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SERIAL UNCUT
This eBook is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents
are either products of the authors’ imaginations or used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved. No part of this publication
may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means,
electronic or mechanical, without permission in writing from
Joe Konrath and Blake Crouch.
Compilation copyright © 2009 by Blake Crouch & Joe Konrath
SERIAL UNCUT copyright © 2010 by Blake Crouch & Joe Konrath
Interview copyright © 2009 by Blake Crouch & Joe Konrath
Afraid copyright © 2009 by Joe Konrath, originally published by Grand Central
Snowbound copyright © 2010 by Blake Crouch, originally published by Minotaur Books
Shaken copyright © 2010 by Joe Konrath
Illustrations and graphic design copyright © 2010 by Jeroen ten Berge
For more information about the authors
and their publications, please visit
www.jakonrath.com
www.jackkilborn.com
www.blakecrouch.com
For more information about Jeroen ten Berge
and his work, please visit www.jeroentenberge.com
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UNCUT
AND EXTENDED
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INTRoDUCTIoN
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The original version of SERIAL, still available as a
free ebook, was a 7500-word horror short story written as an
experiment. In less than a year, that experiment was downloaded over 200,000 times, and has received over a hundred
scathingly negative reviews, with many people claiming it
was the most depraved, awful thing they’ve ever read.
SERIAL UNCUT is over 36,000 words, much of it brand
new. Along with the insertion of additional material too
extreme for the original version, it also has a vastly expanded
beginning and ending, including an extended section that
originally appeared in the novella TRUCK STOP.
If you can handle horrific thrills, proceed at your own
risk.
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But if you suffer from anxiety attacks, nervous disorders,
insomnia, nightmares or night terrors, heart palpitations,
stomach problems, or are of an overly sensitive nature, you
should read something else instead.
The authors are in no way responsible for any lost sleep,
missed work, failed relationships, or difficulty in coping
with life after you have read SERIAL UNCUT. They will not
pay for any therapy you may require as a result of reading
SERIAL UNCUT. They will not cradle you in their arms, rock
you back and forth, and speak in soothing tones while you
unsuccessfully try to forget SERIAL UNCUT.
You have been warned...
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PART oNE
TAMPA, 1978
“Didn’t anyone ever tell you about the dangers of hitchhiking?” the driver said. “You never know who’s going to pick
you up.”
Donaldson wiped sweat from his brow and eyed the
driver through the half-open passenger side window of the
Lincoln Continental. The driver was average-looking, roughly
Donaldson’s age, dressed in a dark suit that matched the
car’s paint job.
“I’m roasting out here, man,” Donaldson said. And it
wasn’t far from the truth. He’d been walking down this
desolate highway for damn near three hours in the abusive,
summer sun. “My car died. If you want to rob or kill me,
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that’s fine, as long as you have air conditioning.”
Donaldson forced a bright smile, hoping he looked both
pathetic and non-threatening. It must have worked, because
the man hit a switch on his armrest, and the door unlocked.
Must be nice being rich, Donaldson mused at the fancy
automatic locks. Then he opened the door and heaved his
bulk onto the leather seat.
“Thanks,” he said.
The car was cooler than outside, but not by much.
Donaldson wondered if the man’s air worked. He placed his
hand against the vent, felt a trickle of cold leaking out.
“Happy to help a fellow traveler. I’m Mr. K.”
“Donaldson.”
Neither made a move to shake hands. Mr. K checked his
mirror, then gunned the 8-cylinder engine, spraying gravel as
the luxury car fishtailed back onto the asphalt.
Donaldson adjusted his bulk, shifting the .38 he’d
crammed into the front pocket of his jeans. The pants were
loose enough, and Donaldson portly enough, that he doubted
Mr. K noticed.
“You’re sunburned,” Mr. K said.
“Sun’ll do that to you.”
Donaldson touched his bare forearm, lobster red, and
winced. Then he flipped down the visor mirror, saw how
bad his face was. It looked like his old man had slapped the
shit out of him, and hurt almost as much.
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“Your car a Pinto?” Mr. K asked.
“My car?”
“A Pinto. Saw one about five miles back.”
Donaldson contemplated the harm in admitting it. He
supposed it didn’t matter. Before he’d abandoned the car,
he’d wiped it clean of fingerprints.
“Yeah. Blew a rod, I think.”
“Why didn’t you wait for the police?”
Again, Donaldson deliberated before answering. “I don’t
like pigs,” he finally said.
Mr. K nodded. Donaldson doubted the man shared his
sentiment. His hair was short, he was well-dressed, and he
owned a fancy car. Cops wouldn’t hassle him. They were too
busy hassling people with long hair and beards and ripped
jeans.
People like me.
The highway stretched onward, wiggly heat waves rising
off the tarmac. There wasn’t much traffic. Only about twenty
cars had passed Donaldson during his long walk, and not one
had so much as slowed down. Bastards. Whatever happened
to human compassion?
“Did you kill the car’s owner before you stole it?” Mr. K
asked.
Alarm bells sounded in Donaldson’s head. He frantically
pawed at his .38, but Mr. K slammed on the brakes.
Donaldson bounced off the dashboard, smacking his
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sunburned nose hard. During the momentary disorientation,
he was aware of Mr. K throwing the car into park, unbuckling
his seatbelt, and pressing a thin-bladed knife under
Donaldson’s double chin with one hand, while digging the
.38 from Donaldson’s front pocket with the other.
“You should buckle up,” Mr. K said. “Seatbelts save
lives.”
Mr. K stuck the knife into his breast pocket, belted
himself back in, then hit the gas. The tires screamed and the
Continental shot forward.
“I’m bleeding,” Donaldson said, his hands cupped around
his nose. He knew it was a stupid, obvious thing to say, but he
was still dazed and trying to buy some time.
“Tissues in the glove compartment.”
Donaldson dug them out, feeling more ashamed than
hurt. This guy had gotten the better of him much too easily.
As he mopped the blood from his face, Mr. K pressed a button
to open the passenger side window.
“Throw the used ones outside, please.”
Donaldson went through ten tissues, tossing each one
onto the road whizzing by. Then he ripped one more into
pieces, balled them up, and shoved them into each nostril,
staunching the trickle. He kept an eye on Mr. K the entire time,
alternating between watching the man’s eyes, and watching
the .38 pointed at him.
This is a real bad situation.
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“I don’t enjoy repeating myself, but you hit that dashboard
pretty hard, so I’ll ask one more time. Did you kill the driver
before you stole the Pinto?”
Donaldson knew he was screwed, but he didn’t want to
get himself even more screwed.
“You a cop?” he asked, not sure if that would be a good
thing or a bad thing.
The barest flash of mirth crossed Mr. K’s face. “No. But
your biggest worry right now shouldn’t be getting arrested.
Your biggest worry should be the hole I’m going to put in
your head if you don’t answer me.”
The gears began to turn in Donaldson’s head. How the hell
do I get through this? Talk my way out?
“You won’t shoot me,” Donaldson said, surprised by how
calm he sounded.
“No?”
“You’d ruin your car.”
Again, a faint hint of a smile. “It’s not my car. And you
still haven’t answered my question.”
Mr. K thumbed back the hammer on the pistol.
Donaldson contemplated his own death—the first time
in his life he ever had—and decided dying would be a very
bad thing.
“I killed him,” Donaldson said quickly.
Mr. K seemed to think about this. He nodded slowly. “Was
it someone you knew?”
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“No. Jumped him in a parking lot in Sarasota. Wouldn’t
have wasted the bullet if I knew what a piece of crap his car
was.”
Donaldson watched Mr. K’s eyes. They betrayed nothing.
The two of them might as well have been talking about the
weather.
“How’d it feel?” Mr. K asked.
“How did what feel?”
“Killing that man.”
What kind of freaky talk is this? Donaldson thought, but all
he said was, “I dunno.”
“Sure you do. Did it feel good? Bad? Numb? Did it get you
excited? Did you feel guilty afterward?”
Donaldson thought back to the day before. To holding the
gun to the man’s ribs. Seeing the shock in his eyes when he
squeezed the trigger once, twice, three times. Watching him
flop to the ground in a way that had struck him as funny. The
holes in his chest had made sucking sounds, blowing tiny
blood bubbles.
“Excited,” Donaldson said.
“Did he die right away?”
“No.”
“Did you stay and watch him die?”
“Yeah.”
“How long did it take?”
It’s so strange that we’re both so calm about this.
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Donaldson shrugged. “Few minutes, I guess.”
“Did you do anything else to him?”
“Like what?”
“Did you hurt him first?” Mr. K raised an eyebrow. “Rape
him?”
Donaldson scowled. “Do I look like a queer to you?”
“What does being a homosexual have to do with it? You
had a human being at your mercy. That excited you. I’m
asking if you capitalized on that opportunity. If you made the
most of it.”
Donaldson thought about it. The guy had been at his
mercy. He’d begged for a while when Donaldson pulled the
gun, and that was kind of a turn-on.
“I didn’t rape him,” Donaldson said.
“Could you have raped him?”
Donaldson licked some dried blood off of his top lip, let the
salty, copper taste linger on his tongue. “Yeah. I could’ve.”
This answer seemed to satisfy Mr. K. He was quiet for over
a minute.
The road stretched out ahead of them like a giant black
snake.
Empty swampland and blue skies as far as Donaldson
could see.
I can’t believe I’m telling him this stuff. Is it because he’s
threatening to kill me?
Or because he understands?
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“How’d you know?” Donaldson asked.
“Know what?”
“That I stole that car?”
Mr. K offered a half-smile. “I saw the gun in your pocket
when you stopped, along with your clumsy attempt to hide
it. You should get an ankle holster, or stuff it in your belt at
the small of your back. You obviously aren’t a Florida native,
or you’d have a tan already. That means you flew in or drove
in. If you flew, you probably would’ve had a rental car, and
those are usually new. That Pinto was an old model. When
you first got in, I noticed the powder burns on your shirt,
and under your rather oppressive body odor, you smell like
gunpowder.”
Donaldson was impressed, but he refused to show it. He
knew a lot about being victimized. One way to stop being a
victim was to stop acting like a victim.
“I asked how you knew about the car, not my gun,”
Donaldson said, sticking out his lower jaw.
If Mr. K noticed Donaldson’s display of bravado, he didn’t
react. “Your loose jeans didn’t jingle when you sat down in
the car. When people abandon their vehicles, they take their
keys with them. So I assumed it wasn’t yours.”
Donaldson appraised Mr. K again. This was a smart guy.
“How about you?” Donaldson ventured. “Did you kill the
owner of this car?”
“Not yet.”
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“Not yet?”
“He’s tied up in the trunk. I’m taking him someplace
private.”
Donald worded his next question carefully. “Do you want
to kill me?”
Mr. K drummed his fingers on the steering wheel.
Donaldson counted his own heartbeats, trying to keep
cool until Mr. K finally replied.
“Haven’t decided yet.”
“Is there anything I can do to, uh, persuade you that I’m
worth keeping alive?”
“Maybe. The Pinto owner you killed. He wasn’t the first.”
Donaldson thought back to his father, to beating the old
man to death with a baseball bat. “No, he wasn’t.”
“But he was the first stranger.”
This guy is uncanny. “Yeah.”
“Who was it before that? Girlfriend? Family member?”
“My dad.”
“But you didn’t use a gun on him, did you? You made it
more personal.”
“Yeah.”
“What’d you use?”
“A Louisville Slugger.”
“How did it feel?”
Donaldson closed his eyes. He could still feel the sting of
the bat in his palms when he cracked it against his father’s
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head, still see the blood that spurted out of split skin like a
lawn sprinkler.
“I felt like Reggie Jackson hitting one out of Yankee
Stadium. Afterward, I even went out and bought a Reggie
Bar. ”
Mr. K gave him a sideways glance. “Why buy candy? Why
didn’t you eat part of your father? Just imagine the expression
on his face.”
Donaldson was about to protest, but he stopped himself.
When he broke Dad’s jaw with the bat, the old man had
looked more surprised than hurt. How would he have reacted
if Donaldson had cut off one of his fingers and eaten it in
front of him?
That would have shown the son of bitch. Bite the hand that
feeds you.
“I should have done that,” Donaldson said.
“He hurt you when you were a child.” Mr. K said it as a
statement, not a question.
“Yeah. He used to beat the shit out of me.”
“Did he sexually abuse you?”
“Naw. Nothing like that. But every time I got into trouble,
he’d take his belt to me. And he hit hard enough to draw blood.
What kind of asshole does that to a five-year-old kid?”
“Think hard, Donaldson. Do you believe your father beat
you, and that turned you into what you are? Or did he beat
you because of what you are?”
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Donaldson frowned. “What do you mean what you are?
What am I?”
Mr. K turned and stared deep into his soul, his eyes like
gun barrels. “You’re a killer, Donaldson.”
Donaldson considered the label. It didn’t take him long to
embrace it.
“So what was the question again?”
“Are you a killer because your father beat you, or did your
father beat you because you’re a killer?”
Donaldson could remember that first beating when he
was five. He’d taken his pet gerbil and put it in the blender.
Used the pulse button, grinding it up a little at a time, so it
didn’t die right away.
“I think my dad knew. Tried to beat the devil out of me.
Used to tell me that, when he was whipping my ass.”
“You don’t have the devil in you, Donaldson. You’re simply
unique. Exceptional. Unrestrained by morality or guilt.”
Exceptional? Donaldson had never felt like he was
exceptional at anything. He did badly in school. Dropped
out of college. Never had any friends, or a woman he didn’t
pay for. Bummed around the country, job to job, occasionally
ripping someone off. How is that exceptional?
But somehow, he felt that the description fit him.
Maybe that’s the problem. I’ve been trying to be normal all of
these years, but I’m not. I’m better than normal.
I’m exceptional.
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“How do you know this stuff ?” Donaldson asked.
“The more you understand death,” Mr. K said, “the more
you appreciate life.”
“Sounds like fortune cookie bullshit.”
“It was something I learned in the war.”
“Vietnam?” Donaldson had been exempt from the draft
because he didn’t pass the physical.
“A villager in Ca Lu said it to me, before I removed his
intestines with a bayonet.”
“Was he talking about himself ?” Donaldson asked. “Or
you?”
“You tell me. Did you feel alive when you killed your
father, Donaldson?”
Donaldson nodded.
“And when you killed the owner of the Pinto?” Mr. K
continued.
“Goddamn piece of crap car. I wish I could kill that guy
again.”
“How about someone else in his place?”
Donaldson squinted at Mr. K. “What do you mean?”
Another half smile. “The man in my trunk. If I gave you
the chance to kill him, would you?”
“What’d he do?”
“What did the Pinto owner do?” Mr. K countered.
“Nothing. But I wanted his car.”
“So you killed him for his car?”
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“Yeah.”
“Couldn’t you have just pointed the gun and told him to
give you his keys?”
“He would’ve called the cops.”
“You could’ve knocked him out. Or tied him up.”
“I guess.”
“But you didn’t.”
Donaldson folded his chubby arms across his chest. “No.
I didn’t.”
“This man in the trunk. I promised him it would take a
long time for him to die. Do you think you could do something like that? Draw out a man’s agony for a long time?”
Donaldson wasn’t sure what Mr. K’s angle was. “Sure.”
“Is that something you’d like to do?”
Donaldson shrugged. “I dunno. Never tried it before.”
“You know what the alternative is, don’t you?”
“You kill me.”
Mr. K nodded.
Donaldson made his decision in a nanosecond. “How do
you want me to do it?”
“You can use your imagination. I have plenty of tools you
can choose from.”
Donaldson stared off into the miles and miles of endless
marshland. Thought about this strange request. Found
himself becoming aroused.
“I’ll kill him,” he said. “And I’ll make it hurt.”
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Mr. K checked his rearview mirror, eased his foot off
the gas, and then drove onto the shoulder. He put on his
emergency lights, then ordered Donaldson out of the car.
Donaldson didn’t even attempt to run away. He walked
around to the rear of the car without being told and waited,
butterflies amassing in his stomach.
The man in the trunk was awake, completely naked, his
wrists and ankles tied with rope. He was older, late forties
maybe, and he squinted in the powerful sun. In his mouth
was a gag made out of a rubber ball.
He looks positively out of his mind with terror.
Donaldson licked his lips again.
“I prefer clothesline,” Mr. K said. “You can buy it everywhere, so it’s untraceable. And it won’t hold a fingerprint. Get
him out of the car. Hurry, before another car comes by.”
Donaldson muscled the man out. It wasn’t easy. The guy
squirmed and fought, and he was pretty heavy and tough to
lift. Donaldson quickly gave up trying. Instead, he dragged
him nude across the asphalt as the man moaned around
his gag.
That’s gotta hurt, Donaldson thought. But that’s nothing
compared to what I’m gonna do.
Mr. K took a tool case and a gas can out of the trunk, then
closed it. He instructed Donaldson to pull the man into the
marsh. It was wet, moss clinging to Donaldson’s shoes, muck
seeping through. High reeds seemed to reach out and tug at
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the bound man, making it even harder to pull him.
After fifty yards, Donaldson was exhausted.
After a hundred yards, Donaldson was seriously pissed
off. He hated being in the sun again, hated the throbbing in
his nose and muscles, and hated this heavy son of a bitch for
squirming so much and for being so goddamn heavy.
“That’s far enough,” Mr. K said. He set down the tool chest
and opened it up.
Donaldson stared inside at the contents like a kid ogling
presents under a Christmas tree.
“Can you give me my ball gag back?” Mr. K held out a rag.
“It’s my last one.”
Donaldson unbuckled the gag from the man’s mouth,
disgusted by the spit dripping from it. He handed it to Mr. K
and then kicked the naked man in the stomach for making
such a mess.
The man screamed. The first of many to come.
“I’ll pay!” he cried. “I’ll pay!”
“What should I use first?” Donaldson asked Mr. K.
“Try the ball peen hammer. Breaking before cutting or
burning always seems to work better.”
The next two hours blurred by for Donaldson, his entire
world reduced to hurting this unknown, screaming, naked
man in this deserted marsh. Even Mr. K seemed to vanish
to Donaldson, though he took pictures during the proceedings,
and occasionally interrupted to offer advice or encouragement:
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Don’t cut there too deep. He’ll bleed to death.
Try the pliers.
Tell him what you’re going to do next. It makes it worse.
That part’s particularly sensitive. Use the blowtorch.
He’s not looking at you. Make him look at you, or cut off his
eyelids.
He’s passed out again. Use the ammonia rag to wake him up.
There’s still a patch of skin there.
Now would be a good time for the salt and vinegar. Rub it in
good.
It doesn’t make you gay. Enjoy yourself. He’s at your mercy.
How does it taste? Different than that other part you tried?
Try feeding his eyelids to him.
Don’t worry, it’s not your fault. He had a heart attack. It
happens sometimes. You did well.
Donaldson sat nude next to the dead thing. The portly
killer was covered with blood and bits of tissue, and he
couldn’t think of any time in his twenty-something years of
life that he’d ever been happier.
Mr. K finished wiping off the cheese grater with a rag and
some bleach, and placed it back into his tool kit. Then he told
Donaldson to douse the corpse with gasoline.
“Fire will take care of any evidence you’ve left behind.
But wait until I’m gone. I don’t want you attracting any
attention.”
Donaldson emptied the can and stared up at Mr. K,
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who stood silhouetted against the setting sun. He looked
enormous.
Donaldson offered him the empty can, said, “Take me
with you.”
“You’re naked and covered in blood, Donaldson. You’d
ruin the interior of my car.”
“I thought you stole the car.”
“Stealing cars is for stupid children. The police have
radios. It’s too easy to get caught. If you manage to get out of
here, remember that. You’d be wise to remember everything
I’ve said to you.”
“You’re not going to kill me?”
“Why should I? Even if you remembered my license plate
number, which I don’t think you have, I just shot two rolls
of you torturing a man to death. I have nothing to fear from
you.”
Mr. K picked up his toolbox and turned to walk away.
“Can I get my gun back?” Donaldson asked.
Mr. K dropped the box, took out the .38, and wiped it off
with the rag. He emptied the bullets onto the ground and
tossed Donaldson the weapon, then reached into his breast
pocket and tossed something else at him.
Wet wipes, from a fast food chicken place.
“I’d recommend getting some of that blood off before you
try hitchhiking again.”
Donaldson nodded, picking a morsel of something out of
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his front teeth. “Next time I won’t get so much on me.”
“There’ll be a next time?”
“Yeah. Oh yeah.”
Mr. K stared at him for a moment, then lifted his toolkit.
“Goodbye, Donaldson. I wish you luck on your future
exploits.”
“You, too.”
Mr. K smiled. Not a hint of a smile. Or a half-smile. But a
full one, like he was genuinely happy.
“And you be careful hitching,” Mr. K said. “Never know
who’s going to pick you up.”
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PART TWo
INDIANAPoLIS, 1995
Lucy sat down at one of the few empty tables on the
perimeter of the hotel bar and hoped none of the waitresses
would notice her. She was fifteen years old, and even wearing
the makeup she’d taken from her mother’s vanity, she knew
her chances of getting served a drink were remote. Worse, she
was taking up real estate that legal customers willing to pay
ten dollars for a mediocre glass of wine could have inhabited.
And there were plenty of them about, the bar nearly full and
the hotel lobby bustling with well-dressed adults older than
her mom.
The convention didn’t technically begin until tomorrow
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morning, so none of them wore name badges. But she felt
sure her eyes were passing over famous mystery writers,
perhaps even people she’d read. The man she’d come to see,
Andrew Z. Thomas, the convention’s guest of honor, for
whom she’d stolen her mother’s car and driven six hundred
miles on a learner’s permit, had yet to make his appearance.
Just the thought of him being in the same building made her
knees feel weak.
“Hi there.”
Lucy turned and met eyes with a waitress now standing
at her table, a pretty girl, probably in college, her dirty blond
hair drawn back into a ponytail.
Lucy said, “Could I just get a water, please?”
“I’m afraid you can’t sit here, sweetie.”
“Why not?”
“How old are you?”
“Twenty-two.”
The waitress laughed. “I’m twenty-three, sister. You ain’t
twenty-two.”
“Please don’t make me leave. I don’t—”
“I’ll get in trouble if the manager sees you sitting in my
section. I’m sorry.”
Lucy stared at the waitress, then lifted her handbag off
the table and climbed down from the chair. They’d already
refused her a room because of her age. Now this. What a
mean hotel.
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She was two inches shy of five feet, and she felt even
smaller threading her way through the groups of conversing
adults in the lobby.
“—got a two-book deal for mid-six figures, which just
strikes me as a crime considering his last didn’t even hit—”
“—switched agents—”
“—not sure if my editor’s coming or not. She was supposed
to have finished my manuscript by now—”
“—and every time I turn around, Darling’s right there,
like he’s stalking me or—”
The smell of cologne, perfume, wine breath, and cigarette
smoke overpowering.
She broke out of the crowd and found a cluster of
unoccupied chairs and plopped down in one. From this
distance, the din of conversations mixed together like the
static of a waterfall. She leaned back in the leather chair and
stared up the full height of the twenty-one story atrium,
the uncomfortable pang in her gut not all that dissimilar to
what she experienced every day in the high school cafeteria.
Invisibility. The people around her untouchable, unreachable, as characters in a movie while she watched them
onscreen from the darkness of an empty theater. This sense,
that had been with her for as long as she could remember,
even before her father had died, that she wasn’t a participant
in any of this. In anything really. Only an observer.
When Lucy straightened in her chair, she saw that a man
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now sat across from her. He looked old to her, though he
wasn’t even thirty. Sports jacket. Khacki slacks. Sending out
big wafts of cologne which she thought smelled pretty. He
seemed either angry or nervous, and he kept looking at his
watch like he was waiting for someone, but if he was, they
never came.
She watched him, and the third time their eyes met, the
man gave a thin smile and nodded.
He didn’t have a name badge either, but Lucy took a stab
anyway. “Are you a writer?”
“I’m sorry?”
“Are you a writer?”
“Yeah.”
“Cool.” The man looked at his watch again. “Are you here
for the convention?” she asked.
“Yep.”
“What books have you written?”
“Well, my first one just came out two months ago.”
“What’s it called?”
“A Death in the Family. ”
“I’ve never heard of it. What’s it about?”
“Um, it’s…well, it’s like, it’s about this big family in
Portland who has this reunion and one of the older brothers
is killed. Or rather he’s found dead, and the police come and
make everyone stay while they investigate. What you’d call a
locked-room mystery, I guess.”
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“Is it good?”
“I like to think so.”
“Will they have it in the book room?”
“I don’t know. I hope so.”
“Do you have a copy with you?”
“Not on me. Look, it was very nice meeting you, but I have
a, um…something to get to.”
“I’m Lucy.”
“Mark.”
Lucy watched Mark wander back toward the hotel bar
where he stood on the perimeter of the crowd. He looked
around and kept glancing at his watch. After awhile, he turned
away and started back through the lobby to the elevators.
Lucy stood up and grabbed her handbag and followed.
The middle elevator in a row of three lifted out of the
lobby, and through its glass, she could see Mark leaning
against the railing inside, looking out across the hotel.
She watched it climb. Counted the stories until it stopped
and then followed Mark’s progress onto the fourteenth floor,
counting doors to the room he disappeared inside.
Lucy rode alone, watching the lobby fall away beneath
her as the elevator car soared up the back wall of the atrium.
She walked the exposed hallway, the noise from the lobby
faint up here and no one else about. From the door beside
1428, she grabbed a “Do Not Disturb” sign and hooked it on
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the door to Mark’s room.
Then she put her ear to the door, couldn’t hear anything.
Knocked.
In a minute, it swung open, and Mark, now wearing only
a white oxford shirt and khaki pants, stood staring down at
her, looking both confused and vaguely annoyed.
He said, “Yes?”
“It’s Lucy.”
“I’m sorry, what do you want?”
“I just wanted to see your book. The one you told me
about.”
“You followed me to my room to see my book?”
“Yeah. It sounded good.”
“Look, maybe I’ll see you downstairs tomorrow, and if
you buy one of my books, I’ll even sign it for you. How would
that be?”
Lucy furrowed her brow and made what she hoped
resembled a wounded expression. “Why don’t you like me,
Mark?”
“I don’t…dislike you, I don’t even…”
She put her face into her hands and pretended to cry.
“Jesus.”
“You’re the first real author I’ve ever met. I don’t know
anyone here.”
“Where are your parents?”
“My mom’s in our room watching ‘Dr. Quinn, Medicine
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Woman.’”
He sighed. “If I invite you in—and only for a minute—will
you stop crying?”
“Yes.”
“All right, come on in, Lucy.”
Lucy wiped her face and followed Mark into the hotel
room. His suitcase lay on the bed, open but not yet unpacked,
and Mark was bending over a cardboard box and trying to tear
open the top.
“I brought twenty copies of A Death in the Family. ” He
pulled a trade paperback out of the box and handed it to her.
Lucy thumbed through the pages, skimmed the flap copy on
the back.
The cover was of a gravestone, the book’s title engraved
into the stone above the author’s name: Mark Darling.
“Is anybody else sharing the room with you?” Lucy
asked.
He tilted his head slightly, like he couldn’t comprehend
the question. “No, just me.”
“I need to use the bathroom.”
“Right through that door.”
“Would you sign this for me while I pee?”
“Um, sure.”
She gave back the book and walked into the bathroom
and closed the door.
“Write something good!” she called out from inside.
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She did have to pee actually, and when she’d finished, she
flushed the toilet and washed her hands and took all of her
clothes off. She folded them and stacked them on top of her
black Chuck Taylors on the toilet basin under a towel, then
turned her attention to her handbag.
The marble of the sink was cold against the soles of her
bare feet. She walked down to the end and crouched down
beside the door.
She’d been in the bathroom more than five minutes
already, and she crouched there another five, her legs
beginning to cramp, before Mark’s voice passed finally
through the door.
“Lucy?” he said.
She brought her hand to her mouth to suppress the
giggle. She’d imagined this a hundred times, and something
about the moment finally being here struck her as funny and
surreal. It was the strangest thing. Her body felt all tingly,
like whenever she had been around Bobby Cockrell, the first
boy in high school she’d had a major crush on.
“You’ve been in there awhile,” Mark said. “Everything
okay?”
She didn’t answer.
“Lucy, I need to get back down to the lobby.”
Silence, Lucy smiling.
“I’m opening the door, all right? Are you um…are you
decent?”
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She watched the doorknob turn and the door ease open.
Mark’s head appeared.
“Lucy?”
She was right beside him, well within reach, but he didn’t
see her. Kept looking at the toilet, and then the shower, as if
trying to piece together how this girl had vanished through
the walls.
Lucy reached out and pulled the blade of her dead
father’s Zwilling J.A. Henckels straight razor through his
windpipe in a quick, delicate swipe and the blood from his
carotid artery sprayed her face and she squealed with delight
as Mark clutched his throat and stared wild-eyed at her.
He staggered over to the sink and looked at himself in
the bathroom mirror and all of that blood pouring out of his
throat down the front of his white Oxford with a kind of
disbelief, Lucy giggling as Mark tried to physically squeeze
the opening in his neck back together but the blood kept
coming and he gave up and started toward Lucy with a
madness in his eyes but the floor was slicked with his
blood and his feet shot out from under him.
He slammed flat on his back and his head cracked against
the tile.
Lucy slid off the sink and stepped carefully across the
floor, dodging the bigger pools of blood and watching a
puddle widen around Mark’s head, his eyes already beginning to glaze and his hands at his side.
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She stood there watching him bleed out and when he
finally stopped twitching and blinking, she set the straight
razor on the sink. Lucy weighed eighty-three pounds at her
last physical, and she figured Mark had at least a hundred
on her, but the shower wasn’t far. She only had to drag him
over a two-inch lip and the blood on the floor provided decent
lubrication for the job.
When she’d crammed him into the shower, she closed the
glass door and looked at the bathroom.
Blood everywhere. Spots and spatters and streaks on the
mirror, the walls, even the ceiling.
What a mess.
What a beautiful mess.
She got down on her knees and flattened herself across
the tile and rolled through the pools of blood which were
sticky and cool and gave off a dank metallic smell like a
thunderstorm coming.
Lucy stood for a long time watching herself in the mirror,
kept thinking it looked like she had the most lovely body
art imaginable, how she wanted to walk naked through the
lobby just like this and soak in the stares. What would
Andrew Thomas think to see her like this? She suspected
he might love her.
The blood was growing cold and beginning to congeal
on her skin when she slid open the shower door and stepped
inside. Bending down, she pushed Mark up against the wall
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and curled up to him, her spine against his chest. She draped
his arm around her and closed her eyes and went to sleep.
Woke in the middle of the night, cold and shivering.
Turned the shower on full blast and let the hot water pound
the blood out of her hair and her face. She collected her
clothes from under the towel atop the basin—not a drop of
blood on them—and grabbed the robe off the back of the
door and slipped out of the bathroom.
Mark’s wallet sat on top of the television, and she went
through it and pocketed two key cards and two hundred in
cash. She dressed and left the room. Rode down to the lobby
which was mostly empty now save for a handful of die-hards
who’d persevered beyond last call to sing drunken show
tunes on a leather couch.
Outside, the autumn air was cool and scented with the
spice of a city she did not know.
Wind blew between the skyscrapers.
The sidewalks were empty.
The streets were empty.
It felt strange to be out here alone, no sound but her
footsteps on the pavement. Impossible that her father’s
funeral had happened today. She wondered if there were
people still at her house comforting her mother and brother,
or if they had all gone home.
The glow of a payphone caught her attention on the other
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side of the street.
She ran across to it and dug some change out of her wallet,
dialed the number.
Her mother answered on the fifth ring in a tired voice
gone hoarse from crying.
“Hello?”
Lucy said nothing, just listening, her eyes filling up.
“Hello? Lucy, is that you?”
“Hey, Mom.”
“Oh my God, where are you? Are you okay?”
“I just wanted to tell you something.” She was beginning
to tremble.
“What, honey? What?”
Lucy shouted into the phone, “HE LOVED ME, YOU
STUPID BITCH! HE LOVED ME! I WISH YOU HAD DIED!
HE’S THE ONLY THING I EVER FUCKING LOVED!”
She slammed the phone down on the hook and screamed
inside the booth until her throat burned.
She’d left her mother’s car in the only parking space she
could find—a three-hour meter four blocks from the hotel
that had long since expired. There were five orange envelopes
under the windshield wipers, and the right front tire had
been booted.
She unlocked the car and dragged the guitar case out of
the backseat, started back to the hotel.
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The keycard worked on the second try, and she slipped
into her room and locked the door after her. Stowed Mark’s
suitcase, his shoes, his wallet, and his sports jacket in the
closet.
She’d left home in a hurry, jamming her favorite books,
clothes, and a few toiletries into the first thing to cross her
path—her brother’s guitar case. Now she flipped open the
clasps, opened it on the bed, and dumped everything out. Set
to work choosing outfits for the convention and smoothing
out the wrinkles.
Before bed, she went back into the bathroom, sat on
the toilet seat just watching Mark lying motionless in the
shower. She got down on her knees and stroked his hair,
caressed her finger through the gash in his throat.
By four a.m., she was in bed in her nightgown, and already
dreaming of what tomorrow might bring.
The hotel was crawling with people in the morning and
Lucy had to wait five minutes to catch an elevator down to
the lobby. She picked up her name badge and book bag from
registration, bought a latte, and headed off to the first panel
of the morning.
“Walking on the Dark Side: What Makes a Bad Guy Bad?”
featured five mystery writers, only one of whom she’d heard
of. But they were all entertaining. After the panel and with
Mark’s money, she bought each of their books from a cranky
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Milwaukee bookseller named Katz.
Walking through the book room, where vendors had
many of the participating writers’ books for sale, she couldn’t
get over the thrill of being around so many people who loved
to read. She never saw anyone reading in school. At least
not for fun. And the few times she’d sat in the common area
by herself with a book, she’d been bullied and mocked. The
downside was that most of the people here were as old as her
grandfather and many of them looked just as mean.
She took a table in a café downstairs and studied the
schedule of events once more, looking for two panels to
attend in the afternoon, though nothing caught her interest.
Things didn’t really get interesting until the star of the whole
show arrived: the thriller/horror writer, Andrew Z. Thomas,
was going to be interviewed in the main ballroom tomorrow
at 11:00 a.m., with a signing to follow. She’d brought every
one of his books with her to be autographed.
She sat in the lobby all afternoon, her attention divided
between Mark’s book, which she was really enjoying, and
wanting to be with Mark in the shower again, and watching
for Andrew Thomas, figuring if he was here, he’d have to walk
past her at some point.
After the last panel of the day let out, the hotel emptied
for an hour, and then slowly refilled again, everyone dressed
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to the nines now, lots of sports jackets and evening dresses,
the book bags exchanged for stylish handbags.
She’d been sitting in the same chair for almost four hours,
and her legs felt wobbly and faint when she finally stood.
The hotel bar was packed. All the writers seemed to be
there.
She strolled over and wandered through the bar which
was becoming more crowded by the minute, searching the
faces for Andrew Thomas, but he wasn’t there.
Back upstairs, she ordered room service. Stayed in
watching television and eating a lavish meal on Darling’s tab.
A few minutes past midnight, she climbed out of bed and
dressed and wandered down to the lobby.
The bar was even more crowded than before, and she
scanned the faces in the smoky lowlight, eyes passing over
countless groups that constantly shifted and changed, the
occasional loner who spoke to no one, the softer, restrained
groups huddled on the perimeter.
At the furthest corner of the bar, she finally spotted the
man she’d come to meet, and her stomach fluttered.
He sat on a stool, surrounded by a dozen attentive,
smiling faces, all listening as he told some story whose words
she couldn’t begin to pick out from the impressive noise of all
those conversations.
She stumbled forward into the outskirts of the crowd,
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then elbowed and squeezed her way through the heart of
it, until she stood just outside the group of people orbiting
Andrew Thomas.
His face was fuller than the author photograph on his
latest book jacket, and he had a few days’ stubble shadowing
his face, but he was undeniably…Andrew.
She’d never heard his voice, and it didn’t sound anything
like she imagined. He was more soft-spoken, and he had
an accent. A southern accent. He was talking to a man
seated to the right of him, but there were countless people
eavesdropping.
“…so they show me the mock-up for the book cover, and
I say, ‘Guys, I know you’ve been really working on this thing,
and I appreciate that, but you’ve just put a penis on the cover
of my book.”
The hovering crowd broke into laughter.
“They said, ‘It’s not a penis, Andy, it’s a minaret.’ I said,
‘It’s flesh colored, it has a shaft, and a bulbous head that
appears to be ejaculating the title of my book! Could I please
have a new fucking cover without a cock on it?”
While everyone laughed, Andrew tossed back a shot of
something.
The man standing behind him said, “Another shot,
Andrew?”
“I buy you shots, Billy. Everyone in for a shot of tequila?
Bartender! We need…” Andy counted the people around him.
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“…thirteen shots of Patron Silver.”
Lucy stood watching him, mesmerized, trying to wrap
her brain around the idea that the man whose words and
stories she’d fallen in love with at twelve was sitting ten feet
away from her, under the same roof, breathing the same air.
She’d suspected it before, but last night with Mark Darling
confirmed it: Andrew could read her thoughts. She knew he
must have killed before because the way he described what it
felt like for the killers in his books had been her experience
exactly. She wanted to be closer to him, but his crowd had
effectively cloistered him off from the rest of the bar.
Something was coming apart inside of her, this dark, mad
need to connect with him, and for a moment the sound of
the crowd dropped away. She stared at him, willing his eyes
to meet hers, willing them to give her just a single slash of
attention as the bartender lined up thirteen shotglasses and
began to fill them from two bottles of Patron.
Andrew never looked at her. She watched the bartender
bring the tray of shots, watched Andrew pass them around,
heard the shotglasses clinking, heard the “cheers.”
And she was crying, invisible again.
She pushed her way back through the crowd into the
lobby, moving quickly toward the elevators at the other end
and telling herself there was still tomorrow. Andrew’s book
signing. Anything could happen.
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When she walked into her hotel room, she stopped,
lingering for a moment in the doorway, wondering if by some
chance her room service food could have spoiled so quickly.
No. It wasn’t that. Of course.
She opened the bathroom and the waft hit her. Mark did
not smell so pretty anymore.
She grabbed a towel off the rack and closed the door and
tucked it against the crack between the door and the carpet.
Lucy walked to the bed, kicked off her Chuck T’s, and crawled
under the covers. She hit the light. Closed her eyes. Opened
them. The stink was still there. Potent and getting stronger
every second. She turned on the light and sat up against the
headboard. This was bad. First of all, because she couldn’t
sleep with the smell, and it would only get worse. But more
importantly, when she brought Andrew Thomas up here
tomorrow, the smell would totally gross him out, make a bad
impression.
She hopped out of bed and walked into the bathroom.
Opened one of the mini-bottles of shampoo and squirted the
entire thing over Mark, who now looked purple and swollen.
She cranked up the shower. As the hot water beat down on the
corpse, she saw that it was leaking, and the heat only made
the smell more intense.
She turned off the shower, grabbed the trashbag out of
the waste basket beside the sink, and headed for the door.
Her bare feet tracked down the carpet toward the alcove
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where the vending machines hummed. Down in the lobby, a
hundred and fifty feet below, she could hear Irish drinking
songs lilting up out of the bar.
She held the plastic bag open while cubes of ice rattled
down out of the ice machine. Carried it back to 1428 and
into the bathroom, where she plugged the shower drain and
dumped the ice over Mark Darling. Her heart sank. The bag
of ice had barely covered him. She was going to need a lot
more.
After five trips, the ice was beginning to look substantial
piled on top of the dead writer’s chest.
After ten, she stepped into the shower and spread them
around, felt a glimmer of relief as they nearly covered him.
One more trip, maybe two, and she’d be done.
Lucy reached down and grabbed the bag off the floor.
As she started toward the bathroom door, it swung open.
She froze.
A man stood in the threshold, and for a fleeting second,
she thought it was Andrew Thomas, but he was wearing
different clothes—a white tee-shirt and blue jeans. And his
hair was messy, eyes still squinting like he’d just woken up.
He was staring at the blood spatters on the bathroom
floor, and at the trash bag in Lucy’s hand, and now at Lucy.
It seemed like an entire minute passed without either of
them speaking, Lucy thinking about the straight razor in the
bedside table drawer. Useless now. Her eyes moved around the
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bathroom, looking for something with heft, or with an edge.
It surprised her when the man smiled. He said, “Who you
got in there?”
She didn’t answer. She made fists to stop her hands from
shaking but all it did was give her shaking fists.
“Quite a mess,” he said. “You’ve been a naughty little girl,
haven’t you?”
He took a step forward, glanced in the shower.
Lucy’s eyes welled up. A sob escaped.
“No,” the man said. “No, no, no. Don’t cry.”
He knelt down in front of Lucy.
The eyes. She was going to have to blind him. Jam her
thumbs in as far as they would go and run like hell.
“You don’t have to be afraid. What’s your name?”
“Lucy.”
Her hands had been at her sides. Now, she slowly raised
them.
“Lucy, did that man in the shower hurt you?”
She nodded.
“What did he do?”
“He tried to rape me.”
She shot her thumbs at his eyes, but he parried right and
jumped back, laughing. Lucy ran for the open door. The man
grabbed her and pulled her into his chest.
“Shhh,” he whispered as she struggled. “Don’t scream,
Lucy.”
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She kicked her legs and tried to head-butt him as he
carried her out of the bathroom into the hotel room and
threw her onto the bed.
“Relax!” he said. “I’m not going to hurt you. I’m not going
to get you in trouble.”
Lucy glared at him.
“You should be more careful, you know. Ten trips with
an ice bucket in the middle of the night is bound to get
somebody’s attention. Particularly if their room is next to the
ice machine.”
“Mark was starting to smell.”
“Yeah, I noticed. But a few cubes of ice isn’t going to fix it.
You here by yourself ?”
She nodded.
“He didn’t try to rape you, did he?”
She just watched him, said nothing.
“That’s a nice piece of work in there,” he said. “That man
must be double your weight, at least. How’d you pull it off ?”
“I want you to leave.”
“Why?”
“Go!”
“Lucy, please. I know you don’t know me, but you can
trust me.”
She stuck her chin out and fought back the tremor in her
bottom lip.
“How’d you overpower that man?” he asked again.
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“Straight razor.” She said it proudly.
“He flailed around a bunch, didn’t he?”
Lucy couldn’t help but smile. “Yeah. It was funny. But
loud and messy, too.”
The man eased down onto the edge of the bed. “Why’d
you kill him?”
“They wouldn’t give me a room. I drove six hundred miles
to come to this conference, and then they wouldn’t even give
me a room.”
“’Cause of your age.”
“Yeah.”
“You ever done anything like this before, Lucy?”
She shook her head. “But I thought about it a lot.”
“Wait. This was your first time?” She nodded. The man
got a big grin on his face. “Well, how was it for you?”
“Amazing.”
“Yeah?”
“The blood was beautiful. So warm. I took my clothes off
and rolled around in it.”
The man’s eyes sparkled. “I remember mine like it was
yesterday. I’d give anything to go back and do it again for the
first time.” He reached his hand out. “I’m Orson.”
She shook it.
He looked around the room. “So our friend in the shower.
Who is he?”
“A writer.”
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“Oh, shit. What’s his name?”
“Mark Darling.”
“Never heard of him.”
She pointed to the box of books. “Those are his books over
there.”
Orson went over to the box and lifted a book, flipped
through it, glanced at the back. “This is his first novel. That’s
good.”
“Why?”
“No one here probably knows who he is, so he won’t be
missed. Come on, where’s your stuff ?”
“Over there. Why?”
“Pack it up. You’re coming with me.”
“No.”
“You can’t stay in here, Lucy.”
“I’m not leaving with you.”
“Listen. Did you have fun cutting Mark’s throat, rolling
around in his blood?”
“Yeah.”
“You want to have the opportunity to do it again?”
“Yeah.”
“Then you better listen to me. If you get caught in this
hotel room with that dead man, they’re going to lock you
up.”
“But I’m not even eighteen.”
Orson walked over to the side of the bed and sat down
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next to Lucy. “Look at me.” She stared up at him. “I’ve been
doing this a lot longer than you. If you were smart, you’d do
what I say, maybe even learn a little something.”
“How many people have you killed?”
“Enough to know we need to get out of this room right
now.”
She followed Orson down the hallway to the first room
past the ice machine.
“It’s a two-room suite,” he said as he opened the door and
let her in. “My friend’s next door sleeping, so let’s not disturb
him. I think this sofa folds out into a bed.”
She dropped her guitar case on the floor and helped
Orson unfold the sofa sleeper. Orson swiped a blanket from
his bed and tossed it to Lucy.
“Now I have to be honest,” he said. “I’m a little worried
you might want to cut my throat while I’m sleeping.”
“I won’t,” she said.
“Why don’t you give me your straight razor just to be on
the safe side.”
“You don’t believe me?”
“I don’t know you, Lucy.”
She lay awake for a long time thinking how tomorrow
was the last day of the conference, and in some ways, the first
day of the rest of her life. She wasn’t going home. She knew
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that. After Darling, how could she go back to geometry and
biology and being a teenage girl in a suburban home? She
could feel this stunning blackness flooding into her. It was
filling her up so fast she could barely sleep, barely keep her
eyes closed. She needed to see more blood. And soon.
She never slept. When the light began to push through
the curtains, she sat up on the sofa and looked over at Orson
on the bed, watching the man’s chest rise and fall, thinking
how he’d been smart to take the razor from her. Nothing
would’ve made her happier than to slide the blade across his
neck, maybe even taste his blood, let it run down her throat.
She should’ve tasted Darling’s. She imagined it would be so
rich and even better than the wine her mother sometimes let
her sip. Oh, well. Next time.
She rode down in the elevator with Orson and his friend,
Luther, a tall, pale-faced man with long, black hair who was
seriously creeping her out. He kept watching her with his
big black eyes that held such an intensity she wasn’t sure
she ever wanted to see them alone.
They ate breakfast downstairs, the three of them sitting
at a table in a corner, and the fourth time she caught him
staring at her, Lucy couldn’t help herself.
“Take a picture, dude. It’ll last longer.”
Orson looked up from his bacon and eggs. “What’s wrong?”
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“Why does your friend keep staring at me like that? It’s
weird.”
Orson grinned and glanced at Luther, then back at Lucy.
He leaned toward her and whispered. “He wants to kill you,
Lucy.”
She felt a coldness spill inside her gut.
“Why?”
“It’s what he does. He can’t help himself. He’s sitting there
imagining draining you in our bathtub. But don’t worry. I’ve
told him you’re off-limits. Told him you might even be one
of us.”
She glared at Luther. “You don’t scare me.”
He said. “You look like you’re scared, little girl.”
“Oh, you can read my thoughts? Well, if you could, you’d
know I’m thinking how pretty your dark blood would look
running out of your snow-white neck.”
Orson laughed out loud. “Isn’t she great?”
Lucy hadn’t averted her eyes from Luther, soaking in the
psychotic malevolence.
“All right, listen,” Orson said. “I think we’re all a little
hard-up for some fun. I had an idea while I was falling asleep
last night. Darling’s room is already a wreck. Why don’t we
all, together, find someone to take there this afternoon?”
Lucy’s eyes lit up. “Really?”
“Yeah, we’ll go right after Andrew Thomas’s speech.”
Orson smiled. “I wouldn’t want to miss that.” He looked at
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Luther. “What do you think? You brought your toolbox,
right?”
Luther smiled, and it was the scariest thing Lucy had ever
seen.
For some reason, Orson didn’t want to sit on the front row
for Andrew Thomas’s speech, so Lucy sat by herself, her heart
pumping as the man walked up onto the stage.
She stood with the rest of the crowd and applauded the
guest of honor, then sat with rapt attention as Andrew read
an excerpt from a work in progress, one of the most gruesome and awesome things Lucy had ever heard.
The book was called The Passenger, a horror novel about
an unnamed, psychopathic hitchhiker who travels around
the country getting free rides from people, then robbing and
killing them most horribly. In the section Andrew read, the
Passenger ties a man to the back of his own car and drags him
down the highway for five miles.
The signing line stretched all the way around the
bookroom. The eight books in Lucy’s arms were heavy, and
by the time she got close to the table, her muscles were
beginning to cramp.
She couldn’t take her eyes off of Andrew as he signed
books and made small talk with the fans. When it was finally
her turn, she set her stack of books on the table and smiled
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and reached out her hand.
“Mr. Thomas, I am your biggest fan. I’ve read everything
you ever wrote. I’m Lucy. I love what you read today. Will you
sign my books?”
He shook her hand and smiled. “Of course.”
“Um, I’m sorry, Mr. Thomas can only sign three books.”
Lucy looked at the woman standing behind the writer, a large
woman in a horrific dress who looked like a librarian.
“But I want all of them signed.”
The woman pursed her lips. “If everyone brought eight
books, we’d be here until Christmas.”
“But everyone didn’t bring eight books. Most only brought
one.”
“Pick three. You’re holding up the line.”
Lucy glanced down at Andrew, flashed her puppy dog
eyes.
“Margie, I think it’s okay to make one exception,” he said,
grabbing the top book on Lucy’s pile and opening it to the
cover page. As he looked down to sign, Lucy stuck her tongue
out at Margie.
“So are you in high school, Lucy?” he asked as he went
through the books.
“I’m in 10th grade.”
“Excellent. I think you might be the youngest person
here.”
“When is The Passenger coming out?” she asked.
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“Probably next year.”
“I can’t wait to read it.” As he signed the last book, she
said, “Look, would you maybe like to get a cup of coffee after
this? I’d just love to talk with you a little more.”
He smiled and pushed her stack of books toward her. “I’d
love to Lucy, but I’m actually flying back to North Carolina in
about two hours.”
“Oh.”
“It was great to meet you.”
Lucy lifted her stack of books and headed out of the book
room. She might have cried if she didn’t have something else
to look forward to.
“What about her?” Lucy said.
“No, I know who that is,” Orson said. “She’s a pretty wellknown cozy writer. She’d never go for it.”
Lucy was sitting between Orson and Luther on a sofa at the
edge of the hotel bar, the conference booklet open across her
lap. Every writer in attendance was pictured in the booklet,
along with a brief bio. It made the hunting so much easier.
“I see a possibility,” Luther said.
“Where?”
“Guy standing alone at the corner of the bar, looking
around, talking to nobody.”
“Gotcha. Can you read his nametag?”
“No. Too far.” Luther stood up and pushed his way through
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the crowd, passing within several feet of the mark. He circled
back around and sat down on the couch again, said, “Richard
Bryson.”
Lucy flipped through the booklet and found the man’s
picture and bio. She read it aloud: “Richard Bryson is not only
the author of Against the Law, a thriller about a corrupt police
force, but the publisher as well. He is currently working on
a new book.”
“Perfect,” Orson said. “Luther, head on up. We’ll be there
in ten.”
Orson sat with Lucy after Luther had left, watching
Bryson drink his beer alone.
“All right, Lucy, tell me how you’d get this man we’ve
never met up to our hotel room.”
“Um, I’d tell him we have a party going on and invite him
to come.”
“Okay. If some person you’d never met invited you up to
their hotel room, would you go?”
“I don’t know.”
“The answer is no. You wouldn’t. Listen, look at me.
You’re small and young, you have no physical strength, so if
you want to do this, over and over and over again, without
getting caught or killed, you have to be smart.”
She rolled her eyes. He was sounding a little like her
mother.
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“Oh, am I boring you? Get the fuck out of here then, you
little brat.”
“You’re not. I’m sorry.”
“I’m trying to help you. So tell me. How would you get
Bryson up to our hotel room?”
“I don’t know.”
“You ready to learn something?”
“Yes.”
“Vanity. Know what that is?”
She nodded. “When you’re in love with yourself.”
“Exactly. We’re all in love with ourselves. It’s our weakness.
Our main failing. If you can play on that, if you can appeal to
someone’s vanity without them knowing you’re doing it, you
can get them to do anything you want.”
“I don’t understand.”
Orson stood up. “Follow me. Keep your mouth shut. And
watch and learn.”
She followed Orson through the throng of people, stood
behind him as he leaned his elbows on the bar and waited for
the bartender to notice him.
After a minute, Orson began to look around, and when
his eyes fell upon Richard Bryson standing right beside him,
Lucy saw a huge smile break across Orson’s face.
He said, “Oh my God, you’re Richard Bryson!”
As the man glanced over at Orson, Lucy got her first
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decent look at him. He seemed old as shit to her, at least fifty.
His coarse blond hair was long and wavy and on the verge
of turning gray, and he had what she thought was a gross
mustache.
The man gave a skeptical smile that belied insecurity and
said, “Um, yeah, who are you?”
“Well, for starters, I’m a huge fan of Against the Law. I
thought it was the best book I’ve read this year.”
“Oh, well thank you. You know, I just made it available
as an ebook.”
“A what?”
“An electronic book. I put it up on my website as a free
download.”
“Oh, neat.”
Oh stupid, Lucy thought. Like people would ever want to read
books on an electronic screen.
“Ebooks are going to be the future of publishing. I’m sure
of it.”
“Are you working on a new book?” Orson asked.
“Yeah, I am actually.” Orson was right. Lucy saw Bryson
beginning to come alive as he talked about himself.
“Can you tell me anything about it?” Orson asked.
“Well, it’s a sequel to Against the Law. ”
“Oh, fantastic.”
“You know how Rodriguez died at the end?”
“Yeah, sure. That was so heartbreaking.”
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“Well, he’s not really dead.”
“No kidding?”
“And he’s back and pissed off and looking for revenge.”
“I can’t wait to read it. Look, Mr. Bryson—”
“Please, Richard.”
“Richard, my name’s Vincent Carmichael, and I’m a
freelance reviewer. I do stuff for Kirkus, Booklist, Publishers
Weekly. I would love to do an interview with you and pitch it
to PW or Kirkus. I think they’d be all over it.”
“That’d be great.”
“Do you have some time right now?”
“Um, sure.”
“What do you say we go up to my room? My recorder is
up there and we can see what happens. By the way, this is my
niece, Michelle.”
“Hi, Michelle.”
“Nice to meet you, Mr. Bryson,” Lucy said.
Bryson pulled out his wallet. “Let me just pay for my
beer.”
“Get out of here.” Orson pulled a five dollar bill from his
pocket and tossed it on the bar. “It is so good to finally meet
you, Rich.”
He patted the man on the shoulder and pulled him away
from the bar.
As they rode up in the elevator, Lucy marveled at the
persona Orson had adopted: an attentive, personable book
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reviewer who was utterly fascinated with the life and work
of Richard Bryson. She didn’t know how he controlled himself, because as the doors opened and they walked off the car
onto the fourteenth floor, her body was beginning to buzz
with anticipation.
At last, they reached the door to 1428, and Lucy pulled the
keycard out of her pocket, her hands trembling.
She swiped the card as Bryson said, “You should ask me
about my publishing company, too. I hate the big New York
publishers, so I’ve decided to…” He stopped talking as Lucy
pushed the door open, and she knew exactly why. A subdued
but foul odor seeped out of the room into the hallway.
“After you, Rich,” Orson said. He was glancing up and
down the hallway, which for the moment, was empty.
Bryson hesitantly entered the hotel room and Lucy and
Orson followed after him. Lucy heard the subtle click of
Orson locking the door.
“My goodness,” Bryson said. “Smells like something died
in here.”
“You can smell that?” Orson said. They had all passed the
closed bathroom door and now stood in the dark bedroom.
“It must be that sandwich half I threw away last night. It
sure went bad quickly.”
Bryson took off his sports jacket. “Do you mind if I use
your restroom before we get started? That beer is moving
right through me.”
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“Of course. Right through that door.”
Lucy stood next to Orson, watching Bryson disappear
into the bathroom.
“Where’s Luther?” she asked.
“About to have some Luther fun.”
She could see the light come on under the door, the
sounds of Bryson shuffling around inside.
“Orson?”
“Shhh,” he whispered. “Let’s just enjoy this moment
together.”
Bryson said, “Oh God!”
Something crashed to the floor, and through the door
came the sound of a desperate struggle, something banging
into cabinets and walls, and then the meaty thud of hard
punches.
Bryson went quiet, but there was still movement inside
the bathroom. After a minute, the door opened, and Luther
walked out smiling.
“Come see,” he said.
Lucy hurried over to the open door.
Bryson lay unconscious on the floor, hog-tied with zipties, and a ball-gag in his mouth.
“Nice work, Luther,” she said.
“You should’ve seen his face. He sat down on the toilet
to take a dump, and just as he was starting to notice all
the blood, I swept the shower curtain back and had Mark
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Darling waving to him. Good thing he was on the toilet, ’cause
he shit.”
“Can I have my straight razor back?” Lucy said.
Orson glanced down at her. “Of course. But you know we
aren’t just going to kill him right away.”
“Why not?”
He smiled. “Sweet, Lucy. So much to learn.”
Richard opened his eyes fifteen minutes later, naked and
shivering. The balls of his feet just barely touched the dead
man sprawled beneath him across the shower tile. His wrists
were stretched far above his head, the zip-tie between them
hanging from an anchor bolt that had been screwed into the
ceiling. A giant ball had been wedged into his mouth.
Orson sat across from him on the toilet. Lucy stood beside
him, and Luther sat on the surface of the sink.
“I just want to thank you again, Richard, for taking the
time out of your busy schedule to sit for this interview.” Orson
smiled and looked at Luther. “I think we should let Lucy go
first. Okay with you?”
“As long as we get to stay in here and watch. Lucy?”
“What?”
Luther patted a red Craftsman toolbox. “I know you have
a straight razor, but if you’d like to borrow anything in here,
you’re welcome to it.”
“Look at you,” Orson said. “Sharing.”
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Lucy saw Richard’s eyes bug out when Luther opened the
box. Hers did too. “What in the world?”
“I collect ancient surgical tools.”
She lifted out a long cylinder with six tiny blades at the
end. “What is this?”
“It’s called an artificial leech. It tears a superficial wound
in the skin and creates a vacuum to suck up the blood.”
“It looks fun.”
“Oh, it is.”
She set it on the countertop and pulled out another tool.
Richard’s bladder let loose.
“That’s in my top three,” Luther said. The metal of
the instrument was dark brown with rust and looked to be
several hundred years old. It had handles at the end, that
when pulled apart, made the other end open wide. “It’s called
a cervical dilator,” Luther said, “but it works beautifully on
gentlemen as well. It fell out of use, because it typically just
tore the insides apart, as you’ll see.”
She pulled out a strange-looking knife.
“For circumcisions.”
What looked like a pair of pliers, but instead of metal
grippers, had a needle at the end.
“That’s called a hernia tool. I know it looks cool, but it’s
kind of hard to use. Here, let me show you my favorite.”
Luther reached into the toolbox and withdrew a long metal
tool with a gently curving shaft. “This is called a lithotome.
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Shaft goes up the anus and then you squeeze the handle and
a blade comes out on a spring release.”
“What was it used for?”
“To cut the bladder to release kidney stones.”
“Oh, this looks wicked.” She pulled out a hollow metal
cylinder with circular blades at one end.”
“That’s a scarificator. Used for bloodletting.” He grabbed
another tool. “This is a tonsil guillotine.” And another. “This
is a trephine for skull drilling. Here’s a vaginal speculum, and
these are hemorrhoid forceps.”
The toolbox was empty now, a veritable horrowshow on
display on the bathroom sink.
“I dream of coming back as a Victorian doctor,” Luther
said.
Orson laughed.
“Decisions, decisions,” Lucy said, reaching for the
lithotome.
“It’s sad how he keep passing out,” Lucy said.
Luther was holding a bottle of smelling salts under
Bryson’s nose.
“Yeah, you’ve got to be careful,” Orson said. “The biggest
buzz-kill is when they lose too much blood. They just go into
shock and die, and that’s it. Superficial cuts are key.”
Richard jerked back into consciousness and started to
scream again through the ball-gag.
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“These aren’t ideal conditions,” Orson said. “Of course,
no matter what, we can’t take the ball-gag out of his mouth.
What I’m afraid is going to happen is he’s going to throw up
and choke to death.”
“I wish I could hear him scream.”
“Me, too. It adds so much more.”
Six hours later, they washed Luther’s surgical tools, left
the remains of Bryson hanging in the shower, and walked out
of 1428 for the last time.
It was almost nine o’clock and many of the conference
attendees had already left, the lobby much quieter now.
Orson bought Luther and Lucy dinner in the restaurant
downstairs, everyone happy for the moment, a quiet contentment settling over the meal.
“When do you guys leave?” Lucy asked.
“First thing tomorrow.”
“Can I come with you?”
“No.”
Lucy felt a lump swelling in her throat. “Don’t you like
me?”
“Of course,” Orson said. “But I can’t take you with me, I’m
sorry.”
“What am I supposed to do?”
“That’s for you to figure out. Are you going home?”
“No. And my car’s booted. I only have a hundred and fifty
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dollars and my guitar case.”
Orson reached into his pocket, opened his wallet, pulled
out a roll of bills. “Here,” he said. “This should get you
started.”
Lucy thumbed through the money. Almost five hundred
dollars.
“Thank you,” she said, but the sadness was still there.
“How am I supposed to get anywhere? I don’t have a car.”
“You could hitchhike,” Luther said.
“That’s dangerous.”
“You’ll have to be careful,” Orson said. “Although, I have
a feeling, it’s the poor people who pick you up that we should
be more concerned for.”
Luther laughed. “You need to get your hands on some
painkillers. Oxycodone. Something hard-hitting that you
can drug people with. That’s the only way you’ll be able to
overpower someone bigger than yourself. And let’s face it.
Everyone’s bigger than you.”
“Seriously.” Orson reached across the table and touched
Lucy’s hand. “You have to be careful. You have to learn to
read people. One day, you’re going to meet someone out there
like me and Luther, only they may not be so hot to take
you under their wing. They might rather hang you up in a
shower.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“How?”
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“I won’t trust anybody.”
“Good.”
Lucy squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Orson,” she said.
“I’m glad I met you. You too, Luther.”
Luther smiled. It was still scary, but for the first time, he
didn’t look like he was thinking about killing her.
They walked Lucy through the lobby and out the
revolving doors of the hotel. Bellhops were stacking suitcases
on luggage carts and hailing cabs.
“You could stay one more night,” Orson said.
“Thanks, but I’m ready to go.” She wrapped her arms
around Orson and squeezed him. “I’ll never forget you.”
He knelt down in front of her. “You’re a special girl, Lucy.
You know what you are, and you’re not afraid of it, and I
admire that. I admire the hell out of it.”
She turned to Luther and shook his hand, then lifted her
guitar case and walked away from the hotel, out onto the
sidewalk into the night.
Lucy had walked ten blocks before the first pair of
headlights appeared in the distance.
She dropped her guitar case on the pavement, a small pit
of nerves tightening in her stomach.
The car was getting closer.
She could hear its engine, and for the first time in her life,
but certainly not the last, she stuck out her thumb.
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A minivan pulled over to the curb and the front passenger
window rolled down, a thirty-something woman smiling
under the dome light.
“You need a ride, sweetie?” she asked.
Lucy conjured up a smile. “If it’s not too much trouble.
It’s really cold out here.”
“I’ve got groceries in the front seat, but you’re welcome to
climb in the back.”
Lucy pulled open the side door and stepped into the
minivan, stowing her guitar case on the floor and sitting
down beside a car seat, where an infant slept.
The woman looked back between the seats at Lucy.
“Just try to keep it down, if you don’t mind,” she said
quietly. “As you can see, my little angel is sleeping.”
“No problem,” Lucy whispered, staring down at the baby,
thinking, No Luther, not everyone’s bigger than me.
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PART ThREE WISCoNSIN, 2007
1
Taylor liked toes.
He wasn’t a pervert. At least, not that kind of pervert.
Taylor didn’t derive sexual gratification from feet. Women
had other parts much better suited for that type of activity.
But he was a sucker for a tiny foot in open-toed high heels,
especially when the toenails were painted.
Painted toes were yummy.
The truck stop whore wore sandals, the cork wedge heels
so high her toes were bent. She had small feet—they looked
like a size five—and her nails matched her red mini skirt.
Taylor spotted her through the windshield as she walked over
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to his Peterbilt, wiggling her hips and wobbling a bit. Taylor
guessed she was drunk or stoned. Perhaps both.
He climbed out of his cab. When his cowboy boots
touched the pavement he reached his hands up over his head
and stretched, his vertebrae cracking. The night air was hot
and sticky with humidity, and he could smell his own sweat.
The whore blew smoke from the corner of her mouth.
“Hiya, stranger. My name’s Candi. With an i.”
“I’m Taylor. With a T.”
He smiled. She giggled, then hiccupped.
Even in the dim parking lot light, Candi with an i was
nothing to look at. Mid-thirties. Cellulite. Twenty pounds
too heavy for her skirt and halter top. She wore sloppy makeup, her lipstick smeared, making Taylor wonder how many
truckers she’d already blown on this midnight shift.
But she did have very cute toes. She dropped her cigarette
and crushed it into the pavement, and Taylor licked his lower
lip.
“Been on the road a long time, Taylor?”
“Twelve hours in from Cinci. My ass is flatter than roadkill
armadillo.”
She eyed his rig. He was hauling four bulldozers on his
flatbed trailer. They were heavy, and his mileage hadn’t been
good, making this run much less profitable than it should
have been.
But Taylor didn’t become a trucker to get rich. He did it
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for other reasons.
“You feeling lonely, Taylor? You looking for a little
company?”
Taylor knew he could use a little company right now. He
could also use a meal, a hot shower, and eight hours of sleep.
It was just a question of which need he’d cater to first.
He looked around the truck stop lot. Pretty full for late
night in Bumblefuck, Wisconsin. Over a dozen rigs and just
as many cars. The 24 hour gas station had a line for the
pumps, and Murray’s Eats, the all-night diner, appeared full.
On either side of the cloverleaf there were a few other
restaurants and gas stations, but Murray’s was always busy
because they boasted more than food and diesel. Besides
the no-hassle companionship the management and local
authorities tolerated, Murray’s had a full-size truck wash, a
mechanic on duty, and free showers.
After twelve hours of caffeine sweating in this muggy
Midwestern August, Taylor needed some quality time with
a bar of soap just as badly as he needed quality time with
a parking lot hooker.
But it didn’t make sense to shower first, when he was only
going to get messy again.
“How much?” he asked.
“That depends on—”
“Half and half,” he cut her off, not needing to hear the
daily menu specials.
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“Twenty-five bucks.”
She didn’t look worth twenty-five bucks, but he wasn’t
planning on paying her anyway, so he agreed.
“Great, sugar. I just need to make a quick stop at the little
girls’ room and I’ll be right back.”
She spun on her wedges to leave, but Taylor caught her
thin wrist. He knew she wasn’t going to the washroom.
She was going to her pimp to give him the four Ps: Price,
preferences, plate number, parking location. Taylor didn’t
see any single men hanging around; only other whores, and
none of them were paying attention. Her pimp was probably
in the restaurant, unaware of this particular transaction, and
Taylor wanted to keep it that way.
“I’m sorta anxious to get right to it, Candi.” He smiled
wide. Women loved his smile. He’d been told, many times,
that he was good-looking enough to model. “If you leave me
now, I might just find some other pretty girl to spend my
money on.”
Candi smiled back. “Well, we wouldn’t want that. But I’m
short on protection right now, honey.”
“I’ve got rubbers in the cab.” Taylor switched to his
brooding, hurt-puppy dog look. “I need it bad, right now,
Candi. So bad I’ll throw in another ten spot. That’s thirtyfive bucks for something we both know will only take a few
minutes.”
Taylor watched Candi work it out in her head. This
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john was hot to trot, offering more than the going rate, and
he’d probably be really quick. Plus, he was cute. She could
probably do him fast, and pocket the whole fee without
having to share it with her pimp.
“You got yourself a date, sugar.”
Taylor took another quick look around the lot, made
sure no one was watching, and hustled Candi into his cab,
climbing up behind her and locking the door.
The truck’s windows were lightly tinted—making it
difficult for anyone on the street to see inside. Not that Candi
bothered to notice, or care. As soon as Taylor faced her she
was pawing at his fly.
“The bedroom is upstairs.” Taylor pointed to the
stepladder in the rear of the extended cab, leading to his
overhead sleeping compartment.
“Is there enough room up there? Some of those spaces are
tight.”
“Plenty. I customized it myself. It’s to die for.”
Taylor smiled, knowing he was being coy, knowing it
didn’t matter at this point. His heart rate was up, his palms
itchy, and he had that excited/sick feeling that junkies got
right before they jabbed the needle in. If Candi suddenly
had a change of heart, there wasn’t anything she could
do about it. She was past the point of no return.
But Candi didn’t resist. She went up first, pushing the
trap door on the cab’s ceiling, climbing into the darkness
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above. Taylor hit the light switch on his dashboard and
followed her.
“What is this? Padding?”
She was on her hands and knees, running her palm across
the floor of the sleeper, testing its springiness with her
fingers.
“Judo mats. Extra thick. Very easy to clean up.”
“You got mats on the walls too?” She got on her knees
and reached overhead, touching the spongy material on the
arced ceiling, her exposed belly jiggling.
“Those are baffles. Keeps the sound out.” He smiled,
closing the trap door behind him. “And in.”
The lighting was subdued, just a simple overhead fixture
next to the smoke alarm. The soundproofing was black
foam, the mats a deep beige, and there was no furniture in
the enclosure except for an inflatable rubber mattress and a
medium-sized metal trunk.
“This is kind of kinky. Are you kinky, Taylor?”
“You might say that.”
Taylor crawled over to the trunk at the far end of the
enclosure. After dialing the combination lock, he opened
the lid. Then he moved his Tupperware container aside and
took out a fresh roll of paper towels, a disposable paper nose
and mouth mask, and an aerosol spray can. He ripped off
three paper towels, then slipped the mask on over his face,
adjusting the rubber band so it didn’t catch in his hair.
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“What is that, sugar?” Candi asked. Her flirty, playful
demeanor was slipping a bit.
“Starter fluid. You squirt it into your carburetor, it helps
the engine turn over. Its main ingredient is diethyl ether.”
He held the paper towels at arm’s length, then sprayed
them until they were soaked.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Candi looked panicked
now. And she had good reason to be.
“This will knock you out so I can tie you up. You’re not
the prettiest flower in the bouquet, Candi with an i. But you
have the cutest little toes.”
He grinned again. But this wasn’t one of his attractive
grins. The whore shrunk away from him.
“Don’t hurt me, man! Please! I got kids!”
“They must be so proud.”
Taylor approached her, on his knees, savoring her fear.
She tried to crawl to the right and get around him, get to the
trap door. But that was closed and now concealed by matting,
and Taylor knew she had no idea where it was.
He watched her realize escape wasn’t an option, and
then she dug into her little purse for a weapon or a cell
phone or a bribe or something else that she thought might
help but wouldn’t. Taylor hit her square in the nose, then
tossed the purse aside. A small canister of pepper spray
spilled out, along with a cell phone, make-up, Tic-Tacs, and
several condoms.
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“You lied to me,” Taylor said, slapping her again. “You’ve
got rubbers.”
“Please…”
“You lying little slut. Were you going to pepper spray
me?”
“No… I…”
“Liar.” Another slap. “I think you need to be taught a
lesson. And I don’t think you’ll like it. But I will.”
Candi’s hands covered her bleeding nose and she moaned
something that sounded like, “Please… My kids…”
“Does your pimp offer life insurance?”
She whimpered.
“No? That’s a shame. Well, I’m sure he’ll take care of your
children for you. He’ll probably have them turning tricks by
next week.”
Taylor knocked her hands away and pressed the cold,
wet paper towels to her face. Not hard enough to cut off air,
but hard enough that she had to breathe through them. Even
though he wore a paper face mask, some of the pungent,
bitter odor got into Taylor’s nostrils, making his hairs curl.
It took the ether less than a minute to do its job on the
whore. When she finally went limp, Taylor placed the damp
towels in a plastic zip-top bag. Then he took several bungee
cords out of the trunk and bound Candi’s hands and arms
to her torso. Unlike rope, the elastic bands didn’t require
knots, and were reusable. Taylor wrapped them around Candi
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tight enough for her to lose circulation, but that didn’t matter.
Candi wouldn’t be needing circulation for very much
longer.
While the majority of his murder kit was readily available
at any truck stop, his last piece of equipment was specially
made.
It looked like a large board with two four-inch wide holes
cut in the middle. Taylor flipped the catch on the side and
it opened up on hinges, like one of those old-fashion jail
stocks that prisoners stuck their heads and hands into.
Except this one was made for something else.
Taylor grabbed Candi’s left foot and gingerly removed her
wedge. Then he placed her ankle in the half-circle cut into the
wood. He repeated the action with her right foot, and closed
the stock.
Now Candi’s bare feet protruded through the boards,
effectively trapped.
He locked the catch with a padlock, and then set the stock
in between the floor mats, where it fit snuggly into a brace,
secured by two more padlocks.
Play time.
Taylor lay on his stomach, taking Candi’s right foot in
his hands. He cupped her heel, running a finger up along her
sole, bringing his lips up to her toes.
He licked them once, tasting sweat, grime, smelling a
slight foot odor and a faint residue of nail polish. His pulse
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went up even higher, and time seemed to slow down.
Her little toe came off surprisingly easy, no harder than
nibbling the cartilage top off a fried chicken leg.
Taylor watched the blood seep out as he chewed on the
severed digit—a blood and gristle-flavored piece of gum—
and then swallowed.
This little piggy went to market.
He opened up his mouth to accommodate the second
little piggy, the one who stayed home, when he realized
something was missing.
Where was the screaming? Where was the begging?
Where was the thrashing around in agony?
He crawled around the stock, alongside Candi’s head.
Ether was a pain in the ass to get the dose right, and he’d
lost more than one girl by giving her too big a whiff. Luckily,
Candi was still breathing. But she was too deeply sedated to
let some playful toe-munching wake her up.
Taylor frowned. Like sex, murder was best with two active
participants. He gathered up the whore’s belongings, then
rolled away from her, over to the trap door.
He’d get a bite to eat, maybe enjoy one of Murray’s famous
free showers. Hopefully, when he got back, Sleeping Homely
would be awake.
Taylor used one of the ether-soaked paper towels to wipe
the blood off his chin and fingers, stuffed them back into the
bag, then headed for the diner.
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2
“Where are you?”
“I have no idea.” My cell was tucked between my shoulder
and my ear as I drove. “I think I’m still in Wisconsin. Wouldn’t
there be some kind of sign if I entered another state?”
“Don’t you have the map I gave you?” Latham asked. “The
directions?”
“Yeah. But they aren’t helping.”
“Are you looking at the map right now?”
“Yes.”
The map might have done me some good if I’d been able to
see what was on it. But the highway was dark, and the interior
light in my 1989 Nova had burned out last month.
“You can’t see it, can you?”
“Define see.”
I heard my fiancée sigh. “I just bought you a replacement
bulb for that overhead lamp. I saw you put it in your purse.
It’s still in your purse, isn’t it?”
“Maybe.”
“And you can’t replace the bulb now, because it’s too
dark.”
“That’s a good deduction. You should become a cop.”
“One cop in this relationship is enough. Why didn’t you
take my GPS when I insisted?”
“Because I didn’t want you to get lost.”
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A billboard was coming up on my right. MURRAY’S -
NEXT EXIT. That was nice to know, but I had no idea what
Murray’s was, or how far the exit was. Not a very effective
advertisement.
“My interior light works, Jackie. I could have used
Mapquest.”
“Mapquest lies. And don’t call me Jackie. You know I hate
it when people call me Jackie.”
“And I hate it when you say you’d be here three hours ago,
and you’re still not here. You could have left at a reasonable
hour, Jack.”
He had a point. This was my first real vacation—and
by that I mean one that involved actually travelling somewhere—in a few years. Latham had rented a cabin on Rice
Lake, and he had driven there yesterday from Chicago to
meet the rental owners and get the keys. I was supposed to
go with him, and we’d been planning this for weeks, but
the murder trial I’d been testifying at had gone longer
than expected, and since I was the arresting officer I needed
to be there. As much as I loved Latham, and as much as
I needed some time away from work, my duty to put
criminals away ranked slightly higher.
“Your told-you-so tone isn’t going to get you laid later,”
I said. “Just help me figure out where I am.”
Another sigh. I shrugged it off. My long-suffering
boyfriend had suffered a lot worse than this in order to be
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with me. I figured he had to be incredibly desperate, or a
closet masochist. Either way, he was a cutie, and I loved him.
“Do you see the mile markers alongside the road?”
I didn’t see any such thing. The highway was dark, and
I hadn’t noticed any signs, off-ramps, exits, or mile markers
since I’d left Illinois. But I hadn’t exactly been paying much
attention, either. I was pretty damn tired, and had been
zoning out to AM radio for the last hour. FM didn’t work.
Sometimes I wish someone would shoot my car, put it out of
my misery.
“No. There’s nothing out here, Latham. Except Murray’s. ”
“What’s Murray’s?”
“I have no idea. I just saw the sign. Could be a gas station.
Could be a waterpark.”
“I don’t remember passing anything called Murray’s. Did
the sign have the exit number?”
“No.”
“Are you sure?”
I made a face. “The defense attorney never asked me if
I was sure. The defense attorney took me at my word.”
“He should have also made you take my GPS. You see those
posts alongside the road with the reflectors on them?”
“Yeah.”
“Keep watching them.”
“Why should—” The next reflector had a number on top.
“Oh. Okay, I’m at mile marker 231.”
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“I don’t have Internet access here at the cabin. I’ll call you
back when I find out where you are. You’re okay, right? Not
going to fall asleep while driving?”
I yawned. “I’m fine, hon. Just a little hungry.”
“Stop for something if it will keep you awake.”
“Sure. I’ll just pull over and grab the nearest cow.”
“If you do, bring me a tenderloin.”
“Really? Is your appetite back?” Latham was still
recovering from a bad case of food poisoning.
“It’s getting there.”
“Aren’t you tired? You should rest, honey.”
“I’m fine.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure. I’ll call soon with your location.”
My human GPS unit hung up. I yawned again, and gave
my head a little shake.
On the plus side, my testimony had gone well, and all
signs pointed to a conviction.
On the minus side, I’d been driving for six straight hours,
and I was hungry, tired, and needed to pee. I also needed gas,
according to my gauge.
Maybe Murray could take care of all my needs. Assuming
I could find Murray’s before falling asleep, running out of
fuel, starving to death, and wetting my pants.
The road stretched onward into the never-ending
darkness. I hadn’t seen another car in a while. Even though
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this was a major highway (as far as I knew), traffic was pretty
light. Who would have thought that Northern Wisconsin at
two in the morning on a Wednesday night was so deserted?
I heard my cell phone ring. My hero, to the rescue.
“You’re not on I-94,” he said. “You’re on 39.”
“You sound annoyed.”
“You went the wrong way when the Interstate split.”
“Which means?”
“You drove three hours out of the way.”
Shit.
I yawned. “So where do I go to get to you?”
“You need some sleep, Jack. You can get here in the
morning.”
“Three hours is nothing. I can be there in time for an
early breakfast.”
“You sound exhausted.”
“I’ll be fine. Lemme just close my eyes for a second.”
“That’s not even funny.”
I smiled. The poor sap really did care about me.
“I love you, Latham.”
“I love you, too. That’s why I want you to find a room
somewhere and get some rest.”
“Just tell me how to get to you. I don’t want to sleep alone
in some cheap hotel with threadbare sheets and a mattress
with questionable stains. I want to sleep next to you in that
cabin with the big stone fireplace. But first I want to rip off
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those cute boxer-briefs you wear and… hello? Latham?”
I squinted at my cell. No signal.
Welcome to Wisconsin.
I yawned again. Another billboard appeared.
MURRAY’S FAMOUS TRUCK STOP. FOOD. DIESEL.
LODGING. TRUCK WASH. SHOWERS. MECHANIC ON
DUTY. TEN MILES.
Ten miles? I could make ten miles. And maybe some food
and coffee would wake me up.
I pressed the accelerator, taking the Nova up to eighty.
Murray’s here I come.
3
Taylor paused at the diner entrance, taking everything
in. The restaurant was busy, the tables all full. He spotted
three waitresses, plus two cooks in the kitchen. Seated were
various truckers, two with hooker companions. Taylor knew
the owners encouraged it, and wondered what kind of cut
they got.
He saw what must have been Candi’s pimp, holding
court at a corner table. Rattleskin cowboy boots, a gold
belt buckle in the shape of Wisconsin, fake bling on
his baseball cap. He was having a serious discussion
with one of his whores. The rest of the tables were
occupied by truckers. Taylor didn’t see any cops; a pimp
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in plain sight meant they were being paid off.
The place smelled terrific, like bacon gravy and apple
pie. Taylor’s stomach grumbled. He located the emergency
exit in the northeast corner, and knew there was also a back
door that led into the kitchen; Taylor had walked the perimeter of the building before entering.
With no tables available, he approached the counter and
took a seat there, between the storefront window and a pudgy,
older guy nursing a cup of coffee. It was a good spot. He could
see his rig, and also see anyone approaching it or him.
Taylor hadn’t been to Murray’s in over a year, but the
printed card sticking in the laminated menu said their
specialty was meatloaf.
“Meatloaf is good,” the old guy leaned over and said.
“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”
“You were looking at the card. Thought I’d be helpful.”
He examined the man, a grandfatherly type with
thinning gray hair and red cheeks. Taylor wasn’t in the best
of moods—one toe was barely an appetizer for him—and
he was ready to tell Grandpa off. But starting a scene meant
being remembered, and that wasn’t wise.
“Thank you,” Taylor managed.
“You’re welcome.”
A waitress came by, wearing ugly scuffed-up gym shoes.
Taylor ordered coffee and the meatloaf. The coffee was strong,
bitter. Taylor added two sugars.
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“Showers are good here too,” his fat companion said.
Taylor gave him another look.
Is this guy trying to pick me up?
The man sipped his coffee and didn’t meet Taylor’s stare.
“Look, buddy. I just want to eat in peace. No offense. I’ve
been on the road for a long time.”
“No offense taken,” the fat man said. He finished his
coffee, then signaled the waitress for a refill. “Just telling you
the showers are good. Be sure to get some quarters. They’ve
got a machine, sells soap. Useful for washing off blood.”
All of Taylor’s senses went on high alert, and he felt
himself flush. This guy didn’t look like a cop—Taylor
could usually spot cops. He wore baggy jeans, a plaid
shirt, a Timex. On the counter next to his empty cup was a
baseball cap without any logo. A few days’ worth of beard
graced his double chin.
No, he wasn’t law. And he wasn’t cruising him, either.
So what the hell does he want?
“What do you mean?” Taylor asked, keeping his tone
neutral.
“Drop of blood on your shirt. Another spot on your collar.
Some under your fingernails as well. You wiped them with
ether, but it didn’t completely dissolve. Did you know that
ether was first used as a surgical anesthetic back in 1842?
Before that, taking a knife to a person meant screaming and
thrashing around.” The man held a beefy hand to his mouth
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and belched. “‘Course, some people might like the screaming
and thrashing around part.”
Taylor bunched his fists, then forced himself to relax.
Had this guy seen him somehow? Did he know about Candi
in the sleeper?
No. He couldn’t have. Tinted windows on his cab. No
windows at all in the sleeping compartment.
He took a casual glance around, trying to spot anyone
else watching. No one seemed to be paying either of them
any attention.
Taylor dropped his hand, slowly reaching for the folding
knife clipped to his belt. He considered sliding it between
this guy’s ribs right there and getting the hell out. But first
Taylor needed to know what Grandpa knew. Maybe he could
lead him to the bathroom, get him into a stall…
Taylor froze. His knife was missing.
“Take it easy, my friend,” said the old, fat man. “I’ll give
you your knife back when we’re through.”
Taylor wasn’t sure what to say, but he believed everyone
had an angle. This guy knew more than he should have. But
what was he going to do with his information?
“Who are you?” Taylor asked.
“Name’s Donaldson. And you probably meant to ask
What are you? You’ve probably figured out I’m not a cop, not
a Fed. Thanks, Donna.” He nodded at the waitress as she
refilled his coffee. “Actually, I’m just a fellow traveler. Enjoy88
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ing the country. The sites. The people. ” Donaldson winked at
him. “Same as you are.”
“Same as me, huh?”
Donaldson nodded. “A bit older and wiser, perhaps.
At least wise enough to not use that awful ether anymore.
Where do you even get that these days? I thought ether and
chloroform were controlled substances.”
“Starter fluid,” Taylor said. This conversation was getting
surreal.
“Clever.”
“So what is it exactly you do, Donaldson?”
“For work? Or do you mean with the people I encounter?
I’m a courier, that’s my job. I travel all around, delivering
things to people who need them faster than overnight. As
for the other—well, that’s sort of personal, don’t you think?
We just met, and you want me to reveal intimate details of
my antisocial activities? Shouldn’t we work up to that?”
So far, Donaldson had been the embodiment of calm. He
didn’t seem threatening in the least. They might have been
talking about sports.
“And you spotted me because of the blood and the ether
smell?”
“Initially. But the give-away was the look in your eyes.”
“And what sort of look do my eyes have, Donaldson?”
“This one.” Donaldson turned and looked at Taylor. “The
eyes of a predator. No pity. No remorse. No humanity.”
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Taylor stared hard, then grinned. “I don’t see anything
but regular old eyes.”
Donaldson held the intense gaze a moment longer, then
chuckled. “Okay. You caught me. The eyes don’t tell anything.
But I caught you casing the place before you walked in.
Looking for cops, for trouble, for exits. A man that careful
should have noticed some spots of blood on his shirt.”
“Maybe I cut myself shaving.”
“And the ether smell?”
“Maybe the rig was giving me some trouble, so I cleaned
out the carburetor.”
“No grease or oil under your nails. Just dried blood.”
Taylor leaned in close, speaking just above a whisper.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t kill you,
Donaldson.”
“Other than the fact I have your knife? Because you
should consider this a golden opportunity, my friend. You
and I, we’re solitary creatures. We don’t ever talk about our
secret lives. We never share stories of our exploits with
anyone. I’ve been doing this for over thirty years, and I’ve
only met one other person like us. I’ve run across a few
wannabes. More than a few crazies. But never another hunter.
Like we are. Don’t you think this is a unique chance?”
The meatloaf came, steaming hot. But Taylor wasn’t
hungry anymore. He was intrigued. If Donaldson was what
he claimed to be, the fat man was one hundred percent
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correct. Taylor had never talked about his lifestyle with
anyone, other than his victims. And then, it was only to
terrify them even more.
Sometimes, Taylor had fantasies of getting caught. Not
because he harbored any guilt, and not because he wanted
to be locked up. But because it would be nice, just once, to
be open and honest about his habits with the whole world.
To let a fellow human being know how clever he’d been all
these years. Maybe have some shrink interview him and write
a bestselling book.
How interesting it would be to talk shop with someone as
exceptional as he was.
“So you want to swap stories? Trade tactics? Is that it,
Donaldson?”
“I can think of duller ways to kill some time at a truck
stop.”
Taylor cut the meatloaf with his fork, shoved some into
his mouth. It was good.
“Fine. You go first. You said you don’t like ether. So how
do you make your—” Taylor reached for the right words
“— guests compliant.”
“Blunt force trauma.”
“Using what?”
“Trade secret.”
“And what if you’re too… aggressive… with your use of
blunt force?”
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“An unfortunate side-effect. Just happened to me, in fact.
I recently picked up a tasty little morsel, but her lights went
out before I could have any fun with her.”
“Picked up? Hitcher?”
Donaldson sipped more coffee and grinned. “Didn’t you
know about the dangers of hitchhiking, son? Lots of psychos
out there.”
Taylor shoved more meatloaf into his mouth, and
followed it up with some mashed potatoes. “Hitchers might
be missed.”
“So could truck stop snatch.”
Taylor paused in mid-bite.
“Your fly is open. And I saw how you were measuring
the resident pimp.” Donaldson raised an eyebrow. “Have you
relieved him of one of his steady sources of income?”
Now it was Taylor’s turn to grin. “Not yet. She’ll be dessert
when I’m done with this meatloaf.”
“And once you’re finished with her?”
Taylor zipped up his fly. “I like rivers. Water takes care of
any trace evidence, and it’s tough for the law to pinpoint the
location where they were dumped in. You?”
“Gas and a match. First a nice spritz with bleach. Bleach
destroys DNA, you know.”
“I do. Got a few bottles in the truck.”
Taylor still couldn’t assess what sort of threat Donaldson
posed. But he had to admit, this was fun.
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“Who was your first?” Donaldson asked.
“Dad. Fucker had it coming.”
“How’d you do it?”
Taylor ate more potatoes. “Ran him over. He fucked up
one of my shocks, too. Bones caught up under the suspension,
did a real number on a tie rod end.”
The older man chuckled. “That’s not something you can
take to your local mechanic.”
“Hell, no. Fixed it myself. Took three car washes and a
rainstorm before that car stopped dripping blood. How about
you?”
Donaldson tipped his coffee cup. “Dad.”
“No shit?”
“I guess exceptional people like us think alike.”
Exceptional. Taylor liked that term.
“So how did dear old Dad meet his unfortunate end?”
“Baseball bat.”
“Never tried it. Fun?”
“Yeah. But too hard to clean. Even the aluminum models.
Not even bleach can get those stains out. And not east to
ditch in an emergency.”
Taylor finished up the last bite of meatloaf. It was good.
A loose grind, so you could taste all the little parts that went
into it. Taylor loved texture. Mouth-feel was even better than
taste.
“Had many emergencies?” he asked Donaldson.
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“A few close calls. Once I was even pulled in for a line up.
But no arrests. You?”
Taylor grinned. “I’m a law-abiding citizen. Worst thing
on my record is a speeding ticket.”
Donaldson slurped more coffee. “Never got a speeding
ticket. Was pulled over for a broken taillight once. Had a guest
in the trunk, and the little bitch kicked it out.”
“She was in there when the cop stopped you?”
“Indeed. And let me tell you, that will get your heart
pumping.”
Taylor had no doubt. “What’d you do?”
“I turned around, shot her three times through the back
seat, hoping it didn’t go through the trunk or that the cop
saw me. Then I cranked open the windows to get the
gunpowder smell out, pulled onto the shoulder, and hoped
he didn’t notice the bullet holes in my upholstery. He didn’t.
Let me off with a warning.”
“Would you have killed the pig or let him take you in?”
“I would have killed him,” Donaldson said. “I don’t like
pigs.”
“You and me both, brother.”
“So, here’s the ten-thousand dollar question,” Donaldson
asked. “How many are you up to?”
Taylor wiped some gravy off his mouth with a paper
napkin. “So that’s where we stand? Whipping out our dicks
and seeing whose is bigger?”
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“I’ve been at this a very long time.” Donaldson belched
again. “Probably since before you were born. I’ve a lot read
about others like us; I love those true crime audiobooks. They
help pass the time on long trips. I collect regular books, too.
Movies. Newspaper articles. If you’ve done the same research
I have, then you know none of our American peers can prove
more than forty-eight. That’s the key. Prove. Some boast high
numbers, but there isn’t proof to back it up.”
“So are you asking me how many I’ve done, or how many
I can prove?”
“Both.”
Taylor shrugged. “I lost count after forty-eight. Once
I had one in every state, it became less about quantity and
more about quality.”
“You’re lying,” Donaldson said. “You’re too young for
that many.”
“One in every state in the lower forty-eight, old man.”
“Can you prove it?”
“I kept driver’s licenses, those that had them. Probably
don’t have more than twenty, though. Not many whores carry
ID.”
“No pictures? Trophies? Souvenirs?”
Taylor wasn’t going to share something that personal
with a stranger. He pretended to sneer. “Taking a trophy is
like asking to get caught. I don’t plan on getting caught.”
“True. But it is nice to relive the moment. Traveling
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is lonely, and memories unfortunately fade. If it wasn’t so
dangerous, I’d love to videotape a few.”
That would be nice, Taylor thought, finishing the last bit of
meatloaf. But my trophy box will have to suffice.
“So how many are you up to, Grandpa?”
“A hundred twenty-seven.”
Taylor snorted. “Bullshit.”
“I agree with you about the danger of keeping souvenirs,
but I have Polaroids from a lot of my early ones.”
“Dangerous to carry those around with you.”
“I’ve got them well hidden.” Donaldson stared at him, his
eyes twinkling. “Would you be interested in seeing them?”
“What do you mean? One of those I’ll show you mine if you
show me yours deals? ”
“No. Well, not exactly. I’m not interested in seeing your
driver’s license collection. But I would be interested in paying
a little visit to your current guest.”
Taylor frowned. “I’m not big on sharing. Or sloppy
seconds.”
Donaldson slowly spread out his hands. “I understand.
It’s just that… you know how it is, when you get all worked
up, and then they quit on you.”
Taylor nodded. Having a victim die too soon felt like
having something precious stolen from him.
“You don’t seem like the shy type,” Donaldson continued.
“I thought, perhaps, you wouldn’t mind doing your thing
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when someone else was there to watch.”
Taylor smiled. “Aren’t you the dirty old man.”
Donaldson smiled back. “A dirty old man who doesn’t
have the same distaste of sloppy seconds as you apparently
have. I see no problem in going second. As long as there’s
something left for me to enjoy myself with.”
“I leave all the major parts intact.”
“Then perhaps we can come to some sort of
arrangement.”
“Perhaps we can.”
Donaldson’s smile suddenly slipped off his face. He’d
noticed the same thing Taylor had.
A cop had walked into the restaurant.
Woman, forties, well built, a gold star clipped to her hip.
But even without the badge, she had that swagger, had that
look, that Taylor had spent a lifetime learning to spot.
“Here comes trouble,” Donaldson said.
And, as luck would have it, trouble sat down right next
to them.
4
After filling my gas tank and emptying my bladder, I went
in search of food.
The diner was surprisingly full this late at night. Truckers
mostly. And though I hadn’t worked Vice in well over a decade,
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I was pretty sure the only women in the place were earning
their living illegally.
Not that I judged, or even cared. One of the reasons
I switched from Vice to Homicide was because I had no
problems with what consenting adults did to themselves or
each other. I’d done a few drugs in my day, and as a woman
I felt I should be able to do whatever I wanted with my
body. So the scene in the diner was nothing more to me
than local color. I just wanted some coffee and a hot meal,
which I believed would wake me up enough to get
me through the rest of my road trip and into the very
patient arms of my fiancée.
I expected at least one or two catcalls or wolf whistles
when I entered, but didn’t hear any. Sort of disappointing.
I was wearing what I wore to court, a brown Ann Klein
pantsuit, clingy in all the right places, and a pair of three
inch Kate Spade strappy sandals. The shoes were perhaps a
bit frivolous, but the jury couldn’t see my feet when I took
the stand. I left for Wisconsin directly from court, and
wore the shoes because Latham loved them. I had even
painted my toenails to celebrate our vacation.
Maybe the current diners were too preoccupied with
the hired help to know another woman had entered the
place. Or maybe it was me. Latham said I gave off a “cop
vibe” that people could sense, but he assured me I was still
sexy. Still, a Wisconsin truck stop at two in the morning
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filled with lonely, single men, and I didn’t even get a lecherous
glance. Maybe I needed to work-out more.
Then I realized I still had my badge clipped to my belt.
Duh.
I quickly scoped out the joint, finding the emergency exit,
counting the number of patrons and employees, identifying
potential trouble. An absurdly dressed man in expensive
boots and a diamond studded John Deere cap stared hard at
me. He gave me a look that said he hated cops, and I gave him
a look that said I hated his kind even more. While I tolerated
prostitutes, I loathed pimps. Someone taking the money you
earned just because they were bigger than you wasn’t fair.
But I didn’t come here to start trouble. I just wanted some
food and caffeine.
I walked the room slowly, feeling the cold stares, and
found counter space next to a portly man. I eased myself onto
the stool.
“Coffee, officer?”
I nodded at the waitress. She overturned my mug and
filled it up. I glanced at the menu, wondering if they had
cheese curds—those little fried nuggets of cheddar exclusive
to Wisconsin.
“The meatloaf is good.”
I glanced at the man on my left. Big and tall, maybe fifteen
years older than I was. He had a kind-looking face, but his
smile appeared forced.
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“Thanks,” I replied.
I sipped some coffee. Nice and strong. If I got two cups
and a burger in me, I’d be good to go. The waitress returned, I
ordered a cheeseburger with bacon, and a side of cheese curds.
“Never seen you here before.”
The voice, reeking of alpha male, came from behind me.
I could guess who it belonged to.
“Passing through,” I said, not bothering to turn around.
“Well, maybe you can hurry it along, little lady. Your kind
isn’t good for business.”
I carefully set down my mug of coffee, then slowly
swiveled around on my stool.
The pimp was sticking his chest out like he was being
fitted for a bra, a few stray curly hairs peeking through his
collar. One of his women, strung out on something, clung
unenthusiastically to his side. Her concealer didn’t quite
cover up her black eye.
“I’m off duty, and just stopped in for coffee and some
cheese curds, which I can’t get in Illinois. I suggest you
mind your own business. This isn’t my jurisdiction, but I’m
guessing the local authorities wouldn’t mind if I fed you
some of your teeth.”
The older fat guy next to me snorted. The pimp wasn’t so
amused.
“The local authorities,” he said it in a falsetto, obviously
trying to mimic me, “and I have an arrangement. That
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arrangement means no cops.” He gave me a rough shove
in the shoulder. “And I’m sure they wouldn’t mind if I fed
you—”
I drove the salt shaker into his upper jaw with my palm,
breaking both the glass and the teeth I’d promised. Besides
being hard and having weight, the shards and the salt did
a number on the pimp’s gums. Must have hurt like crazy.
He dropped to his knees, clutching his face and howling,
and three of his women dragged him out of there. I did a
slow pan across the room, looking for other challengers,
seeing none. Then I brushed my hand on my pants, wiping
off the excess salt, and went back to my coffee, trying to
control the adrenalin shakes. I hated violence of any kind,
but once he touched me, I didn’t have any other recourse.
I didn’t want to play footsie with the local cops he was
paying off, trying to get an assault charge to stick. Or worse,
wind up in the hospital because some asshole pimp thought
he could treat me the same way he treated the women
who worked for him.
Better to nip it in the bud and drop him fast. Though
I didn’t have to feel good about it.
I took a deep, steadying breath, and managed to sip
some coffee without spilling it all over myself, all the while
keeping one eye on the entrance. I’d hurt the pimp bad
enough to require an emergency room visit, but if he were
tougher and dumber than I’d guessed, he might return with
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a weapon. I set my purse on the counter, my .38 within easy
reach, just in case.
“You’re Lieutenant Jack Daniels, aren’t you?”
I glanced at the fat man again. Even though I’d been on
the news many times, I didn’t get recognized very often in
Chicago, and it never happened away from home.
“And you are?” My voice came out higher than I would
have liked.
“Just a fan. You got that serial killer Charles Kork, the one
they called the Gingerbread Man. How many women did he
kill?”
“Too many.” I turned back to my coffee.
“I saw the TV movie. The one that became the series. You’re
much better looking than the actress who played you.”
I was in no mood to be idolized. Plus, there was something creepy about this guy.
“Look, buddy, I don’t want to be rude, but I’m really not
up for conversation right now.”
The fat man didn’t take the hint. “And you got Barry
Fuller. He killed over a dozen, didn’t he? He was both a serial
killer and a mass murderer, due to all those Feds he took out
at that rest stop.”
I sighed. The waitress came by with my cheese curds. She
set down the basket and winked at me. “These are on me.”
“Thanks. I could use some salt.”
I tried a curd. Too hot, so I spit it back out into my palm
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and played hot potato until it cooled off. My biggest fan
refused to give up.
“There were others in the Kork family as well, weren’t
there? A whole group of psychos. I heard they killed over
forty people, total.”
I really didn’t want to think about the Kork family, and
I really didn’t want to have a late-night gabfest with a cop
groupie.
But, on the plus side, knocking out that pimp’s teeth
really woke me up.
When the waitress brought me the salt, I asked for my
meal to go. The fat guy apparently didn’t like that, because he
gave me his back and had an intense whisper exchange with
his buddy; a younger, attractive man in a flannel shirt. The
young guy nodded, got up, and left.
“Just one last question, Lieutenant, and then I promise
I’ll leave you alone.”
I sighed again, glancing at him. “Go ahead.”
“Did you ever try to take on two serial killers at once?”
I popped a curd in my mouth. “Can’t say that I have.”
He smiled, lopsided. “Too bad. That would have been
cool.”
The fat guy threw down some money, then followed his
buddy out.
No longer pestered, I decided to eat there, and settled in
to eat my cheese curds.
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5
Taylor hadn’t ever killed a cop. He came close once, a
few years ago, when a state trooper pulled him over, and
asked him to step out of his truck. Taylor had been ready to
pull his knife and gut the pig, but the cop only wanted him
to do a field sobriety test. Taylor wouldn’t ever risk driving
drunk, and he easily passed, getting let off with a warning
and pulling away with a dead hooker in his sleeping
compartment.
But he was itching to get at this cop. Taylor liked strong
women. He liked when they fought him, refusing to give up.
They were so much fun to break. Especially when they had
such adorable feet.
As Donaldson suggested, Taylor had left the diner and
gone back to his rig to grab the ether. Candi with an i was
still out cold, but she held far less fascination for Taylor than
this new prospect.
I’m going to have a little nip of Jack Daniels, he thought,
smiling wildly. Maybe more than one. And maybe not so little.
For helping out, he’d let Donaldson have Candi. While
Taylor wasn’t into the whole voyeur scene, it might be
interesting to watch another pro do his thing. Hopefully, it
didn’t involve any sort of sex, because he had zero desire to
see Donaldson’s flabby, naked ass.
Taylor grabbed the plastic bag—the ether-soaked paper
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towels still moist—and met Donaldson in the parking lot.
“The best spot is here, in the shadow of this truck,”
Donaldson said.
Taylor didn’t like him calling the shots, but he heard the
man out.
“She thinks I’m a fan,” Donaldson continued, “so I’m
going to call her over here, ask for an autograph. Then you
come up behind her with the ether.”
“She’s armed. Her purse was too heavy to only be carrying
a wallet and make-up.”
“I saw that, too. I’ll grab her wrists, you get her around
the neck. We can pull her to the ground here, out of sight.
How close is your truck?”
“The red Peterbilt, a few spaces back.”
“When she’s out, we throw her arms around our
shoulders, walk her over there like she’s drunk.”
Taylor shook his head. “Only when we’re sure no one is
watching. I don’t want a witness getting my plate number.”
“Fine. We can walk her around until we’re sure we’re clear.”
Taylor stared at Donaldson for a moment, then said,
“She’s mine.”
Donaldson didn’t respond.
“I’ll give you the whore for helping me, Donaldson. But
the cop is mine.”
Donaldson eventually nodded. “Fair enough. Is the whore
cute?”
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“Too old, fat thighs, saggy gut from popping out kids.”
Donaldson raised his eyebrow. “She’s got kids?”
Taylor laughed. “You into kiddies, Donaldson?”
“Any port in the storm. But you can have fun with kids
in other ways. Did the whore have a cell phone?”
“Yeah.”
“Give it here.”
Interested in where Donaldson was going with this,
Taylor dug the phone out of his pocket and handed it over.
Donaldson scrolled through the address book.
“Calling home,” Donaldson told him.
“Can’t calls be traced?”
“They can be traced to this cell phone, but not to
our current location. To do that requires some highly
sophisticated equipment—which I highly doubt the local
constabulary possesses.”
“Put it on speaker.”
Donaldson hit a button, and Taylor heard ringing.
“Hello?” A child’s voice, preteen.
“This is Detective Donaldson. I’m sorry to inform you
that your mommy is dead.”
“What?”
“Mommy is dead, kid. She was horribly murdered.”
“Mommy’s dead?” The child began to cry.
“It’s an occupational hazard. Your mom was a whore,
you know. She had sex with strange men for money. One of
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those men killed her.”
“Mommy’s dead!”
Donaldson hit the disconnect button.
Taylor shook his head, smiling. “Man, that is low.”
“I’ll call him back later, see how he’s doing. This phone has
a camera, too. Maybe I’ll send him some pictures of Mommy
when I’m done with her.”
“What about the babysitter sending the cops here?”
“You think the babysitter knows what Mom’s job is? And
even if she calls the cops, Murray’s pays them to stay away.
Besides, we’ll be in your truck by then.”
Taylor thought it was reckless. But still, calling up a kid
and saying his mother was dead was pretty good. Taylor
considered all of the cell phones he’d thrown away, and
cursed himself for the fun he’d missed.
Donaldson dug into his pocket and produced a pair of small
binoculars. He held them to his face and looked at the diner.
“The cop is still working on her burger. She is a sweet
piece of pie, isn’t she? Jack fucking Daniels. What a lucky day
indeed. It’s a small world, my friend.”
“Not when you’re driving from L.A. to Boston.”
“Funny you should mention that. One of the reasons
I’m a courier is to have a wide area to hunt in. I’m assuming
you got into trucking for the same reason.”
“The wider the better. You shouldn’t shit where you eat.”
“I agree. I don’t think I’m even on the Fed’s radar. And
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cops don’t talk to each other from state to state. A man
could keep on doing this for a very long time, if he plays it
smart.”
“So, what’s your thing?” Taylor asked.
Donaldson lowered the binocs. “My thing?”
“What you do to them.”
Donaldson did the eyebrow raise again, which was
starting to get annoying. “Have we reached that point in our
relationship where we can share our methods? You haven’t
even told me your name.”
“It’s Taylor. And I want to know, before I invite you into
my truck, that you aren’t into some sick shit.”
“Define sick. ”
“Guts are okay, but don’t puncture the intestines. That
smell takes forever to go away.”
“I’m not into internal organs.”
“How about rape?”
Donaldson smiled. “I am into rape.”
“I don’t want to see it. No offense, but naked guys are not
a turn-on for me.”
“That’s fair enough. We can take turns, give each other
some privacy. My thing, as you put it, is to cut off their faces.
One little piece at a time. A nostril. An ear. An eye. A lip. And
then I feed their faces to them, bit by bit.
Taylor could see the appeal in that.
“How about you, Taylor?”
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“Biting. Toes and fingers, to start. Then all over.”
“How long have you kept one alive for?”
“Maybe two days.”
Donaldson nodded. “See, that’s nice. I do all my work
outdoors, different locations, so I never have time to make
it last, savor it. You’ve got a little murder-mobile, you can
take your time.”
“That’s the reason I’m a trucker, not a courier.”
Donaldson got a wistful look. “I’m thinking of renting
a shack out in the woods. Out in the middle of nowhere.
Then I could bring someone there, really drag it out. You
remember that old magic trick? The girl in the box, and the
magician sticks swords in it?”
Taylor nodded. “Yeah.”
“I’d love to build one of those. Except there’s no trick.
Wouldn’t that be fun? Sticking the swords in one at a time?”
Taylor decided it would.
Donaldson peered through the binocs again. “Here she
comes. Let’s get in position.”
Taylor nodded. He felt the excitement building up again,
but a different kind of excitement. This time, he was sharing
the experience with another person. It was oddly fulfilling, in
a way his dozens of other murders hadn’t been.
Maybe tag-team was the way to go.
He clenched the ether-soaked paper towels, crouched
behind a bumper, and waited for the fun to start.
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6
The burger was good. The coffee was good. The cheese
curds were heavenly. I had no idea why they weren’t served
in Chicago.
I paid, left a decent tip, then tried calling Latham to tell
him I felt good enough to keep driving.
Still no signal. I needed to switch carriers, or get a new
phone. It especially bugged me because I saw other people in
the diner talking on their cell phones. If that Can you hear me
now? guy walked into the restaurant, I would have bounced
my cell off his head.
The parking lot had decent lighting, but all of the big
trucks cast shadows, and I knew more than most the dangers
of walking in shadows. I pulled my purse on over my head
and tucked it under my arm, then headed for my car while
staying in the light. The last thing I needed was the pimp to
make a play for me. Or that—
“Lieutenant Daniels!”
—fat guy from the diner, who approached me at a quick
pace, coming out from behind one of the rigs. I stopped,
my hand slipping inside my purse and seeking my revolver.
Something about this man rubbed me the wrong way, and
at over two hundred and fifty pounds he was too big to play
around with.
He slowed down when I reached into my handbag—a
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bad sign. People with good intentions don’t expect you to
have a gun. I felt my heart rate kick up and my legs tense.
“Don’t come any closer,” I commanded, using my cop
voice.
He stopped about ten feet in front of me. His hands were
empty. “I wanted to ask you for your autograph.”
My fingers wrapped around the butt of my .38.
Confrontation, even with over twenty years of experience,
was always a scary thing. Ninety-nine percent of the time,
de-escalation was the key to avoiding violence. Take control
of the situation, be polite but firm, apologize if needed.
It wouldn’t have worked on the pimp, who was showing
off for the crowd, but it might work here.
“I’m sorry, I don’t give autographs. I’m not a celebrity.”
“It would mean a lot to me.” He held up his palms and
took another step forward.
I was taught that you never pull out your weapon unless
you intend to use it.
I pulled out my weapon.
“I told you not to come any closer.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Another step. He was six feet
away from me.
I pointed my gun at his chest. “Does it look like I’m
kidding?”
He put on a crooked grin. “Is this how you treat your fans,
Lieutenant? I don’t mean any harm. You want to shoot an
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innocent civilian?”
“I don’t want to. But I will, if I feel threatened. And right
now I feel threatened. Where’s your buddy?”
“My buddy?”
He was lying, I could see it on his face, and I swirled
around, sensing something behind me. I caught a flash of
movement, someone ducking between two parked cars.
I spun again, storming up to the fat guy, grabbing two of
his outstretched fingers and twisting. My action was fast,
forceful, and I gained enough leverage to bend his arm
to the side and drive him onto his knees, my gun trained
on his head.
“Get on the pavement, face down!”
He pitched forward, and I had to let him go or fall with
him. Rather than face-first, he dropped onto his side and
swung his leg at me.
I should have fired, but a small part of me knew I could be
killing a guy whose only crime was wanting my autograph,
and I had enough of an ego to think I could still handle the
situation. I side-stepped his leg and rammed my heel into
his kidney, hard enough to show him this wasn’t a joke.
That’s when his partner dove at me.
He hit me sideways, knocking me off my feet in a flying
tackle that drove me to the asphalt, shoulder-first. His weight
squeezed the air out of me, his hand pawing at my face, a
cold, wet hand covering my mouth and nose, flooding
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my airway with harsh chemicals. I held my breath, bringing
my weapon up, squeezing the trigger—
The trigger wouldn’t squeeze. The gun didn’t fire.
Now the paper towels were in my eyes, the sting a
hundred times worse than chlorine, making me squeeze my
eyelids shut in pain. I felt my gun being wrestled away, and
the small part of my brain that wasn’t panicking knew the
perp had grabbed my .38 by the hammer, his grip preventing
me from shooting.
I still refused to breathe, knowing that whatever was
on my face would knock me out, knowing when that
happened I was dead. That made me panic even more,
thrashing and pushing against my unseen assailant. I tried
to kick my feet, get them under me to gain some leverage,
but then they were weighed down the same as my upper
body—the fat guy had joined the party.
So I went for the fake-out, letting my body go limp.
The seconds ticked by, each one a slice of eternity since
I was oxygen-deprived. I could hold my breath for over a
minute under ideal conditions. But terrified and with two
psychos on top of me, I wouldn’t be able to last a fraction
of that…
One second at a time, Jack. Just don’t breathe.
I felt that vertigo sensation in my head, my mind seeming
to stretch out and twist around.
“Is anyone coming?”
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“It’s clear.”
Stay still. Don’t breathe.
My eyes were stinging like crazy, and I wanted to put my
hands to my face, rub the pain away.
Don’t. Move. Don’t. Breathe.
My chest began to spasm, my diaphragm convulsing
and begging for air. In moments it wouldn’t be under my
control anymore. I would breathe in those toxic fumes
whether I wanted to or not.
Hold it in don’t breathe don’t breathe DON’T BREATHE—
“Too much and you’ll kill her.” The fat guy talking.
The hand over my face eased up, the noxious rag being
pulled away. I wanted to gasp, to suck in air like a marathon
runner, but I managed to take a slow, silent breath through
my nose.
The fumes still clinging to my face smelled like gasoline,
and by sheer will I didn’t sneeze or cough. I kept my breathing
slow, like I was sleeping, even though my heart pounded
so loud and fast I could hear it.
“She’s out. Grab an arm.”
I felt myself lifted into an upright position, my arms over
their shoulders. Then I was dragged, my feet scraping against
the asphalt, which tore at my bare toes like sandpaper. I bit
my inner cheek. If I made a peep, they’d use the rag again.
“Her feet! Watch her feet! I don’t want them messed up!”
“Shh! Lift higher.”
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Then I was completely off the ground. I tried to peek, to
see where we were, but everything was blurry and opening
my eyes made the pain worse. I could feel the weight of
my purse still hanging at my side, and I had a dull throb in
my shoulder where I’d hit the pavement, but it didn’t seem
dislocated or broken.
“It’s this one.”
My body was shifted, and I heard the jingle of keys and
a vehicle door opening.
“I’ll get in first, pull her up.”
“Check around for witnesses.”
“We’re alone out here, brother.”
Another shift, and then strong hands under my armpits,
pulling me up, hands on my ankle, my right shoe coming off,
and then…
Something warm and wet on my big toe.
Jesus… he’s got my toe in his mouth.
His tongue circled it, once, twice, and then I felt the
suction. Heard the slurping. Heard him moan.
This freak is sucking my toe.
Wet and sloppy, like a popsicle. I wanted to flinch. I
wanted to scream.
Stay still, Jack. Don’t kick him. Don’t move.
His teeth locked on, scraping along the top and bottom,
not enough to break the skin but enough to hurt, the pressure
increasing…
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I felt a surge of revulsion unlike any I’ve ever experienced,
and my muscles involuntarily locked and my stomach
churned, threatening to upload the burger and curds.
I was half-hanging out of a truck, and I couldn’t see, but
I was going to take my chances and kick this bastard in
the face, hopefully burying my shoe heel into his eye socket.
It was two on one, and they had my gun, but I wasn’t going
to let him chew my toe off without a fight.
“Taylor, let’s hold off until we get her inside.”
My toe was abruptly released, and then I was violently
shoved upward onto the fat guy’s lap. I assumed he was
sitting in the driver’s seat of a semi. I felt his hot breath on
my ear, and then the clammy touch of his lips. One hand
pawed at my chest, tugging at my bra through my shirt.
The other slid up my leg.
“Such a pretty lady,” he said, nuzzling my neck. “I’m
going to love feeding you your face.”
Breathe slowly, Jack. Don’t tense up and let him know you’re
awake.
When his lips touched my cheek it was like a taser shock,
and my bile began to rise again.
“Take her in the back,” Taylor said. “We’ll bring her up to
the sleeper.”
The fat man gave my knee a final squeeze, then grunted
as he hefted me up in his arms and shifted his bulk. Once
again I was lifted, tugged, and pushed. I chanced a peek,
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everything dark and blurry, wanting so badly to rub my eyes,
and all I could make out was a ladder of some sort.
“There’s a handle on the trap door. Turn it.”
“Where?”
“Right above your head.”
I was shoved through an opening in the ceiling of the
cab, then dropped unceremoniously onto a mat. It was hot.
I smelled bleach, cheap perfume, and the copper-pennies
stench of fresh blood. Also, underneath everything, was an
odor that scared me to my core, an odor I recognized from
hundreds of cases from more than twenty years or cases.
A cross between meat gone bad and excrement that all the
bleach on the planet couldn’t ever fully erase.
The stink of dead bodies.
People have died in this room.
“Warm up here.”
“When we get started, I’ll put the air conditioning on.
I’ve also got recessed stereo speakers, for mood music, and
an AC outlet up by the fire alarm, if you want to plug in any
power tools.”
“I like power tools.”
“Give yours a tap, see if she’s awake yet.”
I heard a slapping sound, skin on skin, and then a feminine
whine.
“She’s still groggy.”
“She’ll be up soon. I know she’s not much to look at, but
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that really doesn’t matter once you get started, does it?”
“Actually, Taylor, as grateful as I am to you for inviting
me into your home, I’ve been reading about Jack Daniels for
years. She’s every killer’s wet dream.”
There was a long pause.
“What are you saying?” Taylor said.
“I’m saying I want the cop.”
“We already agreed, she’s mine.”
“You can have her feet. I want her face.”
“Maybe I want the whole thing.”
Donaldson laughed. “You know, you remind me of my
younger brother. I miss that kid, so much that I sometimes
regret killing him. But I remember something my father
used to say when we were fighting over a toy. He said, If you
can’t share, then neither of you can have it. ”
Then I heard the unmistakable sound of my .38 being
cocked.
7
Standing on the ladder, with his upper half through the
trap door, Taylor stared at the gun in the kneeling fat man’s
hand. It was pointed at the cop’s head, but Donaldson’s eyes
were focuses on him.
Goddammit, why did I let him grab the gun?
Taylor felt himself go dead inside, like his body turned
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to ice. He chose his words carefully, keeping his voice even.
“You know what, Donaldson? Maybe you’re right. Sharing
seems like a fair thing to do, and it might even be fun. Besides,
it would be a shame to deprive such a famous lady of either
of our company. But I have to say that seeing you holding a
gun makes me a bit nervous. We don’t want to make enemies
of each other, do we?”
Donaldson smiled, shrugged, and then uncocked the
gun and shoved it into his front pocket. “I appreciate your
generosity, Taylor. Really, I do. And normally I wouldn’t be
so ungracious to a fellow traveler. But this woman just does
something to me. I haven’t been this excited in years.”
“I can see that.” Taylor was eye-level with Donaldson’s
crotch. “Or maybe that’s the gun.”
“So let’s have a meeting of the minds.”
“Fine.”
Taylor relaxed a notch now that the weapon was out of
play, but he had no doubt Donaldson would use it again.
His original fantasy of tag-team action had been replaced
by the unpleasant image of Donaldson tying him up and
feeding him his own face. When there are too many foxes
in the henhouse, the foxes kill each other. A shame, because
Taylor was starting to like the older man.
“Since you agree to sharing,” Donaldson said, “would you
be adverse to both of us going at her at the same time? You
take the bottom half, I take the top?”
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Taylor reached a hand behind his back and touched
the folding knife clipped to his belt—Donaldson had given
it back to him in the parking lot. Killing him right now
would probably be the best bet, but the guy was big, and
the knife blade was short. Unless he died quick, Donaldson
would fight back and be able to grab his gun.
No, the knife wasn’t the way to go.
But Taylor did have a sawed-off shotgun under his
passenger seat. All he needed to do was jump down, lock the
trap door, and grab it.
“Sharing would be okay.” Taylor tried to look thoughtful.
“But I want to look her in the eyes when I’m doing my thing.
Be tough to do if her eyes were gone.”
“They wouldn’t be gone. They’d be in her mouth.”
Taylor shook his head. “That wouldn’t be good for me.”
“I could leave her eyes alone. Maybe just take off her
eyelids so she’d be forced to look. It could work. We could do
a trial run on the whore, here.”
Donaldson kicked Candi in her side. She moaned.
Taylor figured there were three steps beneath him.
He would need to grab the door and tug it closed before
Donaldson pulled his gun. He didn’t know if the cop’s
bullet would go through the half inch steel the sleeper was
made out of, but his shotgun slugs certainly would. Lots of
damage, though, and it would make a lot of noise.
“I’m not exactly keen on a two on one. If you promise to
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leave her eyes alone, and that she’ll stay conscious and not die
on you, I could let you go first.”
Donaldson’s face remained blank for a moment, then he
raised his eyebrow.
“I appreciate your offer. I sincerely do. But I can’t help but
think that while I’m doing my thing, you might make some
sort of effort to do me harm. Or perhaps lock me in here.”
Taylor began to wish he never parked at this truck stop.
“We seem to be at an impasse.”
“No,” Donaldson shook his head. “I believe we can work
this out. I have no desire to harm you, Taylor. And I am
grateful for this opportunity. I shouldn’t have flashed the
gun. That was a mistake. I’ve been playing this game solo
for so long, I wasn’t thinking clearly. I know you have a knife
on you, and probably some other weapons in the truck, and
I fear I just began a war of escalation.”
“I don’t want to kill you either.” It was the truth. Not
that he had any real affection for Donaldson, but trying to
muscle the dead fat man out of his sleeper and drag him to
a river didn’t seem like a fun time.
“We don’t know each other well yet. But we’re kindred
spirits. Maybe we could even become friends.”
“It’s possible.”
“How long will the cop be out for?” Donaldson asked.
“A few minutes, probably more. Pinch her, see if she
flinches. When they’re really under, they don’t flinch.”
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Donaldson leaned over Jack Daniels and squeezed her
breast. She didn’t move.
“She’s out. You have some rope?”
“More bungee cords in the trunk.”
Neither man moved to get them. Eventually, Donaldson
raised an eyebrow. “Are you a gambling man, Taylor?”
“I’ve been known to play the odds.”
“Let’s flip a coin. Winner gets first crack at the cop.”
Taylor considered it. “I’d be up for that, if it were a fair
toss.”
“We could go in the diner, have our waitress do the
flipping. I’ll even let you call it. Would be good to get out
in the fresh air, clear our heads.”
“Let’s say I agree. You still have me at a disadvantage.”
Donaldson nodded. “The gun. Firing it wouldn’t be smart
for either of us. Cops might already be on their way, after
what Lieutenant Daniels did to that pimp.”
“I’ve got a solution.”
“I’m listening.”
“An empty gun isn’t a threat. Hand me the bullets. But
do it slowly, or else I might get nervous and lock you up here
for a few days with no air conditioning or water.”
“Fair enough.”
Donaldson gently reached back into his pants and
removed the gun. He held it upside-down by the trigger
guard, and swung out the cylinder. Then he dumped the
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rounds onto his palm and handed them to Taylor.
Taylor grinned.
Maybe this tag-team thing will work out after all.
“Are we good?” Donaldson asked.
“We’re good. Let’s hogtie this pig.”
Taylor climbed into the sleeper, and after an uneasy
moment of sizing each other up, the two of them began to
bind the cop. Donaldson quickly got the hang of it, and they
soon had Jack suitably trussed.
“You sure she’s safe here?” Donaldson asked, admiring
their handiwork.
“Never had an escape. Bungee cords are tighter than rope.
The enclosure is steel, the lock on the door is solid. She’s not
going anywhere.”
Taylor grabbed the cop’s purse, wound it over his
shoulder, and crawled down out of the sleeper after
Donaldson. He made sure the trap door was locked, took
what he wanted from the purse, and together they walked
back to the diner.
8
The moment they were gone I rolled onto my belly and
inch-wormed up to my knees. My hands were behind my
back, the bungee cords so tight my fingers were tingling.
I strained against the elastic, trying to twist my wrists apart,
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but couldn’t free myself.
More cords wound around my chest and upper arms,
and encircled my knees and ankles. I flopped onto my side,
wincing at the pain. My shoulder still hurt, and there was a
throb in my left breast where Donaldson had pinched me. If
he’d done it for a few seconds longer, I would have screamed.
Pretending to be unconscious seemed like a better choice
than really being unconscious, but when they tied me up
I realized that maybe fighting back and yelling for help
when I had the chance might have been the better move.
Panic threatened to overwhelm me, and I began to
hyperventilate. Fear and I were old adversaries. There was
no way to squelch it, but if I kept my focus I could work
through the fear. The goal was to not think about any
potential outcome to this situation other than escape.
Still unable to open my eyes because of the stinging,
I rolled to my left, hoping to bump into anything that
would help me free myself. I hit something soft. I brushed
my cheek against it. Foam of some kind. I rolled right
instead, eventually coming up against something more
suitable. Something hard, stuck into the floor. After
maneuvering around onto my knees, I rubbed my hands
against the object.
It felt like a board, only two feet tall, and thin. Midway
down the side was some sort of protrusion. Though my
hands were quickly getting numb, I could tell by the sound
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when I jiggled it that it was a padlock.
I got my wrists under the lock, trying to wedge it in
between my arms and the bungee cords. Then I took a deep
breath and violently tugged my arms forward.
The elastic caught, stretched.
I pulled harder, feeling like my arms were pulling out
of their sockets.
Then, abruptly, my hands were free, and I pitched forward onto my face, bumping my forehead against the
padded floor.
I spent a few seconds wiggling my fingers, wincing as
the blood came back, and made quick work of the other
cords around my arms. Then I spit in my hands and rubbed
them against my eyes. The stinging eased up enough for
me to have a blurry look around the enclosure. There was
moderate lighting, from an overhead fixture. I saw beige
mats. A black slanted ceiling covered with sound baffles.
A trunk. And a bound woman, her feet in some sort of
wooden stock, my wrist bungee cord wound around a
padlock on the side.
I unwound my legs, tugged off my remaining shoe, and
crawled over to her, unhooking her bindings. “Can you hear
me?”
The woman moaned softly, and her eyelids fluttered.
“You need to wake up.” I gave her a shake. “We’re in
trouble.”
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“My… foot… hurts…”
“What’s your name?”
“My… foot…”
I cupped her chin in my hand, made her look at me.
“Listen to me. I’m a cop. We’re in a truck sleeper and some
men are trying to kill us. What’s your name?”
“Candi. I… I can’t move my feet. It hurts.”
I turned my attention to the stock. I crawled around to
the other side, wincing when I saw the blood. I took a closer
look because I had to assess the damage, then wished I could
erase the image from my mind.
“What’s wrong with my foot?”
“You’re missing your little toe.”
“My… toe? ”
I studied the stock. Heavy, solid, the padlock and latch
unbreakable. So I looked at the hinge on the other side. Six
screws held it in place.
I scooted away from the stock, on my butt, and reared
back my right heel.
“Stay still, Candi. I’m going to try to break the hinge.”
I shot my leg out like a piston, striking the top of the stock
once, twice, three times.
The stock stayed solid, the screws tight. And if I tried
kicking any harder I’d break my heel.
“Don’t you have a gun?”
I ignored her, turning my attention to the trunk in the
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corner of the enclosure. I crawled over to see if there was
anything inside I could use.
“Don’t leave me!”
“I won’t leave you. I promise.”
I found paper towels, paper masks, starter fluid, plastic
bags, and a large Tupperware container. The lid had brown
stains on it—dried blood—and I got an uneasy feeling looking
at it. Fighting squeamishness, I pulled the top off.
It was filled with rock salt. But I could make out something brown peeking through. I shook the box, and it revealed
a few of the brown things, small and wrinkled. They looked
like prunes.
Then I realized what they were, and came very close to
throwing up. I pulled away, covering my mouth. There had to
be dozens, maybe over a hundred, of them in there.
That sick bastard…
“Did you find anything?”
“Nothing helpful,” I said, closing the lid.
“What’s in that box you were holding?”
Taylor was smart. He didn’t leave any tools, weapons, or
keys lying around. I eyed the starter fluid.
“Candi, do you smoke?”
“Yeah.”
“Do you have matches on you? A lighter?”
“In my purse. He took it.”
Dammit. But starting a fire in the enclosed space pro127
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bably wasn’t a good idea anyway. However, the chest itself
had possibilities. It was made of wood, with metal reinforced
corners. I picked it up, figuring it weighed at least fifteen
pounds.
“What was in the box!”
I muscled the chest over to Candi and knelt next to her.
“Hold still,” I said. “If I miss I could break your leg.”
I reared back, clenched my teeth, and shoved the chest
into the top of the stock. There was a loud crack, but both
objects stayed intact.
I did it again.
And again.
And again.
And again.
My shoulder began to burn, and the corners of the chest
were coming apart, but the hinge on the stock was bending.
Two more times and the chest burst open, spilling its
contents onto the mat, the Tupperware container bouncing
next to Candi.
I hit the stock one last time. The chest broke into several
large pieces. I grabbed one of the slats used to make the chest,
and wedged it in the opening I’d made between the top and
bottom of the stock. I used it like a crowbar, levering at the
hinge.
It was slowly giving… giving…
Then the stock popped open like a shotgun blast.
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Candi sat up abruptly, grabbing her ankle to see her injury
for herself. Then the tears hit, fast and hard.
“Ah shit… that fucker.”
“We need to find a way out of here.”
“My toe…” she sobbed.
“Candi! Focus!”
Her eyes locked on mine.
“We need to start rolling up the mats,” I ordered, “find the
way out of here before they come back.”
She sniffled. “They? I only know one. Taylor.”
“He’s got a buddy now.” I made a face. “And they’re
armed.”
I watched Candi’s face do an emotion montage. Anger,
pain, despair, then raw fear.
“I have kids,” Candi whispered. “A boy and a girl.”
“Then we need to find the exit, fast. Start pulling up the
mats.”
“What time is it? My man, Julius, he’ll come looking for
me when I don’t report back.”
I thought about the pimp, running out of the diner with
his teeth in his hand.
“Julius, uh, probably won’t be coming to the rescue. Do
the mats. Now.”
She wiped her nose on her arm, and then reached for the
Tupperware container.
“Candi…”
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“I want to see.”
She popped off the lid and squinted at the objects in the
rock salt.
“What are these things?”
“We need to look for the exit, Candi.”
“Are those… aw, Jesus…”
“Don’t worry about that now.”
“Don’t worry? Do you know what these are?”
“Yes.”
“These are… nipples. ”
“I know, Candi. That’s why we need to get the hell out of
here.”
That seemed to spur her to action. I joined Candi in
pulling up mats, and we soon found the trap door. I pulled
on the recessed handle.
Locked.
I tugged as hard as I could, until the cords on my neck
bulged out and I saw stars.
It wouldn’t budge.
“We’re going to die up here.” Candi was hugging her
knees, rocking back and forth.
I blew out a breath. “No, we’re not.”
“He’s going to bite off our toes. Then our tits, to add to
his collection.”
I reached up overhead, tugging at the baffling stuck to
the ceiling. Under it was heavy aluminum. I did a 360, looking
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at all the walls.
There was no way out. We were trapped up here.
Then we both felt it. The truck cab jiggle.
Oh, shit. They’re back.
9
Fran the waitress was happy to flip a coin for the two
gentlemen who had tipped her so well.
“Tails,” Taylor called.
Fran caught the quarter, slapped it against her wrist.
“Tails it is. Congrats, handsome.”
Taylor gave her a polite nod, then turned to judge
Donaldson’s reaction. There wasn’t one. The fat man’s face
was blank. Taylor left the diner, his cohort in tow. It was
still hot and muggy outside, and the lot was still almost full,
but there weren’t any people around.
“Are we cool?” Taylor asked as they walked to his truck.
“Yeah. Fair is fair. You’ll let me watch?”
Taylor shrugged like it didn’t matter, but secretly he was
thrilled at the idea of an audience.
“Sure.”
“And you’ll let me do her face?”
“Her face is all yours.”
“You should try it once. The face. You peel enough of
the flesh away, you can see the skull underneath. I bet Jack
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Daniels has a beautiful skull.”
Taylor stopped and stared at him. “You’ve really got a
hard-on for this cop, don’t you?”
“I’d marry her if she’d have me. But I’ll settle for a bloody
blowjob after I knock her teeth out. Do you still have Jack’s
phone?”
Taylor had pocketed her phone and wallet. He tugged
the cell out.
“Does Officer Donaldson want to inform the next of
kin?” Taylor grinned as he handed it over.
“That’s a possibility. Might also be fun to call up her
loved ones while you’re working on her, let them hear her
screams.”
“You’ve got a sick mind, my friend.”
“Thank you, kindly. Let’s see who our favorite cop talked
to last. The winner is… Latham. And less than an hour ago.
Shall we see if Latham is still up?”
“Put it on speaker.”
The phone rang twice, and a man answered.
“Jack? I was worried.”
“And you have good reason to be,” Donaldson said. “Is
this Latham?”
“Who is this?”
“I’m the man about to murder Jack Daniels. She’s going
to die in terrible pain. How do you feel about that?”
There was silence.
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“What’s wrong, Latham? Don’t you care that…” Donaldson
squinted at the phone. “Dammit, lost the signal.”
Donaldson hit redial. The call didn’t go through.
They stood there for a moment, neither of them saying
anything.
“I hate dropped calls,” Taylor finally offered. “Drives me
nuts.”
“Cops.”
“I hate cops, too.”
“Behind you.”
Taylor spun around and froze. A Wisconsin squad car
rolled up next to them. Its lights weren’t on, but the driver’s
side window was open and a pig was leaning out. White
male, fat, had something on his upper lip that an optimist
might call a mustache.
“Did you men happen to witness a disturbance in the
diner earlier?”
Taylor thought fast. But apparently so did Donaldson,
because he spoke first.
“What disturbance?”
“Seems an Illinois cop got into a tussle with one of the
locals.”
“We’re just passing through,” Donaldson said. “Didn’t see
anything.”
The pig nodded, then pulled up next to the diner. He let
his fellow cop out, then began to circle the parking lot.
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“I had to lie,” Donaldson said, “or else we’d have to give
statements. I don’t want my name in any police report.”
“I’m with you. But now we’ve got a big problem. One of
them is going to talk to our waitress, and she’ll mention us.
The other is taking down plate numbers. He’ll find Jack’s car,
realize she’s still here, and start searching for her.”
“We need to move our vehicles. Right now.”
Taylor nodded. “There’s an oasis thirty miles north on
39. I’ll meet you there in half an hour. You’ve got the whore’s
phone, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Give me the cop’s,” Taylor said. “We’ll exchange numbers
if we need to get in touch.”
After programming their phones, Donaldson offered his
hand. Taylor shook it.
“See you soon, fellow traveler.”
Then they parted.
Taylor hustled into his cab, started the engine, and
pulled out of Murray’s parking lot. He smiled. While he still
didn’t fully trust Donaldson, Taylor was really starting to
enjoy their partnership. Maybe they could somehow extend
it into something fulltime. Teamwork made this all so
much more exciting.
Taylor was heading for the cloverleaf when he saw the
light begin to flash on the dashboard.
It was the fire alarm. The smoke detector in the overhead
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sleeper was going off.
What the hell?
Taylor pulled onto the shoulder, set the brake, and tugged
his sawed-off shotgun out from under the passenger seat.
Then he headed for the trap door to see what was going on
with those bitches.
10
The moment the cab jiggled, I began to gather up
bungee cords and hook them to the handle on the trap
door, pulling them taut and attaching them to the foot
stock. When that door opened, I wanted it to stay open.
Then the truck went into gear, knocking me onto my
ass. Moving wasn’t going to help our situation. At least at
Murray’s we were surrounded by people. If Taylor took us
someplace secluded, our chances would get even worse.
I looked around the sleeper again, and my eyes locked
on the overhead light. Next to it, on the ceiling, was a
smoke alarm. I doubted it would be heard through all the
soundproofing, but there was a good chance it signaled
the driver somehow.
“Candi! Press the test button on the alarm up there!”
She steadied herself, then reached up to press it. The
high-pitched beeping was loud enough to hurt my ears. But
would Taylor even be aware of it?
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Apparently so, because a few seconds later, the truck
stopped.
I reached for the Tupperware container and a broken slat
from the chest, and crawled over to the side of the trap door.
Then I waited.
I didn’t have to wait long. The trap door opened up and
the bungee cords worked as predicted, tearing it out of
Taylor’s grasp. The barrel of a shotgun jutted up through
the doorway. I kicked that aside and threw a big handful of
salt in Taylor’s eyes. He screamed, and I followed up with
the wooden slat, smacking him in the nose, forcing him to
lose his footing on the stepladder.
As he fell, I dove, snaking face-first down the opening
on top of him, landing on his chest and pinning the shotgun
between us.
He pushed up against me, strong as hell, but I had
gravity on my side and I was fighting for my life. My knee
honed in on his balls like it lived there, and the first kick
worked so well I did it three more times.
He moaned, trying to keep his legs together and twist
away. I grabbed the shotgun stock and jerked. He suddenly
let go of the weapon, and I tumbled backwards off of him,
the gun in my hands, and my back slammed into the step
ladder. The wind burst out of me, and my diaphragm
spasmed. I tried to suck in a breath and couldn’t.
Taylor got to his knees, snarling, and lunged. I raised the
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gun, my fingers seeking the trigger, but he easily knocked
it away. Then he was straddling me, and I still couldn’t
breathe—a task that became even more difficult when his
hands found my throat.
“You’re gonna set a world fucking record on how long
it takes to die.”
Then Candi dropped onto his back.
Taylor immediately released his grip, trying to reach
around and get her off. But Candi clung on like a monkey,
one hand around his neck, the other pressing a wet paper
towel to his face.
He fell on all fours and bucked rodeo bull-style. Candi
held tight. I blinked away the stars and managed to suck
in some air, my hands seeking out the dropped shotgun. It
was too dangerous to shoot him with Candi so close, so
I held it by the short barrel, took aim, and cracked him
in the temple with the wooden stock.
Taylor crumpled.
I gasped for oxygen, my heart threatening to break
through my ribs because it was beating so hard. Candi kept
the rag on Taylor’s face, and part of me wanted to let her
keep it there, let her kill him. But my better judgment took
over.
“Candi.” I lightly touched her shoulder. “It’s over.”
“It’ll be over when I bite one of his goddamn toes off.”
I shook my head. “Give me the rag, Candi. He’s going
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away for the rest of his life. Depending on the jurisdictions,
he might even get the death penalty.”
She looked at me. Then she handed over the rag and
burst into tears.
That’s when Donaldson stepped into the cab. He took
a quick look around, then pointed my gun at me.
“Well what do we have here? How about you drop that
shotgun, Lieutenant.”
I looked at him, and then got a ridiculously big grin on
my face.
“You gave him the bullets, asshole.”
Donaldson’s eyes got comically wide, and I brought up
the shotgun and fired just as he was diving backward out
the door. The dashboard exploded, and the sound was a
force that punched me in my ears. Candi slapped her hands
to the sides of her head. I ignored the ringing and pumped
another slug into the chamber, already moving after him.
Something stopped me.
Taylor. Grabbing my leg.
Candi pounced on him, tangled her fingers in his hair,
and bounced his head against the floor until he released his
grip.
I stumbled out of the cab, stepping onto the pavement.
My .38 was on the road, discarded. I looked left, then right,
then under the truck.
Donaldson was gone.
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A few seconds later, I saw a police car tearing up the
highway, lights flashing, coming our way.
11
“Thank you, honey.”
I took the offered wine glass and Latham climbed into
bed next to me. The fireplace was roaring, the chardonnay
was cold, and when Latham slipped his hand around my
waist I sighed. For a moment, at least, everything was right
with the world. Candi had been reunited with her children.
Taylor was eagerly confessing to a string of murders going
back fifteen years, and ten states were fighting to have first
crack at prosecuting him. No charges were filed against me
for my attack on the pimp, because Fran the waitress had
sworn he shoved me first. My various aches and pains were
all healing nicely, and I even got all of my things back,
including my missing shoe. It was five days into my
vacation, and I was feeling positively glorious.
The only loose end was Donaldson. But he’d get his,
eventually. It was only a matter of time until someone
picked him up.
“You know, technically, you never thanked me for
saving your life,” Latham said.
“Is that what you did?” I asked, giving him a playful
poke in the chest. “I thought I was the one who did all the
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saving.”
“After that man called me, I called the police, told them
you were at Murray’s and someone had you.”
“The police arrived after I’d already taken control of the
situation.”
“Still, I deserve some sort of reward for my coolheadedness and grace under pressure, don’t you think?”
“What have you got in mind?”
He whispered something filthy in my ear.
“You pervert,” I said, smiling then kissing him.
Then I took another sip of wine and followed his
suggestion.
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PART FoUR UTAh, oNE WEEk LATER
Donaldson kept one hand on the wheel. The other caressed
the cell phone.
The cell phone with Jack Daniels’s number on it.
It had been over a week since that fateful meeting. He’d
headed southwest, knowing there was a nationwide manhunt going on, knowing they really didn’t have anything on
him. A description and a name, nothing more.
He’d been aching to call the Lieutenant. But it wasn’t
the right time yet. First he had to let things cool down.
Maybe in another week or so, he’d give her a ring. Just to
chit-chat, no threats at all.
The threats would come later, when he went to visit her.
He felt a tinge of sadness about Taylor’s arrest. A shame,
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losing a kindred spirit like that. But if the man had been
willing to share, he wouldn’t be in custody right now.
At least he kept quiet about me, Donaldson thought.
But that hadn’t stopped Donaldson from putting as
much road between him and Wisconsin as he could. He’d
been so busy running from the authorities, covering his
tracks, Donaldson hadn’t had any time to indulge in his
particular appetites. He kept an eye open for likely prospects,
but they were few and far between.
The hardest thing about killing a hitchhiker was finding
one to pick up.
Donaldson could remember just ten years ago, when
interstates boasted a hitcher every ten miles, and a
discriminating killer could pick and choose who looked
the easiest, the most fun, the juiciest. These days, cops kept
the expressways clear of easy marks, and Donaldson was
forced to cruise off-ramps, underpasses, and rest areas,
prowl back roads, take one hour coffee breaks at oases.
Recreational murder was becoming more trouble than it
was worth.
He’d finally found one standing in a Cracker Barrel
parking lot. The kid had been obvious, leaning against the
cement ashtray near the entrance, an oversize hiking pack
strapped to his back. He was approaching every patron
leaving the restaurant, practicing his grin between
rejections.
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A ripe plum, ready to pluck.
Donaldson tucked the cell phone into his pocket and
got out of the car. He didn’t even have to initiate contact.
He walked in to use the bathroom and strolled out with
his car keys in hand, letting them jingle a bit. The kid
solicited him almost immediately.
“Excuse me, sir. Are you heading up north?”
Donaldson stopped, pretending to notice the man for
the first time. He was young, maybe mid-twenties. Short,
reddish hair, a few freckles on his face, mostly hidden
by glasses. His clothing looked worn but of good quality.
Donaldson was twice his age, and damn near twice his
weight.
Donaldson rubbed his chin, which he knew softened his
harsh features.
“In fact I am, son.”
The boy’s eyes lit up, but he kept a lid on his excitement.
Any hitcher worth his salt knew to test the waters before
sealing the deal.
“I am, too. If you’d like some company, I can chip in for
gas.” He hooded his eyes and quickly added, “No funny stuff.
I’m just looking for a ride. I was hoping to get to Ogden by
midnight. Got family up there. My name’s Brett, by the way.”
Well played, Donaldson thought. Friendly, a little
desperate, making clear this wasn’t a sexual hookup and that
he had people waiting for him.
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As if any of that would keep him safe.
“How do I know you’re not some psycho?” Donaldson
asked. He knew that was pushing it, but he liked the irony.
“There’s a gas station across the street. I can top off the
tank, pay with a credit card. All gas stations have cameras
these days. Credit card is a paper trail. If anything happens
to you, that would link me to your car, and I’d get caught.”
Smart kid. But not that smart.
The really smart ones don’t hitchhike.
“Won’t need gas for a few hundred miles.” Donaldson
took off his Cubs baseball hat, running a hand over his gray,
thinning hair. Another way to disarm the victim. No one
feared grandfatherly types. “Until then, if you promise not
to sing any show tunes, you got yourself a ride.”
Brett smiled, hefted his pack onto his shoulders, and
followed his ride into the parking lot. Donaldson unlocked
the doors and the kid loaded his pack into the backseat of
Donaldson’s 2006 black Honda Accord, pausing when he saw
the clear plastic covers on the front seats.
“My dog, Neil, usually rides up front with me,”
Donaldson said, shrugging. “I don’t like him messing up the
upholstery.”
Brett flashed skepticism until he noticed the picture
taped to the dash: Donaldson and a furry dachshund.
“Sheds like crazy,” Donaldson said. “If you buy a dog,
stick with short-haired breeds.”
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That was apparently reassurance enough, because Brett
climbed in.
Donaldson heaved himself into the driver’s seat, the car
bouncing on its shocks.
“Buckle up for safety.” Donaldson resisted the urge to
lick his lips, then released the brake, started the car, and
pulled onto the highway.
The first ten miles were awkward. Always were. Strangers
tended to stay strangers. How often did a person initiate
conversation on a plane or while waiting in line? People kept
to themselves. It made them feel safe.
Donaldson broke the tension by asking the standard
questions. Where’d you go to school? What do you do for a
living? Where you headed? When’d you start hitchhiking?
Invariably, the conversation turned to him.
“So what’s your name?” Brett asked.
“Donaldson.” No point in lying. Brett wouldn’t be alive
long enough to tell anyone.
“What do you do, Donaldson?”
“I’m a courier.”
Donaldson sipped from the Big Gulp container in the cup
holder, taking a hit of caffeinated sugar water. He offered
the cup to Brett, who shook his head. Probably worried
about germs. Donaldson smiled. That should have been the
least of his worries.
“So you mean you deliver packages?”
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“I deliver anything. Sometimes overnight delivery isn’t
fast enough, and people are willing to pay a premium to
get it same day.”
“What sort of things?”
“Things people need right away. Legal documents. Car
parts for repairs. A diabetic forgets his insulin, guy loses his
glasses and can’t drive home without them, kid needs his
cello for a recital. Or a kidney needs to get to a transplant
location on time. That’s the run I’m on right now.”
Donaldson jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing
to the backseat floorboard. Brett glanced back, saw a cooler
sitting there, a biohazard sticker on the lid.
“No kidding, there’s a kidney in there?”
“There will be, once I get it.” Donaldson winked at the
kid. “By the way, what’s your blood type?”
The kid chuckled nervously. Donaldson joined in.
A long stretch of road approaching. No cars in either
direction.
“Sounds like an interesting job,” Brett said.
“It is. Perfect for a loner like me. That’s why it’s nice to
have company every so often. Gets lonely on the road.”
“What about Neil?”
“Neil?”
Brett pointed at the photograph on the dashboard. “Your
dog. You said he rode with you sometimes.”
“Oh, yeah. Neil. Of course. But it isn’t the same as having
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a human companion. Know what I mean?”
Brett nodded, then glanced at the fuel gauge.
“You’re down to a quarter tank,” he said.
“Really? I thought I just filled up. Next place we see, I’ll
take you up on that offer to pay.”
It was a bright, sunny late afternoon, clean country air
blowing in through the inch of window Donaldson had open.
A perfect day for a drive. The road ahead was clear, no one
behind them.
“So seriously,” Donaldson asked, “What’s your blood
type?”
Brett’s chuckle sounded forced this time, and Donaldson
didn’t join in. Brett put his hand in his pocket. Going for
a weapon, or holding one for reassurance, Donaldson
figured. Not many hitchers traveled without some form
of reassurance.
But Donaldson had something better than a knife, or
a gun. His weapon weighed thirty-six hundred pounds and
was barreling down the road at eighty miles per hour.
Checking once more for traffic, Donaldson gripped the
wheel, braced himself, and stood on the brake.
The car screeched toward a skidding halt, Brett’s seatbelt
popping open exactly the way Donaldson had rigged it to,
and the kid launched headfirst into the dashboard. The
spongy plastic, beneath the veneer, had been reinforced with
unforgiving steel.
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The car shuddered to a stop, the stench of scorched
rubber in the air. Brett was in bad shape. With no seatbelt
and one hand in his pocket, he’d banged his nose up pretty
good. Donaldson grasped his hair, rammed his face into
the dashboard two more times, then opened the glove
compartment. He grabbed a plastic zip tie, checked again
for oncoming traffic, and quickly secured the kid’s hands
behind his back. In Brett’s coat pocket, he found a tiny
Swiss Army knife. Donaldson barked out a laugh.
If memory served, and it usually did, there was an off
ramp less than a mile ahead, and then a remote stretch of
farmland. Donaldson pulled back onto the highway and
headed for it, whistling as he drove.
The farm stood just where he remembered it. Donaldson
pulled offroad into a cornfield and drove through the dead
stalks until he could no longer see the street. He killed the
engine, set the parking brake—the Accord had transmission
issues—and tugged out the keys to ensure it wouldn’t roll
away. Then he picked a few choice tools from his toolbox
and stuck them in his pocket.
His passenger whimpered as Donaldson muscled him
out of the car and dragged him into the stalks.
He whimpered even more when Donaldson jerked his
pants down around his ankles, got him loosened up with an
ear of corn, and then forced himself inside.
“Gonna stab me with your little knife?” he whispered
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in Brett’s ear between grunts. “Think that was going to save
you?”
When he’d finished, Donaldson sat on the kid’s chest
and tried out all the attachments on the Swiss Army knife.
The tiny scissors worked well on eyelids. The nail file
just reached the eardrums. The little two-inch blade was
surprisingly sharp and adept at whittling the nose down to
the cartilage.
Donaldson also used some tools of his own. Pliers, for
cracking teeth and pulling off lips. When used in tandem
with some garden shears, he was able to get Brett’s tongue
out in one piece. And of course, there was the muddler.
Normally wielded by bartenders to mash fruit in the
bottom of drink glasses, Donaldson had his own special
use for the instrument. People usually reacted strongly to
being fed parts of their own face, and even under the threat
of more pain, they’d spit those parts out. Donaldson used
the plastic muddler like a ram, forcing those juicy bits down
their throats.
After all, it was sinful to waste all of those delectable
little morsels like that.
When the fighting and screams began to find down,
the Swiss Army knife’s corkscrew attachment did a fine job
on Brett’s Adam’s apple, popping it out in one piece and
leaving a gaping hole that poured blood bright as a young
cabernet.
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Apple was a misnomer. It tasted more like a peach pit.
Sweet and stringy.
He shoved another ear of corn into Brett’s neck hole, then
stood up to watch.
Donaldson had killed a lot of people in a lot of different
ways, but suffocation especially tickled his funny bone.
When people bled to death they just got sleepy. It was
tough to see their expression when they were on fire, with
all the thrashing and flames. Damaging internal organs,
depending on the organ, was either too fast, too slow, or
too loud.
But a human being deprived of oxygen would panic for
several minutes, providing quite a show. This kid lasted
almost five, his eyes bulging out, wrenching his neck side
to side in futile attempts to remove the cob, and turning
all the colors of the rainbow before finally giving up the
ghost. It got Donaldson so excited he almost raped him
again. But the rest of the condoms were in the car, and
befitting a man his age, once he got them and returned
to the scene of death, his ardor probably would have waned.
He didn’t bother trying to take Brett’s kidney, or any of
his other parts. What the heck could he do with his organs
anyway? Sell them on eBay?
Cleanup was the part Donaldson hated most, but
he always followed a strict procedure. First, he bagged
everything associated with the crime. The rubber, the zip
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tie, the Swiss Army knife, and the two corn cobs, which
might have his prints on them. Then he took a spray bottle
of bleach solution and a roll of paper towels and cleaned the
muddler, shears, and pliers, and swabbed out the interior
of his car. He used baby wipes on himself, paying special
attention to his fingernails. He put his tools back into his
toolbox. Everything else went into the white plastic garbage
bag, along with a full can of gasoline and more bleach
spray.
He took the money from Brett’s wallet—forty lousy
bucks—and found nothing of interest in his backpack.
These went into the bag as well, and then he soaked that
and the body with lighter fluid.
The fire started easily. Donaldson knew from experience
that he had about five minutes before the gas can exploded.
He drove out of the cornfield at a fast clip, part of him
disappointed he couldn’t stay to watch the fireworks.
The final result would be a mess for anyone trying to ID
the victim, gather evidence, or figure out what exactly had
happened. If the body wasn’t discovered right away, and the
elements and hungry animals added to the chaos, it would
be a crime scene investigator’s worst nightmare.
Donaldson knew how effective this particular disposal
method was, because he’d used it twenty-six times and
hadn’t ever been so much as questioned by police.
He wondered if the FBI had a nickname for him,
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some-thing sexy like The Roadside Burner. But he wasn’t
convinced those jokers had even connected his many crimes.
Donaldson’s courier route took him all across the country,
over a million square miles of hunting ground. He waited
at least a year before returning to any particular spot, and
he was finding new places to play all the time.
Donaldson knew he would never be caught. He was
smart, patient, and never compulsive. He could keep on
doing this until he died or his pecker wore out, and they had
pills these days to fix that.
He reached I-15 at rush hour, traffic clogging routes
both in and out of Salt Lake, and he was feeling happy and
immortal until some jerk in a Winnebago decided to drive
ten miles under the speed limit. Irritated motorists tagged
along like ducklings, many of them using their horns, and
everyone taking their good sweet time getting by in the
passing lane.
Seriously, they shouldn’t allow some people on the road.
Donaldson was considering passing the whole lot of
them on the shoulder, and as he surveyed the route and got
ready to gun it, he saw a cute chick in pink shoes standing
at the cloverleaf. Short, lugging a guitar case, jutting out
a hip and shaking her thumb at everyone who passed.
Two in one day? he thought. Do I have the energy?
He cranked open the window to get rid of the bleach
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smell, and pulled up next to her under the overpass, feeling
his arousal returning.
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She set the guitar case on the pavement and stuck
out her thumb. The minivan shrieked by. She turned her
head, watched it go—no brakelights. The disappointment
blossomed hot and sharp in her gut, like a shot of iced Stoli.
Despite the midmorning brilliance of the rising sun, she
could feel the cold gnawing through the tips of her gloved
fingers, the earflaps of her black woolen hat.
According to her Internet research, 491 (previously
666) ranked as the third least traveled highway in the
Lower-Forty-Eight, with an average of four cars passing
a fixed point any given hour. Less of course at night. The
downside of hitchhiking these little-known thoroughfares
was the waiting, but the upside paid generous dividends in
privacy.
She exhaled a steaming breath and looked around.
Painfully blue sky. Treeless high desert. Mountains thirty
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miles east. A further range to the northwest. They stood
blanketed in snow, and on some level she understood that
others would find them dramatic and beautiful, and she
wondered what it felt like to be moved by nature.
Two hours later, she lifted her guitar case and walked
up the shoulder toward the idling Subaru Outback, heard
the front passenger window humming down. She mustered
a faint smile as she reached the door. Two young men in
the front seats stared at her. They seemed roughly her age
and friendly enough, if a little hungover. Open cans of
Bud in the center console drink holders had perfumed the
interior with the sour stench of beer—a good omen, she
thought. Might make things easier.
“Where you headed?” the driver asked. He had sandy
hair and an elaborate goatee. Impressive cords of bicep
strained the cotton fibers of his muscle shirt. The passenger
looked native—dark hair and eyes, brown skin, a thin,
implausible mustache.
“Salt Lake,” she said.
“We’re going to Tahoe. We could take you at least to I-15.”
She surveyed the rear storage compartment—crammed
with two snowboards and the requisite boots, parkas, snow
pants, goggles, and…she suppressed the jolt of pleasure—
helmets. She hadn’t thought of that before.
A duffle bag took up the left side of the backseat. A little
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tight, but then she stood just five feet in her pink crocs. She
could manage.
“Comfortable back there?” the driver asked.
“Yes.”
Their eyes met in the rearview mirror.
“What’s your name?”
“Lucy.”
“Lucy, I’m Matt. This is Kenny. We were just about to have
us a morning toke before we picked you up. Would it bother
you if we did?”
“Not at all.”
“Pack that pipe, bro.”
They got high as they crossed into Utah and became
talkative and philosophically confident. They offered her
some pot, but she declined. It grew hot in the car and she
removed her hat and unbuttoned her black trench coat,
breathing the fresh air coming in through the crack at the
top of the window.
“So where you going?” the Indian asked her.
“Salt Lake.”
“I already asked her that, bro.”
“No, I mean what for?”
“See some family.”
“We’re going to Tahoe. Do some snowboarding at
Heavenly.”
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“Already told her that, bro.”
The two men broke up into laughter.
“So you play guitar, huh?” Kenny said.
“Yes.”
“Wanna strum something for us?”
“Not just yet.”
They stopped at a filling station in Moab. Matt pumped
gas and Kenny went inside the convenience store to procure
the substantial list of snacks they’d been obsessing on for
the last hour. When Matt walked inside to pay, she opened
the guitar case and took out the syringe. The smell wafted
out—not overpowering by any means, but she wondered
if the boys would notice. She hadn’t had a chance to
properly clean everything in awhile. Lucy reached up
between the seats and tested the weight of the two
Budweisers in the drink holders: each about half-full. She
eyed the entrance to the store—no one coming—and shot
a squirt from the syringe into the mouth of each can.
Kenny cracked a can of Bud and said, “Dude, was that shit
laced?”
“What are you talking about?”
They sped through a country of red rock and buttes and
waterless arroyos.
“What we smoked.”
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“I don’t think so.”
“Man, I don’t feel right. Where’d you get it?”
“From Tim. Same as always.”
Lucy leaned forward and studied the double yellow
line through the windshield. After Matt drifted across for a
third time, she said, “Would you pull over please?”
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m going to be sick.”
“Oh God, don’t puke on our shit.”
Matt pulled over onto the shoulder and Lucy opened
her door and stumbled out. As she worked her way down a
gentle embankment making fake retching sounds, she heard
Matt saying, “Dude? Dude? Come on, dude! Wake up, dude!”
She waited in the bed of the arroyo for ten minutes
and then started back up the hill toward the car. Matt had
slumped across the center console into Kenny’s lap. The
man probably weighed two hundred pounds, and it took
Lucy ten minutes to shove him, millimeter by millimeter,
into the passenger seat on top of Kenny. She climbed in
behind the wheel and slid the seat all the way forward and
cranked the engine.
She turned off of I-70 onto 24. According to her map,
this stretch of highway ran forty-four miles to a nothing
town called Hanksville. From her experience, it didn’t get
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much quieter than this barren, lifeless waste of countryside.
Ten miles south, she veered onto a dirt road and
followed it the length of several football fields, until the
highway was almost lost to sight. She killed the engine,
stepped out. Late afternoon. Windless. Soundless. The boys
would be waking soon, and she was already starting to
glow. She opened the guitar case and retrieved the syringe,
gave Kenny and Matt another healthy dose.
By the time she’d wrangled them out of the car into the
desert, dusk had fallen and she’d drenched herself in sweat.
She rolled the men onto their backs and splayed out their
arms and legs so they appeared to be making snow angels
in the dirt.
Lucy removed their shoes and socks. The pair of scissors
was the kind used to cut raw chicken, with thick, serrated
blades. She trimmed off their shirts and cut away their pants
and underwear.
Kenny and Matt had returned to full, roaring consciousness by 1:15 a.m. Naked. Ankles and wrists tightly bound with
deeply scuffed handcuffs, heads helmeted, staring at the
small, plain hitchhiker who squatted down facing them at
the back of the car, blinding them with a hand held
spotlight.
“I didn’t think you were ever going to wake up,” Lucy said.
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“What the hell are you doing?” Matt looked angry.
Kenny said, “These cuffs hurt. Get them off.”
She held a locking carabiner attached to a chain that
ran underneath the Subaru. She clipped it onto another pair
of carabiners. A rope fed through each one, and the ends
of the ropes had been tied to the handcuffs on the boys’
ankles.
“Oh my God, she’s crazy, dude.”
“Lucy, please. Don’t. We’ll give you anything you want.
We won’t tell anyone.”
She smiled. “That’s really sweet of you, Matt, but this is
what I want. Kind of have my heart set on it.”
She stepped over the tangle of chain and rope and moved
toward the driver’s door as the boys hollered after her.
She left the hatch open so she could hear them. Kept
looking back as she drove slowly, so slowly, along the dirt
road. They were still begging her, and occasionally yelling
when they dragged over a rock or a cactus, but she got them
to the shoulder of Highway 24 with only minor injuries.
The moon was up and nearly full. She could see five
miles of the road in either direction, so perfectly empty
and black, and she wondered if the way it touched her
in this moment felt anything like how the beauty of the
those mountains she’d seen this morning touched normal
people.
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Lucy buckled her seatbelt and glanced in the rearview
mirror. Matt had climbed to his feet, and he hobbled toward
the car.
“Hey, no fair!” she yelled and gave the accelerator a
little gas, jerking his feet out from under him. “All right,
count of three. We’ll start small with half a mile!”
She grasped the steering wheel, heart pumping. She’d
done this a half dozen times but never with helmets.
“One! Two! Three!”
She reset the odometer and eased onto the accelerator.
Five, ten, fifteen, twenty miles per hour, and the boys
already beginning to scream. At four-tenths of a mile, she
hit forty, and in the rearview mirror, Kenny’s and Matt’s
pale and naked bodies writhed in full-throated agony, both
trying to sit up and grab the rope and failing as they slid
across the pavement on their bare backs, dragged by their
cuffed ankles, the chains throwing gorgeous yellow sparks
against the asphalt.
She eased off the gas and pulled over onto the shoulder.
Collected the spray bottle and the artificial leech from
the guitar case, unbuckled, jumped out, and went to the
boys. They lay on their backs, blood pooling beneath them.
Bone and muscle already showing through in many places
where the skin had simply been erased, and Kenny must
have rolled briefly onto his right elbow, because it had been
sanded down to a sharp spire of bone.
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“Please,” Matt croaked. “Oh, God, please.”
“You don’t know how beautiful you look,” she said, “but
I’m gonna make you even prettier.”
She spritzed them with pure, organic lemon juice,
especially their backs, which looked like raw hamburger,
then knelt down with the artificial leech she’d stolen from
a medical museum in Phoenix several years ago. Using it
always made her think fondly of Luther and Orson.
She stuck each of them twenty times with the
artificial leech, and to the heartwarming depth of their
new screams, skipped back to the car and hopped in and
stomped the gas, their cries rising into something like
the baying of hounds, Lucy howling back. She pushed the
Subaru past fifty, to sixty, to seventy-five, and in the
illumination of the spotlight, the boys bounced
along the pavement, on their backs, their sides, their
stomachs, and with every passing second looking more
and more lovely, and still making those delicious screams
she could almost taste, Lucy driving with no headlights,
doing eighty under the moon, and the cold winter
wind rushing through the windows like the breath
of God.
She made it five miles (no one had ever lasted five miles
and she credited those well-made snowboarding helmets)
before the skeletons finally went quiet.
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Lucy ditched what was left of the boys and drove all
night like she’d done six blasts of coke, arriving in Salt Lake
as the sun edged up over the mountains. She checked into
a Red Roof Inn and ran a hot bath and cleaned the new
blood and the old blood out of the ropes and let the
carabiners and the chains and the handcuffs soak
in the soapy water.
In the evening she awoke, that dark weight perched on
her chest again. The guitar case items had dried, and she
packed them away and dressed and headed out. The motel
stood along the interstate, and it came down to Applebee’s
or Chili’s.
She went with the latter, because she loved their Awesome
Blossom.
After dinner, she walked outside and stared at the Subaru
in the parking lot, the black rot flooding back inside of her,
that restless, awful energy that could never be fully sated,
those seconds of release never fully quenching, like water
tinged with salt. She turned away from the Subaru and
walked along the frontage road until she came to a hole in
the fence. Ducked through. Scrambled down to the shoulder
of the interstate.
Traffic was moderate, the night cold and starry. A line of
cars approached, bottled up behind a Winnebago.
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She walked under the bridge, set down her guitar case,
and stuck out her thumb.
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Donaldson pulled over onto the shoulder and lowered
the passenger window. The girl was young and tiny, wearing
a wool cap despite the relative warmth.
“Where you headed?” He winked before he said it, his
smile genuine.
“Missoula,” Lucy answered.
“Got a gig up there?” He pointed his chin at her guitar
case.
She shrugged.
“Well, I’m going north. If you chip in for gas, and promise not to sing any show tunes, you can hop in.”
The girl seemed to consider it, then nodded. She opened
the rear door and awkwardly fit the guitar case onto the
backseat. Before getting in, she stared at the upholstery on
the front seats.
“What’s with the plastic?” she asked, indicating
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Donaldson’s clear seat covers.
“Sometimes I travel with my dog.”
Lucy squinted at the picture taped to the dashboard—
the portly driver holding a long-haired dachshund.
“What’s its name?”
“Scamp. Loveable little guy. Hates it when I’m away. But
I’m away a lot. I’m a courier. Right now, I’m headed up to
Idaho Falls to pick up a donor kidney.”
Her eyes flitted to the backseat, to a cooler with a biohazard sign on the lid.
“Don’t worry,” he said, taking off his hat and rubbing a hand
through his thinning gray hair. “It’s empty for the time being.”
The girl nodded, started to get in, then stopped. “Would
you mind if I sat in the back? I don’t want to make you feel
like a chauffeur, but I get nauseated riding up front unless
I’m driving.”
Donaldson paused. “Normally I wouldn’t mind, Miss,
but I don’t have any seat belts back there, and I insist my
passengers wear one. Safety first, I always say.”
“Of course. Can’t be too careful. Cars can be dangerous.”
“Indeed they can. Indeed.”
The front passenger door squeaked open, and the girl
hopped in. Donaldson watched her buckle up, and then he
accelerated back onto the highway.
Grinning at her, he rubbed his chin and asked, “So what’s
your name, little lady?”
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“I’m Lucy.” She looked down at the center console. A
Big Gulp sweated in the drink holder. She reached into her
pocket and looked at the man and smiled. “I really appreciate
you picking me up. I don’t think I caught your name.”
“Donaldson. Pleased to meet you.”
“Is that really your last name, or are you one of those guys
who have a last name for a first name?”
“No, that’s my first.”
They drove in silence for a mile, Donaldson glancing
between the girl and the road.
“Highway’s packed this time of day. I bet we’d make
better time on the county roads. Less traffic. If that’s okay
with you, of course.”
“I was actually just going to suggest that,” Lucy said.
“Weird.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to do anything to make you feel
uncomfortable.” Donaldson glanced down at Lucy’s pocket.
“Pretty young thing like yourself might get nervous driving
off the main drag. In fact, you don’t see many young lady
hitchers these days. I think horror movies scared them all
away. Everyone’s worried about climbing into the car with
a maniac.”
Donaldson chuckled.
“I love county roads,” Lucy said. “Much prettier scenery,
don’t you think?”
He nodded, taking the next exit, and Lucy leaned over,
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almost into his lap, and glanced at the gas gauge.
“You’re running pretty low there. Your reserve light’s
on. Why don’t we stop at this gas station up ahead. I’ll put
twenty in the tank. I also need something to drink. This
mountain air is making my throat dry.”
Donaldson shifted in his seat. “Oh, that light just came
on, and I can get fifty miles on reserve. This is a Honda, you
know.”
“But why push our luck? And I’m really thirsty,
Donaldson.”
“Here.” He lifted his Big Gulp. “It’s still half full.”
“No offense, but I don’t drink after strangers, and I um…
this is embarrassing…I have a cold sore in my mouth.”
The gas station was coming up fast, and by all accounts
it appeared to be the last stop before the county road started
its climb into the mountains, into darkness.
“Who am I to say no to a lady?” Donaldson said.
He tapped the brakes and coasted into the station. It
had probably been there for forty years, and hadn’t updated
since then. Donaldson sidled up to an old-school pump—one
with a meter where the numbers actually scrolled up, built
way back when closed-circuit cameras were something out
of a science fiction magazine.
Donaldson peered over Lucy, into the small store. A
bored female clerk sat behind the counter, apparently asleep.
White trash punching the minimum wage clock, not one to
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pay much attention.
“The tank’s on your side,” Donaldson said. “I don’t think
these old ones take credit cards.”
“I can pay cash inside. I buy, you fly.”
Donaldson nodded. “Okay. I’m fine with doin’ the
pumpin’. Twenty, you said?”
“Yeah. You want anything?”
“If they have any gum that isn’t older than I am, pick me
up a pack. I’ve got an odd taste in my mouth for some
reason.”
Lucy got out of the car. Donaldson opened the glove
compartment and quickly shoved something into his coat
pocket. Then he set the parking brake, pocketed the keys,
and followed her out.
While Donaldson stood pumping gas into the Honda,
Lucy walked across the oil-stained pavement and into
the store. The clerk didn’t acknowledge her entrance, just
sat staring at a small black-and-white television airing
Jeopardy, her chin propped up in her hand and a Marlboro
Red with a one-inch ash trailing smoke toward the ceiling.
Lucy walked down the aisle to the back of the store and
picked a Red Bull out of the refrigerated case. At the drink
fountain, she went with the smallest size—sixteen ounces—
and filled the cup with ice to the brim, followed by a little
Dr. Pepper, Mountain Dew, Pepsi, and Orange Fanta.
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She glanced back toward the entrance and through the
windows. Donaldson was still fussing with the pump. She
reached into her pocket and withdrew the syringe. Uncapped the needle, shot a super-size squirt of liquid Oxycontin
into the bubbling soda.
At the counter, she chose a pack of Juicy Fruit and
pushed the items forward.
The clerk tore herself away from a video Daily Double
and rang up the purchase.
“$24.52.”
Lucy looked up from her wallet. “How much of that is
gas?”
“Twenty.”
“Shit, I told him just do fifteen. Here.” She put a Jefferson
on the filthy counter. “I’ll send him in with the balance, ’cause
this is all I’ve got.”
“Don’t be trying to steal my gas.”
Donaldson was screwing on the gas cap when Lucy
walked up. She said, “They still need five bucks. I’m sorry. It
came to more than twenty with the drinks and gum. I’m out
of cash.”
“No ATM?”
“Here? Lucky they have electricity. I’ll get you next stop.”
She flashed a shy grin, sashaying her fingers through the air.
“Cross my heart and hope to die.”
He just stared at her for a moment, then turned and
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started toward the store. Lucy opened the front passenger
door and traded out Donaldson’s Big Gulp for the fresh drink.
She tossed the bucket-size cup into a trashcan between the
pumps and climbed in.
Donaldson was at the counter. Lucy glanced into the
backseat at the cooler with the biohazard sign. She looked
into the convenience store, back at the cooler, then spun
quickly around in her seat and reached back toward the lid.
Empty. The inside a dull, stained white. She closed it
again.
Donaldson’s footsteps slapped at the pavement. She
settled back into her seat as he opened his door. The chassis
bounced when he eased his bulk behind the wheel.
“Sorry about that,” Lucy said. “I thought I had another
ten. I could swear my snowboarder friend gave me some
cash.” She stuck out her lower lip, pouting. “I got you some
gum. And a new drink.”
Donaldson frowned, but he took the Juicy Fruit, ran it
under his nose.
“Thank you, kindly. Fresh soda too, huh?”
Lucy cracked open the Red Bull and nodded.
“Cheers. To new friends.” She took a sip. A trail of pink
liquid dribbled down the corner of her mouth, hugging her
chin and neck, dampening her shirt.
Donaldson shifted in his chair and reached for the cup.
He sipped on the straw and made a face.
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“What flavor is this?”
“I didn’t know what you liked,” Lucy said. “So I got you a
little of everything.”
Donaldson chuckled his approval, then turned the key
and put the car into gear.
The winding county road ahead was pitch black, like
driving through ink. Donaldson sipped his soda. Lucy
watched him closely, taking periodic nips at her energy
drink. The cool, dry air seemed to crackle with electricity
as they climbed into the mountains.
“So is that really a guitar in that case?” Donaldson asked
after five miles of silence.
“What do you think?”
“I’ll be honest with you, darlin’. You’re a bit of a mystery to
me. I’ve been around, but I’m not sure what to make of you.”
“How so?”
“You’re young. But you’ve heard of Vietnam, I’m
guessing.”
“I loved Platoon. ”
Donaldson nodded. “Well then, you were practically
there in the rice paddies with me, going toe-to-toe with the
Cong.”
He drank more soda. Lucy watched.
“Took some shrapnel in my hip in Ca Lu,” Donaldson
said. “Nicked my sciatic nerve. Biggest nerve in the body.
Pain sometimes gets so bad I can chew through a bath towel.
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Do you understand pain, little girl?”
“More so than you’d think.”
“So you should know, then, opiates and I are friends
from way back.” Donaldson took a big pull off the soda. “So
spiking my drink here hasn’t done much more than make
me a little horny. Actually a lot horny.” Donaldson turned
to Lucy. “You’re about as musical as I am Christian. So you
want to tell me what your game is, or do I take you over
my knee and spank you right now like the naughty girl
you are?”
Lucy said, “It’s Oxycontin. Did they have that back in
’Nam, gramps? And you being one fat bastard, I squirted two
hundred and fifty milligrams into your drink. I’m not some
frat boy trying to roofie up a chunky freshman. I gave you
the rhino dose.”
She tested the weight of the Styrofoam cup. “Jesus, you’ve
already gone through half of it? I’m actually more concerned
you’re going to die of a drug overdose instead of the fun
I have planned.”
She reached across the seat and squeezed his leg. “Look,
you will be losing consciousness shortly, so we don’t have
much time. Pull the car over. I’d like to take you up on that
spanking.”
Donaldson stared at her, blinked hard twice, and stomped
the brake pedal.
Lucy’s seatbelt released and she slammed into the metal175
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reinforced dashboard. Donaldson shook his head, then
swiped the zip tie from his pocket. He grabbed a handful
of wool cap and the hair beneath it and yanked Lucy up off
the floor. She fought hard, but weight and strength won out
and he cinched her hands behind her back.
Donaldson glanced through the windshield, then checked
the rearview mirror. Darkness.
Lucy laughed through her shattered nose and ran her
tongue along her swollen upper lip and gums—two front
teeth MIA.
Donaldson blinked and shook his head again. Pulled off
the road onto the shoulder.
“We’re gonna have some fun, little girl,” he said. “And
two hundred and fifty milligrams is like candy to me.”
He ran a clumsy paw across her breasts, squeezing hard,
then turned his attention to the backseat.
The guitar case had two clasps, one on the body, one on
the neck.
Donaldson slapped the left side of his face three times
and then opened the case.
A waft of foulness seeped out of the velvet-lined guitar lid,
although the contents didn’t seem to be the source—a length
of chain. Four pairs of handcuffs. Three carabiners. Vials of
liquid Oxycontin. Cutlery shears. A creepy-looking instrument
with six blades at one end. A spotlight. A small spray bottle.
Two coils of climbing rope. And a snowboarding helmet.
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The front passenger door squeaked open and Donaldson
spun around as Lucy fell backward out of the car. He lunged
into her seat, but she kicked the door. It slammed into his
face, his chin crunching his mouth closed, and as the door
recoiled, he saw Lucy struggling onto her feet, her wrists
still bound behind her back.
She disappeared into the woods.
Donaldson took a moment, fumbling for the door
handle. He found it, but paused.
He adjusted the rearview mirror, grinning to see the
blood between his teeth.
“Should we let this one go, sport? Or show the little
missus that there are things a lot scarier than a guitar case
full of bondage shit?”
Donaldson winked at his reflection, tugged out the keys,
yanked up the brake, and shoved his door open. He weaved
over to the trunk, a stupid grin on his face, got the right key
in on the third try.
Among the bottles of bleach solution, the rolls of paper
towels, the gas cans, and the baby wipes, Donaldson grabbed
the only weapon an upstanding citizen could legally carry
without harassment from law enforcement.
The tire iron clenched in his hand, he bellowed at the
woods.
“I’m coming for you, Lucy! And there won’t be any drugs
to dull your pain!”
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He stumbled into the forest after her, his erection
beginning to blossom.
She crouched behind a juniper tree, the zip tie digging
into her wrists. Absolute darkness in the woods, nothing to
see, but everything to hear.
Donaldson yelled, “Don’t hide from me, little girl! It’ll
just make me angry!”
His heavy footsteps crunched in the leaves. Lucy eased
down onto her butt and leaned back, legs in the air, then slid
her bound wrists up the length of them. Donaldson stumbled
past her tree, invisible, less than ten feet away.
“Lucy? Where are you?” His words slurred. “I just wanna
talk.”
“I’m over here, big boy! Still waiting for that spanking!”
His footsteps abruptly stopped. Dead quiet for thirty
seconds, and then the footsteps started up again, heading in
her general direction.
“Oh, no, please,” she moaned. “Don’t hurt me, Donaldson.
I’m so afraid you’ll hurt me.”
He was close now, and she turned and started back toward
the road, her hands out in front of her to prevent collision
with a tree.
A glint of light up ahead—the Honda’s windshield
catching a piece of moonlight.
Lucy emerged from the woods, her hands throbbing
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from circulation loss. She stumbled into the car and turned
around to watch the treeline.
“Come on, big boy! I’m right here! You can make it!”
Donaldson staggered out of the woods holding a tire
iron, and when the moon struck his eyes, they were already
half-closed.
He froze.
He opened his mouth to say something, but fell over
instead, dropping like an old, fat tree.
Donaldson opened his eyes and lifted his head. Dawn
and freezing cold. He lay in weeds at the edge of the woods,
his head resting in a padded helmet. His wrists had been
cuffed, hands purple from lack of blood flow, and his ankles
were similarly bound. He was naked and glazed with dew,
and as the world came into focus, he saw that one of those
carabiners from Lucy’s guitar case had been clipped to his
ankle cuffs. A climbing rope ran from that carabiner to
another carabiner, which was clipped to a chain which was
wrapped around the trailer hitch of his Honda.
The driver-side door opened and Lucy got out, walked
down through the weeds. She came over and sat on his chest,
giving him a missing-toothed smile.
“Morning, Donaldson. You of all people will appreciate
what’s about to happen.”
Donaldson yawned, then winked at her. “Aren’t you just
the prettiest thing to wake up to?”
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Lucy batted her eyelashes.
“Thank you. That’s sweet. Now, the helmet is so you
don’t die too fast. Head injuries ruin the fun. We’ll go slow
in the beginning. Barely walking speed. Then we’ll speed up
a bit when we get you onto asphalt. The last ones screamed
for five miles. They where skeletons when I finally pulled
over. But you’re so heavy, I think you just might break that
record.”
“I have some bleach spray in the trunk,” Donaldson said.
“You might want to spritz me with that first, make it hurt
even more.”
“I prefer lemon juice, but it’s no good until after the
first half mile.”
Donaldson laughed.
“You think this is a joke?”
He shook his head. “No. But when you have the opportunity to kill, you should kill. Not talk.”
Donaldson sat up, quick for a man his size, and rammed
his helmet into Lucy’s face. As she reeled back, he caught
her shirt with his swollen hands and rolled on top of her,
his bulk making her gasp.
“The keys,” he ordered. “Undo my hands, right now.”
Lucy tried to talk, but her lungs were crushed. Donaldson
shifted and she gulped in some air.
“In...the...guitar case...”
“That’s a shame. That means you die right here. Person180
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ally, I think suffocation is the way to go. All that panic and
struggle. Dragging some poor sap behind you? Where’s the
fun in that? Hell, you can’t even see it without taking your
eyes off the road, and that’s a dangerous way to drive, girl.”
Lucy’s eyes bulged, her face turning scarlet.
“Poc...ket.”
“Take your time. I’ll wait.”
Lucy managed to fish out the handcuff keys. Donaldson
shifted again, giving her a fraction more room, and she
unlocked a cuff from one of his wrists.
He winced, his face getting mean.
“Now let me tell you about the survival of the fittest, little
lady. There’s a...”
The chain suddenly jerked, tugging Donaldson across the
ground. He clutched Lucy.
“Where are the car keys, you stupid bitch?”
“In the ignition...”
“You didn’t set the parking brake! Give me the handcuff
key!”
The car crept forward, beginning to pick up speed as it
rolled quietly down the road.
The skin of Donaldson’s right leg tore against the
ground, peeling off, and the girl pounded on him, fighting to
get away.
“The key!” he howled, losing his grip on her. He clawed
at her waist, her hips, and snagged her foot.
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Lucy screamed when the cuff snicked tightly around
her ankle.
“No! No no no!” She tried to sit up, to work the key into
the lock, but they hit a hole and it bounced from her grasp.
They were dragged off the dirt and onto the road.
Lucy felt the pavement eating through her trench coat,
Donaldson in hysterics as it chewed through the fat of his
ass, and the car still accelerating down the five-percent
grade.
At thirty miles per hour, the fibers of Lucy’s trench
coat were sanded away, along with her camouflage panties,
and just as she tugged a folding knife out of her pocket and
began to hack at the flesh of her ankle, the rough county road
began to grind through her coccyx.
She dropped the knife and they screamed together for
two of the longest miles of their wretched lives, until the
road curved and the Honda didn’t, and the car and Lucy and
Donaldson all punched together through a guardrail and
took the fastest route down the mountain.
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EPILoGUE ThE NExT DAy, LoCATIoN UNkNoWN
The TV droned on in the background.
“…is Gregory Donaldson, age 56, who was in the news
a week ago for assaulting a police officer in Wisconsin.
He’s been linked to over fifty homicides going back thirty
years, and found hidden in the upholstery of his vehicle was
a large collection of Polaroid pictures, apparently showing
him viciously murdering numerous victims. The woman
chained to Donaldson, as of yet unidentified, is described
as a person of interest by the FBI. They’ve just released
a statement suggesting that fingerprint and DNA evidence
could point to her being a serial killer. A task force has
been formed to try and close the books on dozens of unsolved murders spanning nineteen states that this duo
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may have been responsible for.
“This is the arresting officer in the recent Marshal Otis
Taylor case, Chicago Homicide Lieutenant Jacqueline
Daniels, who encountered Donaldson eight days ago at a
Murray’s truck stop on Interstate 39 in Wisconsin during
her confrontation with Taylor.”
The scene on the television changed from the trenchcoated reporter standing in front of the hospital to an
attractive woman in a pantsuit being mobbed by reporters in
a parking lot.
“There are predators out there,” the cop said. “We’ve
been lucky to nail three in a week. But there are others. Many
others. Recreational killers are incredibly hard to catch, but
even the smartest of them screw up eventually.”
Hmm, Luther thought, turning his attention from the
television set to the crying, bleeding man hanging from the
ceiling.
Jacqueline Daniels… I really should look her up.
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For the continuing adventures of Mr. K, read SHAKEN,
the 7th Jack Daniels thriller by J.A. Konrath.
For the continuing adventures of Orson and Luther,
read DESERT PLACES and LOCKED DOORS by Blake Crouch.
For the continuing adventures of Taylor, read AFRAID by
Jack Kilborn.
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AFTERWoRD
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In Which Blake and Joe Interview Each Other About the
Experience of Writing SERIAL and SERIAL UNCUT.
BLAKE I know it must be a great thrill getting to work with
me, probably the real reason you wanted to become a writer
in the first place. Did the experience live up to the dream?
JOE I can’t remember where we met for the first time.
I think it was Jon Jordan (editor of the Crimespree zine) who
gave me one of your books and said, “Read this, this guy is
sick like you.” He was right. But to answer your question,
yes, the experience lived up to the dream. I’ve collaborated
on stories with several authors (Jeff Strand, Henry Perez,
Tom Schreck, F. Paul Wilson) but nothing ever came so fast
and furious, with so little need for revision. We cranked out
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almost 8000 words in something like five hours. This might
be a good place to talk about our co-writing process.
BLAKE You pitched this idea to me in an email: “Now, let’s
consider hitchhiking. You aren’t supposed to go hitch hiking,
because the driver who picks you up could be crazy. You
aren’t supposed to pick up hitchhikers, because they could
be crazy. Now if we were to collaborate, I write a scene where
a driver kills someone he picked up. You write a scene where
a hitchhiker kills the guy who gave him a ride. Then we get
these two together...”
I was immediately hooked. As I recall, we each wrote
our sections in isolation, and we didn’t share them with
each other. When they were as good as they could be, you
emailed me 200 words to kick off section 3, and I wrote
back the next hundred words or so. You write much faster
than I do so you pretty much just harassed me until I
would email you back with my scene, or rather, my response
to what your character had done. Do you remember the
ground rules we came up with for writing section 3 together?
I don’t think we had an end in mind when we started.
Didn’t we just let it flow organically and hope it came out
all right?
JOE We had no ending planned, and we weren’t allowed
to get into our character’s thoughts. It was a straight third189
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person observational point-of-view, with no head-hopping.
Sort of like a screenplay. The action had to be on the page.
BLAKE What made this so fun for me was that it was like
playing chess with words. I created my very evil character
and gave her a certain MO. You created the vastly demented
Donaldson and gave him an MO, however as we began to
email back and forth the text for section 3, we didn’t know
anything about each others’ characters. In fact, I tried to get
my girl to sit in the backseat, but you wouldn’t let her. You
insisted she sit up front. I didn’t know why, but I knew it
couldn’t be good.
JOE It was like we were really trying to kill each other.
Which was fun to do with you, because you’re just as twisted
as I am. You were writing LOCKED DOORS at the same time
I was writing RUSTY NAIL, and we both wound up with
a similar gimmick independent of one another; all serial
killers have families.
BLAKE You and I share a similar sensibility in the darker
side of fiction. There have been other instances when we were
working on projects that had similarities. Like in AFRAID
and SNOWBOUND when we both wrote scenes with wolves
and bear traps. We also both love beer.
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JOE I’m about eight years older, so I’ve loved beer longer
than you have. Might be worth doing a brief bio here, for those
who haven’t read us before. I write thrillers under the name
J.A. Konrath, about a cop named Jack Daniels who chases
serial killers. The books have some laughs, but also contain
a lot of dark, scary parts, very much like the Taylor section
of this novella.
Over the years I’ve gotten a fair amount of mail from fans,
asking if I would ever do a scary book without any jokes.
AFRAID was the result. Because it’s no-holds-barred horror,
I used a pen name, Jack Kilborn.
BLAKE My first two books featured suspense writer
Andrew Thomas, who gets pulled into a nightmarish
world even worse than the ones he writes about. My latest
book, SNOWBOUND, is coming out June 2010. It deals with
human trafficking, a missing mother/wife, the Alaskan
mob, and an elite Mexican ex-paratrooper group who are
muscle for the drug cartels (they’re real and they are so
freaking terrifying I don’t even call them by name in the
book). Want to talk about all the negative reviews SERIAL
has gotten?
JOE Man, people sure are vocal in their hatred of this story.
There have been hundreds of negative reviews on Amazon,
Sony, B&N, and Apple, saying how sick and disgusting the
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story is, and how we’re both monsters for writing such a thing.
First of all, it’s a horror story. Horror is supposed to
push boundaries and freak people out. What did they expect
downloading a story about serial killers? Dr. Seuss?
Second, SERIAL was free, for heaven’s sake. It’s not like
anyone was ripped off by us. They get it for nothing, then
tear it to shreds because they don’t like horror. If I didn’t
find it so funny, I might be a little hurt.
BLAKE There have been some classic negative reviews.
Clearly, a large group of people just downloaded SERIAL
because it was free, without reading the explicit and
redundant warnings you and I both went out of our way
to post. The woman who wrote that she wanted to have a
priest bless her Kindle and sprinkle holy water on it after
it had been infected by SERIAL was my personal favorite.
Did you notice that a new word was created in some of the
reviews? I noted several people wanted to “unread” it.
JOE I also liked those who said that “free was too much
money” and “I wish I could rate this lower than 1 star.” I’d love
to watch some of those haters read this uncut version. And
then go to therapy to unread it.
BLAKE SERIAL UNCUT was your idea. How’d it come
about?
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JOE I’d been wanting to do this uncut version of SERIAL
ever since I wrote TRUCK STOP. With TRUCK STOP, my
goal was to unite the Jack Daniels series with the Jack
Kilborn books. But then we got so many bad reviews saying
how graphic SERIAL was, when in reality most of the
violence is understated and off the page, that I started
wondering what would happen if we really did pull out all
the stops. If we added TRUCK STOP to SERIAL, and then
put even more material tying it in with your novels, this
would actually be a short book. A short book about six
horrible yet very different serial killers, that linked together
the majority of both of our work.
BLAKE From the first time you mentioned expanding
SERIAL, I knew I wanted to do it, because I thought it
would be fun to write some more about Lucy. And what
you did with TRUCK STOP and bringing in characters
from AFRAID and your Jack Daniels series seemed like
so much fun. If you’ll recall, my pre-SERIAL Lucy
story was actually conceived in the Hyatt hot tub in
Indianapolis at Bouchercon 2009 (the world mystery
convention). You and I were talking about expanding
SERIAL and what I could do with Lucy, and I came
up with the idea of bringing in Orson, Luther, and Andy
Thomas. Since we were at a mystery convention, and since
Andrew Thomas is essentially a dark mystery writer,
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it made sense to set my pre-SERIAL Lucy story at a
Bouchercon-type of convention.
JOE From my end, putting this together was really easy.
The opening section, where we learn how Donaldson got
his start, practically wrote itself. Part of the fun of writing
the original SERIAL was having two killers playing cat and
mouse. With TRUCK STOP, I decided to see if killers could
actually play well together. The opening scene, with
Donaldson and Mr. K, was a nice precursor to those two
scenes. Readers interested in the further adventures of
Mr. K can find him as the main villain in the next Jack
Daniels novel, called SHAKEN. Do you think it’s more fun
to write for the bad guys than the good guys?
BLAKE Bad guys are without a doubt so much more fun
to write. And I don’t know what this says about me, but
I definitely find them easier to write. The idea of killers
playing well together certainly was the foundation of
my Lucy/Orson/Luther section as well. We think of serial
killers as these loners, societal outcasts who can’t connect
to other human beings. I think it’s fascinating to consider
two such outcasts (or three in my case) finding each other
and comparing notes.
My next novel coming up is called SNOWBOUND. It’s a
thriller about the search for a missing girl, and the horri194
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fying place the search leads. What’s up next for you?
JOE Besides SHAKEN, I’ve written two books in the
TIMECASTER science fiction series under the pen name
Joe Kimball. They take place in 2056, and the hero is Jack
Daniels’s grandson. I’ve also written two more Jack Kilborn
horror novels that should be coming out soon. The working
titles for them are TRAPPED and ENDURANCE, but titles
change all the time, and I don’t know what they’ll eventually
wind up being called. TRAPPED is sort of a semi-sequel
to AFRAID, but it’s a lot more visceral. ENDURANCE is
also pretty intense. I also have a ton of ebooks available,
including a lot of thriller and horror books and stories.
What’s up with you on the ebook front?
BLAKE I just uploaded a short story collection to
Kindle called FOUR LIVE ROUNDS, and a horror novella
called PERFECT LITTLE TOWN, and possibly an early
novel. Jeroen ten Berge, the genius behind the SERIAL
graphic design and illustrations (and my website) is
designing amazing covers for these eBooks. He has a
great website at www.jeroentenberge.com.
JOE Jeroen rocks.
BLAKE There’s a bibliography after this interview,
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along with some excerpts of AFRAID, SHAKEN, and
SNOWBOUND. So what’s next? Are we going to do a Jack
Daniels/Luther story?
JOE Hell yeah, we are. And I’m not sure we’re entirely
done with SERIAL yet. Careful readers will notice that we
never say Donaldson and Lucy are dead. I think we have a
few more tales to tell about these horrible characters…
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BIBLIoGRAPhy
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Jack Daniels series by J.A. Konrath:
• Whiskey Sour
• Bloody Mary
• Rusty Nail
• Dirty Martini
• Fuzzy Navel
• Cherry Bomb
• Shaken (featuring Mr. K)
Exclusive ebooks by J.A. Konrath:
• 55 Proof – Short Story Omnibus
• Origin
• The List
• Disturb
• Shot of Tequila
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• Crime Stories – Collected Short Stories
• Horror Stories – Collected Short Stories
• Jack Daniels Stories – Collected Short Stories
• Suckers by J.A. Konrath and Jeff Strand
• Planter’s Punch by J.A. Konrath and Tom Schreck
• Floaters by J.A. Konrath and Henry Perez
• SERIAL by Blake Crouch and Jack Kilborn
(included in SERIAL UNCUT)
• Truck Stop by Jack Kilborn and J.A. Konrath
(included in SERIAL UNCUT)
Writing as Jack Kilborn:
• Afraid (featuring Taylor)
• Trapped
• Endurance
Non-Fiction
• The Newbie’s Guide to Publishing
Visit Joe at www.jakonrath.com
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By Blake Crouch
• Desert Places (featuring Andrew, Orson and Luther)
• Locked Doors (sequel to Desert Places)
• Abandon
• Snowbound
Exclusive ebooks by Blake Crouch:
• SERIAL by Blake Crouch and Jack Kilborn
(included in SERIAL UNCUT)
• Four Live Rounds – Collected Short Stories
• Perfect Little Town
Visit Blake at www.blakecrouch.com
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ThE FoLLoWING IS AN ExCERPT oF AFRAID By
JACk kILBoRN, NoW AvAILABLE EvERyWhERE BookS
ARE SoLD FRoM GRAND CENTRAL PUBLIShING…
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The hunter’s moon, a shade of orange so dark it appeared to
be filled with blood, hung fat and low over the mirror surface
of Big Lake McDonald. Sal Morton took in a lungful of crisp
Wisconsin air, shifted on his seat cushion, and cast his Lucky
13 over the stern. The night of fishing had been uneventful; a
few small bass earlier in the evening, half a dozen Northern
Pike—none bigger than a pickle—and then, nothing. The zip
of his baitcaster unspooling and the plop of the bait hitting
the water were the only sounds he’d heard for the last hour.
Until the helicopter exploded.
It was already over the water before Sal noticed it. Black,
without any lights, silhouetted by the moon. And quiet.
Twenty years ago Sal had taken his wife Maggie on a helicopter
ride at the Dells, both of them forced to ride with their hands
clamped over their ears to muffle the sound. This one made a
fraction of that noise. It hummed, like a refrigerator.
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The chopper came over the lake on the east side, low
enough that its downdraft produced large eddies and waves.
So close to the water Sal wondered if its wake might overturn
his twelve foot aluminum boat. He ducked as it passed over
him, knocking off his Packers baseball cap, scattering lures,
lifting several empty Schmidt beer cans and tossing them
overboard.
Sal dropped his pole next to his feet and gripped the sides
of the boat, moving his body against the pitch and yaw. When
capsizing ceased to be a fear, Sal squinted at the helicopter for
a tag, a marking, some sort of ID, but it lacked both writing
and numbers. It might as well have been a black ghost.
Three heartbeats later the helicopter had crossed the
thousand yard expanse of lake and dipped down over the tree
line on the opposite shore. What was a helicopter doing in
Safe Haven? Especially at night? Why was it flying so low?
And why did it appear to have landed near his house?
Then came the explosion.
He felt it a moment after he saw it. A vibration in his feet,
as if someone had hit the bow with a bat. Then a soft warm
breeze on his face, carrying mingling scents of burning wood
and gasoline. The cloud of flames and smoke went up at least
fifty feet.
After watching for a moment, Sal retrieved his pole
and reeled in his lure, then pulled the starter cord on his 7.5
horsepower Evinrude. The motor didn’t turn over. The second
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and third yank yielded similar results. Sal swore and began to
play with the choke, wondering if Maggie was scared by the
crash, hoping she was all right.
Maggie Morton awoke to what she thought was thunder.
Storms in upper Wisconsin could be as mean as anywhere on
earth, and in the twenty-six years they’d owned this house
she and Sal had to replace several cracked windows and half
the roof due to weather damage.
She opened her eyes, listened for the dual accompaniment
of wind and rain. Strangely, she heard neither.
Maggie squinted at the red blur next to the bed, groped
for her glasses, pushed them on her face. The blur focused
and became the time: 10:46
“Sal?” she called. She repeated it, louder, in case he was
downstairs.
No answer. Sal usually fished until midnight, so his
absence didn’t alarm her. She considered flipping on the
light, but investigating the noise that woke her held much
less appeal than the soft down pillow and the warm flannel
sheets tucked under her chin. Maggie removed her glasses,
returned them to the night stand, and went back to sleep.
The sound of the front door opening roused her sometime
later.
“Sal?”
She listened to the footfalls below her, the wooden floors
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creaking. First in the hallway, and then into the kitchen.
“Sal!” Louder this time. After thirty-five years of marriage,
her husband’s ears were just one of many body parts that
seemed to be petering out on him. Maggie had talked to him
about getting a hearing aid, but whenever she brought up the
topic he smiled broadly and pretended not to hear her, and
they both wound up giggling. Funny, when they were in the
same room. Not funny when they were on different floors and
Maggie needed his attention.
“Sal!”
No answer.
Maggie considered banging on the floor, and wondered
what the point would be. She knew the man downstairs was
Sal. Who else could it be?
Right?
Their lake house was the last one on Gold Star Road, and
their nearest neighbor, the Kinsels, resided over half a mile
down the shore and had left for the season. The solitude was
one of the reasons the Mortons bought this property. Unless
she went to town to shop, Maggie would often go days without
seeing another human being, not counting her husband. The
thought of someone else being in their home was ridiculous.
Reassured by that thought, Maggie closed her eyes.
She opened them a moment later, when the sound of
the microwave carried up the stairs. Then came the muffled
machine-gun report of popcorn popping. Sal shouldn’t be
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eating at this hour. The doctor had warned him about that,
and how it aggravated his acid reflux disease, which in turn
aggravated Maggie with his constant tossing and turning all
night.
She sighed, annoyed, and sat up in bed.
“Sal! The doctor said no late night snacks!”
No answer. Maggie wondered if Sal indeed had a hearing
problem, or if he simply used that as an excuse for not
listening to her. This time she did swing a foot off the bed
and stomp on the floor, three times, with her heel.
She waited for his response.
Got none.
Maggie did it again, and followed it up with yelling, “Sal!”
loud as she could.
Ten seconds passed.
Ten more.
Then she heard the sound of the downstairs toilet flush.
Anger coursed through Maggie. Her husband had
obviously heard her, and was ignoring her. That wasn’t like
Sal at all.
Then, almost like a blush, a wave of doubt overtook her.
What if the person downstairs wasn’t Sal?
It has to be, she told herself. She hadn’t heard any boats
coming up to the dock, or cars pulling onto their property.
Besides, Maggie was a city girl, born and raised in Chicago.
Twenty-some years in the Northwoods hadn’t broken her of
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the habit of locking doors before going to sleep.
The anger returned. Sal was deliberately ignoring her.
When he came upstairs, she was going to give him a lecture
to end all lectures. Or perhaps she’d ignore him for a while.
Turnabout was fair play.
Comforted by the thought, she closed her eyes. The
familiar sound of Sal’s outboard motor drifted in through
the window, getting closer. That Evinrude was older than Sal
was. Why he didn’t buy a newer, faster motor was beyond her
understanding. One of the reasons she hated going out on the
lake with him was because it stalled all the time and—
Maggie jack-knifed to a sitting position, panic spiking
through her body. If Sal was still out on the boat, then who was
in her house?
She fumbled for her glasses, then picked up the phone
next to her clock. No dial tone. She pressed buttons, but the
phone just wouldn’t work.
Maggie’s breath became shallow, almost a pant. Sal’s
boat drew closer, but he was still several minutes away from
docking. And even when he got home, what then? Sal was an
old man. What could he do against an intruder?
She held her breath, trying to listen to noises from
downstairs. Maggie did hear something, but the sound wasn’t
coming from the lower level. It was coming from the hallway
right outside her bedroom.
The sound of someone chewing popcorn.
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Maggie wondered what she should do. Say something?
Maybe this was all some sort of mistake, some confused
tourist who had walked into the wrong house. Or perhaps
this was a robber, looking for money or drugs. Give him what
he wanted, and he’d leave. No need for anyone to get hurt.
“Who’s there?”
More munching. Closer. He was practically in the room.
She could smell the popcorn now, the butter and salt, and the
odor made her stomach do flip-flops.
“My...medication is in the bathroom cabinet. And my
purse is on the chair by the door. Take it.”
The ruffling of a paper bag, and more chewing. Openmouthed chewing. Loud, like someone smacking gum. Why
wouldn’t he say anything?
“What do you want?”
No answer.
Maggie was shivering now. The tourist scenario was gone
from her head, the robber scenario fading fast. A new scenario
entered Maggie’s mind. The scenario of campfire stories and
horror movies. The boogeyman, hiding under the bed. The
escaped lunatic, searching for someone to hurt, to kill.
Maggie needed to get out of there, to get away. She could
run to the car, or meet Sal on the dock and get into his boat,
or even hide out in the woods. She could hurry to the guest
bedroom, lock the door, open up the window, climb down—
Chewing, right next to the bed. Maggie gasped, pulling
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the flannel sheets to her chest. She squinted into the darkness,
could barely make out the dark figure of a man standing a few
feet away.
The bag rustled. Something touched Maggie’s face and
she gasped. A tiny pat on her cheek. It happened again, on
her forehead, making her flinch. Again, and she swatted out
with her hand, finding the object on the pillow.
Popcorn. He was throwing popcorn at her.
Maggie’s voice came out in a whisper. “What...what are
you going to do?”
The springs creaked as he sat on the edge of the bed.
“Everything,” he said.
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ThE FoLLoWING IS AN ExCERPT oF SNoWBoUND
By BLAkE CRoUCh, AvAILABLE EvERyWhERE FRoM
MINoTAUR BookS IN JUNE 2010…
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1
In the evening of the last good day either of them would
know for years to come, the girl pushed open the sliding glass
door and stepped through onto the back porch.
“Daddy?”
Will Innis set the legal pad aside and made room for Devlin
to climb into his lap. His daughter was small for eleven, felt
like the shell of a child in his arms.
“What are you doing out here?” she asked and in her
scratchy voice he could hear the remnants of her last
respiratory infection like gravel in her lungs.
“Working up a closing for my trial in the morning.”
“Is your client the bad guy again?”
Will smiled. “You and your mother. I’m not really
supposed to think of it that way, sweetheart.”
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“What’d he do?” His little girl’s face had turned ruddy
in the sunset and the fading light brought out threads of
platinum in her otherwise midnight hair.
“He allegedly—”
“What’s that mean?”
“Allegedly?”
“Yeah.”
“Means it’s not been proven. He’s suspected of selling
drugs.”
“Like what I take?”
“No, your drugs are good. They help you. He was selling,
allegedly selling, bad drugs to people.”
“Why are they bad?”
“Because they make you lose control.”
“Why do people take them?”
“They like how it makes them feel.”
“How does it make them feel?”
He kissed her forehead and looked at his watch. “It’s after
eight, Devi. Let’s go bang on those lungs.”
She sighed but she didn’t argue. She never tried to get out
of it.
He stood up cradling his daughter and walked over to the
redwood railing.
They stared into the wilderness that bordered Oasis Hills,
their subdivision. The houses on No-Water Lane had the
Sonoran Desert for a backyard.
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“Look,” he said. “See them?” A half mile away, specks
filed out of an arroyo and trotted across the desert toward a
shadeless forest of giant saguaro cacti that looked vaguely
sinister profiled against the horizon.
“What are they?” she asked.
“Coyotes. What do you bet they start yapping when the
sun goes down?”
After supper, he read to Devlin from A Wrinkle in Time.
They’d been working their way through the penultimate
chapter, “Aunt Beast,” but Devlin was exhausted and drifted
off before Will had finished the second page.
He closed the book and set it on the carpet and turned
out the light. Cool desert air flowed in through an open
window. A sprinkler whispered in the next door neighbor’s
yard. Devlin yawned, made a cooing sound that reminded
him of rocking her to sleep as a newborn. Her eyes fluttered
and she said very softly, “Mom?”
“She’s working late at the clinic, sweetheart.”
“When’s she coming back?”
“Few hours.”
“Tell her to come in and kiss me?”
“I will.”
He was nowhere near ready for court in the morning but
he stayed, running his fingers through Devlin’s hair until
she’d fallen back to sleep. Finally, he slid carefully off the bed
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and walked out onto the deck to gather up his books and legal
pads. He had a late night ahead of him. A pot of strong coffee
would help.
Next door, the sprinklers had gone quiet.
A lone cricket chirped in the desert.
Thunderless lightning sparked somewhere over Mexico,
and the coyotes began to scream.
2
The thunderstorm caught up with Rachael Innis thirty
miles north of the Mexican border. It was 9:30 p.m., and it
had been a long day at the free clinic in Sonoyta, where she
volunteered her time and services once a week as a bilingual
psychologist. The windshield wipers whipped back and
forth. High beams lit the steam rising off the pavement, and
in the rearview mirror, Rachael saw the pair of headlights a
quarter of a mile back that had been with her for the last ten
minutes.
Glowing beads suddenly appeared on the shoulder just
ahead. She jammed her foot into the brake pedal, the Grand
Cherokee fishtailing into the oncoming lane before skidding
to a stop. A doe and her fawn ventured into the middle of
the road, mesmerized by the headlights. Rachael let her
forehead fall onto the steering wheel, closed her eyes, drew
in a deep breath.
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The deer moved on. She accelerated the Cherokee, another
dark mile passing as pellets of hail hammered the hood.
The Cherokee veered sharply toward the shoulder and
she nearly lost control again, trying to correct her bearing,
but the steering wheel wouldn’t straighten out. Rachael
lifted her foot off the gas pedal and eased over onto the
side of the road.
When she killed the ignition all she could hear was the
rain and hail drumming on the roof. The car that had been
following her shot by. She set her glasses in the passenger
seat, opened the door, and stepped down into a puddle that
engulfed her pumps. The downpour soaked through her
black suit. She shivered. It was pitch-black between lightning
strikes and she moved forward carefully, feeling her way
along the warm metal of the hood.
A slash of lightning hit the desert just a few hundred
yards out. It set her body tingling, her ears ringing. I’m going
to be electrocuted. There came a train of earsplitting strikes,
flashbulbs of electricity that lit the sky just long enough for
her to see that the tires on the driver side were still intact.
Her hands trembled now. A tall saguaro stood burning
like a cross in the desert. She groped her way over to the
passenger side as marble-size hail collected in her hair. The
desert was electrified again, spreading wide and empty all
around her.
In the eerie blue light she saw that the front tire on the
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passenger side was flat.
Back inside the Cherokee, Rachael sat behind the steering
wheel, mascara trailing down her cheeks like sable tears. She
wrung out her long black hair and massaged the headache
building between her temples. Her purse lay in the passenger
floorboard. She dragged it into her lap and shoved her hand
inside, rummaging for the cell phone. She found it, tried her
husband’s number, but there was no service in the storm.
Rachael looked into the back of the Cherokee at the spare.
She had no way of contacting AAA and passing cars would
be few and far between on this remote highway at this hour
of the night. I’ll just wait and try Will again when the storm has
passed.
Squeezing the steering wheel, she stared through the
windshield into the stormy darkness, somewhere north of
the border in Organ Pipe Cactus National Monument. Middle
of nowhere.
There was a brilliant streak of lightning. In the split
second illumination she saw a black Escalade parked a
hundred yards up the shoulder.
Thunder rattled the windows. Five seconds elapsed. When
the sky exploded again, Rachael felt a strange, unnerving pull
to look through the driver side window.
A man swung a crowbar through the glass.
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3
Will startled back into consciousness, disoriented and
thirsty. It was so quiet—just the discreet drone of a computer
fan and the second hand of the clock ticking in the adjacent
bedroom. He found himself slouched in the leather chair at
the desk in his small home office, the CPU still purring, the
monitor switched into sleep mode.
As he yawned, everything rushed back in a torrent of
anxiety. He’d been hammering out notes for his closing
argument and hit a wall at ten o’clock. The evidence was
damning. He was going to lose. He’d only closed his eyes for a
moment to clear his head.
He reached for the mug of coffee and took a sip. Winced.
It was cold and bitter. He jostled the mouse. When the screen
restored, he looked at the clock and realized he wouldn’t be
sleeping anymore tonight. It was 4:09 a.m. He was due in
court in less than five hours.
First things first—he needed an immediate and potent
infusion of caffeine.
His office adjoined the master bedroom at the west end
of the house, and passing through on his way to the kitchen,
he noticed a peculiar thing. He’d expected to see his wife
buried under the myriad quilts and blankets on their bed,
but she wasn’t there. The comforter was smooth and taut,
undisturbed since they’d made it up yesterday morning.
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He walked through the living room into the den and down
the hallway toward the east end of the house. Rachael had
probably come home, seen him asleep at his desk, and gone
in to kiss Devlin. She’d have been exhausted from working
all day at the clinic. She’d probably fallen asleep in there.
He could picture the nightlight glow on their faces as he
reached his daughter’s door.
It was cracked, exactly as he’d left it seven hours ago when
he’d put Devlin to bed.
He eased the door open. Rachael wasn’t with her.
Will wide awake now, closing Devlin’s door, heading back
into the den.
“Rachael? You here, hon?”
He went to the front door, turned the deadbolt, stepped
outside.
Dark houses. Porchlights. Streets still wet from the
thunderstorms that blew through several hours ago. No
wind, the sky clearing, bright with stars.
When he saw them in the driveway, his knees gave out
and he sat down on the steps and tried to remember how to
breathe. One Beamer, no Jeep Cherokee, and a pair of patrol
cars, two uniformed officers coming toward him, their hats
shelved under their arms.
The patrolmen sat in the living room on the couch,
Will facing them in a chair. The smell of new paint was still
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strong. He and Rachael had redone the walls and the vaulted
ceiling in terracotta last weekend. Most of the black and
white desert photographs that adorned the room still
leaned against the antique chest of drawers, waiting to be
re-hung.
The lawmen were businesslike in their delivery, taking
turns with the details, as if they’d rehearsed who would say
what, their voices so terribly measured and calm.
There wasn’t much information yet. Rachael’s Cherokee
had been found on the shoulder of Arizona 85 in Organ Pipe
Cactus National Monument. Right front tire flat, punctured
with a nail to cause a slow and steady loss of air pressure.
Driver side window busted out.
No Rachael. No blood.
They asked Will a few questions. They tried to sympathize.
They said how sorry they were, Will just shaking his head and
staring at the floor, a tightness in his chest, constricting his
windpipe in a slow strangulation.
He happened to look up at some point, saw Devlin standing in the hall in a plain pink tee-shirt that fell all the way to
the carpet, the tattered blanket she’d slept with every night
since her birth draped over her left arm. And he could see
in her eyes that she’d heard every word the patrolmen had
said about her mother, because they were filling up with
tears.
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4
Rachael Innis was strapped upright with two-inch
webbing to the leather seat behind the driver. She stared
at the console lights. The digital clock read 4:32 a.m. She
remembered the crowbar through the window and nothing
after.
Bach’s Four Lute Suites blared from the Bose stereo
system, John Williams playing the classical guitar. Beyond
the windshield, the headlights cut a feeble swath of light
through the darkness, and even though she was riding in a
luxury SUV, the shocks did little to ease the violent jarring
from whatever primitive road they traveled.
Her wrists and ankles were comfortably but securely
bound with nylon restraints. Her mouth wasn’t gagged.
From her vantage point, she could only see the back of the
driver’s head and occasionally the side of his face by the
cherry glow of his cigarette. He was smooth-shaven, his hair
was dark, and he smelled of a subtle, spicy cologne.
It occurred to her that he didn’t know she was awake,
but the thought wasn’t two seconds old when she caught his
eyes in the rearview mirror. They registered her consciousness, turned back to the road.
They drove on. An endless stream of rodents darted
across the road ahead and a thought kept needling her—at
some point, he was going to stop the car and do whatever
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he was driving her out in the desert to do.
“Have you urinated on my seat?” She thought she detected
the faintest accent.
“No.”
“You tell me if you have to urinate. I’ll stop the car.”
“Okay. Where are you—”
“No talking. Unless you have to urinate.”
“I just—”
“You want your mouth taped? You have a cold. That
would make breathing difficult.”
Devlin was the only thing she’d ever prayed for and that
was years ago, but as she watched the passing sagebrush and
cactus through the deeply tinted windows, she pleaded with
God again.
Now the Escalade was slowing. It came to a stop. He turned
off the engine and stepped outside and shut the door. Her
door opened. He stood watching her. He was very handsome,
with flawless, brown skin (save for an indentation in the
bridge of his nose), liquid blue eyes, and black hair greased
back from his face. His pretty teeth seemed to gleam in the
night. Rachael’s chest heaved against the strap of webbing.
He said, “Calm down, Rachael.” Her name sounded like
a foreign word on his lips. He took out a syringe from his
black leather jacket and uncapped the needle.
“What is that?” she asked.
“You have nice veins.” He ducked into the Escalade and
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turned her arm over. When the needle entered, she gasped.
“Please listen. If this is some kind of ransom thing—”
“No, no. You’ve already been purchased. In fact, right
now, there isn’t a safer place in the world for you to be than
in my possession.”
A gang of coyotes erupted in demonic howls somewhere
out in that empty dark and Rachael thought they sounded
like a woman burning alive, and she began to scream until
the drug took her.
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ThE FoLLoWING IS AN ExCERPT oF ShAkEN By
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1989, June 23
This guy isn’t a killer, Dalton thinks. He’s a butcher.
Dalton isn’t repulsed by the spectacle, or even slightly
disturbed. He stays detached and professional, even as he
snaps a picture of Brotsky tearing at the prostitute’s body
with some kind of three-pronged garden tool.
There’s a lot of blood.
Dalton wonders if he should have brought color film. But
there’s something classic, something pure, about shooting
in black and white. It makes real life even more realistic.
Dalton opens the f-stop on the lens, adjusting for the
setting sun. He’s standing in the backyard of Brotsky’s house,
and his subject has been gracious enough to leave the blinds
open. From his spot on the lawn, Dalton has a clear view into
Brotsky’s living room, where the carnage is taking place.
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Though Brotsky has a high fence and plenty of foliage on his
property, he’s still taking a big risk. There are neighbors on
either side, and the back gate leading to the alley is unlocked.
Anyone could walk by.
It’s not a smart way to conduct a murder.
Dalton has watched Brotsky kill two hookers in this
fashion, and surely there have been others. Yet the Chicago
Police Department hasn’t come knocking on Brotsky’s door
yet. Brotsky has been incredibly lucky so far.
But luck runs out.
At least Brotsky has the sense to put a tarp down, Dalton
thinks.
He snaps another photo. Brotsky’s naked barrel chest is
slick with gore, and the look on his unshaven face is somewhere
between frenzy and ecstasy as he works the garden tool. He’s
not a tall man, but he’s thick, with big muscles under a layer
of hard fat. Brotsky sweats a lot, and his bald head gives off
a glare which Dalton offsets by using a filter on his lens.
Brotsky sets down the garden tool, and picks up a
cleaver.
Yeah, this guy is nuts.
Truth told, Dalton has done worse to people, at least as
far as suffering goes. If the price is right, Dalton will drag
someone’s death out for hours, or even days. But Dalton gets
no pleasure from the task. Killing is simply his business.
Brotsky is killing to meet baser needs. Sex. Power. Blood
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lust. Hunger, Dalton muses, taking a shot of Brotsky with his
mouth full of something moist.
If Brotsky sticks to his MO, he’ll dismember the girl, wrap
up her parts in plastic bags, and then take her severed head
into the shower with him. When Brotsky returns, he’ll be
squeaky clean, and the head will be gone. Then he’ll load the
bags into his car and haul them to the dump site.
Dalton guesses it will be another eleven minutes. He
waits patiently, taking occasional snapshots, musing about
what Brotsky does with the heads. Dalton isn’t bothered
by the heat or the humidity, even though it’s close to ninety
degrees and he’s wearing a suit and tie. Unlike Brotsky,
Dalton doesn’t sweat. Dalton has pores. He just never feels
the need to use them.
Exactly eleven minutes and nine seconds later, Brotsky
walks out his back door, dressed in shorts, sandals, and a
wrinkled blue Hawaiian shirt. He’s lugging several black
plastic garbage bags. The man is painfully unaware, and
doesn’t even bother looking around. He walks right past
Dalton, who is hiding behind the girth of an ancient oak
tree, gun in hand.
The hitman falls into step behind the butcher, his softsoled shoes silent on the walkway. He trails Brotsky, close as
a shadow, for several steps and then jams the Ruger against
the fat man’s back. Brotsky stops cold.
“This is a gun, Victor Brotsky. Try to run and I’ll fire.
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The bullet will blow your heart out the front of your chest.
Neither of us want that to happen. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” Brotsky says. “Can I put down these bags? They’re
heavy.”
Brotsky doesn’t seem frightened, or even surprised.
Dalton is impressed. Perhaps the man is more of a pro than
Dalton guessed.
“No. We’re going to walk, slowly, out to the alley. My car
is parked there. You’re going to put the pieces of the hooker
in the trunk.”
Brotsky does as he’s told. Dalton’s black 1989 El Dorado
Roadster is parked alongside Brotsky’s garage. The car isn’t
as anonymous as Dalton would prefer, but he needs to keep
up appearances. The wiseguys he works for like Caddys, and
driving the latest model somewhat compensates for the fact
that Dalton isn’t Italian.
“Trunk is open. Put the bags inside, and take out the red
folder.”
Brotsky hefts the bags into the trunk, and they land with
a solid thump. The alley smells like garbage, and the summer
heat makes the odor cling. Dalton moves the gun from
the man’s back to his neck.
“Take the folder,” Dalton says.
The light from the trunk is enough. Brotsky opens the
folder, begins to page through several 8x10 photos of his two
previous victims. He lingers on one where he’s grinning,
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holding up a severed leg. It’s Dalton’s personal favorite. Black
and white really is the only way to go.
“I’m a teacher,” Brotsky says. He has the barest trace of a
Russian accent. “I don’t have much money.”
Dalton allows himself a small grin. He likes how Brotsky
thinks. Maybe this will work out after all.
“I don’t want to blackmail you,” Dalton says. “My
employer is a very important Chicago businessman.”
Brotsky sighs. “Let me guess. I slaughtered one of his
whores, and now you’re going to teach me a lesson.”
“Wrong again, Victor Brotsky. See the lunch box in the
corner of the trunk? Open it up.”
Brotsky follows instructions. The box is filled with several
stacks of twenty dollar bills. Three thousand dollars total.
“What is this?” Brotsky asks.
“Consider it a retainer,” Dalton says. “My employer wants
to hire you.”
“Hire me for what?”
“To do what you’re doing for free.” Dalton leans forward,
whispers in Brotsky’s plump, hairy ear. “He wants you to kill
some prostitutes.”
Brotsky turns around slowly, and his lips part in a smile.
His breath is meaty, and he has a tiny bit of hooker caught in
his teeth.
“This employer of yours,” Brotsky says. “I think I’m going
to like working for him.”
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2010, August 10
The rope secured my wrists behind my back and snaked
a figure eight pattern through my arms up to my elbows.
Houdini with a hacksaw wouldn’t have been able to get
free. The best I could do was flex and wiggle my fingers to
keep my circulation going.
My legs were similarly secured, the braided nylon line
cris-crossing from my ankles to my knees, pinching my
skin so tight I wished I’d worn pantyhose. And I hate
pantyhose.
I was lying on my side, the concrete floor cool against
my cheek and ear, the only light a sliver that came through
a crack at the bottom of the far wall. A hard rubber ball
had been crammed into my mouth. I was unable to
dislodge it—a strap around my head held it in place. I
probed the curved surface and winced when my tongue
met with little indentations. Teeth marks. This ball gag had
been used many times before.
My sense of time was sketchy, but I guessed I’d been
awake for about fifteen minutes. The first few were spent
struggling against the ropes, trying to scream for help
around the gag. The bindings were escape-proof, and my
ankle rope secured me to a large concrete block, making
it impossible for me to roll away. The ball gag didn’t allow
for more than a low moan, and after a minute or two I
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began to choke on my own saliva, my jaw wedged open too
wide for me to swallow. I had to adjust my head so the spit ran
out the corner of my mouth.
Based on the hollow echoes from my sounds, I sensed I
was in a small, empty garage. Some machine—perhaps an
air conditioner or dehumidifier—hummed tunelessly in
the background. I smelled bleach, which wasn’t a good sign.
Under the bleach I smelled traces of copper, human waste,
and rotten meat, which was even worse.
Fighting panic and losing, I made myself focus on how
I got here, how this happened. My memory was fuzzy. A hit
on the head? A drug? I wasn’t sure. I had no recollection of
anything leading up to this.
But from the smells, and my past, I could assume whoever
abducted me was planning on killing me.
Definitely not the way I wanted to end my new career.
1989, August 15
I didn’t become a cop to do things like this.
The red vehicle pulled up and honked at me. It was one
of those strange combinations of a car and a truck; I think
they were called SUVs. This one said Isuzu Trooper on the
fender. I found them to be too big and blocky, especially for
an urban setting like Chicago. And with gas prices up to
almost $1.20 a gallon, I doubted the trend would catch on.
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The night was hot, humid as hell, and I was sweating even
though I was nearly naked. My candy apple red lipstick kept
smearing in the heat, forcing me to reapply it. I had the whole
block to myself, having chased the other girls away earlier.
I’d done them a favor; action was molasses slow. Plus, the
city was eight days into a garbage strike, and the stink
coming from the alley was a force of nature.
“Your call, Jackie,” my earpiece said. My partner, Officer
Harry McGlade, waited in a vintage Mustang parked up the
street.
“Aren’t you bored with this game yet?” I said into
the microphone. It was hidden in my Madonna push-up
bustier; an item that should have been worn under a top,
not as a top. Jacqueline Streng, working girl. I reached inside
the cup and readjusted my boob. The transmitter was the
size of a pack of cigarettes, but harder and heavier, the
sharp corners not meant to be wedged tight against
delicate female anatomy. It hurt. The wires trailed up my
bra strap, and to the earpiece, hidden by my Fredrick’s of
Hollywood blonde Medusa wig.
“I’ll be bored when I’m actually ahead a few bucks,”
Harry said. “Go on. Guess.”
I squinted at the guy behind the wheel. The street was
dark, but he had his interior light on while he looked around
for something. Possibly his wallet. He was Caucasian, late
forties, balding, thick glasses. White collar, probably married
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with kids.
“BJ,” I said to Harry.
“Naw. I’m guessing something pervy.”
“He looks like a member of the PTA.”
“The clean-cut guys are always the perverts.”
“You said the weird-looking guys are always the
perverts.”
“They’re pretty much all perverts. I’ll say foot fetishist.”
I actually didn’t know what a foot fetishist did. Something to do with feet, I assumed, but what? The Vice
training manual didn’t explain that particular kink. I wasn’t
about to ask Harry, because he’d make fun of me. It was hard
enough being a female in the Chicago Police Department.
Being a young female who did prostitution stings made me
an easy target for potshots.
Not that I would be young for much longer. Today
officially began the last year of my twenties. I was going to
celebrate the happy occasion by watching TV and getting
drunk. My boyfriend Alan was out of town on a business
trip, and so far he’d neglected to get me anything. Big
mistake. True, I didn’t want any reminders of my rapidly
retreating youth. But we cops were big on intent. And
forgetting your girlfriend’s birthday said a lot about your
future intent.
Not that I had any intentions myself. His last name was
Daniels, for chrissakes. I had a hard enough time getting
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respect on the Job. If my name was Jack Daniels, I’d be the
laughing stock of the city.
“You in or out, Jackie?”
“Fine,” I said. “Ten-spot?”
“Make it twenty. I got a feeling.”
Bald Guy honked again. I pulled up the elastic top of one
of my black fishnet stockings, pulled down the hem of my
hot pink spandex micro-mini skirt, and walked over to the
car on painfully high, strappy heels. His window opened,
and I stuck my head inside. The air conditioning bathed my
face, cooling the sweat on my brow and upper lip.
“How are you tonight, sugar?” I asked, smacking my
gum.
Bald Guy appeared nervous, jittery. Most of them did.
Maybe because soliciting sex was embarrassing. Or maybe
because they were worried that the hooker they propositioned
was actually an undercover cop.
Imagine that.
“How much?” he asked without looking at me.
“How much what?” I asked.
“How much money?”
In order to make a clean arrest, and avoid the dreaded
entrapment defense, the suspect had to be the one to bring
up the subject of money. This guy cut right to the heart of
the matter. Now he needed to mention what he wanted in
exchange.
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“Depends,” I said, playing coy. “What is it you’re looking
for?”
“Something special. Can you quote me your, um, rates?”
“Sure. Head is ten. Straight is fifteen. Half-and-half is
twenty. Round the world is thirty. Anything to do with feet
is fifty.”
“No fair!” McGlade yelled in my ear. “You’re pricejacking!”
I hoped Bald Guy didn’t hear that, even though it was so
loud my eyes bugged out.
“I’ve got kind of a strange request,” Bald Guy said.
I leaned in further. The air conditioning was wonderfully
frigid, and the interior smelled like lemon air freshener. After
four hours on the street, this was a little slice of heaven.
“Kinky is extra. Tell me what you need, big boy.”
“Actually, I’ll pay you fifty dollars if you just hold me for
ten minutes.”
“Hold you?”
He nodded, his face puppy dog sad.
“We can’t arrest him for that,” Harry said. “Ask him if
he wants to suck your toes.”
I ignored Harry, which wasn’t the easiest thing to do.
Especially with him in my ear. “That’s all?” I asked Bald Guy.
“Just hold you?”
“That’s all.”
His shoulders slumped. I felt kind of sorry for him.
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“Tell him you’ve been on your feet all day,” Harry said,
“and your toes are really sweaty and stinky.”
I wished I could turn the earpiece off.
“That’s kind of a weird,” I told the guy. “Don’t you have a
mother or an aunt or someone else who can give you a hug?”
“No one. I just got divorced, and I’m all alone.”
“How about friends? Neighbors? A church group?”
Bald Guy shook his head.
Harry said, “Try taking off your shoe and sticking your
foot under his nose.”
“I just need a little tenderness,” Bald Guy said. “Will you
do it?”
He looked so devastated, so desperate. Plus his vehicle
was air-conditioned and smelled nice. What more prompting
did I need? I walked around the front of his car/truck and
climbed into the passenger seat.
“Dammit, Jackie! Find another john!” Harry, in my ear.
“There aren’t any laws against cuddling! Don’t waste our
time!”
The earpiece really needed an off switch. In fact, so did
Harry. The sad thing was, Harry wasn’t as bad as some of
the other jerks I had to work with. What did a female cop
have to do to earn the respect of her peers in this city?
I guessed it wasn’t dressing up as a hooker, offering BJs.
“Okay,” I said. “One quick hug. On the house.”
I opened up my arms, ready to embrace this poor clod,
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and he handed me a latex glove. I backed off a notch.
“Are you sick?” I asked. “Contagious?”
“No, no, nothing like that. While you’re hugging me, I’d
like you to stick your fingers up my bottom.”
No wonder he was divorced.
“And wiggle them,” he added.
“Mirandize that pervert,” McGlade said. “I’ll call the
wagon and be right there.”
I opened my silver-sequined purse, reaching for my star
and handcuffs.
“I’m a police officer,” I said, making my voice hard,
“and you’re under arrest for soliciting a sexual act. Put your
hands on the steering wheel.”
Bald Guy turned bright red, then burst into tears.
“I only wanted a little tenderness!”
“Place your hands on the steering wheel, sir. And for
future reference, fingers up the wazoo really doesn’t qualify
as tenderness.”
“I’m so lonely!” he sobbed.
“Buy a dog.” An unwelcome image popped into my
head, of this pervert with some poor Schnauzer. “On second
thought, that’s a bad idea.”
Bald Guy moaned, wiped his nose with his wrist, and
then flung open his door and ran like hell. Which didn’t
make much sense, considering that in jail he could probably
find someone to fulfill his request for free.
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“He bolted!” I yelled to Harry. “Coming your way!”
I pushed open my door and scrambled after him. Three
steps into my pursuit I broke a heel and almost fell onto
my face. I recovered in time, but my speed was drastically
reduced. A penguin on stilts would have been faster, and
looked less clumsy. I wasn’t about to kick my broken pump
off—this wasn’t the nicest part of town, and I didn’t want
to step on a dirty needle.
“He ducked down the alley, Jackie!” Harry said. “It lets out
on Halsted. Run around and block his exit!”
Easy for him to say. He was wearing gym shoes.
I rounded the corner, hobbling as fast as I could, my
spandex skirt riding up and encircling my waist like a neon
pink belt. My purse orbited my neck on its spaghetti strap,
and each time it passed in front of my face I reached for it
and missed. Inside was my 9mm Beretta, and I didn’t want
to be charging into any alleys without it firmly in hand.
Honking, from the street. I wondered if it was the
squadrol—a police wagon that picked up and booked the
suspects we caught on this sting. No such luck. It was a
carload of cute preppy guys. They hooted at me, pumping
their fists in the air.
“What’s that sound?” Harry said. “You watching
Arsenio?”
I skidded to a halt at the mouth of the alley, tugged down
my skirt, and tugged out my Beretta.
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The hooting stopped. I heard one of the preppies yell,
“The whore is packing heat!” and their tires squealed away.
“Where is he?” I said into the mike.
“If he didn’t come out on your side, he’s hiding in the alley
somewhere.”
“I’ll meet you in the middle.”
“It’s dark. Don’t shoot me by mistake.”
Harry didn’t mean it to be condescending, but he wouldn’t
have said it if I were a man. I set my jaw, gripped my weapon
in both hands with my elbows bent and the barrel pointing
skyward, and crept into the alley.
The decaying garbage odor got worse with every step, so
bad I could taste it in the back of my throat. I moved slowly,
letting my eyes sweep left and right, looking for any place
Bald Guy could hide. I came up to a parked car, checked under
it, behind it.
“Jesus, the stink is making my eyes water.” Harry said.
“It smells like some fat guys with BO ate bad cheese and took
a group shit on a rotting corpse.”
Harry wore so much Brut aftershave I was surprised he
could smell anything.
“You’re a poet, McGlade.”
“Why? Did I rhyme something?”
I stuck my head into a shadowy doorway, didn’t find Bald
Guy, and went deeper into the alley.
Then I heard the scream.
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It came from ahead of me. A man’s voice, with a hollow/
echoey quality to it.
Something horrible was happening to Bald Guy.
My whole body became gooseflesh. I just joined Vice two
weeks ago. Even though I was still a patrol officer, and made
the same pay, I jumped at the chance to wear plainclothes
and ditch the standard uniform. But plainclothes turned out
to be hooker-wear, and I felt especially vulnerable without
my dress blues on. It wasn’t easy being tough when you’re
wearing a micro-mini.
Another scream ripped through the alley. The little girl
in me, the one who still woke up scared during thunderstorms, wanted to turn around and run.
But if I gave in to my fear, Harry would mention it in
the arrest report. Then it would be back to riding patrol and
answering radio calls, where I got even less respect.
I forced myself to move forward. Now my gun was
pointing in front of me, toward the direction of the sound.
The Beretta was double action and protocol dictated it stayed
uncocked. The harder pull meant less accidental shootings.
Theoretically, at least. My finger was so tight on the trigger
that a strong breeze would have caused me to fire.
“You see him?” Harry asked. I heard him in my earpiece,
but I also heard him in the alley, somewhere ahead.
“Not yet.”
“Maybe he’s screaming because he can’t stand the smell.”
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I didn’t think that was the case. I’d heard my share of
screams on the Job. Screams of joy. Screams of sorrow.
Screams of pain.
This was a scream of terror.
A clanging sound, only a few yards away from me. A
Dumpster. I held my breath, heard whimpering coming from
inside.
“He’s in a Dumptser,” I told Harry.
“Probably sitting in a big pile of rats.”
I approached quickly. It was dark, but I could see the
Dumpster lid was open.
“This is the police!” I shouted, hoping my voice didn’t
quaver. “Raise your hands up where I can see them!”
Bald Guy complied. But there was something wrong.
Rather than two hands, I counted three.
I moved closer, and realized the third hand wasn’t his. It
belonged to a woman.
And it wasn’t attached to the rest of her.
I felt someone touch my shoulder and jumped back. It
was Harry.
“Looks like he got you a birthday present, Jackie. Quite
a handy guy.”
My stomach seized up, then I bent over and vomited,
soaking my broken shoes and getting it caught in the fake
curls hanging in front of my face. When I heaved for the
final time, the transmitter popped free of my bustier and
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plonked into the puddle of puke.
“Happy twenty-ninth,” Harry said.
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