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

What was that old saying? Good judgment comes from experience, which in turn comes from bad judgment.

Once outside, Bailey vanished in a cloud of spicy perfume and wet fabric. Her laughter meant she couldn’t care less about holding up her end of the bargain. Well, Jack got a blow job out of the deal, so it wasn’t a total loss.

Jack was left alone. Fishing the toy solider out of his pocket, he turned the windup key to the right, and time started again.

“Bailey? What the hell? We had a deal!” he called out.

All he got was disembodied laughter, which didn’t help his headache any.

Chapter Nine

JACK GROWLED AS HE took another aspirin and drank lime Gatorade. He drove his Ford Whatever over to Hugo Mundi’s house. Jack could hardly see because of the pain. However, his fucking headache wasn’t going to stop him from following up on his best lead on what the fuck was going on. Jack just hoped Hugo was home this time.

It was so unfair. Bailey had left him the second he’d started time again. She’d left him laughing, which meant she had probably bailed on her own accord. Or had starting the Tempus Influunt again swept her away? Her relationship to a body wasn’t all that clear to him.

Well, one more reason why he needed to get to Hugo Mundi.

He drove to the old neighborhood—little single-story houses with big cottonwood trees. The streets were bad, the sidewalks worse, as the roots broke through cement. Of course, Hugo Mundi’s house was the shittiest house on the block. The yellow grass was knee high. There was rotten leaf litter overflowing the gutters. The screen on the front door hung in tatters. There was a light on, though, through a greasy window.

Jack parked and thought about the weapon he should bring. He had his Beretta in his shoulder holster, but he also grabbed a baton in a scabbard he could clip to his belt. It was an ASP Talon Infinity, one of the perks of working for a security company. A push of a button, and he’d have fifty centimeters of steel rod—that was a little under twenty inches, Americans.

He was still damp from his shower time with Wanda. His life had gotten strange and fantastic. However, a few things had become clear. He would be going on leave from his jobs until he could figure out his shit. At the very least a vacation. Once he figured out his money situation, he might just quit them all.

Jack had the toy soldier in the pocket of his jacket, but his migraine meant he wasn’t about to use it. He’d just have to play this game straight. He walked up to the door and found a cracked doorbell. It still worked, and bongs went through the house.

And who answered the door?

A middle-aged woman with her big blond hair covered in some kind of scarf. She wore a housecoat and very unattractive slippers. She didn’t have the heavy blue eye makeup, but she was undoubtedly Evelyn Mundi.

She seemed to have slipped back into the Tempus Influunt.

“Yes, can I help you?” Her eyes were suspicious. It was clear that she wasn’t too thrilled having a stranger knock on her door at eight o’clock on a Sunday night.

“Hello, Mrs. Mundi,” Jack said. “I’m here to see your son.”

“Is he in trouble, officer?”

“I’m not a cop, ma’am. Hugo and I are...friends. We met at the bank.”

The woman nodded. “Yes. Good. I was afraid Hugo didn’t have any friends.” She turned and did the motherly thing of screaming into the back of the house. “Hugo!”

Then she opened the door to Jack. She frowned at the state of the tattered screen.

Jack moved past her into the living room, which had furniture from the 1980s: a bright blue couch, an easy chair with a floral pattern, doilies on colonial furniture. Stuffed black garbage bags sat here and there. It seemed Mrs. Mundi had come home and started cleaning up after her son. The place didn’t stink, it just smelled musty.

Rustling came from the back of the house.

Mrs. Mundi gestured to the kitchen. “You can go back there.”

He turned. “You don’t recognize me?”

The woman shrugged.

Jack wasn’t going to pretend crazy shit wasn’t happening. “I’m Jack Masterson. I work for Vigilance Incorporated, a security company that does business with the Rocky Mountain Bank. I was the guard, Friday, that escorted Hugo outside. And I saved you from a horned demon.”

Mrs. Mundi turned pale.

Hugo appeared in the doorway. Plaid button-up, sleeves rolled up, dirty jeans, and scuffed combat boots. He had the same scraggly beard and the same crazy eyes. He was less sweaty, which was good.

Jack noticed that Hugo was now about the same age as his mother since he’d only been a little boy when she’d been torn out of the timestream. “Hey. You’re that guy.”

“I’m that guy.” Jack stuck a knuckle against his head to try to at least calm a little of the pain. “So, I saved your mother from Horns, Hugo. But she doesn’t remember it.”

Hugo’s eyes went to the woman, who stood there, speechless, seconds from crying.

If that bitch cried, it might split Jack’s head wide open.

Hugo shrugged. “My mom’s gone. This is my aunt. Eva.”

Jack wanted to slip his security baton out and smack both of them. “That’s bullshit. She’s Evelyn, not Eva. Don’t fuck with me, either of you. I want answers.” Jack removed the toy soldier from his pocket. “And I want some answers about this shit.”

Mrs. Mundi went to the sofa, sat down, and put her face in her hands.

Hugo swallowed, clenching his jaw muscles. “You can’t tell anyone. It’s already complicated. There was a funeral. She has a death certificate. I mean, my old man, he...he had to say she was dead. To get the life insurance.”

Jack held up the toy soldier. He had to get out of there, drive home, and put ice