Night Flight

by Donna Ball

  The big man, a half-eaten hamburger dripping ketchup down his arm, chewed slowly as he watched her. The waitress, mopping the counter, never took her eyes off her. The couple in the booth glanced uneasily at one another. The man in the paper hat scowled, coming toward her.

  She had to think. It had seemed so simple at first, a single, clearly directed goal. Lights. Safety. Help. But now she had to think. She didn't know what to do anymore. She was so tired.

  She saw the sign indicating restrooms toward her right. If she had had to walk past all those people she might not have made it. But she simply turned her back on them and went into the ladies' room. There she felt almost safe.

  She braced her arms on the sink, dropping her head, breathing deeply to try to clear the fog from her brain. When she lifted her face the reflection in the mirror startled her, and she almost did not recognize it as her own. Her face was paper white, her eyes so sunken and dark shadowed they looked like a mask. Two bright red scratches scored her right cheek and blood was smeared in the area between them. Her hair was wild and dusted with debris. And she could see very clearly beneath her nightshirt what everyone had been staring at—the outline of the gun.

  There was a moment—a truly frightening moment—when she felt the hysterical urge to laugh, and she knew if she gave in to that impulse she would be abandoning reason forever. So she closed her eyes and breathed deeply through her nostrils, and when she opened her eyes again she made herself lift her shirt and grasp the gun by the handle.

  She hated the feel of it. She could not believe she had stuffed it inside her jeans like that, like a street crook or an old-time outlaw . . . like she knew what she was doing. It had left a red imprint, barrel and handle, against the soft flesh of her abdomen, and the steel was sticky and warm. She held it delicately with two fingers, and her strongest impulse was to drop it into the trashcan. She didn't know what stopped her.

  She put the gun on the small shelf above the sink and turned on the faucets. The water ran for a long time before she bent, slowly and stiffly, to wash her face. She needed help. She had to get her car back. Her purse, her money. . .

  She heard the swinging door open and she turned away quickly, tucking the gun back into her waistband. Her heart was beating hard, though not from fear of who might come through the door. It was simply that instinct had returned, and the same terror that had pursued her on phantom wings throughout the night. She couldn't afford to relax. She wasn't safe, not yet. She had to think.

  The waitress came around the corner. She watched with frank curiosity and no small amount of suspicion as Cathy pulled a paper towel from the dispenser and blotted her face, then her hands.

  The waitress said, "Sal—he's the night cook- he sent me in here to get rid of you. Says we don't need no trouble here."

  Cathy dropped the paper towel into the trash and pulled another one from the dispenser, using it to dry her hands. She moved slowly, buying time, trying to think what to do. The most important thing was money. How could she do anything without money? Her checkbook, her credit cards, all those little lifelines, such an integral part of everyday life that she had never had the opportunity to even imagine being without them—suddenly they were gone, and she was stranded. She could feel panic rising up in her chest and she fought it back with all her might.

  She dropped the towel into the trash and half- turned back to the sink, slipping her fingers into her jeans pocket in hope of coming up with a bill she had stashed there long ago and forgotten, or even a handful of change. Her fingers touched a folded paper instead.

  She turned back to the waitress, raising her eyes slowly, speaking with an effort and as though from a great distance. "I—need to make a phone call."

  The waitress hitched one shoulder back toward the door. "Pay phone's in the hall, right when you go out."

  Cathy's voice was hollow. "I don't have any money."

  The other woman eyed her skeptically. "Some man do this to you?" she demanded.

  After a moment, Cathy nodded.

  The waitress's eyes narrowed. "Your old man?"

  Some instinct urged Cathy to nod again. "Yes," she whispered. "I need —I need to call someone to come get me."

  An expression like disgust crossed the other woman's face, and Cathy thought she had made a mistake. But then she muttered, "Shit. I guess I've been there before."

  She dug into her uniform pocket and produced a quarter. "Make your phone call, honey. But if you call that man of yours and he shows up here tearing up the place, it's my ass, you got that?"

  Cathy's hand closed around the quarter, but her throat was so swollen with gratitude and relief she almost couldn't get the words out. "Thank you."

  She followed the waitress out of the restroom, and stopped at the pay phone in the corridor as the other woman went back up to the grill. She took the paper out of her pocket. Her hand shook, making it hard to read the numbers. She concentrated, dialing carefully.

  The phone rang. From somewhere very far away, a man's voice answered.

  It was at that moment that the final muffling layer of shock dropped away. She began to shake, all over. Tears coursed down her cheeks. She gripped the receiver hard and tried to speak.

  "Hello," he said again. "Who is this? Talk to me."

  "Please," she managed brokenly at last. Her voice sounded very tiny, and lost. "Help me . . ."

  ***********************

  Chapter Ten

  By the time Dave finished talking to Ellen Brian, he knew Cathy Hamilton didn't have much of a chance. The odds were against the average man in a contest of skills and wit with Kreiger, but for a woman like Cathy ... if Dave found her, and that was a big if, it would probably be too late. He knew Kreiger had taken her, and he knew Kreiger wasn't going to leave any loose ends once he got the information he needed from her. The only thing Dave didn't know was why he continued to drive north, when there was almost no possibility Cathy Hamilton was still alive and an even smaller chance that he would stumble on her in the dark.

  All he could do was follow her, start at the Hinesville station and try to pick up clues along the way as to where Kreiger might have taken her. He guessed it wouldn't have been far, for Kreiger had struck him as a man who didn't have a great deal of time to waste. And there was always the chance that something in his behavior, or Cathy's, had alerted the Hinesville police and they had gone after him. Or perhaps they had refused to release Cathy to him. A chance, but it was almost infinitesimal.

  Then why was he taking the Hinesville exit? Why was he risking his job, disobeying a direct order, and taking a chance on bringing embarrassment to the department—not to mention embroiling himself and his chief in an unpleasant confrontation with the FBI —for the sake of a woman he didn't know and who was completely out of his jurisdiction? There were moments after he hung up the phone with Ellen, listening to the sound of his tires against the highway and watching the miles flash by, when he didn't know. But there were other times when the answer was so simple it practically rang in his head.

  There were too many accidents in the world, too many mistakes, too many innocent bystanders. Too many bad things happened to people who didn't deserve them, and Dave had stood by and watched it happen for too long. He couldn't take back the bullet that had ripped apart Toby's spine, any more than, five years ago, he had been able to fight back the cancer that had eaten away Alice's life. But Cathy Hamilton . . . maybe he could do something about her. Maybe the madness could stop here.

  And then she called him. He let his foot ease off the accelerator when he heard her voice; the relief that went through him was so acute that he couldn’t focus on anything else. She had survived. Somehow she had made it this far, she had beaten the odds, and Dave knew without a doubt why he had come after her. He also knew nothing was going to stop him now.

  He said, trying not to let the emotion show in his voice, "Cathy. Are you all right?"

  No answer. Perhaps she nodded, but the background noise was muffled
so perhaps she put her hand over the receiver. She was crying.

  "Are you alone?" Still, he kept the urgency out of his voice. If she had only managed to sneak away from Kreiger for a moment, or worse, if he were standing there with her, holding a gun to her head while she lured Dave into a trap . . .

  She said, "Yes." Her voice was thin, and strained with the effort not to let the tears show. "I mean, there are people here—a few ... my car, my purse . . ."

  "It's okay." Quietly, calmly. "Where are you?"

  "A truck stop. I don't have any money. I left my purse in his car, and the police impounded my car . . . My keys, my credit cards—"

  "Do you know where this truck stop is?"

  A pause, interrupted only by a muffled sound that might have been another choked-back sob. But her voice was stronger when she answered. "It's-it's called Harvey's. It's off 1-5, going north. The exit sign said Mill Brook Road."

  Dave said, "Stay there. I'm ten minutes away."

  He stepped on the brakes, hard, and spun into a U-turn, heading back toward the freeway.

  ************************

  Cathy wasn't sure how long it was after she hung up the phone that she began to wonder if she had made a mistake. Dave Jenks had said he was a police officer—but so had Kreiger. She. had seen Kreiger's badge, she had been inside his car, complete with all its official law enforcement equipment, and he had tried to kill her. She hadn't so much as seen Dave Jenks' face. And even if Dave Jenks was with the Portersville Police Department, she couldn't be sure that the man on the other end of the phone was Dave Jenks. If there was one thing she had learned tonight, it was that nothing was necessarily as it appeared to be; perhaps she had been a fool to tell a stranger on the telephone where she was.

  Except—his voice. She had heard his voice now, and it was an island of peace in the midst of a raging storm. Kind, calm, strong. It was the kind of voice that made her want to close her eyes and forget to be afraid, to just relax and let him take control. It was a voice she wanted to trust.

  Please, she thought. Please don't let it be a mistake. She had a feeling she did not have too many more mistakes left.

  The waitress and the man at the grill were arguing when Cathy came out, and she knew it was about her. She didn't need the cook's glare to remind her that she wasn't wanted here. When the waitress set a cup of coffee on the counter and invited, somewhat defiantly, a little too loudly, "Sit down here, honey, and have some of this," Cathy would have preferred not to have the attention drawn to her.

  She hesitated, and said to the waitress in a muffled tone, "I don't have any-"

  "My treat," the other woman replied, and there was no mistaking the defiance in the glance she tossed over her shoulder to the cook. "You want a piece of pie?"

  There was nothing Cathy could do then but sit down on one of the high stools. "No," she said, "thank you." She wrapped her hands around the coffee cup and wished she had waited outside. She should have taken comfort in the presence of other people, in the lights, in the familiar sounds and smells of the place. But she felt exposed in the same way she had felt exposed in the phone booth. Too many lights, too many windows. Too many people staring at her.

  She tried to take a sip of coffee, but her shaking hands sloshed a good portion of it onto the saucer before she had lifted it more than a few inches. Ten minutes, he had said. What if ten minutes passed and no one came? Twenty minutes? How long could she wait here? She should call Ellen. She should call the hospital—but her weary mind shrank away from the thought of doing so. She knew what they would tell her. She knew what they would tell her and she couldn't stand it now. No, she should call Ellen and tell her where she was, just in case . . . but

  Ellen seemed far, far away from the world of insanity into which she had been plunged, hardly real, completely useless to Cathy in this time and place. Besides, she didn't have a quarter, and she refused to ask the waitress for anything else.

  The big man in the red tee shirt was staring at her boldly, with the same sort of absent interest he might give a television set or a magazine cover, as though he had every right to do so. It made Cathy's skin crawl, and when at last she slid an uneasy glance toward him he didn't even have the shame to avert his gaze. Instead he said, around a mouthful of French fries, "You got troubles, little lady?"

  Cathy picked up her coffee cup, with both hands this time, hoping if she didn't answer he would lose interest. Every nerve in her body tightened for flight.

  He said, "Because me and my rig, we're heading up to Canada." His voice was low, and greasy like his skin, "and you ain't got nothing I can't cure, believe me. Now if you was to take a mind to come along . . ."

  Cathy slid off the stool and moved toward the door, her muscles tensing against the expectation of a harsh hand grabbing her shoulder or a voice calling her back. But when she caught a reflection of the interior of the room in the glass door, the big man had turned back to his hamburger, and she saw the waitress shrug and start wiping off menus. Only the cook continued to glare at her, and it was clear he was glad to see her go.

  The night air felt warm on her skin after the air-conditioned restaurant. The parking lot lights formed on the asphalt pools of pinkish illumination that faded into shadow pits all around. In the distance, the freeway murmured its soothing ocean sounds. She realized the moment she stepped outside how stupid it was of her to leave the security of lights and other people. What if the truck driver came after her? She couldn't fight him off in a dark parking lot, and she couldn't expect help from any of the men inside. On the other hand, maybe she should have accepted his offer of a ride. That might well have been her only guarantee of safe passage, for at least she knew that he had no connection to the events in Portersville, California.

  She stood close to the building, taking protection from the light that flooded through the doors and windows, and knowing that by doing so she risked being seen before she could see, should anyone come for her. She could only hope that it would be a risk worth taking, because she actually heard the car exit the freeway and enter the parking lot from the back side before she saw it. It could have been anyone, of course: a late-night traveler or early-morning commuter stopping for breakfast, a delivery van or milk truck—but it wasn't. It was a blue sedan, nondescript in its ordinariness, and yet somehow vaguely familiar to Cathy. It moved slowly round the building, and when the driver saw Cathy he pulled up to the curb, rather than turning toward the parking lot. It was him. He had come for her.

  Her heart was pounding hard and her nails dug into her palms as she tried to remain calm, to breathe deeply. She wanted to move toward him, but her legs had no strength. She wanted to burst into tears but she didn't dare. And then he opened the door to get out, and in the car's interior light she saw him.

  It was the man in the red fishing hat.

  There was a moment when her consciousness seemed to stop and the entire world was caught between one breath and another, like a strobe light frozen in time. There was a man in a navy nylon windbreaker and a red fishing hat, ordinary face, quiet eyes, watching her as he got out of his car. And there was that same man, his face contorted with rage, his feet planted in a gunman's stance and his hands gripping a revolver that was pointed at her.

  She had just used up the last of her mistakes.

  He said, "Hello, Cathy."

  She took one stumbling step backward. She saw his face start to change. He shouted, "Cathy!" as she broke into a run.

  Her heart was bursting in her chest as she ran toward the back of the building, away from the lights, and she could hear his footsteps pounding on the pavement behind her. She thought, I can't do this anymore. I can't! Her bruised leg stabbed with pain every time she put her foot

  down and her stiff muscles responded sluggishly; panic tightened her chest and she couldn't breathe. His legs were longer than hers and his footsteps were getting closer. He shouted her name again, and it sounded as though he was right next to her ear. The gun in her waistband stab
bed against her hip bone, causing her to stumble. She couldn't keep on running forever, she couldn't run another minute.

  Before her there was a set of dumpsters and a chain-link fence. Inky lakes of shadow spread out toward the lights that came from the windows at the side of the building. Her eyes darted toward the fence, but she couldn't climb it; toward the dumpsters, but she couldn't hide there. The building—she'd never make it. There was no place left to run. And she was too tired to rim anymore anyway; he was gaining on her.

  Suddenly the panic transformed itself into anger. She shouldn't have to run. She hadn't done anything wrong and it wasn't fair. She was tired and scared and hurt and it wasn't fair.

  And with that surge of anger and despair welling up inside her and the sound of his footsteps pounding down on her, Cathy stopped, tugging the gun from her jeans, and she whirled.

  "Stop it!" she screamed. She gripped the gun with both hands and held it steady on him. "Just stop it!"

  He stopped, his hands raised to his waist in an instinctive gesture of self-defense—or surrender— and with startlement registering on his face.

  Cathy felt a rush of power that was almost dizzying, and her hands tightened on the butt of the gun. She wasn't helpless. For the first time since the whole nightmare began, she was not the victim. She could make it stop.

  He said, quietly, a little out of breath, "Cathy . .

  "Shut up!" she screamed at him. "Don't call me that!" Her finger sought the trigger and his eyes watched her movement. Pleasure swelled, fierce and intense, at the power she commanded through so small a thing as the placement of her finger. She focused on him in the dim light, expecting—hoping—to see fear in his eyes, and a little disappointed when she did not.