by A P Morgan
An airbag exploded in my face, and I reached out for Ryan, feeling a little calmer when his hand gripped mine. We were both alive for the moment.
Whoever had pushed us off the road might come back to finish us off.
The airbag deflated, and I searched with my right hand for my phone, which had been thrown when we hit the wall of the ditch.
“Ryan, there’s no signal. Can you get out?” I wasn’t letting go of his hand until we were out of danger.
A grunt was the only answer I got from him.
“Ryan, don’t die on me, partner.” I shined the light of the phone toward him.
“Hey, get the light out of my eyes.”
His door opened and he tumbled out, making his way around the car. It wasn’t until he tried to open my side that I came out of my daze and fumbled to unbuckle the seat belt.
“Can you get out?” he questioned, looking up and down the now empty road.
“Yeah, I think so.” I reached out to push on the door, but it wouldn’t budge.
“You may have to crawl out the driver’s side. Your door took the impact when he hit us.”
Crawling sounded easy enough, but my body was moving slowly to my commands.
“Did you get a look at the license plate?” he inquired as I made my way to the front of the car.
“No, I didn’t. It was too dark, and all I could see was the truck before it ran us off the road. Should we stay here, or try to walk to the next town?”
Ryan walked around the car and stuck his head inside. The hazard lights began blinking to warn other cars.
“I don’t think we can walk. The last sign I saw said twenty miles to the next town. I hate to just sit here, though, because we’re sitting ducks, and have no idea if the next person that might ask to help is our killer being nice.”
Shivers ran up and down my spine at that possibility. “Let’s give it a few minutes, and if we don’t have anyone come by, then we can start walking. I’m feeling a little tired, so maybe we should just wait until we have to walk.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“What? Where?” I reached up a hand self-consciously to feel my face. There was a small cut that was the source of his concern.
“Stand right there,” Ryan commanded, going back to the car and coming out with napkins from our take-out earlier.
Gently, he pressed them to my face, making me suck in a breath of air to fight against the pain. “Hold that on it. Once it stops bleeding, we can get a bandage on it. You might have a concussion.”
“It’s possible,” I commented as a vehicle approached from behind us.
“You folks okay? You need help?” a woman’s voice asked.
“Oh, thank you. If you could get us to the next town, that would be wonderful,” I accepted gratefully.
“Hey, can we trust her?” Ryan whispered, grabbing my arm to hold me back.
“Yes, because the killer is a man.” I must not have a concussion if I had noticed that.
“Right.”
He glanced at the car with the lights blinking. “Should I leave the hazards on?”
“I would. That way, no one else hits it.” I opened the car door, grateful to sit down.
In the light from the dome inside, I got a good look at our rescuer. She was about fifty, and didn’t appear to be a threat.
“Oh, my. You’re hurt.”
“Ryan there found me a few napkins. It should be okay once we get something else on it.”
He opened the back door and slid inside. “We really appreciate you stopping like this. You never know who’s going to stop.”
“I wasn’t going to, but you both looked like you weren’t doing well, and this part of the road can be dangerous. What happened?”
“He lost control and managed to steer it over into the ditch instead of off the cliff. I’m just glad that it wasn’t worse.” I purposefully left out the vehicle that tried to kill us.
“I’m just glad I could help. I’m taking you both to the hospital in L.A. because the next town only has a clinic, and they closed hours ago.”
“You’re from around here then?” I asked, curious.
“Yes. I live up the road about two hours, but I work in L.A. during the week. It’s easier to stay there without fighting the traffic. I stay with three other nurses who all share an apartment during our days on.”
“We’re just glad that you showed up when you did.” Ryan sat back, watching the road ahead intently.
No one followed us, and our phones started working when we got to the outskirts of L.A.
Our saving grace pulled up to a twenty-four-hour clinic. “I’m going to drop you off here. They can patch you up just as easily, and you won’t have to wait nearly as long. Do you need me to get you somewhere once they stitch you up?”
“Oh, no. You’ve done enough as it is. We can get a taxi or call the rental company and have them bring us a new car. We’re just thankful we didn’t have to walk to the next town.”
“All right, if you’re sure.” She looked at Ryan. “Make sure they look you both over in case you missed something.”
“Yes, ma’am. We will.”
With a last worried glance, she drove off.
“It’s nice to know that not everyone in the world are jerks. There are still people who do the right thing.” I perked up as I walked toward the clinic doors.
“She could’ve been hurt herself if we weren’t cops. It’s dangerous to pick people up,” Ryan grumbled.
“True, it is dangerous, but I’m glad that she took a chance on us. Sometimes doing the right thing wins out, even if it puts you in harm’s way.”
“So, does that mean you’re going to tell Jerome what happened? Do the right thing, I think you said,” he chuckled, shaking his head at me.
“Nope. We had car trouble, and that’s all he needs to know about the situation. It’s taken care of now, but we didn’t have phone service for longer than I thought because of it.”
“Uh-huh. One day he’s going to find out, and then you’ll be in a lot of trouble.”
“Whatever. I’m going to get some stitches, and then call a cab. I need to sleep the past few hours away.”
“They’re going to tell you that you have a concussion and can’t sleep.”
“Way to be encouraging.”
“Just doing my part.”
The next morning, after a fitful sleep, Agent Watson was sitting downstairs waiting on us to arrive.
“I’m so sorry that we’re late,” I apologized.
He took in the damage to my face, and the circles under both of our eyes.
“Looks like you’re both lucky to be alive.”
“That’s the truth. Did you find the car where we left it?” Ryan asked.
“Yeah. It looks like the person driving the other car didn’t want you to come out of it alive. The trunk is about halfway crushed in, and the left side…well, it’s just a good thing that they didn’t hit it any harder, or Detective Boxe would still be in the hospital.” He frowned. “Agent Perez has requested that I drive both of you to San Francisco to check out Tasha Logan’s home.”
“See? I knew that I shouldn’t trust your driving, Ryan.” I playfully punched his shoulder.
“Ow! That’s not fair, because I can’t hit you back.” Ryan swatted at my hand.
“Children, shall we?” Agent Watson grinned at us.
“Yes. Justice must be had, but can we get some coffee to-go with it?”
“I think that’s doable.” He continued to smile as we drove off.
When we pulled up at a small airport, I was confused. “I must have hit my head harder on the airbags than I thought. Why are we at the airport?”
“It’s about a six-hour drive to San Francisco if we don’t run into traffic. This way, we can be there in an hour, check things out, and be back before lunch.”
“Oh, are you flying the plane?” I asked, feeling better that I wasn’t going crazy.
“No. The pilot is
FBI and carries people around to places that are harder to get to. We lucked out that he was available so we didn’t have to do all that driving.”
“After hours in the car, we wouldn’t be able to move tomorrow.” Ryan didn’t hesitate to climb in the small, six passenger plane.
“Boxe, you scared to fly?” He peeked his head back out the door at me.
“Nope. Just getting my last breath of air before getting in that tiny thing.” I squared my shoulders. I wasn’t about to let Ryan call me a scaredy cat.
It was a really quick flight, and so different compared to commercial. Small planes weren’t known for their flight records in safety.
The area was so pretty, and we could see it because we were low enough to stay out of the commercial planes’ flight zones.
Agent Watson had a car waiting for us when we arrived, and drove us straight to Tasha’s house.
I snapped on a pair of gloves, feeling much better now that we were in my comfort zone.
The house was a mess. Evidently, Tasha wasn’t a person who valued organization. Just walking through the path of clothes to the back rooms took some work.
“At least she wasn’t murdered here. They’d have to throw out the whole house,” I joked, hoping that there weren’t any small furry creatures waiting to pop out at me.
“She was using her bedroom as the catchall for everything,” Ryan called down the hall to me in the kitchen.
“I’ve got mail in here,” I called back.
We did a thorough toss of the place. I finally found a pile sitting on the floor that looked like a recycle pile. How did she even know what to keep or throw out? It was doubtful that the floor in this place had ever seen daylight while she was the tenant.
A glossy envelope caught my attention, and I pulled it out from under a pile of magazines.
“You’ve been invited to a special event—your surprise birthday bash weekend getaway. If you mention it to your friends, it will spoil the surprise, so plan to be at the Traveler’s Inn in Salinas two days before your birthday. You’ll find a package in front of room number five with a blindfold. Put it on, and no peeking. We’ll make sure to get you to your destination for the big moment.”
“I have it!” I waved it in the air, and almost tripped over another pile of books hidden by a mound of clothes.
“What did you find?” Agent Watson appeared from the living room first.
“Her invitation to a getaway. He even tells her to put on a blindfold.” I shake my head. “Didn’t any of these girls’ mothers ever tell them that there are dangerous people out there? You don’t go out and trust a letter that you get without checking it out.”
“These women probably only saw the birthday party, and excitement won over common sense. I have no idea how he got them to do it, but this makes the most sense. He could have led them to another vehicle and they’d get in willingly. I’m sure that he makes them very compliable after they’re away from prying eyes,” Agent Watson offered.
“A guy would never walk into something like this, so what makes a woman do it?” Ryan asked, disgusted.
“Women are generally more trusting unless something has happened to them. And even then, they talk themselves out of listening to their gut when it tells them to run away.” I glanced around the room for anything else that might be useful.
“I’m going to say that we could search for hours here and only come up with this letter. It’s a good connection that we should act on. If he’s done it at one motel, then the chances are he’s done it at others. Most motels don’t take down the license plates of their patrons, and wouldn’t report an abandoned vehicle for several days.”
Ryan snickered. “I don’t think that you can call the people that frequent motels ‘patrons.’ That suggests a much higher class of people.”
“We should call the towing companies around Salinas and see if they’ve picked up any abandoned cars from motels lately. You know he has to use the same method for most of his victims.” I could feel that we were on the right track.
“I’ll let Agent Perez know. She may want us to drive down there and check it out. In fact, we might need to drive the old highway and see if we can spot other motels that would work. If he’s doing this, he’ll have to drive them back to wherever his headquarters are hidden.”
“I’m going to go wait out on her porch where I don’t feel like something’s going to crawl on me.” I shivered.
Agent Watson began to pace up and down the sidewalk as he held an animated conversation with Agent Perez.
He hung up and kicked at the tire of the car before composing himself. If we hadn’t just watched him have a tantrum, we wouldn’t have known that anything was wrong.
“So she wants us to drive back down to them today. They’re calling some of the towing companies, and if we get any hits, then we’ll detour to check it out as they find it.”
“What’s the bad news?” Ryan asked.
“Caught that, did you?” Agent Watson asked sheepishly.
“Yeah, so spill,” I prodded.
“Agent Perez wants me to keep the two of you busy. She’d rather you weren’t around for the next few days, and since someone has to do the legwork, she’s tasked us with it.”
“What changed from yesterday?” Frustration didn’t cover my feelings, but it wasn’t Agent Watson’s fault.
“Obviously, our killer doesn’t want you around. Since we flew you out today, he’s not going to know what direction you went in, and that will give them time to focus on him and not have to worry about protecting you.”
“But wouldn’t we be able to draw him out as bait if we were in Seaside?” I frowned.
“Absolutely, but she wants him thrown off balance so that he’ll make a mistake. If something becomes urgent, they’ll call us.”
“All right,” I sighed. “I mean, finding a hotel and taking a nap sounds really good right now. I’m still sore, and if I go for a run, it’s going to loosen things up, but I’m going to pass out afterward.”
“Okay, then, let’s start back and see where we end up after lunch.” Agent Watson locked up the house to secure it until her family could do something with it.
Salinas was a little over two hours from San Francisco, and we made good time to the Traveler’s Motel.
We split up. Ryan and I went to go talk to the person in the check-in office, while Agent Watson started running plates on the cars in the parking lot.
A college kid was sitting behind the counter, playing games on his phone.
I flashed my badge when he looked up. “We’re needing some information. A woman came through here last week and now she’s missing. Have you seen her or anyone that made you nervous?” I pushed the phone closer to him on the counter.
He got up from his chair and took a look. “Nah, I haven’t seen her. Usually when guys checks in, they just tell the chick they’re meeting what room to go to.”
Ryan raised an eyebrow. This kid had just admitted that hookups happened a lot, and I was willing to bet that most of them weren’t legal.
“What happens if a car isn’t moved after the next morning? Do you leave it out there, or have it towed somewhere?”
“I’m not in trouble, am I?” He was a little more cautious now that we were still hanging out.
“No, but we’re trying to find this woman, and her car might have some clues for us.”
“Oh, well, the long-term parking is in that empty lot. A lot of people will park there and then car pool to their destination. I mean, nobody rents it out or anything. It’s just kind of an unspoken agreement. If we had a vehicle left here and all the rooms weren’t rented, then we’d check it out. A week later, yeah, we’d tow it because we only have so many spots for true customers.”
“Thank you. So, if you weren’t a local, you would park in the regular lot because you wouldn’t know about the back one, correct?” I gave him an encouraging smile.
“That’s what I said, lady. Locals are the ones that use it
, or to hide their cars while they sleep at someone else’s house.” He glanced down at his phone. “Can I go back to playing?”
“Yeah, sure. You were a big help.” Ryan nodded toward the door.
“We’ve got to check out that long-term parking. If he got them to his vehicle and then knocked them out, he could move their car into long-term parking and not have to worry about disposing of the car.”
“Let’s see if Agent Watson found anything.” Ryan walked back over to get in the car.
“It sounds like this guy might have local connections, and might be parking cars in other places as well. I think he does a lot of traveling, so no one notices him moving back and forth. Like a local person that you’re used to, but not someone you’d invite to dinner?” I’d started thinking out loud when Ryan and I had teamed up.
“So, you think he’s a trucker, or maybe some delivery guy?” Agent Watson had caught up a little bit.
“I’d say delivery guy with a route up and down the highway. A trucker wouldn’t be as well-known, and they’re generally gone for days at a time.”
“He has to have a home base, or maybe more than one where he moves the girls once he has them.”
“Bingo.” Agent Watson fist pumped the air.
“We’ve got three vehicles that fit the description of women drivers under thirty. They all have Aries birthdays listed on their driver’s licenses. I’m going to send this over to Agent Perez and have her add these to the board. They’ll send someone to check on their home addresses and see if they’re home.”
“If we can get a list of missing women, then maybe we’ll get a hit on them before he kills them. The last one listed doesn’t have a birthday until tomorrow.”
“We’re seeing things in sets of threes or fives. I don’t think he’s using a place more than a couple of times to keep down the issue of discovery.”
“You think because we found three cars, as well as Tasha’s, that means he’s done using it? That’s only four.” Agent Watson scratched his head, puzzled.
“No, I think one of those other cars from out-of-town is one of his victims. It just isn’t registered to her. We should run any plates that are from out-of-town, and call to see if they have daughters in the right age range.” My gut was saying that he’d moved on, because Tasha was last week, and these others were probably dead, or would be before we could find him.
