by R. J. Jagger
He ran one way, then another. Then he remembered that he used it to dump the bikers’ bodies and had parked it back up by the house when he was done. He ran back, disoriented, then it suddenly popped up directly in front of him, a black blob in an even blacker night, just outside the farmhouse door. He got in, fumbled forever to get the key in the ignition, and then cranked over the engine, just to be sure the biker bitch hadn’t done something to screw it up. It started immediately. Before he knew it he was back outside and running through the front door.
Megan Bennett was exactly where he left her on the bed. She must have known something was wrong because she was wide-awake and had a panicked look on her face.
He had to take her with him—that was clear.
She was his insurance.
“Just give me a reason to kill you,” he warned as he fought to get the handcuffs and chains off.
“I’ll be good,” she said.
“Damn right you will!”
He left her leg shackles on, dragged her out to the Camry, opened the truck, shoved the helmet and air blower over to the side, dropped her in and slammed the lid. Then he tested it to be sure it wouldn’t open.
She went peacefully.
She knew better than to screw with him right now.
Okay.
Now what?
He ran back inside, threw all his clothes into the suitcase, then the rope and toothbrushes and other crap on top of that, muscled it shut, grabbed some other stuff, and threw everything into the back seat of the Camry. There wasn’t time to do much more than that.
He cranked over the engine, decided to keep the lights off, headed out to the road and made a left hand turn. He was all over the place, swerving from side to side, fighting to control the wheel.
He slammed on the brakes and skidded to a stop in the gravel.
Shit!
There was no way he could drive where anyone would see him. The first cop he ran into would pull him over.
He couldn’t stay here either.
He continued down the road, slower this time, insanely disoriented, fighting to stay in his lane. He hadn’t gone more than three-fourths of a mile when something looked familiar. It was the turnoff to the house of the guy who had rented him the place, the old man, whatever the hell his name was, the farmer with the cancer nose.
Then he remembered that the old fart lived alone. His house was way back, by the river. You couldn’t even see it from the road.
He turned off and drove in that direction.
He hadn’t gone more than a couple of hundred yards when a car flew up the road from out of nowhere and then disappeared just as fast in the other direction.
A cop, he thought.
Shit.
Chapter Thirty
Day Seven - April 22
Sunday Morning
____________
The chopper rumbled in with the first light of day, sounding like a thousand crazed drummers falling out of the sky. It ripped Teffinger out of a sleep so deep and wide that he might as well have been dead. He jerked upright, startled beyond belief, and opened his eyes. The aircraft couldn’t have been more than fifty feet away, touching down. He was in the backseat of a car and remembered climbing in there at some point during the night just to shut his eyes for a few minutes.
He tried to get his bearings.
Outside things had seriously escalated.
They had set up something in the nature of an outdoor command center in a field across the street from the Sinclair. There must have been fifteen or twenty cars parked around the area. Folding card-tables had been brought in from somewhere and maps were spread out on them, held down by rocks. Lots of people were milling around talking into cell phones. Off in the distance, down the road, several cars were being kept at bay; at least three of them were TV news vans.
He wiped as much of the sleep out of his eyes as he could, stepped out of the car and headed straight to the Sinclair’s restroom, which had for all intents and purposes been taken over by adverse possession. Luckily the door was propped open with a rock and no one was inside. After taking care of first things first, he scrubbed his face two or three times with soap and the hottest water he could stand, then stuck his head under the faucet and let the water run over his hair until it was thoroughly soaked. Some thoughtful soul had left a tube of toothpaste, which Teffinger assumed to be for community use. He squeezed an inch out on his index finger and brushed his teeth.
Then he dried his face, and his hair just enough so that it wasn’t dripping, and stepped back outside, feeling a thousand percent better.
Inside the station several pots of fresh coffee brewed, a far cry from the humble offerings of last night. Someone had written Help Yourself on a piece of cardboard and propped it up on the counter.
Teffinger grabbed the biggest cup available, filled up and then walked over to the man behind the cash register, an elderly fellow sporting a wild Albert Einstein look.
Teffinger extended his hand.
“Nick Teffinger,” he said.
The guy shook it.
“Ted Livingston.”
“You the owner?”
“That’s me.”
“I just wanted to thank you for the coffee. That’s a nice gesture.”
The guy smiled. “Not a problem, glad to help.”
Teffinger took a sip and then remembered more about last night. “The kid that was working last night, Jason . . .”
“Right.”
“He seems like a nice kid.”
“Best worker I ever had.”
Teffinger nodded.
“He was talking about wanting to go to college some day.”
“That’s his plan but between you and me, he’s stuck.”
Teffinger nodded.
“I’ve seen that happen.”
Suddenly Katie Baxter was standing beside him. She wore jeans and a sweatshirt, a hoodie, with her weapon riding on her hip. “Hey, wet head, we’ve been looking for you. It’s time for a chopper ride. Agent Miller’s already inside waiting for us.”
Teffinger immediately shook his head.
“No way.”
“Come on, you’ll be safe.”
He felt the need to change the subject. “Where’s Sydney?”
“She went home to crash for a few hours. She’ll be back a little later.”
“Did you say crash?”
Baxter laughed, grabbed him hard on the arm and tugged him towards the door.
“Come on, you big baby.”
He followed, not sure yet whether he would actually get in or not. Then he remembered that this whole thing was for Megan Bennett, thought, “Screw it,” walked under the rotating blades and climbed in.
He sat next to Katie Baxter and across from Agent Miller, who smiled and extended his hand.
“Katie wasn’t sure she could get you to come,” he said.
Teffinger put on a surprised look.
“Really? Why not?”
Baxter hit him on the arm and told Miller, “Half the time I can’t even get him in an elevator. This guy has more phobias than some entire countries.”
Then they were up and off.
The plan was to sweep the area and look for Megan Bennett’s body. They were also on the lookout for a dark Camry; or any other car if it was stashed off the road somewhere or parked at some remote site.
For what seemed like a long time, Teffinger found himself staring out the window, saying nothing, ostensibly helping with the search but actually concentrating on the sounds and the movement of the aircraft. After some time passed, and they still hadn’t fallen out of the sky, he began to get a little more used to the idea of being up there and released his grip on the armrest.
He couldn’t help but reflect on just how breathtaking the countryside was from up here. He’d always been a fan of the early morning sun and the way it amplified colors. But this morning, from up here, with the long dark shadows next to the crisp strikes of sunlight, everything was mor
e pronounced and vivid than he could have ever imagined.
Suddenly there it was.
Teffinger was the first to see it.
A body lying on the ground, splayed out, motionless.
It was about fifty yards off the road, over a crest, where you wouldn’t be able to see it from a car in a million years.
“Look there,” he said pointing.
He could feel Baxter take in the view and gasp. “Looks like we’re too late.”
Teffinger kept his eyes on the body as Agent Miller directed the pilot to take them over. Then Baxter said, “That’s a man.”
Teffinger knew her eyes were better than his. Actually, he was nearsighted as hell, and wore contacts. The left eye was fitted for distance and the right one for reading. He studied the body and, now that Baxter mentioned it, he could tell she was right. It was a man.
It wasn’t Megan Bennett.
“There’s another one,” Baxter said.
True enough, another body came into view as they approached the area, lying in the long shadow of rabbit brush, with a red shirt.
“That’s a man too,” Baxter said.
The pilot was bringing them in for a better look when Teffinger’s cell phone abruptly rang. He answered it as he concentrated on the bodies.
“Teffinger,” he said.
It was Richardson. “Nick, we just got another hit on Megan Bennett’s credit card. At a truck stop between Colorado Springs and Pueblo.”
What to do?
He leaned in towards the pilot. “Have you got enough gas to get us to Pueblo?” The pilot studied the gauges and wrinkled his forehead as if calculating the distance.
“A hundred miles, roughly,” Teffinger added.
The pilot nodded but not all that confidently. “I suppose, if you’re talking one way.”
They touched down on the road just long enough to drop Agent Miller off with the two bodies. A heartbeat later, Teffinger and Baxter shot back into the sky.
Teffinger was somewhat surprised that he was comfortable with the movement now and in fact even liking it to a point. The pilot brought the aircraft close to full throttle and followed I-25 south, which snaked like a flat black river parallel to the foothills. To the left, the east, the sun rose over terrain that lay mostly flat, much of which was undeveloped and some of which was checkered with farms. To the right, the west, the foothills lifted out of the flatlands with a wave-like motion and then bumped into the Rocky Mountains, which looked like they had been pushed up with incredible force from underneath.
“You’re thinking,” Baxter observed.
He was indeed.
“I’m thinking that our biker woman must have pulled off the road somewhere last night to get some sleep, maybe a rest-stop or something, probably because it was too cold to ride,” Teffinger said. “Otherwise she’d be a lot farther than Pueblo by now. If she’s headed south to Santa Fe or Albuquerque, I really want to reel her in before she gets to the border.”
Baxter nodded.
“The two bodies, they looked like bikers,” Baxter said.
Teffinger nodded.
That was true.
“Friends of the biker woman, I’m sure,” Teffinger said. He stopped looking out the window and turned to her. “Did you notice there were no motorcycles, in the area of the two bodies, I mean?”
“I did, now that you mention it.”
“Bikers without bikes, what’s wrong with that picture?” he added. “My guess is that this biker woman is riding one of them, but where’s the other one? She’s got the answers to Megan Bennett’s credit card plus two dead bikers.”
“The plot thickens.”
After what seemed like a long flight they spotted a lone Harley rider about twenty miles south of Pueblo, in the high-speed lane, clicking off the miles with a serious twist on the throttle. Teffinger tried to get in close with the binoculars but the movement of the aircraft kept jacking him up. Finally he got it in his sight, just for the briefest of moments, but long enough to tell that the rider was a woman and that the license plate wasn’t from Colorado.
“That’s her,” he said. “We got her. Piece-of-cake.”
The pilot looked grim.
“We’re getting low on fuel, just for your piece-of-cake information.”
Teffinger scratched his head.
“How fast is she going?” he questioned.
“About eighty.”
He pondered the options and then turned to Baxter. “Katie, see if you can get the Pueblo P.D. on the line and get them to pull her over.” He paused and found himself thinking out loud. “The problem is, at the RPMs she’s turning, it’ll take them some time to catch her from behind.”
“We don’t have some time,” the pilot said.
Teffinger felt a pressure in his forehead. “Okay, drop back, I don’t want to spook her into going any faster than she already is.”
Baxter called for assistance and explained their situation.
A few minutes later Teffinger saw one of the most beautiful things in the world. A Colorado State Patrol car had come out of nowhere and was closing the gap on the motorcycle with the light bar flashing.
“That guy is flying,” he noted. “He’s got that sucker floored.” Then, “Remind me to buy this guy a gift certificate to the Outback.”
Baxter chuckled.
“Teffinger, you’re the cheapest guy on the face of the earth, in case you forgot.”
“No, I’m serious, twenty-five bucks worth. This guy’s my hero.”
Then something bad happened. The motorcycle slowed down, bounded across the median, crossed the other side of the freeway, and was now heading due east, down a dirt road. Somehow the patrol car managed to hang with her, bouncing and bucking like a thing possessed.
They both threw pretty impressive rooster tails as they headed into the sun.
What happened next, Teffinger could hardly believe.
Railroad tracks crossed the road. The motorcycle slammed on the brakes, almost got rear-ended by the patrol car, made a hard right turn and took off down the tracks between the rails, bouncing violently off the timbers. The woman had to slow down considerably, and was probably doing no more than twenty miles an hour now, but the patrol car couldn’t follow. The tracks pointed deeper and deeper into the arid topography of southern Colorado. She kept her speed steady, fighting to maintain control of the bike but doing pretty good so far.
“Damned impressive,” Teffinger said. “That bike weighs four hundred pounds, minimum.” To the pilot, “Get in front of her and set down on the tracks.”
The pilot said something, something about the fact that they were now flying on fumes, but Teffinger couldn’t focus on him. He saw something he hadn’t noticed before. From behind them, a train roared up the tracks, going the same direction as the biker woman, a freight train with three tandem engines pulling a long string of cars. It had to be going at least sixty. The biker woman obviously didn’t even know it was there; the rumble of the Harley’s engine would be masking it out.
Then Baxter said, “She’s down!”
Teffinger looked and couldn’t believe it.
The bike was down all right, on its side with the woman pinned under it. She was trying to pull herself out, frantic. The back wheel of the bike was still in gear, spinning like a madman, not to mention the chain and sprockets.
He smacked the pilot on the side of the head to be sure he had his attention.
“Get me down there, right now!”
“Okay, there’s a flat spot over there.”
“No time for flat spots! Get right over her!”
Teffinger somehow managed to open the door, climb out, and hang from his hands, ready to jump. The pilot was bringing him in right next to the woman. As soon as they got low enough to where he thought the fall wouldn’t kill him, Teffinger let go. He immediately realized that he should have waited longer.
Chapter Thirty-One
Day Seven - April 22
Sunday Morn
ing
____________
The sky had been clear of helicopter activity for more than three hours now. Still, Ganjon was stuck in a spider’s web with a million spiders lurking around. He knew that but at least right at the moment there were no flying spiders.
The farmer’s dog, a golden retriever, was named Bailey according to his collar. He tagged along as Ganjon climbed up the foothills, through the Yucca, rocks, and scraggly wind-battered pines, to try to get a better view of what was going on at the old farmhouse, if anything.
The sky was as blue as blue could get, a warm cerulean color without a puff of buildup to spoil it. The temperature had climbed to about seventy degrees and couldn’t have been more perfect.
He was a little surprised at how much he liked having the dog there with him.
He’d never had a dog before.
In fact, until today, he’d largely looked down on people who had to prop up their pathetic little lives with cats and dogs and other stupid things.
He was high enough now that he could see the farmhouse he abandoned last night. The place couldn’t have been more lifeless. Now that was interesting. If the biker bitch had gone to the police, the place would be swarming by now. That means that she’d just taken off and was probably hundreds of miles away. No doubt she had enough skeletons in her own stinky little closet that she didn’t need to start any up-close-and-personal conversations with the law enforcement types. The problem was, though, that if she got busted for something—which she would sooner or later—she’d try to use the information about him to leverage herself out of trouble.
She really screwed things up.
He found himself by a boulder, realized that he’d been walking for some time and sat down. The dog immediately lay down by his feet, looked up at him momentarily with big brown eyes, and then rested his head on his front legs.
From up here Ganjon could see only one road, the same one he’d been able to see for the last half hour, the same one that a cop car passed over every so often.
Spiders.
Spiders.
Damned spiders everywhere.
