A Time of Shadows (Out of Time #8) (2 page)

He stopped mid-rant, his mouth open. His eyes darted to the watch, the girl and then back to Elizabeth, who nodded toward the phone.

Without looking away, he muttered, “Never mind,” and hung up. His eyes locked on the watch, he slowly walked toward them.

Taking the watch from Elizabeth, he turned it over in his hand and then looked at Charlotte.

“Where,” he asked, his voice soft and intense, “did you get this?”

She looked nervously to Elizabeth and then back to him and toyed anxiously with her necklace, dragging a small charm back and forth across the thin silver chain. And it wasn’t just any charm, Elizabeth realized. It was a key.

“This is my watch,” he continued, pointing toward an all-too-familiar mark on the back of the case. “How did you…?”

“Charlotte,” Elizabeth interrupted him, hardly able to take her eyes from the key, barely managing to keep her voice calm. She cast a quick, anxious glance at Simon, whose brows were drawn together in a confused scowl, and then turned back to face the girl. “What’s your last name?”

Next to her she felt Simon go rigid. Charlotte looked nervous but took a breath and said, “Cross. Charlotte Cross.”

Elizabeth’s breath caught. She knew she should have reasoned it out, doubted, reconsidered. The girl was a long lost relative of Simon’s. Or it was just a wicked coincidence. A cruel trick. But her heart knew what her mind couldn’t quite process. This was their daughter.

Simon, clearly coming to the same conclusion, unceremoniously sat down with a thud into the chair opposite them.

He looked ready to pass out. “What?”
 

Elizabeth’s head spun. She felt light-headed.
 

“Charlotte Cross,” Charlotte repeated. She chewed on her lower lip and looked as if she’d done something wrong. Instinct sent Elizabeth’s arm around her shoulder.
 

Big green eyes looked up at her.
 

“Are you…?” Elizabeth couldn’t bring herself to say it, to hope. “Are you…our Charlotte?”

The little girl nodded but fresh tears came, and she leaned into Elizabeth’s side.

Elizabeth’s heart ran the four minute mile in one minute flat. Their child. Their Charlotte. She looked over at Simon, whose eyes hadn’t left the girl. How could they? It wasn’t every day your future child showed up on your doorstep. Crying.

Simon’s expression shifted from one of wonder to one of distrust, and his eyes narrowed. “What storybook do I read to you?”

Charlotte’s little eyebrows raised in confusion.

“Simon—”

He turned to her, that inscrutable look on his face again. “If she’s our child, she’ll know the answer to this.”

Elizabeth hadn’t for one second considered the possibility that Charlotte wasn’t hers, that this was some ruse. She knew in her heart it was true. But she also knew Simon didn’t always trust his heart.

“When I was little,” Charlotte said, “you used to read from this old book of Grandpa’s. I liked
How the Leopard Got Its Spots
best.”

Simon’s eyes softened. “Kipling.”

Charlotte smiled for the first time. It was sad and beautiful and absolutely took Elizabeth’s breath away.
 

In what must have been a ritual between father and daughter, she said in a soft voice, “Just so.”

Simon’s breath caught and Elizabeth could see the moment he listened to his heart. He swallowed.

“My grandfather and I used to say that.”

Charlotte nodded. “I know.”

His eyes dangerously moist, Simon knelt down and tentatively held out his arms.
 

She needed no more prompting than that and practically flew across the room and into them.

“I’m sorry,” he said, his voice muffled in the crook of her neck.

Charlotte shook her head and pulled back a little. “Trust, but verify.”

Simon laughed and pulled her back into his arms.
 

Elizabeth let her tears fall. Seeing father and daughter in each other’s arms triggered some deeply embedded maternal waterworks and there was no fighting it. She was sure that she would never get enough of seeing the two of them together.
 

Simon stared at Charlotte for a long moment and Elizabeth saw him struggling with his emotions. Finally, he brushed his knuckles along her cheek and eased her back onto the sofa.

“I know it’s difficult,” he said, “but can you tell us what happened?”

Charlotte leaned back, sniffed and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. He reached into his pocket for his handkerchief. “They came and they were trying to hurt you.”

“Who was?”

Charlotte shook her head. “I don’t know. Some men. We were home and they came and you told—” she said looking at Simon and then frowning, “Daddy told me to go. To go
now
.”

“Go now?” Simon asked.

She sniffled and Elizabeth could see her anxiety growing again. “That’s our code. If Daddy says ‘go now!’, I’m supposed to go into your closet and get the watch, and it’ll take me somewhere safe.”

Simon looked anxiously at Elizabeth.

Charlotte’s gaze landed on the watch in Simon’s hand. “I must have bumped it or something. It was supposed to bring me here, but it dropped me down the street and I ran here as fast as I could.”

“Someone attacked us—your parents—and you escaped by using the watch?” Simon said slowly.

Charlotte nodded. “You, I mean, Daddy, set it up that way, to take me here to you. He said you’d help me.”

She looked at them imploringly, her emotions revving back up again. “You have to help me.”

“Oh, we will,” Elizabeth said as she pulled the girl, pulled her daughter into her arms. “I promise we will.”

She looked over to Simon, who stood and started to pace. “Won’t we?” she prompted.

Simon cleared his throat and stopped pacing. “Of course. Of course, we will.” He walked back over to them. “What can you tell us about the men you mentioned? Do you know why they’d come?”

Charlotte sat up straight and wrinkled her forehead in thought and told the story, what there was of it. She hadn’t seen much, but she had heard the struggle and ran downstairs only to be sent away by her father.
 

“They were throwing things around,” Charlotte said.
 

Simon leaned over the back of a chair. “How so?”

“Like they were looking for something.”
 

“For what?” Simon asked. “Did they say anything? Anything at all?

Charlotte shook her head. “I don’t know.”

Simon sighed and stopped his interrogation. “It’s all right,” he said and then frowned. “Do they know where you went?”

She shook her head again. “I don’t think so. I don’t know.” She glanced around the room nervously.

Elizabeth sat up a bit straighter. “Do you think they’d come here after her?”

Simon’s jaw set. “Possibly.”

Elizabeth stood. “Then we should leave.”

Simon nodded.
 

Elizabeth looked around. “Maybe we can—”

The sound of the doorbell brought her up short. Simon lifted a silencing finger to his lips and jerked his head toward the back door. Elizabeth reached down for Charlotte’s hand while Simon walked quietly over to the side window.

He peered through the sheers and let out a sigh of relief. “It’s all right.”

He moved to the door and opened it to reveal a grinning Jack Wells. “I’m sorry I’m early, but—”

His eyes fell on Charlotte and his grin grew wider and curious. “Hello.”

“Uncle Jack!”

She let go of Elizabeth’s hand and rushed toward him. He shot Elizabeth a confused look but swept Charlotte into his arms as if he’d done this sort of thing every day.
 

He gave her a big hug and then turned to Elizabeth, “How long
was
I gone?”

Simon coughed and Jack let the girl slide back down.
 

“It appears introductions are not necessary,” Simon said, closing the door firmly behind him and turning the deadbolt into place.

Charlotte smiled up at Jack but wavered, and there were tears standing in her eyes. “I haven’t seen you in so long—I mean—” She swiped at the unshed tears with the back of her hand, but they came back.

Jack dropped to one knee before her. “Hey, now,” he said, brushing away one that had escaped. “Why so sad, sweetheart?”

Charlotte’s face crumpled again and she threw herself into his arms with so much strength he had to steady himself with one hand on the floor. He glanced up at Simon and Elizabeth for an explanation. They filled him in as best they could. Elizabeth rubbed Charlotte’s back as she did. Simon stumbled twice over the word “daughter.”
 

All through it, Jack barely batted an eye. It was one of the many things Elizabeth loved about him. He just accepted things. He’d time traveled from World War II to the present and taken the whole thing in stride. A little girl from the future was nothing special. Except, this little girl was special. Very special.
 

The thought of it all made Elizabeth’s heart flutter again. This beautiful child was their daughter.
 

Charlotte’s tears didn’t last long. She pushed herself away from Jack and nodded as if she’d decided she was finished with all that nonsense.

“We have to save my mom and dad.” Her voice broke a little, but she swallowed hard and set her jaw.

Still crouching, Jack rubbed his chin, taking it all very seriously.

“Okay,” he assured Charlotte with a nod. “If that’s what we have to do, then we’ll do it.”

Charlotte searched his face for a moment. She found whatever it was she needed to see, nodded and looked up to Simon and Elizabeth. Tentatively, she slid her hand into Elizabeth’s. The sensation was at once a strange mixture of “oh,
there
you are,” and completely foreign. Elizabeth gave it a small, comforting squeeze.

Jack looked at Simon as he stood. “Do we know anything else?”

They knew next to nothing and Elizabeth said so.

“There’s one way to find out what’s going on,” Jack said.
 

Simon’s expression grew wary. “And that would be?”

Jack inclined his head toward the watch. “Those things have an auto return feature right?”

Simon frowned but nodded.

“I could ride it back to the future and find out what’s what.”

Simon pursed his lips in thought. “We don’t know what you’d be walking into. The…” His eyes slid over to Charlotte and then back, “situation is fluid.”

“I’ve parachuted behind enemy lines before. Piece of cake,” he added with a wink for Charlotte. She managed to smile briefly in return, but the worry in her eyes never let up.
 

Elizabeth knew Simon was right, the future was unknown and apparently dangerous, but was there a choice?
 

“We’re just stumbling around in the dark otherwise,” she said.

Simon grunted and after another moment of hesitation handed Jack the watch.

Charlotte lifted off her necklace and handed the watch key to Jack. “Don’t lose it,” she warned him gravely.
 

“You should arrive a few blocks from here,” Simon said. “Don’t interfere, just—”

“Reconnaissance. Got it.”

He took a deep breath, opened the watch and inserted the key.

Simon came to Elizabeth and Charlotte’s side and the three took a step back.

Jack grinned at them and said, “Be back before you can say Jack’s your…” He turned the key, but instead of snakes of blue lightning, there was simply nothing. “…uncle?”
 

He looked at Simon and Elizabeth. “Did I do it wrong?”

Simon frowned. “Try it again.”

Jack did, but there were no sparks, no light, nothing.

“Odd,” Simon said, taking the watch from him and removing the key. He turned to Charlotte who raised her shoulders and palms to the sky.

“I didn’t do it.”

Simon hmm’d thoughtfully and then retrieved its döppleganger from their upstairs closet. He programmed it, and handed it to Jack. But the result was the same.

“They can’t both be broken,” Elizabeth said.

“Aren’t they the same watch though?” Jack asked.

“They are, but they aren’t,” Simon said.

“That’s helpful.”

“They’re the same watch but at different places in the timeline. In the same way I’m Charlotte’s father and yet I’m not,” he said, and then repeated with a small, warm smile, “yet.”

Jack rubbed the back of his neck. “Right. Timey wimey. But that doesn’t explain why they’re both not working.”

“But worked for Charlotte moments ago.”

“Maybe it’s not the watch. Maybe it’s me?” Jack offered.

“I can try it. Just pop in and pop back out,” Elizabeth offered.

Her suggestion was met with a very sour face.
 

“
I’ll
try it,” Simon intoned, moving the watch well out of her reach.

Elizabeth didn’t argue with Simon’s, well, she’d call it chivalry for now and sexism later. And there would definitely be a later.

They all gave him room, but the watch didn’t work for him either.

“Maybe it’ll work for me,” Charlotte said, holding out her hand.
 

“A world of no,” Simon said firmly. “Until we know more, you’re not going back there.”

She looked about to argue.
 

“No discussion,” he added.

Charlotte pouted but then brightened. “Why don’t we just ask Teddy?”

Elizabeth stood stunned for a minute and, judging from Simon’s expression, she wasn’t alone. She and Simon hadn’t seen Teddy since they’d returned Evan Eldridge to 1906 San Francisco, although barely a day went by when she didn’t think of him.

She did a little wits gathering before managing a bewildered, “Teddy Fiske?”

Charlotte nodded. “He can fix anything.”

“How do you know Teddy?” Simon asked.

Charlotte looked at him with an expression Elizabeth had seen Simon use on first year students for ages. Half pity, half exasperation. “He comes to visit all the time. Or, he used to.”

“In the future?” Simon clarified.

“Oh, yeah,” Charlotte said, understanding his confusion now. “Is he in this time?”