I was sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of the vacation rental enjoying the cool tropical breeze when Agent Stella York finally made her way over. Time Crimes agents had Foster loaded in a transport carrier and would be hauling him off to Rookwood Penitentiary to await his trial. The prison for criminal time travelers was located in the mid twenty-second century. Inmates liked to call it ‘Time Out.’
Stella leaned on the porch railing and studied me, then tucked her hands into her bomber jacket as she leaned against the porch railing. “Playa Los Muertos, huh?”
“He told his friend there was a beach for the dead. Turns out he was being literal.”
“Seems like Foster will play ball. Says he’s willing to give us everything he knows on Magic Max and Tommy the Tank.”
“Tommy is dead. You’ll find him stinking up a ditch. I can give you the coordinates.”
“Your handiwork?” She arched an eyebrow.
“Tragic car accident. Had nothing to do with it.”
“Hmm. Convenient. You’re willing to verify that?”
“Only because you asked so nicely. What’s Foster looking at for charges?”
“He might get lucky. I don’t know if it was intentional, but he offed himself so quickly, and did such a good job getting out of town, the local timeline never split. I doubt it even gave anyone a headache. ASCOTT can’t charge him with creating more than a ten-minute localized paradox. He’ll have to own up to his involvement in the casino theft, but he wasn’t the mastermind behind the heist. They’ll want to go after bigger fish.”
“You have a way to put Foster back into linear society again after he does his time?”
“That’ll be tough. Hard to explain to a guy’s friends how he came back from the dead. But maybe the wife will be willing to relocate. We can place them in an alternate timeline with a clean start for his probation.”
“You found the money?”
“Back bedroom. That temporal relocation machine went missing from an ASCOTT stockpile a century from now. We’re grateful to recover it. Money will go back to the Tampa casino. You won’t be happy about the next bit of news I have for you though.”
“No finder’s fee?”
“The casino is owned in part by Roman Amadeus.”
I furrowed my brow. “Amadeus’ thugs were stealing from his own casino?”
“Turns out the casino had recently taken out an extensive anti-theft insurance policy. Linear people of course. They would have had no chance of ever discovering the stolen cash once it was relocated in time.”
“So Roman would have made insurance money from stealing his own cash. Now we have to give it back. At worst he’s back where he started. Can you pin the fraud on him?”
Stella shrugged. “Doubtful. I suspect it was all part of the larger strategy of laundering mob money through the casino but we can’t prove it. We picked up Magic Max in a neighboring timeline trying to trade in his black market Temprovibe. He’s going to testify that the whole heist was Tommy the Tank’s idea. Amadeus never knew anything about it.”
“Of course he is.”
“That’s the way these things go. Amadeus will make a mistake one of these days. If we caught all the bad guys we’d both be out of a job.”
“Doesn’t sound like the worst option.”
Stella stared out at the Pacific. “Vacations are overrated.”
“Maybe you and I should stay a few days and try it out. Just to see what the fuss is about.”
She turned and appraised me with a shake of her head. “Nice try. Work friends stay at work.”
“Oh, so we’re friends now?”
“I’m not arresting you yet. That’s something.”
I propped my feet on the porch railing. “Every relationship needs room to grow.”
Stella shook her head again, this time with a laugh. She stepped off the porch and walked away to rejoin her fellow agents. I didn’t mind the view. Because even from this angle, I could tell she was smiling.