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“You don’t have anything anyway. I’m going to have to go get you some jeans or something to meet your family in, and I’ll have to be changed to do that. Out.” I point.

“I’m going to feel like an idiot standing out there in this…” But he opens the door and obeys.

I change, and on the way back to the door to let Ben back in, I find my phone sitting on my table. I bite my lip—hadn’t it been in my hand when I was checking out the mirror? I pick it up, cringing when I notice nearly three days have passed here as well. I should have expected that. Ben had been in the past the same length of time that he was missing from the future.

As I open the door absently for Ben to come in, I notice a couple messages between me and Morgan. Between me and Morgan? I obviously haven’t been using my phone.

“Look at this.” I hold out the phone to Ben as he comes back in. “I did not write these messages.” I read them again over Ben’s shoulder after he takes the phone.

The first message from Morgan came the day after I fell through the mirror. Haven’t heard from you in a couple days. That guy didn’t come back and kill you, did he?

I—or more correctly someone writing as me—replied later that day. Busy with work. Out of town for a few days on a research project.

Morgan had answered almost immediately, taking the vague text in stride. Even when we lived together, we could go days without really seeing each other, especially when Morgan worked late multiple days in a row on cases. I’m crazy busy here too, she’d texted. Lunch later this week?

Sure. I’ll text you when I get back, had been the response from my phone.

He frowns at it. “Looks like our mystery man gave you an excuse for being gone.”

“But why?” I bite my lip as I study the messages. How had the man known about my blog and the research I did? The conversation is so eerily similar to ones Morgan and I have had before that I shudder. How often had Morgan and I passed like ships in the night when we lived together, both bogged down by work projects that kept us apart?

“Probably to keep someone from asking questions,” Ben says, and his tone conveys the suspicions we both had about the man’s reasons for being in the past.

I sigh. There’s nothing we can do now—except for maybe moving the mirror to somewhere else so I don’t run into him again at my condo when he comes back. Maybe he has an innocent reason for time-traveling, but I can’t just trust that without knowing more.

“So what are we going to tell people about you?” I ask, setting the phone down and studying him. “You can’t claim taking off without telling anyone. It’s been two years.”

“You knocking yourself out gave me an idea. I went to … L.A. with a friend, forgot my phone, and lost my memory.”

I arch an eyebrow. “How did you lose your memory?”

“Do you listen to the news?” he asks with a laugh. “Weirder things have happened. I fell and hit my head on the sidewalk after my friend and I went separate ways for the evening.”

I continue the interrogation. If Ben’s story is going to hold up, we have to fill in the holes. “And why didn’t your friend report where he’d last seen you? All the search efforts were up here.”

He shrugs. “Easy. He was high and didn’t remember. I’ll call my lawyer. We can pay someone off to corroborate my story.”

My eyes widen. “Lawyer? So you think you’re still rich?”

“I should be. I guess I better make some calls.” He holds out his hand for my phone.

I hand it over. “Okay, but why didn’t you call your mom to let her know you were going to L.A.?”

“Because I’m a grown adult. I don’t give her a minute-by-minute accounting of my life.” He says it with so much ease that I don’t doubt it was true in real life. His mom might not even question that he hadn’t gotten in touch after leaving his phone. There are still a lot of questions that might come up. Like who, in this day and age, doesn’t notice their phone is missing right away? But we certainly can’t tell the truth, so what choice do we have other than to go with Ben’s story and hope it doesn’t raise too many suspicions?

“Now,” he says, breaking me from my thoughts, “can you please go find me some clothes?”

“Of course.” I try to relax. What’s the worst that could happen? People are suspicious about Ben disappearing for two years and that he might be making up a story? He’s an adult. It just might mean more scrutiny than we both want.

He takes me by the shoulders. “Everything is going to be fine. I promise.”

Chapter Ten

Ben insists on taking me with him to meet his family, even though I’ve already met his mom. “They’ll want to know all about the girl who rescued me and thank her, of course,” he says when he holds open the passenger-side door of my car for me. I don’t question not driving. The two years in the early 1900s is going to take a while to wear off for Ben. And I like his chivalry anyway.

I text Morgan on the twenty-minute drive into town. Even though the story the man told Morgan gives me the creeps, I’m not about to deny it. Morgan wouldn’t believe the truth anyway. Just got back into town. Lunch tomorrow? I have huge news. I’m obviously not going to be able to deny being involved in Ben being found. It’s the middle of the day on a weekday, so it doesn’t surprise me that Morgan doesn’t answer before we reach Ben’s parents’ house.

The minute we step out of the car, the wooden door to their ranch-style brick home flies open, and his mom sprints down the sidewalk toward him. Before he rounds the car, she throws herself into his arms. I almost succumb to the emotion welling up inside me over the reunion when those who couldn’t reach Ben find me, and though I’m a stranger to this family and the friends here to greet him, they pull me into their arms and thank me over and over. I wish I could tell them that I didn’t save Ben. He saved me.