All Timelines Lead to Rome by Dale Cozort

All Timelines Lead to Rome by Dale Cozort

Author:Dale Cozort
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: BookBaby
Published: 2012-01-15T00:00:00+00:00


Chapter Twenty-Seven

Jeni thought about running or trying to get the police inside the service station involved. The hard faces behind the guns discouraged that. She stepped into the van and they drove away. Nobody said anything to her as they drove back into the suburbs. She glanced at the gym bag sitting between her feet on the floorboard. Ironically, the shotgun still sat in it, potent but useless. Finally she said, “How are your tires?”

One of the men grinned. The others stared ahead with no reaction. They drove along I-38 into Lombard, one of the western suburbs, and into a hotel parking lot, where they directed her to a room. A short, wiry East Asian man in his early thirties looked up from the desk as they entered. He wore an expensively tailored, tasteful suit. “Ah, Jolene Beck. You’re hard to keep track of, but quite a few people are trying. I wonder why.”

“Who are you, and why do you care?”

“Call me Danny. Why are people interested in you?”

“Why are you interested in me?”

“It’s not polite to answer a question with a question.”

“It’s also not polite to point a gun at someone.”

“The only thing that matters is what the person with the gun thinks is polite.”

“Yeah. So I’ll tell you everything I know, which is not much. I came to town on vacation, met a college professor from a few years back and some girl from Boston. She’s a cop. He works for the Bureau of Timeline Integrity now. We ate dinner together a couple of times and ran together. Then I started feeling that I was being followed. It turns out I was right. Three guys broke into my hotel room and pointed guns at me. I don’t know who they were. I don’t know why they grabbed me. I don’t know who you are or why you’re interested in me.”

“I have been reasonably successful in life. I have time, money and power to indulge my hobbies. One of my hobbies has gotten a lot of attention lately from certain business competitors of mine, and that attention started not long before she met you. I wonder why.”

“Your hobby is a she? Darla Smith.” Jeni shook her head. “So you think I attracted these business rivals of yours to Darla. It’s more likely that whatever she’s investigating drew the attention.”

Danny sauntered over to her. “You don’t seem as afraid of us as you should be. Do you need a reality check?”

“I told you the truth. I’m not sure what else you want from me.”

“That’s an interesting question. What use can I make of you? Hmmm. Decent body. Good bone structure. With a little work, you could look classy. I could find uses for a classy-looking Anglo woman. Hardly worth the bother though, and your escape from my competitors leads me to think you’d make it troublesome. That would be a bad thing from your point of view, but probably inevitable.”

“So am I free to go?”

“You always have been. Of course, actions have consequences, sometimes severe ones.



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