by C. J. Box
She said, “I heard. So is this the girl that kept you unavailable to the fine girls of Montana?”
He didn’t respond.
“Justin, are you there?” she asked, annoyed. Justin heard Christian curse in the other room and looked up.
“Sorry,” he said. “I’m not sure what I should do.”
“Tell her to turn around,” Kelsie said. “Yes!” Christian agreed as he walked back. “But tell her to sext you some photos first.”
“Shut up, Christian,” Kelsie said coldly. Christian shut up.
Then to Justin: “Tell her to go home.”
“You don’t know her,” Justin said, sighing. “Plus, she has her sister with her. They’re on the highway hours from Denver.”
“She’s manipulating you,” Kelsie said. “Can’t you see that?”
He slumped back and looked at the ceiling for any answer other than yes.
6.
5:57 P.M., Tuesday, November 20
IN THE SHADOWS OF the rear row at the truck stop, The Lizard King dragged the body into his sleeper cab and wrapped it in plastic sheeting and secured the bundle with hundred-mile tape before sopping the floor clean of her blood so his boot soles wouldn’t stick to it. Then he stripped off his bloody one-piece, tossed it into the corner of the sleeper, and pulled on another. The inside of the truck would have to be thoroughly washed out and disinfected as soon as he could do it. But not here. Not with a body in the sleeper. He couldn’t risk the chance of letting anyone look inside until he figured out how to dispose of the body and the bloody rags. Luckily, there were plenty of empty miles between the truck stop and home.
* * *
He sat back heavily in the driver’s seat after he’d stashed all his tools and weapons. The Bible-thumpers were still out there.
His blood was up and he suddenly wanted to kill them all. But there were five of them and one of him, and they stood in between the shelter of the truck trailers so he couldn’t run them down.
* * *
Furious, he released the parking brake and slammed his gearshift into low and the Eaton-Fuller transmission bit in. The laughing Bible-thumpers were bathed in his headlights as he revved the motor and lurched forward toward them. They scattered except for Chamois, who held his hand up as if that could stop tons of steel and rubber.
But the Lizard King didn’t drive over him. Instead, he cranked the wheel sharply and roared out of his space and down the driveway, nearly clipping the bumper of the truck next to him with the end of his trailer.
He wanted to get out of the lot as quickly as he could, to leave this place of wicked humiliation. The faces and trucks of Chamois, Muttonchops, and the others would forever be burned into his memory. He’d never forget them, and he’d get his revenge one by one. He didn’t care if it took years to get them all.
In the meantime, he’d have to take it out on somebody, some bitch.
He roared out the exit to the highway going way too fast. In his rage he didn’t check his mirrors before sliding onto the interstate.
7.
5:58 P.M., Tuesday, November 20
DANIELLE HAD HER PHONE on her lap, texting furiously and giggling. Justin had replied.
“Justin is sooo excited for us to get there,” she said to Gracie.
“He is?”
“Don’t sound so … pissy,” Danielle said.
“What did he say exactly?” Gracie asked. She couldn’t imagine Justin texting that he was “sooo excited.” Gracie was constantly taken aback by her sister’s blissful ignorance on so many serious subjects. But she couldn’t fault Danielle’s ability to get what she wanted when she wanted it and to drag others along into her orbit. Like her.
“So what did he say?” Gracie asked.
Danielle shot her an annoyed look. “He said, ‘Okay.’”
“That’s it?”
“He’s a man of few words,” Danielle said with her patented lah-de-dah intonation, although the set to her face belied her tone.
The thing was, Gracie thought, Justin wasn’t necessarily a man of few words at all, although he probably didn’t get many in when Danielle was talking. The simple “okay” in response wasn’t encouraging. And of course Danielle knew it.
Despite the situation Danielle had put them in, Gracie felt an unexpected wave of sympathy for her sister. Danielle, despite her bluster and lah-de-dah, was fragile and needy. Their parents’ divorce, when Danielle was thirteen, had crushed her and she’d yet to recover. Danielle was too emotional, too desperate for male attention. She’d surrounded herself with boys as if trying to fill the void left by Ted. Before Justin, Danielle was a little slut. Gracie had been embarrassed by her sister, and was too often chosen as a sounding board by the boys Danielle had thrown aside. But after Justin, Danielle straightened up. In a way, Justin had taken Danielle off the market and allowed her to grow. Even a distant Justin gave Danielle an excuse to take herself out of the game. He was good for her in ways he didn’t understand, and in ways that were unfair to him, Gracie thought. She didn’t blame him for perhaps wanting to be cut loose. But at the same time, she didn’t want her sister to spin out of control.
“I’m in prison on the Planet Danielle,” Gracie moaned.
“What brought that on?” her sister chirped. “Besides, you could be worse places.”
Gracie glanced over at the display panel and changed the subject.
“That light is still on,” Gracie said.
“Oh that again.” Danielle sighed.
“When is the last time you got the oil changed in this car? Do you even know?”
“Barely … out … of … Billings,” Danielle said while she punched in the letters of the text to Justin. Then: “Mom sent me a text back. She said to say hi to dad. Woo-hoo! We’re still in the clear.”
“I see some lights up ahead,” Gracie said, gesturing with her chin. “There’s a truck stop or something. I wonder if they’d have a mechanic working or we could find someone to take a look at this?”
Danielle looked up, angry. “We’re not stopping to waste time. Justin or his dad can look it over when we get there. They’ll fix it.”
“What if we don’t make it?”
“What if monkeys fly out of your butt?”
“Really, Danielle—”
“We’re gonna keep driving!”
Gracie took a big gulp of breath and held it in.
The lights of the truck stop drew closer. There looked to be a lot of activity on the lots; plenty of cars and big trucks. Someone, possibly, who could help them.
Gracie said, “If you don’t stop to check on the car, I’m calling Mom.”
Silence.
“I’m not kidding,” Gracie said, holding up her phone to show her sister she was serious. “We can’t take the chance this car will blow up. Then what would we do?”
“You can’t keep threatening me with that every time you want your way. It’s childish.”
“I’m being childish?
“Yes. Stop it with the ‘I’m calling Mom’ crap.”
“Then take the exit so we can get your car looked at.”
“Who is going to pay for a mechanic? Did you think of that?”
“You have a credit card,” Gracie said.
“Why should I use my money?”
“Because it’s your car!”
Danielle rolled her eyes theatrically once again, but flinched when Gracie touched the button on her phone that lit it up in anticipation of placing a call.
“Don’t,” Danielle said.
Gracie pressed the speed dial for home. The rapid sound of the connection being made could be heard through the speaker.
“Okay!” Danielle yelled, “I’m turning in.”
Gracie killed the call before it could be answered.
Danielle shook her head and tapped the brakes. “You’re such a baby. See, I’m turning in.”
* * *
Danielle eased to the right and slowed to turn on to the exit to the tru
ck stop. Gracie lowered her phone to her lap and breathed a sigh of relief. Then, out of nowhere, a massive toothy semi-truck grille and front bumper filled her window just a few feet away. Gracie screamed. The powerful bass roar of the diesel engine from the truck right next to them vibrated through the floorboards of the little car.
The truck tire was so close she could see beads of water on the chrome of the fender. Danielle jerked the wheel to the left and for an instant the inside of the car exploded in light from a single full-sized truck headlight. Somehow, they avoided getting hit. Although the near miss hadn’t been Danielle’s fault, the truck driver hit his horn and the sound was earsplitting.
“Jesus Christ!” Danielle gasped. “What happened?”
Gracie was practically on top of the center console, and would have scrambled even further if the seat belts wouldn’t have restrained her. Her heart whumped in her chest.
“That big truck,” Gracie said, barely able to speak, “He came out of there and didn’t even slow down. He nearly ran us over.”
Now the big black truck was in the right-hand lane pulling away from them, a line of amber running lights strobing through the interior inside their car.
Gracie was shaken, and eased back into her seat. The truck pulled away.
“He nearly killed us!” Gracie said. “And we missed the exit because he was in the way.”
“Asshole!” Danielle screamed at the taillights of the big rig. “You’re an asshole!”
Gracie regained her ability to breathe in and out. She looked into the side mirror to make sure there wasn’t another oncoming truck bearing down on them but the highway behind them was clear.
Danielle suddenly accelerated.
“What are you doing?” Gracie said.
“I’m going to pass that asshole,” Danielle said through gritted teeth.
8.
6:02 P.M., Tuesday, November 20
THE LIZARD KING saw a flash of red just outside the driver’s side window and glanced over to see the little Ford Focus careen into the passing lane where he’d accidentally forced it. The car had been in the turning lane but he’d been so consumed with his situation he hadn’t seen it coming. And because of the darkness and his high vantage point, he couldn’t see the driver.
“Watch where you’re going,” he said aloud. To himself as well as to the driver of the Ford.
He dismissed the other car while he took out part of his frustration on his empty passenger seat, hitting it over and over with his fist as he drove, stopping only to shift into higher gear as his rig picked up speed.
He pushed his truck hard. It felt good to drive fast; eighty thousand pounds hurtling down the highway like a bullet shot from a gun. The lights of the truck stop receded in his mirrors.
Still, though, his nerve endings were sparking like live wires. The humiliation back at the truck stop hadn’t stopped his needs, but prolonged them. The pressure built inside him. He had a vision while he drove of his skull exploding like a melon on his shoulders, spattering the inside of the cab with brain matter.
The next several miles of the highway was a long straight 5 percent grade. He’d driven the stretch a hundred times. The grade slowed his truck down to the speed limit and he grabbed a lower gear. The long hill was known to truckers as a “dragon fly”—dragging up one side and flying down the other.
Then, in the driver’s side mirror, he saw the headlights. He recognized the little red Ford coming up behind him as the one he nearly hit, but he didn’t even look back except to note in his rearview mirror that there were two people in car. They weren’t big people. Probably still pissed about being cut off. He didn’t care. He wanted to leave them behind. He wanted to leave everything that happened at the truck stop behind.
Because the Peterbilt was slowing down climbing the mountain pass, the little red car was catching up. In fact, it was right behind him, so close he could see two faces painted red by the glow of his taillights. Young people; girls. Two young girls.
Two young girls on a desolate stretch of interstate highway in the dark.
* * *
He shook his head and bared his teeth as the Ford eased into the passing lane. It was a stupid move to try and go around him, he thought. He glanced over as he drove, wondering if he’d see them closer at all or simply the top of their car as it passed him. Over the years, he’d seen all kinds of scenes in cars when he looked down through the windows; kids driving with their legs folded Indian-style while yapping on their cell phones, couples humping in the backseat, reprobates smoking crack, men masturbating with their pants gathered around their thighs, women performing blow jobs on the driver.
Now, he wondered, were there other passengers in the backseat? Men, husbands or boyfriends? Maybe children?
For the Lizard King, passenger cars and trucks on the highway and the people who drove them existed in a kind of low-level subspecies; an annoyance and a hazard. They existed in a world far below him both literally and figuratively; amateurs in the world of professional drivers. They existed because he let them exist, because he could so easily crush them, drive them off the road, or run them down. The drivers of these little cars didn’t realize they were on borrowed time and that in any conflict with an eighteen-wheeler, they’d lose.
The angle was just right and he could see both the driver and the passenger through their windshield in his side mirror. Two unaccompanied girls. No one in the backseat. Colorado plates that read PLNTDNL, whatever the hell that meant. So they were hundreds of miles from home with the entire huge state of Wyoming between their home and him. The driver was older than the passenger. She was a looker. Oval face, big pouty mouth.
The passenger was younger and his amber running lights reflected in her glasses. She didn’t look old enough to have a driver’s license.
The girls had no idea how far they were over their heads, he thought. How typical …
They were of that “self-esteem” generation he despised. Unlike him, they’d grown up stupid with every adult they knew praising them, telling them how wonderful and special they were, making sure they never lost a contest or a competition, teaching them nothing but contempt for men who kept the nation running by working long hours with their hands and dripping sweat … like him. And he’d known someone like that, in fact a few of them. They belonged to a generation of know-nothings with heightened self-esteem and no respect for working men like him who’d done it the hard way, and were still doing it the hard way.…
* * *
When the little car was about ten feet from catching his rear bumper, he grinned and jerked the wheel hard to the left, cutting it off.
The headlights vanished from both of his mirrors.
He had the same thought he had earlier when the lot lizard approached his truck: they had no idea what kind of hell they were getting themselves into.
9.
6:09 P.M., Tuesday, November 20
THE DOUBLE REAR WHEELS of the trailer sprayed a mist on the windshield that blinded Gracie, and Danielle gasped as the huge truck suddenly swerved into their lane. The truck was so close Gracie could see its underbelly; long metal shafts, glistening hoses, swinging suspended tire chains, elbows of steel.
Gracie felt the Ford slowing down. She couldn’t see anything ahead now except glowing red taillights undulating through the moisture on the windshield. For all she knew, Danielle was in the process of driving under the rear end of the truck trailer.
“Turn on the windshield wipers!” she screamed at her sister.
“I am!”
“Slow down!”
“What do you think we’re doing?”
And Gracie realized it was true: the taillights filling the windshield were pulling away. Danielle had the wipers on high now, and the glass cleared. The big truck was a quarter mile in front of them, far enough now that the double sets of tires didn’t spray them.
“He did that on purpose!” Danielle seethed.
“I think he did,” Gracie agreed, comple
tely unnerved by the thought.
Just before the huge truck had swung over to cut them off she’d caught a glimpse of the driver’s face in his mirror. He was fat and doughy with a square head and light-colored wavy hair and eyes set too close together. But she hadn’t seen him well enough to identify him if asked.
“He did that on purpose,” Danielle said again, this time in awe. “He could have killed us.”
“Again,” Gracie said.
“What an asshole.”
Gracie nodded.
“Is it possible he didn’t know we were back there? Maybe he was texting or talking on his phone or something?”
“I don’t know.”
“What an asshole.”
The grade of the road got steeper as they sped back up to the speed limit.
As it did, the big truck slowed. It was still in the passing lane.
“I’m going to try it again,” Danielle said, stomping on the gas.
“Danielle, don’t!”
“What,” her sister said, “you want to follow this jerk all the way to Helena? I want to get rid of him once and for all, the asshole.”
And with that they once again closed the gap between the Ford and the truck.
* * *
Gracie sat back deep in her seat and tried to say a prayer for them. She was unpracticed and couldn’t concentrate. They’d caught up with the rear wheels of the tractor itself and were nearly parallel to the door of the cab. The Ford wouldn’t go any faster up the grade, but neither could the truck. Gracie knew that if the truck driver swerved again into their lane he’d force the Ford off the road. She could only hope—and pray—that Danielle would shoot around him before he could change lanes again.
She looked over and watched the progress. Danielle stared straight ahead, leaning over the wheel, a look of crazy determination on her face. Through her window she watched their progress. One set of wheels by, then another. Amber running lights coursing through Danielle’s window as if being pulled through. Then the tires of the cab of the truck and the door. There was frontier-type lettering on the door but it was too high for Gracie to read in full. A name in script she couldn’t make out and the words, Livingston, Montana. She turned to look ahead and focused on the road, on the white stripe on the left side of the left lane, keeping a steady eye on it so the mist being thrown from underneath the tires of the truck wouldn’t further blind her. She didn’t know how well Danielle could see the road. They were nearly past.
