Bobby didn’t gloat though. He looked almost sorry he’d said it. Quickly looking away, he turned back to Tony. “Speaking of which. You thought about what I said?”
“Yeah. I don’t know,” Tony said, managing to look away from the girl. “Maybe.”
“Maybe’s good,” Bobby said. “You know, I think—”
The lights began to dim and the drums in the orchestra started to beat out a jungle rhythm.
“We’ll talk later,” Bobby said, hopefully.
Tony glanced at him and nodded dismissively.
Bobby took Yolanda’s arm and led her away. Tony leaned out of the booth to get a better view of her show while the real floorshow began.
~~~
Dinner had been awkward but entertaining, and the floorshow picked up when Eve kicked Adam out of Eden and invited twenty or so of her nearly naked sorority girls to join her. Now, that was a Garden of Eden Jack could get behind.
But it wasn’t all paradise at the Paradise, that much was sure, Jack thought as he dug into his pocket for his room key. There was bad blood all around, and a history between Bobby Lord and Susan he needed to find out about. Were they old lovers? Bobby hardly seemed like Susan’s type, but Jack had been wrong about things like that before. Luckily, Tony had been as unimpressed with Jack as he had been with Bobby and just about everyone else except Yolanda. That meant he didn’t see Jack as a threat, and he didn’t even bat an eye when Susan asked him to join her for a game of tennis tomorrow.
All in all, it had been a productive evening, but that third scotch was telling him it was over.
He unlocked the door to his room and walked down the short hallway to the bedroom. He tossed the keys onto the dresser and flicked on the lights. He’d just started to take off his jacket when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. He turned, but the next thing he saw was an explosion of stars as someone cracked him hard on the side of his head.
He felt himself falling to the floor, the room passing by in a tilted blur. He was barely conscious as he hit the ground, his head bouncing hard against the carpet. The world shifted like a camera trying to focus. When his eyes finally did, all he could see was the corner of the bed and the legs of the small desk chair in the background. He started to lift his head when he heard a man’s voice, thick like it was coming through water.
“Nighty-night.”
A pair of garish red socks were the last thing he saw before the darkness swallowed him whole.
Chapter Seven
JACK’S FIRST MISTAKE WAS trying to lift his head. His temple throbbed and a sharp pain radiated all the way down to his jaw. His second mistake was breathing. When he inhaled, dust clogged his throat and he coughed, making the pain in his head that much worse.
He managed to roll his head to the side. The view of his hotel room floor had been replaced by one with sand and dirt, cactus and scrub. Long shadows stretched out. The sun was just starting its day and Jack had a feeling his was about to end.
He was in the desert, and he wasn’t alone.
Those damned red socks appeared again and then Falco knelt down to look Jack in the face. “Good. I want you to be awake for this.”
Jack tried to reach out and grab his throat, but realized his hands were tied and so were his feet. A rope connected them both and kept him in a permanent crouch.
Falco grabbed him by the arm and yanked him up into a kneeling position. Jack struggled against the ropes. His fingers felt the bulge of knot upon knot. One frayed end dangled tantalizingly close to his fingers, brushing against them, but just out of his grasp.
“I’m no boy scout,” Falco said, “but you’ll be dead before you get the first one undone.”
Jack looked up at him, squinting against the sun that shone right into his eyes. Falco stepped in front of it and blocked it out.
A big, older model Cadillac sat a few yards away, back door still open, drag marks in the sand from there to here.
“I don’t know who you are,” Falco said. “But you’re in my way.”
He paced back and forth, alternately blocking out the sun and letting it pierce Jack’s eyes.
“I try to fix things, but wherever I go, there you are. Always in the way. I can’t make things right with Whitmore if—”
“Make things right? By killing him?”
Falco stopped pacing and took his gun from his waistband. He turned it over in his hand and then looked at Jack. “I was just gonna scare him. But you?” he said, waving the gun toward Jack. “You, I’m gonna kill.”
Jack’s heart raced a little faster. He’d guessed as much. This was a textbook whack, but nobody liked hearing it.
“Maybe I can help you,” Jack said, hoping to buy enough time to come up with a plan to get out of this. “I can talk to Whitmore.”
Falco gave him an expression of fake surprise and tapped his forehead with the barrel of the gun. “Why didn’t I think of that? I’ll just untie you.”
He smiled at Jack and shook his head. “You think Joey Falco’s an idiot?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
Falco’s smile fell and he glared at Jack. Then he strode closer, arm raised to hit him again.
“If you’re not working every angle then you are,” Jack said quickly. “Maybe I really can help you.”
Falco stopped mid-swing. Jack could see him working that over, actually considering it.
Hope flared in Jack’s chest. Maybe, just maybe, he could make it out of this alive.
“What did you do?”
Falco started pacing again. “I took a little off the top. Everybody takes a little, why can’t I have mine?”
“I don’t know. That makes sense,” Jack said. So, he’d been skimming. Maybe even skimming the skim.
“Whitmore shouldn’t have thrown me out like that. You know how that looks to the Outfit.”
“Not good.”
“Yeah,” Falco said, as he stopped pacing.
“I can help—”
Falco moved in front of Jack, pointing his gun at him. “You can shut up.”
“I can do that,” Jack said. He kept trying the knots but he wasn’t getting anywhere.
“Smooth talkers like you get everything they want. Not today. Not from Joey Falco.”
Falco moved a little closer. “Today is Joey Falco’s day.”
He leaned down and pressed the barrel of the gun into Jack’s forehead.
There was a moment of surprise, a moment of reckoning and then Jack closed his eyes and braced himself. He’d come close too many times to count. His luck was bound to run out one day, but it was a hell of a thing for it to happen in Vegas.
He heard the gun cock and clenched his jaw as he waited for the end.
But the end didn’t come. What did come was another sound. A sickly, familiar thud, followed by something hitting the ground.
Jack opened his eyes and the sun blinded him. He could just make out a silhouette. No, two. He blinked against the glare and squinted, trying to see what had happened. Then, in an instant, the blinding sun was eclipsed again.
He blinked, sure he was seeing things as his eyes adjusted. But then she smiled at him and he smiled back.
“Hey, kid.”
Elizabeth grinned. “Hey, Jack.”
~~~
Jack stared up at Elizabeth.
“What are you doing here?” he asked, hardly believing what he was seeing.
“Saving your life.” It was a voice Jack would know anywhere—British, bristly—Simon Cross, Elizabeth’s husband.
Jack looked past Elizabeth and saw Simon, gun in hand, standing over a very unconscious Falco.
“How did you get here?” Jack asked stupidly. He knew the answer.
Simon held up his pocket watch and frowned. “How hard did he hit you?”
“Simon,” Elizabeth chastised as she started to work on the ropes around Jack’s wrists.
Her husband arched his eyebrows innocently then looked at Jack again, his eyes focusing on Jack
’s forehead, a frown coming to his face. “From the looks of things, he hit you hard enough.”
Elizabeth untied the hogtied rope, and Jack lifted his hands to touch just below his hairline. He felt the blood stick to his fingers, but when he looked at them, it didn’t seem too bad.
Simon, who took offense at lots of things, took no greater offense than seeing someone he cared about hurt. Jack was lucky enough to be counted among those few.
Simon looked down at Falco with distaste and nudged him not very gently with his foot to see if he was still out. He was.
“I meant how did you know?” Jack asked. “About this? About him?” He nodded toward Falco.
Simon started to put his gun into his waistband but stopped, realizing there was already a gun there. Probably Falco’s. He dropped his own into a pocket of his dress slacks and the watch into the other.
“Not that I’m not glad to see you,” Jack added. “Believe me, I am.”
Simon glanced over at Jack as he patted Falco down, searching for more weapons. “You have Elizabeth to thank for that.”
After untying Jack’s wrists she’d sat back on her heels watching him. “I was worried.”
Simon snorted. “Ever since you called us, she’s been obsessed—”
“I’m naturally curious,” Elizabeth interjected.
Simon rolled his eyes. His wife’s curiosity was the sort that killed the cat and led to serious cases of heartburn for her husband.
“She’s been obsessed,” Simon continued with a pointed look at Elizabeth who merely shrugged, “with was happening here ever since you told us about your assignment.”
“I did a little research,” she said, trying to make it sound like she’d just happened to read about it in the morning paper.
“And?” Jack asked as he held out his hand.
Elizabeth helped him up. His legs were sore from being tied up so long. He held onto her shoulder for balance as he tried to work out the kinks.
She hedged. “Well …”
Jack looked to Simon who said bluntly, “You died.”
Elizabeth shuddered.
Jack frowned and tried to put the pieces together. “I still don’t understand.”
“You didn’t come back,” Elizabeth said.
Jack nodded, realizing what that meant. Time travel with the watches was a funny thing. He could leave San Francisco, spend a week in 1960 Las Vegas, or a month or even a year, but when he returned to present day San Francisco only seconds would have passed there.
When a time traveler didn’t come back when they were supposed to, there was usually a reason, and it was usually not a good one.
Jack looked over at Falco. “So he killed me.”
Elizabeth nodded and then smiled triumphantly. “Except now he hasn’t.”
There was still so much of this Jack didn’t understand. “But how did you know? I mean, we’re in the middle of nowhere.”
“There was an obituary,” Elizabeth said.
“In a Barstow newspaper,” Simon added.
Jack frowned. “That’s in California.”
Elizabeth looked around. “So are we. I think the mob doesn’t like people getting whacked in Nevada.”
The casual way she said it made Jack laugh. And she was right. They didn’t want to scare away the tourists. No one was going to bring the family for a vacation in the middle of a mob war. All major disagreements were taken out of town.
He rubbed his sore wrists. “And you managed to find me all the way out here?”
“The tracker,” she said gleefully, “finally did some good.”
Jack had forgotten about that.
“And the when?” Jack asked. Their timing couldn’t have been better or closer.
Elizabeth wrinkled her face. “That was a guess.”
He laughed. “A damned good one.”
He walked over to check on Falco. He knew he was lucky to be alive and even luckier to have friends like the Crosses.
He knelt down and made sure Falco was truly out cold. He was. Jack ignored the insulted look on Simon’s face as he stood. Something was still bothering him.
“Not that I don’t appreciate it, because I do, but aren’t you changing the timeline by saving me?”
“Don’t get her started on that,” Simon said. “She and Travers went toe to toe for hours.”
Jack looked at Elizabeth. She was tiny but fierce and no one, big or small, had a bigger will or heart than she did.
“Poor bastard never had a chance,” Simon said.
“That’s because I’m right,” Elizabeth said with a hint of the fight still in her. She turned back to Jack. “When you … you know,” she said and Jack nodded his understanding. “I looked for what else happened, and Susan Santo was still murdered. Because you weren’t there to save her. Ergo …” She waved her hands in the air. “I’m right.”
Simon chuckled, walked over to the car and opened the trunk.
Jack was damned glad she’d fought for him, but he was still worried about it affecting the timeline somehow. “But—”
Simon reappeared, rope in hand. He shook his head as he walked over to join them. “Don’t bother. Her mind won’t be changed.”
Elizabeth smiled and shook her head. Jack knew better than to fight her. At this point, he was content to agree and be damned happy he was alive.
Simon frowned at Jack and handed the rope to Elizabeth.
“Let’s take a look at this.” Simon examined Jack’s head wound. He pressed down on the knot forming at his hairline.
Jack yanked his head away. “Ow.”
Simon held up two fingers. “How many fingers?”
“Thursday.”
“Close enough,” Simon said and then with one look at Elizabeth that Jack couldn’t quite figure, he took the rope from his wife and knelt down to tie Falco up. “Do you need help getting him into the car or can you do it on your own?”
Jack hadn’t expected that. Were they leaving? So soon? Not that he’d expected them to stay, or had he? He really didn’t know what he’d expected.
“Simon,” Elizabeth said, clearly rejoining an old argument.
He gave her a frustrated look, but sighed and stopped what he was doing, turned back to Jack and asked sincerely. “Do you need our help?”
Before Jack could answer, Falco groaned and lifted his head.
In one swift and disturbingly fluid motion for a college professor, Simon delivered a lights-out straight right.
He shook out his hand and looked up at Jack. “I withdraw the question.”
Jack laughed and shook his head. “I can’t ask you—”
“You can,” Elizabeth said and cast a quick glance over at Simon, who nodded in support.
Elizabeth looked at Jack in that earnest way she had that was at once guileless and cunning. It was the sort of look that reminded him why he loved these two people so damned much.
Jack knelt down and helped Simon tie up Falco.
“You’ve saved our lives more times than I can remember,” she said.
“Four,” Simon added and then shrugged. “But who’s counting?”
“And I know this is your first official assignment from the Council,” Elizabeth continued, “and you want to do it alone, but if you need us, even a little, we’ll stay.”
Jack had wanted to do this on his own, but he’d also learned long ago never to turn down help when he needed it. Pride was a luxury men in his world couldn’t afford. If he ever let his ego get in the way of an assignment, it was time to hang it up.
“It is a little more complicated than I was led to believe,” he said finally as he stood, Falco well trussed up now.
Simon stood as well and brushed the sand from his slacks.
“Shocking,” he said, “the Council withholding information.”
It was no secret that Simon was not always the Council’s biggest fan, and with good reason. His past interactions with them had been checkered at best.
“I think the
y just didn’t know,” Jack said and, surprisingly, Simon appeared willing to accept that as a possibility. “There are a lot of moving parts. You’d think a woman like Susan wouldn’t have so many enemies, but she does. In spades.”
Elizabeth rose onto the toes of her tennis shoes in anticipation. She lived for this kind of thing. She was always ready to go on an adventure, and Simon was always ready to protect her when she did.
“I could use a little help,” Jack said, and Elizabeth grinned with excitement. “Just for a few days.”
“A few days,” Simon said, latching onto that. He looked sternly at his wife. “Then we can get back to … our task.”
Jack wasn’t sure what that meant, but Elizabeth blushed.
He would definitely follow up on that later. But for now, they had Falco to deal with.
“I have an idea for what to do with him,” Jack said, nodding toward Falco. “Then we’ll need to get you two squared away. Some more clothes, and I don’t know what we’ll do about identities.”
Luckily, the 1960s were pretty loosey-goosey when it came to needing ID and papers. They might get by.
“Taken care of,” Elizabeth said with a grin as she pulled a fat envelope out of her back pocket. “IDs, letter of credit and references.”
Simon stepped forward and took it from her hand. “Where did you get this?”
“Travers.” She turned to Jack. “I thought we could pretend to be wealthy buyers for Whitmore’s land.”
Simon narrowed his eyes at her. “You’ve already planned for all of this?”
She slipped her arm through her husband’s. “I knew you’d come around.”
Simon opened his mouth to argue but just snapped it shut.
Jack laughed and started toward the car. “Poor bastard never had a chance.”
Chapter Eight
“YOU’RE SURE YOU’RE ALL right?” Whitmore said, his ruddy face redder than usual.
Jack touched the small cut on his forehead. “It’s nothing.”
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