out more about Riggleston’s trust. “But first, I’d like you to thank my assistant. For saving your bank.”