Trying to shove that ghastly image aside, Ronisha emerged into the glass-walled office just as the elevator from Commons hummed to life. Moments later, Skeeter Jackson and the world’s most famous time scout stepped onto the thick carpet. They’d come alone. Kit Carson was all but bouncing on his toes, eyes alight with a wild kind of exultation. “Hi, Ronnie. Got a minute?”
“Good God, Kit, what is it? You know what we’re in the middle of, here.” She’d never seen the ex-time scout so excited.
“It’s Jenna Caddrick’s kidnapper. We found him! Skeeter did, that is. I had the good sense to put Skeeter on the payroll as a detective for the Neo Edo—which is why he’s got a squawky, since you asked—and the first thing he did was solve the mystery of where Noah Armstrong went.”
“You found Armstrong? Where? My God, Skeeter, say something!”
La-La Land’s most notorious miscreant—Neo Edo’s house detective?—smiled wryly and handed over a couple of improvised sketches. He’d drawn over the top of a flier with Noah Armstrong’s photo. “That’s what Armstrong looked like when he went through the Wild West Gate. Dressed as a pistolero named Joey Tyrolin. Pretended to be drunker than a British lord, stumbled around bragging about how he was going to win a shooting competition. Now for the bad news. Our missing down-timer, Julius, went through with him. Posing as a woman and probably under duress. You ought to be able to pull the gate records to find out which name Julius was using. He was dressed as the woman Joey Tyrolin’s porter dropped a trunk on.” He handed over a second sketch.