Double Threat Page 3

  She faced one decision upon entering: shower then bed or bed then shower? A sudden crushing fatigue won and she dropped face-first onto the comforter and fell into a coma-like sleep.

  And dreamed …

  Strange, surreal images paraded through her dreamscape, fading as quickly as they appeared, making increasingly less sense until …

  She awoke, feeling only slightly refreshed, fighting a strange, drugged feeling. A shower … a shower would freshen her up.

  But the shower left her cursing at all the hair clumped in the drain—she was losing even more. As she dried off she checked her head in the mirror. No bald spots yet but definitely thinning in the shape of that damn slug—that alaret.

  Daley kept her dark hair long enough to tie back but not long enough to be a pain. Usually she parted it in the middle but switched to a side part now to hide the thinning.

  A comb-over, she thought. Can’t believe I need a comb-over!

  As she ran the comb across her head—loosening even more hair—she saw a flash of movement behind her in the mirror. Startled and maybe a little frightened, she wrapped the bath towel more tightly around her and peeked out.

  The bathroom sat across a short hall from her bedroom. The wide-open living room/dining room/kitchen area lay to her right. No sign of movement out there.

  The place felt empty, but still …

  “Hello?”

  No answer—no surprise—so she quick-checked the apartment door: locked. No surprise there either. Locking was automatic for her. She locked the sidewalk-level door and the door at the top of the stairs without thinking. A quick inspection of the rest of her small apartment confirmed she was alone.

  But she could have sworn she’d seen someone dart past the bathroom door.

  So … what? Stress? Or blame it on the alaret as well?

  She shook it off and got dressed. She had business to take care of.

  Down to the car and over to the UPS Store on Victory Boulevard where she pulled two manila envelopes—one fat, one slim—from her box there. On the way back she reacted and almost had an accident when she thought she saw someone sitting in the passenger seat. Just a flash and then gone. No one there.

  What was going on?

  Back in the apartment, she checked the slim envelope first. Oh, good. Her homeopathy certificate.

  She’d taken an online course and easily passed. Halfway through she realized how the whole underlying theory behind homeopathy was total bullshit, but she went the distance anyway. Why not? The course was a cinch, the degree gave her credibility in the eyes of the gullible, and California allowed the practice of homeopathy without a license. Now she had to find a way to put it to work for her.

  She put that aside and dumped the contents of the fat manila: Two dozen or so legal-size envelopes addressed to Burbank Drain and Pipe Cleaning, Inc., landed on the dining room table. The company had a box in the Burbank UPS Store. Jorge, the owner there, would empty the box whenever it filled, pack the contents in a manila envelope, and forward it all to Daley’s other box in the North Hollywood store. He enclosed a bill for the UPS ground charge and a ten-dollar handling fee which Daley paid immediately via PayPal.

  Each envelope contained a check for $64.35 made out to Burbank Drain and Pipe Cleaning, Inc.

  Two years ago Daley had started sending out invoices to various companies all over greater Los Angeles billing sixty dollars—plus tax, of course—for “Monthly pipe and drain maintenance.” She sent out hundreds. Most ignored her or sent queries as to the charge, which she ignored. But a percentage of the companies paid the bill. Those that did were added to her billing list, and the first of every month she sent them another invoice. And every month they paid. They’d added Burbank Drain and Pipe Cleaning, Inc., to their accounting software as a payee, and so its bills were honored, no questions asked.

  Once she had all the checks tallied against her list, she walked over to the Citibank branch where she’d opened the Burbank Drain and Pipe Cleaning, Inc., account and deposited them. She never let too much accumulate in the business account; once a month she emptied it down to the minimum required amount and redeposited the excess cash into her personal account at Chase. As an emergency backup she kept a stash of hundred-dollar bills rolled up inside a fat, hollowed-out wax candle.

  The key was not to get greedy. Sixty-four dollars and change … overworked bookkeepers in a busy, successful company tended not to look too closely at such a paltry sum. The $772 it cost the companies a year had no impact on their bottom line and went unnoticed on their spreadsheets. But the sum meant a lot to Daley. At the moment she had fifty-two companies on the string. That came to forty grand a year. She wasn’t into high living, so that amount paid all her bills and allowed her to sock some away for the proverbial and inevitable rainy day.

  On her way back from the bank, she realized she was famished and stopped at a local taqueria on Oxnard. As she ate her quesadilla at the window counter, she saw a woman staring her way from inside the beauty salon across the street. The reflection off the window made it difficult to make her out clearly, but damned if she didn’t look like that Indian woman from the desert—Juana.

  But then the woman stepped back into the shadows and disappeared.

  Was Juana following her? Why would she do that? Daley shook it off. Lots of women around here looked like Juana. Don’t get paranoid.

  As she walked back to her apartment her phone buzzed with a text from Kenny.

  Wassup?

  Nothing. Just hangin

  Do the dew drop?

  Sounds good. 5?

  CU there

  The Dew Drop Inn sat just around the corner from her place, a neighborhood hang with an everybody-knows-your-name vibe. A favorite pastime there was poking fun at the bar’s corny name but that didn’t deter the locals from making it their go-to watering hole.

  And Kenny … well, the two of them had shared a hot and heavy romance for about half a year as they’d tried to live together. She should have known they were doomed. Daley needed a certain amount of alone time on a regular basis and Kenny was clingy like a Siamese twin. She felt like she was suffocating and he felt rejected. The cohabitation experiment crashed and burned, but they learned they could still get along—just so long as they lived apart, as friends. The sex, though, had always been great so they’d remained friends with benefits.

  Back home she flipped on the TV and landed on an all-news channel running an update on the latest hot news story, “the horrors.” Daley clicked that off ASAP. The horrors gave her the creeps.

  She checked herself in the mirror before heading out for some friendly faces. She debated wearing a baseball cap but decided her comb-over was hiding her hair loss just fine.

  * * *

  The Dew Drop housed the usual Thursday night crowd. Daley and Kenny leaned against the bar, catching up over wings and drinks—beer for him, a margarita for her. She liked Kenny, liked his longish surfer-blond hair, the dark brown eyes, the flashing smile.

  The TV had been switched off its usual ESPN to a special news show and no one minded—except Daley. The horrors again. The whole world was wondering about the spreading medical mystery—some kind of weird fit where the victim gets hit with whatever it is that hits him, screams hysterically, and then goes catatonic, completely cut off from the rest of the world. Cases were popping up all over Southern California and nowhere else. Once you went down with the horrors, you stayed down.

  “Scary stuff,” Kenny said, leaning close. “If they don’t know what causes it, how do you avoid it?”

  “Gotta be a virus, don’t you think?” Daley said.

  Kenny shrugged. “They say it’s not contagious.”

  That was when Daley spotted the shirtless guy across the room.

  “Did they change the rule about no shirts?” she said, staring at the guy’s bare shoulders as he moved away through the crowd. No tats, which was unusual for this neighborhood.

  Kenny turned to see. “Not t
hat I know of. Where?”

  She pointed with her glass. “Over there by the front window.”

  “Where?” he said, craning his neck. “Don’t see him.”

  Neither did Daley. “Must’ve sat down. Probs a newbie. Better not let Edgar spot him.”

  Edgar had a big beard, was built like a grizzly, and owned the place. He barely tolerated tank tops, and shirtless was cause for ejection. No one knew what his problem was, but he had a No Shirt, No Service sign at the door and he meant it.

  “Looked a lot like you,” Daley said.

  Kenny smiled. “Devilishly handsome?”

  She’d always had a weak spot for guys like Kenny.

  “Well, devilish anyway. But he keeps his hair longer like you used to, the way I liked better.”

  Kenny ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, well, the new job and all. Gotta look professional and—”

  “Hey,” Daley said as she spotted Mr. No-Shirt. “There he goes again.”

  “Where?”

  “I can’t believe you don’t see him.” She pointed. “Right over there by Edgar.”

  “A shirtless guy by Edgar? No way. He’d be out on his ear. I see Edgar plain as day, but as for this other guy…”

  Daley checked Kenny to see if he was joking but he didn’t seem to be. When she looked back, Mr. No-Shirt was out of sight.

  Kenny grinned as he clinked his beer bottle against her margarita. “How many of these you have?”

  “Not enough to start seeing things.”

  He leaned closer. “Enough to put you in the mood?”

  “Maybe.” After the last couple of days she was definitely in the mood. “You?”

  “I’m always in the mood for you.”

  Rarely was Kenny not in the mood.

  She drained her drink. “Let’s go.”

  6

  “Oh, my God.” Daley rolled off Kenny and flopped onto her back, limp and sweaty. “You done good, Kenny. You done—”

  She heard a strange, strangled sound and opened her eyes.

  Someone was standing beside her bed. She blinked and recognized Mr. No-Shirt. But more than his shirt was missing—he was totally naked.

  His mouth worked, making that strangled sound again.

  She screamed.

  Kenny levered up to a sitting position beside her. “Wha-wha-what? What’s wrong?”

  Daley was pulling the sheet over her and screaming at the naked surfer guy.

  “Get out! Get outa here!”

  “Get out?” Kenny said. “What’d I do?”

  “Not you!” she said, pointing. “Him!”

  “Who?”

  “The guy from the Dew Drop! The one with no—” She turned to Kenny. “Is this some kinda sick joke?”

  “Daley, there’s nobody there!”

  “Fuck you, Kenny! Fuck you and your sick friend!”

  With that she grabbed her phone off the night table and threw it at the stranger—

  —and watched it sail right through him.

  And then he disappeared. Pfffft! Gone without a trace.

  Daley stared at the empty space while beside her Kenny rattled on about no one there and he’d never let another guy in on them and what was she thinking? She barely heard.

  He couldn’t have disappeared. Not possible. Her eyes were playing tricks. Had he run out to the front room? No, he couldn’t have moved that fast. She checked the floor beside her bed—nothing. The box spring was barely six inches off the rug, so he couldn’t be under it.

  Something way, way wrong here. Was she seeing things? Hallucinating—that was the word. Kenny hadn’t seen Mr. No-Shirt in the bar, and the guy had been right next to Edgar who would have thrown him out on his ass … if he’d seen him. Now he was in her apartment. And she always locked both doors to her apartment—always.

  “Kenny, check the front room.”

  “What?”

  “Just check to see if anybody’s there.”

  “This is nuts, Daley.”

  “Please.”

  “Okay, okay.”

  He hopped out of bed and padded into the front room and returned a moment later.

  “Nada, babe. I checked behind the couch and the chairs, the closets. Nobody. And the door’s locked.”

  Which meant he hadn’t really been here.

  “I think you’re seeing things, babe.”

  “I think you may be right. You’ve gotta go, Kenny.”

  “What?”

  “No, seriously. I’m not feeling too great. I was out in the desert overnight and I think I’m a little dehydrated.”

  “Out in the desert? What—?”

  “I just need a little alone time.”

  He grabbed his jeans. “You always need a little alone time.”

  “I’m sorry. I just do. Just to rehydrate and all that.”

  He huffed and he puffed and stormed out. He wouldn’t stay mad for long. He never did. But Daley … Daley was all shaky inside. What was happening to her? She’d never ever—

  That strangled noise again and the naked guy flickered into view.

  She yelped with surprise. He was back!

  No, he wasn’t. He flickered out again.

  Did someone drug her margarita? Or was she going bonkers?

  Wait—that alaret thing. Did it do something to her? Release some sort of toxin into her brain that was making her see things?

  Whatever the cause, seeing people who weren’t there was very, very wrong, and she had to do something about it. Had to get to the ER and—

  No. No way she could explain this to them.

  Some weird little thing dropped on my head in a desert cave and messed up my brain.

  Right. That’ll fly.

  Before she started telling crazy stories to the docs she had to be able to play show-and-tell. Had to get her hands on that alaret thing and bring it in, find out what it really is. And that meant going back to the one person who seemed to know something about it.

  She jumped out of bed and started to get dressed. Then stopped.

  She’d never find Juana’s trailer in the dark. There was dark and then there was desert dark. And Juana lived off-road.

  “Shit!”

  She’d have to wait till morning.

  She wrapped herself in a blanket, turned on the TV, and landed on a Storage Wars marathon. She let it play without seeing it as she huddled on the couch. The thought of sleep was inconceivable. She was looking at an all-nighter.

  Jodi Karensky … the name came out of the blue. Daley shivered under the blanket as she remembered … one of her few friends during high school. Jodi started hearing voices a couple of years after graduation, and then talking to people who weren’t there. They diagnosed her with schizophrenia and eventually found a medical cocktail that controlled the symptoms. But Jodi wasn’t really Jodi anymore.

  Supposedly schizophrenia hit people in their twenties. Was that what this was?

  No. Couldn’t be. It started just hours after that cave slug had knocked her out. There had to be a connection. Had to be.

  Please … no more noises, no more hallucinations … peace until I can find Juana.

  FRIDAY—FEBRUARY 20

  1

  The sun had cleared the Chocolate Mountains by the time Daley reached the Salton Sea.

  Despite her intention to stay up all night, she’d dozed off and had strange dreams—water dreams. At some point in the past she’d heard that a water dream had meaning but she’d forgotten what it was. All bullshit anyway. She was pretty sure hers had to do with today’s trip to the desert, because the desert—this very desert—had been underwater in her dream. And she’d been underwater too, but not drowning. Juana had told her how the whole Salton trough had been filled with seawater millions of years ago, so that must have stayed with her.

  See? Nothing mystical or paranormal. Just lingering suggestions from the day before.

  Seeing naked guys, however … what was that all about?

  At least she�
�d made it through the night with no more appearances. The blare of a car dealer commercial on the TV had awakened her at four A.M. and she’d debated canceling the trip. She’d been symptom free, so maybe it had all been due to dehydration after all.

  Then she’d heard a garbled voice say a word that sounded like “low” but spoken with a mouth full of popcorn. She waited, hoping she hadn’t really heard it, but then it came again.

  That was when she’d decided to hit the road in the dark.

  Now, three hours later, she was nearing her destination in full morning light. And every twenty minutes or so she heard the voice garbling that same word.

  (“… low…”)

  There it was again.

  Yeah, she needed to be back here, needed to find Juana.

  She retraced her path from yesterday into the Santa Rosas. With its lower clearance, her Crosstrek wasn’t as off-road-friendly as the Jeep had been, but it got the job done. She located the boulders where she’d hidden the Jeep—gone now—and pulled into the same spot.

  Looking uphill she could see the mouth of the cave and couldn’t suppress a little shudder. Never again.

  Okay … she’d been a little fuzzy after she woke up, but she remembered standing here and spotting the light from Juana’s trailer toward the south. A pair of binocs would have helped right now, but who had binocs? The terrain looked too rough and bouldery for her Crosstrek so, with the sun countering the chill in the morning air, she took off on foot.

  After a ten-minute wander she spotted the trailer and its canopy and made her way toward it. She’d expected to have to bang on the door but Juana was already up and sitting on an aluminum folding chair outside her shell-studded home, soaking up the morning sun.

  “I thought I’d have to wake you,” Daley said as she neared.

  Juana gave her a concerned look, then smiled. “Oh, it’s you—but you look different now that you’re cleaned up.” The smile turned to a frown. “Don’t tell me you’ve come for the alaret.”

  “It did something to me. You said you’d help me any way you could, and all I had to do was ask. Well, I’m asking.”