by Susan Murray
Because if Max hadn’t been keeping an eye out for all things unnatural, he might not have noticed the shadowy figures stealthily approaching his bookstore at 4:30 a.m. that morning, nor heard the muffled thump when the locked front door of his bookstore below had been breached.
It had still been dark outside when the break-in occurred. After keying up the security footage of the store below on his laptop, and seeing two thugs trashing his store, Max had manually triggered the back-up alarm inside the bookstore and let its shrill scream scare the burglars away.
Once Max was certain they had left and the bookstore was clear, he’d gone in through the back entrance and checked the contents of the store by the beam of his flashlight. The place was a mess, as the burglars had been hasty and careless, tossing books everywhere. Max had a feeling he knew what they had been looking for, because following Zoey and Zach’s death he’d spoken with his colleague in Syria who claimed to have mailed him an ancient book, purchased on the black market for a fairly steep price. Probably the same book The Dark’s henchmen had been looking for that day.
But Max had already searched the bookstore thoroughly and found not one single ancient manuscript, scroll or papyrus or otherwise, that had been sent to him by his colleague in Syria. No trace of the reason why Zoey and Zach had been so brutally murdered. Max figured it was possible that the mail from Syria had been delayed and the burglars had trashed his store looking for something that hadn’t even arrived yet.
And if Max hadn’t distracted the burglars early on during their intrusion, who knows what would have happened to Sherman’s Rare Books? Another explosion like that on his houseboat perhaps. The possibilities had him on edge. Max hadn’t counted on Marley showing up at the store that morning. She’d arrived before he could take care of the broken lock and she’d nearly caught him on the street as he returned from a visit to his locksmith friend.
Later, replaying and watching the security footage of Marley after she discovered the break-in and stood talking to The Dark and the insurance adjuster, Max knew he wasn’t being overly cautious. The Dark was bad news any way you looked at things. Because aside from his connection to various unsavory import-export companies in town, what kind of grown man would actually voluntarily choose to wear a black velvet cape?
There was no audio accompanying the digital feed, so as he watched the security footage Max could only guess what Marley and The Dark were saying. But then there was a strange tumble of movement under The Dark’s cape followed by the emergence of his pet, and Max felt a genuine stab of concern. Hitting the pause button, he stared at The Dark’s creepy pet, frozen on the screen as its tongue flickered out toward Marley’s wrist.
Max frowned, his alarm growing in leaps and bounds. With the memory of what had happened to Zoey and Zach fresh in his mind, Max knew The Dark and his people would never stop coming after what they wanted, even if it involved hurting innocent people. What if The Dark thought Marley had the book?
Max hit speed dial on his cellphone and waited while it rang once.
“Yeah?” The voice that answered was masculine and familiar. Max wasted no time on polite chit-chat.
“Hey Janus, it’s me. Say, I’m going to need someone to keep an eye on my niece, and things at my bookstore and house in Uptown for a while. There was a break-in at the store earlier and I want to be sure it doesn’t happen again.”
“You know the perps?”
“Not exactly, but I’m pretty sure I know who they work for,” Max replied tersely. “It’s our friend again and this time I think he’s going after Marley.”
“You got it.” There was a click, then a dial tone and Max hung up.
CHAPTER 15
October 30th – 11:30 a.m.
After her tea, Marley made two phone calls. The first call was to Stella, to update her on the progress of the article she was writing about The Dark, but Stella wasn’t answering. Marley left her a detailed message explaining what had happened so far. The second call Marley made was to her friend Alison Arneson at The Kid Factory to see if she could hire several of Alison’s kids to help with the task of straightening up the mess at Sherman’s Rare Bookstore.
Following a few minutes of discussion on the phone with Alison, it was decided that Marley would stop by The Kid Factory to drop off the keys to the bookstore, after which the clean-up crew would be appointed and work at the store commenced. So Marley went downtown to drop off the keys.
The Kid Factory was located in a renovated warehouse space in downtown Minneapolis. A seven-story red brick building with broad-beamed rafters stretching over high ceilings, it had been used to store food and other merchandise back in the early nineteen hundreds. A hand-painted sign in faded colors crumbled from the outside wall. Carter‘s Dry Goods. Marley went inside.
New windows, new wiring and plumbing had all been installed during the extensive remodeling of the warehouse interior. The original floors remained, thick wide planks of smooth oak gilded with age. Huge picture windows contributed a great view and also bright natural light to the interior.
Over time The Kid Factory had acquired a reputation for offering homeless children and families more than just a place to get out of the rain and stay warm. In addition to a kitchen, there was also a small school, clinic, machine shop, library and fine arts center. Not to mention a gym where retired Minneapolis heavyweight boxing champion Redneck Joe taught street kids the rules for a gentleman’s fight. He’d shown Marley a few moves on occasion.
“Marley, over here.” Looking up, Marley saw her best friend Alison sitting in her wheelchair over near the reception desk, waving at her. Blue eyes, light brown shoulder-length hair and slender to the point of apparent fragility, Alison Arneson looked slightly mousy but was tougher than steel.
When her parents died in a plane crash that had left Alison paralyzed from the waist down, she’d inherited both the burden of survivor’s guilt and a huge trust fund at age fifteen. Not only had her parents been absurdly wealthy, they’d also been quite heavily insured.
For a little over a year Alison had been a ward of the State, trapped by a legal system that insisted she receive care in a private Group Home while she fought for her independence. Marley had shown Alison the ropes in the Group Home the best she could, having passed into the State’s care herself a year before following the death of her own parents in a car crash.
Recovery from the crash had been difficult for Alison. When Marley’s parents had passed on, she’d had Uncle Max, her father’s younger brother by marriage, to sponsor and adopt her. But Alison had been left alone in the world except for Rutgers, her family butler. Despite these challenges and with the combined support of Marley, Max and Rutgers, Alison slowly regained her health, mastered the use of a wheelchair and petitioned the court for emancipated legal status when she turned sixteen.
The court granted her request, and Alison had thereafter used some of her insurance settlement to purchase and renovate the battered old brick warehouse down by the river which she’d turned into The Kid Factory. Once she’d moved into the top floor of the fully renovated warehouse, Alison and Rutgers had begun recruiting talented, oddball staff to help her run the place.
Since the accident Alison had developed and patented several of the features of her own custom-built wheelchair, including dual pincers operated by joysticks that helped her retrieve objects at a distance. She had also created an off-road wheelchair, a kind of tripodic ATV design with big tires that allowed her to go alone for “walks” in the woods. But it was never really enough.
The sad truth was that Alison had never reconciled herself to losing the use of her legs.
Over time she and Marley had stopped discussing her handicap. They didn’t exactly avoid the subject, but whenever Alison mentioned the dangero
us and experimental neuro-regenerative procedures available to paraplegics who didn’t mind being used as guinea pigs, they got into an argument.
Because from Marley’s point of view Alison was much better off waiting until the doctors and scientists in charge of developing such experimental treatments had worked out all the kinks. It was just too risky. Alison was healthy and able to do most of what she wanted on her own. Marley would rather see her friend stay safe instead of risking everything she had in the hope that maybe it would give her legs back.
Alison smiled up from her wheelchair as Marley bent down for a hug. “Sorry to hear about your burglary.”
Marley smiled back. “It could have been worse. At least no one got hurt. I’m thinking a lot of the books are salvageable and insurance will cover replacing the others.” Associated Mutual Insurance had been very reassuring on this point.
“There’s been a real run of bad luck for all things Sherman lately, huh?” Alison summed it up sorrowfully. “And all in just over a week. Pretty strange set of coincidences.”
“You said it. Speaking of which, here are the keys.” Marley removed the spare set of keys to Sherman’s Rare Bookstore from her pocket and gave them to Alison, who in turn handed them off to her assistant Rebecca. Rebecca was in charge of rounding up the crew of kids who would spend the next few days cleaning, inventorying and shelving the wreckage at Sherman’s Rare Bookstore.
“I really appreciate the help.” Marley took a seat at the front desk near Alison. “I’m going to be too busy with the seminar over the next few days to even think about cleaning up that mess.” She tucked a strand of hair behind one ear and quickly checked her cell phone for a return call from Stella.
Alison noticed the weary lines around her friend’s eyes and downcast set to Marley’s mouth. “What seminar? Aren’t you supposed to be taking some time off this week?”
“Oh that’s right. I forgot to tell you. I’m on assignment for the magazine. I’m doing an exclusive interview with that motivational speaker who’s in town. He calls himself The Dark.”
Alison’s clear grey eyes narrowed thoughtfully, “The Dark? It’s funny you should mention him. I was reading something in the news about his seminar just this morning.” Her fingers flew over the keyboard of the laptop that was built into her wheelchair. “Here it is. There was a suicide last night at the Marquette, a jumper named Gillian Folsom. One of his cult members.”
“Say what?” Marley frowned as she read the article over Alison’s shoulder. There on virtual page three was a driver’s license photo of the demented woman who’d interrupted Marley’s interview with The Dark the night before. Apparently she had thrown herself to her death from the 34th floor of the Marquette Tower sometime during the night.
“I saw her last night.” Marley murmured softly, shocked. “She came barging in while I was interviewing The Dark. She was really confrontational. She shouted at him about how he couldn’t do something and then his security guards showed up and dragged her out of there. I never saw her again. Maybe that had something to do with the disturbance I heard in the stairwell and why I saw the police afterwards.”
Briefly, Marley described the arrival of the ambulance and police squad car as she’d picked up her Jeep and left the Marquette. No doubt their presence was explained by what had happened to The Dark’s protege. Had his therapy techniques backfired on her when she’d taken his advice and faced her fears? Somehow Marley didn’t think so. The woman had seemed angry, not frightened or suicidal.
Alison’s fingers tap-danced the keyboard again as Marley slowly re-read the article about Gilliam Folsom. “Here. Check this out.” Alison swung the laptop back around to Marley who studied the website Alison had just accessed. It was The Dark’s official website and to Marley it looked perfectly normal. The usual selection of standard drop-down menus hung in cyber space above a smiling picture of The Dark himself.
“Okay so it’s a website. What makes it so special? What am I missing?”
“There’s a constant live feed streaming several sublevels of encrypted data.” Alison squinted up at Marley from behind glasses that she had modified according to her own specifications. Like a decoder ring, Alison’s glasses were wirelessly linked to a special server which helped her ‘see’ data on the screen that would otherwise be invisible to the naked eye. “And it’s constantly streaming subliminals, too.”
A high, piercing scream interrupted Alison and she and Marley turned in surprise to see Rebecca standing nearby along with nine-year-old Hector Gonzalez, one of the five children who had been recruited for the job of restoring order to Sherman’s Books.
It was Hector who was screaming so loudly, his eyes fixed in absolute terror on Alison’s computer screen. As they all watched a dark stain of urine spread across the front of his faded blue jeans. The child had wet himself from pure fright.
CHAPTER 16
October 30th – Noon
Alison put an arm around Hector’s shoulders and cuddled him gently, pee and all. “Oh, honey what’s wrong? “
“No!” Hector pushed her away and eyed her distrustfully, his tears turning into suspicion. “Maybe you’re one of the website people too!”
“This website?” Alison pointed to her laptop and Hector nodded. Alison shook her head. “I don’t know much of anything at all about this website. I’m looking at it for the first time right now.” Hector was clearly relieved. The tension left his stance. He sniffled.
“What’s this all about, dear?”
Hector pointed at the laptop monitor. “The website people killed my parents.” It was a shocking assertion but little by little under Alison’s gentle questioning, Hector’s story emerged.
He told Marley and Alison as well as Rebecca and his fascinated peers that his parents had both been killed by the website people. It was an unlikely tale along the lines of a made-for-TV movie. But even after his crying fit had passed Hector was adamant. No amount of cross-questioning would make him change his story.
One night around a month ago, Hector and his two siblings had been awakened in the dead of night by their parents Manuel and Rosita. Hector’s parents had been behaving very strangely. They’d packed their three children one bag each, taken several boxes of food from the pantry and loaded everyone into the family’s minivan, leaving Miami at 2:00 a.m. with the somewhat implausible story that they were all going on vacation to Canada for a few days.
Hector remembered overhearing his parents talking while they’d thought him asleep in the back of the minivan with his little brother and sister. His parents had been afraid of being followed and had deliberately chosen back roads which they thought would attract less notice on their way north.
The Gonzalez family had made it as far as the Twin Cities, Minnesota, before a black SUV had run their minivan off the road, killing Hector’s parents outright and hospitalizing their three children. Hector had recovered from his injuries relatively quickly. He’d made his escape from the hospital the day that his little sister Evalina and her twin brother Roberto had been transferred by social services to a facility in Minneapolis.
Hector told them he’d been staying at The Kid Factory until he could find a way to reunite with his siblings. It was why he’d wanted the job cleaning up at Sherman’s Books. He was saving money to rent an apartment for his family and redeem his little brother and sister from Social Services. The fact that he was merely nine years old had done nothing to diminish Hector’s determination. Alison made a mental note to look into the matter of Evalina and Roberto Gonzalez first thing after lunch. She had more than a few contacts over at Social Services.
“How do you know it was the website people who were driving the black SUV?” Alison asked. Hector explained that he just knows. He told them that over the twelve-
month period before the family’s dramatic midnight flight from Miami, his parents had become very enthusiastic members of The Dark’s fan group. They had found a form of activity they were both good at and really enjoyed.
They’d met with other couples like themselves and had gone to Dark Swap Meets, Dark Bake Sales and other Dark events. By playing skillfully and winning repeatedly at Dark Tag, the Gonzalezes had ultimately attained higher and higher degrees of access to various restricted levels of The Dark’s website. They had become Insiders.
And alas, over time Manuelo and Rosita Gonzalez’s ever-increasing passion for all things Dark had adversely affected some of the more routine aspects of little Hector’s family life.
For example, when his parents had stopped attending church with their little family every Sunday and had instead begun participating in Dark Reading Circles with the other Darkers and leaving their children at home alone. Or the way supper for the Gonzalez children had eventually been reduced to pre-wrapped, freeze-dried food warmed in a microwave because Hector’s parents had been too busy playing Dark Tag with their friends to cook meals for their children.
Despite these minor bumps in the road things had gone along fairly well for the Gonzalez family for quite some time. Everything had been fine until one afternoon the day before Labor Day almost two months ago when Hector’s parents had returned home early from one of their Dark events quite badly shaken. Deeply upset.
They’d told the children nothing of what had transpired that day but Hector and his siblings had watched curiously as their parents had silently removed their Dark Tag vests, headsets, Dark chaps and boots then stashed them along with their Dark lasers and other accessories in the hallway storage closet.
And locked the closet door.
From that day forward Manuel and Rosita Gonzalez had turned their backs on all things Dark. They’d stopped accessing The Dark’s website and begun avoiding all further Dark events. They had started attending church again. And from there on out the Gonzalez family dinners had been hot, home-cooked and delicious. Things had almost gone back to normal for a few weeks.
