That very night, while I was placing my notebook back in my school bag, I received a call from Zack.
I walked to my side table and sat on my bed as I picked up the phone.
Zack seemed nervous but also excited. We greeted each other, and he told me that a helicopter was flying around his neighborhood at that very moment. He turned the phone for me so I could see outside his bedroom window. Most of the view was of the alley outside and the sportswear shop across it. I could see the bright lights of a helicopter moving around the alley, as if looking for someone.
"Do you think this is the check-up they were talking about?" He asked.
"Probably," I said, shrugging. "I mean, they said they would use helicopters from now on."
Zack turned the phone to him and stared at me, a bit concerned.
"You don't sound so happy," he said. "What's wrong?"
I told him about my dad grounding me, not allowing me to go to the shop or his house anymore. Zack groaned, annoyed, and asked why my father had done that.
"Maybe because we keep doing stuff Dad thinks we shouldn't, like listening to private conversations?" I told him, smiling bitterly.
"Besides that, we are not doing anything bad," Zack told me. "I don't get why he would be angry."
"He probably exaggerates because you are a boy," I told him. "I don't think Dad trusts you very much. It's a Dad thing, I guess."
"So, I can't go to your house either?" Zack asked, "Or is it more about you coming to my house and his place of work?"
"You can come here, I guess. Although I would rather have you here when my parents are not. But I'm not allowed to go near yours except with a formal invitation from your Dad, I think," I said and laughed bitterly.
"Is that so?" He asked.
I nodded, saddened.
"Well, we'll have to figure something out," Zack said, looking like he was starting to concoct something. "I like talking to you, especially now we have a serial killer on the loose."
He raised his eyebrows, and I smiled, excited, even though I was still afraid of the idea.
"Do you really think it's some type of serial killer?" I asked him.
"That's what it sounds like, from what we heard, no? Anyway, it is way more plausible than an illegal racing ring," he said, and I agreed.
The use of a single car, the erratic schedule, and the randomness of its victims. It looked like the work of a man who just wandered the city looking for a thrill.
"Why do you think he chose this car in particular?" Confused about the man's motives, I asked, "I mean, it's so weird."
Zack said he agreed; it was bizarre, but there had to be a connection that we just couldn't see. He said that the crashes started the moment the Thunderbird arrived at the shop, so if the individual had visited the shop or at least walked by, there had to be something the Thunderbird had triggered inside him.
"I mean, who knows about the modus operandi of serial killers? There's always a reason for why they do things, and sometimes they tend to be very personal," said Zack. "I mean, that's what I've gathered from shows and documentaries I've seen."
"I guess," I said and then sighed. "I just wish we knew what they look like. Maybe we could do something."
"Well, I remember the detectives said they were tall and male. They also suspected your dad, so he might also be white."
"Yeah," I said.
"I've been thinking about all the places where incidents happened. All of them seem to be in close distance," Zack suddenly said, pondering. "Do you think the driver might have a connection to those places? Maybe he lives or works nearby?"
"I didn't think about that," I said, realizing the connection. "Yeah, maybe they do."
"I don't think he would come back to the same place if he didn't feel safe," Zack said. "He has to know the area."
I shrugged and told him it was a possibility.
So Zack proposed that we meet at the Shell Station between East Slauson and South Santa Fe and then biked around all those places, looking for anything suspicious.
"Alright. But for how long?" I asked, "I don't want to be out when Mom comes home."
"We don't need to go everywhere at once. We could check some streets and commercial buildings and make our way to the end of the list. Maybe ten, twenty minutes each round?"
"List?" I chuckled, asking Zack. "You made a list?"
"It's just some places I found on the map. We could check them out and see if someone there matches the description," Zack said, smiling.
He looked a bit more revitalized by his idea, so I agreed to go for it.
He then moved to another idea, this time one to be set inside the shop. Lately, he had been talking to his friend Oscar, the same one who had the security guard dad, and Oscar had mentioned that his dad kept some old walkie-talkies in his garage.
Zack thought about using them. Zack knew that the security camera feed had a slight delay, but with the use of the walkie-talkies, he could hear everything happening right at that moment, so he wanted to place one in his room and one somewhere inside the garage.
"The thing is, I wanna test it with you beside me, so I'll see what we can do about this whole thing of you not being able to come here," he told me, and I smiled, flattered.
I waved my hand dismissively and told him he didn't have to worry, I would be fine.
"Just test your idea and see if it works," I said. "You can tell me how it went after."
But Zack didn't budge. He told me he wanted to test it with me by his side as he felt braver when I was there. He said he felt he would coward up if something happened and he was alone.
"I really wanna be near you, Tammy. I like it. Makes me feel like I can do everything."
"I like to be near you, too," I said, blushing and smiling awkwardly.
So that settled it.
He would work on getting us together again, and we would work on finding this guy who was killing those people, or at least try to.
The next day, I pretended to be upset about my punishment while I had breakfast with my family, to the extent that Mom tried to cheer me up by making pancakes.
The truth was, I was mostly anxious about meeting Zack in secret. I knew I had to proceed with caution.
So later, after arriving home from grandma, I quickly passed by my living room and threw my bag on my bed. Thankfully, we had no homework, so I walked to the bathroom and washed my face. I returned to my bedroom, changed into a sweatshirt and jeans, and wore comfortable sneakers.
I knew I had to be fast as we had little time.
I arrived at the gas station a few moments later, where Zack was already waiting for me, eating a pack of ships.
"Sorry, I'm late," I apologized.
"Don't worry about it," he said, waving dismissively.
Before leaving, he said he needed to use the restroom and asked me if I wanted something. I told him some candy would be nice, so he entered the mini market, bought me a small bag of jelly beans, and walked to the toilet.
A few minutes later, we began riding our bikes away from South Santa Fe Boulevard into Central Alameda. We rode through Slauson Avenue, laughing and looking for cars. As we passed Alameda, I asked Zack what we were looking for, and he told me that some of the first places he wanted to visit were the several car shops in the neighborhood.
"He might work on cars as well," Zack said. "I think it is the easiest thing to check out."
We stopped at the corner of Slauson and South Alameda. Then we rode up until we reached the part of the neighborhood that contained a large building with old giant grain silos.
After that point, we drove our bikes to the nearest shop that sold used car parts and wandered around looking at the workers, pretending to look for a piece for Mr. Vinton's car. Zack had written the vehicle model and a part of his father's sedan that could be replaced. With this information, we visited several shops, always looking for our guy or someone who fit the description. For the most part, our operation was a bust, as most of the men weren't tall enough to match the profile.
We finally wrote two places where men with a similar description to the one given by Detective Hudson and Díaz worked.
We then rode back to the corner of South Alameda and East 55th Street and took a rest, leaving our bikes leaning on the fence of the old silo building. I walked to the fence and looked up to the little bridge room on top of the two silos, imagining myself inside, looking out the window.
"Well, that was a waste of time," Zack said, to which I turned and noticed he was looking at the piece of paper.
"Well, they could be the dude," I said. "We just don't know."
"They are not the driver. They just have a similar description, which is already too broad," Zack said, placing the piece in his shirt pocket. He sat with his back against the fence and put his head between his legs.
I understood how tired and disappointed he was, so I sat next to him and leaned against him, placing my head on his shoulder.
As he perked up a bit, I told him that at least that proved that the man everybody was looking for probably didn't work in the car industry, at least recently. I then asked Zack how he had come up with that idea in the first place, anyway.
"The Thunderbird has been without its driver's seat for the past week, as well as other missing components," Zack said, looking at the horizon. "How does one know how to drive an old car like that unless they know how to deal with it?"
"True. If he's not a mechanic or a dismantler, he must have learned it from somewhere else," I said and looked at him, smiling. "We will get him soon."
"Hopefully. We'll just have to keep looking."
"How about tomorrow?" I then asked, pulling away. "We could go biking after lunch when my mom takes a nap."
But Zack shook his head and looked at me with a slight smirk that denoted he was sorry.
"Can't tomorrow. I'm going to be at Oscar's for most of the day. Maybe Monday."
I gulped hard, bitterness going down my throat. But I knew I couldn't just ask Zack to leave his friends hanging, so I shrugged and told him it was all right.
The ride back was nice and silent. We just looked at each other sometimes, smiling when we could. Even as acquaintances, I felt our bond was pretty electric. It felt good being together, even if what we did wasn't much.
At first, I was sad that I wouldn't be able to see Zack until Monday afternoon, besides the small conversations we had on the phone. I could still feel the softness of his neck so close to my lips and the texture of his hair against my skin. I wanted to feel that again.
Then dinner arrived, and the three of us, Mom, Dad, and I, sat at the kitchen table to eat spaghetti alla bolognese. Mom asked me how school had been, and I said it was great and Grandma was doing okay as always.
She then asked Dad how work was, and he explained that the Thunderbird looked much better, although they still had to fix some scratches.
"From the chase that happened on Wednesday?" I asked, curious.
Dad stopped chewing and stared at his food for a while. Mom and I stared at him, confused about why he had stopped eating.
"No," Dad said and picked some more noodles to eat.
Mom looked at Dad, horrified, then at me, and I agreed with my eyes. It seemed that the car had been taken again. I wanted to say something about it, but kept my mouth shut. I was sure the last thing my father wanted to hear was me talking about the shop.
So I just changed the subject and asked him how Mr. Vinton was.
"He's fine. Could be much better," Dad said, looking at me. "But thanks for asking."
"Well, you can send him our regards," Mom said, rubbing her hand on his arm. "Hopefully, all of this will be over soon."
Dad turned to smile at her, then lowered his gaze, picking more spaghetti with his fork. He ate some of it and scratched his nose with his free hand. I could see he wanted to say something, but he was taking his time to do so. So, I just kept eating my pasta.
Little did I know that as I was chewing some spaghetti, Dad would drop the bomb.
"Actually, he invited us for dinner on Saturday," Dad said softly. In fact, so softly that Mom asked him to repeat himself. So Dad did, explaining much more.
"Cam wanted to thank me for being so kind under so much pressure, so he invited all of us to have dinner with him and Zack at their house. Maybe have some drinks."
When I heard that, I almost choked on my spaghetti.
Is this what Zack had thought of as a way for me to go to his house? A late dinner with my parents? It was not a bad idea. He could bring me over and make his father think it was his idea.
If this was Zack's plan, he was a clever boy, and I was impressed.
"Oh, wow. Isn't that nice?" Mom said, looking at both of us.
I smiled widely, nodding at her in agreement. Then I glanced at Dad, and my smile shrank slightly as he stared at me suspiciously.
But nothing could take the joy I was feeling.
I was so excited to see Zack again that I spent most of the next day just thinking about what to wear.
I spent the afternoon of Saturday putting on dress after dress until I finally chose a skater dress with flowers, which was both cute and very simple. But it was a summer dress, so I added a light pink sweater for warmth.
Walking to the shower an hour before leaving, I heard Mom laughing inside her bedroom. I stepped back and noticed she was staring at me, smoking while sitting in front of a fashion magazine, which lay open on the mattress.
"What are you laughing about?" I asked, smiling, confused.
"You are excited to see that boy, aren't you?" Mom said, a puff of smoke coming out of her mouth.
"No?" I told her. "Why would you think that?"
Mom laughed softly and took a puff from her cig.
"You can hide it from your father, but you can't hide it from me, sweetie," Mom said and returned to look at her magazine.
"Whatever," I said, blushing, then continued walking to the bathroom.
We drove the truck to the Vintons' house, and I saw Mr. Vinton waiting for us outside. Mom and Dad exited the truck, and my father opened the door for me. As I was about to thank him, he looked at me and asked me if I was wearing lip gloss. I was, but I still covered my mouth and said no.
"Goddamit, he noticed," I thought.
We walked toward Mr. Vinton, and he greeted us. He told us they were making a small barbecue in the backyard, then led us through the small gate next to his house. We moved through a narrow concrete path leading to the small backyard between the three houses. There, Zack was moving meat around a small electric grill next to a tree.
I walked to Zack and greeted him with a small handwave, then stood next to him, looking at our dinner. Six small pieces of steak were on the grill, along with a few chicken wings, covered in barbecue sauce.
"Looks good," I said. "Did your Dad grill?"
"Nope, I grilled them myself," said Zack. "Dad was too busy with the salads."
He then pointed at the table, and as I turned, I saw the bowls of pasta and potato salad that stood on top of an adorable plastic tablecloth.
"I went to Oscar's today, you know?" Zack told me, and I turned back to him.
"That's nice," I said, and then remembered the idea he had mentioned before. "Did you get the walkie-talkies?"
Zack nodded and told me he had sneaked one of them inside the garage while his father had gone to pick up a package at their house. He placed the walkie-talkie under a table, plugged the holder, and pressed a button to keep the radio always on.
"The other one is in my room," Zack said. "We could go check it later for strange sounds."
"Yesterday, Dad said that there were new scratches in the car," I told Zack. He nodded, telling me that his Dad had also talked to him about that, and he was afraid that his father might begin to lose his cool with all of this.
"Did you guys see anything in the camera feed?" I asked him, but Zack hit me with something I wasn't expecting to hear.
"We couldn't," Zack said. "Someone cut the camera feed before that."
"What do you mean, someone?" I asked, shocked and upset. "You mean the guy?"
"Yeah, I guess so," Zack said, shrugging, but I could see he was also upset. "Dad had to call the electrician again to see what the problem was."
"Well, that's a bummer," I said. "How the hell will you see him if he shows up again?"
Zack shrugged again and said the only way now was to listen through the walkie-talkie. I then told Zack that maybe he could tell his Dad what he had done in case they needed to listen for any weird sounds.
"I don't know. Like your dad, mine doesn't like my crazy ideas. I'd rather he doesn't find out yet," he said.
We stood there a few more minutes while Mom, Dad, and Mr. Vinton finished setting up the table, and then Zack picked up the meat and placed it on a cutting board.
As I sat next to Mom, Zack picked the steaks and pieces of chicken and placed them on the plates according to what each of us wanted. Then, he sat down, and we began serving ourselves some salad.
The dinner party was simple yet very entertaining. While Mom drank from the wine bottle we had brought, Mr. Vinton and Dad drank beer. Zack and I had some cans of cherry soda, which made the dinner feel more like a summer affair. The only difference was that instead of a dark sky full of stars, it was a night lit by the beam of a helicopter. But still, the dinner let my parents unwind a bit as Mr. Vinton began talking about crazy experiences in his previous jobs.
An hour into the dinner, which had now become a fun drinking session for our parents, I asked permission to go to the bathroom.
As I walked inside the house and toward the toilet, I passed Zack's bedroom, which had its door open. I knew it was his bedroom because I managed to hear the little crackling sounds of the walkie-talkie.
I backtracked a little and looked into his room, opening the door. It was quite a narrow room, his bed barely fitting, but it was also long, as I could see the radio on top of his desk at the end of the room.
Suddenly, I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned around, shocked and scared. It was Zack who looked at me with a surprised smile.
"Jesus, you are jumpy!" He exclaimed.
"You could have just said my name before scaring me like that!" I exclaimed, smiling, "This is the second time you've done this!"
"Sorry," he told me, then pointed at his room with his head. "Did you catch anything on the frequency?"
"No, just some crackling," I told him. "I was going to the bathroom when I stopped."
"Oh, then you should go," he said, smiling, "but afterward, you should pass by my room. I got something for you."
"Really?" I asked, curious. Then, I frowned, thinking about my parents.
"What about the adults? Won't they get mad?"
Zack smirked.
"Before I got up, I saw that my dad was pretty tipsy, and your parents were pretty distracted laughing at his stories," he said, opening the door to his room. "I don't think they'll notice we are gone for a while. Besides, will it just be ten minutes at the most?"
So I nodded and told Zack I'd be there after my trip to the bathroom, which was pretty quick.
As I opened the door to his bedroom when I returned, I noticed he was sitting on his bed, his feet dangling from the edge, with the radio next to him. He waved for me to come in, and I sat beside him on the bed. I asked how it was going, and he said the only sounds he had heard were dogs barking and the helicopter going around.
"Well, that's good," I said. "At least we know he's not there while we are here, having dinner."
"Yeah," He said. Then, suddenly, he lifted his shirt.
When he did, I opened my mouth in shock.
Why was he undressing when my parents were outside the door?
But then I realized that under his shirt was a hidden gift package. It was a soft, flat rectangle wrapped in cheap wrapping paper. He gave it to me, and I looked at it.
After I shook it, I heard a small ring.
"I wanted to get you something for passing your driving test," he said. "So I bought this."
"I thought you were at Oscar's yesterday," I told him.
"I was," he told me. "I took him shopping."
I thanked him and proceeded to open the package with care. It was a pair of gloves and a keychain.
"Gloves?" I asked, looking at him, a bit confused.
Zack told me those were driving gloves. He said he remembered that the day we drove around that parking lot, I had to dry the sweat from my hands several times. With those on, my hands would remain dry.
"They also look like Ryan Gosling's gloves from the movie. Now you can be just like him while driving as fast as your heart desires," he told me, making my heart swell with happiness.
He then smirked.
"I hope one day we can do it again, you know? Do some car tricks around town."
"I would love to, you know that!" I exclaimed, nudging him softly.
As I looked at the keychain, I noticed it was a gold-plated scorpion. It looked almost identical to the one on the driver's jacket in the movie.
"I couldn't afford a similar jacket, so I bought you a keychain that looks like it. Now, you can use it to put the keys to the pickup or your own car when you get it," he said.
I looked at Zack and smiled at him.
"Zack, these are wonderful gifts. Thank you," I said, and he smiled back.
Then, the urge to kiss the boy came out of my chest, just like I always wanted. But I was afraid my parents would find us, and we would get scolded or something, so I just softly came closer to him and pressed my lips against his cheek. I linger there for a second or two and then pull back. As I pulled back, I noticed Zack had gone pink and chuckled at his face.
He laughed, embarrassed.
I was ready to go for a second try, but then something came between us.
The walkie-talkie.
All of a sudden, it began making sounds. And sounds that were clearly not coming from outside. Zack picked up the walkie-talkie and placed it between the two of us so we both could hear. The sounds were unclear, but they sounded like someone was there.
Suddenly, we heard the crack of something being stepped on and the movement of something metallic. I assumed it had to be a drawer or a toolbox. I looked at Zack and whispered what we were going to do.
"Maybe we could go see what is making the noises," he said, a bit hesitant. "Maybe it's rats, but it could also be the thief."
"What about our parents?" I asked.
We then got up from his bed and walked back into the hallway, looking down into the open door that led to the backyard.
Outside, our parents were still talking, not worried about us or anything else. They looked like they were having fun, and we really didn't want to ruin their night, so we agreed to come back and tell them if we saw anyone inside the garage, but only then.
Zack left the light from his room on and some music playing on his computer to prevent them from suspecting we weren't there. Then we snuck through the front door of his house and tiptoed our way to the shop.
The shop was dark when we arrived; at first, nothing looked out of the ordinary. But then we got close to the building window and managed to hear a sound. It was the sound of a toolbox falling, all its contents spreading on the floor. We both looked at each other and wondered what was happening.
Zack took the keys his father had left on the key rack and gestured to me to move away from the front door.
"Wouldn't the bell chime go off?" I asked in a whisper.
"No. Dad shuts off the system at night," Zack whispered back, opening the door.
We entered, crouching, and moved through the room in the direction of the side door that connected to the garage. We then waited a while behind the door, listening to strange sounds. Then Zack slowly opened the door to the garage. Even in the dark, with just the illumination of the street lights, it seemed there was no one there.
So Zack stood up and turned on the garage lights.
As we walked into the garage, I took the nearest tool and held it as a weapon. The garage was empty, it seemed. We wandered around looking at things, and everything looked in order except for the fallen toolbox.
Zack then told me to stay away and picked a hammer from the ground, moving carefully to the car pit under the Thunderbird. Quickly, he kneeled and looked inside, but there was nobody there.
"Maybe it was a rat or something?" I said.
"Maybe," said Zack, looking around. "But if it was a rat, where did it go?"
Right after Zack finished his sentence, something terrible happened.
The lights of the garage turned off by themselves.
I felt my heart leap out of my chest and screamed in panic, rushing backward until I crashed against the workstation, dropping a bunch of the hanging tools to the ground.
Zack shouted in fright and began calling my name. He told me not to move and then began to walk in my direction.
"Why did the lights go out?!" I shouted. "What's going on?!"
"Maybe the rat got in the fuse box," he told me, all while trying to reach me in the dark. "Where are you?"
"I'm right here," I whined. "Just next to the door."
"Okay, here I come," he told me. "Just stay there."
I stood in the dark, trying not to trip on the many fallen wrenches. I couldn't see much except Zack's dark silhouette walking around the garage, trying to find me.
Then I saw something at the edge of my line of sight and turned my head to the back of the garage.
In the darkness, away from the lights of the outside world, hidden behind the soda bottle fridge, there was something that looked like another silhouette. It stood still, just its edge protruding from behind. At first, I wasn't sure if it was the silhouette of someone or just the darkness between the fridge and the wall.
But then it moved.
And I began to scream.
"What?!" Zack exclaimed, frightened.
"There's someone here!" I shouted.
"What?" Zack said, turning around. "Where?"
"Behind the fridge!"
The shape began walking to the other side of the garage. I screamed for Zack to get away from where he was standing and run to the door, but he was frozen in place. And so was I.
I couldn't move. So I didn't.
We heard the steps of someone moving around as the shape walked to the wall on the other side. Then it hid behind the large neon sign, and seconds later, it vanished.
"What was that?" I whispered.
"I don't know," Zack whispered back.
Suddenly, out of the blue, we both heard the loudest chuckle coming right from the left side of Zack's head.
I said nothing, but at that moment, Zack's legs worked again, and he leaped away from the sound until he crashed against the side door. That's when I stretched my hand and took his, making him shout in surprise.
"It's me!" I shouted.
We both held each other while looking around in horror, while Zack's shaky hand tried to open the side door.
That's when we heard something coming from the garage door in the front of the shop. It sounded like the padlock was being opened. We both turned our heads to stare, in horrifying silence, as the garage door began to rattle, and I held Zack tighter, thinking that we were done. We would be the next victims of whatever the hell was inside that garage.
Then the door opened.
I closed my eyes and screamed.
And then I stopped. I didn't hear Zack scream, so I opened my eyes.
That was when I realized that at the door, looking inside, were Mr. Vinton and my dad. They were holding keys and the padlock they had taken out. Their faces were illuminated by the streetlights. And they looked mad, especially my dad.
"What the hell are you kids doing here?" Mr. Vinton exclaimed.
"I..." Zack managed to say before my father asked us what the hell we were doing anyway.
I immediately understood what he meant and pulled away from Zack's embrace with a faint "sorry." I then tried to explain what had happened, but my father wanted none of it.
Neither of the two did.
As we all walked away from the garage, I looked at Zack, my eyes burning with fear. He glanced at me and nodded, confirming that he was feeling the same way.
We both knew.
There had been something inside the garage that night. And it was clearly not a man.