In the Wind: Out of the Box, Book 2 Read Online Free PDF

get behind that.
    I guess we’re alike in that regard.
    I stumble around my hotel room staring at the walls. Time passes like that fossilized amber in Jurassic Park; which is to say it doesn’t really move at all. It’s like stasis, like liquid almost gone solid, the minutes passing like hours. I connect to wifi and dull the pain by reading websites. Trolling Reddit. I’d eat, but I’m not hungry. I’d drink, but I’ve got work to do later.
    The hours go like death. This is the way it is between jobs, between investigations, and I hate it. Sienna hates it. This is why I stick with her, because she and I are alike. And because there’s no one else on the planet who would put up with our crazy, all-work-no-play asses.

7.
    Hallelujah, it turns seven o’clock as my stomach lets off its first rumble of hunger. I eat a dinner in a café on the corner, Pollo alla Romana, which tastes like chicken saltimbocca to me, but whatever. It’s good. I pick at it for longer than is probably necessary, but I don’t want to have time to go back to my room before my nine o’clock—oh, heavens, Giuseppe, please be okay with me showing up at nine—meeting.
    I stroll down the Via Nazionale as the sun fades in the sky. The city darkens, lights pop on. Cigarette smoke still hangs in the air, but the volume turns down a little. Stores are closing, they’re rolling up the sidewalks of Rome, Italy, like it’s a small town. It’s not tourist season, I guess, so why would they stay open late?
    I mosey and meander, and I hate every minute of it. If this is stopping to smell the roses, all I’m getting is a whiff of the fertilizer. I’m bored and cranky, and the walk takes even longer because I’m dragging it out. I stop and look at architecture I’m not really interested in, and wish that I’d brought my iPad on the trip because at least if I had it, I could read through my comic collection to kill time. It’s more fun than trolling Reddit, which is kind of like fishing with dynamite in a barrel.
    I skirt the edge of the Piazza Navona, which is pretty quiet compared to how I’ve seen it in the past. I dip down the alleyway toward Giuseppe’s place of business. When I used to visit him, he wasn’t living in his office. No cot, less clutter. He almost looked respectable. Times are tough, though, I suppose. I don’t exactly read economic forecasts, but I get the sense that although tourists probably still swarm this town in the summer, it’s probably not all sunshine and roses for the Italians, either. Mostly fertilizer in their case, too, I guess.
    It’s easy to lose track of yourself on a city street, especially if you’re distracted. As I’m walking, I’m not so distracted, though. The alleys are tight, the quarters are close, and I’m acutely aware of every moment of it. I don’t love confined conditions, and I certainly don’t mind crowds, but on a night like this, in an alley in Rome, you’d be hard pressed to find a crowd.
    I find one anyway.
    They’re malingering outside Giuseppe’s shop front. I say malingering because it’s obvious that they’re not up to any good. Oh, they’re dressed casually enough. To the untrained eye, they probably look like they belong. Hell, on a summer day, when the alleys are booming and burgeoning, and people have set up those little cloths and laid out their wares so they can run from the cops in five seconds flat, these guys would maybe—just maybe—blend in.
    On a near-winter night, when everything’s closing early and it’s almost nine o’clock? Not so much.
    I become aware that a couple have fallen in behind me. They’re all cautious, not giving much of anything away. It’s their body language that tips me almost as much as the sudden crowd. Ten guys all bunched in an alley is suspicious. When they’re all holding themselves stiff and straight, heads swiveling to look in every direction, even the most head-up-his-ass tourist is gonna notice something’s afoot.
    I