The Parker Trilogy Read online

  The room grew silent as the cold rationale spread.

  The DA continued, “It would totally jeopardize the entire case. Both ours locally and at the Federal level.”

  Clopton put her hands on her hips in frustration and nodded slowly.

  Parker hated the DA for making complete sense.

  Captain Holland sighed. “Fine. I’ll transfer him to another case and we’ll—”

  “No,” the lieutenant said, his blue eyes burning with frustration, as if the entire affair of doing his job was annoying. “Enough. Full suspension, pending the completion of both investigations into what happened at The Mayan and Arroyo Villas.”

  “What?” Parker said, stunned. “How long will that take?”

  The cap looked at him sympathetically. “Three to six months. But it’ll be with pay.”

  “That’s bullshit,” Parker spat.

  “Would you rather it be without pay, detective?” the lieutenant shot back.

  Klink looked at the table in dismay, then murmured to Parker, “Your union rep is right outside the door, man.”

  “Yeah, go ahead and call him in,” the lieutenant snapped.

  “Lieutenant . . .” the cap began. But he got no further.

  “No, Captain Holland. I’ve had enough. Let’s call it what it is; I think we’ve got ourselves a loose cannon on our hands here. Something’s up with Detective Parker. Until this point, both you and your predecessor have been able to argue the good with the bad. But after what just happened at that apartment complex last week? Are you shitting me?”

  “He went in—”

  “In direct defiance of Sergeant Davenport’s orders that he wait for her and the SWAT unit to arrive.”

  “Shots were fired. He had to go in,” Davenport cut in meekly.

  “Of course, he did. Does he ever not? Time and again, Detective Parker has charged in. Need I remind you that his last partner, Detective Villa, is dead? And that his latest partner, Detective Campos, is still laid up in the hospital with multiple gunshot wounds?”

  It was the quiet ones you always had to worry about in life, and that was Murillo in a nutshell. Evidently, though, he’d had enough. “That’s a low blow!” he shouted, startling the room.

  Captain Holland had the look of a man watching a nuclear reactor melting down right before his eyes. First, Klink had mentioned the union rep, then Davenport had spoken out of turn, and now Murillo had just shouted at a superior.

  The DA cleared his throat. “I think everyone needs to take a deep breath.”

  The lieutenant sighed heavily. “Fine.” But he said it with a hint of contempt.

  Parker seethed. “Screw that. You got something to say? You say it, Lieutenant.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Detective . . . this is insubordination,” the chief said firmly.

  “No, Chief. Please. Let him be. You want me to say it straight, Detective Parker?” The lieutenant leaned over the table.

  “I’d have it no other way,” Parker replied, leaning to match him.

  “I think you’re an agent of chaos. Because wherever you go? Chaos follows. And worse still? People die.”

  The air left the room in a sickening rush, but what was worse for Parker was the silence that followed. He and the lieutenant both leaned back but continued staring at each other as the group moved on and ironed out a few other details about the case.

  After the meeting was adjourned, Parker met with his union rep to hear all his options before telling him he needed some time to think. The rep had pressed, but Parker was having none of it. He. Needed. Time. To. Think.

  And that’s what he was doing now.

  His head was pounding as he stared out at the storm. But he didn’t see the storm. Instead, all he saw was Afghanistan.

  Big sun. Massive desert. Small lives.

  Beckoning to him. Again.

  He fought it off. Trudy was being discharged from the hospital in an hour and he had to get there. And he would. After a few more minutes. He concentrated. Decisions in life were like decisions on the battlefield. You had to remember to still your mind.

  You had to remember to focus, breathe and aim.

  If he stayed on and fought this thing, it’d be a circus that would only get worse. One of the reporters for The Times was already asking questions about Parker’s military history, and the term “PTSD” was being whispered around. If it all continued to gain momentum then it could drag his VA therapist and a whole host of innocent people – men and women he had served with, friends, even Trudy – into the quagmire.

  No. He couldn’t allow that. That was the honorable reason for what he was thinking. But the hardest person in the world to lie to was yourself, and Parker knew the real reason: because of something Agent Clopton had said during the meeting that had frozen Parker’s attention.

  Standing solemnly, he looked around the squad room. It was a good place. A warm place. He hadn’t been there long, but between the chatter and ringing phones, it was a place where justice was mostly done. It once had a crooked cop, Detective Hopkins, who’d been working for Güero Martinez, but he’d been dragged out two days ago in handcuffs when the Feds decided they had enough on him to make an arrest. At the moment, it was a fairly quiet place.

  But it was no longer his place.

  He walked into the captain’s office, where the captain, the chief and the lieutenant were still engaged in their ivory-tower conversation, and uttered two words to their shocked faces: “I’m done.”

  He placed his gun and shield on Captain Holland’s desk and walked out, ignoring the cap’s calls of protest, and as he made his way to the elevator, he felt a great weight lift off his shoulders.

  Focus. Breathe. Aim. On what Agent Clopton had said.

  She had informed them all in the meeting that Güero Martinez, the man who raped, tortured, sold and murdered women from all over the world, had fled to Mexico. In the process, he had kidnapped his pregnant niece and the social worker that was trying to protect her. Since last being seen on surveillance cameras outside a gas station in Tijuana, Güero’s whereabouts were unknown. Even worse? His ties with the Mexican Mafia would make finding him now nearly impossible.

  “He’s become a ghost,” Clopton said, looking at Parker a full two seconds too long, as if to drive the point home.

  Because they both knew she’d seen Parker’s military file, and as such, she knew that in Afghanistan he’d been part of an elite unit tasked with hunting down some of the most heinous members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

  The unit had no formal name. Instead, they were simply known as “the ghost hunters”.

  And Güero Martinez, fool that he was, had decided to become a ghost.

  The sun was hot and centered between two wood slats in the rundown shack they were now being held in—or, more aptly, imprisoned in. Exhausted, Maggie Kincaid smiled with bitterness as she pressed her head against the splintery wood. Up to this point, she’d successfully managed to forestall her own rape while also protecting Luisa from harm. But there was no telling how long their luck would last.

  It had been a week or so since they’d been taken from the warehouse in Hacienda Heights, the police sirens closing in mockingly on the site just as they pulled away. Why? Why hadn’t she just waited for Detective Murillo to come that day? Why had she just charged in? Things might be totally different if she hadn’t acted so rashly. Now look at things. Her life was in jeopardy for a girl she barely knew, and even in trying to help her she’d only managed to make things worse.

  The drive from Hacienda Heights had been made mostly in silence before they’d arrived at another warehouse downtown, just off the 10 Freeway, where she and Luisa were unloaded and separated, Maggie tied to a water pipe that ran along the wall.

  Güero had groped Maggie a few times in front of his henchmen before three old women arrived, each dressed in black coats, black shoes, black gloves and gray head scarfs tied at the side. The deference that not only his henchman but Güero
himself showed the old women was stunning.

  “Where’s the girl?” the shortest old woman croaked in a nasty, disdainful voice.

  Güero cleared his throat. “Down the hall, in another room.”

  “Why?”

  Seeing Maggie, the tallest woman sneered then shook her head in amazement. “He was going to play first, weren’t you, fool?”

  Güero looked to the ground as all three women turned their attention to Maggie, their heads moving in unison, like a tiny flock of birds.

  The short woman, who was actually bent over severely at the waist as if she suffered from osteoporosis, walked up to Maggie with an intense stare, her black irises almost blotting out the whites of her eyes.

  “What do you see, Misha?” the tall woman asked.

  Misha rubbed her bent back absent-mindedly. Her face filled with a sudden concern, before she mumbled. “I see the other side, Anastasia.”

  After studying Maggie further, Misha reached up one of her sleeves, pulled out a vile of liquid, removed the cork at the top of it and began casting the liquid in X-shaped patterns at Maggie’s feet. It took a moment to register that the liquid was red, and another second for Maggie to realize it was blood. It struck the carpet of the office floor and instantly began to smoke.

  Anastasia stepped forwards, shock in her voice as she looked at the smoke. “What’s this?”

  Misha leaned her chin back and tilted her head to the side before she replied. “She’s not . . . normal.”

  Unable to take her gaze, Maggie looked away and towards the henchmen, who had all receded to the back of the room. Güero, too, had stepped back and was now by a nearby desk, his face a mask of worry.

  “What do you mean, she’s not normal? How so?” Anastasia asked, the “s” drawn out briefly, like a tiny hiss.

  Misha looked to the final old woman. “Delva?”

  The third old woman, who had a slight frame and so many wrinkles across her face that they almost looked drawn on, approached menacingly, removing her gloves as she did so. “She needs a touching,” she said. Shooing Misha aside, Delva came forwards and reached up to Maggie’s face with old, craggy hands that were covered in tattoos.

  Maggie tried to pull away, but she was tied tightly. For a lady who appeared to be over a hundred, Delva moved fast, or at least her hands did. Before Maggie could dodge her again, the old woman’s pruny fingers were splayed across her cheekbones, her pinky fingers digging hard into Maggie’s jaw.

  Then? Nothing. At least for Maggie. For Delva, however, the experience was evidently not pleasant. She shrieked and pulled back almost instantly. “Traveler!” she gasped.

  Misha and Anastasia joined her in front of Maggie, the looks of ominous fascination on both their faces making her queasy. Great. I’ve gone from a psychopathic rapist to three crazy old goats that are prob—

  That’s when she noticed that each woman had inverted crosses tattooed at the base of their throats. She looked at Delva’s hands, which were now folded over her chest defensively; large, black pentagrams were tattooed on the back of each of them.

  Shit! They’re witches!

  It took crazy to another dimension. She and Luisa were quite likely in the hands of downright evil people, possibly even a cult.

  Luisa began screaming from the room down the hall where she’d been taken by Felix. But her screams were more filled with rage than with fear. Things began getting slammed around in her room. There was the sound of a glass shattering.

  Güero immediately motioned for two of his henchmen to investigate. Upon following his orders there was a chorus of arguing from Luisa’s room, and when the henchmen returned one of them had Felix by the collar and the other had Luisa by the arms. Her top was torn and her bra pulled down at an angle over her ribs, leaving one breast awkwardly exposed. She fought one arm free to cover herself, her face filled with desperation as she looked to Maggie, her lower lip trembling violently.

  There were scratch marks across Felix’s face and forearms.

  The old Güero was back instantly. As if the old women weren’t there anymore, he marched across the room. Looking from Luisa to Felix he screamed, “What the hell is this?”

  The old women, who had turned to stare at Luisa as if she were a prized goose, now focused their attention on Felix.

  “Ahhhh,” Delva moaned with a sick, perverted passion. “How delectable.”

  “What?” Güero snapped.

  “Your boy here?” she replied with a chuckle. “I can see it in him. He’s the one we’ve been looking for. He’s the father of the baby.”

  Güero was Luisa’s uncle, and he didn’t even need to ask. Luisa began to sob the minute he looked at her, indirectly sealing Felix’s fate.

  Felix’s eyes went wide with fear and he began to shout his denials. But Güero’s eyes went wide, too; first with shock and dismay, then pure rage and, finally, madness. But it was a calm, scary sort of madness. Sighing, he slowly rolled up his shirt sleeves and began to methodically turn the rings on his fingers around, one by one, so that the stones were facing his palms.

  Felix had evidently seen this little ritual before. “No, jefe,” he mumbled in terror. “Please don’t. Please!”

  Maggie, seeing what was coming, looked to Luisa. “Close your eyes!” she said. “Close your eyes, Luisa!”

  She did. Maggie did.

  But horror comes in sounds, too.

  And there was nothing like the sound of a man being beaten to death.

  Chapter Two

  Father Soltera moved wearily across the open meadow, which was still dark beneath the dead-light glow of the strange sky in this place, Ikuro and his violin still in his mind. In their haste to flee, they’d been forced to leave Ikuro unburied. A sacrilege back home, Father Soltera doubted that mattered much here. In this place, those who came were dead already in some ways, alive in others, and rites of passage meant little to those who were simply passing through. He had no idea how he knew this, but he did.

  Michiko had remained quiet the entire walk. He glanced over at her a few times, one time finding her looking contemplative, the next, looking sad. Her slight features and pretty face no longer reconciled with the fierce warrior he’d seen in battle with the dire wolves. The power within her was great, and acted like a forcefield that reverberated outward before retracting back inside her. But it brought with it no fear, most likely due to the pure serenity of the creature it inhabited. She was an enigma with swords, but he was beyond relieved that she was with him. If she weren’t, he would’ve been dead five times over by now.

  When they reached the edge of the forest there was no hesitation. They plunged in at a spot that looked like a trail head, which proved to be overgrown in many spots. It barely mattered, as the trees were sparse. Before long, they emerged into another meadow, this one smothered in tall grass and patches of choking ivy. The trail continued and was hedged at the sides, as if someone—or something—maintained it.

  Michiko stopped. “Wait.”

  He did as he was ordered but he didn’t have to ask why. “I feel it too,” he said, and sighed with relief.

  She looked at him and nodded. The air here was filled with a peace you could actually breathe.

  “Why?” he muttered softly.

  “Why, what, tomodachi?”

  “Why here? What makes here so different than back there?” He tossed a thumb over his shoulder. Then he added, “And please, no more mysterious Twilight Zone talk, okay?”

  A quizzical look came over her face. “Twilight Zone?”

  He shook his head. “Never mind. I just mean—”

  “I know what you want, tomodachi. You want what all of your kind want: answers. Even though you should know full well by now that answers only lead to more questions.”

  “I guess that’s true.”

  “My sensei taught it to me.”

  Father Soltera looked around before he replied, remembering countless hours in the confessional with people going round and round
about their lives from one week, one month, one year to the next. “Your sensei?”

  “Yes. You would like him. He helps others, much like you. He also says it is the great truth of the universe, this endless seeking. I’ve been dead for five hundred years, tomodachi. Still, I seek too.”

  “How? I thought heaven meant an end to all that.”

  She smiled. “Heaven?”

  “Yeah. I mean, I believe. You do too, right?”

  “Of course,” Michiko replied. “And heaven is most certainly real. It awaits us all. But no one said that the second you leave the reality of your existence on earth that you go directly there. Some do, yes. But most have many more realities to pass through along the way.”

  “How is that possible?”

  “Some—indeed, most—are not ready or equipped or prepared for the ultimate truth. They have too many memories that haunt them, too many weaknesses that would inhibit full transfiguration. So, the path that awaits them next is simply one that leads to less pain, and the one after that to lesser still. Like the path before you now.” She waved her hand before them.

  “You mean . . .”

  “I will be here if you need me. But where you go next requires a solitary journey.”

  “Like facing another nightmare?” Father Soltera replied sarcastically.

  The look of sadness came over her face again. “No, tomodachi. Like facing your only true love.”

  His throat clutched up and he swallowed hard. “What?”

  “Tomodachi, did you not think for one moment that when your soul went wandering that it would not seek her, and in so doing, find the place where she was?”

  “You mean—”

  “Yes. She’s been trapped here since her coma began. And you? You are the only one who can truly free her. And, I’ve surmised now, she is the only one who can truly free you.”

  Father Soltera looked down the path. “How?”

  Michiko shook her head. “Later. For now? Just go.”