by Ford, Lizzy
“Aside from the fact Carter is a master manipulator?” Taylor asked, frustration in his tone. “Josie, there was no event that happened in the original history that would’ve let you save a million lives. That door closed when the government began taking the land from natives a hundred years ago. Nothing you could do here could make a difference. It was a lie, one Carter told you to get you here.”
“For what purpose?” I demanded.
“As I said: there’s no one who has ever figured out his motivation for anything he does. He’s sent back hundreds of people in time, and not one of them can tell us why.”
His words stung hard enough that the sense of disconnecting with my world emerged. My eyes closed. The buzzing in my ears grew loud, and I floated in my mind.
“I’m so sorry,” Taylor’s arms were around me.
The spell passed. I gripped the thick material of his work shirt and breathed in his scent. I was seated on the bunk in the cell, pressed against him. My nose bled once more, and I wiped away the thick rivulet of red.
I wouldn’t … couldn’t believe that Carter had lied to me about everything.
“The two men Fighting Badger caught and killed were sent from my agency,” Taylor added, his warm lips moving against my ear to ensure no one overheard. “My people have dealt with Carter so much that they’ve taken on the mentality of eliminating whoever he sends back, mainly out of fear of the master plan of his they can’t figure out.”
“So I was in danger,” I voiced.
“Yes.”
“All the more reason to stop this nonsense and save Running Bear!” I lifted my head.
“You don’t think I want to save him? He’s my brother, Josie. He helped raise me.” A flicker of emotion touched his features. “You don’t think I want to retire and spend the rest of my life with you on John’s property, helping the settlers and natives get along?”
“I do.” I offered a smile and touched his roughened jaw. “What’re we going to do?”
“I don’t rightly know.”
“We could leave town,” I suggested. You have no idea how good that sounds. After discovering all the bodies on the property that shouldn’t be there, I was beginning to view John’s home in a different light. “We have money. We could help him escape and then leave.”
Taylor nodded, though he didn’t look at all interested in the idea. “My people can find us. They sent back three agents. The third … Josie, he’s the kind of danger I can’t protect you from. I don’t know where he is, why he hasn’t attacked, what his plan is. But he’s never, ever failed a mission. If he’s here, we’re in serious trouble.” He paused, troubled, before continuing. “If we ran, it would take a great deal of money to stay hidden and even that wouldn’t guarantee our safety.”
“Well …” I drifted off, uncertain I wanted to ask what was at the tip of my tongue. “You said your people have the ability to bring people back to the future now.”
“In exchange for what? Me turning over you for them to deal with or leaving my grandfather to hang here?” He shook his head. “It’s not an option.”
It was selfish, but I wanted it so much to be an avenue we could take. I understood his concern for those he cared about. If I had to risk letting John or Nell die, I wouldn’t do it, either.
We sat in quiet.
“Are you … serious about what you said? That there’s nothing I can do here to fulfill Carter’s goal?” I was hurting again.
“Not the way you described.”
“And if Running Bear dies, then you just …”
“Cease to exist.”
“I couldn’t handle that outcome.” Not ready for a husband or love, neither was I ready to lose the one man I knew I could trust, who cared about me enough to protect me from his own people.
Taylor was one of the best men I’d ever met. If I had to be stuck in the past with someone, he was a good choice. I could even see myself adjusting to a life here with him.
“Sheriff!” one of the deputies called.
“Josie, please, go home. I’ll be back late, but when I am, we’ll figure this all out.”
I didn’t like the answer at all, but I didn’t know what else to do. With a nod, I resisted the urge to grab my phone and text Carter. There were too many people milling in the neighboring office.
“Good.” Taylor touched my cheek and planted a warm kiss on my forehead. “I’m sending another deputy with you. There’s one at the house already.”
He rose and went to the door separating the two spaces, speaking quietly to someone. I half expected him to smile or turn back and offer up some sort of better solution than we take everything and run.
He didn’t. I knew he had a lot on his mind, considering his own life was at stake. Even so, I needed something more concrete this time. And … I was burning to tell him about real-Josie, because there was no one else I could tell. The burden of her death wasn’t one I thought I could carry alone.
Her death surely had nothing to do with the third agent from his agency that was in town to finish what the other two didn’t. Josie had been dead at least a year. I was in danger from two directions, one I knew and wasn’t going to prevent without Taylor’s help, and the other I hadn’t pieced together yet.
I owe Fighting Badger my life. Yet I had no clue if his protection and Taylor’s was going to be enough for me to survive the past, especially if Carter couldn’t fix the microchip he seemed to think was malfunctioning.
Wanting to talk to Taylor again, I nonetheless decided we’d have a better chance to talk in private later. He had enough going on without worrying about yet another dead body I’d found on John’s property.
I left the cells and moved through the crowded office, trailed by a deputy. Nell was at the doorway, waiting. Beside her was someone I didn’t have any patience for at this moment.
“My uncle would be rolling over in his grave if he saw your husband stand in the way of justice,” Philip proclaimed loudly enough for those nearest the office to hear. Grumbles of agreement went through the mob.
“Let him do his job, Philip,” I replied.
“As the man most likely to be elected mayor at the polls next month, I will ensure he does,” came the calm reply. “I will also ensure there’s a full inquisition into your inheritance, cousin, as well as what was behind this sham of a marriage. You took advantage of a weak old man.” He moved closer. “If I have to take my inheritance from you by force, I will.”
I had never wanted to hit anyone the way I did him. Except maybe Carter. I was too angry to reply and simply strode away.
It wasn’t until I reached the horses that I had a retort. Grumbling it under my breath, I mounted and waited for Nell.
She had the glassy-eyed look once more, and her memories were skipping.
“You okay, Nell?” I asked, concerned.
She blinked several times before her eyes found me. Her memories stabilized, revealing she was thinking about Josie and John once more. “Yes, Miss Josie. I am distressed is all.”
“Let’s go home. You can show me how to make you tea, and I’ll take care of you for once.” I had never thought the strong willed woman weak or frail, but she looked it.
Nell smiled and mounted her horse. “You always were good to me, Miss Josie. Your father must be missing you in heaven.”
I said nothing, aware that, if anything, he had been reunited with the real Josie.
We returned to the house just as another storm breached the horizon. Any hope I had of it being simply a cloudy evening was dashed when I saw the servants bringing in the clothing and linens, rounding up the sheep and tarping down the wells.
Dismounting, I took care of my horse quickly while Nell brushed and fed hers. We met in the middle of the barn.
“I think I want to lie down for a bit,” I said, itching for some me-time to text Carter. “Will you be okay, Nell?”
“Of course. Why wouldn’t I be?” Nell replied, her spark back.
Weird. But the
woman had a brain tumor in addition to being stressed out after the events of this week. She didn’t trail me into the house but remained with the deputy in the barn, helping him take care of his horse.
The moment I stepped into my room, I whipped out the cell and stared at it. Carter hadn’t texted, as if he was waiting for me to be willing to speak to him again.
With Taylor’s words raw in my thoughts, I managed to write out what was bothering me. Did you lie about why you sent me back? I hit send and went to the dressing room to replace the bonnet on its stand.
My phone vibrated, and I read his response. Sort of. Taylor was your real mission. I’ve been tracking him through several hundred time periods, and this was the first time I was able to catch up with him. Please don’t hate me. There’s a reason I’m doing this, and when you find out what it is, you’ll understand. If it helps, you being there did help a few people.
“You’re crazier than Fighting Badger,” I said, astonished he’d think there was any explanation I’d accept for all the lying he’d done. “I didn’t leave my life behind to help a few people! I came to rescue a million.” And what could he want with Taylor? Before I could ask him, he sent me another note.
BTW- I have a potential solution for the nosebleeds and headaches. You’re going to have to turn off the empathic memory chip.
I was close to crying again, shaking with anger and too upset to vocalize let alone type the mess of emotions in my mind. Instead, I wrote back, Am I doing self-brain surgery?
I drank a glass of water and worked on calming myself before I dared read his answer.
LOL – no! This is much more … primitive. It requires a 2x4 board and good aim. A hard blow to the right place on your skull will disengage it.
“Billion dollar technology and you shut it off with a two by four.” I gave a choked sob that was half laugh, baffled, and then stopped short when his next message came in.
You’ll need to do it soon. There’s a chance your brain could swell. It won’t be a quick or painless death. I swear, Josie, I want you to be safe and healthy. I wouldn’t suggest this if there was any other way.
Tears stung my eyes. So I was trapped in the past, and my head was about to explode, thanks to Carter. I was an absolute fool. Looking around, I realized this place wouldn’t be bad, if there was a way to stay with Taylor and Nell.
But without knowing what happened to the other girls – and real-Josie – turning off the brain chip was the third most foolish decision I’d made when it came to Carter. Not to mention that trying to figure out what he wanted with Taylor, or what lengths he’d go to in order to influence the man I was about to spend the rest of my life with, scared me.
First things first – what Carter wanted or did wasn’t going to matter, if I died in this house like real-Josie and the three imposters sent back in time. I had to survive that threat, the mysterious third agent sent back by Taylor’s agency, and then I could deal with Carter’s insanity.
I’m going to find out what happened to Josie first, I replied to him. I hid my phone in the folded clothing on my bed belonging to Taylor. It was the first time I willingly gave up the phone, but holding it was infuriating me. I wanted distance between Carter and me, and I didn’t care if that pissed him off.
I left my room, finally ready and determined to confront the source of the whispers, and the truth about real-Josie, that lingered at the end of the hallway.
Today was the perfect day for more bad news. I was no longer trying to look only at the good in the world around me. Carter’s betrayal and the fates of the women who came before me had stretched me to my limit, and I was going to dive further into the darkness to find the final pieces of the puzzle. Feeling a little reckless, a little raw, I checked to make sure Nell wasn’t lingering and then started towards the door.
The whispers grew stronger, the images starting to form. I tried the doorknob. Finding it unlocked, I slid inside and looked around. The furniture in the large room was covered with white sheets. It resembled mine, from the familiar wallpaper to the rugs and drapes covered with the exact same stitching. The layout was a mirror copy of mine as well.
In fact, everything was.
“Okay. Weird.”
I lifted the sheet off the table near the dead hearth. I had a tray just like the one on its top. Walking to the vanity, I lifted the sheet to see the exact same items organized the exact same way as they were on my vanity. The air of the room was heavy and smelled of must, the memories waiting for me to close my eyes and admit them. Like the well, the visions were harder to capture than those from a person, as if there had to be enough energy lingering in the surroundings to release the memories.
Someone had gone to great lengths to erase real-Josie’s existence, down to rebuilding her bedroom from the ground up in a different place. There could be no good story behind the room identical to mine.
“Except for you. You don’t fit in.” I crossed to the sheet covering a piece of furniture the size of my full-body mirror but in the wrong location. I tugged the white sheet off and stood back. The beautiful wedding gown made of white brocade highlighted with silver threads and handmade lace on the stand was pristine. It appeared to have been recently pressed. There was no dust or sign of wear on it. “Wow. Lucky Josie.”
My room. The wedding dress. Nell’s tale about real-Josie leaving the night before she married.
A chill went down my spine. I looked around for other anomalies without spotting any. I began to dread learning the truth about real-Josie. The level of effort that went into the reinvention of her room wasn’t possible without her father and governess knowing.
If I lost faith in them, too …
Swallowing hard, I knelt, prepared for a longer session than normal, and closed my eyes. “Show me what happened here,” I whispered.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“Sheriff, I brought the dead men’s belongings.”
Taylor looked up from the tin plate of dinner sitting on his desk. The excitement of the afternoon had worn off. Only four men remained from the original lynch mob, along with Speaking Wind – the elder from his tribe - and four deputies. He had been trapped in his office nearly all day to deal with the complaints from the families whose men were murdered by Fighting Badger.
The beefy deputy standing guard outside his office didn’t let the undertaker’s apprentice enter. Taylor stepped onto the sidewalk for the first time since he’d arrived that morning. It was dark, and the chilled wind held droplets of rain.
“The others were returned to their families. We didn’t know what to do with these,” the apprentice said and held out a wooden box.
“I’ll take them,” Taylor said. Rather than return to the warm office, he sat down beneath the light of one of its windows to sort through the belongings of the two agents killed.
His agency had a protocol forbidding agents from carrying anything that identified them as someone other than who they pretended to be. Despite this, a sliver of desperate hope rendered his fingers clumsy as he sorted through everything. All he needed was one communications device, a single method to contact his agency or better yet, The Mongol, whose presence in town had been whispered about since shortly after Lance arrived.
There was nothing. Disappointed, he pushed the box aside and gazed out at the night. It was his first real breather this day, and he relished the undisturbed moment to think.
As they had since John’s death, his thoughts went first to Josie. She’d been upset when she visited earlier. He hoped it was because of Fighting Badger’s visit and not because there was something else wrong. He still smelled her scent on his skin, a reminder of the night that was supposed to be the first of a lifetime of peace and retirement.
Instead, his brother – and potentially grandfather – was about to be hanged, leaving Josie exposed to whoever it was that killed the others who came before her or worse, in the hands of The Mongol. Either way, she wasn’t going to last long without protection. His best-case scenario: th
ey’d be on the run the rest of their lives.
After all his years of service, this was how his agency repaid him?
He suppressed the anger, well aware that his agency had nothing to do with Fighting Badger taking out innocent people. He was torn between gratitude that his brother had saved Josie and regret, wishing she had never crossed paths with the native.
Taylor climbed to his feet and picked up the box. “Donate anything of value to the church,” he instructed the deputy at the door and walked back in. Ignoring his dinner, the only meal he’d had that day, he went to the cell where Running Bear was laying on a bunk, recovering from the beating the town’s people had given him earlier.
“You all right?” he asked softly with a glance over his shoulder to ensure they had some small amount of privacy now that the crowd was gone.
“I am well.” Running Bear sat up with effort and gripped his chest.
Probably broken ribs, Taylor thought. “What the hell happened? How did you get involved?” he asked aloud.
“Our brother was not in his cave when I went to visit him this morning. I tracked him to your new home and then onward to town. He took the life of a man behind the tavern. Someone saw him, and I tried to intervene.” Running Bear fell quiet.
Taylor didn’t need to hear the rest to understand what happened. “They want to hang you Saturday. I can get you out of here, but we probably can’t return to Indian Territory ever again once we’re gone.”
“No, brother.” Running Bear stood and came to the bars of the cell. One of his eyes was swollen shut and his features bruised. “Protect Fighting Badger. He is our brother. I believe he broke his promise to us for a reason. He told me someone was after your wife.”
Taylor’s hands clenched into fists.
It wasn’t Fighting Badger’s fault; it was his. Fighting Badger acted only to protect those he cared about since he had taken an oath to his brothers seven years before. “I should be in there,” Taylor muttered. “I should’ve protected her or known or … prevented this somehow.”