The Everborn - Nicholas Grabowsky [68]
...and settle for his first message: Melony? Mel, you know that Matt McGregor has never been one to waste any of our time when it comes to business, and just now, more than ever he carried on this tradition. I’m calling from the cell phone. I need you at your phone, in the next hour, the next minute, right now. Thirty minutes and I’ll be unreachable. I’m going to church.
Events were beginning to unfold all too rapidly for Max now, intoxicating him with a reckless anxiousness which he fought against for the sake of a mental sobriety in handling the events to come. Times like these often evoked a high-strung tension with Max at the outset, and he would soon enough get over it as he was always sure to. But where he now headed was certainly not the average “gotta-investigate-this-one” site of juicy paranormal intrigue. He was headed to the haven of a twisted killer who in literal terms wasn’t altogether human, wasn’t human to Max’s convictions, and Max could stake his career on that.
He felt a sense of guilt in ditching Matt McGregor like he did, but apologies had to wait.
Max himself couldn’t wait.
And he couldn’t have waited for Matt. Not this time, not for this. He knew Matt had caught on by now, was likely on his way in pursuit somewhere far behind, probably cursing and raving about that goddamn crazy sonofabitch Maxy. But Matt was well aware that a spontaneous insight or gut feeling required an equally spontaneous response in both their fields...maybe not for other UFO experts, but for most cops...and particularly for anyone who made it his business to read between the lines of Man’s existence in effort to expose enough fine print to change the way Man exists forever.
Matthew simply wouldn’t be able to realize that, in this case, it was because he was a cop that Max had up and went running on his own. Sure, a purposeful encounter with Simon BoLeve was crazy to attempt alone, especially to attempt without Matt and above all with the protection Matt possessed in being a cop. And Matt shared an intimate involvement with the bizarre nature of the whole thing. For Matt, it must not have seemed right for someone like Maxy to hightail-it the way he did and without him.
Max felt like a goddamn crazy sonofabitch.
And maybe he was.
The truth about this was that Matt’s joining him to meet BoLeve was inevitable.
Max was simply determined to meet BoLeve first.
Casually.
In some respects, like the way Melony handled Andrew.
But unlike the efforts with Andrew, should it be that a mentally unbalanced Simon carelessly unleash a hellish secret that gave away his alleged inhuman nature, regardless of this risk being Max’s objective, Max could only hope that Matt McGregor would come running to save Max Polito’s ass for a change.
The freeway lanes were narrowing now, and the blinking yellow beacons of END OF FREEWAY signs commanded the slowing of sandwiched vehicles in their approach towards intersection traffic lights.
Max seized the Thomas Guide from the passenger seat and plotted the remainder of his course, and likewise plotted his first moves for when he’d arrive at The Rock and the fate which awaited him there.
***
So far, so seemingly good.
He’d found his destination and drove past it, noting the dual police cars conspicuously double-parked at the streetside shoulder of its overflowing parking lot. Making a right at the neighboring intersection and nestling his Mustang stubbornly into a curb space between two tattered pick-ups, he methodically retrieved a change of clothes from his car trunk.
He emerged