by J K Ellem
“So why are we here?” Jessie was sitting on the double bed; her roller case was open on the luggage stand next to a chest of drawers. Shaw’s rucksack sat on the floor next to the other double bed.
Shaw was standing next to the windows, the shades drawn, his fingers parting them slightly. From here he had a better view of the truck stop across the highway and the front entrance of the motel. A pedestrian footbridge arched over the highway to the other side. Traffic blurred underneath. The bridge served the motel guests and those who lived in the small cluster of duplexes farther down the road.
“We’re here just waiting,” Shaw replied. He came back and sat on the bed. The cell phone was plugged into the wall. No text messages had been received.
“Should we send another text?” Jessie asked.
Shaw shook his head. “No, not yet. They were following us, but I don’t know where they are now.” Shaw pulled out the handgun, checked the magazine, and placed it on the bedside table.
“What if they come here and kill us?” Jessie asked. “They must know by now that Rasul is dead and we have his cell phone.”
“They do know; that’s what I’m counting on.” Shaw wanted to draw them out, force their hand, but he wanted to do it on his own terms. It was important to dictate the play, not let the other side force you to react. He wanted to control the situation. But most of all, he wanted them to show themselves, to come out of the shadows and reveal who they were. He was certain the people in the silver SUV were just more foot soldiers like Rasul, hired muscle.
“They won’t try anything here, Jessie. Don’t worry. They aren’t that stupid.”
Jessie frowned.
“Too many people around now. That’s why I chose here. We needed to hole up somewhere where there are a lot of people.” The motel was almost completely full, mainly with traveling families and a few businessmen from what Shaw could tell when they were in the lobby. The parking lot had a few rental cars but the rest were large SUVs, kids’ seats in the back and luggage carriers on the roof. The motel was family orientated, and Shaw liked it like that.
“Look,” Shaw said, “there was no point just continuing south, driving aimlessly. I want them to come to us. If we had kept on the highway, they would have waited for an isolated stretch then run us off the road. Maybe killed us both and taken the cell phone.”
Jessie thought for a moment. She suddenly felt a lot safer here, amongst a lot of people. She looked at the door where Shaw had jammed a chair at an angle under the door knob as an additional precaution. He had told her about another escape plan he had in mind, another precaution that could save their lives if he was wrong about them not risking breaking into the room.
There was a family with three kids next door and nothing on the other side of their room except the fire escape stairwell.
“So what do we do now to pass the time?” Jessie stood and walked to where Shaw sat. Shaw leaned back slightly as Jessie pushed his legs apart with her knees and stood in front of him, between his thighs.
“I thought I wasn’t your type,” he said looking up at her.
Jessie smiled. “Just for today you are.”
It wasn’t about romance. It was about lust, need, stress-relieving sexual release. Jessie wanted something to take her mind off the last twenty-four hours, the fear, the shock, the sorrow. And she liked Shaw, not at first, but he had saved her, stood up for her, fought for her. It was sex, nothing more and nothing less, not a thank-you, but an overwhelming need to satisfy. She wanted to escape for a few moments, to take her mind off things, to be in a better place.
He needed no guidance, he knew what to do and how to do it. He went to unbutton her shirt, but she slapped his hand away. “No you don’t.” So he sat there as she slowly peeled away the layers, revealing something alluring and breathtaking beneath.
Jessie muffled a gasp when he slipped his shirt off, but couldn’t help herself when she had stripped down his pants, leaving only his shorts. His torso was a mosaic of sinew and muscle, sculpted from clay. Beautiful, she thought as her eyes drifted lower, past the sheet of flat stomach then stopped. Her breath caught in her throat. She had to touch it, feel it, make sure it wasn’t an illusion. She looked deep into his eyes while she slid her finger past the elastic top of his shorts. She wrapped her fingers around his solid rod of hardness, warm to the touch.
My God, she thought, he could hit the ball out of Fenway Park with this.
She undressed quickly and he swung her onto the bed.
“Now,” was all she needed to say. He found her opening, engorged and slippery, and drove into her. He hunkered down over her, cradled her gently, not resting his full weight on her. His chest and torso raked over her hard, swollen nipples. Jessie gritted her teeth at the immense intrusion into her depths then relaxed and pulled him closer, harder. He kissed her lightly on her neck and temple. His softness and tenderness astonished her and her arousal grew even more.
What started out as something purely physical grew into something wild and uncontrollable. She dug her fingers into his buttocks, encouraging him onward, faster, deeper, rougher, whipping him like a race horse with the finish line in sight. And he responded. He kicked it up a gear and went from a canter to a gallop to a flat-out sprint.
Jessie reached the finish line, convulsed, ridged, every muscle and nerve ending taut and aching. She slid off the other side, came off the apex, but he kept going past the finish line. She followed him, rode him until his race was spent. Eventually they slowed to a slow walk through a forest of fulfillment.
They got up and walked to the bathroom. Hot water streamed off them from the huge shower head above. It was like being drenched in a steamy tropical downpour. Tired muscles and sore joints soon melted away under the heat and swirls of steam.
Afterward Jessie wept, tears of pent up emotion followed by sobs of sweet release, joy, and happiness she had never felt before. And yet, as she sat alone in the bathroom contemplating what had just happened, she wondered how this complete stranger could be so intimate, respectful, and considerate of her needs. He was uncompromising in his attention to her. He didn’t need to be told. He needed no guidance, he just knew what to do and how to do it.
She felt a tinge of sorrow, knowing this would be fleeting and eventually he would go. But then her mind whispered to live for the moment, to live in the moment, and to forget everything else.
27
Hoost watched from up on the ridge. The man and the woman had left the motel and were walking across the footbridge to the truck stop complex on the other side of the highway.
Hoost sat on a folding chair, hunkered down behind the semiautomatic rifle, his eye pressed to the aperture of a holographic sight, the barrel poking through a broken window.
The sun was slowly sinking behind the ridge, painting the landscape in long shadows and burnt orange.
It was the first time Hoost had a chance to take a good look at the two people. The woman was certainly attractive, shapely, young, very pretty. She was smiling, joking, skylarking as she walked with the man.
But it was the man who caught Hoost’s attention. He was the problem. There was something about him, not a regular civilian. Hoost knew the type; he’d seen enough of them. Just the way he walked, where he looked, the artful way he observed everything around him without directly staring: the cars, the highway, surrounding buildings, people in the plaza of the truck stop, the angles behind him. The man took in everything in a subtle, discrete way. Definitely military or a level above general law enforcement.
The red-dot of the rifle sight hovered then swiveled between the two figures as they walked, their immediate death only a few pounds of trigger pressure away.
Hoost’s cell phone pinged as a text message landed. He glanced at the screen. “About time,” he muttered. He’d pulled the police scanner out of his SUV, sat it on the window sill, the sound turned down just loud enough for Hoost to eavesdrop on the chatter.
He resumed watching the man and wo
man as they walked. They crossed the plaza and were nearly at the door of the main building. Hoost snuggled the rifle stock a little closer to his cheek as he watched, embracing the weapon like a lover, molding his body around it, two bodies becoming one. He laid the red dot over the base of the man’s skull as he walked alongside the woman. He brought his finger inside the trigger guard and slowly began to squeeze back on the trigger. He held his breath, slowing his heartbeat, looking for that void between beats, feeling the trigger on the edge of breaking the shot that would send a high velocity bullet streaking across the distance where it would slam into the man’s skull, bursting his head like a ripe melon.
Hoost paused, discipline and training fighting against the sheer enjoyment of removing the annoyance. He slowly eased off the trigger, resisting the urge to kill the man there and then.
He had no idea why his employer wanted him to babysit the couple. He much preferred killing them both, but not here. That would be too obvious, too public. He’d much rather do it privately, on a lonely stretch of highway, in the middle of nowhere, quietly, and in the dark. Bury them in the scrub, alone in the desert, no traces.
Hoost sat back on the chair frustrated.
It was going to be one long, boring night.
He had been waiting for a while. Waiting and watching. But his patience had been rewarded.
He watched as Jessie walked across the plaza and into the diner with the man. The same man who had made his scalp prickly with caution, a warning, a premonition. Her companion, the man, was obviously more adept, more attuned to when danger was lurking nearby. And it was, closer than the woman would ever know.
This time, however, he was more cautious—because of the man, not the woman. She would be easy. He was prepared, had something special planned for her. He wasn’t due back on the road for another three hours, more than enough time to deal with her.
He had followed them this morning when they left the diner after breakfast. They had driven all the way down the highway, his truck tucked in behind two other trucks heading south as well. Then they turned around and headed back the way they had come. So did he. . He saw the white hatchback take the exit ramp then turn into the motel across the highway. He slowed just to make sure then drove on. It was a risk, but she would be worth it. He had never wanted a woman as much as he wanted her. He had spent the rest of the day thinking about what he was going to do to her. He had cleaned up the shed, too, scrubbed the floor, gotten the stains out of the concrete. Now it was ready, spick and span. Last summer he had insulated the walls of the shed, not for the heat, but for soundproofing. The nearest neighbors were a good two miles away; he rented the shed from them and they didn’t bother him. The shed gave him a place to park his truck when needed and doubled as his home when he was not on the road.
He always wanted a slave, now as he watched the woman enter the diner, he knew he would soon have one.
He was going to take his time with her, make her last, maybe a few weeks not just a few hours or a few days like the last one.
He inserted his favorite CD and the sound of rain falling filled the cabin of the truck.
He began to hum along.
This time they took a table away from the window, near the wall but still close to the exits.
“Why here?” Jessie asked. “Why not eat back at the motel—order room service or eat in the restaurant there?”
Shaw looked around. The diner was filling up, mainly road trippers and truck drivers taking an early dinner stop. “Out in the open. In plain sight,” Shaw answered. “Some place public too. That way they won’t try anything obvious.”
“So you think they’re watching us right now?” Jessie looked around but all she saw were families with kids and old people. Hardly a band of hardened terrorists.
“I’d be watching us right now if it were me.”
A waitress came over.
Shaw ordered a burger with the works and Jessie ordered the brisket. The waitress filled their glasses with iced tea then went to the register and entered their order. As she punched the touch screen she stole another glance at the man sitting across from the woman, just to make sure.
She pushed through the swinging doors and went out the back. Another waitress was tying her apron on and getting ready for the start of her shift.
“Jemma, can you look after 18 for a moment for me honey?” the waitress asked as she walked past. “I need to take a pee.”
“No problem, Sal,” Jemma replied, adjusting her uniform and checking her makeup in a mirror on the wall next to the time clock.
“Thanks babe, their order is in and I’ll just be a sec. I’ll split the tip.”
Sally Monk disappeared down the corridor, turned the corner and increased her pace, walked past the staff room, past the restrooms, and out the back fire escape door.
Once outside she looked around and made sure she was alone. She slipped her cell phone from her apron and dialed a number.
It answered on the third ring.
“Beth? It’s Sal. You’re not going to believe who just walked in.”
The FBI had arrived hours ago at the Pink Poodle Motel. First a chopper had swooped in out of the sky, a buzzing, noisy metallic insect, and landed in the dirt on the block next door. Three agents had tumbled out under the rotor wash: one in a suit, two in tactical gear and boots, assault rifles up at the ready. They were the advance team, rapid deployment, ahead of the main group. Their purpose was to secure the scene and send updates to the second group who were en route on the highway.
Then the ground team arrived. They rolled in with military precision like they were invading a small country. They quickly cordoned off the entire motel and the adjacent vacant blocks.
Three large black SUVs with tinted windows sat in the parking lot, tailgates open. Crime scene techs in paper suits swarmed into the room where the bodies lay. Another team swept into the room where the bikers had been, then a third team was going through the other room where the elderly couple had stayed. Technicians in white coveralls were ferrying equipment back and forth between the rooms and their vehicles. Every so often a camera flash whitened the interior of the rooms.
As expected, Beth and Davis were immediately pushed aside and in no uncertain terms told this was now a federal investigation. No thank you, no appreciation, no acknowledgement. Just a nod, a flash of a badge followed by a “now get out of the way” look.
Beth and Davis had spent the last hour standing in the street leaning on their cars watching the FBI circus come to town.
Then the call came on Beth’s cell phone from Sally Monk, and everything changed.
Beth hung up from Sally and swore.
Davis looked over. “What’s up?”
“Got a positive ID on the guy from the gas station last night. He’s at the truck stop diner, eating dinner, plain as day.” Beth eased off her SUV. “Let’s go, no sirens, nothing, okay?”
Davis nodded and opened the door of his cruiser.
“I want him alive, and I don’t want to spook him so he runs.”
“What about the feds?” Davis asked.
Beth nodded at the federal agents as they scurried back and forth in the parking lot. “As they said, it’s their case now,” Beth replied. “But this other guy I want… real bad.”
28
When you have a gunshot wound, the places you can go are limited if you don’t want to draw attention. If you go to the ER, the police will be notified. If you go to a medical clinic, the police should be notified. That can depend on the quality and ethics of the doctor and how much money you pay them to keep quiet.
Or, if it’s just a flesh wound, where the bullet punched through the meaty outside of the thigh, penetrating fat and muscle, missing bone and arteries, you can always patch it up with a basic medical kit, and bind your thigh tight enough to stop the bleeding. To endure the pain, all you need to do is channel all your anger, hatred, and seething revenge into finding the person who shot you and find solace knowing whe
n you find them, no ER or doctor is going to save them.
Cueball chose the latter. He always carried a basic medical kit in the saddlebag of his Harley. You never knew when you’d need to sew up a knife wound or head gash after a bar brawl or parking lot scuffle.
A third of a bottle of Jack Daniels followed a mouthful of painkillers he swallowed to help ease the pain. But as he rode alongside Skunk through the darkness on the open highway, nothing could ease the burning desire to find and kill that man.
Skunk had faired better. The bullet went clean through his shoulder and it was an easy patch-up job and a dose of the same painkillers from him.
Skunk said it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack and was convinced it was a waste of time. He and his woman could be miles away. Skunk didn’t share Cueball’s current state of mind. A state of mind that had no reason or logic but was totally consumed with revenge. It burned Cueball like acid.
Mile after mile they searched. Cueball had memorized the license plate and model of the white car he had seen parked around the side of the motel. He was determined to find it and the man responsible. When he did he was going to kill him, slow like, in front of his woman. He was going to make her watch. Then when the man was dead, he was going to take his time with her too. He had other things in his saddlebag just for the task.
Riding south was Cueball’s decision. He figured along this stretch of interstate most people running from something would head south toward Vegas. And the man and the woman he was after looked like they were running from something. Why else would you have some guy trussed up like a hog in the bathroom of the motel?
Cueball kicked down a gear and accelerated. The powerful machine glided past Skunk’s bike with a throaty rumble, the beams of their large headlights throwing wide long wedges of light before them as they ate up the dull asphalt with its endless yellow lines.
