Yesterday's Gone (Season 5): Episodes 25-30 (17 page)

“Let me out!” Boricio screamed and kicked out, stubbing his toes against the cell door and thrashing against the straitjacket.

Pain shot from his toes to his ankles.

Fuck! Fuck!

The fuckers had taken his shoes. And his clothes, save for the straitjacket. The giant’s shit was his own; Boricio was sitting in a homemade pile. 

“Goddammit, let me the fuck outta here, you stupid cunts!”

Boricio’s heart hammered so fast he thought he might have a heart attack and die — alone in BumFuck County Lockup, buried in a John Doe grave, barely a shit stain to remind the world that Boricio Wolfe had been in it.

The utter confinement made Boricio brew with a fresh batch of rage. It was one thing to be stuck in the cell. That, he could handle. Boricio still had some space and could move around. A shark in a tank was still a fucking shark. And it was one thing to have his hands tied behind his back. A kick in the nuts, but something he could deal with and worm his way out of in time.

But this was different.

The straitjacket was a coffin, pinning him down from all sides, hands secured in front of his chest.

Boricio wanted, no
needed
, to break free of the jacket. He had to move. He felt like he had crabs crawling all over his entire fucking body.

“Let me out!!” 

Boricio screamed loud enough to wake his earliest victims, but no one responded to shit. So far as he could tell his cell was small and dark with a floor and walls of concrete.

The only light came from a sliver under the door, cockteasing the world outside.

Boricio screamed again until his throat was raw and tasted of blood.

After what felt like a
fuck you
from forever, a shadow finally moved across the floor and Boricio heard footsteps outside.

He sat straighter. Pain seized his back, but Boricio ignored it, eager to see anyone who might come through the door.

Except the motherfucker who did.

Guard Tard opened the door to blinding light, the man still half-concealed in shadow. But he was quick to talk and surrender himself like a dipshit. No sense of suspense. With turned tables, Boricio would’ve given the ass crack an HBO of horrors. 

“Well, well, well,” Guard Tard said, “we’ve got ourselves a genuine badass here, don’t we?”

Boricio let the guard gloat.

“Tell me,
John Doe
, do ya consider yourself a careful man?”

Boricio still said nothing, though he was curious where this bag of cock meat was going.

“Because I get the feeling that you do. You’re the kinda guy that lives behind the walls, just outta sight, where ya scamper out to do your sneaky, dirty little deeds unseen, like a goddamned cockroach. Am I right?”

“Yup, you got me all figured out.” 

“More than you know, pal. More than you know.”

Boricio knew the fucker wanted him to beg for an explanation, smiling like a goddamned retard at a petting zoo full of kittens and titties. 

But Boricio refused to play ball. He just sat there staring Guard Tard in the eyes instead.

Guard Tard kneeled down, coming to within a few feet of Boricio’s face, close enough to smell onion and bologna on his breath, along with a strong whiff of tartar suggesting this man’s dental hygiene was about as half-assed as his grammar and attention to nostril hair. 

“See, boy, you don’t need to use your name for us to find out the best stuff about ya.”

Boricio stared straight ahead, pretending not to be a tenth as interested as he suddenly was.

“Even the most careful of killers sometimes leave evidence behind. And you, my cockroach friend, have slipped a few times. Hmm, let’s see. We got this motel in California where a former cop and this Church of Original Design guy were found dead. Then we got this case a while back, a pedophile got himself killed and left out in the middle o’ nowhere. Any of this ringin’ a bell in that little insect brain o’ yours?”

“Not even a dinner bell.” No one got to Boricio — not ever — but this fucker was. He smiled to bury his rage.

“Don’t worry, you don’t have to say a word. That’s the beautiful thing about DNA evidence. You play dumb all ya want, but we still fuckin’ got ya. Rest on that, Smarter Than the Average Bear.”

Guard Tard stood up, spun, and slammed the door closed behind him.

Boricio wanted to kick. 

Wanted to scream.

Wanted out of the fucking straitjacket.

Wanted to kill something.

But he was stuck in a giant’s asshole with a genuine pile of shit.

* * * *

CHAPTER 5 — MARINA HARMON

“You want to handle this one?” Acevedo asked as they pulled up to the black iron gate that circled the first house on their list.

The estate was massive, two stories, and situated on a bluff looking down on Hollywood. It wasn’t Malibu, but Marina still put the sticker price at three million minimum. 

“Sure.” Marina got out of the car, then went to the touch screen and camera that stood to greet anyone requesting entrance.

She pressed a call button and was met by a black screen and a man’s voice: “Yes?”

“We’re here to see Mr. Milton Rosen.”

A moment’s pause, then, “He’s dead.”

Marina looked down, embarrassed. “Are you his son? Andrew?”

“Yeah, who are you?”

“It’s been a long time, so you may not remember me. My name is Marina Harmon. My father was Josh Harmon, and our fathers were friends. You came out to our house a few times for dinner parties several years ago.”

Marina couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Mr. Rosen or his son but was reasonably sure he was a teen at the time, and likely in his early twenties now. She wondered if the kid had inherited everything, or whether it had all gone to his mother. She couldn’t even remember if there were a Mrs. Rosen. She barely remembered Mr. Rosen, other than the fact that her dad had played golf with him on occasion, and he was a famous Broadway playwright who’d written some plays her father had rather liked. How the two had become friends, Marina wasn’t sure. She didn’t think Mr. Rosen had ever been a part of the church.

“So, whadya want?” Andrew asked through the speaker.

“I’d like to talk to you about something.”

“Mind telling me what?” He sounded perturbed.

“Not over the speaker. I’d rather we sit down.”

“Who’s that with you?” 

Marina looked back to Acevedo sitting in the passenger seat, looking as annoyed as she felt.

“This is another friend of my father’s, Mr. Acevedo.”

“I don’t know him.”

Marina sighed and folded her hands together. “OK, may we still talk to you?”

“You can. He stays outside.”

Marina was about to object, but Acevedo said, “It’s fine, go ahead.”

She rolled her eyes behind their lids and faked her best smile. “OK, then, may
I
come in to talk to you, alone?”

“Yes,” the young man said, “alone.”

The gate opened.

Marina leaned down into the car and met the priest’s eyes. “So, any advice?”

“Ask him if his father left behind a vial of any kind, and then tell him you need it.”

“What if he doesn’t want to hand it over?”

“Then come back here, and I’ll go get it.”

“What about these?” Marina patted her pocket where she’d taken his vial and added it to her father’s old box. “Do you want me to leave them with you for safekeeping?”

He stared ahead into the house for a moment, as if considering Marina’s offer, then shook his head no. “I don’t want any part of them.”

“OK.”

Marina turned and headed through the gates, box of vials shoved into her interior coat pocket. The gates hummed as they swung shut behind her.

She thought again of the warning from the man back at the house. He’d said not to trust Acevedo with the vials, but the priest didn’t disagree. It made no sense, unless it was The Darkness trying to wedge its way between them. 

The front doors opened before she reached them.

Marina was met by a buzz-cut, stocky man wearing all black with a gun holstered at his side. He held a metal-detecting wand in his hand and told her to stand with her arms out.

“All this to see an old friend?” 

Marina wondered why Andrew had a security detail. Perhaps he was famous himself. She recalled him doing some local TV back in the day, but hadn’t heard anything about movie roles or some other claim to fame. 

“Just doing my job, ma’am,” the guard said.

Marina looked around the house. Red carpet, white walls, and matching white modern furniture decorated the living room, stretching from the home’s rear where giant windows stared out over the city below.

The kitchen, a mix of black and white, was off to her right, but Marina saw no sign of Andrew. She assumed he was up the spiral stairway, on the second floor.

The guard frisked her, and his hand paused on the box in her coat.

“What’s this?” He drew the box from her pocket before she could stop him.

The guard shook the box then went to open it.

“Don’t!” Marina reached out to try and retrieve the box.

He pulled it away, glared at Marina, then opened the box and looked inside. “Ah, Mr. Rosen will be quite happy to see these. Come with me.” 

The guard led her to the stairs.

Shit. Not even a minute into the house before they got the vials. I should’ve left them with Acevedo.

Marina considered what the guard had said — that Andrew would be “quite happy” to see the vials, which implied an awareness. If so, was that a good thing or a bad thing?

At first she’d taken Andrew’s attitude for arrogance, but perhaps he was merely cautious. Maybe he’d seen some of the same dangers that she had and was afraid that someone would be coming for his father’s vial.

Marina hoped her father chose right when giving a vial to Milton, and that the man’s son would follow in his footsteps.

The upstairs had swapped white and red for cream and chocolate brown. Marina felt a cold chill at her spine, colder and colder the closer they got to the room at the hallway’s end. 

The guard opened the door to an office with three long, custom-built tables stretching the length of all but one wall. 

The tables were clear save for one area, which was crammed with books and three monitors. Andrew was sitting at the spot, with his head in his hands, long brown hair spilling over his fingers. He looked up revealing a thin pale face with dark circles under hollow-looking eyes.

His lips were thin and dry. He looked like he was either on a long bender of drugs or had gone a week without sleep.

He looked up at Marina, but didn’t bother to greet her. 

The guard walked toward Andrew, handing him the box. “Look what she brought.”

Andrew looked at Marina, then down at the box. He opened it. Blue light radiated on his face as he stared at the vials.

“Where did you get these?” His eyes stayed fixed to the vials.

“My father asked me to watch after them.”

Andrew smiled as if staring at something he’d been searching forever to find. His eyes teared up.

“Thank you for bringing them here. Are there more?”

“I wasn’t bringing them to you. I came to see if you had the one my father left with yours. He has asked me to collect all the vials. It’s of prime importance.”

Andrew looked up and grinned. “Yeah, I bet he did.”

“Seriously,” she said, “bad things will happen if I don’t get the vials.”

Marina wasn’t sure how much she should tell him, or how much he’d believe. But something in Andrew’s eyes said she wouldn’t have to convince him of the vials’ importance. He might not know what they are, but he had no doubts about their importance.

“How many more are there?” 

“Two more that I know of.”

“Where are they?” Andrew asked.

“Um, I don’t know. Yet. The information is back at my compound, and that’s our next stop. Can you tell me where the vial is, the one your father was holding?”

Andrew smiled again, leaned back in his chair, and met Marina’s eyes. “I
bet
you’d like to know.”

He eyed her up and down, practically molesting her with his gaze. He reminded her of any number of rich assholes Marina knew when she was younger, men who thought they owned the world and everyone in it was merely their toys. 

“Yes, please. I need to bring it back.”

“I’m sorry.” He smiled his stupid smile. “That won’t happen. You will leave here, return to your weird little cult, and pretend you never came.”

“I can’t do that. I have to bring the vials back.”

“Back to whom? Your father is dead; why do you need these?” He spoke in a singsong, as if enjoying the conversation, and his leverage over Marina, a little too much.

“You don’t understand. There are lives at risk.”

“Why don’t you enlighten me, Miss Harmon? Tell me more.”

“The vials contain alien life forms. If they fall into the wrong hands, they can destroy us all.”

Andrew’s eyes widened, and then his lips curled into an odd expression before he burst out laughing.

“Oh, God, that is rich! I know you all had some loony ideas at the Cult O’ Original Design, but Jesus, that’s just … wow.” Andrew started clapping his hands slowly, then stood and took a bow. “Bravo, ma’am.”

“I’m not lying, and this has nothing to do with my religion. My father trusted yours. I’m hoping I can do the same with you. I need those vials.”

Marina didn’t bother explaining which vials she meant. She’d try to get hers back, then ask for his.

“Sorry, again, Ms. Harmon, but I’m gonna hold onto these for a bit. I already lost my vial to a friend.”

“What do you mean?”

“After my dad died a few months ago, I found the vial hidden in a metal lockbox in his bedroom closet. No instructions on what to do or anything. I only knew that touching the vial made me feel good, alive, gave me this rush! I know my dad went on these ‘retreats’ with these shamans and shit, so I figured this had to be some fly drug that nobody’s ever heard of, strong enough to feel it through glass! So I had my friend, who’s a chemist of sorts, if you know what I mean, take a look and see if he could replicate it. I haven’t heard from him in two weeks, though, so I was pissed off thinking my shit was gone for good, but then … well, you brought me new bottles! And for that, I thank you.”