Darkness towered above Joe Pike like an ominous black cloud. He did not know when or where he was, or how he came to be trapped here with this awful thing. He only knew the giant shadow would smother him with a darkness he could not escape. The shadow fell over him with the delicate grace of fog, but held him with the awful weight of concrete, a rising pool of blackness that would fill his mouth and nose and ears. Pike fought desperately to scramble away, but his arms and legs would not move. He strained to break free, grunting, hissing, spit and tears flying as his head whipped side to side. Pike did not know what it was, this shadow. He did not understand how it held him, or why he could not escape. It rose from the dark as always, and one day it would kill him … as he feared it had killed him before.

Chapter 19

19

Pike woke with damp sheets twisted around his legs. He was alert and awake, but had no memory of his nightmare. Pike never remembered. Sometimes in the first moments of consciousness, he saw dim shapes, one shadow over another, but never more than that. Nothing new, and nothing he wasted time worrying about. Pike had suffered night terrors since he was a boy.

Pike checked his watch. The luminous hands told him it was 3:17 in the morning. Cole had relieved him ninety minutes ago, and now sat outside Carla Fuentes’s house, waiting for Mendoza. Pike had come home to grab some rest, but his sleep was finished for the night.

Pike untangled the sheets, then swung his feet from the bed. He saw his cell phone on the nightstand and thought of Dru. He checked the phone, but found no messages or missed calls.

Pike pulled on a pair of light blue running shorts, yesterday’s sweatshirt, and carried his shoes downstairs before putting them on. He didn’t turn on the lights. He didn’t need to. He saw well enough in the dark.

Downstairs, he drank half a bottle of water, put on his shoes, then strapped on a nylon fanny pack. He wore the fanny pack to carry his phone, keys, DL, and a .25-caliber Beretta pocket gun.

Pike deactivated his alarm, set it to re-arm in sixty seconds, then let himself out.

He stood very still, taking the measure of his surroundings, then stretched and set off on his run. Pike almost always ran the same four or five routes, heading up along Ocean Boulevard through Santa Monica to the canyons, or around Baldwin Hills on La Cienega past the oil pumps. That night, he ran west on Washington Boulevard straight to the sea, then north to the top of the Venice Canals and an arched pedestrian bridge. He stopped at the crest of the bridge to look down the length of the canal.