by Janet Leigh
In Style 4 Now
A Jennifer Cloud Novel
Janet Leigh
Janet Leigh Books
Copyright © 2018 Janet Leigh
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
For my daughters Alex and Eryn,
who always try to keep me in style.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Chapter 1
Mitchell Mafuso is a lanky, sneaky brigand a few years younger than me. I met him when he was wet behind the ears at time traveling and jockeying for a position ahead of his older siblings. This ambitious attempt to rise in power led to his downfall. When he’d been captured, they forced him to turn over his time-traveling key in return for a slap on the wrist. He should have at least done cell time, but my opinion doesn't matter when it comes to punishment.
I’m Jennifer Cloud, transporter for the World Travel Federation, or what I like to call the WTF. I was perfectly content in my job as an assistant shoe buyer for a well-known designer until the moon gods thought it would be funny to throw some bad karma my way. My boss was arrested for tax evasion, my job was incinerated, and I began working for my brother, Eli, at his chiropractic office.
The moon gods weren't satisfied with ruining my life. The gods added hilarity to injury when they activated my genetic gift of time travel. A gift I accidentally discovered my senior year in high school when I arrived in the year 1568 wearing a kilt and a pair of loafers. It didn’t take me long to figure out I wasn’t in Texas anymore. It also didn’t take long for the handsome Scot I met to romance my socks off.
The gods kept me in the dark about the inner workings of time travel until the WTF found me a few years ago. Now, I moonlight for them by transporting bad guys, or what they call brigands. These nasty brigands go back and try to screw up the past. I’m a sidekick to the traveler who catches these brigands, also known as my defender. At the moment I have two of these. Caiyan McGregor and Marco Ferrari.
Call it luck or bad timing, I have two gorgeous men who round up the brigands and summon me to transport for them, and a third man who keeps me in line. A girl should be so lucky right? Thinking about the classified sector of my life and the men that turn it upside down makes my palms sweat and my heart rate go up.
My secret identity became easier to manage when Eli found out he also had the gift. Inheriting the gene for time travel wasn’t an easy thing for my brother to understand, but he took it in stride, refused to join the WTF, and buried the gift deep inside himself. I couldn’t say I blamed him. He spent years studying to be a doctor, and spending the weekend chasing bad guys makes it difficult to keep your eyes open on Monday morning. Nonetheless, he covers for me at the office and at Sunday dinner with my parents.
I sipped my Starbucks vanilla bean latte and read the file in my lap as I waited for Mitchell to exit his terminal. He spent his time between an apartment in New York City’s Greenwich Village and the multimillion-dollar Hampton mansion owned by his thieving family of time travelers. I flipped the page, perused photos of his home, places he liked to hang out, and a black and white mugshot from his last arrest. His picture was a few years old and resembled Justin Bieber in his Never Say Never days. I knew through the grapevine Mitchell had graduated high school, barely, and worked for his father’s so-called export business. His father may be Mafia connected, but his grandfather was the one who made my knees tremble.
The thing about time travel is it normally skips a generation, and the family members in between are unaware their kids go flitting through time under the guidance of a grandparent. In Mitchell's case, his grandfather was Gian-Carlo Mafuso. Not only was he a prominent Mafia boss, but he ruled his time-traveling grandchildren with the fist of Don Corleone.
A photo of Mitchell’s back showed a tattoo of a cobra with glowing yellow eyes. The snake’s head perched on his left upper back, hood spread, forked tongue extruding from the mouth hinged open and ready to sink sharp teeth into its prey. The body of the snake slithered down his spine and coiled around the bottom of his shoulder blade. Creepy. Apparently the Mafusos didn't have the same restrictions on tattoos as the WTF.
Normally, I wouldn’t give a rat’s behind about Mitchell, but my boss at the WTF ordered me to follow him today. Mitchell took the 7 a.m. flight to Dallas instead of doing a lateral travel in his vessel. Lateral travel was the bomb. I could travel anywhere, anytime in the present.
Every traveler has a vessel powered by a combination of a moonstone key and the genetic gift within themselves. My vessel came in the form of a rusty old outhouse given to me by my great-aunt Elma Jean Cloud—another jab in the ribs from the gods. My coworkers have way cooler rides than mine. The vessels must remain confidential, a difficult task for some whose vessels don’t exactly match the era of travel. If a brigand gets his hands on a key, they can’t do much with it if they don’t know the traveler’s vessel. It’s like a having the key to a car, but without the luxury of walking through a parking lot beeping the remote to see what it unlocks.
Since this was my neck of the woods, the WTF chose me to do the recon. My orders were to follow at a safe distance, find out where he was going, and why he flew first class to Dallas. Admittedly, following a brigand in secret made me feel like James Bond or Batman. My boss, Special Agent Jake McCoy, would put me in the category of Maxwell Smart because he was sure the brigand would make me. Jake still considered me a newbie at time travel and didn’t have much faith in my stealth abilities. I admit, I’ve had a few minor setbacks in my quest to become a transporter, but Jake keeps testing me. He has fellow travelers on standby in case I need help. Whatever.
I have two days until the full moon cycle begins and the portal opens for the defenders to go back in time and stop these lying, thieving brigands from screwing up the past.
Two days to figure out where Mitchell is jumping back in time.
* * *
A black BMW pulled to the curb and Mitchell exited the terminal. I almost didn't recognize him. Mitchell had been at our last bust involving the Mafuso family. It had been nighttime and dark, and he’d been an afterthought. I hadn’t paid much attention to him. In the daylight, the Justin Bieber days were behind him. He seemed taller. His sandy blond hair had been cut short, and apparently, he had seen time at the gym. The driver greeted him and tossed him the car keys. Mitchell relieved him of his duty.
He gunned the car and pulled into traffic. I followed Mitchell’s BMW south from Dallas, staying far enough behind to keep a bead on him but not lose him. I hoped this wasn’t going to take long, because I needed to be back at the chiropractic office by one. I was scheduled to work the afternoon shift. Eli knew I had an assignment, but I hoped to make it in to work today. I took a sip of my latte and tapped in time with the Blake Shelton song on the radio.
My pay-as-you-go phone
rang. Jake. He issued these phones to make tracing our whereabouts difficult for the brigands.
“How’s it going?” he asked.
“Fine. I’m following him south on Interstate 35.”
“Keep your distance. I want to know what that little fucker is up to, but I don’t want you to make contact.”
“I’ve got this.”
“Mmhmm. Check back in at 1200 hours.”
“Roger that.” I disconnected, well aware Jake rolled his eyes at my good-bye.
About an hour and a half later, Mitchell exited the highway in the city of Waco and parked at the Texas Ranger Museum. I motored my white Ford Mustang past the museum and into a parking lot of a nearby cemetery. Mitchell got out of his BMW and went inside. What was the little sneak up to?
I put my car in gear and drove over to the museum lot. There was an empty space next to a rusted-out horse trailer with a flat tire. My sports car would be hidden from view behind its girth. I adjusted the black wig I wore, then pulled a baseball cap down low and donned my green Lululemon jacket and pocketed my phone. I stepped out of my car and smiled down at my new Tory Burch wedge lace-up espadrilles with the cute pom-poms. They cost me two days’ pay, but oh they were so worth it.
The June sun beat down, and I sweated the short walk to the museum’s entry. A six-foot wooden Indian Chief greeted me in the foyer. Posters and paraphernalia regarding the history of the Texas Rangers hung on the walls or stood on pedestals. I snaked my way around them in search of Mitchell. The foyer opened into a large room with glass display cases that reminded me of Tiffany’s New York store minus the blue velvet staircase and the diamonds. I browsed the glass cases in the front while searching for Mitchell. He was speaking to a man behind the counter and had his back to me. I moved closer to eavesdrop on the conversation.
“How much for the glasses?” Mitchell asked, pointing at a pair of spectacles in the case.
“These things are not for sale,” the man said, his thin finger wagging back and forth like a disciplining schoolteacher. “The museum acquired the items for the outlaw exhibit next week. They’re our feature pieces along with recorded video footage of the ambush.” He waved his hand across the case like Vanna White on Wheel of Fortune.
“I will make it worth your while if I could borrow these two items for a short period of time.”
The man paused as if Mitchell had provided the answer to his prayers. He quirked his lips and glanced around the room. I made myself busy looking at postcards shelved in a tall rack that kept me partially hidden from Mitchell’s view.
“I might be able to loan them to you, but it would be very expensive. You would have to get them back to me by Monday. These items are priceless.”
Standing on my tiptoes, I peeked through the card rack to see what Mitchell was borrowing, more likely confiscating. Poor guy would probably be fired. The man removed a leather-bound book and a pair of spectacles from the case and handed them to Mitchell. He tried on the glasses and thumbed through the journal, then handed both items back to the man.
“Yes, these are the things I need.” Mitchell unrolled a wad of cash from his pants pocket and peeled a few hundreds off the top until the man smiled.
The man took a pad of paper from behind the counter and wrote something on it. “I will place a notice that these things are temporarily on loan, and will be returned in a few days?” The man questioned.
“Within the week,” Mitchell promised.
The man placed the items in a sack and handed them to Mitchell.
After thanking the man, Mitchell headed my direction. I ducked behind the postcard rack, pulling the brim of my baseball cap low over my face, and pretended to be enthralled in a book about the history of Dr Pepper. My stomach grumbled at the word Dr Pepper. I would grab lunch on the way to the clinic after I figured out what Mitchell was up to. Mitchell sauntered past me. The bell on the door tinkled. I put the book down and turned to leave when a hand caught my arm making me jump.
“Do you need help miss?” Vanna had come out from his roost behind the counter.
I removed my arm from his grasp. “No, only browsing.” He started to turn away, and I sighed. What the hell. I needed to find out what Mitchell had his hands on. “Excuse me, what did that man borrow from the museum?” I asked.
The man turned around and flushed a shade I would call flamingo. “Are you from the curator’s office?”
He had that deer in the headlights, about to fly the white flag of surrender expression.
I shook my head. “I’m from Terrell State Hospital, my friend has a mental condition. He’s a compulsive hoarder.”
“What do you mean?”
“He sees things he wants and buys them to add to his uhm…collections. It’s a form of OCD, but we treat it with medication. He can integrate with society, but he forgot to take his meds today.”
A bead of sweat sprouted up on the man’s forehead just below his receding hairline. “I’ve got to get those things back or I’ll be done for.”
“You should have thought about that before you gave them away.”
“Loaned.”
“Did you get anything for collateral?”
“No.”
I gave him my best scowl. “What did he take? I’ll get them back for you.”
“He took a journal that belonged to Bonnie Parker and a pair of reading glasses that belonged to Clyde Barrow.
“Bonnie and Clyde, did you say?”
The man nodded. He wrung his hands and I was afraid he might go postal and take off after Mitchell.
“The journal is part of a set. The second is being rebound. Of course it's the most valuable one because it was found in the car Clyde was driving when they were killed. I'm glad your patient didn't steal that one. I'd lose my job.”
“No worries. I almost always return items my patient borrows.” I used my fingers to make air quotes.
“Can you please get them back by next week?” His tone took on a begging note. “My boss is on vacation and he will be hopping mad if those things aren’t returned.”
“I’ll see what I can do. Have a nice day.”
I left the museum hoping I wasn’t too far behind Mitchell. His car was gone. Traffic on the highway was light this time of day, so maybe I could catch him.
Chapter 2
I unlocked my car with my key fob and reached for the door handle. A sharp pain jabbed me in the side, my arms and legs went rigid, then turned to Jell-O. I slumped to the ground. Mitchell leaned against the horse trailer holding a stun gun, an evil Grinch grin turning up the corners of his mouth. My flesh burned where Mitchell had stunned me, and I tried to focus. I wanted to reach out and punch him in the face or at least bite his ankles, but I only managed to jerk slightly.
Mitchell opened the door to the horse trailer. “Ah, a good neighbor,” he said, pulling a bundle of rope from the inside. He scooped me up and deposited me behind a nearby dumpster, hidden from view. A spot of slobber stained his gray Ralph Lauren Polo shirt where my chin had fallen against his hard chest.
“It’s June, ninety degrees, and you're wearing a jacket.” He tsked at me as he tied my arms and legs together in front of me. “I’d recognize that tight little ass anywhere, Jennifer Cloud.”
My inner voice chided me for wearing the jacket, and I reminded her it had a secret compartment for my gun. The gun I’d left under the seat of my car because it made the jacket bulge and gave me a muffin top. I couldn’t get any words out. A small squeak escaped from my throat.
“If you know what’s good for you, you'll quit following me.” He felt around my clothes, pausing briefly on my left boob. He pulled my pay-as-you-go phone from my jacket pocket, stood, and smashed it with his crocodile skin Ferragamo loafer. He wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. “Honestly, I don’t see how you people live in this heat. It’s stifling.”
I tried hard to make my lips move. “Mitchell, you can’t leave me here tied up and drooling,” I spoke the words slowly and slurred
like a drunken sailor.
He bent down close and ran his eyes down my body. “You’re right. Someone might see you sitting here.”
I released a breath.
He maneuvered me to my feet and lifted me toward the top of the dumpster.
“Alley oop,” he said and tossed me inside. I landed with a thud on the bags of garbage. The one that broke my fall split open and covered me with goo.
He climbed up on the side of the dumpster, looked down at me covered in garbage, and nodded. “That’s better. See ya around, sweet-tart.”
He slammed the lid closed. I heard the beep of his car alarm as he disengaged it and the rumble of his motor as it drifted off into the distance.
Light bled through the dumpster at the hinges, allowing me to see the inside of my prison. My dark wig was hanging askew on my head, and my baseball hat was on the goo-covered floor. It was history. I tried to sit up, but the bags were slippery, and I fell back into the ick. My feet were stuck down inside a garbage bag. I leaned back and pulled them free. Only one sandal came out. My left foot was bare. A lump grew in my throat, and I forced it back down. Secret agents don’t cry. James Bond wouldn’t worry about a shoe. He’d get himself out of this mess then buy new ones. I didn’t have his bank account. The lump threatened again.
The smell of rotten garbage made me gag, which meant my faculties were returning. Bracing myself against one of the bags, I rolled forward until I came into a sitting position and assessed my situation. Nausea and drooling had subsided, and I tried to free my bindings. A broken hacksaw was sticking out of the trash bag next to me. Thankful my ass hadn’t landed on that, I slid over to the bag and held it between my knees as I sawed back and forth to cut through my rope. I was able to cut the rope freeing my hands from my feet, but I couldn't saw through the rope around my legs and hands without fear of doing damage to myself. I thought about the hiker that was stuck in the mountains and had to saw off his own hand. Not gonna happen here. My legs no longer felt like Jell-O, so I stood on the garbage and tried to open the dumpster.