“Well, prom’s coming up,” Alex said, seeming to brighten up a bit, embracing a brief moment of normalcy. “Let’s make a pact: we get out of this, we go together.”
“It’s a date—er, I mean a plan.”
“No,” Alex corrected, “it’s a date. Hey, do your parents really grow weed?” do your parents really grow weed?” Alex asked her suddenly.
“Not the way you put it.”
“How did I just put it?”
“Like it was a crime or something. But it’s legal. They’ve got a license and everything.”
Sam’s parents had barely been making ends meet by packaging their own line of herbal supplements grown in gardens they tended themselves. For a long time they supplemented this by growing exotic flowers, orchids mostly, that appealed to a specific clientele. And when that proved more costly than it was worth, they began their foray into growing marijuana for a local dispensary.
Her mother approached the effort as if pot were like all the other plants she nursed lovingly from mere seedlings. Making a go at the world of weed meant growing in much larger quantities than her parents had ever taken on before, posing a challenge that left her mother perpetually exhausted and hoarse. Exhausted because of the hours it took tending and trimming such a volume of plants. Hoarse because it was the habit of Sam’s mother to speak out loud to her plants, going so far as to read them children’s books when they were seedlings. It took hours to manage that task within the hydroponics greenhouse that had once held exotic flowers, their luscious smell replaced by the skunk-like stench of weed. Sam wondered how much weed her parents had smoked as kids, how much they continued to smoke today, often lighting incense in an inadvertently hilarious attempt to keep their habit from her. Once when she was a sophomore they’d even sat Sam down, her father extending a joint toward her.
“We want you to try it with us first.”
“But I don’t smoke.”
“It’s safer than drinking,” her mother noted.
“I don’t drink, either.”
“Sam?”
Alex’s voice shocked her back to the reality of the present and the plight in which she may have placed her loony, ditzy parents. His hand was on her shoulder, squeezing gently, to bring her back to reality.
“Finally,” he continued. “Have a nice trip wherever you went?”
“Doesn’t matter. I’m back.”
“I wanted to tell you that I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“Getting you involved in all this.”
“I don’t mind.”
Spending the night in a motel room with the boy of her dreams? Not that it had happened the way she’d conjured in this fantasy or that.…
“I’m sorry for messing up your life,” Alex was saying. “I wish you could just go home and forget this ever happened.”
“Then who would I go to prom with? And what kind of friend would I be if I just left you alone like that?”
“So we’re friends.”
“What else do you want to call us?”
He managed a smile. “Don’t give me any ideas.”
In that moment, he was charming and charismatic Alex again. But the glimpse of a smile quickly faded, his eyes losing their gleam and glow.
“Just remember I’m still your tutor,” Sam said, failing to get another smile out of him.
“But you’re forgetting the first lesson you taught me, back to math again.”
“What’s that?”
“What you said to do whenever I couldn’t solve a problem set in calculus or analyzable geometry. Go back to the beginning. Start there and work forward toward the answer.”
“Good point, but it’s analytical geometry.”
The tension broke between them, Alex reaching out to squeeze her shoulder again, as if he’d liked it the first time. Even the lightbulbs in the sign outside seemed to catch, however briefly.
“Okay, so start at the beginning,” Alex prodded.
44
PROBLEM SET
“WE’VE GOT ANDROIDS,” SAM said, doing just as Alex suggested, “physical projections and those weird slap bracelets that worked like electronic handcuffs, holding your—”
She broke off, but it was too late.
Alex swallowed hard. “Are we talking about aliens here or something?”
“Theoretically, that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Theoretically? None of this makes any sense, theoretically or not.”
“Okay—it’s not even logical.”
“So what are you now, Spock from Star Trek?”
“More like Nurse Chapel.”
“Who?”
“Dr. McCoy’s nurse in the original nobody ever remembers.”
That seemed to pique Alex’s interest. “You watched the original Trek?”
“Every episode maybe a million times.”
“Me too,” he told her.
“Really? What character do you see yourself as?”
“I don’t know.”
“Come on, Alex, it’s obvious: Captain Kirk.”
“I’m no Captain Kirk.” He frowned.
“No, you’re just captain of the football team, homecoming king, and the most popular kid in school.”
Alex started kicking at the worn carpet again, the tension settling back into the room. He slid Meng Po from his right hand to his left. “I never got into all the Trek follow-ups, though. A few of the movies were good.”
“I like the new ones,” Sam told him, “the reboots. Nice to be able to go back to the beginning and start over from scratch.”
“Wish I could do that.” Alex sighed. “But just tonight.”
“I wouldn’t mind starting everything all over again. Not that it would matter since it would probably all turn out the same.” Sam frowned too, not bothering to add how things had turned out when Heinlein’s Valentine Smith had tried that.
“That’s how you think of yourself?”
“Because it’s the way I am.”
“Not to me,” Alex said, looking down.
“The ash man wanted you to go with him,” Sam said, trying to hold on to this moment, whatever it meant.
“So?”
“So why? He said something about you belonging to him.”
“Not exactly.”
“Okay, but close. That you didn’t belong where you were.”
Alex thought on that, tapping his head with his knuckles. “Maybe this has something to do with me being adopted.”
“I don’t see what.”
“My mom was apologizing for something she and my dad never told me. She said something like I deserved to know the truth. That’s what the ash man must’ve been talking about. What else sticks out to you?” he asked Sam, not quite looking at her, again squeezing the statue of Meng Po tight in his grasp.
“My phone not working, then working again as soon as I got away from your house.”
“So they were jamming the signal or something.”
“More advanced science, really advanced, too advanced.”
“For us. Means it must come from somewhere else.”
“So we’re back to aliens again.”
“I didn’t think we ever left them.”
“Say they are aliens, Sam. What could they possibly want from me? What’s this thing the ash man thinks I have?”
“I haven’t got a clue,” Sam told him. “But the fact remains they knew a lot about you, an awful lot. And not just stuff you could pick up on the Internet, even though you’re famous.”
“I’m not famous.”
“How many autographs you sign after the last game?”
“None—I was on my way to the hospital, remember?”
“I meant the game before that, Alex.”
“I don’t remember. A few, a lot, I guess.”
“Because you’re famous.”
“Okay,” he shrugged, “whatever you say. But the ash man’s going to be back; I know he will.” Alex gazed toward the room??
?s wooden door, currently dead-bolted with an old-fashioned chain lock fastened into place as well. “And it doesn’t seem like locks are about to stop him.”
That thought made Alex think of his parents again. Had his mother really understood how sorry he was for throwing a fit over finding those brochures? Truth was, his grades did suck and washing out of college was a very real possibility unless he got his act in order. So maybe a fifth year wasn’t such a bad idea.
If only that was all he had to worry about.…
He felt the emptiness again in the pit of his stomach, something seeming to scratch at his insides. He squeezed Meng Po tighter, feeling the tiny statue’s ridges digging into his skin. Alex eased off and studied the impression it had made in his palm, watched it slowly fade away just like the life had faded from his mother’s eyes.
It was my fault.
Because the ash man and the others had come for him. And with that thought the pangs mixed between rage and grief returned, Alex left alternately trembling and squeezing Meng Po so hard he felt the wood seem to compress in his grasp. Then he felt Sam tightening an arm around his broad shoulders, resting her head against his chest.
“And me thinking you were just my tutor.…”
“I am. This is a lesson.”
“In what?”
“Psychology. The chapter on methods of reassurance and coping.”
“Funny,” he said, stroking her hair lightly, “I don’t remember signing up for that course.”
“Alex,” he heard Sam say.
“I’m busy. Doing my psych homework.”
He felt Sam ease her head off him. “What’s that?”
Alex looked down to see a thin rectangular object that had dropped atop the frayed bedcovers. It had a dull black finish and looked like a piece that had broken off something bigger. Taking it in hand, though, he realized it was a flash drive, the kind you could buy practically anywhere these days. Then he looked back at Meng Po still clutched in his hand and saw the hole in its bottom, revealing the secret slot where the flash drive had been hidden and slipped out of.
“You think…” Sam left her thought dangling, eyes rotating between Alex and the flash drive.
He held the flash drive in one hand, Meng Po in the other. “I think it’s why my mother wanted to make sure I took the statue with me. Because this may have the answers we’re looking for.”
SEVEN
MENG PO
The real voyage of discovery consists not in
seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes.
—MARCEL PROUST
45
MESSAGE
RAIFF REACHED DANCER’S HOUSE in Millbrae three hours after receiving the message.
THE DANCER’S IN THE LIGHT
He’d been waiting for that message for eighteen years now, expecting it to come far sooner than it did. The fact that it hadn’t was testament to Dancer’s adoptive parents’ ability to keep the true nature of how he’d come into their lives secret from everyone, including Dancer himself. Dancer was the only hope, not just for the people of this world but also for the people back in Raiff’s.
Raiff parked amid a bevy of police vehicles, both vans and cars, squeezed everywhere on the cordoned-off scene in the shadow of gaping oak and pine trees. He busied himself with a review of what he’d long committed to memory about the town, how it had grown out of a country estate built in the 1860s by one Darius Ogden Mills. The estate combined “Mills” and the Scottish word “brae” to form the town’s name. Raiff recalled that Mills allowed local children to swim in three lakes situated on the estate and sell acacias to tourists passing through until his death, at which point his family began to sell off the land for development. The mansion itself remained standing until it burned down in 1954. The town was ethnically mixed, boasting a modest complement from the Asian community along with Hispanics and even immigrants hailing from the Philippines. All the bungalow-style homes on the street were quaint and roomy, if unremarkable, the Chins’ looking to be one of the smaller ones on the block.
Raiff reached under the driver’s seat of this week’s vehicle and plucked free a wooden cigar box he’d taped there. Inside were any number of identification badges and IDs. Originally he’d carried them in doubled-over cases that fit neatly in his pocket. Now he kept lanyards under his seat too, with which to dangle the badges from his neck. Times changed and Raiff changed with them.
He needed to select the right agency cautiously, careful not to duplicate any already on scene. That ruled out local police and the sheriff’s department, left him with something federal. The FBI, maybe, but he’d need a pretext for that. No matter. Local cops were inevitably deferential to law enforcement officials higher than them on the totem pole. Perhaps resentful at the outset, but normally cooperative, albeit reluctantly.
FBI it was.
Raiff looped the proper ID over his head and stepped from the car. He passed a number of uniformed cops milling outside Dancer’s house, shaking their heads. A few plainclothesmen, police badges dangling from their lanyards, were smoking cigarettes. Raiff watched the wisps of smoke climbing up through the air toward the sky, where secrets abounded none of these men, and a few women, would ever comprehend. His own ID flapped against his chest and he held it steady and forward, out for inspection. It spoke for itself and he need add no words until he was inside. Climbing the steps now, approaching the door, open to let in the late night chill and help mitigate the smells of death that had been present within.
Veering right once inside brought him into the living room. The bodies of Dancer’s parents had been removed, but their placement was marked clear enough by flags and blood soaked into the rug.
Lots of blood.
Clumsy work. Amateurish, but not surprising.
It was the smell Raiff noticed next, a burned odor like wires roasted by a power surge. He always put colors to smells, for some reason, and this one was dark, black, even. More bitter and corrosive the deeper he got into the room, as if it were stuck to the air by some cosmic glue. Raiff took a deeper whiff and half expected the sharp and vaguely sweet scent of adhesive to find his nostrils.
But it didn’t and he surveyed the scene for the officer who was in charge, spotting a plainclothes cop with a lieutenant’s badge dangling on a lanyard and coming to rest upon a stomach that protruded well over his belly.
“Hey, you,” the lieutenant cop called to him, before Raiff had a chance to say anything. “Stop right there.”
46
DANCER’S HOUSE
RAIFF STOOD STILL AND waited for the cop to reach him. He glanced about the room, still crowded with forensic techs snapping pictures, taking measurements, and collecting blood samples.
“What have we got?” Raiff asked, making sure his FBI identification was in clear view while pretending to study the lieutenant’s.
Lieutenant Grimes, according to his ID, paid it only cursory regard. He had prominent cheekbones slathered with flesh that was flushed red, the rest of his face so pale that it seemed those cheeks had sucked up all the blood. Raiff wondered if he’d detected the burned odor clinging to the air. He let Grimes see him running his eyes around the toppled furniture and broken fixtures.
Grimes led him into the recesses of a corner the lamplight only grazed. Kind of place families like this put their Christmas trees.
“Home invasion is one possibility,” he said.
“Give me another.”
“It’s too preliminary.”
“That’s why I’m here.”
“The son of the murdered couple has been missing from the hospital for hours. Nobody’s seen him.”
“What was he in the hospital for?”
“Head injury.”
“Oh,” Raiff noted, trying to sound like this could be a major piece of the puzzle. “I hear head injuries can have strange and unusual symptoms.”
“I think you’re getting my drift here. And, get this, the kid’s doctor was found dead too—at the hospi
tal not long after the kid disappeared.”
“You keep saying ‘kid.’”
“The Chins’ son, Alex,” Grimes specified. “His parents dead and him missing? You do the math.”
“You think the boy killed his parents.” Raiff nodded.
“I think it’s a possibility worth investigating, that’s all.”
“Looks more like a war. Two victims?”
Grimes nodded. “Husband and wife. An and Li Chin. Chinese couple.”
Something was bothering Raiff about the scene but he couldn’t put his finger on it yet.
“What’s the FBI’s interest in a home invasion?” Grimes asked him.
“Are we back to home invasion again?”
“Never left it. Just a matter of considering all the possibilities.” Grimes hesitated uneasily. “You see it some other way?”
“If I did, you know I couldn’t tell you.…”
“Goddamn feds,” Grimes said under his breath, just loud enough for Raiff to hear.
“You didn’t let me finish, Lieutenant. What if this fit the pattern of a bunch of other, similar incidents, cutting across a whole bunch of states?”
“You mean, like a ring?”
“Or a very busy gang.”
“And very thorough, Agent. Forensics tells me the only prints they’ve been able to make so far are the victims’, and two others’.”
“What else do you know about the Chins’ son?” Raiff asked, getting to the point at last.
“Besides he’s missing, the fact that he’s some kind of high school football star. Ended up in the hospital after a vicious collision last night. A day later his doctor’s dead, he comes home and, boom! his parents are dead too.”
Raiff suddenly realized what had been bothering him about the room. All this damage, all this chaos, but where were all the shards, the broken pieces? It looked like someone had cleaned the place up in a manner painstaking enough to leave enough residue behind not to arouse suspicion in the cops. But that wouldn’t satisfy someone with a better inclination of who, or what, had killed An and Li Chin.
They wouldn’t have needed to come here if they’d found Dancer in the hospital, Raiff thought, meaning he had surprised them here. Him and someone else, if the fingerprints were to be believed. The Chins’ killers didn’t leave fingerprints because they didn’t have any. And if Dancer had tangled with one of the Shadows, there wouldn’t be any residue of that, either, because the Shadow had never really been here, at least not physically.