Time Jacker by Aaron Crash (nonfiction book recommendations .TXT) 📕

No, it was the lady in red. Well, she had said she’d be watching him, and it seemed she was making good on her word.

Chapter Six

THAT NIGHT, JACK WENT into the NCIC and the CBI databases. So far, there was no sign of Annie Blackburn. From the reports, she’d not come home from work. She lived with her father and a roommate in a little ranch in a nice, old Plum Creek neighborhood on the west side.

The roommate was also a friend, and both the friend and Annie’s father got worried when Annie didn’t come home. Well, yeah, she didn’t, because Annie had never left the bank. Most of the time, Jack wouldn’t have trusted Kyle with anything, but this time, he believed Mr. Turkey Neck. Kyle and Annie had gone into the bank, and suddenly, Annie was gone.

Disappeared without a trace. No calls to the father nor the friend. Her phone never left the bank, at least not in your typical out-the-front-door kind of way.

Could Hugo Mundi have grabbed her?

No, Kyle would’ve seen Sweaty. Besides, Hugo didn’t seem like the kidnapping type. Finding his address was easy. It was in an eastern neighborhood, one of Plum Creek’s original streets, back when it had mostly been a farming community. It wasn’t one of the better parts of the city—actually, if Plum Creek had a bad part of town, that was it.

Jack would swing by there and do a little interview.

But really, Annie was the priority. And Jack was pretty sure that it was either Horns or the lady in red that had grabbed her. So, how to get in touch with either of them?

He’d gone to bed pondering that question.

Jack woke up Sunday morning, said fuck the world, and turned off time. He woke up, on his own, an hour later with only a slight headache. He turned the soldier’s switch to the right and time started again. He had a job watching over a construction zone at noon, but he still had plenty of time to get over there.

And he’d gotten another hour of sleep. He felt good. He popped two aspirin and chased it with water from the tap. Normally, he’d have to get on with the boring, everyday stuff from there, but not this time. Out came the soldier. He turned the key to the left.

He couldn’t believe the freedom. He could do what he wanted, and with every time stop, his head was hurting less. His bedroom didn’t really have decorations. It was a mattress and his homemade end table and a secondhand six-string guitar. He’d wanted to learn to play guitar ever since he was in high school, listening to his dad’s classic rock. But learning guitar took both time and discipline. When he’d had the time, he hadn’t had the discipline, and when he had the discipline, he hadn’t had the time. Life was cruel like that.

Not anymore. With time stopped, he could practice. He picked up the guitar and went into the main living room. He sat in his desk chair in front of the window and played some scales, played some chords, and played one of his dad’s favorite songs, “Wish You Were Here” by Pink Floyd.

While he practiced, he kept his eyes open to see if either Horns or the demoness came calling. Or if he saw any other kind of creature. No such luck.

The lady in red might be watching him, but she didn’t comment on his shitty guitar playing. “Hey,” he said to the air. “Maybe you can cover my security work today. I really don’t want to spend eight hours watching over a pit.”

It was for a construction site. It was easy work, paid well, but was boring as hell. If he were a different guy, he would’ve told the construction company to go to hell, but Jack still had that damn moral compass. And he needed to think things through.

His head was starting to hurt a little too much, so he started time again, brewed some coffee, and fried up some eggs. So, during his guitar practice, none of the beasties came calling. He’d eat, do the side job, and then go back to the bank. At this point, it was the scene of the crime, and while the cops had checked it out, they were caught in the Tempus Influunt. Jack wasn’t.

In other news, during his research the night before, he’d discovered who the douchebag rich guy had been. Preston Tarrington. That was a total rich prick’s name. Tarrington had a ton of traffic stops and a few resisting arrests for public drunkenness. Googling the Tarringtons? Preston’s father, Tim Tarrington, was a big real estate developer in, you guessed it, Cherry Creek. There were whispers of organized crime connections, definitely some funky-ass government deals, and just an air of shit around the entire Tarrington family.

They were down in Plum Creek working on a deal for a housing development off the freeway. So that explained why R1CHB0Y was slumming it, eating at Señor Chang’s.

Jack left his place and drove past Hugo Mundi’s crappy little house in the bad part of town. He got out of his car and rang the doorbell, but no one answered. He had to talk to Hugo about the toy soldier. But it wouldn’t be then. He could swing by later that night.

Jack drove on to the construction site to guard holes in the ground. It was twenty bucks an hour, and his main job was to stop kids from playing around with the equipment or accidentally killing themselves. It was fine. It gave him time to scroll through his phone, get caught up on email, and ponder his strange new life.

What did he want out of life now? He literally had all the time in the world. He wanted to learn to play the guitar and work on his aim because he had considered becoming a professional speed and competition shooter, but he had to practice