An old-school analog clock over the back door told her it was six o’clock. She was starving. Parkowski hadn’t eaten a meal since lunch yesterday.
She opened up the ancient refrigerator and was shocked to find it empty. Thankfully, her bag from yesterday was right by the front door. Parkowski gulped down a granola bar and ate an apple, then stepped outside into the dry wind of the Mojave. Unlike the previous day, it was not hot — she estimated it to be in the high forties. She shivered as she walked out onto Chang’s “complex.”
A German Shepherd, dirty from the dust and sand but obviously well-fed and friendly, bounded over to her and rolled over for pets.
She sighed and bent down to scratch the dog’s belly with her good arm. Where were they?
The area around the house seemed deserted.
The house itself was at the top of a small, gently sloped hill. The roof was falling apart, the siding was starting to come off, and it looked like it had been transported from the early part of the previous century. It didn’t seem to fit.
There was a structure a hundred feet from the house, which by closer inspection she found to be a chicken coop, a satellite dish up on a ridge pointed due south, and a small well that didn’t look functional. Chang also had an old, dilapidated barn that looked empty.
She found two other vehicles on the property other than DePresti’s Subaru and the giant pickup truck, a rusted Chevrolet Silverado that looked older than her but still seemed functional and a Buick from the sixties or seventies that was most definitely not. A mangy-looking cat jumped out of the latter vehicle as she inspected it.
What was this place?
DePresti had told her that Chang was a former Space Force officer, obviously an educated man, who had left the military for a high-paying consulting job as a contractor for the federal government.
Why would he live here, in the middle of nowhere, in such a dilapidated environment? How did he work? There was no computer in the house. Parkowski doubted he had a wired internet connection, and there was no way he had cell phone service out here. Chang would have to use the satellite dish for his connection, but the infrastructure required, the computer, router, networking equipment, all seemed to be absent.
She went back to the Subaru and marveled at the amount of damage done to DePresti’s formerly pristine vehicle. There were dozens of small bullet holes alongside the driver’s side of the vehicle. One had even gone through DePresti’s driver’s side window and gone into the dashboard. Parkowski dug around until she found one of her own sweatshirts jammed under one of the seats. It had a little glass on it, but that was easily brushed off.
There was still no sign of either DePresti or Chang. Puzzled, she walked back inside the house.
Parkowski sat down at the kitchen table with a warm water bottle and energy bar from the Subaru and popped some ibuprofen. She was confused. Why would they just leave her here? They couldn’t have gone far; all of the vehicles were still at the house.
She wondered if they were playing a cruel trick on her, but quickly pushed that thought out of her head. DePresti was too nice of a guy to do something like that, especially with her being injured, and Chang seemed too serious.
Then she heard voices.
Two of them, male, both spoke loudly but very muffled. And if she wasn’t going crazy, they were coming from underneath her.
Parkowski got up and carefully lowered herself to the floor with her uninjured arm.
It was DePresti and Chang. Those fuckers.
She got herself up and started looking for an entrance to the basement, but couldn’t find one. The doors in the house either led to rooms or closets. There didn’t seem to be a basement at all.
Parkowski stood in the kitchen, annoyed. The voices started getting louder.
Finally, the edge of an ugly red area rug started lifting, seemingly by itself, off of the floor.
Her jaw dropped to the ground.
Below it was a concrete structure. It continued rising until one edge was almost at the ceiling. Inside was a set of stairs. An entrance to the basement.
Moments later, DePresti and Chang appeared at the top, talking quickly about something Space Force-related that Parkowski didn’t understand.
She stood and tapped her foot.
DePresti saw her first. “Oh, Grace, you’re awake.”
She lost it. “Woke up? I got out of bed and no one was there. We’re in the middle of the freaking desert and you left me here in a bed and didn’t tell me where you or your friend went.”
Chang grinned.
DePresti was apologetic. “Sorry, Grace, I should have probably told you where we went. But, trust me, when you see what I’ve just seen, it’s worth it.”
“Seen what?”
Chang smiled even bigger. “Alright, Grace. Follow me. I’m about to show you why I decided to live out here, in one of the most desolate spots in the country.” With that, he turned around and went back down the stairs.”
DePresti extended an arm. “After you, dear.”
Parkowski groaned and followed Chang down into the basement.
CHAPTER THIRTY
“I thought there weren’t many basements in California,” Parkowski said as she carefully went down the concrete stairs into Chang’s lower level. “Because of all of the earthquakes.”
“Ma’am, you are correct,” the former Space Force officer said. “However, that assumes that you are in a basement.”
“Huh?” Parkowski said.
At the bottom of the stairs there was a long hallway, much longer than the length of the house. Metal doors on either side lined the passageway.
Parkowski turned to DePresti. “Is he crazy?” she asked.
Her boyfriend laughed. “Just eccentric.”
“How did you afford a supervillain lair?” she asked Chang.
“Oh, eight… no, ten years ago, I made some good investments,” he replied. “Did a little cryptocurrency trading.”
“How much did you make?”
“I ended up with over three and a half million dollars.”
“Million?”
“Million.”
“And what did you do with that?”
“I doubled it again.”
“Holy shit,” Parkowski said.
“Yup. But before then, when I was sitting with a cool two million in the bank, I started the process of designing my dream home, which you are in right now, while contracting out the start of the construction work that would prepare the ground for all of the structures,” Chang continued. “I considered a few different areas, but my family is all from the SoCal area, so I settled on Barstow. I can show up at family functions while still living by myself without anyone bothering me.”
Parkowski laughed. “I think there’s an Everybody Loves Raymond episode about that.”
“There is, and believe me, it went into consideration when I chose my location.”
“So how did you do it?”
“I built this level, and then paid a ridiculous amount of money to cover it with sand and dirt. Then, I toured a couple of older, failing California rural communities and found the house that you slept in. Then, I paid an exorbitant amount of money to have it relocated on top of the bottom level. Finally, I had to connect the underground portion to the house above and put on the finishing touches.”
Chang started walking to the end of the hallway. DePresti turned and whispered to Parkowski, “Enjoy the show, I just got the tour too.”
She snorted and followed the shorter man to the end of the hall.
He opened the first door. She recognized the smell almost instantly. “Here is my grow room.”