Free Return to Tomorrow by Marisa Carroll Page B

this time of year, although he usually didn’t mind the monsoon all that much. There were fewer tourists crowding the flooded streets, less hassle at the restaurant, more time to travel, to read…to think about where his life was going.
    The answer to that one was easy. His life was going to go nowhere in a hurry if he didn’t quit spending so much of it thinking about things he couldn’t change…and women he couldn’t have. He should be concentrating on the details of his next meeting with Khen Sa, not comparing the color of the sky after a thunderstorm to the color of Rachel Phillips’s eyes.
    Today the sky looked like gunmetal, nothing more or less. And it was going to keep on raining, as it had rained the entire month of June and most of July, and would keep on raining until the cool, trade winds of autumn finally chased the clouds away for good.
    Brett walked into the breakfast room, his footsteps echoing across the bare polished teak floor. The house was authentic Thai, made entirely of that precious wood, the roof of glazed tiles, but inside he’d taken some liberties with the traditional floor plan. Privacy didn’t mean a lot to Thais; staying cool did. Most Thai-style houses used only partitions and screens to mark the boundariesof different rooms. Brett’s house had walls, at least in the sleeping and bathing areas. It was also air-conditioned. Living with high humidity and sixty inches of rain a year was one thing; living with rampant mildew was something else again.
    He sat down at the breakfast table. Like magic the houseman, Nog, appeared at his elbow with fruit, black coffee and a soft-boiled egg.
    â€œShall I set a place for Mr. William?” he inquired.
    â€œNo.”
    Billy was late. He should have been back in the city last night. Yet Brett had been unable to reach him at his home. No one at the Lemongrass had seen him or heard from him for a week. Brett ate his breakfast without tasting it, staring out at the timeless peace and serenity of the Chinese garden, Nog’s special pride and joy, seeing nothing.
    Billy could take care of himself. He’d been in Southeast Asia damn near as many years as Brett. But dealing with a man like Khen Sa, a throwback to the Dark Ages, tended to make you paranoid. A spot of car trouble, a washout on a northern road that necessitated an unexpected detour, any of those things could have delayed his friend. Nothing more.
    Still, he looked up with relief when the Japanese rice-paper screen that served as a wall between the living room and dining room slid open and Billy stepped inside, his tall figure silhouetted briefly against the light background before he moved toward the table. He looked dirty, tired and hungry enough to eat a horse.
    â€œNog. Get me some coffee.”
    â€œCertainly, sir.” Nog was Chinese, from Hong Kong,and his upper-class British accent made him sound like a royal duke. He was a shade under five feet tall and somewhere between seventy and a hundred years old, as far as Brett could tell. He’d served with the British army during World War II and had lived in Bangkok since the end of that war. He knew everything there was to know about the city and what it took to get things done.
    â€œI expected you back last night.” Brett cracked the shell of his egg.
    â€œGot any more of those, Nog?” Billy asked, indicating the egg when the houseman returned with his coffee. “I’m starved. Last time I ate…was noon…the day before yesterday.”
    â€œThat bad?”
    â€œKhen Sa’s lieutenant, Ben Hua, he wanted to give me a goin’-away feast. All the best stuff—roast dog, fried bat, cobra’s blood.” Billy scowled down at his coffee. Nog clicked his tongue against his teeth to indicate his sympathy. Brett grinned. “Put me off my food the rest of the trip.”
    â€œI can imagine, sir. Although I remember in Burma during the war we had a