The Prophet (Ryan Archer #2) (17 page)

“I can’t live with myself anymore,” Tyler had said, the familiar blackness pressing in around from all sides. “I just want the shit I feel inside to all come to an end.”

“Interesting,” the stranger commented.

A brief hush fell over the conversation. Then the stranger spoke again, posing a simple question.

“What would that be worth to you?” he asked.

“What would
what
be worth to me?”

“To end all the shit in your life.”

“Doesn’t matter. I’m out of money.”

“Perhaps it wouldn’t cost a dime. Have you ever considered that?”

“Leave me alone,” Tyler said. “Please just let me be.”

“I could certainly do that. But if that is your choice, nothing about your life will change.”

“What can you offer?”

“Are you willing to give everything? All of yourself? Body, soul, and spirit?”

Tyler had blinked twice. Tried to focus. The room tilted. He clutched the edge of the counter, clawing at it with his fingernails. The beer glass in front of him appeared to expand and contract, like a pulsing heart.

“What’s in that stuff?” he asked, shaking his head. “That’s not beer. What is it?”

The bartender maintained her back to him, as if not to hear.
 

Tyler raised his voice. “Hey!” he shouted. “Listen to me! What did you put in my drink?”

He noticed a pattern on the back of her neck. Ink. A tattoo. He squinted to identify it but his vision was too out of whack. The bartender still ignored him. The stranger at the end of the bar pushed the brim of his hat up with the knuckle of his index finger. His face was dark, but his eyes were bright, set deeply back in the sockets. He looked as if he had seen the passage of a million years and remembered every moment of it.

“Tell me, Tyler. What price would you be willing to pay to have all the best the world has to offer?” the stranger had asked.

“I’d give anything.”

The stranger scratched at the stubble along his chin with the back of his hand, and nodded as if impressed by Tyler’s reply.

“I’m very glad to hear that, young man. That shows ambition. The kind of ambition needed to be a winner. Do you want to be a winner, Tyler?”

The room stopped spinning. The nausea passed. Tyler no longer had to grip the bar to keep from potentially pinwheeling to the floor.

“That’s all I’ve dreamed about all my life, is being a winner,” Tyler said at last, and he could taste the words falling from his tongue, as if they were objects, thick and juicy, with weight and dimension.
 

The stranger pivoted on his barstool and stood up. His cowboy boots clicked on the wood floor as he stepped around the corner of the bar and approached Tyler. The stranger was very tall and lean. His boots were made of some exotic animal skin with silver caps on the toes. Tyler watched him out of the corner of his eye. The stranger stood close to him, leaning an elbow on the bar.
 

Tyler didn’t know what to say or do.

“Finish your beer,” the stranger had said.

Tyler nodded and lifted the glass to his lips. He swallowed the last of it and pushed the glass away. Then he wiped his mouth with his bare forearm.

“Do we have a deal, Tyler?” the stranger had asked, in a tone that seemed more muscular and authoritative.

Tyler wasn’t absolutely certain what the question meant, or what kind of response was called for, but something deep inside of him felt compelled to follow the stranger’s lead and trust him like he’d never trusted anyone in his life. So he nodded his head, yes.
 

The stranger had smiled, not as if in fellowship with a friend, but more as a smile of satisfaction, a knowing smile, as if information had been withheld that only he was privy to. He offered a hand and Tyler accepted the gesture and shook it. And in that moment something passed between them, an energy vibration, and the transaction was complete. Tyler Toland had no idea what had taken place, but he did understand that his destiny no longer lay in the desert with a .38 Special wedged in his mouth. The stranger clapped him on the back and walked out the door.

Tyler launched off his seat to follow him out, but once outside there was no sign of the man in the western shirt and boots. Tyler’s beat up Mazda was the only car in the dusty lot. He ran to one side of the building and then the other. The man was simply gone. So Tyler paid for his beer, turned onto the highway, and returned to Los Angeles and immediately changed his name to Jimmy Cloud. Soon, he was the biggest movie star in the world, and that evening in the desert faded from memory as if it had never happened.

For the past week, ever since Tatum disappeared, Jimmy had been having unsettling dreams. He wasn’t sure how to interpret them. He would fall asleep quickly, be assaulted by the same dream, then awaken quickly. The rest of the night would be a struggle to clear his head and doze again.

The horizon was murky. He stood in the tide, feet pressed into the wet sand. He no longer felt invincible, and it was a terrifying sensation. He had no logical explanation for how he had risen in such grand fashion and remained at the top for so many years. And if he couldn’t explain how he got there, there was no reason why he couldn’t fall at any moment.

He returned to the house and poured another drink. A little something to settle his nerves. Then he heard his cell phone ring. His spine tingled. Why? Because it was Tatum’s ring tone.

He ran to phone. Grabbed at it. Saw her face smirking at him from the glass screen.

“Tatum?” he asked in desperation as he answered. “Baby, are you there?”

“Daddy, I’m fine,” Tatum answered. “I’m really fine. I can’t talk now. I’ll call again tomorrow, I promise. Just please don’t tell anyone you spoke to me.”

Then the call dropped. She was gone.

TWENTY-THREE

Smith was still in the nude. As was Archer. Both of them had slept without settling in under any bedding at all. Archer awoke to the feeling of her warm, flawless skin nestled against his bare chest. She had buried her face in his neck and was still sleeping soundly. He brushed his fingertips down the contours of her body, from her neck to the middle of her thigh, yet still she failed to stir. He slipped out of bed and went to the bathroom.

Archer, as always, meditated before breakfast, taking the time to center himself and reclaim his place among the universe. He sat on the deck with his legs folded. The air was cool and still. Breakfast was steel-cut oats with berries. He carried the bowl to the front steps of the house and walked out to the driveway, surveying the neighborhood. The confrontation with the men in the Mercedes had left him feeling unsettled. He wasn’t pleased with the notion that they had been watching Smith’s house, and he had the uneasy feeling that more leering eyes might be out there somewhere. So when he finished breakfast, he jogged up the hill and around the bend, to partially satisfy his curiosity. He saw nothing of suspicion.

Archer returned, dressed in jeans and a T-shirt, and stood at the foot of the bed, appraising Smith’s glorious body sprawled out at an angle among the tangle of sheets. He leaned over and put his face in her hair, breathing her in, then gently brushed the hair out of her face and left her to dream in peace. He closed the door without making a sound and started his truck. The sun was just beginning to burn a layer of haze off the horizon as he dropped the stick into gear and turned out of the drive.

Webb answered his cell on the first ring.

“Talk to me, brother,” Webb said, sounding out of breath.

“Sounds like I might be interrupting something.”

“I’m on the treadmill. Have to do my four miles before I shower. Rules are rules.”

“We should all strive to be like you,” Archer said.

“From your mouth to God’s ears, brother.”

“Have you heard anything about the second missing girl? Another of Tatum’s friends?”

“News to me. Who is she?” Webb asked.

“Her name is Danielle Robbins. It might be a false alarm for the moment, but Cory Overstreet is the one who brought her to my attention, and Cory is a part of that inner circle of girls Tatum hangs with. And after the Cecile Espinoza death, I’m starting to smell fish everywhere I go.”

“You and me both.” Webb opened the notebook app on his cell and typed in the name Danielle Robbins. “How much did Cory have to say?”

“Only that Danielle’s mother had called her twice, very concerned. And these aren’t exactly helicopter parents we are talking about. So when these people actually start getting worried, it might be worth taking the time to take them seriously and make a few calls.”

“I agree.”

“Eckhart called last night,” Archer said.

“He left a voice mail for me, but no details.”

“He’s developed a wild hair for this NTW connection. He found a list of their board of directors and is curious about one of the names on the list.”

“I’m all ears,” Webb said, literally breathless. He was wearing a gray T-shirt with Harvard printed across the front in bold font; sweat stains bleeding through at the pits, chest, and back. Karla was out of bed, and walked past him in a sheer teddy that drew his eyeballs from whatever had had his attention two seconds earlier. Her hair was disheveled and her eyes were only half open, but damn he loved that woman. She would be scrambling around, rushing to get the kids dressed and fed and get everyone out the door on time.

“Silas Sawbridge,” Archer said.

“I know the name,” Webb said. “Or at least know
of
the name. What about him?”

“He’s on the board. And he’s local here to Los Angeles. He’s a religious figure of some sort.”

“Hmm. Might be something or might be nothing.”

“Incredible insight. That’s why you make the big bucks.”

“What do you think about him?” Webb asked.

“Might be something or might be nothing,” Archer said.

“Ah, you are thinking more like me every day.”

“I’m going to stick my nose into a few dark corners and sniff around.”

“Let me know what you find.”

Webb tossed his cell to a couch along the wall. Then he did another twenty minutes on the treadmill.
 

* * *

Smith’s house was built on a hillside. The backyard was a grassy slope eighty feet wide and a hundred feet deep. Her property was separated from the nearest neighbor below by a thicket of trees. It was still dark among the trees as the sunrise slowly broke on the horizon.

The men wore black and came silently up through the trees to the rear of Smith’s property. They had watched from a distance and waited for Archer to leave. They hurried across the yard and up the steps to the deck. The man in front removed a glass cutter with a suction cup attachment from a backpack and cut a hole in the sliding patio door. The disk of glass dropped into his hand and he reached through the door to unlock it. All four men wore ski masks and leather gloves.

They entered through the kitchen and found Smith still asleep in bed. She was curled on her side and nude. They pulled the drapes over the windows and left the lights off. They moved stealthily and their movements were efficient. They pinned Smith to the bed and put duct tape over her mouth. Her eyes flew open wide in shock as she awoke with a start and realized what was happening. She tried to scream but found herself muted by the tape.

The largest of the four men lifted her out of bed and hauled her into the bathroom. They stood in the shower while the men took turns beating her. They slapped her face and kicked her in the stomach until she had doubled over, unable to breathe. Blood trailed from her nose and mouth. They dumped her on the shower floor, alive but unconscious, nude and heavily bruised. Then they turned on the shower water and exited the house. They stripped the bed, raked wall shelves clean, smashed the television, and emptied drawers—anything to make it look like a genuine home invasion. Then in a matter of seconds, they had vanished back into the trees behind the house and all was quiet again.
 

Smith was curled into the fetal position, groaning. She had been kicked in the throat and could barely breathe. The tape still covered her mouth. She tried to move but it felt like her entire body was broken. Her eyes were swollen shut from being punched in the face. Again, she tried to scream, to call for help, but could only produce a tiny whimper.

They had bound her hands and she could stand, but she managed to crawl from the shower into the bedroom and found her cell phone. It was smashed and destroyed. The landline was in the kitchen and another arduous and painful journey was required to locate it. She scraped it off the dining room table and dialed 911 behind her back with slippery fingers. She had already passed out again before an emergency operator could answer the call.

TWENTY-FOUR

It was a cool morning. The air felt fresh and clean. The sky was threatening rain. Thunder boomed in the distance. A rumble like a shotgun had been fired from miles away. Clouds had shifted over the sun.
 

Archer came out of a coffee shop with a tall cup of coffee and a muffin sprinkled with a variety of nuts. He wasn’t a muffin guy, but the breakfast selection had been less than impressive so he’d made a tough choice. And maybe the funky weather had affected his decision. Perhaps it could be blamed on the drop in barometric pressure. Whatever the case, he took one bite of the muffin on his way out the door, pushed it around his mouth for a few seconds, then frowned and discarded the rest into the nearest trash bin. Breakfast would have to wait.

He drove his truck into Beverly Hills, having Googled the address for the Church of the Narrow Gate and read the brief history of the organization provided by Wikipedia.

Archer slowed at a three-way stop and studied the neighborhood. The church’s property was directly across the street. It was well concealed by trees and protected from intrusion by a tall stone wall. The wall was covered in ivy and he couldn’t see anything of interest from his position, idling at the stop sign.
 

A silver Bentley rolled up behind him and flashed its lights. He offered a wave of apology and turned right, creeping through the intersection and parking along the curb. He stared across the street and sipped his coffee. He suddenly regretted pitching the muffin. Again, he blamed the weird weather.