The Lonely Mile (5 page)

By the time he had taken three running steps onto the hot pavement, Bill realized it was hopeless. There were probably over a hundred cars in the mammoth lot, and while it wasn’t even close to being full, the odds of picking the I-90 Killer’s vehicle out of all of the ones glittering in the bright May sunshine when he had no idea what it even looked like were stacked overwhelmingly against him. For all he knew, the guy had been parked in the first row and was already gone, even now speeding down the highway, anonymous and safe.

Bill slapped his hands together and screamed in frustration, and as he did, his headache spiked and the I-90 Killer roared past him, not twenty feet away, tearing along the parking lot access lane toward the on-ramp leading to the eastbound lane of the interstate. He was driving a battered, off-white box truck that trailed blue smoke as he made his escape. The vehicle had obviously been repainted, and not professionally, containing no apparent markings. Bill shuddered, thinking about what horrible fate might have awaited that young girl back inside the rest stop had the man gotten her into the back of that truck.

He peered at the rear of the vehicle in an attempt to decipher the license plate, but the heavy blue smoke pouring out of the exhaust made an effective screen. Bill could see the plate but could not make out any of the numbers or letters; he couldn’t even tell whether it was a New York or a Massachusetts tag, or maybe neither. He cursed again and wondered if the escaping kidnapper realized how lucky he was right now to be driving a vehicle that needed a ring job.

Bill began sprinting toward his vehicle to give chase. How hard could it be to catch that crappy truck?

CHAPTER 10

MARTIN STOMPED ON THE accelerator and the truck responded like, well, like what it was—a twelve-year-old box truck that had spent most of its life ferrying vegetables and produce from one location to another. It bucked and hesitated before finally getting the message and picking up steam. He roared past the building and saw the man he had grappled with staring at him in open-mouthed surprise. It would have been comical if the last few minutes hadn’t been such a debacle.

He hit the highway doing almost seventy-five, pretty close to the old vehicle’s max speed. As tempting as it was to continue at that speed—he wanted nothing more than to get as far away from the scene of the disaster as quickly as possible—Martin immediately eased off the gas and slowed the truck to a sensible, non-confrontational sixty, immediately rendering himself invisible in the process. There was no reason to draw unnecessary attention by driving too fast. By the time the police arrived at the rest stop and finished sorting out what exactly had happened, he would be home, relaxing on his couch, drinking beer, and watching porn.

Sweat poured from Martin’s body. His hands were slick with it as he tried to grasp the steering wheel, and his t-shirt was plastered uncomfortably to his back. He was rattled. He had been doing this for well over three years now, had taken over a dozen girls using this exact method, and, in all that time, had never suffered even a single close call. Until now.

Martin Krall had always lived his life by a few, hard-and-fast rules, the first of which was this reality: overestimating the stupidity of the average American traveler was nearly impossible. Finally, he had run across a traveler who actually paid attention to his surroundings, and to top it off, the guy was carrying a gun!

Martin forced himself to maintain his sedate pace. Cars passed him in the left lane in a nearly continuous stream, but he paid them no attention. He focused on slowing his breathing, reducing his heart rate. He had been shaking, adrenaline flooding through his body after the narrow escape, and now the resulting crash was making him feel logy and slow. He felt like he could sleep for twenty-four hours.

Before long, Martin would arrive at his exit. He was anxious to get home where he could relax and begin deciphering what had gone wrong and, more importantly, how he could ensure nothing like this ever happened again. Thinking of home reminded him that, for the first time ever, he was returning from a hunting expedition empty-handed and alone, and Martin felt a seething rage bubbling inside him. It lurked just below the surface, hidden beneath his carefully constructed veneer of quiet control, but it was very much present and anxious to break loose. He was once again that helpless high school freshman, the geek with no friends, the skinny kid stuffed into a locker, and he felt the helpless fury he had experienced so often growing up and thought he would never have to suffer through again.

Just who the hell did that self-righteous, interfering busybody think he was, anyway? Why couldn’t he play by the same rules as everyone else and just mind his own business, walk around in a daze staring straight ahead like all the other sheep? Why did he have to pick that exact moment to stop at the rest area for gas or coffee or a burger or to take a crap, anyway? Life was so unfair sometimes, it was ridiculous.

Martin felt a familiar blackness settling over him. He now had no girl, no one to keep him company and allow him to release his stress over the next seven days, and after this monumental goat-rope, he knew he would have to lay low for a long time. The media would be all over this screw up; it would probably get even more coverage than it would have if he been successful today. The coverage also meant people would be much more careful for a while until they eventually crawled back into their default modes of unseeing and uncaring bliss.

Martin knew he would have to alter his routine if he wanted to find a playmate and satisfy his contact before the fuss and furor died down; that would take a couple of months and there was no way in the world his contact would be willing to wait that long. Taking a girl from a highway rest stop was going to be practically impossible for a while, and waiting two to three months because of that interfering busybody was simply an unacceptable alternative.

This will not stand,
he vowed to himself through teeth clenched so tightly shut, it made his jaw ache.
It most certainly will not.

The seeds of an alternative plan began growing in Martin Krall’s head, and he smiled and nodded, all alone inside his box truck. He would have to spend more time fully developing the idea he was considering, fleshing it out, so to speak, but for the first time since hearing that guy yell “Freeze!” behind him and ruining everything, he thought things might work out okay, after all.

CHAPTER 11

BILL TOOK THREE, WOBBLY, running steps toward his vehicle, a dark blue Ford Econoline van with “Ferguson Hardware” stenciled on each side, parked a couple of hundred yards away in the ocean-sized lot. He could chase down the kidnapper. It would be a race of turtles, sure, and the scumbag had gotten a pretty sizeable head start, but that piece of crap truck Bill had seen was certainly not built for speed. It might take a few miles, but he could catch the guy, assuming he was still on the highway.

After those three steps, though, Bill slowed and then stopped in his tracks. Sure, he could run the kidnapper down. Maybe. But there was another consideration. Leaving the scene of an attempted kidnapping where handguns had been brandished about like swords was not something that would sit well with the cops, who were, undoubtedly, just moments away. If he were to leap into his vehicle and careen down the highway in search of a little vigilante justice—Clint Eastwood in a hardware store van—there was a very strong possibility it would not end well. If he didn’t end up dead at the hands of the I-90 Killer, the police might just put him down, not realizing he was one of the good guys.

Bill cursed again, slapping his hands together as he had done just seconds before. The adrenaline was still coursing through his body, and the thought of just sitting and waiting for help was frustrating in the extreme, especially since he had practically had the man in his grasp and then lost him. A young couple strolling toward the plaza gave him a wary glance and a wide berth, just as the elderly couple had done.

He turned and followed them back into the plaza, smiling a little at their reaction when they opened the doors and came face-to-face with the devastation inside the building. It looked like a twister had touched down in this one spot and then disappeared, leaving the exterior of the building untouched. Overturned tables were everywhere, and smashed glasses and dishes littered the floor. People milled about, uncertain of exactly what to do until the authorities arrived and took control. The buzz of excited voices was chaotic.

The young girl Bill had saved was on her feet, still in the exact spot where she had become tangled up with Bill and fallen to the floor. Her mother and father fussed over her, ringed by a crowd of strangers who wanted to help but didn’t know how. Bill hoped more than one ambulance was on the way, because the girl’s parents looked like they might need medical attention as much as their daughter did.

He moved, unnoticed, across the floor toward the counter where he had purchased his coffee a few minutes ago, stepping around, over, and through plastic serving trays and shattered glasses and dishes. He walked past the strange little family reunion and into the throngs of people, the majority of whom were still congregated on the northern end of the room, away from the exterior doors, as if maybe the guy with the gun was going to come back and try again.

He walked toward the coffee counter and the crowd parted before him like the Red Sea before Moses. Bill wanted another cup of coffee to sip while awaiting the arrival of the cavalry, since he, clearly, wouldn’t be going anywhere for a while. Behind most of the other counters, employees were taking the first, tentative steps toward reestablishing service. Broken glass was being swept off the floor, tables and chairs were righted, even some orders were being taken across the room at the pizza place, but the kid with the acne problem who had served him before was nowhere in sight. That seemed monumentally unfair to Bill. Shouldn’t it be easier to start pouring coffee than to cook and serve pizza? He wondered whether the kid behind the coffee counter had been working alone and had slipped out the back doors when the trouble started—there had to be an employee entrance somewhere—and was, even now, sprinting toward town.

Tired of waiting, Bill clambered over the counter, dropping to the other side with the distinctive crunch of hard-soled shoes on broken glass, and grabbed a small, Styrofoam cup. He figured a small would do because, once the cops arrived, he would be pretty busy for a while, and sipping coffee would likely be out of the question. No point being wasteful. He placed the cup under the spigot and enjoyed the rich aroma as the brew drained out of the urn. Employees behind the other counters looked at him curiously, but no one challenged him.

Bill walked to the register and placed two, one-dollar bills in front of the drawer. There was still no sign of the coffee kid. He climbed back over the counter and walked slowly toward the plaza’s entrance. This time, as he moved through the crowd, he thought he could hear people whispering and muttering, “That’s the guy,” as he passed, but nobody spoke directly to him. He imagined people nudging each other and nodding in his direction, too embarrassed to point.

Bill crunched through the mess and out the glass double doors, back into the oppressive late-May heat. Staying inside with the comfort of the air conditioning would have been nice, but the prospect of all those people staring at him like he was some kind of circus freak or crazed lunatic was unappealing. His headache felt a little better as the adrenaline rush drained away, although the bump on his head didn’t seem to be getting any smaller.

Sipping his coffee, Bill eased down into a sitting position on the four steps leading from the walkway into the building and waited for the arrival of the police. Judging from the sound of things, they were now only seconds away. He could hear the wail of multiple sirens getting noticeably closer and wondered how many cruisers the dispatcher had sent at the report of two men with guns scuffling inside the rest stop. Probably everyone available. He would find out soon enough.

He took another sip of his coffee. It really was quite good.

CHAPTER 12

THE POLICE CARS RACED into the parking lot, screeching to a halt in the travel lanes, blocking access for any cars attempting to come or go. Their drivers didn’t seem to care. There were dozens of vehicles, including a blocky, dark blue, armored truck that Bill assumed must be some kind of tactical response command post. He rose and stood erect in the parking lot directly in front of the entrance of the rest stop, hands prominently displayed high above his head for the benefit of the cops. He figured they were about as stoked as you could get without any kind of chemical assistance and didn’t want to risk getting ripped to shreds by flying bullets.

He had already placed his Browning on the pavement a good ten feet in front of him, where it now lay baking in the sun, halfway between himself and the closest police cruisers. The scene was one of complete bedlam. Officers leapt out of their cars, taking defensive positions behind their open doors and pointing their weapons at him. Everyone seemed to be yelling at once. Bill could sense the people inside the plaza gathered at the door and the big plate-glass windows behind him watching in fascination, not considering the possibility they would be mowed down where they stood if these cops started blasting away with their weapons.

It was hard to tell for sure, with all of the officers screaming at him at the same time, but the general consensus seemed to be that they wanted Bill to lie face-down in the parking lot, which he had no intention of doing. The temperature of the pavement had to be one hundred fifty degrees. He stood his ground, picking out the closest group of officers and raising his voice to be heard.

“I’m unarmed,” he announced loudly, making eye contact with the cop at the front of the phalanx of officers. He guessed that one might be in charge. “My weapon is on the ground right in front of you.”