Time Jacker, Aaron Crash [most important books of all time txt] 📗

Mac just laughed.

It didn’t make Jack’s head feel any better. And he was wondering if he’d been crazy until Mac muttered, “That perfume smells like sex itself.”

The perfume. The laughter. Horns was still around. Jack knew he hadn’t killed the thing, not even with that bullet rattling around in his skull. But there was also something else unseen in the air, and Jack had the idea that whatever it was had snatched Evelyn Mundi just when Jack had saved her.

Saved her from what, exactly?

He didn’t know.

But Jack Masterson’s complicated life had just gotten even more complicated.

Chapter Three

JACK DROVE HOME FROM the police station. The headache was getting better. It might’ve been the ibuprofen he’d eventually scored from a nice policewoman, but he thought there was something else going on.

Being at the police station wasn’t easy, not after what had happened during his cadet training program. And Mac Satterstrum was an asshole. It some ways, it made Jack glad that he hadn’t joined the Plum Creek PD. A lot of people remembered him—the disgraced son of a grand police family, a father and three brothers who’d made the Masterson name mean something. Jack’s other two brothers hadn’t gone into law enforcement per se, but both had joined the military. Bart had died in Iraq. Andy had gotten medical training and had become a doctor. He had been working at the Air Force base infirmary in Colorado Springs, but then cancer had taken him in September.

At the police station, there had been glares and whispers, and everyone had been saying the same thing—out of the six Masterson sons, five were glowing members of society and one was a fuck up.

That would be Jack. It hadn’t always been that way...

Jack parked his car on the street just below his apartment. His place was next door to the Burrito King, just down Plum Creek Boulevard from the bank and that shopping mall. Most of the time, he’d walk to his gym for a workout or down to the RMB if he had to cover a shift.

His little apartment complex was rundown, sure—nine cheap units stacked on top of one another, three floors, three narrow apartments on each side. He lived on the second floor, with steps up to his front door, but he also had a fire escape that he used sometimes. It brought him right to the street.

It wasn’t the best place to live, though he was only a few feet away from a chorizo breakfast burrito. Also, the Burrito King had really good green chili.

He’d driven to work that Friday because he thought he’d be seeing his mom and aunt to help them pay their bills. You knew your parents were getting old when they lost the ability to deal with money. His mother and aunt would either spend too much money or not enough, and they’d miss bills, and it was a shit show.

After the night he’d had, he’d told his mom and aunt he’d come by the next night to help them. Yeah, Saturday night—his idea of a wild party was hanging out with his aging mother and her even older sister. Fuck his life.

He did have a few casual friends with benefits he could call. Mindy had weekends off, unlike Liz who only worked weekends. He and Mindy might be able to hook up in the afternoon. Mindy worked at the local King Soopers and he’d have to suffer through her complaining about her boss, but there were worse things. They wouldn’t talk for long because Mindy understood that the benefits of having a friend with benefits didn’t involve that much talking.

Jack just wanted to get inside his place, pour himself a drink, and figure out what the hell had happened to him that evening. He could call his buddy Pinetree, who ran a bar off the highway called—you guessed it—the Pinetree Bar and Grill. His name was Paul Pine, but no one called him that. It was either Pinetree, or PT for short.

Jack didn’t want his friend thinking he’d lost his mind, but Pinetree was a good guy. He might understand, and running a mountain bar gave you a certain perspective on the human condition—it either opened your mind or closed it forever.

Jack might talk about the shit he’d seen eventually, but first, he wanted to try to figure it out on his own. On a Friday night, the Burrito King had some pretty good traffic and there’d be a line. Jack would just eat leftovers. He wasn’t much interested in food, but he sure could use a drink. He pulled a bottle of gin from the freezer. The booze was from a local distiller, and Jack loved it. Fiftytwo-80’s gin was the best around.

Jack stood in his kitchen and took a slug of gin from the bottle. He surveyed his place. The kitchen was the dining room was the living room was his office. It was a one-bedroom apartment with bare walls and only enough shutters to keep out the sunrise when he wanted to sleep late. Which was rare, working security, working side jobs, helping Pinetree, and taking care of his family.

Jack’s desk across the way was crowded with bills, papers, and computer parts. He had a sofa, a TV, and, in the bedroom, a bed and a dresser. That was it. He wasn’t into decorating, and he wasn’t in his apartment all that much.

He got out a Styrofoam container from last night’s burrito run and microwaved the last half of a smothered steak burrito. He then grabbed a Budweiser from the fridge before clinking ice into a glass and pouring himself some gin. He ate at the kitchen table, which faced the window and the street below. He sometimes took a chair outside and put it on the landing of the fire escape. Mostly, he sat inside watching the cars come and go as people took care of their burrito needs.

Okay. The bank had been