A Million to One: (The Millionth Trilogy Book 2)

by Tony Faggioli

  Without thinking Tamara answered. “No, baby.”

  A sharp, high-pitched laugh swiftly echoed through the park. Tamara looked up to see a slight smile on the woman’s face. She was shaking her head gently from side to side, as if she were saying “Tsk, tsk. Liar, liar.”

  The dress was pink but there was a large red spot blooming across her abdomen.

  Janie saw it too because she let out a small scream before burying her face back in Tamara’s blouse.

  That’s when Seth looked up and followed his mother’s gaze across the lawn. He jumped off the seesaw and ran full speed to Tamara, a look of horror and confusion on his face.

  “Mommy! Mommy!” he screamed before barreling into Janie’s rib cage and forcing his way past her to a spot against his mother’s legs. There he stayed, crouched, his little hand gripping at her.

  Tamara looked again at the woman, one last time, and their eyes met. The woman’s eyes were red.

  Grabbing both of her children, Tamara fled the park. Once in the car, not knowing what else to do, she took them both through a Foster’s drive-thru for ice cream cones that neither one of them really wanted nor had the appetite to eat.

  Trying to buy time, to decide what to do or whether they should run, she took them to the market, grabbed a basket and wandered the aisles.

  At the market it was only worse: two more demons were in the bread section, one in the frozen foods aisle and a fourth in the dairy section.

  The two in the bread section were an older couple, dressed in late fifties clothes, the woman with a shock of white hair and the man with a face that was partially melted. They had the same eyes as the woman in the park, red orbs.

  In the frozen food section was an old woman in a peach dress and sweater who was slumped in a wheelchair, a dead cat in her lap, it’s head flopping loosely over her thigh as she held it tight with one hand, her other hand scratching at her forehead, which was raw with cuts. This one spoke. “They left me to die alone in my house,” she said. “I’ve come back and watched each one of them die since.”

  Seth, seated in the cart, had jumped and cried openly at her words, his eyes wide. But Janie barely moved. She simply stood next to the cart, staring straight ahead, one hand gripping the metal edge as she made no effort to acknowledge her surroundings at all.

  She’s in shock, Tamara thought. My God.

  The fourth and final straw was the man in the dairy section. Standing well over six feet tall, he wore blue jeans and a plaid shirt. His hair was thick, black and combed straight back, but his face was all crooked. His lips were out of alignment and his nose was like that of a boxer who’d taken far too many hits; it was bent at an odd angle, the cartilage having healed in a sort of “s” shape. His eyes were even more piercing and foreboding, as if he were anxious. As if to confirm this fact, he looked at Tamara and said grimly, “Someday. Someday I’ll get to rip you apart.”

  And that was that.

  They fled the market and made their way to the car, Tamara barely keeping her panic in check while Janie asked silly questions about the weather with a frozen face and Seth cried and cried.

  Nobody was waiting for them in the parking lot, or in any of the cars next to them on the drive home. Frantic, Tamara decided to go back home.

  Because the only thing worse than being stalked by evil was being stalked by evil in an unfamiliar place, and at least at home she knew where the butcher knives were.

  CONCH HAD CALLED Parker at just after ten and asked him to come back to the station, so now here he was.

  “So?” Conch said with a sigh. “What’d your captain say?”

  “To stay out of the way and keep my nose clean,” Parker lied. His buzz was still lingering from the night before, despite the burger and fries he’d crammed down at the bar right after he’d left and the Danish he’d snagged from his hotel lobby on the way to his car.

  “Well, I’m not sure it’s exactly ‘staying out of the way,’” Conch replied with a stifled burp, “but I could use your help right about now.”

  “What’ve you got?”

  Kendall jumped in, “Maybe nothing.”

  “Maybe something,” Conch said with a nod. “Delivery guy. Bread man. Hazel called me to say he rattled loose in her head when she couldn’t sleep.”

  “And?” Parker pressed.

  “He seemed to take a shine to Ashley, even though she was much younger than him. Creeped her out a little, I guess.”

  “Enough so that she mentioned it to Hazel at least.”

  “Yep. So I asked Kendall to get me the work history on the girls in town who might be attached to the case.”

  “Let me guess—”

  “Nope. No guessing needed. We were able to reach three of the four families. All three worked at a convenience store in town at one time or another.”

  Kendall leaned against the desk, his feet crossed and his arms folded. “That’s not including Ashley.”

  “So,” Parker said, raising his eyebrows, “that’s four of five if we count Ashley and the liquor store.”

  “Four of six, actually,” Conch replied. “Jasmine doesn’t fit the MO.”

  Parker nodded. “Denny’s.”

  “Yep. First and only job. Been there three years.”

  “Hmm. Still…”

  “Yeah. We gotta check him out.”

  “We get a name yet?”

  Conch rubbed the back of his neck. “No. I called Ashley’s uncle for the name of the bread company though: Lolo’s.”

  “They got a bakery and delivery center on the edge of town,” Kendall explained.

  “We going there?” Parker asked.

  “No. I’ll swing by,” Conch said.

  Parker questioned him with a squint.

  “You guys should head north a bit,” Conch said. “Check in on the O’Connells, Melissa’s family. They were the one local family that I was unable to reach by phone, and then, time allowing, there’s a home out off Highway 15, for a one Jennifer Clark, mother of Amber Clark. That’s just over the border of Kings County, but Sheriff Couch won’t mind. We’ll be doin’ him a favor. She’s one of the girls from his area that went missing and her home is a good thirty miles closer to us than to the Kings County station.”

  Parker nodded. “Stupid question, but I have to ask: this many girls, possibly linked, you thought of calling the Feds yet?”

  “Already have. But until they get here it’s still our investigation. I got a preliminary phone interview with a Special Agent Yeung to get through later today.”

  “Okay. We heading out now?” Parker asked, lifting his chin to Kendall.

  Kendall nodded.

  “Good luck, and let me know what you find out,” Conch said, glancing at the notebook on his desk. His desk seemed like more of a mess now. It was obvious: Conch was pulling long hours. If the desk didn’t show it, the double bags under his eyes did.

  “You sure you want us both to go?” Parker asked Conch.

  “Yeah,” Conch said. Burping again, he reached into his desk drawer, broke out an Alka-Seltzer packet and released the two white disks into a glass of water near his phone, the trademark fizz sounding like a lit fuse. “Appreciate your help, Parker, but can’t have you freelancing. Especially with the Feds coming into town. You know the gig. And besides, I only got one guy to interview. Kendall’s got four.”

  Parker nodded.

  “We’ll take my car,” Kendall said.

  “Sure thing.”

  “Yeah. It’s a haul out that way. You might want to take a nap.”

  “Fair enough,” Parker said, not really knowing what Kendall meant by that comment.

  Conch sighed heavily. “We got a lot of missing girls across five counties.”

  “Shit,” Parker replied.

  “Yes,” Conch said before taking a swig of his water. “Shit… indeed.”

  “What if this guy’s not the guy?” Kendall asked.

  “Odds are he’s not, Kendall, but we gotta try. And a
t the rate this guy’s moving now? We better figure out real quick who he is. I’m hoping you and Parker can chase up a few more leads in your interviews. Jenny at The Breeze already called this morning.”

  “Great,” Kendall said, shaking his head.

  “The Breeze?” Parker asked no one in particular.

  “Our version of the LA Times,” Conch answered.

  “Jenny’s the editor-in-chief. Used to be a journalist in Kansas City,” Kendall added.

  “And has never let it go,” Conch said wryly. He guzzled the rest of his drink, a white powder circle forming around his lips before he wiped it off with his sleeve.

  “This is a big story for her,” Kendall said, scratching his chin.

  “Pft! A double abduction? It’s like Pearl Harbor for her.”

  “You gonna call her back?” Parker asked.

  “Eventually. After I speak to the Feds.”

  Parker looked grimly at them both. “Don’t wanna speak outta turn, right?”

  “They’ll no doubt tell me what to say and how to say it.” Conch sighed.

  “Which may be a blessing, Sheriff,” Kendall said, concern in his voice. “Especially with Jenny trying to get all up your ass.”

  A moment of quiet fell over the room as Parker noticed his head was finally done spinning. What was he thinking going to the bar to get lit? Stupid.

  The silence was split by the shrill cry of the phone, which rang on all the lines in the office at once, momentarily surrounding them in a cocoon of rings.

  “Your call from the special agent already?” Parker asked.

  Conch glanced at the phone. “Maybe.”

  Kendall looked at Parker. “Let’s hit it, then.”

  “Good luck,” Parker said over his shoulder as they were leaving.

  “Yeah,” Conch replied with a chuckle that almost sounded bitter.

  Out on the parking lot, beneath a looming sky, Kendall caught him off guard. “Hey, Parker. Do me a favor, will ya?”

  “What’s that?” Parker asked.

  “If you’re going to have a meltdown, drive back to LA and have it on your own time.”

  Parker was stunned. “What?”

  The two of them stopped just short of the curb and faced one another. “You heard me.”

  “You got something to say, say it,” Parker said firmly, still confused but becoming offended.

  “You go over to Smokey Joe’s and tip a few back? Or more than a few?”

  It took a second for the name of the bar to register, and—no doubt due to the residual effects of the alcohol that Kendall was referring to—it took a few more seconds for Parker to put it all together.

  “What?” Parker said, shaking his head. “You’re having me watched?”

  “By a few people, yeah,” Kendall replied, hooking his thumbs into the edges of his gun belt.

  “Uh-huh,” Parker said. “Like the front desk of the hotel and—”

  “The bar next door. And the gas station across the street.”

  Parker was incensed. “What the fuck for, Kendall?”

  “Look. No offense. But you’d do the same fucking thing if it was me.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Give me a break. The sheriff likes you. So do I. But he’s got a bit of a blind spot sometimes. You gonna tell me your antennae wouldn’t be up when the girl you and your partner interviewed suddenly ups and disappears?”

  Parker said nothing, so Kendall kept going. “With your partner still missing and, oh yeah, the perp you were chasing, this Fasano guy, still at large too?”

  “C’mon, Kendall, I had nothing to do with—”

  “I didn’t say you did.”

  “But you’re keeping tabs on me.”

  “Just in case.”

  Parker was about to become indignant, but he reined it in, mainly because Kendall was right, but also because for Parker, violence and alcohol were frequent dance partners. Instead he looked at the ground, counted to five and then looked up and nodded. “Fair enough, Kendall.”

  “Good. Because, like I said, if our roles were reversed, I gotta believe you’d be doing the same. Now, with that loveliness out of the way, let’s make sure we’re clear: I respect you, regardless of my t-crossing and i-dotting, but if you’re going to get sauced and fuck up this investigation somehow, especially with the Feds now getting involved, just go home, man.”

  A calmness came over Parker, or maybe it was acceptance. He stuck his hand out to shake Kendall’s. For a second it floated out there, all by itself, between the two men, before Kendall grabbed it. “I apologize,” Parker half-grunted. “I shouldn’t have gone drinking last night. You’re right. Everything’s getting heavy lately, but I’ll put it aside, all of it, out of respect for both of you.”

  “Fair enough,” Kendall said, his lips drawn tight. “Now let’s go digging.”

  As they walked to Kendall’s cruiser, Parker kept counting. Five to ten. Ten to twenty. His therapist when he first shipped home told him to always try to get to sixty, one full minute, to help keep from exploding.

  As he grabbed the car door handle, Parker shook his head in disgust.

  Kendall was a good guy.

  The sheriff was a good man.

  Parker wished he could count himself in their company.

  But he couldn’t.

  There’d been a teenage boy in the Afghan desert—who had probably taken a day or more to die, wanting for water, wanting for his mother—who could attest to that.

  CHAPTER 25

  THE WHITE CITY WAS quiet and eerie, where nothing moved and there were no sounds: no honking cars, no corner hot dog stands and, worst of all, no people. It was shell of a place, as if everyone had fled a pending disaster that never came.

  “Michiko?”

  She nodded without looking at him as they walked down the middle of the street, her eyes scanning from one side to the other, her sword drawn.

  “Did the people who once lived here escape? To the other side, I mean?”

  “No.” She shook her head. “This place has never been anything good, or any place where good things happened.”

  “So what, then?”

  “It has always been a beacon in the desert, which lies at the fringes of jigoku, hell, a false light that calls to the wandering souls, like a flame to a moth.”

  “To burn it.”

  She nodded. “To kill it.”

  “How does one end up on the fringes?” Kyle asked, cracking his shoulder, which felt slightly dislocated.

  She was quiet for a moment as they made their way over the paved street. Kyle noticed it was like slurry—asphalt mixed with heavy, coarse sand—and that it stuck to your feet a bit as you walked on it.

  “Did The Gray Man tell you, Kyle?” Michiko said softly.

  “Tell me what?”

  “That the more questions you ask, the more you learn of things beyond your world, the less likely it will be that you can ever go back to it?”

  Stunned, Kyle shook his head.

  “Well, one question won’t hurt,” Michiko continued. “One ends up on the fringes, after death, when one has not properly prepared oneself for heaven.”

  “And how does one—”

  Michiko turned her head to look at him with a slight smile, cutting him off with a raised finger. “That, horo-sha, would be a second question.”

  Kyle took note of her. Japanese. A samurai. Surely she was Buddhist. Yet there, on the nape of her neck, about an inch tall, was the tattoo of a cross. Suddenly, he was filled with more questions, but something deep within him, a longing for home perhaps, brought Tamara and the kids to mind. What Michiko had just told him was unnerving. Too many questions might carry too heavy of a price, so he didn’t press.

  To take his mind off his sudden desire to know more, he turned his attention to the buildings around them: concrete and steel, just like back home, with brick and mortar buildings, shorter in stature, mixed in. In their solitude they seemed ugly, with sharp cornered peak
s and valleys. Before, when he’d been further away, the city appeared to be about the size of Chicago, but now, within it, he equated it more with Downtown Los Angeles. This was probably due to how disoriented he was after first arriving here, but also, he sensed, because he was more familiar with Los Angeles, having worked there the past fifteen years.

  Odd. The blue in him, faint but present, seemed to have a voice of its own at times. A whisper. It told him, with assurance, that of course it now looked like a place familiar to him, because you don’t trap something with the unfamiliar—that would produce caution.

  “You trap it with what it knows.” The words escaped his mouth, soft and pregnant.

  “What’s that, horo-sha?” Michiko asked, now scanning the rooftops, her steps wider and with more purpose, as if she’d seen or heard something.

  “No-nothing,” Kyle replied. They walked another twenty feet or so before he realized what she was focused on: the sudden sound of soft cries somewhere nearby.

  Before long they reached an intersection with flashing red lights. The sky was more visible now. Inside the city it appeared more of an agitated pink, pale in most places but then jabbed with red veins, as though the edges of invisible clouds were rolling by.

  Michiko’s fingers gripped firmly into his arm, stopping him in his tracks.

  Across the street and lined up neatly along the sidewalk was a group of men and women of all ages, some in tattered and worn clothes, some dressed for cocktail parties or beach retreats, about a thousand strong, many of them now staring at Kyle and Michiko.

  Their stares were lonely and vacant.

  “I don’t think they’re going to attack us, do you?” he asked Michiko.

  She shook her head cautiously. “No. I don’t think so. I would still prefer not to walk past them, but that’s up to you.”

  “Up to me?”

  “Yes. Your steps here, horo-sha, must be self-directed.”

  “What?”

  “If that is not where you’re meant to go,” she said, nodding her head towards the building all the people were lined up to enter, “then you will not.”

  Perplexed, Kyle watched Michiko take three calms strides from the center of the street towards an old, worn mailbox. It had no markings, of course—like everything else here it was almost like a set piece for a movie—but that’s not what struck Kyle the most. What caught his eye was the ease with which she was moving; her feet were not partially sticking to the ground, like his were.