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Chapter 571
Just before nine o'clock on Sunday morning, Conner swung into the parking garage at Parker Center and followed the ramp up to the rooftop level. He pulled into an open spot near the stairway and climbed out of his car into the bright sunshine. The air was warmer than he expected for this time of year, and he wondered if the heat signaled the beginnings of a Santa Ana, when hot, dry air from the desert rushed toward the coast, compressing and heating up still more as it flowed down over the mountains into the basin. The gusty winds usually carried temperatures of ninety or one hundred degrees, and could reach forty or fifty miles per hour in L.A., much more in the outlying communities. Along with the heat, the winds carried a heightened risk of terrifying fires, which seemed to have increased in number and ferocity in recent years. Many people swore the Santa Ana winds also brought a rash of aberrant behavior with them, even more than a full moon, but the only aberrant behavior that
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Leesa's Advent Chapter 572
Conner left Sloane to get the ball rolling with the task force while he headed to a meeting at Collins-Cline Productions. He hopped onto the 101, getting off at Santa Monica Boulevard, delighted by the lack of traffic on both. In less than fifteen minutes, he was pulling up to the Collins-Cline building.The group of picketers out front had grown since his previous visit. He estimated there were close to forty now, despite the fact that it was a hot Sunday afternoon, milling about in bunches in front of the entrance and the driveway to the underground parking. The demonstrators were mostly women, but there more than a few men sprinkled in the crowd. The majority carried signs. One of the signs, hoisted high by an attractive young blond in a tight red body suit, bore the rather ironic message “Death to the Purveyors of Violence.” Conner wondered where she had come up with the word “purveyors,” and whether she truly believed the missive she carried. Or,
Leesa's Advent Chapter 573
Less than two minutes later, the door swung open. The first person through was a man Conner didn’t recognize. He was short, perhaps five-nine, with a chunky build. By his face, Conner judged him to be in his early thirties, though his balding head made him look older. The top of his skull was nearly completely bald, with only a few wisps of dark brown hair lying flat against his white skin. To compensate, he’d grown the hair on the sides and back long, and gathered it into a short ponytail in the back.Behind him, Keith Stennie swept into the room, though it took Conner half a moment to recognize him. The Zorro outfit was gone. This time, Stennie had outfitted himself in a pirate costume—white shirt with billowing sleeves, loose-fitting black trousers tucked into knee-high black leather boots, a red sash around his waist, with a matching red bandanna tied like a cap around the top of his head. A rough stubble of whiskers covered the young scriptwriter’
Leesa's Advent Chapter 574
Night had clocked the city for more than an hour by the time Conner carefully guided the BMW down the steep incline to his parking spot beneath his apartment. His dinner, cashew chicken and steamed rice from a Chinese restaurant a few blocks away, sat in a white bag on the seat beside him, filling the car with a sweet, spicy aroma and causing his empty stomach to growl impatiently. He shut off the engine and sat quietly in the dark silence for a few moments, trying to gather enough energy to pull himself out of the car and trudge up to his apartment. The Santa Ana he had guessed at this morning had indeed blossomed, bringing afternoon temperatures into the mid-nineties. The searing heat and long day had drained him. Waves of fatigue lapped at his mind and his body, making him feel he was thinking and moving at a reduced version of his normal pace. Not as dramatic as slow motion; more like the air around him had thickened, requiring just a bit more effort to move through it. A simila
Leesa's Advent Chapter 575
Conner sagged against the bag of his couch, his gaze fixed on the glowing green digits of the clock on his DVR. Only minutes remained until the start of Vice Squad, and the numbers seemed to change with agonizing slowness. Though switched on, the television was silent. Annoyed by the sound and impatient with the commercials, Conner had pushed the mute button moments after turning the thing on. Through the thin walls of his living room, he heard the muffled sounds from a television in the next apartment. He glanced at his own TV—the voices from the other side of the wall seemed to match the images of the car commercial filling his screen. He shook his head grimly at the reminder of the morbid fascination sweeping the city. Like everybody else in Los Angeles, Conner’s neighbors were getting ready to watch Vice Squad.His entire day had seemed to drag by at the same pace as the last few minutes, each hour creeping by in slow motion, only to be replaced by an hour eve
Leesa's Advent Chapter 576
Conner prowled restlessly around his apartment, a caged beast pacing mindlessly from kitchen to living room to bedroom, then pivoting and retracing his steps back out across the living room and into the kitchen before turning once again and heading back the way he had come, unable to relax, compelled to keep moving, trying to make the most of the limited space within his cheerless walls. Sitting down or even stopping seemed impossible; the neurons in his body felt as if they were all firing at once, forcing his muscles into action. If he stopped moving, surely he would collapse into a twitching mass of human protoplasm.His mind was equally restless. Random, jumbled thoughts flitted into his brain and then winked out like the fireflies he had chased across dark backyards as a boy on a warm summer nights in Connecticut. He tried not to think about the killer and what tomorrow night would bring, tried to force his thoughts to neutral, inconsequential matters, but it was like as
Leesa's Advent Chapter 577
The door swung open. Alexa greeted him with a smile.Conner felt his pulse quicken. She was wearing only a simple, over-sized blue and gold UCLA T-shirt that barely reached half way down her shapely thighs. Her auburn hair curled loosely over her shoulders, and her face was scrubbed clean of any make-up, giving her a fetching, innocent look. Despite the hour, she didn’t appear at all surprised to see him.“Hi, Case. You’re out late.”Conner shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. “I was driving around,” he explained, “and I, uh, sort of ended up here.” He grinned sheepishly. “I hope I didn’t wake you.”Alexa frowned, feigning hurt. “Do I look like I was asleep?”“Definitely not,” he said, shaking his head. “You look great.”Alexa smiled. She reached up and tenderly stroked Conner’s cheek with her fingertips. “You,
Leesa's Advent Chapter 578
Weber rolled out of bed shortly after ten, rested and ready to go. He’d gone to bed late and slept well, not at all disturbed by what he was about to do. Through his bedroom window, he heard a dog yelping and a stereo pumping hip-hop tunes somewhere down the street. Despite the open windows and the dark curtains keeping the sun’s rays at bay, the heat was already building in his apartment, a sure sign the Santa Ana would broil the basin for at least another day. Weber didn’t much care. No matter how hot it got, it would never rival the torrid, steamy days in Southeast Asia. Naked, he padded to the bathroom and splashed cold water on his face, washing the last vestiges of sticky sleep from his eyes, then went to the kitchen and chugged half a bottle of Pepsi from the refrigerator before returning to the bathroom and turning on the shower. While the water warmed, he gazed at his reflection in the mirror, proud of the taut muscles that sheathed his body. He had been working out
Leesa's Advent Chapter 579
As he strolled across the grounds, he spied a few studious kids sitting or lying on the grass with books or laptops propped open on their laps or under their chins, but most were simply out having a good time, hanging with friends or noisily tossing footballs and Frisbees back and forth. Near the edge of one long, grassy plaza, he passed a tall, thin black man in a purple and orange tie-dyed T-shirt banging rhythmically on a set of four wooden drums. A crowd of listeners surrounded the drummer, many of them clapping joyously to his driving island beat, while two scantily clad blondes at the front of the group twisted their bodies in frantic, impossible gyrations. Weber slowed slightly, admiring the dancers and the music. He sniffed the familiar, acrid odor of marijuana, and wondered whether anyone was actually attending class today. He felt a brief tinge of envy toward the frolicking young students—his youth had been spent slogging through the rice paddies and jungles of Southeast A
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