Shooter (Burnout) (42 page)

It made him uneasy, the way he always did before they rolled out in the desert. But he knew from experience all he could do was make sure no mistakes were made on his end. He’d promised her he’d protect her. And that’s exactly what he intended to do. He tried not to think about the other promise he’d made, that he would let her go whenever she decided it was time. She missed her family something fierce. And he wanted her with him more than he’d ever care to admit out loud to anyone. And that was a hell of a situation to find himself in.

Chapter 32

Chris left the garage in the capable hands of the boys, even Caleb put in for some vacation time to help out so they didn’t get behind. The night before they left, Hayley told him everything. All the details that he’d been missing. That she was from Raleigh, North Carolina. That her parents were still married and still lived in the same house she grew up in. He’d nodded, taking it all in, and then urged her to get some sleep because they would be hitting the road early the next morning.

After she fell asleep, he slipped out of the bedroom and grabbed his cell phone off the kitchen counter. “Her name is Sarah Marie Davis,” he told a sleep-fuzzed Caleb. “She’s from Raleigh.”

Caleb made a grunt that was something like a cross between acknowledgement and frustration. “I’ll dig up what I can,” he promised.

Chris nodded, mostly to himself. “We’re taking the truck to Virginia. Then we’re renting a car from there.”

“Sounds good. I’ll call you when you’re on the road.”

Chris hung up, double checked their bags and set them by the front door. He didn’t much like going in blind. He hoped Caleb would be able to pick up something, anything that might be useful. When he couldn’t possibly find anything else to do, he finally slipped out of his jeans and into a pair of shorts and slid into bed next to Slick.

Her breathing was steady and even and he pulled her close, breathing in her scent. There were so many things that could go wrong, not the least of which was Slick simply deciding she’d had enough of running and refusing to go back with him. He pushed the thoughts out of his head. He could only afford to focus on things he could control.

The next morning, they woke early and he sent her out to the truck with her black duffel back. After sending her away, he headed to the bedroom and opened the closet door. The .44 was too big, way too conspicuous. He pulled out a footlocker tucked into the back corner of the closet and unlocked the stainless steel padlock. He drew out a .38, checked the barrel, and slid it into an ankle holster. He grabbed a few speed loaders for good measure. He strapped on the gun and stored the speed loaders in his own bag.

He obviously didn’t need the gun for the 1,700 miles it would take to get to North Carolina, but the holster was unfamiliar and he wanted the use the time to get used to wearing it. He zipped up the bag, shouldered it, and grabbed the cat.

Chris dropped off the furball next door with Easy. If Easy was irritated about having to take care of the little ninja, he didn’t show it. He seemed to understand that what they were doing was inherently dangerous and wasn’t going to dump a bunch of trivial shit on them. He actually hugged Hayley and wished them a safe drive. Chris promised to call that night when they hit the motel they’d be staying at half way between SD and NC.

Hayley, for her part, was putting on a brave face. Between fear for her father and fear for her life she seemed to be holding together remarkably well. Chris wished he’d had time to take her to a range and teach her to shoot. He could’ve gotten her a similar holster with perhaps a .25 or a .38, something small for her hands. But it would’ve taken weeks, probably months, before she’d be comfortable with it and longer than that to become proficient at it. He’d have to shoulder the entire responsibility of their security himself.

The ride was smooth, but achingly long. The hills of the Dakotas gave way to the flatlands of Nebraska and Kansas. They caught sight of the St. Louis Arch just before sunset. Chris was winding down anyway, and chose the first hotel off the highway they saw a sign for. He checked them in and helped Hayley carry their bags upstairs.

They ordered room service, traded off showers, and climbed into bed in record time, both of them exhausted from the miles they’d put on the odometer. Hayley was tired, too, even though she hadn’t driven, but not so tired that she didn’t press herself against his thigh, revealing that while he’d been in the shower, she’d gotten into bed wearing only a t-shirt. He’d seen her pack a box of Morning After pills in her bag the night before. He needed no other encouragement to take her.

Neither of them spoke. Neither of them wanted to give voice to their own fears. She pulled him on top of her; he drew her shirt up over her head. Her legs wrapped around his waist and her fingertips pressed into his back, urging him inside her. It wasn’t the edge of desperation, but it was something like it. He buried his face in her neck and his cock in her pussy and prayed like hell for the first time since he asked God to make sure Jimmy found his way to peace.

Chris wanted peace of a different kind with this woman. And he’d kill to get it, if that’s what it took. He silently thanked God that killing was within his ability to do. All he needed was for God to provide the opportunity.

In the morning, while Hayley showered, his phone rang. He swiped the answer button and left the room.

“I couldn’t find shit,” Caleb declared, sounding pissed. “Raleigh PD’s got nothing. DNA they can’t match, a description of a car they could never find. Hayley and Jake were taken to farmhouse outside of town, owned by a 90 year old man who’d been placed in a nursing home a few months before. He had no immediate family, so no leads there.”

Caleb let out a sigh. “If it makes you feel any better, I’d have to guess this guy’s lucky rather than good. Not bright enough to realize Hayley was still alive when he left her in the ground. Dumb enough to leave his prints and DNA everywhere. He obviously knows they can’t catch him based on that, but he’s apparently not thought about the fact that if they ever do catch him some other way, they can link him to at least two other couple abductions up and down the coast where the DNA matched up. There have been a few other disappearances, too. No bodies on those, yet, though.”

Chris frowned. It wasn’t anything he could actually use. “Thanks for trying. We’ll be in Raleigh tonight. We’re going to the hospital after Midnight.”

“Well, good luck and stay safe. Any idea when you’ll be headed back?”

“No. A lot depends on his condition. A few days at the most, though. The longer we stay the more exposed we are.”

A few minutes later, Chris disconnected and headed back to the room. He’d considered having Tex or Caleb come with them, but had ultimately dismissed it. The bigger their group was, the more likely they were to be noticed. And even if the asshole wasn’t staking out the hospital now, a busybody nurse could put a call into a local news station and a reporter could swoop in in an effort to get an exclusive interview with The Coastal Killer’s only living victim.

Caleb had told him that only one reporter had made the connection between Hayley’s abduction and murders in three other states, probably through a leak in the department. Apparently the local police hadn’t wanted to broadcast that information for their own reasons. The reporter, though, had run with it and nicknamed the asshole The Coastal Killer. But there had only been two disappearances since Hayley’s abduction and since no one had found any trace of them, they couldn’t be officially linked to the same perpetrator. No story had run on the so-called Coastal Killer in more than a year. Hopefully that would keep Hayley from being recognized by anyone.

Sneaking into the hospital after Midnight also cut down on the number of people who were likely to see her. It would also cut down on the number of faces Chris had to mentally file away for possible identification later. The less people they had to deal with the easier his job would be.

They left the truck in the long-term parking of a rental car place in Wytheville, Virginia. Chris had sprung for a Lincoln Navigator, which Hayley attempted to object to, until he pointed out the tinted windows and the inability of anything smaller attempting to force them off the road. All things being equal, Chris preferred his Ford, but he could run a motherfucker over comfortably in the Navigator. More importantly, the license plate would trace back to Virginia, which was, approximately 1,500 miles away from South Dakota.

A mile from the rental place they stopped for some fast food. He gave Hayley some cash, swung out of the Navigator and walked to the back of the civilian tank as she went inside to order food. He produced a razor blade, courtesy of the hotel, and carefully scraped off “Wytheville, Virginia” from the back of the SUV that the rental company used for advertising. It would probably take them weeks to discover the vandalism, if they ever did. An hour later they were on the road again. It was Chris’ plan to head to the hotel first, unpack and rest for a while, before heading to the Hospital.

*********************************

Hayley had progressively become more nervous the closer they got to her home. She’d kept in contact with her mother periodically during the journey. He dad was stabilized and had undergone open heart surgery. He’d been moved from the ICU to a regular hospital room and his prognosis was good. That alone made her worry a little less but it was hard to imagine setting foot in a town that should’ve felt like home but now seemed like a distant country she’d only visited once.

She hadn’t managed to get any real rest at the hotel and was up, pacing the floor, waiting for Chris to wake up. She checked her watch again and texted her mother. It felt odd to be communicating with her so frequently.

At a little before Midnight, she and Chris stepped out the side door of the hotel and climbed into the Navigator. The streets were dark and not really all that familiar to her anyway. She’d lived in a housing division on the North side. Not really a suburb, per se, but definitely nowhere near downtown. Chris skipped the hospital’s main entrance, instead driving down the street and onto the next block where the public parking garage was. He checked their immediate surroundings and told Hayley to wait.

He got out, came around the back of the car, and opened her door for her. She leaned against him as they headed down the staircase and onto the street. They walked quickly to the east of the hospital’s main entrance and Hayley got out her phone. Several minutes later, one of the hospital’s side doors opened, accessible only from the inside, and an older version of Hayley, slightly shorter, with longer hair appeared.

Hayley rushed forward out of Chris’ grip and into her mother’s. He stepped forward, pulling the door shut behind them, and was silent while the two women cried in each other’s arms. After a few minutes of tears and half-whispered words of endearment, Mrs. Davis righted herself and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. If Chris had thought the woman would be taken aback by her daughter bringing a hulking ex-Ranger-now-biker in tow to her emergency family reunion, he was definitely wrong. She smiled warmly as she held out her hand to him.

“You must be Chris. I feel like I already know you,” she confided, taking his right hand in both of hers. “Sarah’s told me so much.”

Chris couldn’t stop himself from frowning a little and glanced at Hayley. She seemed to understand his concern.

“Not where we live,” she corrected immediately. “Just how we met, and what kind of person you are. Not your last name, either.”

Chris nodded. It was obviously bad manners to bring up the fact that anything Hayley told her mother in confidence could easily be tortured out of her.

Mrs. Davis nodded. “It’s true. She’s barely told me any details. Sarah is still listed as a Missing Person with the police department. We’ve publicly maintained that lie for years. Every year on her birthday we even run an ad in the paper seeking any information about her whereabouts. We tell people she ran away after her recovery. Which is true. And that we don’t know where she is. Which is also true. She calls me on a pre-paid cell phone. We worked that out years ago. So even if the police periodically check out phone records, they won’t find anything.”

The older woman’s face softened. “Sarah-”

“Not right now, mom,” she interrupted. “I want to see Dad. None of the other stuff matters.”