All of this took less than a second.
Sqweegel’s thumb, in fact, was still on the SEND button.
Dark was a quarter mile away, but it might as well have been a thousand.
He hammered the pedal and rocketed down the 10 until he was like a kamikaze pilot dead set on reaching the ground faster than anyone else, weaving around other drivers, whose red taillights blazed as they tried to come to a stop.
Dark’s Yukon fishtailed. He leapt out before it came to a complete stop and began running to the scene, a few dozen car lengths away. Each step felt like it touched down on a treadmill speeding backward. The soles of his feet burned as they slammed down and rose from the asphalt again. His breathing seemed to stop. No matter how hard he pumped, he couldn’t run fast enough.
Please don’t let it be Sibby’s car was the prayer running through his head, but Dark knew it was in vain. It was as if his blood knew first, had already received the information directly from the crash site: Yes, it was Sibby’s car.
Dark finally reached the crushed vehicle a few seconds later.
God help him, it was Sibby’s car.
The vehicle was like a broken toy in the middle of a messy toddler’s playroom. Chunks of plastic and metal and glass had been sprayed all over the road.
Sibby was lying there among the wreckage—not moving.
Not breathing.
Dark leapt over the back of the car and crouched down next to her. His hands shook until he willed them to stay calm. Then he tilted her head back, pressed his lips to hers, blew, started the chest compressions—but then he saw the large stain spreading across her belly. Oh, God, no. He ripped off his shirt, feeling the seams burst when it didn’t yield quickly enough, and pressed it to her stomach.
Dark knew the muscles surrounding a fetus were extraordinarily strong. Women developed a virtual ball of armor to protect the life form inside, and it took a lot to break through that armor.
But the blood continued to spread, like a spilled inkpot across a pristine white tablecloth…
The remote camera in Sibby’s car was completely obliterated, but Sqweegel had expected that. So he tapped a few keys and within a few moments found the I-10 traffic cameras he wanted. When the image resumed, an ambulance and fire engine were fighting their way through the traffic to the crash site.
“Don’t worry, Dark,” Sqweegel said softly, watching the man’s tiny image on the screen. “Los Angeles Socha Medical Hospital is nearby. They’ll get her there in time.”
He reached out a latex-wrapped finger and rubbed the blurry white image of Sibby, imagining he was soothing her.
“After all,” he said, “we’ve got to do everything we can to protect that baby.”
chapter 38
Malibu, California
9:14 P.M.
So this is what people have when they have real lives, Riggins thought. A lot of nice stuff. Riggins could have nice stuff, he supposed. If he didn’t mind it sitting in a house collecting dust.
The movers were hauling away the last of the boxes. Riggins had hired them personally—a local outfit he’d found online called Starving Students. Seemed goofy enough to be honest. Riggins made the call, told them that it was a rush job and that they’d be handsomely rewarded for their speed. Who knew whether these guys actually were students, but they wouldn’t be starving that night.
They also were unlikely to be connected to Sqweegel in any way; Riggins had found them at random in a Craigslist ad.
“That everything?” Riggins asked.
“Yeah, I think so,” said the lead mover.
“Okay,” Riggins said. “Follow that car. He’ll escort you.”
The car was unmarked—FBI. Two guys Riggins knew and trusted as much as he could trust anyone.
Not that it ultimately mattered; this stuff was going to a private storage facility—again, chosen at random by Riggins. If Sqweegel wanted to work hard to trace Dark’s stuff, then let him have a field day. Let him jizz all over the fancy Crate and Barrel crap, shove a Restoration Hardware candlestick up his ass.
Because there was only one way Dark would ever be reclaiming his belongings—and that was if Sqweegel was dead. Otherwise, Steve would be. And he wouldn’t be giving a crap about his furniture.
Sibby, on the other hand…well, she might mind.
Riggins felt a little weird about all of this—even though it was the right thing to do. Even though it was his goddamned idea.
Part of it was genuine concern for Dark and Sibby. If that maniac had found his way into this beachfront home once, he would do it again and again, with impunity. There was no way either one could spend another night here.
But honestly, part of Riggins wanted Dark completely focused; otherwise, this thing really would kill him. And Dark couldn’t focus with Sibby in the frame. No, it was best to have her stashed with her father while Dark concentrated on the task at hand.
The moving truck pulled away. Riggins took one last tour of the house with a flashlight, just to make sure he hadn’t missed anything. Or overlooked something.
But no—he had been thorough. He was about to lock up for good when he heard a noise upstairs.
Dripping water.
No. Don’t be surprised. It would be just like him. Hole up in a goddamned shoebox and wait for everyone to leave, and then, at the last possible moment…
Well, fuck him, Riggins thought, and drew his weapon. He almost hoped the little bastard was up there.
Almost.
He headed upstairs slowly, veins pounding with every heartbeat. There wasn’t just a drip now; it sounded like a steady stream pouring from a faucet.
Moving down the hallway now. Closer to the sound of the running water.
What if it was one of those starving students, up here washing his hands after taking a leak? Could have been lost in his own little iPod world as his buddies pulled away. He didn’t deserve a bullet in the head for being a dipshit.
So Riggins called, “FBI!”
No answer.
Farther down the hall, Riggins realized the source: the master bathroom. The water was louder now. Gushing. Riggins put his ear to the cold wood. Listened.
It was a bathtub, filling. Familiar sound, back when he was still married. His exes loved their Calgon moments.
Riggins stepped back. Now or never. He smashed his foot through the wood, just to the right of the knob. The door popped open. Riggins darted inside. Whipped his pistol left, right, center.
The bathroom was roiling with steam rising like a fog. He checked the only space left: the closet.
Nothing.
He nudged the hot faucet off. Let the steam settle a little. Some water dripped into the tub.
Drip.
Drip.
Drop.
The sound made Riggins look at the floor. There, on the smooth white tile, was a tiny bird feather. Steve and Sibby didn’t have any birds. The dogs would probably never stop trying to eat them.
So then, what was it doing here?
Riggins carefully took the thin, hard shaft between the tips of his fingers and lifted the feather to eye level. Dull gray, with tinges of pinkish brown along the edges. Riggins was pretty damn far from a bird expert—he knew some flew, some didn’t, and some tasted great with gravy and stuffing. But there were people in Special Circs who could track this thing down to its order, family, genus, and species.
The kind of bird, however, wasn’t what bothered Riggins. Was this possibly left by Sqweegel? That didn’t seem right. The freak who never leaves so much as a skin cell behind suddenly drops a bird feather, of all things? No. It had to be something else.
Maybe a bird flew in through the broken patio window, flapped around here for a while, then escaped to another part of the house. But if that was the case, then why didn’t Riggins find any other traces of a bird or its feathers anywhere else? He’d packed Dark and Sibby’s things personally.
Maybe it was Sqweegel. Maybe he was finally slipping up.
It was a phone number, written with what looked like a child’s fingertip.
Riggins stood, flipped open his cell phone, and snapped a photo before it could disappear. Then he started thumbing digits.
To call the killer, log into LEVEL26.com and enter the code: oneaday
chapter 39
Socha Medical Hospital / Los Angeles
10:05 P.M.
Dark was sitting in the waiting room when Riggins returned, looking sweaty and out of breath. Clearly, he’d raced here after getting Dark’s text with the news of the accident, and had made some phone calls on the way.
“We’ll have two cops on her, twenty-four/seven,” Riggins was saying, “and I’ve already got a team combing the wreckage for trace.”
But Dark was only half listening. He knew Riggins was trying to reassure him. Don’t worry. We’ve got this covered. Nothing will happen to her. Everything will be all right. In other words, the usual lies.
Instead, however, Dark’s mind was on the procedure being performed behind his back, in another part of the hospital. Past the blinds, through the drywall, across another hallway, and through another pale wall…
…where Sibby had IVs in her arms, white bandages on her legs, a plastic tube down her throat. They’d stripped her, and they’d set to work immediately. There was much to stabilize: her head, her heart, her lungs, the internal bleeding…
The love of his life was on an operating table, and surgeons and nurses were swarming all around her, all of them focused on the same task: saving her and their baby.
Dark breathed in slowly, and his nostrils filled with that harsh stuff they used to clean hospital waiting rooms. He tried to will himself into that room with Sibby, just to be with her. Let her know she was not alone.
But he couldn’t get the recording he’d just heard out of his mind. The words he’d heard at the other end of that phone number were a distraction from Sibby. The childlike yet sinister tone. Something he’d never heard before.
The voice of his adversary.
One a day will die.
Two a day will lie.
Three a day will cry.
Four a day will sigh…
He recited the sickly little taunting nursery rhyme, something other kids in the playground would chant just to freak you out or make you cry and run home to Mommy. It sounded vaguely familiar, yet Dark knew it wasn’t something he’d heard on the playground. Where did he know it from?
Back when Dark was still on the hunt for Sqweegel, there were only second-class relics to examine. He remembered the distinction from Catholic grade school: Second-class relics were objects touched by a saint. Holy books. A crucifix once held by a saint. A fragment of a shirt or a robe.
Sqweegel’s relics were a little different. Dead, mangled, tortured bodies. Messages scrawled in his victims’ blood. Closets he’d chosen to hide in.
Nothing of the actual man himself. He was too careful, too methodical for that.
In other words, no first-class relics—pieces of the saints themselves. A fragment of bone. A strand of hair. A toenail clipping. A strand of muscle tissue.
But now, finally, they had a first-class relic of Sqweegel: a sample of his voice.
After hearing it, Dark found it difficult to unhear it. The words seemed to dig through the pulpy mass of his brain, creating their own little echo chambers. You could silence the source, but you couldn’t stop the relentless echo:
Five a day ask why.
Six a day will fry.
He should be focused on Sibby. On their child. Not wasting mental energy on this.
Riggins was going on, too, about how he personally had briefed the cops on Sqweegel’s capabilities. He wasn’t going to be sneaking into this room under a gurney or inside an X-ray machine. They were going to check everything larger than a Jell-O cup. Hell, they’d even check the Jell-O cups, just to make sure.
Dark nodded as if he were listening. But he was actually trying to stop hearing the words of the poem.
It was as if Sqweegel’s voice had been genetically designed to create a severe physical response in Dark, like an influenza virus attacking a host. There was too much to block out.
Seven a day…
Oh, my.
Riggins’s fingertips touched his arm.
“Hey. The doctors say she’s going to be in there for quite a while. Why don’t you go somewhere for a while to clear your head? I’ll be right here.”
After a few moments Dark finally nodded, then wandered off down the crowded hall and out of the hospital. There was only one place he could think to go.
chapter 40
Somewhere in Los Angeles
Sqweegel twisted off the metal lid, placed it on the floor next to him. Then he turned the red metal canister upside down. The white powder—sodium bicarbonate—dropped to the ground with a dull, dusty thud.
A few quick swipes of the rag cleared away most of the sodium bicarbonate. It didn’t have to be perfect. Normally, this would bother Sqweegel. He’d fixate on every remaining speck of powder, and he’d end up wiping the interior for hours.
But not today. There wasn’t time. He reassured himself that he was simply being prudent, then moved on to the next step.
Next, he fed a length of clear tube into a rusty metal drum, then placed the other end of the tube in his mouth. He sucked three times, quickly, until the liquid partially filled his mouth. He pressed his thumb over his end of the tube, held the tube over the canister, then released his thumb.
The liquid poured freely. Sqweegel loved the tin-pan sound of it, hitting metal. The powerful fumes, enveloping his nasal cavities.
It reminded him of lying in the back of a station wagon, listening to the father or mother or college senior or somebody filling the tank of the old family truckster for a long highway trip. A trip they’d never complete.
Enough for now. Sqweegel knew he could easily become lost in his own memories. All it took to trip the breaker was a simple sound, or smell, or texture.
Besides, there were four more canisters to go.
And when the process was complete, and the tops with the pressure gauges and hoses were reattached, there were five modified fire extinguishers resting on the floor.
Sqweegel still had a little liquid in his mouth, left over from the last canister. He took a Bic lighter from his tool kit. Thumbed it to life. Spat the liquid over the flame and—
Whoooosh.
The fireball briefly illuminated the room around him. The wheelchairs. The metal cabinets. The tile floor. The wooden chairs. The drabness of a storage room that was all but forgotten, under the everyday bustle of the floors above.
The kind of storage room where you’d keep old fire extinguishers. Or metal cans of gasoline for the backup power generators.
The kind of storage room that didn’t have good locks or competent security.
chapter 41
Hollywood, California
10:43 P.M.
Dark stared up at the immense, backlit cross. For a moment, it made him feel like a little kid again. Back when he’d first learned about God.
He remembered being three years old, standing in the middle of the pews at church, his birth father telling him, As long as you pray to God, everything will be okay. He thought of Sibby on the operating table, Riggins standing guard nearby, and he wondered where his father was now. He hadn’t seen him in more than thirty years. He had very few, hazy memories of him. But his old man’s trust in God had always stayed with him, and he hoped to hell his faith would be rewarded now.
His foster father had also been a religious man. Faith, he had once explained, was everything. And there were plenty of Bible stories illustrating the power of faith. Abraham, on the brink of slaughtering his own son. Jonah, in the belly of an impossibly large beast. Job, enduring torments that seemed without e
nd. But in the end, faith and prayer were what had saved them all. And that’s what Steve had grown up believing.
They didn’t tell you about all of the catches, though.
They waited until you were a little older for that.
Dark walked away from the black Yukon, thumbed the security lock, then walked toward the front doors of the Hollywood United Methodist Church on Franklin Street. He hadn’t grown up Methodist, but he liked coming to this church from time to time.
Maybe it was because it held its own in the middle of Hollywood itself, several blocks away from Grauman’s Chinese and the flashing spotlights and open-air malls with huge Babylonian-style elephants reared up in worship of the Great God Film. If you wanted to stand on a balcony and catch the best view of the Hollywood sign, you couldn’t do it without the United Methodist Church in your frame of view. That was holding your own. Dark admired it.
This church was also a place that allowed him to be truly anonymous. He wasn’t a regular worshipper here. Neither was anyone he knew.
Dark didn’t usually attend during a service anyway. He preferred to be here alone. Only in the solitude could he sit and sort out his mind.
Inside the church it was tomb quiet. Every footfall echoed off the marble walls. Toward the front, six priests kneeled in front of the altar, heads bowed, praying in silence. On the left side, a lone man in an overcoat was standing at a row of candles, lighting them one by one with a narrow wooden matchstick. He finished, placed the matchstick to the side, bowed his head for a moment, then exited the church. Maybe he was one of the last in Hollywood. One of the last true believers.
Dark still believed.
He truly did. Nothing that had happened in his life could shake him from the fundamental idea that there was a God.
But Dark’s jury was still out on his benevolence.
You could pray. You could have faith. You could live a life with the single goal of doing good. You could do your best to balance that goal with the goals of being a good father and a good husband.
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