He looked one last time at Ashley, who looked as shocked as Conch felt.
Relief, confusion and fear rotated across her face like a movie of emotions.
The fear was the worst. She was probably thinking what he was thinking: that Troy was coming back.
But as the black finally came over him, Conch knew somehow that wouldn’t happen.
He could feel it.
The monster was gone.
WHEN THEY SCRAMBLED through the church gate, the world erupted again in color and light. A repetitive metal on metal sound enveloped them, as if time were jangling its keys, and Kyle felt the blue condense inside him and nearly implode.
Breathe, Kyle! Breathe! He heard The Gray Man shout.
They were moving at a speed beyond imagination, head first through a tunnel of molten rock and black smoke. The compression on his chest made it hard to take in any air, and when he finally did, it was with a mouthful of smoke. He coughed and covered his face as a brutal heat surrounded them.
Detective Villa was screaming somewhere off to his left. Kyle looked and saw why. The detective was tumbling, head over heels, flailing, his hands striking the walls of the tunnel at times as his fingers clenched for balance.
The Gray Man was at an equal distance between them, but Kyle watched as he swooped away, covering the twenty feet or so that it took to grab Detective Villa and tuck him under one of his wings. Then he swooped back towards Kyle, nearly colliding with him, before pulling up short and embracing Kyle under his other wing.
The orange and red colors of the world they’d left behind were now living things, clutching and clawing at them, half-repelled by the white light that lay ahead, but determined to get to them.
If not all of them, at least one.
It grabbed Kyle’s ankle, burning his skin, but The Gray Man’s grip held.
Hold on. Both of you! The Gray Man screamed.
Pulling them in tight to his chest, he folded the top of his wings over their heads, shielding their faces, and then they plunged forwards.
Kyle, still following orders, was just trying to breathe. He wondered if the detective could hear what he was hearing: a world, a universe, a place of utter torture screaming out in utter frustration at their escape.
There was a loud pop and then white rushed in and cocooned them in warm safety.
Then? Silence. Stillness. Complete calm.
The Gray Man’s grip on him loosened and his wing folded back.
They were in space, the vast, beautiful starkness of space, amid planets that Kyle could neither recognize nor name. He looked over at The Gray Man, who looked exhausted, and beyond him to Detective Villa, whose eyes were wide with wonder as a smile swam across his face.
We made it, Kyle thought.
The Gray Man looked at him and offered a slight grin, then nodded.
They floated at an angle towards a small meteor, which was oblong and covered in silver specks. At a distance it seemed small, but as they grew closer it became apparent that it was massive. Next to it, seeming to bend the light around it ever so slightly, there was what looked to Kyle to be a crack in space.
Not a crack; a crease, The Gray Man said. Where we can pass from here back to where you both belong.
Detective Villa still hadn’t spoken. He seemed awash in wonder as he craned his neck from side to side and gathered in all that he was seeing. Kyle took a moment to do the same, seeing full and deep into the tapestry of the massive, expanding solar systems around them.
“Does He ever stop creating?” Kyle asked softly.
This time The Gray Man smiled wide. No, He does not.
They floated past the meteor and Kyle felt a gentle tug from the crease. After a few moments the tug strengthened and they were pulled, solid and straight, into the center of the fold.
Again Kyle found himself inside a tunnel of starlight and color, just as he had when he’d passed from earth after plunging with Victoria into the portal in her house. Except this time the tunnel seemed to be moving sideways and up, an elongated “s” that spun off ahead of them in stomach-churning speeds.
Sound was gone. Then, even the light went dark. In pitch blackness for a few moments Kyle was about to panic, and then he simply awoke, as if he’d been taking a long nap, on a hillside covered in deep grass and beneath a massive oak tree with limbs that spread out like thick arms above and over him.
Sitting up, he felt drained and weak. Next to him, Detective Villa was still out, lying on his side and snoring softly.
Trying to gain his bearings, to get a fix on reality, Kyle dug his fingers into the soil below, feeling its moistness. Above them the same blue sky that he’d grown up playing beneath stretched out in all directions, and there, off in the distance and frozen like a big yo-yo, was the sun, burning bright, unencumbered by any clouds.
Earth. They were home. Somehow. Someway.
He thought of Victoria, lost now to that horrid place, forever, and he shuddered. What an unspeakable fate it was, to spend an eternity there. Then he thought of Michiko, willingly staying behind to find someone and to save them.
Like The Gray Man had come and saved him.
Kyle looked down the hillside. The Gray Man stood still as if he were waiting for something, his arms folded across his chest and his head bowed, leaning his weight slightly forwards, as if he were praying.
After a few moments a figure with a white hue appeared. Kyle marveled; it was another angel. He and The Gray Man embraced warmly, as if they knew each other, but the mood didn’t last long.
At first they seemed calm, but then The Gray Man was caught off guard with something that was said. He whipped his head up, stunned at whatever he’d heard. A short argument broke out between them and then they fell into silence. It didn’t matter. Their body language conveyed everything: something was wrong.
Kyle was stunned when they both turned to look at him.
Only then, in their looks of reluctance and concern, did he realize that whatever it was, it had to do with him.
The Gray Man broke away and approached him as his friend disappeared.
“What is it?” Kyle asked.
“Kyle, I…”
“Gray? What’s going on?” Kyle pressed as confusion and worry spread through him like a virus.
“Kyle, look, I’m sorry.”
“What? What is it?”
The Gray Man looked at him grimly. “Something bad has happened.”
CHAPTER 32
AS THEY PULLED DOWN the street to Troy Forester’s house, Parker noticed a volunteer deputy’s truck parked at the curb, covered in a thick layer of dust, magnetic lights flashing on the roof. Kendall had called the two volunteers to duty on the way here and had told them to check on the address Conch had left on Kendall’s voice mail.
Parked in the middle of the street were a fire truck and a paramedic vehicle. The entire street flashed in a Morse code of trouble, varying hues of red and blue lighting up cars and the fronts of homes.
Sheriff Conch’s cruiser was parked ominously in the driveway. Doors closed. Lights out.
“Dammit!” Kendall yelled, banging the dashboard with his right hand. He sped up and slammed on the brakes, nearly skidding into the back end of the fire truck.
In Afghanistan, Parker had learned to be ready for it, the world slowing down the way it did, before things went really bad.
Still, when it happened here, on this little side street, in this dirt-washed tiny town in the middle of nowhere, it was somehow more frightening.
A blacked-hair heavyset man wearing a blue t-shirt with a sheriff’s badge pinned to it came running down the driveway, waving his arms urgently at Kendall to come quickly. Jamming the transmission into park, Kendall practically launched himself out the driver’s door and began running at a full bolt down the driveway, but all Parker needed to do was look at the volunteer deputy’s face to know that it was not going to be good. Not good at all.
As he exited the car, Parker took note of Troy
Forester’s house: it was unremarkable. Somewhere there was an FBI profiler that would be saying “but of course” right about now, but it just might be too late for that, regardless. They knew who they were after now. The only questions left were had Conch gotten him first? And if he had, what had happened?
As Parker made his way down the driveway, he saw a group of firemen carrying Conch out of the garage. Conch’s white hair swayed, not from any wind, but from the way he was rocking back and forth in the sea of their arms. He was in trouble: there was a deep, gaping wound in his neck that was not bleeding enough.
Which meant he’d already bled way too much.
Kendall was right behind them, shouting his name, but Conch was unresponsive, his eyes closed, his body limp. The volunteer deputy was pulling Kendall back towards the garage, Kendall barely complying before freezing in the doorway, stunned by whatever he was seeing inside. Parker hurried to join them.
All the way there, Parker was hoping that what Kendall was seeing was a very dead Troy Forester.
Instead, as he entered the garage behind Kendall and his eyes adjusted to the room, Parker saw two girls, naked and chained against adjoining walls, eyes wide with a mixture of fear, shame and relief. Having seen their pictures, and having previously met one of them, Parker recognized them immediately: Ashley Barton, the liquor store cashier, and Jasmine White, the Denny’s waitress. One of the firemen was covering them with sheets while a few others worked at loosening their chains.
Immediately, Parker went into detective mode. He couldn’t help it.
The room was like something out of a horror movie: off to the left was a workbench stained with blood with tie ropes on each corner. A “v” had been cut into one end and Parker guessed this was how Forester tied them up and raped them.
A tack wall over the bench was covered in what looked like the kind of tassels that were on graduating caps in high school or college, except these tassels were not coiled, but loose. Some of them were even curly and others, upon closer inspection… had split ends.
They were tied bundles of hair. Blond. Brown. Red. Black. Some two-tone, others with blue or pink streaks. Down in the ravine, Parker imagined, they would find matching heads of hair for each of these tassels.
“Dear God,” Kendall mumbled, glancing over.
“Always with the trophies, these guys, huh?” Parker grunted.
“There’s got to be seventy or—”
But Parker had just finished counting. “Eighty-six.”
At this statement, even the firemen stopped for a split second, shook their heads, and then got back to work.
Ashley Barton, who had broken down into a sea of sobs and “thank God”s started trembling, evidently in shock, while Jasmine White, arms spread and head collapsed to one side, was barely coherent. Her left hand and wrist were mangled, and blood had poured down her forearm, elbow and across her ribs and right thigh. A paramedic went to work immediately on her side wound.
“She tried like crazy to get out of it, huh?” the volunteer deputy asked Kendall.
“No!” Ashley Barton said, coming suddenly alive. “She did get out of it. She almost got him, too. With a hammer. But—” She stopped suddenly and moaned. After a few seconds Kendall approached her and put an arm on her shoulder as the firemen continued working on the chains with a portable blowtorch.
“But what?” Kendall asked.
“She barely missed him!” Ashley screamed. “He got lucky! Can you believe that? How does someone like that get lucky?”
The chains came loose and the fireman caught her. As she slid off the wall, Ashley continued. “We waited for days. He was going crazy. We had to try.”
Parker squinted. “Crazy?”
“Yes. No. I mean, he was always fucking crazy. Yeah.” And with this, a small fit of hysterical giggles overtook her. She stifled them with some effort, and then looked at Parker. “But the last few days, he was talking to people. Plotting some shit about Canada. Planning.”
“What do you mean by ‘plotting’?” Kendall asked.
“Canada?” Parker added.
“He thinks he works for the devil or some shit,” Ashley half-screamed. “He sat here for hours and pretended like he was talking to him, on and off.”
“What was he saying?”
Jasmine was now cut free from the wall as well and lowered gently to the ground. Up to this point she’d been speechless, but now she began to cry too. With her arms free, she instantly wrapped them around the shin and ankle of one of the firemen.
Upon seeing Jasmine cry, Ashley joined in. They were balls of emotion, babbling incoherently. Kendall turned with a look of frustration to Parker.
“I got it,” Parker said. “Get to your partner.”
Kendall nodded, his eyes wide, and left the garage. The volunteer deputy, not knowing what else to do, followed him.
Parker was glad, because neither of them had the stomach to do what came next. He took a few steps forwards and yelled at Ashley. “Ms. Barton! Please. I need you to focus. We need your help.”
“Shit, easy man,” one of the firemen said. “She could go into shock at any minute.”
“I know that!” Parker snapped back. “That’s exactly why I need her to talk to me. Now. Ms. Barton!”
Ashley had been unable to take her eyes off Jasmine the entire time.
It was no different than with the prisoners of war they’d rescued outside Koresh: two UN workers and a contractor from Blackwater. One of the UN workers, an Ethiopian man, had been the “anchor” for the other two men, the one they’d turned to for guidance and strength throughout the entire ordeal. So much so that, even after being rescued, they had to be flown out and kept together for two days afterwards. It was obvious to Parker that throughout this entire, horrific ordeal, here in this garage of terror, Jasmine had been Ashley’s anchor.
“Ms. Barton!” Parker shouted again.
Finally, Ashley looked at him, her eyes glazed over and a bit dreamy. “We’re okay now, right?” she squeaked, her cheeks wet with tears. “He’s not coming back, is he?”
Parker shook his head. “No. He’s gone. I promise. But we’ve got to find him. You said he was talking about going to Canada?”
“Yes! Canada. He printed maps,” Ashley said, looking over at a small computer that sat with a printer on a tiny desk in the corner. Near the desk was a tripod mounted with a camcorder. “A bunch of them. I know because he dropped one on the way out and had to stop and pick it up.”
“When?”
At first Ashley looked confused, then it clicked again, and her eyes filled with horror. “Right after he attacked the sheriff. That poor man. Oh my God! Is… he… ?”
Parker ignored the question. He honestly didn’t know. But that answer might be what finally sent her over the edge.
“Did he say where he was going to in Canada?”
“Where?” she asked, confused. Two paramedics brought in heavy wool blankets, each taking one of the girls and getting their vitals.
“Yes. Like…” Parker struggled to think for a second. “Like Ontario, or Toronto?”
“No. No he didn’t. But…” She blinked abnormally, four or five times, as if she were struggling with her memory and the effort was nearly making her pass out. “There was a girl too!”
Parker was stunned. “A girl? Here? Who?”
“No. Not here. In Canada.”
“Who?”
“Her name was…” Her eyes went wide before she continued. “He’s going to get her next! Oh my God. You have to stop him! He’s going to get her next!” Ashley began struggling on the floor with the paramedics, one arm stretched out to Parker, the other towards Jasmine.
“That’s enough,” one of the paramedics said to Parker.
“Just a few more questions. Ashley, please. Focus.” Going with her first name worked. She calmed down and looked at Parker intently.
“What girl are you talking about?” he pressed.
As if splashed with
a bucket of lucidity, Ashley answered. “Her name was Tammy. He didn’t say her last name. Just Tammy. He kept hearing voices and saying he’d get her next. He promised it.”
Across the room there was a slight commotion as Jasmine White tried to roll to one side.
“No,” Jasmine uttered weakly. Blood spilled from her left side and fell to join the pool of blood at her feet.
“What?” Ashley asked.
“No,” Jasmine said again, this time with a little more strength in her voice.
Parker stepped towards Jasmine and leaned over the back of the paramedic to look at her. “What did you say, Ms. White?”
“Not T-t-Tammy.” She was fading quickly.
“What was it then?”
Jasmine’s eyes locked with Parker’s, and he was struck with that feeling he’d had while driving to Beaury, the feeling of being out of control, when he’d seen the aftermath of that accident on the highway and been overcome with that feeling of being part of something way bigger than himself.
“H-he w-wasn’t saying Tammy. It was something different.”
Parker was sure that he’d misheard her. As the paramedic hooked an IV up to her arm, Jasmine’s eyes fluttered.
“Ms. White!” Parker half-shouted. “What was the name?”
Jasmine’s eyes opened weakly. She shook her head slightly. “I can’t remember. I’m sorry.”
Then Parker was pushed away by one of the fireman who’d arrived with a stretcher.
Parker stepped back to give them room, stunned, his mind racing. After spinning on his heels, he crossed the garage in three long strides to the computer desk. The printer was empty. Ashley said he’d grabbed whatever he’d printed in a hurry, after attacking Sheriff Conch, and fled.
The screen saver was three bouncing cubes. Parker pushed the space bar. The map came up, still there on the screen. He blinked in shock. The address box seemed impossible: 1645 Haven Way, La Canada, CA.
“Shit.” Parker knew that address. It was the Fasano’s house. Parker and Napoleon had gone there the night that Caitlyn Hall was found dead, to interview his wife.
Ashley had said the deliveryman was headed to Canada, for someone named Tammy.
A Million to One: (The Millionth Trilogy Book 2) Page 32
