by J. A. Kerley
I’m imagining things, Treeka thought. It’s bugs.
The growling began, a low and guttural rumble. Treeka gasped at alien eyes in the black, twin disks of green light, there and gone. A flicker of motion caught Treeka’s eyes and horror gripped her heart.
A pack of feral dogs had encircled her, the smallest a beagle, the largest a German Shepherd. They stank like rotting meat. The Shepherd was the pack leader, head low, moving closer. Her heart now in her throat, Treeka pulled her suitcase between her and the slavering beast, backing up until stopped by the pump house. A smaller dog leapt in and snapped at her suitcase.
“Go away!” Treeka yelled, kicking at the dog. It retreated several feet and began snarling and circling. The Shepherd slashed in and seized the suitcase with a flash of teeth, retreating with strips of fabric in its mouth. It crouched and prepared a second leap, strands of foam falling from its jaws.
The night was torn by a flash of white light, like the water tower was beaming Treeka inside, the beam emitting a blast of noise that froze the building, the dogs, the suitcase …
The noise stopped, replaced by the words, “Get inside!” Treeka turned to see a compact car beside her. She jumped into the vehicle as dogs barked at the window, teeth snapping inches from her face. The car moved to the road faster than the dogs could run.
“That was close,” the driver said, checking the rear-view mirror. A man. “The wild dogs are bad this year – the drought. They’ve been known to take down sheep, cows …”
“Thank you so much,” Treeka said. “But I was waiting for someone. I should probably –”
“Go back? You won’t stand much of a chance with those critters, ma’am.” A smile came to the man’s lips, visible in the lights of the car’s instrumentation. “Anyway, I figure I’m who you were waiting for.” The man held out his hand. “My name’s Rick. Who are you today?”
Rein was floating somewhere between her dreams and the soft sunrise light streaming through the window when a voice snapped her head from the pillow.
“Wake up, dear,” Lena was saying, knocking on the door. “I’ve got good news … It’s your lucky day.”
Rein pushed aside the bedclothes and wriggled to her elbow. “Come in, Lena.” Rein shot a glance at the window, saw the tower. Maybe today. Convince Lena to drive to town and get me some special medicine. Asthma? A cold? In daylight I can sprint to the tower. Just give me a few minutes alone, Lena.
Lena was dressed in slacks and a western-style denim blouse embroidered with roses, mother-of-pearl buttons, her white hair bound back in a red bow.
“How are you feeling this morning, dear?” Lena asked.
“My head’s congested,” Rein said, pushing her speech through her mouth, like her breathing passages were clogged. “I can’t breathe.”
“We’ll get something at a drugstore, dear. Hurry and get dressed.”
Rein stared. Lena smiled. “Like I said, it’s your lucky day. Your next caretaker is ready. Usually there’s much more of a wait. It’s the asterisk.”
“Asterisk?”
Lena sat on the bed as Rein pulled on her clothes. “There’s a computer site where information is entered – very hush-hush. No details, just when a traveler is in one area and the basic direction she’s heading, nothing more than points on the compass. People in the next-step destination area post their availability. If the woman appears to be in severe danger, an asterisk goes beside her position and everyone is encouraged to drop everything to help. The asterisk is like a fire alarm.”
“And I was an …”
“An asterisk, dear. I’ve had nine years of doing this and you’re the first asterisk I’ve ever seen. I can’t begin to imagine the danger you were in.” Lena stood and checked her watch. “Best hurry. I’m taking you to a transfer point a few hours away and the clock is ticking. We’ll grab something to eat along the way.”
Chapter 34
Gd mrng! Dprt this am.
“Leaving?” Harry said. “Already?”
“Rein also wishes us a Good Morning.” I stepped outside the Hummer to push kinks from my back. Sleeping in a car – even a big-ass SUV – was like sleeping in a coffin, except a coffin let you stretch out. Plus I’ve never understood how a desert could be so hot in the day and so goddamn cold at night. I opened the hatch and scrabbled through my bag for toothpaste and brush.
“We have to excavate the stuff we left for Rein,” I said. “At the tower.”
“No time. She leaves, we lose her.”
“We can’t leave a loaded .32 an inch below the dirt. What if some kid finds it?”
“You’re arguing some million-to-one shot when Rein might be pulling away right now?”
Maybe my imagination gets away from me, but I saw a kid walking a dog, the dog sniffing the corner of a bandana …
“I’m not leaving until we grab the gun.”
Harry sighed, thought a second. “Get in, we can do both.” He backtracked down a side road, the departure route toward the main highway.
“The gun?” I said.
“I’ll follow Rein. You grab the buried stuff and have Cruz pick you up. We’ll meet up the road.”
I looked the thousand or so yards to the tower, sand and rock and spiny brush. The sun was barely off the horizon, a shimmering red ball. Vultures were already floating in the sky, waiting for something to die.
“If I don’t get eaten by scorpions,” I grumbled.
“Eat them first,” Harry advised.
I called Cruz with the plan, exited and began trotting toward the tower, a ten-minute lope over dirt as hard as asphalt. Cruz picked me up at the tower fifteen minutes later, looking fresh and rested and smelling like citrus. She’d grabbed coffee and power bars in town. I ate a Clif’s Crunchy Peanut Butter bar for breakfast, a Luna Iced Oatmeal Raisin bar for dessert, then called my partner.
“We’re on the road,” I said. “Where are you?”
He told us the mile marker, twenty-seven miles ahead. “The old girl has a pretty heavy foot.”
“Two previous speeding tickets,” Cruz said. She’d run an info search on the owner of the house: Audrey Townsend, sixty-nine years of age, a retired social worker. One arrest in 1969 for disturbing the peace at an antiwar rally in Grand Junction, Colorado, another arrest in 1974 for chaining herself to a piece of equipment at an anti-logging protest. Though feisty in her youth, there didn’t appear to be a lot of homicidal maniac in Ms Townsend.
When we hit the main highway Cruz flicked on the flashers in the grille, fired up the siren, and nailed the cruiser at ninety-five. I stayed in contact with Harry until we’d bridged the distance in a town called Lamar, spotting the brown Hyundai ahead a quarter mile or so. Halfway between was Harry. We sped up, so did he, until a hundred feet behind the Hyundai. The brown car moved to a lane veering toward Interstate 385 South, Harry following and gaining on the Hyundai.
“He’s getting too close,” Cruz said.
I picked up the phone. “Harry, get back. You’ll make the driver suspicious.”
“I want to let Rein know we’re near. She might think we’re lost somewhere.”
“She freakin’ knows, Nautilus!” Cruz yelled. “Trust her!”
Harry backed off the gas, more space opening up between him and the Hyundai. Turn signals blinked on the Hyundai as it aimed for the ramp. Harry kept a couple hundred feet behind until we’d switched highways, then closed in again.
“He’s going around them,” I said, mouth wide.
“I can’t believe this,” Cruz whispered. The high-powered binoculars put me twenty feet from Harry’s bumper. I watched him pass the Hyundai.
“He’s actually looking at them,” Cruz said, the motion visible even to her eyes. “A full-face shot toward the target car.”
And then Harry was past. I knew Rein was wondering what was going on. We were five hundred feet back, but she turned and made us. She spun forward again, probably as confused as me.
I called Harry again, tryi
ng to stay calm. “What was that about?”
“I wanted Rein to know we had her back.”
Cruz grabbed my phone. “Dammit, Nautilus, are you a cop or a babysitter? This is an operation for professionals and if you can’t …” She stopped and stared at the phone in disbelief. “He hung up on me.”
“It seems to be over,” I said, seeing Harry a hundred yards past the Hyundai and pulling away.
“A brilliant move,” Cruz said. “He’s going to follow them from up front.”
We dropped back to the quarter-mile distance. traffic thinned as people exited for offices and factories. Cruz studied me.
“How did you two ever become partners?” she asked. “You seem sane and Nautilus seems loopier than hell.”
“That’s the first time anyone ever put it in that order,” I said.
Harry stayed a mile ahead of the Hyundai, Cruz and I the same behind. There was nothing between Lamar and the Oklahoma Panhandle. Or as close to nothing as a landscape could offer. I thought of the Dust Bowl drought of the 1930s and figured this was where they got the dust.
We made one bathroom and fuel stop along the way, me freshening up at a sink, Cruz in the distance with her phone to her ear, an intense conversation. The land began to green up and Cruz noted we’d entered the Comanche National Grassland, next stop Oklahoma.
“My people spoke to the Oklahoma staties and we’re anticipated,” she said. “The OSP offered help if necessary, but will otherwise stay away. We often stretch jurisdictions out here, no big deal.”
“How long can you hang in here?” I asked, knowing Cruz hadn’t signed on for the surveillance, her role to work the Boulder investigation while Harry and I tailed Rein.
“Yesterday,” she said.
“Sorry.”
“It’s a joint operation, right? We’ve got a dead body at our end that needs a killer’s name attached. That’s everyone’s goal. And with Nautilus as a partner, you need all the help you can get.”
There was more truth in her words than I wanted to acknowledge. Harry had let the personal eclipse the professional and I was concerned about his judgment.
Cruz’s cell went off and she slapped it to her face, her tone businesslike, official. “Where are you? OK. We’re just above Highway 160. Um-hmm? No, no idea yet. No, haven’t heard if contact was made, still being discussed I expect – tactics. Listen, uh, things could get … unusual.”
She snapped her phone shut. I’m a detective, and I detected her conversation was purposefully cryptic. “Anything going on?” I asked, recalling her pacing and being dead serious into the phone earlier at the fuel stop.
“Just making sure everything keeps running clear and easy.”
I was about to ask what that meant when Harry checked in. “Target pulling into a Flying-V truck stop. I’m circling to follow.”
“Don’t get seen,” Cruz barked. “Keep your head.”
“I’ve got the suitcase,” Harry said.” I might get it to her.”
“Don’t try,” Cruz said. “It’s broad-fucking-daylight.”
I had an uneasy feeling as we pulled into the truck stop, a zillion acres of parking lot centered by a sprawling complex holding fast-food eateries, a convenience mart and a souvenir shop. All that seemed lacking was a bowling alley. A dozen trucks were filling up at the fuel bays on the truck side of the complex.
“Rein’s out of the car,” Harry said. “She hugged the driver. It’s the transfer.”
“Stay in your vehicle, Nautilus,” Cruz said, dodging lumbering semis as we wove toward the main building.
Harry said, “She’s got her suitcase and heading into the main restaurant. The new driver must be on the far side of the building, that’s how it happened with Gail.”
“There’s no pattern to a transfer,” Cruz yelled. “Stay in the goddamn car.”
“I can get the suitcase to her when she’s inside.”
Cruz whipped toward the structure, eyes flashing with anger. “There he is,” she said, pointing across the lot. “Pulling up to the restaurant.”
Harry parked beside the building as Rein was entering, legs scissoring quickly in loose jeans, a black tee, suitcase in hand. I used the binocs to scan the restaurant windows: Truckers at tables shoveling down eggs and bacon, guys at the cashier paying for snacks and petrol, more truckers trading jokes with the lottery-ticket cashier.
And one lone woman with her face behind a newspaper, a bright red hat perched on her head. She seemed to be hiding behind the paper, peeking past the edge as newcomers entered. And the red hat … a visual ID for Rein?
“Oh Jesus,” Cruz moaned, “Nautilus is getting out with the suitcase.”
“Get in front of him,” I said to Cruz, my heart pounding. “Cut him off.”
Cruz swooped the cruiser at Harry. He jumped back to keep his feet and legs clear. I bailed out and ran to Harry, grabbing the suitcase from his hands. He snatched it back.
“What the hell are you doing?” he snapped. “I’ve got to –”
“The transfer’s inside, bro. It’s going down now.”
“What?”
“Turn to the building like we’re talking. See the woman with the red hat about eight tables down? What’s she doing?”
When Harry looked I saw his shoulders droop, heard the chest-deep groan. “She’s standing and shaking hands with Rein.”
Cruz walked up. She looked through the window and saw Reinetta wrap the red-hat lady in a hug. Had Harry made it inside the whole operation could have crumbled.
“I’ve had about all I can take of this,” Cruz said.
Harry looked disoriented by his misjudgment and I pulled him to the car. We had to get back on Rein’s tail. I took the wheel and we drove over to the truck side, expecting that was where she’d emerge. But she wasn’t in sight.
“I don’t see her,” Harry said, looking side to side.
“Bathroom break, maybe?” Cruz radioed. “Freshening up?”
We circled the building, Cruz doing the same “You see anything?” she called over the radio.
“No,” Harry said. His voice was getting tight again.
“Uh-oh,” Cruz said. “I’m on the back side. There’s another door for the fast-food joints …”
“We lost her,” I said. “We’ve got to fuel the cars and us, and wait for Rein to communicate. Want to meet us inside, Detective Cruz?”
“I’m gonna eat in my car,” she said. “I’m not in a socializing mood.”
Rein watched the truck stop recede in the side-view mirror of a brand-new electric-red Cadillac Escalade, wondering how Harry was holding up. She knew her assignment was hard on him, her uncle never quite adjusting to her maturation. Rein recalled the time he took her camping. She had just started wearing a bra, barely necessary. Rein remembered how he kept stealing glances at her bosom, like it couldn’t be true, something was terribly wrong. It seemed to Rein that Harry had largely chosen to continue that thinking, not consciously, of course, but deep in a secret chamber of his heart.
The big Caddy motor gave a jet-engine whoosh as the driver passed a stream of slower-moving vehicles, folks only doing eighty. The driver was Victoria, a slim, fortyish woman in a burgundy dress, medium-length black hair lacquered in place, big purple-blue eyes with long lashes and dark mascara. Her lips were full and scarlet and with her creamy skin the woman reminded Rein of that movie star from a long time ago, Elizabeth Taylor. Victoria held the steering wheel wide, like a ship’s wheel, a half-dozen gaudy bracelets on her wrists jangling with her movements. Every other finger held a ring, semi-precious stones in silver and gold. Baubles dangled from her ears like Christmas-tree ornaments.
Victoria saw Rein studying her. “Nothin’ matches an’ I can’t he’p it,” the woman chuckled in a textbook Texas twang. “Ah’m addicted to the Home Shopping Channel.”
“I was thinking you must be what an angel looks like,” Rein said, settling into her role. “Thank you for helping me.”
“I got a li
ttle twitchy back at the truck stop. I saw a black guy looking at you when you was steppin’ inside, some huge ol’ boy totin’ a yella suitcase, of all things. I had half a mind to stay hid, but then he started talkin’ to a couple of people outside the door – one was some weird guy wearing binoculars like a birdwatcher – and I figured it wasn’t connected to you.”
Rein stared straight ahead, said, “No, thank God.”
“I wasn’t plannin’ on being in the area. Usually I’m available onct or twice a year cuz a my bidness schedule. But then I saw the sign by your dot on the website.”
“The asterisk?”
“Two other folks on the website could move you to the southeast, but couldn’t get to you for another day. I figured, given the danger, you wanted to put a lot of gone between you and wherever you’re from.”
“Bless you,” Rein said.
The woman waved it away. “I’m a sales rep for a medical-equipment company, bouncin’ from hospital to hospital across the southwest. I just bent my route a bit north, and now we’ll bend south. Ever been in Texas, Marla?”
“Only Texarkana,” Rein lied, hoping to exact information a No answer wouldn’t get. “I’m lost in the rest of Texas.”
“Texarkana’s way over on the other side a the state, hon. I’ll be takin’ you to Amarillo for a couple days. The next link will show up from there.”
Amarillo, Rein thought. One piece of the puzzle filled.
The next trick was getting to her phone. Several miles of barren desert blew by as she pictured her plan, then began taking little whistling gasps.
The driver looked at Rein. “Goodness. Are you all right, Marla?”
“A touch of asthma,” Rein said. “Nerves, I guess. My inhaler’s in my case.”
“We’ll get things handled right now,” Victoria said, the caddy veering to the berm. Rein ran to the open trunk. Hidden by the lid, she fired off a message, jammed the phone back in her pants and stepped into mirror view, hands cupping her mouth like holding an inhaler. She pretended to return the device to the suitcase and closed the trunk lid.
