“The DVD was Connor’s idea, so if it helps, we owe him big. It didn’t even occur to me, but he told me that anything I left there, with you, would be protected, just like the books are. You need to make a copy, once you’re back here, in the present. Or past, I guess. Ask Connor. He can explain it better than I can. I think this could work, Kate—this would be pretty hard to fake. I mean… I’d have to be incredibly dense not to recognize a message from myself, right?
“Here goes then—Lawrence Alma Coleman the Third, also known as Trey. If you have any doubts that this is you talking into the computer, I know what you did that Saturday afternoon when you were thirteen and Mom, Dad, and Estella went to that art gallery opening over on R Street. Never told anyone about that, did you?”
I smiled and made a mental note to ask him, one day, exactly what he’d done that Saturday.
“The girl who gave you this disk is Prudence Katherine Pierce-Keller, aka Kate the Time-Traveling Ninja. She has a few memories that you don’t. Maybe these videos will help bridge that gap. But really, all you need to know is this—she has the prettiest green eyes in the universe and very ticklish feet. She’s a sucker for Princess Bride quotes, onion rings from O’Malley’s, coffee—but not if Connor made it—and you’re so in love that you cannot imagine life without her.
“Now, back to you, Kate,” Trey said. “Find me, kiss me, and make sure I get this message. In that order. And hurry, okay? I love you—and I miss you already.”
He was still staring at the camera as the video faded out and shifted to one of the webcam shots, with my face in the big screen and Trey’s in a smaller inset window in the upper right-hand corner. We weren’t talking about anything, really—just an excuse to be together for a few more minutes before sleep. I clicked through quickly, knowing that I would go back later and watch every single minute. They were all there, in chronological order, as best I could tell. Every conversation, every silly joke, me painting my toenails while we talked, Trey offering me a bite of ice cream and dripping chocolate syrup on the camera.
I was laughing and crying at the same time when I heard a soft knock at the door.
Connor cracked the door and stepped in, carrying a large tray. “Should I come back?” he asked.
“No. You have food,” I said. “Don’t you dare leave.” I moved the computer to the other side of the bed and slid over to make room. “In just a minute, I’m going to start shoving that into my mouth as fast as possible, and it wouldn’t be polite to talk then, so let me say thank you first. For everything, but especially for giving Trey this idea. This is why he was able to let go, isn’t it? Why he stopped fighting me about staying here when I made the jump.”
“I suspect I would have had to evict him bodily otherwise, and he would probably have still camped out on the porch.” Connor smiled, shaking his head. “I thought he’d tell you himself, but maybe he didn’t want to jinx it. You’re going to need to make a copy of that disk—once you go back to before the last time shift. Make it here, at the house, and it should be okay. It’ll be a video from this time, but the disk—that will be in the same timeline as Trey, so… you should just be able to give it to him.”
I had the sandwich unwrapped and was already eating. “It won’t vanish? Or be blank?” I asked, with my mouth half full.
“Not as long as you make a copy,” he said. “I’m not positive, but I can’t see why it wouldn’t work. The diaries still work, right?”
I glanced down at the sandwich in my hand. “You’d better be glad that I’m too happy to be mad at you,” I said between bites. “This is Trey’s roast beef. Did you eat my pastrami?”
“Didn’t know if you were coming back,” he said. “Shame to let a good sandwich go to waste.”
I spent the next few days sleeping, eating, and recording everything that I could remember about the past month. Then I saved the files in a CHRONOS diary to give to Katherine and Connor, and backed everything up on a DVD to give to Dad and eventually, I hoped, to Mom as well.
By day three, the burn on my neck had faded to the point where a scalding cup of coffee actually could have been a possible cause. I dragged my Briar Hill uniform from the back of the closet and very gingerly pulled my hair back, being careful to hide the few bare spots near the nape of my neck.
I retrieved my ID holder—now short two photographs—from the dresser drawer. I’d eventually add new photos of Mom and Dad, but for now I put in a photograph that Connor had taken of me and Trey in the backyard with Daphne, and the picture of me with Charlayne, our arms around each other, grinning from ear to ear with our new belts—mine brown and hers blue—tied around our white jackets.