Coyote Read Free Page A

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    The audience hooted with laughter, covering his last words. River obviously wasn’t considered one of them. He was told to get off the stage and stop wasting their time.
    I instinctively leant forwards, straining to hear his words. What was River talking about? What evidence? I didn’t know all the details but the infamous Coyote Jack and the Dry Gulch massacre were as much a part of the Wild West as Wyatt Earp, Doc Holliday and the shoot-out at the OK Corral.
    Incensed, River tried to shout the crowd down. ‘There’s evidence in the present! I just need —’
    The audience roared again, a cacophony of derision.
    Two security guards entered through the rear doors, Wauhope’s assistant trotting at their heels.
    Professor Wauhope backed away from River.
    The two burly security guards barrelled up to the podium, motioning River to get off. He ignored them. Emboldened, Wauhope ordered, ‘Get him off my stage. Now!’
    One guard grabbed for River’s left arm while the other went for the right.
    â€˜Coffee break,’ snapped Wauhope. ‘Everyone out!’
    Next to me, Klaasen and Melnick shot to their feet like a starting gun had been fired. They bolted for the rear doors and swung them open, only to halt as the glitter of lights erupted into the lecture theatre.
    They were flashlights.
    Â 
    I followed, blinking from the lights. I moved out into the foyer and into view. There were TV cameras and journalists everywhere.
    Oh no! It was an ambush.
    As cameramen vied for shots of Klaasen and Melnick, the exiting audience formed a chattering semi-circle behind them. One interviewer shouted above the noise, ‘Why did you call a media conference here?’
    â€˜Today,’ said Klaasen, his unnaturally whitened teeth revealed in an equally unnatural smile, ‘we are jointly announcing our inaugural cases as Time Investigators. Cases that will make the history books.’
    The bastards! This was another of their setups.
    â€˜I am pleased to announce I have been hired by the Rand Corporation,’ said Klaasen, ‘to investigate the robbery thirty-one years ago of blueprints for one of their most top-secret weapons.’
    Eddie Melnick jostled Klaasen for centre stage. ‘And the Swedish government has hired me to find out what happened to their prime minister who disappeared without explanation in 1958.’
    The journalists exploded into excited questions, encircling the pair like a shark feeding frenzy.
    I had to get out of here. This was just what those two creeps wanted — to publicly humiliate me.
    â€˜There’s the other one!’ shrieked a cameraman. They swung my way.
    I tried to shoulder my way through but gave up as a cluster of microphones was stuck under my chin.
    â€˜Kannon, what is your first case?’
    â€˜Miss Dupree, what will you be investigating?’
    The media loved me — they saw me as a big juicy stuff-up ready to explode for the cameras. That image wasn’t entirely my own fault …
    I struggled to mask my anger.
    â€˜Go on, kid, tell them,’ sneered Klaasen. ‘Don’t be shy.’
    He knew I had no clients. And he knew why too.
    Klaasen and Melnick had done everything they could, including outright sabotage, to get me kicked out of the NTA training program. When that had failed Klaasen had hired a media consultant to blacken my reputation. They both thought the fewer Time Investigators the more money and clients for them.
    If I’d been male then maybe they could’ve dealt with my youth. But, as it was, I demolished their prestige as Time Investigators. I had no right to play in this league.
    Their league.
    The boys’ latest trick was a story that’d appeared last week. It featured a photo of me, fresh from the surf. Their photographer had caught me just as I was struggling out of my wetsuit. My blonde hair was wet and hanging down my back and I was spilling out of my bikini