Free Indiana Belle (American Journey Book 3) by John A. Heldt

finished his business in the bathroom, stepped into the main room, and assessed his new home. With bare walls, an iron bed, a pine dresser, and a desk and a chair fit for an eighth-grader, the chamber looked more like a dorm room than a "deluxe suite" in a three-star hotel.
    Cameron didn't mind. Room 208 was clean, cheap, and functional. That made it practically perfect for someone who didn't plan to stick around for more than a few weeks.
    He walked across the room, opened his closet door, and pulled out one of two suits he had brought to the past. He had given the other to a hotel clerk who delivered clothes to a local dry cleaner three times a week.
    Cameron put on the clean suit, combed his hair, and then walked to the desk that was his makeshift office. He sat down in the plain wooden chair, spread a small stack of papers across the top of the desk, and quickly reviewed his dossier on the Indiana Belle.
    He had read the personal letters, diary pages, newspaper articles, and other documents more than a dozen times. He had read them so often that he felt like he knew the woman better than he knew himself and certainly better than he knew another person. He had made this human being his mission. Now it was time to take that mission to the next level.
    Thirty minutes later, Cameron shuffled the papers together, threw them in his satchel, and looked at the one new document he had added to his arsenal: a copy of the Evansville Post . He had picked up the paper when he had dropped off his suit. Sometime after he had left the Post , the staff had returned to the building and put out the next day's edition.
    Cameron scanned the paper and looked for Candice's name. He found it in the staff directory on page two but not attached to any of the day's stories. If she had produced an article for the current edition of the morning publication, she had not produced it with a byline.
    Cameron returned to the headlines and caught up with the news. He did not need long to see that he was in a different time. Police in Kentucky had broken up a major bootlegging operation. President Coolidge announced a new trade policy with Mexico. In six Indiana cities, the Ku Klux Klan planned to march in St. Patrick's Day parades.
    The time traveler had wondered the night before how Americans celebrated St. Patrick's Day in the age of Prohibition. Now he knew how at least some of them did.
    Cameron moved from the front page to the interior pages and looked again for anything that might prove useful to him as a visitor to Evansville and the past. He remembered from his research that something important had occurred here in March 1925, but he could not recall what. No matter, he thought. He was a native now and would have to roll with the punches just like the people born into this time.
    A few minutes later, he folded the paper, placed it in his satchel with the documents, and closed the flap. He got up from his chair, lifted the bag off the desk, and walked to a door that led to a hallway, a stairwell, and the lobby.
    Cameron collected his fedora from a hook on the wall, opened the door, and stepped into the hallway. No one saw him leave his room or even exit the building. For all practical purposes, he did not exist. He was a shadow that moved from place to place in a foreign time.
    He pondered that fact for a moment as he started down Main Street and headed toward his first destination. If he were, in fact, as invisible as he felt, he would not stay that way for long.
    Thirty-one days after opening Mary Murphy's parcel and starting a journey of discovery, Cameron Coelho was finally stepping out. He was about to make his mark on yesteryear.
     

CHAPTER 12: CAMERON
     
    Cameron looked at the receptionist, saw the annoyance in her eyes, and weighed the pros and cons of asking the question again. He decided to be difficult.
    "She's really not here?"
    The woman stared at the visitor.
    "She's really not here."
    "Where is she?" Cameron asked.
    "I'm not at