by Sakwa, Kim
As the days turned into weeks, Callie kept waiting for Papa to come, and she knew her mama did, too, even though this was her house now. It took some time, but between her mama, Aunt Sam, and Mr. Finch, Callie got used to her new life. She had pretty new clothes that she loved, like sundresses and blue jeans, shorts and T-shirts and lots of shoes. Her mama got her a new tea set similar to the one she’d had in her old room, and new dolls and stuffed animals too. Callie learned about TVs and cell phones and computers, but she wasn’t allowed to spend a lot of time using them. Her mama liked to do puzzles and play games with her instead. And of course, her mama continued with her piano and dance lessons.
They stayed in their home in Great Britain through Callie’s birthday. She turned six on May 20, that year. Her mama made her repeat the date over and over again. Not the May 20 part, the year part, which at first seemed very silly to Callie since it wasn’t even a real year. She also made her memorize what Mama called her “birthdate”—the day, month, and year. Mama and Aunt Sam and even Mr. Finch would ask her at odd times, “What’s your birthdate?” She didn’t even have to think about it anymore.
After a while they left Great Britain and moved to a place called New York. Aunt Sam and Mr. Finch came with them and they flew on a plane they had all to themselves. Her mama told Callie not to be scared, that the man who flew the plane in the sky—their pilot, Captain Morgan—would keep them safe. “Just wait, baby,” she’d said. “That feeling you love, that you get right here”—her mama patted Callie’s stomach then—“this time will be even better.” Her mama was right too. Callie remembered looking at her as they took off and she laughed out loud when that feeling came. She couldn’t help but think of Gregor then, and how much he would have loved it too.
Callie liked their house in New York; it was big like their other house and also on the water. The first night they got there, her mama lit a candle and put it on a table by the big picture window. Callie asked her what it was for and her mama picked her up and stood so they were both looking out at the ocean. “Your papa was taking us to America, Callie. That night we were separated.” Mama rarely cried in front of her, and if she did, it was really quiet. Tears would run down her face but she’d pretend they weren’t there. When she was able to speak again, her mama said, “I lit it for your papa, Callie.” Then she placed her hand to the glass. “We made it, Alexander. We’re here.” Mama’s voice caught on a sob then and Aunt Sam took her from her mama’s arms.
They stayed in New York only for the summer before moving to a place called California where Mama had lived when she was a little girl. Aunt Sam and Mr. Finch came with them again. In California, Mama’s belly grew big, and she told Callie she was going to have a brother. Her mama used to cry before, a lot, but now she cried even more. Not during the day, but at night when she thought Callie was asleep. Callie didn’t like hearing her mama cry, but she knew it was because she loved her papa so much. Her mama didn’t think they were ever going to see him again. But Callie had been watching a lot of movies and she knew her papa was better than all those superheroes put together. He would be able to find them no matter what.
It was when they moved to California that Callie learned her mama was a famous songwriter and that people all over knew who she was. Callie went to a fancy school where she had to work really hard. One day at school, the fourth graders put on a performance about something called the American Revolution. Callie would never forget sitting there looking at the stage and all the scenery and decorations. She hadn’t thought about her old life for a long time. But she did now. There were pictures and posters of ships like her papa used to command. A ship just like the one he’d been trying to get them on that night she and her mama were taken by those bad men. And when the students came on the stage, she gasped at their costumes. The girls were in dresses like the ones she and her mama used to wear, and the boys were in uniforms. One boy in particular was wearing a uniform that looked just like her papa’s. Callie sat there stunned, hanging on every word.
As she watched the play, Callie wondered if her papa worked with the man named George Washington. Maybe that was why he had been packing them up that night and taking them to America. Callie thought about that book then. The one that had made her mama cry. They were still in their home in New York when she found it. Callie had opened it to the very same page later and gasped when she saw her papa’s name written there: “Alexander Montgomery.” It said her papa had been found guilty of reason and had to write a sentence about death. It had taken her a long time to sound out all those words and she didn’t understand what they meant, but shortly after that Mama decided they should move. She told Callie that Papa wouldn’t be able to find them after all. Callie didn’t believe her mama. She didn’t tell her that, of course. But Callie would never believe her papa couldn’t find them. Never.
The security guard didn’t stand a chance. Alexander Montgomery watched as three of his men disarmed him, then showed their credentials.
At the present hour, the hospital corridors were all but deserted. A nurse pulled out her cell phone to record Alexander’s fifteen-man entourage as they passed. Her phone was taken and destroyed as she was ushered away. They separated at the bank of elevators. Alexander’s group was made up of his brother Stephen, Dr. Evan Childress, tech specialist Michael Bowers, and his attorney Christopher Bennett.
The nurse stationed behind the desk reached for the phone as they commandeered the west wing of the eighth floor. Alexander couldn’t be sure what shocked her more. Him and his men, or the two hospital board members accompanied by head psychiatrist Dr. Jay Meyers approaching from another corridor. She dropped the phone and sat in silence. Smart woman.
“I’m not happy about this,” Dr. Meyers said as he reached Alexander.
“Dr. Meyers,” Alexander began, “I can unequivocally assure you no one is unhappier than I.” He looked to his attorney, Chris, who withdrew the necessary paperwork. After a careful inspection, the documents were signed. Under almost any other circumstances Alexander would have felt victorious. This was none of those. “Where is she?”
He followed Amanda’s doctor down the hallway. Considering the press she’d had over the past nine months and that she was a celebrity in this century in her own right, Amanda’s room was the only one occupied on this hall. Three men stood at the end. At first glance they seemed harmless. Perhaps visitors loitering outside a patient’s room. But they weren’t harmless. Or visitors. Until twelve hours ago, they’d been Amanda’s private security detail. Now they worked for Alexander.
“Finch.” Alexander shook Stan’s hand, a wave of relief washing over him to finally meet the man who for all intents and purposes held his family’s charge. He owed the man more than he could ever repay. Finch had kept his family safe when he could not. He’d kept them hidden too. Bloody hell, he’d kept them so hidden Alexander had had to purchase the company to find them. It was the sixth of such businesses he’d acquired in his effort. Amanda had been signed into the hospital under an assumed name. Alexander hadn’t even known she was pregnant until the papers were signed and JDL Security had become his.
Since landing in the twenty-first century seven months ago, he’d done nothing but try to find his wife and daughter. Why he’d thought it would be as simple as walking through the front doors of his estate escaped him. Amanda and Callie weren’t even there. Nor was anyone for that matter. He’d learned later they had left only the week before, closing the house for the time being. He didn’t realize how lucky they in fact were to be alone while gathering themselves in their new current circumstances.
He, Stephen, and Gregor had spent days searching for, finding, and digging out the chests of gold and silver bullion, jewels, and other personal items they’d buried in the tunnels. Then there had been the three goats they’d experimented with while trying to determine the best place to actually “jump” from. Since he and Amanda could never be sure of the portal opening
that she had originally come through, he decided it was best to go with the one from which she left. It wasn’t hard to locate the exact spot where Amanda and Callie had fallen—a moment Alexander would never forget, one forever imprinted in his brain—but with Stephen halfway down the cliff wall and Gregor waiting upon the rocky shore as Alexander pushed the goats into the sea, they’d determined that the portal opened no more than twelve feet below from where Stephen stood. They tested again and again with various small game until they were sure of the exact location of the portal before making the leap themselves.
Shaky and amazed that they’d actually made it, the trio quickly realized that the twenty-first century was even more different than the eighteenth than they’d ever imagined. They hadn’t calculated it would take so much time to acclimate to their new surroundings and the advancement of science. All sciences. Thankfully, the Abersoch property had been updated by its previous owners over the centuries, which gave them a softer introduction into what he now knew of modern technology in its truest form. “Disturbing” would be putting his reaction to the new order of things mildly. It was one thing to listen to Amanda speak of how things were in her time, in the great fantastical future as they’d jokingly called it while they were together. It was something else entirely, though, to experience them firsthand. Stephen managed with the changes quite well, and Gregor, bloody hell, Gregor’s eyes lit with each new gadget large or small they happened across. Be it light switch or automobile, electric knife or jet.
Having been a spy during simpler times had its advantages. They’d cracked Amanda’s safe, which was, thankfully, exactly where she had told him it would be back in his own time. On a lark one evening, Amanda had taken him on a “tour” of his own home, gleefully pointing out how things were different in her time. It took only a small amount of the explosives Alexander had packed in one the chests to open the safe. Inside, they found she’d left behind multiple passports all with varying aliases and addresses, both for her and for Callie. All of the information was bogus. He did however find the remnants of a receipt in Amanda’s nightstand drawer that brought him to the bowels of London, to the establishment where Stan had taken her to purchase their illicit traveling papers. Stan, he later learned, was a longtime friend of Samantha’s and had a reputation for being what people in today’s world called a “cleaner”—someone who could, and would, take care of anything and everything for his employer.
The seedy back-alley storefront was just that, a front for anyone plying in the trade of secrets. Its patrons ran the gamut from legitimate blokes working for various intelligence agencies to the dregs of society using it for things like black market trades and human trafficking. As such, it was a hive of activity and under constant surveillance. Alexander had thought he, Stephen, and Gregor had done pretty well with their futuristic “present day” disguises, but looking back now, he realized how off they’d been. They must have stuck out like sore thumbs. As a result, they’d been tailed back to the estate by Michael and Trevor, who at the time worked with and sometimes for what the Crown now call the Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6. Alexander and the boys had had their obligatory pissing match, then threw their cards on the table. Alexander won them over, so Michael and Trevor helped him obtain all the necessary identification and travel documentation for himself, Stephen, and Gregor. More than that, the boys taught Alexander and his cohorts what they needed to know about current weaponry, wireless gadgetry, and military issue surveillance equipment. In turn, Alexander taught them how he’d trained in hand-to-hand combat and the fine art of mind bending without all the textbook bullshit. He’d tried to pay them in cash, even gold, but they’d refused. Instead, they’d been impossible to shake and joined what he now considered to be his merry band of brothers in the new order of things. Michael and Trevor themselves were actual brothers and essentially orphaned. Having only each other, they’d somehow gotten it into their heads that they’d join forces with Alexander, Stephen, and Gregor. He referred to them as the “boys” and in all honesty was rather fond of them. It was Michael who’d introduced him to most of the men who worked for him now. All retired military, British and American alike, not to mention a random spray from other countries. The more they brought within their circle, the more that stayed.
They’d followed Amanda’s trail and found she’d paid cash for everything. But as that was the only trail he’d been trained to follow it had been simple for him. Not easy, only simple. They found the doctor who’d repaired her hand, the stores where she’d purchased clothes for Callie. The skeleton staff she’d hired for the estate. The document lab and Captain Morgan, who’d flown them to the States. Lastly, the New York estate where they’d spent the summer. Then they’d vanished. Literally. Stan was that good.
Alexander had used the resources at his disposal, his new band of brothers, and an exorbitant amount of money to buy JDL. The purchase included a training facility and compound in northern California. It was constantly bristling with activity, combat training, weaponry, explosives, surveillance. Providence that it’s where he’d ultimately found his family. It was because of Amanda he’d decided to make the business of security his actual business. One, he needed to find her, and two, it was lucrative. Half of his current employees worked private security like Stan, the other half, bloody hell, they were hired mercenaries.
He shared a look with Stan now as the guard changed, never more grateful to resume such an awesome duty and responsibility. The care of his family, Amanda, Callesandra, and their newborn son.
He’d just pushed the door open when Dr. Meyers stayed him with a hand. “Mr. Montgomery. You’ve taken steps to provide medical and psychological supervision? As you’re now aware, our patient suffered a traumatic nervous collapse. She needs time, not just to recuperate physically from the delivery, but she’ll require specialized care to address her memory loss as we—”
“Dr. Meyers,” Alexander said, cutting him off. He wasn’t an idiot. He motioned Evan forward. “May I introduce Dr. Evan Childress.” No other explanation was necessary.
Dr. Evan Childress was a world-renowned psychiatrist. He’d consulted for Art Fisher and JDL over the years. Once Amanda’s records were digitally transferred, Evan studied them while on the plane ride over from New York. Alexander sat white-knuckled on the G5, his new company’s private jet. He hated flying but it was an unfortunate necessity considering this life they’d found themselves living. After what seemed an inordinately long time, Evan looked up and informed Alexander of her condition, equating Amanda’s diagnosis to what he called psychogenic amnesia. “When you just can’t deal with pain, Alex, the psyche effectively does it for you.” It was only one of many times throughout the past nine months Alexander had felt a tightening in his chest, which he assumed was a very real reaction to his failure in protecting his family and keeping them safe. He’d winced, flexing his hand as the pain abated.
Evan had prepared him for one of three reactions Amanda could have. The first that she would recognize him instantly and her memory would return. The second, she would instinctively recognize him, but her memory wouldn’t come back right away. She might intuitively trust him, for example, but not know why. The last possibility Evan suggested was that Amanda wouldn’t recognize him on any level, and she would never remember their lives together.
Not wanting to waste another moment, Alexander nodded, pushed past Dr. Meyers, and walked into Amanda’s room. Four days ago, she’d endured what he’d been told was a terribly difficult delivery. Followed by a breakdown of epic proportion. She’d had to be sedated hours after the fact. Alexander glanced at the dial of his Breitling Navitimer. He’d missed her by three days. His breath caught as he laid eyes on her for the first time in what felt like the quarter millennium of time that had separated them. The relief he felt was almost overwhelming, surpassed only by regret. He flexed his hand as that familiar sharp pain presented. It lasted at most a second, but long enough to divert him from
losing control of his emotions.
Helen, the private nurse Stan had hired, sat at Amanda’s bedside. While Evan spoke with her, Alexander started unbuckling the restraints around his wife’s wrists. The first fell against the rail, revealing deep purple and yellow bruising. His fingers gently brushed her skin, then gripped—Jesus, he had to force himself to let go—so affected by being able to touch her. She made a sound and tried to roll over as he started on the second of her manacles. Then her eyes shot open. “Who…where…” Bloody hell, she sounded worse than she looked. And she looked like a disaster.
“Shh.” His hand cupped the side of her precious, beautiful face as he tried to soothe her. “You’ve been discharged, Amanda. I’m taking you home.” Her free hand started frantically scratching the leather around her other wrist. He knew what it felt like to be trapped and let her help.
“My son,” she said as she tried to sit up.
“He’ll be here in a minute,” Alexander told her as he helped her.
She grabbed his hand, big cornflower-blue eyes wincing in pain as she begged, “Take them off—please.” She covered her face as fat tears fell, but he didn’t know what she was talking about. He looked around the room, and then down at the end of the bed. Jesus Christ. They had her ankles locked down. He was so angry he almost ripped the bindings holding them to the bedrail. Then he lifted her out of her prison, giving her a reassuring squeeze once she was safely cradled in his arms.