by Ray, Marika
“Hey! I will not.” Barely, just barely, did I resist the urge to stick my tongue out at her. While I hadn’t exactly lived an adventurous life thus far, I yearned for it.
She shook her head at me. We’d had this conversation since the first day we moved here and I started working for the newspaper. The first month, she reassured me that something would happen and I’d be up to my eyeballs in exciting stuff. But then nothing happened and after a while she just started rolling her eyes at me and changing the subject like I was a lost cause.
“I gotta get to work and then we need to go to the grocery store later today. We’re out of everything.” She hopped up and walked to the door. She worked as a teller at a local bank and they were sticklers for being on time.
I made a sound in the back of my throat. “One day we’re going to get fat.”
She snorted and said goodbye as she grabbed her bag and walked out the front door. She and I ate more than four teenage boys put together. I had to keep this reporter’s job just to pay for our monthly food bill. Thankfully, we both had good genetics, so we never put on weight.
Well, I thought I had good genetics. Since I was adopted, I guess I didn’t really know.
I grabbed my phone to scroll through social media while I finished my coffee. Once I was fully awake, I texted my mom back to see if I could swing by mid-morning for a visit. That would leave me enough time to write my article this afternoon on the whale sighting from two days ago and how we should expect to see more given the way the warm water flowed closer to shore this year. See? This was the stuff I was stuck investigating. Whale migration.
I wanted smuggling, conspiracies, maybe a politician or two with a drug habit. Just something to investigate that made my heart thump in my chest. Was that so much to ask?
Dragging myself out of bed finally, I texted a couple contacts Bob gave me when I started at the paper. Didn’t hurt to put some feelers out and see what was going on in our fine beach town. I got ready quickly and headed out to my car. Hopping in, I pulled out onto the street and saw a guy sitting in his truck a few buildings down. He glanced away quickly and while he could have been doing anything, something about him seemed odd. As I drove past, staring him down, he turned his head so I couldn’t see his face, which only made me more suspicious.
All I got was a quick glimpse of dark blond hair and a beard. He could have been nineteen or ninety for all I could tell. Then again, I saw a lady straight out of Tombstone on the sidewalk last night, so my eyes could be playing tricks on me. The poor guy was probably just trying to find an address and I was staring him down like a crazy lady.
The traffic gods were on my side and I got to my parents’ house in under thirty minutes. My mom had the front door open before I even got out of my car.
“Alithea!”
I stifled my laugh and took heart in the fact she wanted my company. She was a little overdramatic about it considering I’d seen her just last week, but it was nice to be wanted.
“Hey, Mom.” I came up the porch and gave her a big hug. She seemed so tiny next to my five-foot-eight frame. “Where’s Dad?”
“He should be back any second now.” She pulled me into the house, her arm tight around my waist. “How’s the job going?”
I took off my purse and placed it on the messy dining room table before joining Mom on the couch. “Oh, you know. Mostly the same.” I shrugged and tried to cover my disappointment.
“That’s good.” Mom nodded and turned serious. “You don’t want any craziness. The world is a scary place sometimes, Ali. While I don’t want you to get mixed up in it, I sure am proud of you for wanting to be a reporter and shed light on things. That’s part of fixing what’s broken. You gotta start by making people aware of what’s really going on.”
She squeezed my hand and I let her pride in me ease some of the agitation I let fester with each lame assignment. The front door swung open and my dad walked in, his arms full of grocery bags.
“Sorry I’m late.” Dad gave me a wink and hustled to the kitchen to unload. I hopped up and followed him, wanting to help. From the looks of things, he’d nearly bought out the store.
“Feeding an army?” I teased him while putting the cold stuff in the fridge.
“Yeah. You.” Dad smirked at me and I couldn’t disagree. That was a frequent joke in our house. I’d been eating them out of house and home for years now according to my parents.
“I’m only here for an hour or two. You didn’t need to buy all this.”
Dad pulled me into a hug, his aftershave a familiar scent that made everything seem right in the world. “I know, but I figured if we had good food, we could get you to stay longer. And we both know I’m not above bribery when it comes to my own daughter.”
I laughed and snuggled into his chest just a moment longer before breaking free and swinging the refrigerator back open. “Well, in that case…”
We both grabbed some snacks and headed back into the living room to sit around and chat.
“You look tired, kiddo. Are you getting enough sleep?” Mom zeroed in on the black smudges under my eyes I’d tried to hide this morning.
I swallowed my mouthful of apple. “Yeah, normally, but I was out late last night doing some surveillance.”
Dad sat forward in his recliner, his bushy eyebrows squished together in a straight line like a caterpillar. “Surveillance? What for?”
“I got a lead about a secret group of guys meeting late at night in HB. I thought it sounded kind of odd, so I went to check it out.” I took another huge bite of apple and talked around it. They were used to my constant eating. “It was a total bust, though. Nobody showed up, so I left after an hour of freezing my butt off.”
My parents glanced at each other meaningfully, which was odd. Normally, Mom lectured me and Dad was the comic relief, smoothing over my irritation of Mom’s constant worrying and lecturing. This tag team effort was a well-oiled machine by now. They shouldn’t need glances and silent communication to know how to do this song and dance.
Dad spoke first, further confusing me. “I don’t know where your lead came from, but I’d stay far away from thugs meeting in secret. That’s bad news that an eighteen-year-old should not be dealing with. You hear me?”
“Um…well—”
Mom interrupts me, mumbling to my dad, “I knew Huntington Beach was a bad idea.”
“Now, Becky. We have to let her spread her wings. We’ve raised her right and she’ll make good decisions.”
“Hello? I’m, like, right here. I can hear you.” I hopped up from the couch and interrupted their conversation. It was like they forgot I was even in the room.
Both heads swiveled in my direction, their eyes wide.
“I’m okay. Nothing happened, all right?” I saw Mom’s eyes fill with tears. Bending down, I gave her a hug. “Hey. It’s okay. I’ll be fine. I promise.” Their reaction was way over the top.
Dad pressed his lips together and I regretted even mentioning last night. I knew better than to bring up how I was potentially in danger. Bondi didn’t call them Mr. & Mrs. Safety for no reason. They’d always been super protective of me, but I got it. They couldn’t have biological children, so they adopted me when I was a baby. I was their one shot at being parents and they got a little carried away with making sure I was okay. They went to church and preferred a calm, steady, predictable life. Nothing wrong with that.
I just happened to prefer a little more excitement.
“You know we’re all about helping people, Ali. But you do it one person at a time, not by taking on a whole group of dangerous people. There’s nothing flashy about writing articles about the spay and neutering program at the shelter, but those things help people. And that’s what you should keep your focus on. Let the police handle things like criminals. You hear me?”
My father’s deep concern, so foreign on a face usually laughing, made me feel guilty. I shouldn’t look for danger, not when my well-being was so important to my parents. I lo
ved them, no matter how much we didn’t understand each other. Besides, who was I to be a vigilante, single-handedly cleaning up the streets of Huntington Beach? I was just a young girl with no college experience and no idea where she came from. For all I knew, I could be the biological daughter of the very low life criminals I was trying to investigate.
“I hear you, Dad. I’ll be safer from now on.”
Chapter 2
“This is so stupid…” I muttered to myself inside my car.
I was parked on the same street as last night, the burger joint in sight. But I had my sights set on the building next to it. 18250 Goldenwest Street. The one with boarded up windows and a backdoor that led to an alleyway, which led to the park and the senior home just north. Thank you, Google Maps Satellite View.
Nothing was happening out on the street or around the building, same as last night, but I’d got to thinking after I left my parents’ house earlier today. While my stomach was in knots over expressly doing what they begged me not to, I couldn’t help myself. There was a story here. I could practically feel it prodding me. So I did what all curious people did: I went to the Internet.
Apparently, back in the 1960s, a cult was formed in Huntington Beach. Specifically in the building I had my eye on this very moment. The cult was your typical story of the leader twisting religion to con money from his followers, and it was eventually shut down in the ’90s. After that, there wasn’t any further mention of a cult in the area. Yet my contact had specifically used the word “cult” in our whispered conversation, a detail I had forgotten until I started my research. People didn’t just toss around the word cult casually. So here I was, camped outside a creepy looking building, waiting for something—anything—to happen.
I sipped some hot coffee out of an insulated cup, having decided to stay in my car this time. Safer and far warmer. See, Mom and Dad? Totally listening to you.
A flash of light up ahead brought my head up. Setting my coffee down and grabbing my binoculars, I raised them to my eyes and scanned the building. I didn’t see anything different for several seconds, then that same flash of light came from one of the windows on the side. I zeroed in on what looked like wood boards that didn’t quite cover all the way to the bottom of the glass. Someone had to be inside, maybe with a flashlight.
My heart jumped into my throat and I quickly pulled on my black knit cap to cover my head and hopefully obscure my identity if it came down to that. The car door made no noise as I opened it slowly and hopped out. Using my key, I locked it, thankful I didn’t have a fancy alarm system to make noise in the quiet night. I scanned left and right while I ran toward the building, not seeing any signs of life out there but me.
When I reached the building, I put my back to the crumbling stucco and inched my way over to the window where I saw the light. I could hear my heavy breathing in the still air and took an extra minute to try to calm myself. Maybe Bondi and my parents were right about not being cut out for this cloak-and-dagger stuff, though I was determined to prove them wrong.
Relatively calm after a minute, I tilted my head and peered through the one-inch strip of exposed window just above the ledge. Sure enough, there was a man dropping down through the floor, which didn’t make any sense. My brain instantly spazzed and thought he was a ghost, walking through objects. The next second I saw him pull a trap door I hadn’t seen previously and close it over his head as he fully disappeared below. All light extinguished and I couldn’t see anything else in the room.
Not a ghost then. Just a man, walking into an abandoned building and disappearing into a basement in the dark. My pulse soared. This was it. I’d finally stumbled onto something article worthy. Something worth investigating.
I stared through the window, my eyes slowly adjusting. I wondered if I should try to get inside, but saw absolutely no furniture in the building, which would make hiding impossible. Maybe waiting for the man to exit again would be my most prudent move. Then I could follow him and see where he went next or maybe catch a glimpse of his face.
“What are you doing?” A man’s voice spoke directly in my ear.
“Ahh!” I squealed and jumped a foot, spinning around and nearly wrenching my neck in the process. My hands went up, some caveman DNA coming forth to help me defend myself against attack.
A man stood right where I’d been hiding out, his massive arms folded over his chest, his face mostly in the shadows. He stared at me, making no move to grab me, which was good, because I was frozen in a slight crouch, my hands just hanging there in the air. Like I really knew what to do with them if they were required to fight.
“Who are you?” My voice came out shaky and I winced.
“I asked first.” The guy stepped forward, his face coming into the moonlight. He had long, sun-bleached blond hair that fell into his eyes. Despite the thick, scruffy beard covering his jaw, he looked young.
“I thought I heard something, so I came to make sure everything was okay.” I straightened up and finally dropped my hands. He was big and he didn’t appear super friendly, but he didn’t look like a thug. I wouldn’t say I was at ease, but I also didn’t get the impression he was going to harm me. Besides, it was a public street. I had every right to be there. “Your turn.” I gave him a smug smile that I hoped covered my nerves.
He tilted his head and narrowed his eyes. “Volos.”
I blinked. “Excuse me?”
He stepped forward again and lowered his arms. His chest, stretching out his black T-shirt, looked just as strong as his beefy biceps. I inched back.
“You asked who I am. I’m Volos.”
“Oh. Right. I’m Ali.”
He nodded like he already knew, which seemed weird, but then again, it was after midnight on an abandoned street. Everything about this encounter was weird. I could usually read a person accurately and quickly, a skill I relied on quite a bit growing up. It was like a person gave off an aura I could pick up on almost immediately. But Volos? He didn’t give off anything and that alarmed me.
He hooked a thumb over his shoulder. “See anything in there?”
I paused, wondering what his angle was. “Nope, nothing to see.”
He clearly didn’t believe me. He bent down and peered through the same window.
“Hey—”
Volos held up his hand, cutting me off. I rushed over to peer into the window beside him. If something was going on in there, I wanted to see it. This was my discovery first, not his. This time, three men came out of the trap door, each holding a small flashlight. Volos and I watched silently as they talked in the middle of the building, their voices muffled. They moved as a unit to the back door, the one that led to the alley. The last one out the door spun around with his flashlight.
Volos grabbed me and yanked me down below the windowsill. We waited there, frozen, until we heard the back door close and their quiet whispers moved off into the distance. I could smell this guy’s cologne and though it smelled good—maybe too good—I was irritated by his presence.
What was he doing here? Why was he encroaching on my story? Who was this guy? And what kind of freaking name was Volos?
Realizing he still held my arms, I pushed his hands off me and stood up. I couldn’t exactly try to follow those guys now that Volos was here. Time to cut my losses and regroup. “Okay, well, that was fun. I’m headed home. Nice to meet you.”
I turned and walked quickly to my car, almost surprised he hadn’t tried to stop me. Halfway there, I realized he was following me. The guy moved quietly, that was for sure. I didn’t even hear him sneak up on me earlier. I turned around in the middle of the street and gave him a dirty look.
“You planning to follow me or what?” I called out.
He looked back down the street from where we’d come, then back at me. “Maybe it’s not safe out here. Wanna make sure you get on your way safely.”
For all I knew, he could have been with those three guys in the building. I nodded slowly, wondering if he’d just threatened me o
r if he was actually trying to be nice. The jury was still out. My gaze trailed over him, trying to place him. He looked familiar, but I was certain I’d remember if I’d met him before. He was gorgeous, if you liked the tough biker type, testosterone oozing out of every pore. Gorgeous, but scary.
“Okay…” I twisted back around and walked to my car, glancing over my shoulder frequently. He didn’t pick up his pace, just trailed me a few yards and waited in the street while I started my car and left. I watched him in my rearview mirror until I made the turn at the end of the street and couldn’t see him any longer.
I drove home in silence, wondering what in the world just happened.
The only thing I knew for certain was I’d finally stumbled upon a story. This one would need lots of researching, snooping, and figuring out, but I was up for the challenge. As soon as I got home, I was way too wired to go to sleep, so I changed out of my ridiculous all-black snooping clothes and put on my favorite sweatpants and cotton T-shirt. Then I got out my laptop and got to work on my bed.
I pulled up an article about the cult from the ’60s. It was of course, religious in nature, but from what I could find, they were more there to get high, not worship some twisted version of God. Why would anyone want to be a part of that nonsense?
“Ali?” Bondi stumbled into my room, rubbing her eyes.
I looked at the clock and saw it was after two in the morning. I cringed as she sat on my bed. “Sorry. Did I wake you?”
She nodded toward my computer. “Nah, it’s okay. Just heard you mumbling when I went to get a glass of water. What are you working on?”
That was a loaded question. While Bondi was my best friend, she was similar to my parents in her views on my safety. Telling her I was out late at night in a rough part of town yet again wouldn’t go over so well.
I shut my laptop and put it on the nightstand. “Just doing research for an article Bob wants me to write. Couldn’t sleep, so I figured why not get a start on it, you know?”
Bondi lay down on her side, head propped up by her hand. “What’s it about?”