Jack Mars - Hunting Zero

Suddenly there was a loud creak as the door to the bathroom was pushed open, and a surprised female voice said, “Oh! Excuse me… Am I in the wrong restroom?”

Rais took a step to the side, past the stall and out of Maya’s view. “So sorry, ma’am. No, you’re in the right place.” His voice immediately took on a pleasant, even courteous affectation. “My two daughters are in here and… well, maybe I’m overprotective, but you just can’t be too careful these days.”

Anger swelled in Maya’s chest at the ruse. The fact that this man had taken them from their father and would dare to pretend to be him made her face hot with rage.

“Oh. I see. I just need to use the sink,” the woman told him.

“By all means.”

Maya heard the clacking of shoes against tile, and then a woman came partially into view, facing away from her as she twisted the faucet knob. She looked to be middle-aged, with blonde hair just past her shoulders and dressed smartly.

“Can’t say I blame you,” the woman said to Rais. “Normally I would never stop in a place like this, but I spilled coffee on myself on the way to visit family, and… uh…” She trailed off as she gazed into the mirror.

In the reflection, the woman could see the open stall door, and Maya seated there atop the closed toilet. Maya had no idea what she might look like to a stranger—hair tangled, cheeks puffy from crying, eyes rimmed red—but she could imagine it was likely cause for alarm.

The woman’s gaze flitted to Rais and then back to the mirror. “Uh… I just couldn’t drive another hour and a half with my hands sticky…” She glanced over her shoulder, the water still running, and then she mouthed three very clear words to Maya.

Are you okay?

Maya’s lower lip trembled. Please don’t talk to me. Please don’t even look at me. She slowly shook her head. No.

Rais’s back must have been turned again, facing the door, because the woman nodded slowly. No! Maya thought desperately. She wasn’t trying to plead for help.

She was trying to keep this woman from suffering the same fate as Thompson.

Maya waved her hand at the woman and mouthed one word back at her. Go. Go.

The woman frowned deeply, her hands still dripping wet. She glanced in Rais’s direction again. “I suppose it would be too much to ask for paper towels, huh?”

She said it a bit too forcefully.

Then she gestured to Maya with her thumb and pinky, making a phone signal with her hand. She seemed to be suggesting she would call someone.

Please just go.

As the woman turned back toward the door, there was a blur of motion in the air. It happened so fast that at first Maya wasn’t even sure it had happened at all. The woman froze, her eyes widening in shock.

A thin arc of blood spurted from her open throat, spraying against the mirror and sink.

Maya clamped both hands over her mouth to stifle the scream that rose from her lungs. At the same time, the woman’s hands flew to her neck, but there was no stopping the damage that had been done. Blood ran in rivulets over and between her fingers as she sank to her knees, a soft gurgle escaping her lips.

Maya squeezed her eyes shut, both hands still over her mouth. She didn’t want to see it. She didn’t want to watch this woman die because of her. Her breath came in heaving, smothered sobs. From the next stall she heard Sara whimpering softly.

When she dared to open her eyes again, the woman stared back at her. One cheek rested against the filthy wet floor.

The pool of blood that had escaped her neck nearly reached Maya’s feet.

Rais bent at the waist and cleaned his knife on the woman’s blouse. When he looked up at Maya again, it was not anger or distress in his too-green eyes. It was disappointment.

“I told you what would happen,” he said softly. “You tried to signal to her.”

Tears blurred Maya’s vision. “No,” she managed to choke out. She couldn’t control her trembling lips, her shaking hands. “I-I didn’t…”

“Yes,” he said calmly. “You did. Her blood is on your hands.”

Maya began hyperventilating, her breaths coming in wheezing gulps. She bent over, putting her head between her knees, her eyes clenched shut and her fingers in her hair.

First Mr. Thompson, and now this innocent woman. They had both died simply by being too close to her, too close to what this maniac wanted—and he had proven twice now that he was willing to kill, even indiscriminately, to get what he wanted.

When she finally regained control of her breathing and dared to look up again, Rais had the woman’s black handbag and was rooting through it. She watched as he took out her phone and tore out both the battery and the SIM card.

“Stand up,” he ordered Maya as he entered the stall. She stood quickly, flattening herself against the metal stall partition and holding her breath.

Rais flushed the battery and SIM down the toilet. Then he turned to face her, only inches away in the narrow space. She couldn’t meet his gaze. Instead she stared at his chin.

He dangled something in front of her face—a set of car keys.

“Let’s go,” he said quietly. He left the stall, seemingly having no problem walking through the wide puddle of blood on the floor.

Maya blinked. The rest stop wasn’t at all about letting them use the bathroom. It wasn’t this assassin showing an ounce of humanity. It was a chance for him to ditch Thompson’s truck. Because the police might be looking for it.

At least she hoped they were. If her father hadn’t come home yet, there was little chance that anyone would know that the Lawson girls were missing.

Maya stepped as gingerly as possible to avoid the puddle of blood—and to avoid looking at the body on the floor. Every joint felt like gelatin. She felt weak, powerless, against this man. All the resolve that she had mustered only minutes ago in the truck had dissolved like sugar in boiling water.

She took Sara by the hand. “Don’t look,” she whispered, and directed her younger sister around the woman’s body. Sara stared at the ceiling, taking long breaths through her open mouth. Fresh tears streaked both of her cheeks. Her face was white as a sheet and her hand felt cold, clammy.

Rais pulled the bathroom door open just a few inches and peered outside. Then he held up a hand. “Wait.”

Maya peered around him and saw a portly man in a trucker’s cap walking away from the men’s room, patting his hands dry on his jeans. She squeezed Sara’s hand, and with her other she instinctively smoothed her own tangled, messy hair.

She couldn’t fight this assassin, not unless she had a weapon. She couldn’t try to enlist the help of a stranger, or they might suffer the same fate as the dead woman behind them. She had only one choice now, and that was to wait and hope that her dad came for them… which he could only do if he knew where they were, and there was nothing to help him find them. Maya had no way to leave clues or a trail.

Her fingers snagged in her hair and came away with a few loose strands. She shook them off her hand and they fell slowly to the floor.

Hair.

She had hair. And hair could be tested—that was basic forensics. Blood, saliva, hair. Any of those things could prove that she had been somewhere, and that she had still been alive when she was. When the authorities found Thompson’s truck, they would find the dead woman, and they would collect samples. They would find her hair. Her dad would know they had been there.

“Go,” Rais told them. “Outside.” He held the door as the two girls, holding hands, left the bathroom. He followed, glancing around once more to ensure no one was watching. Then he took out Mr. Thompson’s heavy Smith & Wesson revolver and flipped it around in his hand. With a single, solid motion, he swung the gun’s handle downward and snapped the doorknob off the closed bathroom door.