He teased her when he felt her politely stifled burp against his chest, and she pinched his ribs in embarrassment.
“We’ve already reached that point, have we?” he pressed.
“Oh, please,” she said mockingly. “I’m sorry. I left my tiara in the car.”
“It’s okay,” he said, wrapping one arm around her. “I think the slipper still fits.”
“Pfft! Stop now, sir, or risk my lunch coming back up.”
It was her voice, and more particularly her laugh, that finally brought sound to his dream and cracked it wide open. He’d noticed many times by then that she had a laugh pregnant with potential, a laugh that wanted to be happy but was still guarded against sadness. In its inflection she could both reach out and pull away, at nearly the same time. But now… at this moment… he could tell: she was reaching out to him, all the way, with her arms wide open.
She laced the fingers of her left hand through the fingers of his right, their thumbs locked for a moment, but it felt wrong for some reason. They’d already confessed their past hurts to each other, and the clingy grasp of their thumbs seemed like a reminder of past mistakes.
Instinctively, as if that ability that all serious couples have—that ability to finish each other’s sentences or know each other’s thoughts—was already sparking, they playfully loosened their fingers, thumb wrestled until they laughed, then simply let their hands come together of their own accord.
The fingers of her hand were closed, save for her index finger, which was playfully dancing on his bent knee. Without thinking, he reached out and crossed it with his own index finger. They both saw it immediately; their fingers had formed a plus sign, and then remained still.
After a moment she giggled and said, “One…”
Without hesitation he smiled and replied, “Plus one.”
From that day forwards, it was their thing. Yes, they said “I love you” from time to time too, but more often than not they eschewed it in favor of their secret phrase, which reminded them of the day even their hands knew they were meant to be together.
Not to grip, but to hold.
Not to subtract, but to add.
THEY TRAVELED across the sky amid the clouds. It was a different mode than how Napoleon had traveled with The Gray Man in hell, much lighter, but it was no less awe-inspiring. The sun was hovering above the clouds, tingeing their tops orange and yellow.
Napoleon had forgotten the feeling of the wind on his face and how beautiful the sky looked. A part of him felt dirty, as if hell had permanently stained him with soot he couldn’t see.
He still didn’t feel right in his head, and the sense of living a life permanently inserted into the surreal was beginning to overtake him; he’d been from here to hell, from hell and then back again. The visages of angels and demons, forces that until now he couldn’t have been sure were real, now left him feeling confused, overwhelmed and small.
The talk on the hill with Kyle Fasano hadn’t helped any, either. Napoleon had put on a brave face, but inside he was baffled by it all: Parker getting pulled back into Beaury, Tamara Fasano being abducted. Everything that happened after he’d left with The Gray Man was insane, and though they’d escaped hell, the actual place of the damned, it felt like it had only followed them back to earth.
But now that he was here, there was only one thing on his mind, and he wasn’t going to be able to focus on anything else until he dealt with it.
“Hey…” he said.
The Gray Man turned his head slightly. “Yes?”
“I know there’s not much time, but I need a favor.”
The Gray Man paused, blinked and then looked at Napoleon with understanding. “Your nephew?”
Napoleon sighed. “Yes. Please.”
“I understand. . . . he’s important to you. I will divert our course and drop you off there,” The Gray Man said, then added, “There’s no school this week. He’s at the park playing.”
Napoleon swallowed, feeling a lump in his throat at just knowing that Efren was still okay. Before long they descended lower to the ground and their surroundings were impossible to miss: East Los Angeles. Boyle Heights. Scoops of graffiti on brick walls between bent fences and dirty alleys. Home. He wished they had time to hit up Los Cinco Puntos for some carnitas and nopales.
They went down Cesar Chavez to Evergreen, past the cemetery, and then circled around to the left to Guirado Street and the elementary school, the small dots of people below slowly becoming recognizable as children playing basketball.
As they grew nearer it was their sounds, the shouts and giggles and screams of children at play, that brought an overwhelming sense of joy to Napoleon’s heart. He was certain that if not for the wind blowing in his eyes, he would’ve cried. All he could say was, “Man.”
“Yes,” The Gray Man replied. “Of all the sounds of earth that I miss the most, this is it. There can be no purer joy than that which we feel as children.”
They landed on the walkway between the basketball court and the old recreation room where Napoleon had played countless board games on rainy days as a child himself, decades before, and there was no mistaking Efren, in his slightly over-sized Lakers t-shirt, running a fast break with another boy down the court, dribbling the ball with one hand while trying to fend off another boy with the other.
He was, for all intents and purposes, the most beautiful thing Napoleon had seen in a very long time. Safe. Healthy. Precious.
“Does he see us?” Napoleon asked.
“No. We’re concealed. Do you want him to?”
Napoleon nodded.
“It’s the least I can do for the help you’ve given our cause, Villa. Go. Stand over there next to those trees by the fence so you will both have some privacy. When you get there, I will send him. Then I must get back to Kyle, okay?”
Napoleon did as he was asked.
After a few minutes and five or six baskets later, the boys stopped for a breather. Watching from a distance Napoleon could see Efren’s head turn, first in one direction and then the other, as if he were looking for something. Then, quite firmly, his gaze fixed in Napoleon’s direction. At first his face was painted in shock, then he bounced the ball to one of his friends, subbing him in for the next game, and quickly left the court.
He walked at first, in seeming disbelief, and then, with a smile as wide as hope can be deep, he shouted “¡Tio!” and broke into a dead run towards Napoleon.
His breath catching in his throat. Napoleon was sure that if he’d died right that second, he would have been the happiest man on earth.
CHAPTER 5
THEY HAD STOPPED SOMEWHERE in the desert. That was all Tamara could tell of the place. He’d built a fire and she could make out the outlines of a few Joshua trees nearby. Beyond them the sky was pitch black, the stars across it looking like spilled grains of salt.
He sat near the fire, with his back to her, about fifteen feet away from the car. This left her halfway between warm and freezing cold, depending on which way the wind blew, and even when the heat of the fire blew her way it was a mixed blessing, as it also carried smoke that made her cough.
When he’d pulled her out of the trunk she’d gotten another good look at him. He was calmer, more sedate, but the black of his eyes held the same hopelessness they had when he’d been beating her senseless with a sneer on his face. He was still crazy, but the madness had just retreated to his pupils and curled up there like a snake.
She begged him to let her pee, which he did, but he wouldn’t look away as she squatted and he barked orders at her to hurry up. Every muscle in her body stiff, she nearly fell over twice into her own puddle of piss before she finished emptying her bladder.
He dragged her back to the car to her current position, where she now sat on her hip with her wrists tied in her lap, a length of chain going from them to some point just underneath the front bumper. She tried twice to quietly pull on it, only moving the chain a few links at a time across the sand so he wouldn’
t hear. But it was no use.
She was chained like a dog.
He had pulled a bag out of the car, absentmindedly tossing a bottled water and a bag of Fritos into her lap, before he’d set up the fire and began to heat a can of SpaghettiOs over the open flame.
He said nothing and sat nearly motionless, occasionally stabbing a stick in and out of the fire, his long, tousled hair going in all directions.
His silence was unnerving, so she tried not to focus on it.
Instead she ate her chips and drank the water and thanked God for saving her babies. She believed in her heart now that He had, so much so that she hadn’t bothered to ask Him to save her yet. If this were her fate then she would accept it. All that mattered was that Janie and Seth were okay.
That left only one dangling thread in her life: Kyle.
After everything they’d been through, it was almost incomprehensible to her that she might die without ever knowing what had finally happened to her husband. Had he died in hell? Could someone actually survive such a place? What forces were their simple, puny, human lives caught up in anyway? And why? Sure, Kyle had been unfaithful. But hadn’t countless other husbands, and wives? Why Kyle? What made his sin so unique that he’d become the plaything of the Gods?
She chastised herself for the blasphemy. It was “God,” not “Gods,” and He did not play with us.
“He loves us,” she whispered softly, closing her eyes to remember her husband’s face.
“No He doesn’t.” The monster’s voice was hoarse and broken, and it startled her.
She looked up to see that he’d turned his head slightly to the side, as if he were looking back over his shoulder at her.
“How did you hear me?” she asked. “I barely even heard myself.”
He shrugged. “I’m changing. I’m hearing things better, seeing things better.”
“What?”
“But I’m not… understanding things much better.”
Tamara had no idea what he was talking about, but she finally saw a chance to communicate with him, so she took it. “Listen. You don’t want to hurt me. Please don’t. Just let me go.”
Turning his gaze back to the fire, he said nothing.
“I promise, I won’t tell anyone about you. Not a thing.”
Silence. He was back to poking his stick in the fire.
Tamara tried to speak with confidence, but she could also hear a tone of desperation creeping into her voice that she didn’t like. “Listen. Please. I don’t know why you’ve done this, but I don’t care either. Just let me go.”
At first he remained motionless. Then he shook his head.
“Why? Why can’t you just let me go?”
“Because.”
“Because why?”
“The scales must be balanced. Blood for blood.”
“No.”
“Yes,” he said before adding words that were music to Tamara’s ears. “It’s bad enough I let your stupid kids get away.”
She couldn’t help herself. Her relief was so great she began to cry softly, pressing her chin against her breastbone as her lungs squeezed air into her emotions.
“Yes. Go ahead and cry. Sure. I fail on part of my mission, and while you beg for your life, you cry happy tears at my expense.”
This time it was her turn to remain speechless.
“Admit it. You’re happy, you dumb cow.”
Tamara wondered if maybe she should just try to anger him into killing her, to end it, to end it all as quickly as possible. She was just beginning to contemplate what to say and how to say it when he spoke again and ruined it all.
“But don’t be too happy. The master will find a way to get your kids. He’s already sending others to finish the job.”
The entire sky came crashing down upon her. “W-what did you say?”
Still with his back to her, he looked down and his head began to bob, slightly at first and then a bit more. At first she couldn’t tell what was happening and then she heard his stifled laughs. He was chuckling. The bastard thought all this was funny.
Rage boiled into her. “Fuck you! Fuck you, you sonofabitch!”
“Shhhhhhhh…” he said, whipping his head to the side. Then again, “Shhhhhh.”
Tamara yanked hard on the chain. It was no use, but she managed to get to her knees. “Let me go! Now!”
Again, he laughed.
“You tell your master, or whatever the hell he is, to leave my children alone.”
He stretched, the bones in his back crackling like the dry desert wood on the fire, and spun around towards her, his physical presence suddenly ominous. “You don’t listen very well, do you, cow?”
Tamara was aghast. “What?”
“Didn’t you hear me!? I was trying to tell you, earlier. I said, ‘I’m not understanding things much better.’ I’m just not.”
“Not understanding what?”
“Why he won’t let me.”
“Let you do what?”
He stood up straight and looked down on her, whatever it was inside him looking as if it was barely contained again, and she wished he’d never turned around from his fire and his stupid SpaghettiOs, because what he said next left her colder than the desert ever could.
“I’ve asked him three times now if I can kill you, cook you and eat you,” he said, reaching down to lift her chin and look at her, the snakes in his eyes now slithering back and forth as he gazed at her with a sad look on his face and added, “But he won’t let me.”
THE CAPTAIN SAT at the patio table, one leg crossed over the other, his arms folded across his chest with a scowl on his face that was more weary than angry. After appearing to size Parker up for another moment, he sighed and finally spoke. “So. You want back in on this or not?”
Parker didn’t hesitate. “Depends.”
“Don’t get cute, Parker.”
“I’m not. It’s just—”
“Just what?”
“It’s a mess. All of it.”
“No shit.”
Parker shifted in his chair and cleared his throat. “I want in, but I don’t at the same time.”
“Understandable.”
The kids were in the house with Murillo having Bomb Pops from the freezer. Klink was walking the property for any clues. Besides them, it was just him and the captain. All the LAPD officers had gone back to the city, leaving behind a handful of La Canada sheriffs.
Before they’d had a chance to sit down, the watch commander had arrived on scene and talked briefly with the captain about this and that protocol, one or another agency now involved, paperwork and a whole host of other shit that bored Parker to death.
He walked away and sat down at the table and listened to the birdsong in the trees behind the Fasano residence and tried to tell himself to quit thinking. It hadn’t worked. Now, with the captain sitting here wanting to talk, it only felt worse.
He was thinking about what he was and wasn’t supposed to say. He and Tamara had made a deal, there in front of the Brasco home, seemingly a century ago. Should he have made that deal with her? Was all this his fault somehow? If they had come clean, up front, would any of this have happened?
The captain pressed him. “So?”
“Here’s the thing. I didn’t think it could get any worse than what happened to Nap. I really didn’t.”
“Mm-hmm. And we still don’t know what that ‘what’ actually was.”
Parker played along. “Right.”
The captain nodded again. Parker continued.
“Then I get a call from Sheriff Conch asking me to informally help with his investigation in Beaury.”
“Why and how?”
“He thought Fasano had backtracked his way through Beaury after disappearing in Monterey.”
“Why?”
“Conch had a missing girl, which is major news in a small town like that. He failed to see it as a coincidence that less than a week before she goes missing, we just happened to arrive looking for Kyle Fasan
o, who was wanted for what happened to Caitlyn Hall.”
“Okay. Still. Murder and abduction, though not mutually exclusive, do not automatically make for a connection.”
“I know. Of course. But again. Two major events in a small town like that… folks are going to automatically link them.”
“Fair enough.”
Parker leaned on the table with his hands folded in front of him. “Then it got weird. Fast.”
“How?”
“At the workplace of the girl who went missing we find a business card defaced in the same way as one that Nap and I found in Monterey outside Victoria Brasco’s wine shop.”
“And I didn’t get a call?”
“Conch told me he called you.”
“He did. But only to tell me that he was working on something and ‘might’ be needing your help. I told my assistant to call him and tell him fine. You were on suspension. Your time was your time. But I thought he meant he’d be calling you, not pulling you into an active role in his investigation.”
“Well. Shit took off fast.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah. Next thing we know we have a second girl go off the radar. Except this one was different.”
“How so?”
“This was a girl Nap and I had actually interviewed, and she’d ID’d Fasano.”
A grim shadow came over the captain’s eyes. “And you didn’t call me immediately?”
Parker sighed. This was the part he knew was bad for him. “Look. I’m not going to lie. I was afraid to.”
“What?”
“I was afraid that once you heard the possible connections were strengthening, you’d yank me out of Beaury and send in someone else.”
“You’re damn straight I would’ve. You were already suspended for what happened in Monterey. Or didn’t happen.”
“Exactly. I knew you wouldn’t trust me.”
“Incorrect,” the captain said firmly, unfolding his arms and placing them on the armrests of his chair. “Look. Parker. You’re a good cop and you might still have a future as a good detective. But common sense, to any DA that could be roped into this thing, is to keep a suspended officer off any other case that could tie back to the case he was suspended from. You get that, right?”
One Plus One (The Millionth Trilogy Book 3) Page 4