you didnât show up in court to testify so the judge could throw his ass in jail.â Wearily, Jessica raked her fingers through her hair, knowing perfectly well she was leaving streaks of paint through it. âHeâs going to kill you one of these days.â
âMaybe tonight.â Her sister dug into a pocket for a battered pack of Virginia Slims and a box of matches. The box slipped from shaking fingers as she lit the cigarette, but typically, she didnât bother to pick it up. âLook, just give me the two hundred. I swear, Iâll stay away from him from here on ...â
âTwo hundred? What the hell did you buy from Billy Dean that cost two hundred dollars? I still have to pay my half of the rent! If I give you that much, Iâm going to be seriously short!â
Ruby snorted a plume of smoke. âAnd if you donât, Iâm going to be seriously dead.â
âDammit, you canât run a tab with Billy Dean. Heâd kill you over a two-hundred-dollar debt as soon as spit.â If only to send a warning to all his other crack-addict customers.
âYeah, I know, it was stupid, butâI needed it bad.â
âYou always âneed it bad.â Why in the hell did he give you that much rock to begin with?â
Bruised eyes flickered. âHe didnât exactly give it to me. I was over at his place last night. You know. Partying. He got real drunk. . . .â
âAnd you smoked all his crack when he passed out.â Jessica swore in a long, ripe roll. âYouâre lucky he didnât kill you when he came to.â
Ruby gave her a sickly smile. âI wasnât exactly there when he came to.â
âShit.â Her stomach slid into an anxious tumble. Ruby was right. If her sister didnât have the money by the time Billy Dean tracked her down, he really would beat her to death.
Jessica stalked across the living room to her purse and dug for her billfold with paint-stained fingers. She pulled out the roll of tips sheâd carefully hoarded over the past week from her job at the restaurant. Sheâd have to find some other way to make up the difference in her half of the rent.
Maybe that gallery dealer would buy a painting. . . .
Galar stood wrapped in darkness and tension as he watched the house. He relaxed only slightly as Ruby pushed open the front door, clattered down the brick steps, and jumped back into her battered car. Tires slung gravel as she sped away.
Sheâd later tell the cops sheâd gone off to visit her drug dealer.
Time?
2100 hours.
Nine p.m. He grunted. According to the police report heâd seen, the attack would come sometime around 2300, or eleven oâclock. That estimate could be off by a couple of hours either way, which was why Galar and his team had arrived so early to stake out the scene. If they meant to save Jessica Kellyâs life, they had to be ready for anything, anytime.
The blood the police would find splashed all over the living room tomorrow would be identified as Jessicaâs, and the coroner would report that the woman couldnât have survived. She would never be seen again. Everyone from law enforcement to art historians would believe sheâd ended up in an unmarked grave.
Galarâs team was the only hope she had of survivalâ assuming the would-be murderer was indeed a time traveler. If sensors indicated the killer was a native of 2008, there would be nothing they could do. Theyâd be forbidden to interfere.
Actually, had police already found Jessicaâs body, Galar and his partners would have been forbidden even to make the attempt to save her. And if they had tried, theyâd have failed. You couldnât change history.
Still, he thought there was a chance. When heâd run across the police report while scanning the Outpostâs historical records, his gut had told him this was a temporal crime. A twenty-third-century collector would pay a
Johnny Shaw, Mike Wilkerson, Jason Duke, Jordan Harper, Matthew Funk, Terrence McCauley, Hilary Davidson, Court Merrigan