Sean Barrick could not pull his eyes from the smart phone in his hand even as his primal instinct for nutrition knotted and rumbled at the center of his stomach. He had just watched video evidence proving his claim all along; he was not the mastermind behind the attempted theft of stolen jewels three years before during the Hurricane Sandy tragedy. This video evidence was indisputable; his rookie partner, Officer Dale Kalb, attempted to steal jewels freshly stolen minutes before from a jewelry store with its security system powered down from the storm. Had this video evidence existed at the time, Sean would still be a law enforcement officer. That’s not the way it played out. This video didn’t exist until recently. The woman he’d come to know as Elyse had traveled back in time to film it for him. If this wasn’t personally world-shattering enough for Sean, in his lap sat another conundrum: a stack of photographs that simply could not exist. They showed impossible events featuring people who could not have been present at the time. Here was photographic evidence that time travel was not only possible, but occurred on a frequent basis. These were pictures of his grandfather, Paul, and Elyse during historic moments in time. Elyse and Paul at the failed Reagan assassination attempt in 1981. Elyse filming the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy at Dealey Plaza in the now-iconic guise of the Babushka Lady. Pictures of Elyse out of scenes described in Paul’s World War II journal. Sean just saw her forty-five minutes before, and she appeared no different in any of these photos. These were both life-altering discoveries, not only for him, but for every person drawing a breath on the planet. But his main concern right now seemed to be hunger. He hadn’t eaten anything since roughly four-o-clock that day while waiting for darkness to cover their unlawful entry into the Louisiana Memorial Pavilion of the World War II Museum in New Orleans. It had only been two sugar-filled protein bars and a water from a Time Saver convenience store, like the one he saw outside the passenger window of Allie’s car. That meal—if you could call it that—had quit on him an hour before, and his body was escalating the demand for more. He looked around again, the fourth or fifth time he’d checked his surroundings in the last ten minutes. Was it his police training; that ever-present tickle of paranoia in the back of his mind? Was it just a nervous release of energy after the last few hours of mainlining adrenaline? Was it low blood sugar? He contemplated buying food in the Time Saver but he didn’t want to leave these truth bombs in the car alone. Maybe he should find a drive-through? Above him, sprouting from a tall pole, a single high- intensity sodium lamp burned, casting a dingy, yellow light into his borrowed car. The chirp of countless crickets and the recurrent Doppler-altered hum of large trucks hurtling past on nearby Interstate 10 rode atop the muggy air entering through the open driver’s side window, but no sirens yet. Thirty feet away, a young kid driving a four-door coupe filled his gas tank while he scrolled on his smart phone. On the far bank of pumps, a large pickup truck sat with oversize tires and a pie plate-sized exhaust stack poking through the bed. Sean couldn’t see the driver, but that would be a poor choice of undercover vehicles if someone were watching him. A four-door sedan sat empty in one of the parking spots at the front of the store. He couldn’t see inside but it was likely another hungry traveler, although the common, nonspecific car set off alarm bells. Finally, a sliver of logical thought tumbled through the noise of his self-induced paranoid psyche. The police would likely canvass convenience stores like this one on the outskirts of the city near large highways and someone might remember a nervous-looking guy in a white Honda parked nearby. He needed distance. He would push himself another fifty or sixty miles to the next cluster of restaurants and gas stations on Interstate 10, and then perhaps take the photos and this cell phone with him in the backpack. He still had the Glock .40 caliber in a holster at his side that he would have to conceal before entering a public place. He dragged his attention back to the cell phone in his hand. The screen was blank, having entered sleep mode to save battery power. Did it only contain the video that proved his innocence of the jewelry heist or were there other clues on it he missed? He decided to look again at the next stop. He began to set it down on the seat beside him when a piercing ring split the relative silence and caused him nearly to drop the phone. The screen lit up with a generic unknown caller screen, daring him to answer it. Was it Elyse calling him? Nobody else would have this number, he thought. It had to be her. Another ring screamed at him before he stabbed the green dot with his finger and held the phone to his ear. “Hello,” he said, quietly, almost reverently, as if a long- lost elderly relative was at the other end. At first, he only heard his own racing heartbeat thudding in his ears, but then a voice came from the small speaker. “Hello, we’ve been trying to reach you regarding your car’s extended warranty. You should have received something in the mail—” Sean swore as he jerked the phone from his ear and tapped the connection closed. I’m being foolish, he thought, Elyse isn’t going to call. Besides, she could just call me on the burner phone we bought, why call on this one? It was time to go. He reached for the keys dangling in the ignition and looked out the windshield. Something new met his gaze that wasn’t present just moments before, pausing his arm in mid-reach. A shadowy figure stood sixty feet away near a stretch of trees and thick brush on the other side of the gas pumps. Perhaps it was his current state of mind but the figure appeared to stare directly at him. Sean stared back. The figure began walking toward the car. As Sean’s heartbeat began to accelerate, his hand slowly moved away from the ignition and toward the holster at his side. Elyse was his first thought. Had she slipped away from her partner, Sands? Had she somehow checked the historical record to see where he would stop for a look at the photos? As he scrutinized the figure walking closer to him, he realized it was not Elyse. It was likely not a woman at all. He’d watched Elyse walk before, with her shorter strides and swaying hips; this person did not fit that pattern. These were long strides with exaggerated arm and shoulder movements; no, this was a man. Sean removed the pistol fully from his holster and rested it on his lap, muzzle pointing toward his door. The man continued walking closer, angling his approach toward the car’s driver side. Sean could tell he wore a hat, possibly an eight-point patrolman’s cap like he used to wear as a police officer in Philly. Had his premonition about leaving come seconds too late? Had the police found him already? In the coarse yellow light of the sodium lamp, Sean began to make out the finer details of the man’s clothing. It wasn’t a police officer’s uniform. He appeared to be wearing bib overalls like you would use for working outside in the cold. As the man drew near the front of the car, Sean saw that they were not bib overalls. They were just overly baggy trousers that came up aggressively high on his waist. His hat was not a police officer’s cap, but instead a fedora, like gangsters wore in the 1930s. The shirt looked like a bowling alley button-down special with a wide-collar and thick brown and tan vertical stripes. It fit right in with the fedora. And were those shoes two-tone Oxfords? Had this man just come from a costume party? With the window already down and the mugginess of the Louisiana night still billowing in, Sean waited for the costumed man to reach him. His gait slowed as he neared the open window of the car. He held his hands away from his body in an obvious gesture of nonaggression. The overhead light cast long shadows on the man’s face, but Sean picked out the generic details of a police description. Caucasian, medium athletic build, short brown hair, earnest face. Also, there was a hint of familiarity. He didn’t ever remember meeting this man but felt like he knew him. He looked like… like… well, quite a bit like… “You probably don’t want to shoot me,” the man said, “that might not be good for either one of us.” Sean knew that voice, or at least he knew an older version of it. The version from his memory carried a slightly higher pitch and a sandpapery quality due to thinning of the vocal cords, a natural result of the aging process. The last time he heard his grandfather speak, the words bore an underlying quiver, the aural equivalent to the mild tremors in an octogenarian’s outstretched hand. This man’s voice carried no such tremor; it was rich and deep, bursting with the vigor of youth. Despite these obvious differences, Sean knew this voice well; beyond doubt. “Gramps?” This was the voice of his grandfather, Paul Barrick. The man looked just like the picture on his grandparents’ mantel of Paul wearing his Army uniform from World War II. It looked like the same man from the Kodachrome color photo he’d just seen of his thirty-something grandfather standing next to Elyse with London’s Big Ben in the background. But this wasn’t possible. This man standing before him in the fedora was easily sixty years younger than his grandfather, who, in the ultimate closing- argument case-winning mic-drop, had just died less than two weeks before. “Maybe you should call me Paul from here on out.” Hunger finally forgotten, Sean nodded, unsure what to do or say next. His grandfather’s lookalike waited a beat, then continued, “Do you mind if I come around to the passenger side and get in. This might look a little odd to the folks pumping gas.” “Uh, yeah, of course,” Sean nodded and aimed a weak pointer finger toward the opposite door. While Paul worked his way around the front of the car, Sean couldn’t stop tracking the man with his eyes. As Paul opened the door, flooding the interior with light, Sean noticed the objects on the seat. He quickly grabbed the photo envelope and cell phone with an awkward reach of his left hand, maintaining his grip on the gun with his right. Paul sat and in the momentary brightness of the car’s interior, the man’s features came into focus. He had to admit, Elyse was correct; under the brim of that fedora, he and Paul really did look alike, at least at this age. In the last vestiges of light before the door thudded closed, Sean realized he was staring at him, but Paul was staring right back with the same look of astonished skepticism. “They didn’t tell me I had such a handsome grandson,” Paul said, an almost imperceptible smirk pulling up one corner of his mouth. Sean couldn’t stop the chuckle from rising out of his throat. “That’s funny, because we look alike. That’s something I would say.” “Well, it looks like you got my sense of humor, too.” He glanced down at the envelope in Sean’s hand. “I see you found the photographs.” Sean nodded as his mind ratcheted past the shock of this new reality to the explanation. Time travel! First, without any substantial proof to speak of, Elyse had convinced him it was real. Chalk that up to feminine wiles, he thought. Then, just an hour ago, Gabriel Sands easily and smugly shot holes in her story with the obvious truth that any ten-year-old kid could have digitally doctored a photograph to make time travel look real. He still remembered the sting of feeling like an idiot. He didn’t want to believe Sands but that explanation had logic on its side. It brought believability and a rational explanation to this fiasco from a broad, overall perspective. However, once he began looking at the pictures in this envelope, his doubts again fell away, and this time without the benefit of Elyse’s captivating smile or alluring figure. Unless all the photographs in the envelope were fake, which seemed unlikely, time travel was indeed a reality and now, irrefutable proof was sitting in the seat next to him. “Yeah, uh, right there at the bottom of your footlocker where you hid them.” “I left clues, but I wasn’t certain who I was leaving them for.” “At some point you must have decided it was me. You gave me subtle hints over the years that sounded like lessons in photography and life.” In the thin light of the security pole outside, Sean saw a satisfied smile touch the corners of Paul’s mouth. “And actually,” Sean continued, “these aren’t all the pictures; just the ones Elyse left for me.” “Is that what she calls herself now?” Realizing he was still holding the gun, Sean slid it back into the holster and nodded. “Yeah, Elyse Somerville.” “That’s a new one.” Sean’s stare was beginning to feel awkward, but he couldn’t pull it away. “Are you really Paul Barrick?” Paul laughed and nodded. “I really am. I don’t have any proof. They frown on us bringing identification on these trips.” Sean shook his head. “Not necessary. I know it’s you, I can see it and I can hear it. I just can’t believe it. It feels like it’s you and a totally separate person at the same time. It’s hard to square in my mind.” “Well, this is new for me, too. They tell me you’re my grandson and I can see the resemblance but I don’t even have a wife yet.” Sean thought about his grandmother, Dee, a girl Paul dated before the war, and wondered if Paul even knew he would marry her. “Do you know anything about your future?” Paul shook his head, a little too vigorously. “No, and don’t tell me anything. I don’t know the implications of insider information.” “Yeah, this time travel thing is bizarre.” Paul nodded. “It takes some getting used to but after a while, it becomes almost routine. It’s just like taking a trip to a foreign country. Many things are different and you have to remember where you are and what you’re doing at all times.” With an index finger and thumb, Sean forcefully massaged a spot between his eyes over the bridge of his nose. “You’d think with all the science fiction movies about time travel I watched as a kid I’d be less shocked than I am right now.” His arm dropped back down and he refocused on Paul, hoping to assure himself he wasn’t hallucinating. “So, what are you doing here?” “Can we talk about it while you drive?” Sean gave him a quick shrug and said, “Sure, where are we going?” He reached toward the ignition to start the engine. “The World War II Museum.” Once again, Sean’s arm paused midway to the keys. He looked at Paul but the sight of his grandfather as a young man made his thoughts wander from their conversation. Instead, he cranked his head back and looked at the wooded strip of land where Paul appeared. “That’s not happening. I just left there and the New Orleans PD will be crawling all over that place.” Paul turned in his seat and put a hand on Sean’s shoulder. Sean reluctantly turned to look at him. “Son,” Paul said, a name he often called Sean in his youth when the subject mattered, “Kiva, I mean… what did you say her current name was?” “Elyse.” “Right, Elyse, is in trouble. I need you to go with me to help her.” Again, the visual confusion of seeing Paul kicked in, so he looked away. “Where is she?” “Paris.” Sean didn’t say anything but slowly turned his head again to look at Paul. Each time it was the same. He saw a familiar face staring back at him; one that he met in the mirror every morning. The same eyes, the same jawline, it was close enough they might have passed for twins, almost. “And… when is she?” “August 25, 1944.” Sean voiced his reply slowly, adding a full stop between each word. “You have got to be kidding.” Paul shook his head. “I’m not kidding.” “You want me to go to 1944? As in back in time?” “Do you want to help Elyse or not?” Sean studied his grandfather’s face. If not for the similarity, he might not have believed any of this, despite the photographs. But after everything he and Elyse went through, he felt a bond with her. Perhaps it was that one night of drunken passion, but a bond is a bond. “How is us getting thrown in jail going to help Elyse?” Paul chuckled. “We’re not going to jail tonight. Trust me. The smart people at the Bureau have worked this all out.” “The Bureau?” A flash of concern swept Paul’s face, then the easy smile returned. “I think I can say that. It’s just what we call it.” “The time travel…” Sean struggled for a word to complete his sentence, but Paul saved him. “Thing. Yeah, that, uh, group of people. I’d tell you the entire name but it sounds a little odd.” Sean hesitated as the moments ticked by. He had to admit, going back in time piqued his curiosity. How many people could say they traveled back in time, although, he knew he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone, even if it were true. His previous experiences with Elyse taught him that. And in 1944 the war was almost over, wasn’t it? How dangerous could it be? “Okay, how can I say no?” His hand resumed its journey to the keys but he stopped short of starting the engine. “But first, you’re going to have to change out of those clothes into something modern and lose the hat.” Paul looked down at his baggy, high-waisted pants and striped shirt and said, “No problem. This wasn’t the greatest era for fashion. Do you have any extra clothes or do we need to buy some?” The thought of Paul wearing the “Show me your kitties!” shirt that Allie bought for Elyse gave him a brief smile before he pointed a thumb at the rear of the car and said, “I have some stuff that will probably fit you in that gray duffel back there. You can change in the Time Saver bathroom.” “Okay,” Paul said. “Do you have any money? I need to buy something.” Sean pulled his wallet out and handed him a twenty. “Buy a couple waters and a big bag of trail mix while you’re at it.”

Chapter 1 Sean Barrick could not pull his eyes from the smart phone in his hand even as his primal instinct for nutrition knotted and rumbled at the center of his stomach. He had just watched video evidence proving his claim all along; he was not the mastermind behind the attempted theft of stolen jewels three years before during the Hurricane Sandy tragedy. This video evidence was indisputable; his rookie partner, Officer Dale Kalb, attempted to steal jewels freshly stolen minutes before from a jewelry store with its security system powered down from the storm. Had this video evidence existed at the time, Sean would still be a law enforcement officer. That’s not the way it played out. This video didn’t exist until recently. The woman he’d come to know as Elyse had traveled back in time to film it for him. If this wasn’t personally world-shattering enough for Sean, in his lap sat another conundrum: a stack of photographs that simply could not exist. They showed impossible events featuring people who could not have been present at the time. Here was photographic evidence that time travel was not only possible, but occurred on a frequent basis. These were pictures of his grandfather, Paul, and Elyse during historic moments in time. Elyse and Paul at the failed Reagan assassination attempt in 1981. Elyse filming the 1963 assassination of President Kennedy at Dealey Plaza in the now-iconic guise of the Babushka Lady. Pictures of Elyse out of scenes described in Paul’s World War II journal. Sean just saw her forty-five minutes before, and she appeared no different in any of these photos. These were both life-altering discoveries, not only for him, but for every person drawing a breath on the planet. But his main concern right now seemed to be hunger. He hadn’t eaten anything since roughly four-o- clock that day while waiting for darkness to cover their unlawful entry into the Louisiana Memorial Pavilion of the World War II Museum in New Orleans. It had only been two sugar-filled protein bars and a water from a Time Saver convenience store, like the one he saw outside the passenger window of Allie’s car. That meal—if you could call it that—had quit on him an hour before, and his body was escalating the demand for more. He looked around again, the fourth or fifth time he’d checked his surroundings in the last ten minutes. Was it his police training; that ever-present tickle of paranoia in the back of his mind? Was it just a nervous release of energy after the last few hours of mainlining adrenaline? Was it low blood sugar? He contemplated buying food in the Time Saver but he didn’t want to leave these truth bombs in the car alone. Maybe he should find a drive-through? Above him, sprouting from a tall pole, a single high-intensity sodium lamp burned, casting a dingy, yellow light into his borrowed car. The chirp of countless crickets and the recurrent Doppler-altered hum of large trucks hurtling past on nearby Interstate 10 rode atop the muggy air entering through the open driver’s side window, but no sirens yet. Thirty feet away, a young kid driving a four- door coupe filled his gas tank while he scrolled on his smart phone. On the far bank of pumps, a large pickup truck sat with oversize tires and a pie plate-sized exhaust stack poking through the bed. Sean couldn’t see the driver, but that would be a poor choice of undercover vehicles if someone were watching him. A four-door sedan sat empty in one of the parking spots at the front of the store. He couldn’t see inside but it was likely another hungry traveler, although the common, nonspecific car set off alarm bells. Finally, a sliver of logical thought tumbled through the noise of his self-induced paranoid psyche. The police would likely canvass convenience stores like this one on the outskirts of the city near large highways and someone might remember a nervous-looking guy in a white Honda parked nearby. He needed distance. He would push himself another fifty or sixty miles to the next cluster of restaurants and gas stations on Interstate 10, and then perhaps take the photos and this cell phone with him in the backpack. He still had the Glock .40 caliber in a holster at his side that he would have to conceal before entering a public place. He dragged his attention back to the cell phone in his hand. The screen was blank, having entered sleep mode to save battery power. Did it only contain the video that proved his innocence of the jewelry heist or were there other clues on it he missed? He decided to look again at the next stop. He began to set it down on the seat beside him when a piercing ring split the relative silence and caused him nearly to drop the phone. The screen lit up with a generic unknown caller screen, daring him to answer it. Was it Elyse calling him? Nobody else would have this number, he thought. It had to be her. Another ring screamed at him before he stabbed the green dot with his finger and held the phone to his ear. “Hello,” he said, quietly, almost reverently, as if a long-lost elderly relative was at the other end. At first, he only heard his own racing heartbeat thudding in his ears, but then a voice came from the small speaker. “Hello, we’ve been trying to reach you regarding your car’s extended warranty. You should have received something in the mail—” Sean swore as he jerked the phone from his ear and tapped the connection closed. I’m being foolish, he thought, Elyse isn’t going to call. Besides, she could just call me on the burner phone we bought, why call on this one? It was time to go. He reached for the keys dangling in the ignition and looked out the windshield. Something new met his gaze that wasn’t present just moments before, pausing his arm in mid-reach. A shadowy figure stood sixty feet away near a stretch of trees and thick brush on the other side of the gas pumps. Perhaps it was his current state of mind but the figure appeared to stare directly at him. Sean stared back. The figure began walking toward the car. As Sean’s heartbeat began to accelerate, his hand slowly moved away from the ignition and toward the holster at his side. Elyse was his first thought. Had she slipped away from her partner, Sands? Had she somehow checked the historical record to see where he would stop for a look at the photos? As he scrutinized the figure walking closer to him, he realized it was not Elyse. It was likely not a woman at all. He’d watched Elyse walk before, with her shorter strides and swaying hips; this person did not fit that pattern. These were long strides with exaggerated arm and shoulder movements; no, this was a man. Sean removed the pistol fully from his holster and rested it on his lap, muzzle pointing toward his door. The man continued walking closer, angling his approach toward the car’s driver side. Sean could tell he wore a hat, possibly an eight-point patrolman’s cap like he used to wear as a police officer in Philly. Had his premonition about leaving come seconds too late? Had the police found him already? In the coarse yellow light of the sodium lamp, Sean began to make out the finer details of the man’s clothing. It wasn’t a police officer’s uniform. He appeared to be wearing bib overalls like you would use for working outside in the cold. As the man drew near the front of the car, Sean saw that they were not bib overalls. They were just overly baggy trousers that came up aggressively high on his waist. His hat was not a police officer’s cap, but instead a fedora, like gangsters wore in the 1930s. The shirt looked like a bowling alley button-down special with a wide-collar and thick brown and tan vertical stripes. It fit right in with the fedora. And were those shoes two-tone Oxfords? Had this man just come from a costume party? With the window already down and the mugginess of the Louisiana night still billowing in, Sean waited for the costumed man to reach him. His gait slowed as he neared the open window of the car. He held his hands away from his body in an obvious gesture of nonaggression. The overhead light cast long shadows on the man’s face, but Sean picked out the generic details of a police description. Caucasian, medium athletic build, short brown hair, earnest face. Also, there was a hint of familiarity. He didn’t ever remember meeting this man but felt like he knew him. He looked like… like… well, quite a bit like… “You probably don’t want to shoot me,” the man said, “that might not be good for either one of us.” Sean knew that voice, or at least he knew an older version of it. The version from his memory carried a slightly higher pitch and a sandpapery quality due to thinning of the vocal cords, a natural result of the aging process. The last time he heard his grandfather speak, the words bore an underlying quiver, the aural equivalent to the mild tremors in an octogenarian’s outstretched hand. This man’s voice carried no such tremor; it was rich and deep, bursting with the vigor of youth. Despite these obvious differences, Sean knew this voice well; beyond doubt. “Gramps?” This was the voice of his grandfather, Paul Barrick. The man looked just like the picture on his grandparents’ mantel of Paul wearing his Army uniform from World War II. It looked like the same man from the Kodachrome color photo he’d just seen of his thirty-something grandfather standing next to Elyse with London’s Big Ben in the background. But this wasn’t possible. This man standing before him in the fedora was easily sixty years younger than his grandfather, who, in the ultimate closing-argument case- winning mic-drop, had just died less than two weeks before. “Maybe you should call me Paul from here on out.” Hunger finally forgotten, Sean nodded, unsure what to do or say next. His grandfather’s lookalike waited a beat, then continued, “Do you mind if I come around to the passenger side and get in. This might look a little odd to the folks pumping gas.” “Uh, yeah, of course,” Sean nodded and aimed a weak pointer finger toward the opposite door. While Paul worked his way around the front of the car, Sean couldn’t stop tracking the man with his eyes. As Paul opened the door, flooding the interior with light, Sean noticed the objects on the seat. He quickly grabbed the photo envelope and cell phone with an awkward reach of his left hand, maintaining his grip on the gun with his right. Paul sat and in the momentary brightness of the car’s interior, the man’s features came into focus. He had to admit, Elyse was correct; under the brim of that fedora, he and Paul really did look alike, at least at this age. In the last vestiges of light before the door thudded closed, Sean realized he was staring at him, but Paul was staring right back with the same look of astonished skepticism. “They didn’t tell me I had such a handsome grandson,” Paul said, an almost imperceptible smirk pulling up one corner of his mouth. Sean couldn’t stop the chuckle from rising out of his throat. “That’s funny, because we look alike. That’s something I would say.” “Well, it looks like you got my sense of humor, too.” He glanced down at the envelope in Sean’s hand. “I see you found the photographs.” Sean nodded as his mind ratcheted past the shock of this new reality to the explanation. Time travel! First, without any substantial proof to speak of, Elyse had convinced him it was real. Chalk that up to feminine wiles, he thought. Then, just an hour ago, Gabriel Sands easily and smugly shot holes in her story with the obvious truth that any ten-year-old kid could have digitally doctored a photograph to make time travel look real. He still remembered the sting of feeling like an idiot. He didn’t want to believe Sands but that explanation had logic on its side. It brought believability and a rational explanation to this fiasco from a broad, overall perspective. However, once he began looking at the pictures in this envelope, his doubts again fell away, and this time without the benefit of Elyse’s captivating smile or alluring figure. Unless all the photographs in the envelope were fake, which seemed unlikely, time travel was indeed a reality and now, irrefutable proof was sitting in the seat next to him. “Yeah, uh, right there at the bottom of your footlocker where you hid them.” “I left clues, but I wasn’t certain who I was leaving them for.” “At some point you must have decided it was me. You gave me subtle hints over the years that sounded like lessons in photography and life.” In the thin light of the security pole outside, Sean saw a satisfied smile touch the corners of Paul’s mouth. “And actually,” Sean continued, “these aren’t all the pictures; just the ones Elyse left for me.” “Is that what she calls herself now?” Realizing he was still holding the gun, Sean slid it back into the holster and nodded. “Yeah, Elyse Somerville.” “That’s a new one.” Sean’s stare was beginning to feel awkward, but he couldn’t pull it away. “Are you really Paul Barrick?” Paul laughed and nodded. “I really am. I don’t have any proof. They frown on us bringing identification on these trips.” Sean shook his head. “Not necessary. I know it’s you, I can see it and I can hear it. I just can’t believe it. It feels like it’s you and a totally separate person at the same time. It’s hard to square in my mind.” “Well, this is new for me, too. They tell me you’re my grandson and I can see the resemblance but I don’t even have a wife yet.” Sean thought about his grandmother, Dee, a girl Paul dated before the war, and wondered if Paul even knew he would marry her. “Do you know anything about your future?” Paul shook his head, a little too vigorously. “No, and don’t tell me anything. I don’t know the implications of insider information.” “Yeah, this time travel thing is bizarre.” Paul nodded. “It takes some getting used to but after a while, it becomes almost routine. It’s just like taking a trip to a foreign country. Many things are different and you have to remember where you are and what you’re doing at all times.” With an index finger and thumb, Sean forcefully massaged a spot between his eyes over the bridge of his nose. “You’d think with all the science fiction movies about time travel I watched as a kid I’d be less shocked than I am right now.” His arm dropped back down and he refocused on Paul, hoping to assure himself he wasn’t hallucinating. “So, what are you doing here?” “Can we talk about it while you drive?” Sean gave him a quick shrug and said, “Sure, where are we going?” He reached toward the ignition to start the engine. “The World War II Museum.” Once again, Sean’s arm paused midway to the keys. He looked at Paul but the sight of his grandfather as a young man made his thoughts wander from their conversation. Instead, he cranked his head back and looked at the wooded strip of land where Paul appeared. “That’s not happening. I just left there and the New Orleans PD will be crawling all over that place.” Paul turned in his seat and put a hand on Sean’s shoulder. Sean reluctantly turned to look at him. “Son,” Paul said, a name he often called Sean in his youth when the subject mattered, “Kiva, I mean… what did you say her current name was?” “Elyse.” “Right, Elyse, is in trouble. I need you to go with me to help her.” Again, the visual confusion of seeing Paul kicked in, so he looked away. “Where is she?” “Paris.” Sean didn’t say anything but slowly turned his head again to look at Paul. Each time it was the same. He saw a familiar face staring back at him; one that he met in the mirror every morning. The same eyes, the same jawline, it was close enough they might have passed for twins, almost. “And… when is she?” “August 25, 1944.” Sean voiced his reply slowly, adding a full stop between each word. “You have got to be kidding.” Paul shook his head. “I’m not kidding.” “You want me to go to 1944? As in back in time?” “Do you want to help Elyse or not?” Sean studied his grandfather’s face. If not for the similarity, he might not have believed any of this, despite the photographs. But after everything he and Elyse went through, he felt a bond with her. Perhaps it was that one night of drunken passion, but a bond is a bond. “How is us getting thrown in jail going to help Elyse?” Paul chuckled. “We’re not going to jail tonight. Trust me. The smart people at the Bureau have worked this all out.” “The Bureau?” A flash of concern swept Paul’s face, then the easy smile returned. “I think I can say that. It’s just what we call it.” “The time travel…” Sean struggled for a word to complete his sentence, but Paul saved him. “Thing. Yeah, that, uh, group of people. I’d tell you the entire name but it sounds a little odd.” Sean hesitated as the moments ticked by. He had to admit, going back in time piqued his curiosity. How many people could say they traveled back in time, although, he knew he wouldn’t be able to tell anyone, even if it were true. His previous experiences with Elyse taught him that. And in 1944 the war was almost over, wasn’t it? How dangerous could it be? “Okay, how can I say no?” His hand resumed its journey to the keys but he stopped short of starting the engine. “But first, you’re going to have to change out of those clothes into something modern and lose the hat.” Paul looked down at his baggy, high-waisted pants and striped shirt and said, “No problem. This wasn’t the greatest era for fashion. Do you have any extra clothes or do we need to buy some?” The thought of Paul wearing the “Show me your kitties!” shirt that Allie bought for Elyse gave him a brief smile before he pointed a thumb at the rear of the car and said, “I have some stuff that will probably fit you in that gray duffel back there. You can change in the Time Saver bathroom.” “Okay,” Paul said. “Do you have any money? I need to buy something.” Sean pulled his wallet out and handed him a twenty. “Buy a couple waters and a big bag of trail mix while you’re at it.”