Yesterday's Thief: An Eric Beckman Paranormal Sci-Fi Thriller (30 page)
He continued. “I was describing my experience in the time-shortcut machine. I arrived in February of 2009, waking on the baseball field, naked and with a terrible headache. I managed to get my life in order, and reconstructed the
minge de energie,
what you call the energy ball.”
“But you didn’t present it to the world.” I put my empty gimlet glass on the side table.
“No.” Zaharia took a deep breath. “No, I’m sorry to say that I did not. A sense of paranoia was growing in me, clouding my judgment. I finally realized that my shunt was gone, and I planned to consult a neurologist, but then I caught the influenza. The disease greatly exacerbated my condition, and everything after that is a bit fluffy.”
“Fuzzy!” Viviana said.
He smiled. “Yes, fuzzy. Excuse me. On a happier topic, Ms. Ibanescu tells me you are an excellent student, Eric, although somewhat stubborn. That may prove a source of difficulty in your marriage, since Viva is also stubborn.”
“
Si cerând.
”
Zaharia and Ibanescu laughed.
Viviana punched me in the shoulder. “Am not demanding.”
“Demanding? Is that what it means? I thought it meant ‘affectionate.’”
“Affectionate is
drăgăstos
. Very different.” She frowned.
“Right.” I snapped my finger. “
Drăgăstos.
Isn’t that what I said?” I squinted and cocked my head.
She punched me again but smiled.
I rubbed my shoulder. “See?
Foarte drăgăstos.”
Stan stood by the fireplace, finishing up a conversation with Craig and his family. He looked over at me. <
This should be interesting.
>
What?
I excused myself, uninstalled Viviana, and went over to him.
He grunted his hello. For Stan, that’s small talk.
“I got an interesting report the other day.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “Seems like a jewel thief went into some old lady’s condo on the peninsula and threw all her jewelry out the window. Report here says your fingerprints were on one of the watches.” He looked me in the eye.
I flashed on an image of me picking up the Rolex and dropping it back onto the ground. Heat crept into my cheeks. Would Stan notice? It was now common knowledge that Viviana had been a jewel thief. Had Stan put things together?
“Was anything stolen?”
He shook his head.
“Is the woman going to press charges?”
Another shake.
“Well, beats the hell out of me. Must be some kind of glitch.”
Stan shrugged. “Yeah, that’s what I was thinking.” He tossed the paper into the fire and clapped me on the shoulder. “There’s something … strange about you, Eric, but maybe you’re not such a lousy PI after all. I’m going to trust you on this.”
He looked over at Viviana. <
But I sure as hell don’t trust his kleptomaniac fiancée.>
She sat on the couch, gorgeous in a cozy sweater, sipping her
vin fiert.
We loved each other, and that meant I could trust her. I took a deep breath.
I could, right?
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’m so grateful for the help I’ve had with this book.
Special thanks (
multumesc
) to Dumitru Cristian Ioan, my Bucharest pen pal, who corrected my Romanian translations and gave me suggestions on wording.
My critique partners saved me from plot holes, logical errors, and embarrassing grammatical mistakes. Many thanks to Allison Maruska, Pamela Bedore, SJ Richards, Bob Ferguson, Laura Eve, P Mathison, Janice G, Tonin, Auraxx, Jaramsli, and others.
I had a great beta-reader crew pulled from my newsletter subscribers. Maryann Banning-Witters had wonderful suggestions on wording and plot. Sheri Cartwright had tips for this book, and gave me ideas for the next. Thanks to all my beta readers, especially Gail Summerville, Teri Miller, Tod Wicks, Frederick Randy Ross, Mia D, Bob Crane, Amanda, Linda Johnson, and Lena Macy.
My proofreader, Julie MacKenzie from FreeRangeEditorial.com, did such a good job, she blew my mind. If there were a grammar version of Jeopardy, she’d be the champion.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Al Macy writes because he has stories to tell. In school he was the class clown and always the first volunteer for show and tell. His teachers would say, “Al has a lot of imagination.” Then they'd roll their eyes.
But he put his storytelling on the back burner until he retired and wrote a blog about his efforts to improve his piano sight-reading. That's when his love of storytelling burbled up to the surface, along with quirky words like “burble.”
He had even more fun writing his second book,
Drive, Ride, Repeat
, but was bummed by nonfiction's need to stick to “the truth” (yucko). From then on it was fiction all the way, with a good dose of his science background burbling to the surface.
Macy's top priority is compelling storylines with satisfying plot twists, but he never neglects character development. No, wait … his top priority is quirkiness, then compelling storylines, then character development. No, wait …