Gathering Dark, Candice Fox [inspirational books for students .TXT] 📗

stop for a few minutes wherever she got to three hours away. So, what—she drives three hours, spends two minutes picking up a lobster roll and hightails it back?”

“Maybe not a lobster roll,” I said. “But maybe she picked up something else. Something that could only be collected in person, by her, and then turned around. Maybe it was something someone paid her eight hundred dollars to go get.”

“It’s just as likely she went somewhere an hour away from the airport, stayed for four hours and then drove back.”

“Okay,” I sighed. “I’m just trying to—”

“That’s not accounting for traffic on the highways, or foot traffic in the airport. Plane delays on the tarmac.”

“You can stop now,” I said.

“I saw a psychic last night,” Sneak announced.

“A psychic? Like a medium?”

“I’ve known her for a long time. She helped cleanse me after the demon stole my roommate’s body. We did a sage ritual.”

I quietly considered Sneak’s ultra-logical dismissal of my San Francisco time theory next to these new pieces of information and chose to say nothing.

“She said Dayly’s under the ground. Deep under the ground. Where it’s dark.”

“Well, I place about as much stock in that as I do in your roommate’s demon problem, Sneak,” I said. “But if she’s right, she might have been seeing Dayly in New York catching the subway. That’s deep underground and dark.”

“Hmm,” Sneak said again.

“Underground parking lot. Someone’s wine cellar. Basement. Storage unit. Dodger Stadium has tunnels underground.”

“Shut up,” Sneak sighed. I watched her for a moment, then jerked the wheel and took an exit off the highway. “What are we doing now? Don’t give me another pep talk. I’ll smack you the fuck out.”

I took the off-ramp under the overpass.

“Al Tasik was watching my apartment last night. If he’s following us now I want to lose him,” I said. I popped my door. “Swap with me.”

“Why?”

“Because you’re the street girl,” I said. “I’m the Brentwood bitch. You’ll know how to shake a tail much better than me.”

Sneak got into the driver’s seat. A small smile crossed her lips. I was expecting her to have some fun winding around the streets, but she slammed her foot down on the accelerator and sailed through the red-lit intersection, causing a pickup truck to veer dangerously close to the bridge pylon. She was heading for a field of warehouses, dusty dirt roads between huge steel walls, that stretched as far as the eye could see. Sneak blindly swung the car down an alleyway between the warehouses and I shuffled up in my chair, grabbing my seat belt.

“Jesus, Sneak! There could be people in here!”

“Well, they better get out of my way,” she said, flooring it. The dust cloud behind us lifted and swirled as we cut wildly between the warehouses, ramming the car sideways into turns, grinding in the dirt. Sneak started laughing and wailing after a while and, despite myself, I joined in. We passed a storage facility auction, where groups of men and women stood bidding on the contents of a row of units yawning open in the blazing sun. I caught a glimpse of old furniture, tubs of toys spilling out over stripped-down motorcycle bodies and stacked boxes. Hands raised to bid. We covered the crowd in dust as we sped past. Sneak was laughing her head off, tears running from her eyes.

The San Jasinte police station had art deco leanings, might once have been a pizza restaurant when prospects for a bigger population out here were imagined. It was beige, surrounded by bushes, and set on the corner of a block between squat, neat houses. Sneak parked a block down from the station and we swapped positions again, sat watching the police station as though expecting Officer Marcus Lemon to emerge and head directly for us to submit to an interview.

“I don’t think we should go in,” I said. “Not in the least because we can’t legally be seen together. But they’ll also have cameras. Jessica thinks whoever’s after Dayly might have broken into my apartment because I made myself known when I went in to report my car stolen.”

“We don’t have to go into the station to find out if he’s there,” Sneak said, drawing her phone out of her handbag. “That’s amateur hour.”

She googled a number, dialed and waited. I sat beside her and watched. When she spoke it was with an old crone’s voice, high and gravelly and dry-throated, a voice so convincing I was struck dumb at the sound of it.

“Hello? I’m calling with the intention of contacting my grandson, Marcus,” Sneak croaked. “Lemon is the name, Officer Marcus Lemon … I’m calling because the young man in question is supposed to pick me up this evening at my home to take me to a dance class at the local hall, six o’clock sharp. I’d like to know if he’s still coming … What’s that? You’ll have to speak up … Well, I didn’t suppose in the first instance that a man would be allowed to have his personal cellular phone on him while serving and protecting the community … My, my, yes, I’ll do just that.”

She hung up.

“He’s not in there,” she said. “He’s out on patrol.”

“That was simply amazing,” I said.

“I do the sex hotline in winter when it’s cold out,” Sneak explained. “The old-lady voice is quite popular. I can also do innocent schoolgirl. Horny single mom. Lonely female trucker. The president’s bored secretary left all alone in the Oval Office while the prez is out on the campaign trail.”

“Jesus, that last one is a rather elaborate fantasy. Why does she have to be the president’s secretary in particular?”

“So she can do stuff to herself on the president’s desk while portraits of important historical guys watch on.”

“Okay,” I said regretfully.

“You asked.”

“Well, I wish the performance just now could have helped us find Lemon. We know he’s not here. But he could be anywhere.”

“This will help us find him,” Sneak said. She bent and pulled a heavy gray radio unit out of