Six, p.6
Six, page 6
He opened the next Unknown Sender text to reveal two Japanese men in black suits bowing their heads at a graveside. Next to them none other than Ivan held his head low. “Dr. Yoshida!” Paige said as she recognized the same beautiful young face and jet-black ponytail.
“And the other young man is Rikuto Nakano. They are all connected somehow, and each of them is a ghost in the system. I can’t find a current address, a phone number, or an e-mail. Two brilliant scientists just vanish, and no one seems to care. If you even mention the Dragon, the message vanishes. Now there is another disappearance—”
“A nurse?”
“A nurse who was last seen leaving work after taking an unusual Friday shift,” Dr. Carmichael continued. “I managed to get a description of her last patient, a Mr. Tyrone Lee of Boston, Massachusetts.”
“Are you about to tell me that he was a freakishly buff, tall, blond, half-Asian man?” she dared to ask.
“No, he was described as very tall, Asian, long black hair, and covered in tattoos.”
Paige just shook her head. “So?”
“So, the nurse said he seemed very agitated and angry.”
“So maybe he had something to do with this Gail Filopovic’s disappearance? I’m surprised the police wouldn’t at least question him.”
“That’s because he was found dead a few days later in Washington, DC, apparently from an overdose. The police just shut the case, and it looks like they are doing very little to find this missing nurse! What if they saw something? Somehow this Tyrone Lee was connected to Dr. Yoshida, to Rikuto Nakano, and to Ivan. I just can’t figure it out, but my source wants me to dig.”
“Dad, what is going on here? This is a little more CSI and a little less Alien Encounters. Why are you even—?”
“I know who is manipulating us, baby. I know now that it isn’t aliens. It was never aliens. There is a dark, sinister force right here trying to control us all, and we have to stop it!”
“Oh, Dad,” Paige sighed as she waited for it.
“It’s vampires, honey, and I have proof.” He started typing furiously on his computer. This time he brought up a site called WWII Stories Online. Paige buried her face in her hands as she saw a picture of five young men posing for an old picture.
“This is what Mom warned me about,” she muttered under her breath. “Dad, what do disappearing scientists, nurses, and a half-Japanese blond have to do with vampires?”
“I’ve been sent cases—missing persons, murders, unsolved crimes—for the past century!” he said. “There is so much, but I don’t dare show you yet. It’s too dangerous. Just trust your old dad here. This connection to the Asian crime families is recent, and it’s somehow tied to mysteriously recovered art. After all, if you lived forever, how would you make any money? You’d have to discover things. If anyone got close to the truth, you’d have to eliminate them, and you’d probably need some sort of criminal element to do your dirty work, right?”
“Dad, just who are these sources?” Paige sighed. “It’s ridiculous, and why are you showing me a family photo?”
“Just read the story. Please, Paige, please read it—”
“Dad, I’ve read this before. My mom was one of the ones who contributed her nonna’s story about her husband she lost in the war—”
“The soldiers in the unit were found in a mass grave, torn apart—”
“And they couldn’t even find Great-Grandpa’s body, I know—”
“Maybe that’s because there was no body to find. There was a description of a young man with curly brown hair at the scene of the café with Miss Filipovic, but they couldn’t get a picture—”
“There are a lot of young men with curly brown hair, Dad—”
“I have more sources; just keep reading, Paige—”
She scrolled down through the story of the recon unit’s bravery and their disappearance and death late in the war. She looked at each picture next to their biographies and paused at the faintly familiar smile of one Private Steven J. DeMarco of Queens, New York.
“Wait a second,” she said as she flipped down to the very last picture, one of the families gathered together at the funeral. It was a grainy, faded group shot, but Paige’s jaw dropped as she saw a very tall, very blond figure in a dark suit not ten feet from her grieving great-grandmother. “That can’t be—”
“I’ve got so much more, honey,” he said. “There is a connection to your great-grandfather. Now, think about it. What other creatures remain ageless through time? Paige, you have to be prepared.”
“Prepared—how?”
“One of my sources claims that there are safe areas, areas out west, where the vampires don’t go. Now, I’ve already moved Sunshine and your sister to a town outside of Denver, and I really think—”
“I am not moving to Denver just because you think vampires are after you, Dad!”
“But—”
“You can’t just barge in here and be all . . . be all ridiculous like that and expect me just to follow you on some crazy adventure. I’m not ten anymore, in case you haven’t noticed. So unless you have some real proof that I’m in danger, get out.”
“Let me just check with my sources, see if it’s OK—”
“Get out!” she barked.
“I’ll get you your proof. My source says he has incontrovertible evidence that vampires are real. I know I shouldn’t do this, but here. This is the emergency number one of my sources gave me. He said only call it if my life was in danger. I’m going to give you a copy of it—”
“I said get out,” she said softly, pointing toward the door.
“They are real, baby. I’ll meet you in public with the proof. We’ll do lunch . . . Wednesday. Wednesday should give me time to contact him. What do you say? We’ll get some lunch. You name the place, and I’ll be there.”
“I’ll meet you at El Guapos on Winchester. It’s a little Mexican place near my work. I can get there at noon and I only get an hour for lunch, so be there. If you don’t show up, don’t bother calling for a while. Are we clear?”
He handed her a business card for some brake shop. She flipped it over to see the initials I. W. and a 303 area code number. “Only for emergencies,” he warned again as he gathered up his papers and computer. “Oh, and be smart, baby bear. Don’t tell anyone what I’ve told you . . . for your sake.”
She walked him to the door. “I promise, Dad,” she said as she gave him a halfhearted hug. Once she had escorted him out the door, she sighed, “Who would believe me anyway?”
4
Paige stared at her almost empty plate of chicken enchiladas. She had somehow managed to create a perfectly straight fault line of crispy yellow rice butting up against the dried-out edge of refried beans. She used one tine of her fork to carefully lift a rogue red pepper bit that was interrupting her design and flicked it into the untouched pile of lettuce across the oval plate.
“Wow, so that’s how it is,” she said softly. She looked across to the empty chair. “Shows me exactly what I get for getting my hopes up.”
She took one more gulp of water, slapped twelve dollars on her overturned check, grabbed her purse, and walked for the door. She checked her phone as she slipped into the rust bucket otherwise known as a Honda Civic—no messages. She wiped her eyes once before taking the short drive down the street to get back to work.
It was another day of expense reports. It was another day of answering phones and running for coffee for the sales team. It was even a day when she got the pleasure of lugging boxes of papers to the non-climate-controlled offsite storage, but it was not a day when she got to talk to her father about vampires.
She made her way home and once more found a pack of overgrown boys gobbling down hot wings and playing video games in her living room. Paige waved weakly and went straight for the laundry that Calvin had thoughtfully already spread on her half of the bed. As she finished the first round of towels, a freshly shaved head peeked around the doorjamb.
“You OK, babe?” Cal asked.
Paige forced out a smile. “Just one of those days at work,” she said. “Was just going to decompress with the movie channels and some laundry.”
“Cool. Hey, let us know if we get too loud, babe,” Cal said.
She darted over and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You can be awfully sweet sometimes, Mr. Wilkerson,” she said.
He rolled his eyes and scrunched up his nose a bit. The motion made his whiskers tickle her cheek. “Come on; I have a reputation to uphold here, lady,” he said before pinching her butt.
She finished her day with folded clothes, ironed chef’s whites, and some comedy from the eighties.
She woke up once more to the snoring of her resident bear, and after a morning run the cycle began anew. She had received an invitation for dinner at Mom’s house on Friday. Calvin decided to pick up an extra shift and offered to sleep over at Bobby’s again. Soon she found herself wiping her eyes again—this time due to the pile of onions on the cutting board.
“You know, you could chop those a little finer, sweetie,” Maria said as she stirred the heady mix of browning sausage and olive oil.
“This is why I date a chef, Mom, and I always have you,” she said in a singsong voice as she did another clumsy pass with her knife.
Her mom grabbed the board and dumped it in the pot along with some previously mauled peppers and mushrooms. She gave a withering glance to her daughter. “Men expect an Italian girl to be able to cook, Paige,” Maria warned.
Paige just settled down across the kitchen island and let her mom keep puttering away. “Outsourcing is the way of the future, Mom,” she fired back.
Rather than get snippy, Mrs. Carmichael just laughed and started hunting for wine and herbs in the fridge. Paige smiled as her mother danced across the tiles and sang a little song.
“Someone is in a good mood,” Paige said as her mom poured two glasses. “Do I want to know?”
Maria beamed. “I just feel exhilarated today. I don’t know about you, but I had the most amazing night last night.”
“Mom—” Paige warned.
“No gory details, I promise, but I remember Italian food and cocktails and . . .” she trailed off.
“Was he nice? Good looking?”
Mrs. Carmichael blinked a few times. “He was younger, really good looking, but you know what’s funny—”
“What?”
“I can’t remember much else about him. We had a lot of wine, you know. It was a little rough getting up this morning.”
“Well, did you get his number at least?”
Maria stirred and added some wine before prancing over to check her phone. She made a terrible grunt as she scrolled through her contacts and then her messages. Her baby-brown eyes nearly crossed as she searched and searched. “Damn it!” she finally exclaimed as she slammed the phone down and returned to her sauce.
“Well, what was his name at least?” Paige finally asked.
Maria tapped her foot and looked desperately around the kitchen. Her eyes stopped briefly at a framed menu for her old restaurant, but she couldn’t form any sort of cohesive words. “He was, um, um—”
Paige poured her mother’s wine into her own glass. “Maybe you should stick to water tonight,” she said with a little laugh.
Maria agreed reluctantly. “This is so weird. Why can’t I just remember it?” she asked.
“Have you been working too much maybe?” Paige offered.
Maria nodded. “That must be it. Oh, I meant to ask. Have you seen your father lately?”
Paige shook her head and drank some wine. “He must be too busy with his latest conspiracy theory.”
“Oh, what’s he into now? Are aliens controlling our satellites again?” she asked.
Paige blinked a few times. “You know what he’s been ranting about recently, don’t you?”
It was Maria’s turn to shake her head a few times. “I haven’t talked to your father in months. What is he up to now?”
“Mom, have you had any headaches? Anything else weird?” Paige asked.
“Just after a night of cocktails. Sweetie, what is wrong?” Maria asked. “What has your father gotten into now?”
Paige took another sip. “He thinks that aliens are destabilizing the government by financially supporting the Tea Party,” she said with a little laugh. “I just thought he told you too.”
“That man,” Maria said with a little eye roll.
“You’re the one who married him,” Paige countered.
They laughed and continued making the family meat sauce. Once they settled down at the kitchen table to enjoy a little fresh pasta, Maria’s phone buzzed on the counter. She made a quick apology and ducked to a corner to take the call. Her smile betrayed who was on the other end.
“Sure, I’d love to do something, but later . . . later,” Paige overheard. “No, my daughter is over right now. No, she hasn’t seen her father recently. Why do you ask?”
Paige grabbed her purse and rifled through it until she found the business card with the “I. W.” on it. “This is too weird,” she muttered before typing it into the search function on her phone. The number came up as unknown. She quickly shut it down as her mom returned to the table.
“Good call?” Paige asked.
“I was going to go out for drinks later, but if you want to stay, I can cancel.”
“No way. You look pretty happy, and I’ve got stuff to do at home,” Paige said. “Did you want me to let you know if I hear from Dad?”
“Yeah,” Maria said without skipping a beat. “But you aren’t allowed to leave before having the tiramisu I made for us.”
They laughed and made small talk through dessert. Paige stayed just long enough for her mom to get the message that her date was waiting outside. “I’ll walk you out,” Paige said as she checked her mom’s blouse for any wayward cocoa or flour from the night’s cooking. “Have fun, you crazy kids.”
Maria laughed, put on some fresh lipstick, and did one final check in the entry hall mirror. Paige stopped dead in her tracks as she saw a black town car idling in their cul-de-sac. It wasn’t the fancy limo that made the young woman pause; it was the very tall, lanky Asian man in a black suit with slicked-back hair.
“Paige?” Maria asked.
“That’s your date? I never knew you liked, um—”
“I think that’s the driver, hon, but if you like I could get his number. He’s pretty hot,” Maria teased.
The driver turned to look right at her, his unnaturally black-brown eyes ringed with barely concealed dark circles. She gave a little wave and tried not to notice his perfect cheekbones and familiar jawline. His expression remained dreadfully passive as he opened the back door. Paige could only see a leg in a gray suit as her mother slipped in.
“Have fun!” she called as she walked quickly back to her car.
Once she was in the relative safety of her driver’s seat and the other car had pulled away, she finally let out a huge breath and rubbed her eyes. She looked at herself in the rearview mirror.
“That can’t have been him. That can’t have been Dr. Yoshida,” she said as she pulled out her phone and did a quick google search. Sure enough, as she pulled up an image of Dr. Michael Yoshida, a rather different, older man with short hair and a mustache stared back at her. “Insert some terrible joke about how they all look alike, Paige,” she whispered to the mirror. She checked two more sites and found that no other images were available.
“Your dad is making you paranoid,” she chided herself as she started the long drive out of East Memphis to her home in Cordova. As she was pulling up to her complex entrance, she grumbled as the gate was still open, even though it was after nine.
She could hear music coming from the apartment next to hers as she was pulling up, and every parking spot within two hundred feet of her door was filled with strange cars. Paige finally managed to find a space around the back of the building and cursed her luck as she was forced to walk all the way from the furthest reaches of the asphalt jungle. She froze as the hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. She whirled around but saw nothing other than her fuzzy dice swaying on her car mirror. One of the little trees rustled slightly even though the night air remained still. She slowly reached into her pocket for her phone.
Her heart raced as she started walking for the nearest pool of light. Unfortunately, her choice of spots put her near the broken gate and the undeveloped wooded area behind the adjacent strip mall. Her heart continued to race and her breath became shallow as she hustled to get into view.
Something moved in the corner of her eye. She opened her mouth to scream, but a hand clamped across her mouth with sudden and shocking force. She kicked and thrashed against her assailant, but he continued to drag her toward the dark, toward the blind spots and the deep hidden places away from other people.
“Don’t make a sound,” a guttural voice hissed in her ear.
She tried kicking backward, wriggling, twisting, anything to break free, but she remained stuck in an iron grip. Her neck muscles screamed in pain as she tried to wrench her head around to get a better look at just who was attacking her. Finally, she took a deep breath and clamped down with her teeth with every ounce of adrenaline-powered strength her jaws could muster. Her incisors broke through the knit of her attacker’s gloves and into the skin. Her attacker dropped her as she tasted copper in her mouth.
She inhaled to scream, but all of that hard-earned air came flooding out as a powerful blow socked her in the diaphragm. She ended up hurled against the pavement, her head cracking against the curb. Everything grew hazy as she felt two huge hands grabbing the sides of her head.
Her attacker wore black from head to toe, including a black balaclava on a sticky spring night. The only thing she could see were very bright blue eyes growing wide as she started fading in and out of consciousness.
“Well, this was unexpected,” her attacker said in a soft Southern drawl. “Please understand that I didn’t mean for this to happen.”
