A Devil in the Dark

Chapter 5 - Blane

If I ever returned to Plane Three, I had a great idea for a new game. Who in hell invented parallel parking, anyway? The idea of trying to wedge my Bentley into a space barely a foot longer than the hood... How did people do this?

"Do I have space on that side?" I asked Joseph.

"Uh..." The crunch of alloy on concrete made me cringe. "No."

Great. Another scratch to go with the dozen I already had.

Plane Three's earthly equivalent would be a home without sufficient off-street parking. Fortunately, I didn't live in one—Club Dead had a generously sized parking lot to the rear—but Kayden Gilmore did. According to the next-of-kin records in Wren's HR file, he inhabited a narrow duplex in the south of Mesquite, not too far from the golf club he worked at.

"Why don't you try parking farther along the street?" Joseph suggested.

Firstly, because there were cars as far as the eye could see, and secondly because that would mean admitting defeat.

"It'll fit in here."

At least the camera in the rear bumper would tell me if I was about to hit the ugly SUV parked there. Why did cars have to be so big? My next vehicle would be a two-seater sports car, something small and fast. Or a motorbike. Although, hmm... If I had to dump another body, where would I put it? How big was the trunk on a Ferrari?

"I thought you were going to practise reversing?" Joseph said.

"I didn't get time, okay?"

"If you added up all the time you spend trying to park, I bet you've wasted a month of your life."

"I'm immortal. Time is irrelevant."

"Fine, a month of your pretend human life."

"I hate this damn car, and it's not my fault Plane Three doesn't have on-street parking, so—"

"Hey, the front door just opened."

I stomped on the brakes, and sure enough, Kayden Gilmore was standing in the entryway, his arm around a slender brunette. A slender female brunette. Joseph's sigh of disappointment as Kayden kissed her settled heavily over the custom-tailored suit he'd instead on changing into for our visit.

Oh dear.

"I'm sorry you had to see that. But at least now you know, huh? When we get back to Vegas, why don't you try one of those dating apps?"

"I did. The guy said he was a successful businessman who liked dirty weekends, and it turned out he owned a sewage cleanup company. Right after dinner, he got an emergency call and had to go clear contaminated water out of someone's bathroom."

"Ouch."

The brunette was jogging in our direction now, and as she came closer, she waved. Her lips moved. I rolled down the window to hear what she was saying.

"Don't worry; I'm just leaving."

What did she want me to do? Offer congratulations for her escape?

"I wasn't worrying."

She gave a nervous laugh and held up a key. "That's my car behind you. Give me a second, and I'll get out of your way." A pause. "You didn't scratch it, did you?"

I expected a snarky comment from Joseph, but he was still sulking.

"No, just the kerb."

Perhaps I should have taken driving lessons before I obtained my first car, but it had been so much easier to just buy the licence from a slightly shady guy I met in a bar and take to the road. I'd spent plenty of time trundling around in my father's golf cart in Plane Two, so it wasn't as if I had no experience of driving whatsoever, but parking had turned out to be more challenging than I expected. Were parking lessons a thing? When Joseph got over his snit, I'd ask him to look into that.