Read Out of Time 01 - Out of Time for Free Online

wristwatch. He pulled back the sleeve of his sweater and took off the watch. “Will this do? It’s not a very modern design.”
    Elizabeth took the watch and frowned. “Broken,” she said. The crystal was smashed. “Must have happened when we crash landed.”
    Simon put the watch back on his wrist. “Your necklace?” he asked.
    Elizabeth self-consciously tugged at the chain. “Not worth anything. My ring’s a fake too,” she added with an embarrassed smile.
    She’d never had any real jewelry, certainly, nothing worth pawning. She looked down at her ring. Fat lot of good it would do them. They needed something real, something gold.
    “The ring!” she blurted and then without further explanation took off back down the street.
    When he caught up, she was on her hands and knees crawling around on the pavement in the alley.
    “What in God’s name are you doing woman?”
    “Ah-ha!” she cried and jumped to her feet. She held out her hand to him in triumph. In her palm rested the small scarab ring. “I thought I remembered holding it when the watch did its thing.”
    Simon’s face paled, and his hand trembled as he took the ring. Elizabeth watched the play of emotions across his face.
    “It’s a good thing, right?” she asked. His face was ashen. “Bad penny?”
    Simon looked up at her and clenched the ring in his hand. “Very much so.”
    She waited, but he offered nothing else in the way of explanation. “We can find another way.”
    “No,” Simon said and put the ring away in his pocket. “It should bring a good price.”
    He stood up a little straighter and nodded toward the street. What was it about the ring that frightened him so much? The tension in his body was palpable.
    “It’s getting late,” he said. Everything about his demeanor had changed. All the emotions he’d let seep out were tucked neatly away. Even his voice was different. Crisp and business-like. “We should find a place to stay the night.”
    “Right.”
    Simon stepped back and gestured down the alley. His face was again an impassive mask. The prospect of adventure didn’t seem quite as appealing as it had a few minutes ago. At least she wasn’t alone. Much. She let out a deep breath and started out of the alley. Together they rounded the corner and stepped into the past and perhaps into their future.

Chapter Four
    C alvin Coolidge said the business of America was business. And nowhere was it more evident than the streets of Manhattan in 1929. From the red-hot vendors and shoe-shine stands to the upscale Stork Club and New York Stock Exchange—money was in constant flow and so were the people.
    Elizabeth could feel the energy of a city at the height of its power and purpose. People walked with a fast pace suited to the jazz rhythms of the nightclubs. Traffic surged along the streets in tempo with the city’s heartbeat. Raucous, dizzying and intoxicating—New York was a party spiraling toward the inevitable calling of the cops.
    The people were well-dressed by modern standards. The only ones casually attired were workmen in their coveralls. She felt as if she’d shown up for a wedding in a potato sack. Or worse. There was sharp disapproval in the eyes of people they passed and something she didn’t want to define in a few of the men. She tugged self-consciously at the hem of her T-shirt.
    “I wish everyone would stop staring,” she whispered to Simon.
    Simon arched a brow and said off-handedly, “I’m sure your T-shirt has nothing to do with it.”
    “What? It’s brand new, mostly. What’s wrong with it?”
    “Nothing a little more of it wouldn’t cure,” he said and looked down at her uncomfortably. “It is rather on the small side, isn’t it?”
    Elizabeth stopped walking and tugged at her shirt again. Getting fashion tips from a man who thought a Windsor instead of a four-in-hand knot was accessorizing was really too much. “This is a perfectly good shirt.”
    “In another time, perhaps,” Simon said,