by Jonas Saul
“She stopped and talked to this bum. Then she gave him something and ran away—”
“Where are you exactly?”
“Near the corner of Church Street and Colborne.”
“I’m on my way but tell me what else happened.”
“I stayed back. About two blocks away when she stopped. After handing the bum something, she ran off to the right through a parking lot. I lost sight of her but thought I’d pick her up again when I got to the bum.”
“And?”
“When I started running, two guys ran across the street and talked to the same bum.”
“What? Those are probably the guys that are after her.”
“One of them grabbed what looked like a cell phone from the bum and tossed it onto a truck that was going by. Then they ran in the same direction Sarah had gone.”
Aaron was running now, the wind making it hard to hear on the phone.
“What else?” he shouted.
“When I got to the corner, the two guys that stopped at the bum were gone too.”
“I see you. I’m a block up. Text Alex and Daniel to join us.”
Aaron ran the rest of the block, passing two sets of foot patrol cops on the way, but neither paid any attention.
He got to Benjamin and put his hands on his knees to catch his breath. Seconds later, Alex and Daniel joined them.
“What do we do?” Benjamin asked.
“We find Sarah,” Aaron said.
“I know. But how?”
Daniel stepped inside their circle. “How about calling the police? There seems to be quite a few down here today. If it’s the same guys from the mall massacre, then Sarah’s in more trouble than we can probably help her with.”
Aaron frowned.
“Maybe he’s right,” Benjamin said. “Did you read what the witnesses said? All those guys had to do was touch someone and they died.”
“We can’t call the cops,” Aaron said between breaths.
“I hope this isn’t a recurrence of last year,” Benjamin said. “Doing it all on your own shit.”
Aaron frowned at him. “No. Sarah talked to the cops in the back of the dojo. I overheard her talking to a cop named Parkman. She said she trusted him. When she was talking to Parkman, she told him to watch out for Waller.”
“Who is this Waller guy?” Alex asked.
“He’s the guy all over the news the last few days looking for Sarah, claiming she had something to do with the killings at the Allandale Centre. At least that’s how it sounds.”
“Okay, then it’s solved,” Daniel said. “We don’t call the cops. We call this Parkman dude.”
Aaron told his three-man team to spread out and look around the area for any sign of Sarah or the two thugs as pulled his cell phone out and dialed the police, hoping they could transfer him to a cop named Parkman.
Then he remembered something else Sarah said. She would buy Parkman a box of toothpicks when this was all over.
The police operator picked up.
“Hello,” Aaron said. “I’m looking for a cop by the name of Parkman who is up from America and who may be assisting on a case with Detective Waller. He’s the one who loves toothpicks. It’s regarding Sarah Roberts.”
Chapter 28
Parkman’s phone buzzed in his pocket.
“Yeah?”
“Hi, it’s dispatch. I got a guy on the phone who said he has information on Sarah Roberts and he said he would only talk to you.”
“Put him through.” Parkman exited the Gardiner Expressway and started north on Yonge Street. There was a click, silence, and then an open line with traffic going by in the background.
“Hello, Parkman?”
“Yeah, you got him.”
“How do I know it’s you?”
“Who is this?”
“No, it doesn’t work like that. Figure out a way to prove to me you’re Parkman, Sarah’s friend, then I’ll tell you why I called.”
“You asked for Parkman, right?”
“Yeah.”
“They put you through to me. That’s not good enough for you?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Sarah said she couldn’t trust the cops. I have a history of the same thing. I don’t care who the fuck they put me through to. All I want to know is if you’re Parkman. If you are, Sarah’s in trouble and needs your help.”
“I know she’s in trouble. That’s why I’m downtown Toronto driving around, trying to find her.”
“Along with a thousand other cops.”
“I’m seeing that,” Parkman said as a second pair of officers in uniform walked by his car.
“You’re still not saying anything to prove you’re Parkman.”
“What do you want me to say? Shit, just tell me what’s going on.”
“No deal. I’m hanging up unless you talk fast.”
“Okay, hold up. I’ve known Sarah since she got away from her kidnapper about four or five years ago. She has friends who just died.” Parkman choked up for a second, and then continued. He talked fast, rambling on about everything from Sarah’s parents to Europe and his helping her in Budapest. He finished with his love of toothpicks and her always teasing him about them.
“That’ll work,” the caller said. “I’m Aaron Stevens. A friend.”
“How do you know what I said was the truth?”
“No time for that, Parkman. Sarah’s in trouble.”
“Geez, sorry.”
“We followed her—”
“Who followed her?”
“Just listen. No wait, where are you?”
Parkman strained to see the sign coming up. “I’m on Yonge and … King Street.”
“Turn right on King.”
“Why?”
“I’m directing you to where we are.”
“Good timing. I was just about to go through this intersection.”
“When you hit Church Street, turn right again. You’ll see us on the side of the street before Colborne. We’ll watch for you. What are you driving?”
“A red Chrysler 300.”
“Okay. You’re about a minute away.”
Parkman ended the call and hit the gas. He turned at Church and saw them right away. He parked in the lot beside them, got out, locked the car, checked that his weapon was secure and stepped up to the foursome.
“You the one who called?”
“Yeah, Aaron,” he held out his hand. “Alex, Daniel and Benjamin.”
Each man shook.
“Now,” Parkman said. “Start from the beginning.”
Aaron told him about Sarah training with him in the back of the dojo and how she got a message from her sister. He covered everything, right up until his decision to follow her and protect her with the help of his trusted instructors. But they lost her at this exact spot.
“What did the note say? That’s how you find Sarah.”
“I didn’t memorize it. It told her that Esmerelda was dead. The rest was something about her running into a yoga studio. We argued a little about that. I said why not run into a dojo or a police station. Why a yoga studio?”
Parkman did a full scan of the area and stopped when he saw a yoga studio on the other side of the parking lot.
“How long ago did you lose her?” he said as he walked away.
“At least ten minutes now. Maybe fifteen.”
“And you didn’t think to try the yoga studio over there.”
“Oh shit, didn’t see it.”
All five men sprinted across the parking lot.
Chapter 29
Sarah ran through the front doors of the building and stopped to see how close the two Rapturites were. They had paused to talk to the vagrant on the sidewalk. She wondered if they’d found the cell phone, turned it off or destroyed it.
She took the stairs two at a time and entered the front room of the yoga studio. There was a main desk where a woman sat, and two leather chairs in opposing corners.
“Can
I help you?” the woman asked.
“Yes. How many people are here today?”
“Excuse me?”
Sarah ran to the window and looked down at the street. The two goons had finished talking with the bum and started across the parking lot toward her.
Options disappeared. Her hand gripped Waller’s gun as she walked back to the woman at the main desk. She pulled out the weapon and aimed it at the woman.
“I said, how many people are here?”
The woman screamed, put her hands to her face and pushed back on her swivel chair, her wide eyes not leaving the weapon.
“Focus, woman. Where are all the people?” Sarah asked. “In a class?”
The woman nodded, her hair falling out of her loose bun.
“Is there another stairwell out of here?”
She nodded again.
Sarah grabbed her arm, lifted her off the chair and pulled her through the double doors that led into the studio. She locked them behind her and a wave of heat hit her.
“Why is it so hot in here? Air conditioner broken?”
“Bikram,” the woman mumbled.
“What? Speak clearly.”
“Bikram yoga.”
She pushed the woman toward the students who sat cross-legged on the floor in rows, staring at her, sweat dripping.
“Everyone up,” Sarah yelled. “Now.”
The yoga students rose as one without using their hands.
“If you want to live, leave through the back entrance of the building. There are two men coming in the front right now that caused the killings at the mall downtown. If you’re caught here, you will die in a yoga studio massacre.”
They didn’t hesitate. As a unit, the students ran for the back corner, leaving their mats behind. Some whimpered and one woman panicked near hysterics. Sarah followed them to the rear and spoke to the receptionist.
“What’s bikram yoga?”
“Hot yoga.”
Sarah grabbed her shoulder and held her a moment longer. “Explain it.”
“We do twenty-six poses over a ninety-minute period at over one-hundred degrees.”
Everyone had cleared the stairs in front of them.
“Interesting.” But she was out of time for chatting. “Go down with your friends and call the police.”
“You want me to call the—”
“Yes. Ask for Detective Waller. Tell him where we are. I’m Sarah Roberts.”
“You’re Sarah Roberts …” the woman lunged as Sarah checked over her shoulder to see if the white-faced goons had made it to the yoga studio door yet.
The gun flew from her hands, hit the top of the stairwell and clanged over the railing, heading to the bottom. Sarah reacted, but it was too late. She shoved the woman hard, closed and slammed the door, locking it from the inside.
“Shit,” she mumbled. “Now what?”
She had nothing to defend herself with. The temperature in the room seemed to increase with each passing second.
Why the hell would people willingly do yoga at this temperature?
Maybe it was a good thing she didn’t have the gun. It would be too tempting to just shoot the idiots when they busted through the door. Vivian had told her to not shoot them.
Bring it on, then. I’ll play the victim.
Someone tried the doorknob across the room. Sarah found a chair, moved it to the center of the room and sat down to wait.
The police were on their way. She had them track her. Any minute Waller would barge in and arrest her pursuers. In the meantime, she would fight them off with whatever street fighting she knew, combined with what Aaron had taught her.
Someone banged into the door. They were trying to break the door down.
Five seconds later, after two more attempts, the door gave.
The two men stepped into the room, a needle in each of their hands.
“Hello, Sarah. It’s time. The Rapture is upon us.”
Detective Waller screamed into his radio as he came up behind a flatbed truck with his lights flashing and siren wailing.
“This can’t be Sarah. She wouldn’t be in a fucking truck.”
When the truck stopped at a red light, Waller got out of his cruiser and ran alongside. He pulled his sidearm as he got to the passenger side and jumped up to look inside.
The driver started in his seat at the sight of the weapon.
Waller shouted, “We thought you had somebody with you.”
The driver shook his head, wide-eyed. “Nobody’s here.”
Waller jumped down, but not before seeing a cell phone sitting in the middle of the empty flatbed.
“Shit.”
He ran back to his cruiser and got on the radio, telling everyone that they’d lost her.
His cell phone rang.
Dispatch was putting someone through who knew where Sarah was.
“Hello?”
“Yeah,” a girl said, clearly out of breath, almost hysterical. “She barged in, kicked everyone out and she had a gun and she …”
“Slow down,” Waller said. “Who are you?”
“I’m Debbie. I operate a yoga studio on Colborne on the second floor.”
“Okay, take a breath. Tell me what happened.”
Horns beeped behind Waller. He had flicked off the flashing lights and sat parked in front of traffic in an unmarked cruiser. He put his car in gear and pulled away.
“A girl walked into my studio, like three or four minutes ago, pulled out a gun and ordered me and my students out the back way. We’re all huddled in the alley.”
“Where?”
“I just told you,” she sounded exasperated. “Colborne Street, near Church Street. Yoga studio on the second floor.”
“Why call me?” Waller asked as he performed a U-turn and gunned his engine.
“She said her name was Sarah Roberts. She told me to call the cops. Then she used your name.”
“I’m on my way. Wait outside.”
“No problem. And I got her gun.”
That’s mine.
“Good. Keep it.”
He hung up and got on the radio, asking all units to converge on the yoga studio.
Sarah wouldn’t get away again.
“Before you do whatever it is you’ve come to do,” Sarah said. “Tell me why.”
The ugly one stepped closer. Nausea and fear crept through her. She had an urge to shove her hand into his throat hard enough to collapse his trachea so he would die squirming like a landed fish on the floor, but she controlled her impulse to violence. Vivian knew better. Sarah had to trust the process. Things would play out without her killing anyone.
But one touch from either one of these two men and she would die. Choices, choices …
“The time is upon us,” Ugly said from three feet away. “End times. As the Bible has predicted. We were given the opportunity to Rapture the good ones, the people God has asked to come home. After all that you’ve done, Sarah, you need to go. It is your time.”
“Are you Simon Peter?” she asked.
He faltered and looked at his partner. Then back at her. “How did you get my name?”
“Same way you get the information your brother Matthew gives you.”
He looked genuinely stunned. “You know about Matthew, too?”
Her mind raced with possible escape plans, ways to run. Could she get seriously hurt going through the front window?
“Vivian told me.”
Sarah wiped her forehead as sweat collected and rolled into her eyes. She had to keep her eyes clear to watch Simon. Simon’s partner wiped his forehead too, wetness appearing under his arms.
But Simon wasn’t sweating. He didn’t look hot at all. The tips of his ears were red and his face had gained some color, but he wasn’t sweating one drip. The lights in the yoga studio were bright enough to see perspiration.
“You really are something,” Simon said. “But it is time to go.”
