Fortune

by Craig W. Turner

  “No, we got lucky,” she said, smiling confidently. “It had nothing to do with the team. If the crowd hadn’t broken through, you would’ve been beaten to a bloody mess and thrown in future jail.”

  “I hope if that had happened you would’ve had the sense to click the button and go. Then come back for me.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “I mean – I would’ve come back for you. But I would’ve been really hesitant to click that button without you. And I have to imagine future jail would have been much more difficult to get you out of than any prison in Colonial America.”

  “Even with the scaffold coming down, you were worried about leaving without me?”

  She shook her head. “Again, Jeff, I don’t know. It all happened very quickly. It’s hard to second-guess without making myself very anxious.”

  “I gotcha.”

  They simultaneously finished their drinks. Jeff ordered another for himself. Erica ordered an iced tea.

  “You still owe me something,” she said, “before I go back to California.”

  “What’s that?” He took a swig from his new glass.

  “You’ve never told me about Joe Wilton. I want to know the whole story. What was the situation like? Was it just like he wrote in his diary?”

  He laughed, then reached across the bar for a napkin, wiping his face.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “It’s just funny that you asked it that way – ‘is it the same as in the diary?’ Because it’s not, really. There is one big flaw in what he wrote.”

  “What’s that?”

  He turned to face her. “Alright. Here’s the scenario. So, Dexter and I come out in the middle of the road and stop the wagon. Your ancestor, Fitzsimmons, talks to us for a moment, then Emeka comes from the side and puts...” He trailed off.

  “Puts what?”

  “Well, puts a knife to his neck. Sorry, I know it’s your relative.”

  She looked around. “What do you want me to say? Water under the bridge? Wait – he put the knife to Lucius’ neck? Wilton wrote that the guy with the scar put the knife to his neck.”

  “Nice, huh? So, Fitzsimmons calls back to Wilton, who pops his head out and has a brief conversation with us. After a minute, he says he’s got to check on his wife. He disappears into the wagon and a split second later he jumps out the back and takes off down the road. And I mean like a bat out of hell he takes off. He was gone. Into the trees. Left Fitzsimmons and his wife behind for us to do who-knows-what to without a glance back.”

  “What about Pool?”

  “Oh, yeah. Him too. I swear, it was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen.”

  “That old liar.” She was smiling. She liked the story.

  “You could say that.”

  “Funny that he would put his spin on it,” she said, sipping her iced tea. “And where were you? You said I was pretty close when I had the sign placed there?”

  “You were about three feet away. We arrived back in the present and your sign was literally right there. You nailed it.”

  “What time of day was it? Probably duskish?”

  “Maybe a little earlier than that. Six p.m.? You’d have to ask Dexter that one; he had it pinpointed exactly, of course. Wilton had said something in his diary about being a mile or so from where he wanted to camp, which is why he didn’t want to waste time going around the pass.” He leaned over to Dexter and tugged on his shirt sleeve. “What time did we do the Wilton job?”

  He’d confused him. “Huh?”

  “What time? What time of day?”

  “Oh. About six-thirty.” He went back to his conversation with Emeka and Abby.

  “Okay, about six-thirty.” He pointed to his glass. “Sorry, I’ve had four of these. My attention to detail is suffering.”

  “And what’d you do?” she asked, continuing. “Just waited in the forest for him to come? How long did you wait?”

  He shook his head. “Couldn’t have been more than an hour. Yeah, we were in the trees about thirty yards off the path. We hid until we could hear the clip-clop of the horses.”

  She took another sip from her glass. “It sounds fascinating. I can’t imagine the thrill I’d have had being there.”

  “There are always more trips available,” he said, immediately wondering why he’d said it, knowing how she felt about it.

  “Jeff, I...”

  He held up his hand. “I know. I know. Let’s see what’s in the back of that U-Haul and we can assess where we stand. Does that work?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Unfortunately, it’s the best I can do.”

  She nodded slowly. “I know.” She drank down the rest of her iced tea and set it on the bar, then motioned for the bartender, who started in their direction. “You guys deserve to celebrate, but I keep thinking about that flight home. I’m going to get back to the hotel.” The bartender reached them and she asked him to call a cab for her.

  “Are you sure?” Jeff said, not wanting her to leave. “You earned a night out.”

  “I had a beautiful night out in New York,” she said. “One I’ll never forget.”

  Well, that was good, at least.

  Erica stood and said goodbye to everyone while he waited by the door for her. There seemed to be a lot of camaraderie in the room. He thought maybe that might keep her involved, even if he couldn’t accomplish it himself. During a series of hugs and well-wishes, he noticed that she whispered something in Dexter’s ear. When she was done, Jeff walked her outside to wait for her taxi.

  “I can take you back to the hotel,” he said.

  She laughed. “No you can’t. And I already told the bartender to get you a cab when you’re ready, too.”

  He couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Sounds about right. What did you say to Dexter?”

  “Pretty observant,” she said. “I just told him that if there was anything I could do to help him, I would.”

  “That was nice of you.”

  There was a light drizzle in the air, which gave him a chill. He knew the mist on his face right then would be something he’d always remember. They waited a few minutes in silence. Though there was plenty he wanted to say, most of which was related to pleading with her not to go, he knew that there was really only one thing he could say that could get her to stay. He just couldn’t bring himself to say it.

  Finally, though, as a black-and-white cab pulled into the parking lot, he broke the silence. “Will I see you again?”

  She looked up at him and shrugged her shoulders. He couldn’t read if it was out of indecision or hope. “Jeff, if we’ve proven anything through all of this, it’s that we have control over more than we think. That’s all I’ll say.”

  The cab pulled up next to them, and Jeff leaned down to open the door for her. When he stood, she grabbed him by the face and gave him a long, soft kiss on his left cheek. Without a word, she got into the cab, purposefully not looking at him as she settled herself, and a moment later it disappeared down the street.

  Jeff stood there for a few moments staring after her, not knowing or trusting that he’d ever have the opportunity to see her again. At least not with the same connection they’d established over the last 72 hours. Not that he wouldn’t try. “Forgetting” to get the time device back from her was really an act of male desperation. He’d concocted the plan after she’d asked him for the private flight home, where she could actually carry the device with her. And since she couldn’t exactly then ship him the device back, they would have to connect. His worry was that she wouldn’t be thrilled to see him.

  He turned and went back into the bar. It was still a night of celebration, but for some reason Jeff couldn’t recapture the excitement he’d felt earlier in the night.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  Erica started to hoist her carry-on suitcase up the stairs onto the plane, but the flight attendant stopped her. He took it from her and let her know that he’d take care of getting it onto the plane for her. S
he grimaced. Could she have possibly looked more like a private jet amateur?

  She climbed aboard the plane and settled into the first seat she saw and set her shoulder bag on the table, though she was the only passenger for the flight. She immediately put on her seat belt as she’d always been instructed to do and took a look around. A flat screen television was mounted on the cabin’s wall to her left, the table in front of her was equipped with outlets for her laptop and behind her, past four reclining seats and a sofa, was a minibar. The seat was like none other she’d ever experienced in flight – and she’d been on a lot of flights – soft and immediately contoured to her back and rear end. She determined that during the flight she would have to try out all of the different seats.

  She also determined that she’d been missing out her whole life. Surely her show’s producers could’ve been flying her privately.

  As promised, Jeff had set her up nicely. The Town Car from the hotel was a very comfortable half-hour ride. She’d chatted with the driver about living in the metropolitan area and found out that he’d arrived from Trinidad only about three years before. His brother owned the limo company and had given him a job. And he was more than happy to be there. New York – the capital of the world, as he’d described it to her. She almost felt like telling him about all the new buildings that would be going up in the next seven years, but held back.

  When they’d arrived at the airport, she couldn’t believe the ease of getting to and onto the plane. She’d read an article once about many businesses actually using private jet service more and more often to get their people around. It had never made sense to her from a cost perspective until she actually experienced it – the amount of time wasted at the airport, delays, missed connections. They all added up. There was zero hassle to this trip for her.

  Of course, she’d estimated the whole trip was costing Jeff upwards of twenty grand. She’d Googled it from her hotel room. But what did it matter? He had a truckful of cash. Might as well spend it while he had it.

  Adding to her awe about the ease of travel, within five minutes of her buckling herself in, the attendant had brought her bag on board, they’d done a pre-flight check and were airborne. The ride was immediately smooth and as soon as they reached a cruising altitude, she was served a wonderful ham-and-cheese omelet with hash browned potatoes and buttered toast (though she hadn’t seen a kitchen). At her request, the attendant brought her a chai tea, and she sat, ate, and reflected on her trip.

  She’d been through so much over the last couple of days. She and Jeff together. It seemed like they’d shared a lifetime with the journey they’d been on. In a way, it felt crass of her to just get on a plane when she had no tangible excuse for leaving so abruptly. There was no filming scheduled. No urgent classes calling her back to campus. No boyfriend. Just home.

  And one last mission.

  In between bites of gooey cheese dripping between scrambled egg layers, she leaned over and unzipped the top of her bag. From it, she pulled Jeff’s time travel device. She’d successfully gotten it away from him.

  She’d been worried at the bar the night before that he’d remember she still had it and that he needed to get it back from her. That her planning was going to be for naught. Or, best case scenario, that she’d have to find a more creative way to get it from him. Had he remembered while they were at the lab and had they retrieved it from her hotel room and locked it up, it would have been over. But with the distraction of the bags of money, the celebration, and a little too much alcohol the night before, her gambit was a success. She now had in her possession everything she needed to make things right.

  His agreeing to send her on a private flight was also key – she couldn’t imagine she could’ve ever gotten a mysterious device featuring a nuclear-powered battery through airport security. The pieces had all fallen into place for her.

  Of course, he’d come looking for it. The device she held in her hands was his life. She just didn’t know the reaction he’d have upon finding it missing. Likely he’d be pretty upset. But she was certain that she could have everything taken care of before he reached her.

  She thought about the “other” part of their relationship – the one beyond them becoming action heroes for a day. The feelings he seemed to want to admit to her at any given moment that she’d never reciprocated. She’d been planning far too long during their travels, and any feelings that she might have had for him she’d quelled because they were pointless. There were moments, sure, when he was charming, and she thought he was handsome, especially for a lab geek – though, who did she really expect an academic like herself would be attracted to? There were even moments where she considered that she could imagine spending a life with him.

  But, like a dutiful wife who no longer feels she can support her drug-addicted husband, she couldn’t look past his insistence on playing with time travel fire. What he was trying to accomplish – what he was refusing to give up – was far too dangerous. When they’d first met and his stories were nothing more than theories to her, it was easy enough for her to come along for the ride. But since she’d experienced it herself, there was no way she could continue to be a part of all of it, or even allow it to continue unchecked. In fact, not only could she not be a part of it or ignore it, but she’d determined to stop him altogether.

  She’d meant what she said to Dexter – that she would do anything she could to fix things for him. Dexter was not aware, of course, that she’d been plotting her “fix” of everything that had happened since they’d left his home in the “new” present. Her research into his life in the future was merely gravy for her purposes.

  From a very skewed point-of-view, she was really taking the bull by the horns for Jeff in regards to his next experiment: was it possible to restore a history amended back to its original version? Of course, she would never know the answer, but she would take comfort that she tried.

  The attendant came back and collected her empty plates. He asked if she needed anything more.

  “Actually, yes,” she said. “I wonder if it’s possible for the pilot to land me at Sacramento International instead of San Francisco. I have business there.”

  The man smiled. “That shouldn’t be a problem, Ma’am.”

  After he left to announce the change in plans, she put the time device back into her suitcase and rather than turn on her laptop she decided she’d sample the sofa.

  She lay down and let her mind wander to what it would be like to meet her ancestor, Lucius Fitzsimmons. A few moments later, she was in a deep sleep.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  Jeff had the shades on his bedroom window drawn tight following his night out, so he was surprised when he looked at his cell phone on his nightstand and saw it was after 11 a.m.

  The time didn’t matter – he hadn’t slept a minute all night. Erica’s departure had taken a toll on him. He’d only stayed at the bar another half-hour after she’d left, then he and Dexter had gone back to his place. He’d set his friend up in the guest bedroom and, without conversation, retired to his own room, where he lay the rest of the night staring at the ceiling and thinking about the fork in the road at which he’d arrived.

  In one direction lay a future in which he was in complete control, able to continue his experiments with a probably hazardous, but equally beneficial, ability to keep nearly everyone else on the planet in the dark about time travel. In the other, he would hand his technology over to people he didn’t trust to do the right thing with it, but it could possibly land him the woman he’d confirmed overnight that he’d fallen in love with. But even then he questioned himself. If he was truly in love with her – like the fate kind of love you always heard about and hoped for – then why would any of it even be a question in his mind? It was probably a romanticized view of love that he clung to, but he also had never had the opportunity to experience it. As the night went on, he started to come to the determination that some things just mattered more than others.

  If the key
to Erica’s heart was him doing what she perceived as the right thing, then he would have to choose. And he found that, as he lay in the dark pondering and emotionalizing, his priorities were changing.

  And then he’d scold himself. This wasn’t him. He was pragmatic. He was a planner. He followed an agenda. Engaging in a major change of his life’s direction because he was sad that his girlfriend was flying back to California was ludicrous. She wasn’t even his girlfriend, which made it all more absurd. Several times during the night, he physically stopped his mind from spinning, took deep breaths to control his pounding heart, and regrouped. It hadn’t helped him to sleep, and while he wanted nothing more than to blame his mental struggles on alcohol, he simply couldn’t do it. Everything plaguing his mind had been building for some time.

  A few hours earlier, he’d come up with a plan. He would call Erica when she got off the plane and tell her that he wanted to talk. Easy. Be honest with her. He had qualms about giving up on his work, but she meant a lot to him. Put the ball in her court and see how she reacted to his openness to considering all sides. An hour later, of course, he’d reminded himself that she was staunch in her requirements. A soft approach was not going to work with her. Because, in the end, what was she going to say? Go ahead, Jeff, you do whatever you want and I’ll be here waiting for you?

  After another hour, he was back to where he’d started. Thinking that nothing substantial was going to happen immediately to make a difference. It was important that he played it cool, took a couple of days to figure out what was going on, get back into his life now that the craziness of their last mission was over, and then he’d reach out to her when he knew where his head was.

  Fifteen minutes later, he hated himself for that response. Either this woman was going to mean something to him or she wasn’t. He determined that she was. However, the decision didn’t make him jump out of bed and start making phone calls. He understood that she needed to go back to California and that it would be important to her to do so. She was as pragmatic as he was, so showing up at her hotel room door with an emotional change of heart wasn’t something that would speak to her. He would let her play out her agenda and then contact her casually to ask for the device back. If she didn’t contact him first. At one point, he noted from his nightstand clock that she would have taken off.