One In A Million (The Millionth Trilogy Book 1) Read online

  This past summer, Janie’s Girl Scout troop had gone on a field trip, and the “achievements” goal was for the girls to learn how to take public transportation. Kyle was surprised to find out how stringent the rules were regarding fees. You either had exact change or you overpaid. End of story. In Kyle’s case he only had a five-dollar bill, so overpay he did, making the desired impression. The bus driver raised his eyebrows and gave his best “that’s a damn shame” shake of the head. It was five dollars well spent though, another breadcrumb for the trail he was still leaving. Monterey was north. But that wasn’t the direction he wanted them to think he was heading.

  The 17 bus pulled away from the curb and headed south, towards Dunsmore, which was ten miles away and where he would get off. If he switched to the 38 at that point, he could continue south, with a good twelve miles across mostly farm country to the next stop in Middleton. But that wasn’t the bus he was going to catch.

  For now he had to wait for the flow of passengers on and off the bus to deliver him the right person. It took three stops and a few dozen folks before a Hispanic man with graying hair boarded. He wore a dirty black jacket, faded blue jeans, tan construction boots and a generic blue cap, and he shuffled wearily to his seat. He sat three rows up, and as the bus continued on its route, Kyle made his way forwards to sit with him.

  The man’s English was not so good, but Kyle made do with his Spanglish, just to keep the conversation going for the next twenty minutes. His name was Raul and he had hard blue eyes, like steel. He’d immigrated to America twenty-three years ago, was married with five kids, and earlier in the week he’d left his family behind in Fresno like he did every week. He shifted between construction sites in the area for his employer, a developer that had him working at mostly fill-in jobs now. Sometimes he cleaned out the construction trailers, and other times there was more exciting work, like wiring, which he had done a lot of when he was younger. Raul made the trek back home to be with his family each Saturday. It was hard, but it was worth it. His two oldest children were in junior college and expected to move on to get their degrees.

  Today, though, Raul was being sent back to his company-provided room at the motel in Middleton a little early, as work was slow.

  Perfect, Kyle thought.

  But then the guilt of what he was doing began to weigh on Kyle. He was only pretending to care at first but now, well, if the old man got into some kind of trouble because of him, then maybe it wasn’t worth it.

  Logically though, how could he get into trouble? They couldn’t call him an accomplice. His part in this would be innocent if Kyle pulled it off.

  Raul asked Kyle some questions about himself, all of which Kyle answered fictitiously. He was down on his luck. His wife left him with his two kids. (This part actually made Kyle hesitate a bit, as he realized it might not be fiction for very long.) He had migraines and a severe skin allergy to the sun but was hoping to find work in San Diego, where his friend lived, but he’d lost his hat.

  By the time they arrived in Dunsmore, they were good acquaintances, good enough for Kyle to make his proposal and for Raul to accept it with a smile. Having the rest of the day to himself, Raul told Kyle he was going to get pretty bored, but thanks to their deal he could call home to Mexico and speak with his family for a little while, just to see how things were going.

  They stepped off the bus, and Raul headed off to catch the 38. Kyle had already told him that he was going to catch the 22, which would cut east a bit before taking him straight to San Diego.

  The man smiled and waved goodbye, the phone card like a flag in his hand.

  Kyle waved back, still feeling a little guilty, and turned away. He’d achieved what he wanted: Raul’s hat.

  He had no way of knowing that if left unchecked, the police would indeed track down Raul Vargas, and when they did, he would have to answer for being in the country illegally for over two decades. He would spend two nights in jail before being deported back to Sonora, without ever seeing either of his children graduate from college.

  But that wouldn’t happen.

  Instead Raul would trip when getting off at the next stop and fall face first onto the pavement. He would lose his grip on the calling card while trying to arrest his fall, to no avail. The calling card, which had been clenched in his hand along with the dream of hearing his eighty-eight year old mother’s voice, would go bouncing across the sidewalk. He would hit his head on the ground rather hard, and the world would go woozy.

  Later that afternoon when his family rushed to see him at the hospital, Raul would swear to his wife that he’d seen an angel, a light gray one that hovered over him and calmed his nerves when he regained consciousness and heard the sirens coming.

  “Ay, amorcito, estas loco,” his wife replied, her hand cupping his cheek.

  “Rosa, te hablo en serio. Te lo juro!”

  Back at the bus stop, the card would sit on the sidewalk unnoticed for two full hours before being found jammed nearly upright between the sidewalk and a hedge of grass. A small town thug by the name of Albert Granger would stumble upon it on his way to rob a liquor store just down the street.

  With two strikes on his record and only one to go, Albert knew he was being stupid, but dammit, he was hungry, teetering on homelessness at this point. Life was just a pile of crap anyway, so why not? He would jam the place up, get the cash, hop on the bus and try to make his way north somewhere.

  Instead, upon seeing the card, Albert figured this was some kinda luck—a calling card, just for him. He thought of the one person in the entire world who still loved him, despite all his mistakes: his mother.

  It had been over a year since they’d last spoken, but he could still call her. She would be angry, but she would help. The same pride that had kept him from asking for help for years was intercepted this time by a small and gentle tug at his heart, just enough to make a difference.

  Albert Granger sighed and decided he wasn’t going to be robbing anybody this day. Instead, he lumbered his way down to The Home Depot workers’ shed. He knew there was a payphone there, where a voice that still loved him would be found on the other end.

  Just across the street, leaning against a stop sign, was The Gray Man.

  He smiled.

  Two birds. One stone.

  TAMARA MANAGED to get Janie to calm down, insisting again that the police had simply mixed Daddy up with someone else. Seth was a tougher sell, as no matter how she tried to explain it, he couldn’t understand—how could he? He was too little—and he wouldn’t stop demanding to see Kyle. He finally cried himself to sleep on the couch, his long eyelashes now stuck in dried-up tears to the bags under his eyes. Tamara prayed over him, hoping that he would stay asleep for a while.

  She allowed Janie to retreat to that special musical place called her iPod, which always seemed to soothe her somehow. She spent the rest of the afternoon on the couch in the den, curled up in a ball with her ear buds in, staring off blankly into the distance.

  Then, Tamara finally started taking calls. She’d already spoken to her own mom, but speaking to Kyle’s mom was another matter. They had never gotten along, even on the wedding day, and her tone towards Tamara had been veiled in accusation from the outset of the call. Whatever was going on with this mad report about her son being wanted for questioning in relation to the death of some girl he worked with was—in one way, shape, or form—something for which Tamara was to blame. Kyle’s mother had a voice like rubber on steel, whiny on her best day but now almost shrill in her panic. Where was Kyle? What really happened? How could Tamara not know? Rata-tat-tat.

  On it went for a good five minutes until Tamara realized that she was done owing this woman any more explanations, ever, for the rest of her life. She felt bad for her, yes. Her health had swiftly declined since Kyle’s dad had died, and she’d been forced to put Kyle’s younger brother in an assisted living home for autistic adults. Still. Enough was enough. In one last act of restraint, Tamara made an excuse—Seth had a f
ictional injury from falling off the couch—before hanging the phone up so forcefully she was afraid she’d broken it.

  The next call, only a few minutes after, made her wish that she had. It was a reporter from KCAL Channel 9 News, requesting an interview. Tamara hung up on him and barely had enough time to pour herself some Tejava before the phone rang again. She kept at it for a while then had to stop.

  With all the calls Tamara missed three that went to voicemail. She panicked, thinking it was Kyle, but all three were from Trudy, telling Tamara to hang on, she was coming. She was in New York, scheduled to fly home to San Francisco today, but she had changed her flight to Los Angeles. Her last call said she was boarding her flight and was due in to LAX at 6:45pm. She didn’t want Tamara dragging the kids to the airport in all the chaos. She would UBER to the house and be there as soon as she could.

  Tamara was pissed that she’d missed the calls, but unbelievably relieved that help was on the way.

  When the doorbell rang Tamara feared it was the press again, now trying to violate her space from the front porch. But when she answered the door she was startled to see Ben. In his hand he held a bag of sub-sandwiches from Pinocchio’s Deli in Burbank.

  “Hey, you okay?” he asked, and it was the way he said it, with his eyes as much as his words, that made her feel vulnerable. She feigned courage and pathetically even allowed a small smile to form, which caused some inner-discomfort. With her husband in this much trouble, the last thing she needed to be doing was playing the schoolgirl with the boy from work.

  “Yes. I’m fine. You didn’t have to—” she started to reply.

  “I know. The sandwiches are for you guys, for lunch or dinner. I imagine you have family over or whatever. I didn’t want to intrude, I just wanted to stop by real quick and make sure you were okay.”

  “Thanks, Ben. That’s very kind of you.”

  “I’m so sorry, Tamara.”

  “It’s okay. We don’t know anything yet. It’s just me and the kids right now. You wanna come in?”

  “Sure.”

  She knew that would be the answer, but she didn’t expect him to get so close to her when he came into the foyer and handed her the bag. He smelled very faintly of cologne. Her thoughts were unsettling. Inappropriate. Unlike her.

  “You want some tea or a coke?” she asked politely, steering clear of any mention of any other type of beverage that might give him the wrong idea, as she walked him into the kitchen.

  “No. That’s okay.” He put his hands on his hips and looked her in the eye, which only made her look away, as he said, “How you holding up with all this?”

  Tamara shrugged and folded her arms across her chest. She felt herself nodding uncontrollably; no answer worth verbalizing was in her right now.

  He prodded. “Messed up situation, huh?”

  There it was.

  “Yeah. You could say that.”

  “Have you heard from him?”

  “Once. When the police were here.”

  “Shit. The police came already?”

  “Yeah.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  He put one hand out to the kitchen island and leaned on it slightly. His brown hair, as always, was imperfect, as if he kept it that way, slightly askew with some hair gel or something. Tamara was tall, and at five foot nine she was only three inches shorter than Kyle, who was still a few inches shorter than Ben.

  The thought was like a spider that crept out of her mind before vanishing quickly again into whatever hole it had come out of. Tamara remembered church and the sermon two weeks ago about struggle. The sermon topic for the entire month was “The War Within” and Tamara realized that this was what it must look like, the irrational desires in the most unpredictable of places that presented themselves and had to be dealt with.

  The spider reappeared. Yeah, and by the way, hadn’t Kyle been sitting next to you at every one of those sermons, holding your hand?

  “What did he say?” Ben asked.

  The question, for whatever silly reason, seemed out of bounds. The details of her conversations with her husband or the police were none of his business.

  “I’d rather not talk about it,” she said firmly.

  He blinked and then nodded. “Yeah. Sure.”

  “You going to be okay taking the lead at work for a bit?”

  “You really care about work stuff?” he asked, chuckling politely.

  “Barely.”

  “Well, the Watanabe account is on hold. Lucky for us there’s some sort of hurricane threat off the coast of Hawaii right now, which has grounded all flights. So they’ve rescheduled to Wednesday.”

  Tamara sighed. “Finally, a break.”

  “Listen. Nobody at work expects you—”

  “I’ll figure it out, Ben. Just tell John on Monday that I need a few days.”

  Ben seemed taken aback. “A few days? Wow.” He looked at her funny. Was that admiration in his face?

  “What?”

  “You’re amazing. Crazy maybe… but amazing. This is, like, a body blow most of us could hardly even begin to imagine, and you’re actually worried about letting us all down on some stupid account.”

  Shame began to rise in her. He was right. But she wasn’t amazing. She was just flat scared.

  Ben took a cautious step towards her. She knew that advance. She’d seen it before. It was an approach with intent, and thankfully it was stunted by Seth’s timely cry from the couch.

  “Mom?”

  Ben seemed startled. Of course. What man ever thinks of the kids? “Oh. Sounds like someone needs you,” he said with a laugh and a smile that made her heart flutter, ever so slightly.

  “Yeah.” She felt herself about to cry. She blinked back the first hint of a tear and moved to end the moment, if that’s what this visit really was. “Thanks so much for checking in on me, Ben. It means a lot. But I gotta get to the kids.”

  “Hey. No prob.” He cleared his throat and began to make his way to the door.

  “I’ll walk you out,” she said.

  He protested. “No. You have your hands full. I’ll let myself out. You have my number. Use it if you need it,” he said. “No matter what, okay?”

  “Okay,” Tamara replied.

  Then he was out the door and gone.

  She made her way to the den, having already decided that she wouldn’t mention a word of this to Trudy, even though that would normally be unthinkable. By your mid-thirties, hard core flirting by a younger guy was solid gossip material.

  Except, of course, when your husband was wanted for murder.

  CHAPTER 15

  The road to Beaury was long and boring once you got past Castaic and into the open void beyond. To Napoleon, it seemed as if there was still a ton of land in California to be claimed before anyone could ever call the state overcrowded.

  He and Parker talked very little, and he was thankful for that. He was still feeling drained, and this entire case was already starting to take a toll on him. Maybe this was how it happened. Maybe that fateful day when you knew it was time to hang it up wasn’t a day at all, just a feeling that came over you, then lingered quietly in the background, when something you used to do was something you’d rather not do anymore. He told himself that it was just his cold giving him the blues.

  It was Parker’s turn with the radio, and they were finally far enough away to lose reception for Power 106, which had Napoleon giving thanks to God above.

  Parker was of that generation that wore their caps sideways and called their girlfriends “bitches.” Napoleon was no women’s libber but, well, he had a strong dislike of dogs, and to equate women with them was a negative connotation he could do without.

  The current song was about the usual rap subject matter: reputation, power, sex and money. Napoleon had seen plenty of rap songs lived out in real time in the seven square miles that made up the Eastside. Rap was music that sold the lie of a glamorous death, and there was no such thing.r />
  “There’s our exit,” Parker said excitedly. It was now just after 2:00 p.m., a little over two hours after they’d set off from the station house.

  “Not a second too soon,” Napoleon replied as he reloaded with a herbal cough drop.

  The only exit to Beaury was Tree Top Road, which must’ve been a name given to it when there were trees around here somewhere. Now the only things visible near the road was an abandoned warehouse. A little further down they passed a Circle K, and then, like magic, a small town formed a mile and a half in the distance, made up of a mix of homes and trailer parks.

  Parker turned off the radio. “So where to do we begin?”

  “Where he would,” Napoleon replied. “The last GPS signature came from near here. It was past one in the morning. If he was stupid, he would’ve looked for a hotel or motel to crash for the night. I doubt there is such a place here in lovely Beaury, but if there is, then a 1:00 a.m. check-in would certainly raise eyebrows.”

  Parker pulled out his cell phone and began to play with it.

  “You got a signal?” Napoleon asked with a laugh.

  Parker nodded. “My Cityinfo app has no hotels or motels here. I Googled it too, just to be sure. Nothing.”

  “Okay then. We’ll still ask at the sheriff’s office when we check in with them, but I’m not surprised. Who the hell would want to visit here?”

  “So what next?”

  “Okay, Parker, it’s simple. He’s a human being. He wants what we all want, but worse now, because he’s on the run. He wants the basics: food, shelter and clothing. Assuming he had clothes on and assuming there was no shelter here, then—”

  “—he goes for food.”

  “Yep. Even if he wasn’t hungry, he would go for food.”

  “Why?”