Chapter One

Current Year, March 29

Charlotte Evans’s head pounded. Terror beat against her ribs as her heart attempted to escape her chest. Her eyes refused to open. Where am I? What the bloody hell happened?

The slap-slap of footsteps grew louder, stopping just before she feared they’d stomp on her. She tried again to open her eyes. No luck. She couldn’t move, her body sluggish and unresponsive.

A male voice whispered near her ear, “We need to hurry. She’s starting to wake.” Cool fingers wrapped around her wrist, lifting her arm at an awkward angle. The stink of onions wafted across her face as the man breathed heavily.

A familiar humming noise buzzed in her ears, but the source eluded her. The darkness beyond her eyelids flickered. She couldn’t for the life of her figure out why, but she seemed to be lying on the cold, hard floor. A sharp pain pierced her left hip. Her entire body ached.

Where in the world was she? Last she remembered was meeting with Mr. Sawyer at the London office of Griffin International.

His call had shaken her to her core. It couldn’t be coincidence that he contacted her the very same day she found her sister. And he thought she’d actually want to go back to the nineteenth century? After all these years?

Stumbling through that time portal when she was ten had been an accident, but a happy one that had saved her life. Going back wasn’t an option. After telling him in no uncertain terms to leave her the hell alone, she’d walked away.

Funny. She couldn’t remember leaving the office. Last thing she recalled was reaching for the door handle. Then everything went black.

Pins and needles crept up her legs. She needed to get up.

Her next attempt to open her eyes was successful. Lights flickered but didn’t go out completely. She traced the buzzing noise to the fluorescents that dropped down from the ceiling.

She rolled over and managed to rise onto her hands and knees. The contents of her stomach threatened to spill. Jagged stones jammed into her. Scratch marks gave the impression the floor had been carved out of solid rock. It seemed natural, yet—not.

“Too late, I see,” a voice she recognized spoke clearly from across the room.

“Mr. Sawyer?” The words surged out as a croak, her throat rough and scratchy, like she hadn’t used her voice in a long while. “What’s going on? Where am I?”

“You collapsed this morning. The air must not agree with you,” he said in an amused, breezy voice. “You really should be heading home. Don’t worry. I’ll see to it.”

“My brother can pick me up.” Fear threatened to choke her. He couldn’t mean what she thought he did, could he? “I’ll call him.”

“That’s not exactly what I meant. You remember our conversation? You don’t belong here. It’s not your time. The portal will send you back to 1818 where you belong. I’m sure you can come up with some explanation of where you’ve been all these years.”

She gasped and tried to catch her breath. “I told you I’m not going back. This is my home now.” Her gut roiled in protest every time she moved. She crawled to the wall and slumped into a sitting position, breathing heavily through her nose. A strange odor permeated the air, like someone threw kerosene onto a campfire.

“I’m afraid you will be returning. We had hoped for your cooperation. You should be eager for this chance to return to your family. Don’t you miss them?”

“No,” she said bitterly. “My family, my real family, is here. My parents died in a car crash a few years ago, but I have my brother Steven. He’s here. In London. He’ll worry about me if I disappear. I told him I was going to see you,” she lied. “He’ll put two and two together.”

“We both know that’s not the whole truth.”

“It’s the only truth that matters,” she spat back. “Why do you want me to go now, after all this time? It’s been fifteen years! I have a life here. I barely remember the past.”

Her eyesight finally focused. She studied the room. Well, room wasn’t really the right word. Cave was more appropriate, though it was the most high-tech cavern she had ever seen. The floor had been evened out but still retained a lumpy, uneven texture with pebbles and dirt littering the floor. A steel case filled with computers lined one wall. To her right, the air rolled in distorted, shimmering waves that sent a chill through her body that pulsed to the same rhythm of the portal.

She fought against the panic trying to consume her. Tight spaces were bad enough—she’d learned to fight through her fear with deep breathing techniques mastered through years of practice. But being underground—and here in particular? Her worst nightmare come to life.

The only thing that kept her from a full-blown panic attack was the smug look on Sawyer’s face. She’d never have thought the squat, balding mouse of a man in his rumpled suit could have the ability to screw her life so royally. Yet here she was.

Air wheezed through chapped lips. She gulped, trying to force moisture down her parched throat. She had been here once before. The worst day of her life. She shook her head to get the image of her sister’s broken, blood-soaked body out of her mind. That Alex had survived was a miracle.

Oh, God. Alex. Had Sawyer found her too? Was she, even now, waking up underground somewhere about to be forced through another time portal?

If she was, surely Sawyer would have used that information to gain Charlotte’s compliance. If he told her Alex had already been sent back, what choice would she have but to go find her? Judging by her current situation, he was the kind of man to use any and all means at his disposal.

She had to assume her sister was alive, in this century, and awaiting her call. She had to find a way to get to her. To warn her about Sawyer and find a way to get on with their lives. In this time. Because there was no way she was going back to those traitors, that so-called family who had betrayed them both.

Of course, considering all the heavily armed men surrounding her, her wishes might not exactly be taken into consideration.

****

Her stomach slowly settled to the point she could move without retching. Her head pounded a little less, but without that ache, the discomfort in her hip became more pronounced. She was going to have one hell of a bruise.

Two men cradling machine guns guarded the opposite end of the room, near the door and farther away from the distortion. Their hard faces continuously scanned the room and skipped over her as if she didn’t exist. Her eyes narrowed. They’d regret dismissing her so easily.

She returned her attention to Sawyer and the young man who seemed overly concerned with her state of health. He grabbed her wrist again and shone a light in her eyes—until she regained enough strength to shove his hands away. He stumbled backward in surprise.

“Oomph.” He grunted as his backside hit the ground, hopefully on the same pebble that had been lodged in hers, she thought vindictively.

“Hey! I’m just checking to make sure you’re okay,” he whined.

“Okay? You want to make sure I’m okay? If you hadn’t drugged me in the first place, you wouldn’t have to check.” She turned to Sawyer. “And you haven’t told me why it’s so bloody important I go back all of a sudden.”

“We’re cleaning house, so to speak. The company has decided it’s time that you, and a few others, return from whence you came.”

A tiny bit of her tension eased. If he had Alex, he most definitely would have said so.

“Most were quite happy to go. Times are hard. They were pleased to go back to lives that were so much less complicated.” He shoved a variety of items into an old-fashioned looking sack as he spoke. “It won’t be without difficulty, however. I’m sorry to say we have information that a woman was—will be?—murdered not far from where you’ll be arriving in the past. Of course, the article may not be about you.” He tapped his chin as if pondering an interesting puzzle. “Hmm. Perhaps I have changed that event simply by warning you of the possibility.” He shrugged and continued his task.

What the bloody hell was the bastard going on about? Murder? A tremor ran through her from head to foot.

He shook out and then folded a simple, and if she recalled correctly, serving class dress before shoving it into the sack. Petticoats and a corset followed.

Oh man, he was serious.

“This is crazy,” Charlotte said against gritted teeth. She inched up the wall to a standing position. Her eyes flicked to the touchy-feely guy and quickly away. He had a gun in his belt. Could she possibly grab it? If she didn’t act soon, she’d be in real trouble. The walls were closing in on her. A full-blown panic attack was on its way if she didn’t do something. Fast.

“Are you going to put this on, or am I going to have to help you?” Sawyer asked, the serious expression on his face countering the depraved flirtatiousness of his tone.

Charlotte took the sack gingerly and looped it over her arm. “A little privacy, if you please?” she snapped.

As soon as the two agency men turned, she grabbed the gun. The man whipped around and backhanded her across the face, but she had the weapon. She flipped the safety off and leveled the weapon at eye height. Her vision blurred. Her hands shook from fear. She had fired a pistol only once in her life, and she hadn’t done all that well with it.

“Back up!” she screamed. A trickle of blood from her split lip dribbled down her chin. The copper taste mixed with the sourness of terror fouled her tongue. Time moved extra slowly, and the most minute details itched for her attention. The satchel swung from her elbow and banged against her knee. She should drop it but couldn’t take either hand off the gun. It trembled enough with a two-handed grip. The portal now loomed at her back like a storm cloud threatening to engulf them all.

Movement at the corner of her eye caught her attention. The soldiers near the door had their weapons trained on her. She aimed at Sawyer, and he waved them off. “Stand down, Charlotte. Don’t be stupid. There’s no way you can get out of here. The only thing to do is cooperate and go home.”

“Never.” A flash from the side caused her to swing around. Too late. The man grabbed her arms and forced them to point toward the ceiling. In a roar of sound and light, the gun went off.

A large chunk of stone fell from the ceiling, the man took the worst of the blow, but fragments struck Charlotte hard on the cheek and shoulder. She was knocked back amidst a cloud of dust and debris. She ran, her arms thrown over her head. She could barely see six inches in front of her.

There wasn’t enough time to stop when a slight shimmer told her she headed into the portal—and straight into the childhood nightmare she left behind fifteen years ago.