The Shakespeare Incident Page 17

  “I’m capable of a lot of things you don’t know about,” Denise said.

  Hikaru was the one who blushed this time. “I’ve got to get going,” he said.

  “Call me,” Denise said to him.

  He smiled, clasped her hand one more time in front of everyone, but didn’t kiss her. Self-conscious he hurried out onto the balcony of Room 237 but left the door open. Denise followed him outside for a second.

  He lifted a hand to wave, and hurried down the stairs to the van. He looked up at Denise. “Didn’t someone write a scene about a guy looking up at a girl on a balcony?” he asked as he opened the van door.

  “Unfortunately, they named a ghost town after him,” she said.

  “Got to go to Los Alamos tonight,” he said. Hikaru drove the van away, very slowly.

  Denise let out a sigh and leaned against the stairway for a moment. She had almost forgotten about the case, about her mom. Her phone vibrated and her idyll was over. It was a text from Susie.

  “We’ve booked your room in Lordsburg, you need to get back there tonight.”

  She remembered that Susie had repoed her Lexus. How was she going to get back to Lordsburg?

  Chapter 27

  Denise reluctantly went back inside Dew’s apartment from hell. Had it become more littered in the few minutes she had been gone? The Star Cats had sure done a number near the litter box, but not in the litter box.

  Rayne and Rita were still talking to Dew. Rita playing peacemaker between the two sides. Rita was playing the YouTube video of the great mock trial tournament and was literally lip-synching along.

  “She does you better than you,” Dew said to Rayne. Rayne wasn’t able to sense that was an insult.

  Denise’s phone beeped with another text from her aunt. “Do you need an Uber to get back to Lordsburg?” Luna texted.

  Denise frowned, then spoke to the room at large. “I never thought I’d say this, but can someone take me back umm…home?”

  “Where’s home?” Rita asked.

  “Lordsburg right now.”

  “Don’t look at me,” Dew said. “I’ve got a project due tomorrow.”

  “We can take you,” Rita said.

  Denise couldn’t tell if Rita was kidding. Rita pulled on her mother’s sleeve to convince her.

  “That’s like two hours out of our way. OK, but you’ve got to promise that you’ll make it up to us some day,” Rayne said.

  Denise didn’t have a car anymore, so she doubted that Rayne would hold her to it. “I promise.”

  Denise followed Rayne and Rita to a red Buick Regal. The Regal sedan suited Rayne to a T—it was solid, a bit oversized and not too flashy. The inside of the car was immaculate and smelled of strawberries. A relief after the catshit of Dew’s Mercedes. Rita got in the back seat and put on the seatbelt without complaint.

  “Girl’s night out!” Rita said. “Lordsburg baby Lordsburg.”

  Outside, Petro’s party had resumed again as two new people had joined him and opened bottles of beer. It was now pitch-black out, but they had lit fires in some old trash cans.

  Petro and a friend were actually playing frisbee with that pink sombrero, doing diving catches all without spilling their beers. The sombrero hovered directly above his head for a full thirty seconds, before it descended, and he caught it. Must be the wind.

  “Don’t you ever leave?” Rita asked him through the window.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” he said.

  “We’re not going anywhere,” the other two members of the posse sang drunkenly.

  “Creating our own gravity,” Petro said with a smile, as he threw the sombrero back to the friend. Did the sombrero actually curve in midair? That couldn’t be the wind. “You should try it sometime.”

  At that moment, Denise felt something. It really did feel like the earth was reaching up and holding the Regal down. Rayne had her foot on the gas, but the vehicle didn’t move. Perhaps they really weren’t going anywhere.

  The ground stopped pulling the minute Petro chugged another beer. He caught and released the sombrero again, not spilling a drop. Rayne’s car jerked forward and then stalled.

  “There’s something weird about that guy,” Rita said. “Did you see that sombrero? Like it hovered in the air. He can control gravity.”

  “It’s just a coincidence,” Rayne said. “There have been earthquakes around here. There are all kinds of freaky wind gusts here in the desert. You can actually major in windmills out here, right Denise?”

  “Kinda.”

  Vista de Estrella behind them, they grabbed some takeout for dinner and then Rayne gunned the gas and they were on Interstate 10 westbound to Lordsburg. If they hit Arizona, they’d gone too far.

  “So, how’s the private investigation company coming along, Rayne?” Denise asked.

  “So far, you’re our only client. Here’s our new business cards,” Rayne handed one to Denise. The cards were red of course.

  “I am the junior investigator,” young Rita said. “I get academic credit for this.”

  “How’s that?” Denise asked.

  “Home school,” Rita said. “Well home on the range school.”

  “Don’t sing for us, dear,” Rayne said. “Please don’t.”

  “Auntie Denise, I know you’re a fan of ninjas, geishas and ronins,” Rita said. “I’m like the samurai. I want to marry a samurai or just be one on my own someday.”

  “I’m part Korean, not Japanese,” Denise said. “There’s a difference.”

  “Stop jumping to conclusions, Rita,” her mom said. “Just sit quietly for a change.”

  “Yes, mom.”

  * * *

  Deeper into the desert, it was now totally dark, and they could see the stars.

  They passed the Akela Flats travel center with its façade of a western town. The travel center looked weird in the floodlights, like a movie set about to have a gunfight.

  “Is that a real courthouse?” Rita asked. “Have you ever done a trial there Denise?”

  “It’s a façade,” Rayne said. “It’s a fake courthouse. The whole town at this travel center is fake. It’s there to get people to stop at the convenience store in the middle. There’s nothing behind the set.”

  “I’m a fake lawyer,” Denise said. “Maybe I can do a trial there.”

  “You’re not a fake lawyer, auntie,” Rita said. “Well, you’ll be a real one soon.”

  After Akela Flats, they drove an hour west. Rayne followed the speed limit, even going one mile under. Every few miles they passed signs warning: GUSTY WINDS MAY EXIST.

  “Does that mean the winds can exist here, or anywhere?” Rita asked after the third sign, clearly not paying attention to whatever homework she was allegedly doing on her tablet.

  “I don’t know dear,” Rayne replied.

  The gusty winds were definitely existing here on this stretch of interstate, and the Regal wobbled in the turbulence.

  “Look mom!” Rita pointed to an electronic sign that warned about an approaching dust storm. The sign told them to pull off the road and turn off the lights if they were caught in the dust storm.

  Just past Deming, they could make out a lightning storm headed right toward them.

  The storm had lightning, but the lightning was in different colors and seemed to be sending a message in Morse Code as if the storm had consciousness, or perhaps was being controlled by something inside it.

  Denise had heard these storms called haboobs after the sandstorms in the middle eastern deserts. This was the mother of all haboobs.

  Rayne pulled off the road and turned off her lights.

  “Mom, why did you do that?” Rita asked.

  “Didn’t you see the sign about what to do in a dust storm?” Rayne replied. “You’re supposed to pull over and turn off your lights,
right?”

  “But suppose someone hits us in the dark?” Rita asked. Her mom said nothing. Moments later the Regal was totally engulfed in dust.

  “They’re here!” Rita said, sounding exactly like that young girl in Poltergeist. She pointed above at the blinking lights that were rotating around them in the haboob. No that wasn’t a helicopter in the storm. It might be a drone, but in any event, the object was unidentified and flying. “They’re really here!”

  The storm howled around them. For a moment, Denise feared that even this solid car would be blown away in the winds. Although the light configuration was ambiguous at best. Rayne reached back and held her daughter’s shoulder.

  “No, they aren’t dear,” Rayne said. “Your grandma was a colonel and worked on base. They’re probably just surveillance drones, storm-chasers.”

  “Why would drones care about us?” Rita asked.

  “They’re probably taking measurements of wind speeds and electricity, or that sort of thing, to establish a baseline,” Rayne said. “That’s really important information when you’re launching missiles.”

  “What do you think, Auntie Denise?” Rita asked.

  Denise didn’t know what to believe. The military drones—or whatever they were—hovered directly above them. The vehicle began to vibrate. “I don’t know.”

  It was hard to tell what was happening above them in the dust and the darkness of the haboob. The lights stayed above them as the eye of the storm passed.

  Whatever was above them was definitely probing them with some kind of invisible electrical beam. Denise felt a wave of electricity start at her head and go down to her toes and then back up again. She could be going through a fax machine and the pixels were being sent back to Pluto.

  How could she protect them? Denise closed her eyes and tried to think happy thoughts, thoughts of staying tethered to the earth. What did Petro say—create your own gravity?

  How does one do that?

  She felt another surge of electricity, a ray from above as if the drone was still sending out a message to someone or something before deciding what to do.

  The Regal continued to vibrate.

  “I’m starting to get scared, mom,” Rita said. “Really, really scared. Auntie Denise, is there anything you can do? What did that weird fat man in the parking lot say about creating your own gravity? What were they all chanting? It seemed to work…”

  The lights revolved faster and faster with all the colors of the rainbow from infrared to ultraviolet. And then something really odd happened. Perhaps it was the flashing light, but Rayne phased in and out of sight.

  Rita screamed. “Mom! Help her Auntie Denise!”

  Denise grabbed Rayne’s hand, hoping that would double their spark, and after one brief moment, Rayne solidified.

  “We’re not going anywhere!” Denise said out loud. Why did the words from a forgotten film echoed by a drunken lout have any power?

  The car’s vibrations abated slightly. The car felt heavier, clinging to the earth.

  “We’re not going anywhere!” Rayne echoed, still holding Dew’s hand. She now seemed anchored to the car seat, anchored to reality.

  Still, it might not be enough. Was the car now levitating off the ground? Was Rayne fading out again?

  Leaning over from the back, Rita then clasped the others’ hands. “We’re not going anywhere!”

  Denise felt a surge through her body that went through the others and then into the car itself. The car grew heavier and the earth’s gravity, their gravity, grew stronger. Rayne nodded.

  “We’re not going anywhere!”

  The car buckled for a moment, and it looked like the roof was coming off. Suddenly, the lights of the object disappeared, and the air grew calm. Too calm.

  Denise looked around. Rayne looked around. Rita finally opened her eyes. “Are we OK?”

  “I guess so,” said Denise. “See it’s gone!”

  “What just happened?” Rita asked. “They were here. They were really here.”

  Rayne opened the car door, got out and threw up.

  “Are you OK, mom?” Rita jumped out of the car and hurried over to her mom.

  “If that happens again, it could kill me,” Rayne said, wiping her mouth. “I just know it. I think I’m OK, now.”

  “Are you sure you’re OK, Rayne?” Denise asked, also getting out of the car.

  Rayne stood up, clutching her belly. “I guess so. I can’t go through that again. Ever! I didn’t exist for a moment. It affected me the worst.”

  They stood there in the starlight, taking deep breaths and recovering from the excitement of the last few minutes. A car passed in each direction. No one noticed them.

  They stood in silence for another minute, and then they got back into the car. Rayne took a few more minutes to settle down before turning the engine back on.

  “Was that a UFO, Auntie?” Rita asked.

  Denise knew she had to calm the poor girl. “Technically everything unidentified and flying is a UFO. Probably those were just weather drones. Or the new drones used by the border patrol. The military also has drones to check out microclimate.”

  “What just happened, Auntie?” Rita asked.

  Denise had felt like she was being put through a fax machine before; now she felt like she was a smart phone, and something remote was deleting some files and doing a reboot.

  For a moment, everything went dark again, and then she felt like she had flashed back. Unfortunately, she felt like something was missing, but she wasn’t sure what it was.

  She did what lepers call a visual surveillance of extremities. No, she had all her fingers and toes, but something was gone. Rita and Rayne were doing the same thing.

  What had just happened? Denise’s brain felt like dust.

  Rayne and Denise looked at each other. “I have no recollection of anything,” they both said in unison. They had forgotten the last two minutes. In fact, Denise didn’t remember anything since the fake courthouse façade at Akela Flats.

  “What does ‘recollection’ mean?” Rita asked.

  They all shrugged. What had happened? Why were they on the side of the road. Must not have been a big deal, right?

  “Might as well keep going,” Rayne said. “Why did we pull off the road again?”

  “I don’t have any recollection,” Denise said. Her companions smiled as if that was a joke.

  “I feel like I should thank you, Auntie Denise,” Rita said. “I’m not sure why though.”

  They drove in silence. For perhaps the first time in her life, Rayne was speeding.

  * * *

  The remaining hour drive on the interstate sped by, the skies now dark and quiet. The moon was behind clouds, so the highway felt especially lonely.

  Denise checked her watch and thought back for an instant. She knew she was heading to Lordsburg for Denny’s case and that she’d met with Hikaru and she was with her two friends. However, she remembered nothing after she had passed Akela Flats, about an hour ago. How’d she get all the way out here so quickly?

  She tried to concentrate and felt extreme pain. Must be from the bad takeout food they’d eaten at the start of the trip. Where was that again?

  Oh well, might as well keep going? Nothing could happen to them all the way out here in the middle of the desert, right?

  Chapter 28

  It’s not that they didn’t remember the rest of the drive, there was nothing to remember. Denise rubbed her head from her headache. As they approached Lordsburg, they passed the detention center. “Mom, can we see Denise’s client at jail?” Rita asked, strangely excited.

  “No, that’s a terrible idea,” Rayne said, a little too harshly. She took the first Lordsburg exit, and made a point of making a hard turn away from the road to the jail. If Denise and Rita hadn’t been wearing seatbelts, they might
have been thrown into the side of the car. No one said anything as they passed the Denny’s restaurant.

  “Have you ever been here before?” Denise asked Rayne.

  “Just once,” Rayne said with a cryptic smile. “Now, where are you staying, Denise?”

  “I’m not sure.” Denise almost directed them back down Motel Boulevard to the Holiday Comfort and then remembered that she didn’t live there anymore.

  Her phone beeped. She noticed a text from Luna with a link and clicked on it. Her phone now directed them to the Last Palm Motel, which was behind the Holiday Comfort, even sharing the rear parking lot. It looked like the servants’ quarters for the big house.

  Rayne almost missed the entrance for the Last Palm, since most of the lights were out. A compact rental car, a Kia, sat in the parking lot. She knew that the Kia would be hers, and the keys would be at the front desk.

  Another aunt, Mia, once drove a Kia. Mia had gone insane and was currently a fugitive. She disliked the Kia for that reason alone.

  “Lordsburg feels different now,” Denise said.

  “Well this doesn’t really feel like America,” Rita said. “This feels like the surface of the moon. Just look at the stars.”

  Denise looked out the car window at the clear outline of the Milky Way. She didn’t want to leave Rayne’s car.

  Rayne put her hand on Denise’s shoulder. “Do you want us to come inside with you?”

  Denise took a deep breath. “That might be best. Just in case.”

  Inside the lobby, Denise recognized Cordelia taking a coke out of a community fridge. Cordelia wore her usual cowgirl from hell outfit with new rips in her pants and a fresh scar across her forehead. Cordelia saw them and frowned. She opened her coke and put something into it from a flask. The smell reminded Denise of Nastia for some reason. After a slug from the flask, Cordelia went out the back door without a word.

  “Ms. Song?” the desk clerk asked her. “We’ve been expecting you.”

  Denise nodded. “That’s me, I guess.”