Free The Curiosity Killers by K W Taylor Page B

eucalyptus, a sweet, heady scent that made it seem as if the dwelling were always on the cusp of Christmas.
    Deeper inside the building, a clerical assistant filed pieces of mail into slotted trays while her employer—the very Mister Jonson of the agency’s title—dabbed a spot of spilt tea from his shirtsleeve. The pyramidal ebony nameplate twelve inches in front of him revealed his given name to be Benoy. A cat slept on a crimson cushion in front of the unlit fireplace. Downstairs, an older gentleman in a white laboratory coat fussed with beakers and wires and keyboards, muttering to himself about quantum theory and transistors.
    All in all, a normal afternoon. That was, until young Mister Jonson sat up straighter in his chair and got a faraway look in his eye. “Shit,” he said, rubbing his bushy eyebrows. “Kris, we got trouble.”
    “We do?”
    “It’s Tuesday afternoon,” Ben informed her. “Look at the appointment book.”
    The girl’s heart-shaped face grew ashen. “Damn,” she exhaled, her smile melting into a frown. Her bob of shiny black hair fluttered as she turned to look at the wall clock. “It’s way past time.”
    Ben and Kris stared at each other, eyes wide. The unthinkable had happened—Brimley Wheaton failed to appear for his retrieval.
    Ben felt an uncomfortable moistness that he knew from experience would overwhelm his carefully applied cologne. When Ben was experiencing the very heights of panicky stress, which was more frequent than he cared to admit, he had the embarrassing tendency to sweat through all his layers of cotton, silk, and velvet.
    Since giving up his dissertation, Ben’s stresses were minor, to do with getting the paychecks out on time and being impeccable in his customer service or attempting—and usually failing—to chat up an attractive lady at the local tearoom. It was years since he had broken things off with Lily, and there was no one serious since.
    At the agency, problems had arisen before, but not this specific one. Doctor Vere was reticent on the matter, but several weeks earlier, a client had some difficulty returning from Roanoke. Vere had still been able to retrieve her, but the debriefing session was cancelled. Kris, in particular, voiced her disappointment.
    “Trust me, Miss Moto,” Vere had instructed, “what our client was endeavoring to do was unpleasant. She has no more information about the mystery than we do even at present.”
    But that was the only hiccup in several years of providing services. To have another—perhaps more serious—glitch was dire. If this one involved a botched retrieval, anything could have happened to the missing Mister Wheaton.
    Ben’s mind raced with the possibilities. Death? Death in an era without medicine, when leeches were cutting edge, when people drank from the same rivers they let their cattle excrete in? This was the kind of danger they’d subjected an innocent civilian to.
    What the hell am I doing with my life? What right do I have to endanger these people?
    ~
    For the next twenty-four hours, there was a flurry of panic and yelling and sleeplessness. No one went home. No one ate. It was all full of stress and bloodshot eyes and half-finished cups of coffee. Telephone receivers were lifted and put down without numbers being dialed. There was no precedent for this level of disaster, nothing in the company manual. What to tell the next of kin? Ben dreaded the conversation that might follow. A new flash of sweat beaded up on the back of his slim neck. He fished out a handkerchief from a trouser pocket and mopped under his collar.
    “You’ve got to get him back,” Vere said. “Son, there’s nothing else for it.”
    Ben was just beginning to make the preparations for installing himself in the machine, much to his reluctance, when a whooshing sound came from the direction of his office.
    At first, it was a great relief to Ben when his client appeared in a puff of soot and cinder. What surprised the agency’s