Written in Time by Jerry Ahern Page B

office have to be efficient when you don’t want them to be?”  
    “Ellen!”  
    “This is really very creepy, Jack. This whole thing. For the first time in our lives, unless Lars really is whacko, we’re going to have some real money, and there’s this thing.”  
    Ellen opened the envelope. There were copies of documents, and newspaper articles and a copy of a photograph, just a Xerox, but remarkably—damnably— clear. It was a photograph of Mr. and Mrs. Jack Naile and their two (unnamed) children.  
    “This has to be an elaborate practical joke, Jack.”  
    “Lemme see, princess.”  
    She handed it to him. She didn’t need to look at the picture anymore. It was burned into her mind forever and she’d probably see it in her dreams—the kind called nightmares. Despite the age of the photograph and the fact that it was a Xerox, the resemblance between the Naile family of nine decades ago and the Naile family of the present was enough to make her want to throw up.  
    Her own counterpart, and that of her daughter, wore their hair piled up beneath feather-festooned picture book hats. They wore long, uncomfortable-looking dresses, their hands clasped in front of them at their obviously corseted waists like singers about to hit a high note at the opera.  
    The older of the two men wore a black hat, its shape identical to Jack’s, even the hatband looking to be the same. He wore a vested suit, but it was, somehow, still casual looking. His mustache was identical to the one Jack had sported since he was twenty-two. He’d grown it because Ellen had always liked the look of Omar Sharif’s mustache.  
    The younger man, clean shaven but with a noticeable five o’clock shadow—David always had that—was the epitome of male fashion for the period, from derby to cravat to spats. David always looked as if he’d stepped out of the pages of G.Q. Ellen had helped her husband with enough firearms-related articles to spot a concealed weapon, and there was a slight bulge at David’s left side, as if his coat covered a handgun worn crossdraw.  
    And the older man also was armed, a gun on his right hip, what was perhaps the butt of a second one protruding from beneath his coat.  
    The gunbelt/holster was a Hollywood rig of the type worn in ‘50s and ‘60s television westerns, a style which didn’t exist almost a century ago. Ellen Naile had even recognized it as one that Jack’s friend Sam Andrews had made for him around 1990.  
    She’d been looking out the Suburban’s open window. She turned her gaze to the other items from the envelope. There was a summary of its contents typed on an old-seeming machine, Arthur Beach’s name scrawled at the bottom. She read it aloud to her husband. “‘The Naile family arrived in town in 1896. The Nailes were apparently on their way to California for some new business when their wagon suffered an accident and was destroyed. They were unhurt, according to accounts. Reduced to only a few personal belongings, the Nailes seemingly had considerable financial resources. There is no material yet available to me mentioning the fate of their descendants, nor concerning how or when Mr. and Mrs. Naile eventually died. The county medical examiner’s office burned to the ground in the 1940s, and all death certificates archived there were destroyed as a result. I’ll keep looking.’”  
    “Holy—”  
    “Tell him to stop the hell looking, Jack!”  
    “Startling resemblance, that photograph. I’ll say that.”  
    Ellen nearly retched as she said it, but she said it anyway. “Jack, it’s you and me and David and Elizabeth, and the fucking picture was taken almost a hundred damn years ago! Get me home before I throw up!”  
    The Suburban lurched into reverse, which didn’t help.  

CHAPTER
TWO
    Jack picked up the phone and tapped out the number from memory.  
    “This is Arthur Beach.”  
    “Yeah, Arthur, this is Jack Naile—the one in the present,” Jack added