Centralia (16 page)

He’d left her there, lying on the cold road, lifeless and staring into the night sky. He’d driven the Tahoe . . . but to where? And where had he procured another car? He didn’t know where he was. At some point he must have pulled off the road and found this clearing, then fallen asleep.

And dreamed. He’d had the dream again. It was still so vivid
 
—the stairs, the hallway, the rooms and open doors. The room he’d explored with the dresser and bookshelf and desk and floor lamp.

The floor lamp. He remembered it now. He hadn’t noticed it in his dream, but now, viewing the room through his mind’s eye, he
recalled it perfectly. It was the same lamp Dr. Audrey Lewis had in her office, the one with the stylized
C
painted on the shade.

And then there was the brochure on the desk with its scrolling fonts. The Andrews Academy.
A Centralia School.

He thought of that conversation he and Karen had with the gentleman across the table. The guy with the chiseled features and brilliant-green eyes. The guy with the perfect posture and smooth voice. There had to be more to the event than just his fragmented memory. Had they gone through with it? Had they sent her? They couldn’t have because Lilly was with Karen when they were . . .

No, they weren’t killed in the accident. They were still alive. Lilly had left him the note.

But Lilly didn’t go to any Andrews Academy; she went to Middleton Elementary School.

And there was also the Bible, set apart from the other books as if he was meant to find it, meant to turn to the exact page he’d turned to and read the exact words he’d read. Only now he couldn’t remember what he’d read. It had meant something to him, though, something special; he knew that much. The words had stirred some inkling of hope in him.

Peter stood and stretched his legs and back and looked around. Trees, underbrush, and more trees. About thirty yards to his left was the road, but he didn’t know which one. His watch said it was nearing seven o’clock. He rubbed his neck; it still ached.

He didn’t know how long he’d been out on the grass and hoped the car’s battery still had enough juice in it to turn over the engine. He tried the ignition and was pleased when it revved to life. Now to figure out where he was and redirect himself to Centralia.

Outside the town of Trout Run, just off Highway 15, Peter pulled to the side of the road, behind a row of Dumpsters, and got out. He’d managed to hot-wire a beater with a radiator that kept overheating, and this was a good enough place to stash the vehicle and find a replacement. The Dumpsters were all nearly empty, which meant the trash had just been picked up, probably yesterday. The trucks wouldn’t be coming around again for days, and he’d be long out of the picture by then.

Not far down the road toward the town, he’d noticed signage of various sizes and shapes and colors. There had to be multiple businesses around
 
—a strip mall, a factory, a warehouse, anything where people would be. Surely Trout Run was no different from every other small town in America. And where there were people, there were cars.

It didn’t take him even ten minutes of walking to arrive at the first building, a construction supply company with eleven cars in a newly coated and sealed parking lot. Nobody was around, but the lot was in direct view of the building and its front office. He didn’t want to do anything that might look suspicious and draw the attention of someone inside. The police would be called and there would be a search on for the creep nosing around parked cars.

The next building sat about a hundred yards down the road, a two-story office building housing a dental supply company, a paper supplier, an accountant, and a doctor’s office. No luck there either as the wall facing the parking lot was nearly all glass. Too visible. Too risky.

He moved on down the road, stopping at a trucking company near the ramp for Highway 15. The lot was mostly populated by big rigs, but a few cars and pickups sat unattended as well. Lines of trailers blocked any view of the lot from the front office. But there were cameras, lots of them, mounted on every light pole and corner of the building. Seemed the trucking company was taking no chances when it came to their trailers being broken into. One time was all it would have taken for them to go overboard on the surveillance.

Just inside the town line, Peter came upon a strip mall with a small grocery store, a pizza place, a Laundromat, a hair salon, and a beer outlet. Scanning the area, he found no security cameras but only a handful of cars sitting quietly, waiting for someone running for his life to come along and sweep them into a race against the clock. It was still early and the townies hadn’t hit the stores yet.

As he crossed the parking lot, he noticed a blue pickup headed his way. It slowed in front of the grocery store and turned into the parking area. A kid drove it, a teenager, maybe eighteen or
nineteen. He glanced at Peter, nodded, then steered the truck into a spot near the back of the lot.

Quickly Peter turned and headed for the truck. The kid had parked so the driver’s side faced away from the grocery store, putting any confrontation that would occur there out of view of the store but in full view of the road that passed the mall. Fortunately for Peter, the town of Trout Run was in that lull between clock-in time at most of the warehouses and factories and starting time at the retail places. Peter rounded the back of the truck just as the kid stepped out.

He heard Peter’s footsteps, spun, and wide-eyed and startled, said, “Hey, what . . . ?”

Peter positioned himself between the kid and the road, slipped the handgun from his pocket, and stepping close to the kid, pointed it at his abdomen. “I need your truck.”

The kid wore a pair of baggy khakis and a maroon polo shirt with the name of the grocery store
 
—Jane’s Market
 
—emblazoned over the left chest. He was pudgy but not obese and had shaggy hair that covered his ears and hung nearly to his eyes, partially hiding a twisted and satiny scar that ran from somewhere around the hairline above his right eye, down across the bridge of his nose, over his cheek, to his jawline. His nose sat slightly askew on his face, as if someone had haphazardly positioned it there and glued it in place without bothering to center it first. The kid tried to step back, but the open door blocked his retreat. Peter had him cornered. He opened his mouth, stuttered, then finally said, “Don’t kill me, man.”

A twinge of guilt hit Peter, and he almost walked away. The kid had no doubt suffered years of torment and bullying because of his scar and as a result had learned the art of a quick surrender. Peter
had become just another bully scratching another scar into the boy’s psyche.

As if he knew the routine because he’d done it a thousand times with lunch money or candy bars or movie tickets, the kid produced the keys and tried to hand them to Peter. “No,” Peter said. “Get back in. You’re gonna drive.”

He couldn’t afford to have the kid run for the store and call the cops. They’d know what vehicle Peter was driving and would track him down by air or land in no time. Peter didn’t want any more chases; he didn’t want any more shooting. Though he knew that before he got to the bottom of all this, before he found Karen and Lilly, there would be more of both.

The kid shook his head, his eyes as wide as melons now. “No, really, man. Take ’em. Here.” Again he tried to shove the keys at Peter.

Peter poked the barrel of the gun into the kid’s stomach. “Get in and do exactly as I say, and you won’t get hurt.”

“You won’t shoot me?”

“I won’t hurt you.”

“But if you shoot and kill me, it won’t hurt. You know, one shot to the head. I gotta know you won’t shoot me, man. It’s, like, one of my fears. I have this thing about being shot.”

Peter didn’t have time for this. Every second they stood there, the risk grew that some passerby would spot them and grow suspicious. He dug the barrel of the gun harder into the kid’s stomach. “Get in.”

“Okay, okay. All right, man. I’m gettin’ in.” The kid climbed in behind the wheel. “You sure you want me doin’ the driving?”

“Shut up and don’t move or I’ll shoot you and not even think twice about it. You understand?”

The kid didn’t move but nodded.

Peter shut the door and rounded the front of the truck to get in the passenger side.

Once in, he turned to the kid, gun trained on his stomach. “You have a smartphone?”

“Uh . . .” The kid lifted his butt off the seat and fumbled with his pocket. Pulling out a phone, he said, “Here. Who you gonna call?”

Peter took the phone. “Shut up and start driving.”

The kid started the truck and put it in gear. “Where we goin’?”

Flipping through the apps on the phone, Peter said, “Just start driving. East. And listen to me. I killed more men yesterday than I care to count, and I won’t hesitate to shoot you if you get a mind to be a hero. Just do as I say. Exactly as I say. And you’ll be okay. Do you understand me?”

Pulling out of the lot and onto the main street, the kid stole a look at Peter, then at the gun. “You killed guys with that?”

“Do you understand me?”

“Yes. Yeah. I got it.”

Peter found a map app and located Centralia on it. He then located the town of Trout Run. “Okay. I’m going to give you precise instructions and I need you to follow my directions exactly. No detours. No shortcuts. You understand?”

“Dude, I said I got it. Now can you get that thing away from me? Quit pointing it at me?”

Keeping the handgun trained on the kid, Peter opened the glove box and pulled out the vehicle’s registration form. “Your name is Ronald Little?”

“Ronnie.”

“Ronnie, I know where you live now.”

Ronnie swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his neck.
Peter doubted that in all the years Ronnie had endured bullying, torment, and teasing, he had ever had someone pull a gun on him, had his truck carjacked, nor had his family threatened.

Peter studied the map on the phone, then set it on the seat beside him. “Okay. Ronnie, I want you to circle back around through town and get on 15 south.”

“We going to Williamsport?”

“Not exactly.”

They drove in silence for several miles. The interior of the truck was surprisingly clean for a teenager’s vehicle. Ronnie took good care of it. From the rearview mirror hung an air freshener with an image of Iron Man on it. Along the dash were decals of other superheroes: Hulk, Thor, Captain America, Flash, and Thing. Ronnie’s key chain even included a pendant with Iron Man on it. So the kid was into superheroes, defenders of those who couldn’t defend themselves.

Peter instructed Ronnie to get off the highway and onto a secondary route. The major thoroughfares were too populated with state troopers who might identify him. He had to assume there was an all-points bulletin out on him with photos sent to every police barracks and station in the state. He also had to assume that whoever was after him knew where he was headed, so they had a general idea of where he’d be.

“How’d you get that scar, Ronnie?” Peter asked.

Ronnie hesitated, checked the mirrors, the speedometer. “My dad gave it to me.” He said it as if the scar were a birthday gift carefully picked out by a loving father.

“Not exactly something a normal dad gives his son to remember him by.”

“My dad was anything but normal.”

“Did he do it purposefully?”

“Purposefully.” Ronnie spoke the word as if it were something foreign and curious. “I don’t think he did anything purposefully. He was a drunk.”

“A mean drunk?”

“A mean drunk with a fascination with knives. Never a good combination.”

“How old were you?”

“Nine. I was nine.” Ronnie’s eyes glazed as if he had transported himself back to that time and was mentally reliving the moment of violence. His hands tightened on the steering wheel and his jaw muscles clenched.

“Ronnie,” Peter said.

Ronnie relaxed a little. “It took a hundred and five stitches to put my face back together and reattach my nose.”

They drove in silence again, and Peter thought of instructing Ronnie to stop and get out. The kid had been through enough violence to last him a couple lifetimes. Instead he said, “You said
was
. Your dad
was
a drunk. Did he get help?”

Ronnie licked his lips. He glanced at Peter. “No. He got dead. When I was fifteen, I killed him.”

“Self-defense?”

“That’s the way the jury saw it.”

Once more an uncomfortable silence filled the cabin. The tires hummed on the asphalt, rhythmically, quietly. Suddenly the interest in superheroes made a whole lot more sense. The wounded warrior overcoming trials and personal tribulations to conquer the villain.

A few minutes later, Ronnie again looked at the gun. “So you some kind of fugitive or something?”

Peter said, “Or something.”

“Did you do it?”

“Do what?”

“Whatever they say you did or think you did?”

“Doesn’t matter.” And it didn’t because he had no idea what he’d done or what he’d been accused of doing.

After more time in silence and three more turns onto different roads, Ronnie fidgeted in his seat and looked over at Peter. “So how many men did you kill?”

Peter kept his eyes straight ahead but could see the kid clearly in his peripheral vision. “Just drive.”

“Are you CIA or somethin’? Gone rogue?”

Peter said nothing.

“You some kind of assassin? Messed with the wrong dudes?”

Peter shifted the gun to his right hand and with his left jabbed quickly at Ronnie’s face with an open hand, catching the kid in the side of the head.

Ronnie’s right hand went to the spot. “Man, that ain’t
 
—”

Peter reached across the space between them and grabbed a handful of Ronnie’s shirt. He leaned toward the kid. “Listen, Ronnie, I have nothing against you, okay? You seem like a good kid. You got a job; you must be reasonably responsible. I admire you for how you handled the whole thing with your dad. I even like the superhero thing. I get it. But you really need to shut up and drive. I will shoot you if I need to. I will. I’ll drop you right where you sit, steer the truck to the shoulder, open the door, and just kick you out.” He let go of the kid’s shirt and relaxed. Of course, he had no intention at all of harming the kid. Not after what Ronnie had already endured. “Don’t make me do that, Ronnie, okay?”

Ronnie nodded.