She’d gotten both things wrong.
It wasn’t Canada, but La Canada. And it wasn’t Tammy, but Tamara.
Tamara Fasano.
“No,” Parker uttered in disbelief. He stumbled out of the garage and onto the lawn, pulling his cell phone out of his pocket, knowing exactly who to call.
As Ashley Barton was being rolled to an ambulance and the paramedics still worked feverishly on Sheriff Conch, Parker called his colleague Detective Second Grade Juan Murillo back in Los Angeles. He answered on the second ring.
“¿Qué pasó, güero?” Murillo asked. “Is that you, Parker?”
“Yes. Juan. Listen to me very clearly. I need your help, man. Bad. Ask questions later.”
Concern flooded Murillo’s voice. “What is it?”
“Who handles the La Canada area? Is that Pasadena PD?”
“No, man. That’s the La Canada Sheriff Department.”
“I need you to contact them right away. Tell them to get a car out to the Fasano house immediately. Tell—”
“What?”
“Murillo. Please. Ask your questions later. Just do it. Now. It’s 1645 Haven Way. Big house. White fence. Tell them there may be a man armed and dangerous either there or on the way there.”
“Who? Fasano?”
“No. Some rogue nutcase from here in Beaury. Call now, Murillo! Call me back when they get there.”
There was a second of hesitation before Murillo replied, “Okay, 1645 Haven Way. Got it.”
The line clicked dead in Parker’s ear.
Exhaling heavily, Parker looked at the time on his cell phone: 6:06 p.m.
Kendall was standing off to the side of the garage, his hands gripping at his scalp as the paramedics began chest compressions on Sheriff Conch. From the panicked atmosphere around the body, it was getting worse. Parker watched as Conch’s left foot bobbed back and forth, his body rocking from the compressions that traveled down from his chest.
Parker averted his eyes and ran a few details over in his mind.
When they had gotten back down to the bottom of the mountain and tried to call Conch, there’d been no answer. It was obvious why now. But Kendall had also seen on his phone that Conch had tried to call him as well. Twice. What time had Kendall said his phone showed the missed calls? 2:00 p.m. Yes.
Four hours ago.
Los Angeles, and La Canada, was only two hours away.
If Troy Forester had attacked Conch right after those calls and went straight there? He wouldn’t even have hit rush hour traffic.
“Shit!” Parker cursed.
Minutes passed as he paced in the backyard before deciding he needed some space. It was like the war here now. Wounded or dying people were everywhere. Ashley Barton was screaming in hysteria; Jasmine White’s stretcher sheet had a burgundy stain growing exponentially as she was loaded onto the ambulance in the driveway; and off now by a lemon tree, Kendall had his hands clenched against his forehead as if in prayer.
Parker fled to the front of the driveway, his mind racing faster than his pulse.
How was this possible? How did this all tie together? Why was everything working in a circle somehow? A circle that just kept growing smaller and smaller and smaller?
After ten minutes, another ambulance pulled up. The neighbors were out on the street now, craning their necks and whispering behind the scattered orange dots of their lit cigarettes, night having dropped like a curtain.
Parker was just beginning to calm down a bit when his cell phone finally rang. He answered it immediately.
Within Murillo’s first dozen words, Parker dropped his head.
They were too late.
CHAPTER 33
IT WAS THERE LIKE a gash in the dark: light, calling her to awaken, bringing her back to life.
It took a second for her eyes to focus, and then Tamara saw it, a sliver of heaven, blue sky and fragments of white clouds framed between two dark lines on either side. She remembered a verse from the Bible almost instantly: “Enter through the narrow gate, for wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction…”
Was this the narrow gate? Was she dead? How could that be when, of all things, she could smell engine oil and dirty rags? No, she wasn’t dead, and she was fine with that. Because all she could think was that something bad had happened—that her babies were in danger and that they needed her.
Slowly her senses pieced together her surroundings: she was in a car, in the trunk. From behind her she could hear music pounding through speakers. She could feel the scratchy felt of carpeting and something hard and plastic, a handle of some kind, probably the one you lifted to get to the spare tire, digging into her ribs. With some effort she lifted her head and stretched her neck, causing her back muscles to scream. Beyond this though, she was immobile. Her hands and feet were tied behind her, and below her the sound of the road was rolling on and on, vibrating her body as it did so. Someone was driving her somewhere but…
And that’s when she remembered the monster that had shown up on her doorstep, lean and determined, violent and savage. Fear stabbed at her instantly, as it had when she’d opened the door to the house and found him standing there. At first she thought he was one of the neighbors or someone from church, come to bring by another pie or ready-made dinner, then she saw the bite mark in his neck and the blood down his clothes and…
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
Her head hurt badly. And something sticky had dried down the side of her right temple, over her ear and across her cheek to her chin. Blood, most likely. She flexed her jaw and felt it bend on her skin like rubber. Thinking made her feel dizzy, just a bit at first, and then it compounded. She closed her eyes to that heavenly sky out there, beyond the slit in the rubber lining of the trunk lid, and forced herself to calm down, to breathe deeply and slowly. But her mind was having none of it, because, God help her, she couldn’t remember what happened next.
To Janie. Or to Seth.
What if he killed them? My God. What if they’re in here with me?
Her throat squeezed with emotion, nearly choking her. There was no one lying in front her, so she wiggled around as best she could to feel if anyone was behind her. There seemed to be no one. Still, she tried to cry out their names, but the words only came out in gasping whispers.
“Janie? Baby girl? Are you in here? Seth? Seth? Can you hear me?”
Silence.
She tried two more times, with no reply, before deciding that they weren’t there. A sob bounced around between her lungs as she fought with the idea of whether or not she should be happy about that. Were they safe? Were they…
Jesus! Please. Please. I beg you. Don’t let them be dead somewhere. Pleeaase.
Again she felt the urge to go for a swim in a deep pool of panic. This time it took all she had, every ounce of energy, not to submit. Instead, she focused on the music. She didn’t know the song, but it sounded country, something about a dollar bill and going for a drink in the morning.
A drink sounded good. A drink of water at least. Ten drinks of it maybe. She was parched, and as she ran her tongue over the inside of her mouth she could feel that she was missing a tooth on the bottom left side, and another one was loose. Her tongue seemed to be sticky. More blood.
You bastard. I never saw you coming.
He had stepped into the foyer and just punched her in the face, so hard that those cartoon stars came over her in a very real and adult way, a cascade of them really. She stumbled backwards, shocked and in dismay, as he threw another punch, which missed.
You didn’t get me with the second one, did you? I’ve taken enough self-defense classes. First punch was a gift, but then I gave you a few back.
Her memory began to send out torn images: after dodging the second punch he’d grabbed her by the shoulders. She countered by jamming the heel of her hand just to the left of his right nostril, missing her intended mark by a mere half-inch but still hurting him. He hesitated, giving her time to ball up her right
hand, and with the knuckle of her middle finger protruding in a crude point, she punched him hard, just below the left eye.
As they struggled, they knocked over the table in the foyer. The vase on it crashed to the ground, and Tamara was just beginning to think of how she could get her hand on one of the shards when he head butted her in the mouth. Blood began to spill over her gums and down her throat. She was just beginning to contemplate an escape when…
Janie. Janie screamed. I didn’t know she could scream that loud.
The man, with his wild, shark-like black eyes, seemed stunned for a moment. He bear-hugged Tamara viciously, squeezing the breath out of her as the stubble from his unshaven face dug into the soft skin of her neck. Then he looked past Tamara at…
The car hit a dip of some kind, bouncing her in the trunk and bringing her back to the present. Her left hip yelped in protest to the landing, and she was beginning to go dizzy again, so she focused on the pins and needles that were streaming down her legs.
Breathe. Breathe. You have to remember what happened next. You must.
The man looked at Janie, who was standing behind them in the hallway adjacent to the foyer, and that’s when Tamara heard them: feet. Feet were running from behind Janie. No, Seth! Stay away! Run away! Both of you… RUN!
But Seth hadn’t run, and nor had Janie. Instead they both stood there in horror as the man slammed Tamara from one side of the hall to the next, the walls reverberating as he whipped her back and forth with a strength seemingly fueled by an inhuman rage.
Tamara swung at him repeatedly, catching him in the ear and forehead, but missing a good half-dozen times too before she began beating on his chest
He knocked the wind out of her but she managed to fill her lungs with enough air to yell to the kids.
“Run! Get to the neighbors’ house!”
But Janie was frozen in place, her jaw slack. First the thing under the bed, then the ones at the park and market, and now this; evidently she couldn’t take anymore. She wasn’t moving. Not an inch.
Then… the man had said something, hadn’t he? By Tamara’s ear. Not in her ear. He wasn’t speaking to her but to himself, or someone else.
She rolled in the trunk, slightly forwards and to the right, as the car slowed, made a turn and then accelerated again. She supposed she should be wondering where he was taking her, but she couldn’t until she knew what had happened to the kids.
Focus. Focus. What did he say? What was it? Something…
“Gotta do what ya gotta do, and I got a job to do.”
“No!” Tamara screamed as he brought his fist back suddenly for one good, solid punch. It smashed into the side of her head and, immediately, she began sliding into unconscious.
He pushed her against the wall and let her slide slowly down its length. She fought against the black with all her might, looking to her babies as the monster stood over her. She mouthed the word “run” over and over again, in silence, unable to speak, filled with a maddening sense of desperation.
Then the monster began to advance on the children and she could do nothing at all about it but pray.
God. My Lord. Please help.
Defeat came over her.
But not over Seth.
The memory came to her with digital clarity.
“Oh my God!” Tamara sobbed aloud into the darkness of the trunk. “No. No! My baby boy. My beautiful baby boy.”
Little Seth. Her little man.
He’d tried to protect her.
By throwing his juice box at the monster in the hall.
* * *
*****
THANK you for reading A MILLION TO ONE. I’d be grateful if you would take a couple of minutes to leave a review. It only needs to be one or two sentences, and it really does help other readers decide if they’d enjoy the book.
Click HERE to leave a review.
* * *
*****
LOVE IS A PROMISE.
YOU JUST HAVE TO BELIEVE.
* * *
The story continues with ONE PLUS ONE.
Grab your copy HERE!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
TONY FAGGIOLI BEGAN WRITING stories in the 5th grade and continued doing so until college, when he gave up writing to pursue a very short career in politics and a much longer career in business. One day, he finally realized that neither brought him anywhere near the amount of joy as writing. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, he was raised in Los Angeles, California and graduated from the University of Southern California. He is a happily married father of two kids, two dogs and a pretty awesome goldfish.
For more information, connect with Tony on:
@steelertony
tfaggioli
tonyfaggioli.com
ALSO BY TONY FAGGIOLI
One In A Million (Book 1 of "The Millionth Trilogy”)
A Million to One (Book 2 of "The Millionth Trilogy”)
One Plus One (Book 3 of "The Millionth Trilogy”)
* * *
Coming in 2017, "The Snow Globe", a psychological thriller.
A Million to One: (The Millionth Trilogy Book 2) Page 33
