One Plus One (The Millionth Trilogy Book 3)

by Tony Faggioli

  He’d hog tied her up good and this was going to take forever. The trunk was shrinking again.

  She closed her eyes and stilled her panic.

  Be patient. Be patient. There’s enough play around your hands to maybe get one of them free, and that’s all you need. Just one.

  “You can do this,” she whispered to herself. Positive reinforcement. A trick from her days on the volleyball team.

  The car suddenly swerved hard to the left, as if maybe he was trying to avoid something on the road, and this shifted her position enough to give her a better angle on her bindings. Again she set about working on them. The ones around her ankles were the tightest, and one of her feet had gone numb with all her efforts. That couldn’t be a good thing. Especially if she got the chance to bolt out of the trunk and run at some point.

  Trying to get her hair out of her face, she whipped her head to the side, which caused her to go woozy for a second.

  No! I can’t pass out again.

  She waited. Nothing happened. But the near miss only increased her sense of desperation.

  The next thought that came to her was from a dark, unwelcome place.

  My children are probably dead.

  It was like a gunshot, and it dropped her instantly.

  She stopped struggling and grew still, moaning softly against the despair that began to envelope her. Why fight? Who cared anymore? She wanted to die. Without her babies, what was the point? To live the whole rest of her life knowing that she’d failed to protect them? No. Forget it.

  No. Stop. You don’t know that for sure.

  It was true. She had no way of knowing if they were really dead. That was the main reason to push on.

  But she felt another reason inside of her.

  God would not let that happen. Not after the sacrifice Kyle made. And what about The Gray Man? Hadn’t he already come, three times, to help?

  If the devil could send creatures after them at the market and from under their beds, could not God send someone else to help the kids? Yes.

  “Lord,” she whimpered, “please, Father. Please show me a sign.” And the prayer, even when whispered so meekly, seemed to cocoon the trunk in silence and stillness.

  She looked to the sliver of light in the trunk lid again. The sun’s rays, shining through in tiny, piercing lines, began to widen and pulsate ever so briefly, and her mind was filled with images that she knew did not come from her imagination.

  She was back in her house. As the monster advanced on her babies, they had fled. But in the wrong direction—towards the kitchen.

  Where a larger monster awaited. A beast.

  A beast in the lantern.

  Inside the lantern Ben had given her.

  There on the counter, and directly in their path, it erupted with color, and a voice came out of it that froze Janie in her tracks, causing Seth to bowl into her and knocked them both over.

  The voice was so horrible that the monster in the hall grabbed Tamara and fled the house, half-carrying, half-dragging her unconscious body to his car, where he tied her up and threw her in the trunk, gasping in panic as if he were afraid that what was in the house might come outside and get him.

  Why? Because he’d screwed up somehow. He was a failure.

  She was above it all and in it all, the moment at her house, as if she were a ghost traveling back in time.

  Surely this was a dream. She had a concussion or something. This was her mind concocting a theory, a coping mechanism to help her deal with her situation.

  But she knew… knew… it was real.

  She was awake, stone cold conscious, and this was exactly what she had asked for: an answer to her prayer. A vision. The kids had managed to flee the house, out of the sliding glass door to the patio. They’d gotten away.

  Oh God, thank you so much. Thank you, Lord.

  As the trunk hummed along the asphalt road, Tamara felt herself growing warm as she forced her mind to be at peace.

  She felt the kids were safe now. And this gave her a newfound sense of strength.

  Because if her babies were alive?

  Then she needed to stay alive for them.

  PARKER STOOD on the patio with Murillo and gazed absent-mindedly across the pool in the backyard of the Fasano house. It was growing dark. An errant leaf had fallen from the hibiscus tree, that stretched out over patio, down into the water, and it was now spinning in sporadic circles as it was carried by an eddy towards the pool filter. “So? What now?”

  Murillo shrugged. “House didn’t have security cameras, so we got nothing on tape. Based on your description of this guy and what the kids have confirmed, we know who we’re after—”

  “But we got dick on which way he went.”

  Murillo nodded as he hunched his shoulders and rolled them. “Freakin’ stress, Parker. Got my neck so tight I can barely take it.”

  “Where’s Cap?”

  “Running and ducking, like he has been since Nap went Area 51 on everybody.”

  Parker chuckled bitterly. “Yeah, like he gives a rat’s ass about Nap.”

  “Or you,” Murillo said as he too now watched the leaf in the pool.

  Parker sighed. “It’s a miracle he let me in here.”

  “He didn’t. Klink and I figured this was a gimme. I mean, you’re the one who called us. We had nothing, otherwise.”

  “We still have nothing.”

  The leaf swung wide right and then slightly left as it was finally pulled into the tide of the pool filter and disappeared.

  “We got a perp. We got the make and model of his car. No plate yet, but we can dig it up, put out an APB… and we can look for info on any friends or family he might run to.”

  Parker said nothing for a minute, then replied, “We got a guy smart enough to kill over eighty women, across five different counties, over God knows how many years, is what we got. A guy too smart to keep that car for long, or to not have false plates stashed that he’s probably switched to by now, and a guy who probably is such a lone wolf that he either has no friends or family to turn to or wouldn’t if he did.”

  Murillo pursed his lips at this and looked at Parker. “He wasn’t smart enough to get past that small-town sheriff in Beaury.”

  The offense Parker felt at hearing Conch called this must have been telegraphed to his face, because Murillo instantly backtracked.

  “Sorry, Park.”

  “It’s okay. You don’t know, but that old man had more skills than the two of us put together.”

  “Had?”

  “He’s dead, Murillo.”

  “What?”

  The sun was bowing out. A daily routine. Probably a pretty sight across most of the city, but from the backyard of the Fasano home, which was smothered under an ominous weight, it just looked like a big yellow bomb falling into darkness.

  “Bastard stabbed him ten times.”

  Murillo rubbed his temple with his left hand, his wedding ring glistening for a moment in the light. “Shit.”

  Looking around, Parker saw that the techs were gone, leaving the house yellow taped in front and back. Neighbors had gathered at a house on the hill just behind the backyard, some of them brave enough to peak their heads over to snoop.

  The Fasano children were seated beneath the patio roof on a lawn chair huddled closely together, each of them wrapped in blankets, seemingly shifting in and out of shock. Right now they both had the same blank stares on their faces. And who could blame them? They’d already lost their father, and now they’d lost their mother too. Parker shook his head.

  He imagined the little girl playing soccer a month ago, and the little boy drawing crude sketches in some class at a nearby school in this idyllic little neighborhood.

  Now? It was likely they were both orphans.

  Through the sliding glass doors of the patio, Parker saw him coming: the captain, a small entourage of uniformed officers and Sergeant Decker in his trail. Klink saw them too, and he immediately walked over to Parker and Murillo,
the three of them forming a small wall against the reality about to confront them.

  At first the captain didn’t see Parker, but when he did, a look came over his face not unlike the look a person gets when confronted by an inconvenient truth.

  “What the hell are you doing here?” the captain asked, his eczema-ridden face redder than usual, his pure white hair looking greasy.

  “We asked him to—” Murillo tried to interject.

  “Oh!” the captain exclaimed, his blue eyes widening. “You guys asked him to be here? I’m sorry. I had no idea. In that case I guess it’s okay that we have a suspended officer standing in the middle of a fucking crime scene then, right, Murillo?”

  Parker didn’t know Sergeant Decker very well beyond his name and the fact that he was supposed to be a hard-ass. Right about now, though, he looked like he’d rather be anywhere else than here. Then it was Klink’s turn to try to say something. “Cap. We shoulda called you—”

  “Yeah? Ya think? I mean, for a second there I thought you got promoted over me, Klink.”

  “But the scene was active and it was Parker who called it in.”

  The captain turned his icy glare to Parker. “So what the fuck are you—”

  Parker held his hand up for him to stop. He intentionally waited a few seconds until rage crossed the captain’s face before Parker nodded slightly in the direction of the children. Once the captain saw them and realized he was muzzled, he only looked more enraged. Then Parker finally spoke. “I found some stuff out in Beaury.”

  “Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Where you decided to go… under whose authority?”

  Perhaps it was the events of the day, the bleakness of the situation, or the contrast between this asshole standing upright while a good man like Sheriff Conch was in a morgue only two hours away, but Parker just wasn’t going to have it. He took a step towards the captain and eyed him hard. “Listen. Listen to me good,” he said.

  A wave of stunned disbelief spread from Klink to Murillo to the uniforms and to Sergeant Decker, who looked as if he were ready to intervene.

  The captain squinted back hard at Parker as he continued. “You want my fucking badge, Cap? Take it. I don’t give a shit. I was in Beaury with the permission of Sheriff Conch, assisting him with an investigation, on my own free time and of my own free will.”

  The air between them froze. The captain nodded gently, almost mockingly, but said nothing.

  “I’ve been an exemplary officer since I made the force. You know my history, here and in the military. I know the chain of command and I usually respect it. Shit, out of respect for your orders I didn’t even contact my union rep, and you know damn well I could’ve.”

  Silence held court for a few moments. The captain seemed to be chewing on something. “Go ahead,” he finally said, puffing up his chest. “You wanna say your peace, say it.”

  “Peace? I haven’t had peace for one night, not even one half a day, since this case started. My partner is gone”—Parker grunted out the words, fighting his emotions—“I was there and I couldn’t do a thing to stop it. I don’t know where he is but he could be dead. Then? I stumble into a hornets’ nest in Beaury that’s somehow, against all odds, connected to this case. I then get to find a mountain of bodies in a fucking ravine, then see a good man, a good cop, stabbed to death by this fucking psychopath.”

  The captain looked stunned. “He’s dead?”

  “You’re damn right he is!”

  “Parker—” Murillo said, trying to stop him.

  Parker shook his head firmly and continued. “No one on this entire planet wants this guy more. Not a soul. But I’m not going after him, at least not yet. Do you wanna know why?”

  The captain grimaced. “Sure, after you tell me how I’m gonna tell the DA that you being here traipsing around hasn’t somehow put this case in jeopardy. After you—”

  “Do you want to know why?” Parker said again, barely able to contain himself.

  Again, the captain just stared at him.

  “Because of them,” Parker said, nodding towards the children. “Because right now they have no one and—”

  “And Child Protective Services will be here any minute to—”

  “To hear me tell them that I’ll watch them until next of kin arrives.”

  “And who would that be?” Sergeant Decker interrupted, but his tone was supportive, not accusatory. Decker was on his side somehow, or was probably just trying to defuse the situation.

  Parker struggled for a minute, trying to come up with what to say or how to say it. He didn’t know why, but something in him, deep inside, was telling him not to let the children out of his sight. He hadn’t even started this argument with them in mind at all, and he was just about to concoct a lie when the little girl, Janie, spoke up.

  “My aunt Trudy!” she said, wiping tears off her cheek. Perhaps it was the way she said it, as a desperate plea smothered in fear, but it calmed the moment instantly.

  The captain, being a coward at heart, saw his out and took it. He turned to the little girl. “Your aunt?”

  “Yes. She lives in San Francisco. She just left here yesterday. Her number will be in my mommy’s cell phone.”

  Klink looked at the captain, who hesitated a minute before he nodded his permission for him to go find the number.

  “Decker?” the captain said firmly.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Sheriff Schmidt is our counterpart here. La Canada is their jurisdiction but we’ve agreed to treat this as a joint investigation for now. Ask them to help you get this house cordoned off and to get the damn BBQing looky-loos up on the hill there away from the fence. They’re taking damn cell phone photos, for shit’s sake!”

  “Got it.” Decker and the uniformed cops fanned out to follow orders. With Klink gone inside the house, it was only Murillo, Parker and the captain now.

  “Murillo?”

  “Yeah, Cap?”

  “I should be telling you to arrest Parker for interfering with a police investigation, but we both know I’m not gonna do that.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But what is going to happen is this: Parker and I are going to have a little sit down, right over there at the patio table, you got it?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “You stay here and let CPS do their job when they arrive, but don’t let them take the kids yet, got it?”

  Murillo nodded.

  “Okay, Parker? You up for a chat?”

  Parker was beyond surprised, but he nodded.

  CHAPTER 4

  AS HE TRAVELLED, COCOONED in white, with The Gray Man, Kyle’s eyes grew heavy. The weight of his escape from hell and the disaster of what he’d returned to finally began to overtake him. Nodding off, he asked himself to find something in his mind to ease his anxiety, a happy moment to escort him to sleep. At first nothing happened and then…

  They had sat beneath a maple tree on a hill in the park near the apartment she’d shared with her three roommates, and Kyle was impressed by the picnic she’d laid out, unabashedly old school, with a large checkered blanket and a picnic basket that seemed bottomless. From its depths she produced cheese, crackers and wine at first, then homemade sandwiches and a mini cheesecake.

  He was nervous, and not a little bit scared, about the feelings he was beginning to have for this new girl in his life, this Tamara Fitzgerald, with her playful spirit and deep, rich laugh. He watched as she neatly laid everything out, admiring the curves of her body, which she still hadn’t given to him, and the way her eyes glistened in the sunlight when she looked out over the grass to the children at play and the old people on their walks. She was observant and not a little bit sappy.

  In that, she had something that he was lacking, and he sensed its pull but denied it, determined for once to get things right, to not kidnap the strengths of someone he claimed to love but rather to simply to acknowledge them.

  They talked as they ate, about her plans to get her MBA and his plans to forge
out into the world of sales with only his undergraduate degree. This being their fourth date (their third only happening two days before) it felt like they’d reached a point where it was time to start letting their guards down—when you go from sharing your dreams and ambitions to sharing your hopes and fears.

  As his dream translated the memory, Kyle became aware that he could recall what was said, but there was no sound. Just pictures, vacillating in his mind: a red Frisbee gliding through the air, ducks combing along the shore of the park’s man-made lake, an old man with a redwood cane navigating a nearby set of steps, and a group of boys nearby playing Whiffle ball, the yellow bat matching the color of the sun overhead, the day so warm Kyle didn’t want it to end.

  He gathered it all in before his eyes found their way again back to Tamara, seated, smiling, looking at him now like she had been looking at the children at play and old people only moments before—studying him, appreciating him. He avoided her eyes because of the depth of the vulnerability that they stirred in him.

  A warm breeze moved momentarily across the grass, stirring a few napkins on the picnic blanket and making the maple leaves whisper overhead.

  After the cheesecake, she cracked a joke about needing to be rolled out of the park she was so stuffed, and then she moved closer, leaned against him and rested her head just below his chin. That was it, really, the feeling of her head against his chin, that made him realize that for the first time in his life, he was truly in love. Not “maybe” in love, not “kinda” in love, but “done for” in love.

  She was right, from the very first beer at the dinner party they’d met at, because the moment she spoke, the moment she moved her hands around to make a point, or shook the hair out of her eye to ponder an idea, she rendered him immobile. His heart, his soul, his body… they all took notice, and then could do no more. He had looked. And then? He simply could not look away.