C. Box: The Highway

And one of the others said, “He needs it.”

The Lizard King didn’t stop or turn around to see who said it. Was it Muttonchops? Did Muttonchops just remember where they’d met and what nearly happened?

As he reached the back bumper of the trucks and turned left, he shot a quick look over his shoulder at the Bible-thumpers. They were still looking in his direction, and Muttonchops was in the middle of them, talking low.

* * *

“He needs it” stuck in his craw as he watched the skinny blond lot lizard climb up into a cab ten trucks away. Who were they to judge him, those bastards? he thought. Weren’t they supposed to show some tolerance? Wasn’t their whole act about forgiveness?

She was making her way toward him, truck by truck. Most calls were refusals, but four trucks away he saw a hairy arm reach down from a cab and a big hand grasp hers and pull her up. The lights in the cab went out and he saw cheap curtains pulled sharply across the sleeper cab window. He’d gotten a glimpse of her thin and haggard face from the interior dome light of the cab before it went out, and it wasn’t a face to write home about. But it would do, he thought. He slid the elastic cuff up over his wristwatch and checked the time. In about five minutes she’d be done. It rarely took longer than that. Truckers wanted blow jobs and not much conversation. Rarely did they want anything else that would take more time. Five minutes tops, and the lot lizards backed out, usually grasping stained and crumpled tissue.

He hoped she had all her teeth but if she didn’t, he hoped she had none. He remembered that one in Utah after he’d knocked all her teeth out …

There were more and more semis entering the truck stop by the minute, and more cars. They were pouring in. He couldn’t account for the sudden traffic, but the more chaos and confusion on the lot, the better for hunting.

He sat back, trying to stay calm until she reached him.

He visualized the dispatcher, that dried-up old crow, trying to track him by his Qualcomm and flipping out because she couldn’t locate him or his truck.

His ears hummed with tension and he was so preoccupied he almost didn’t hear the rapping on his driver’s door. The sound jerked him out of his internal debate, and suddenly all was quiet and he was focused.

He wondered how the hell she’d gotten there so fast. Had everyone else rejected her? Or was there a new one, a new lot lizard he hadn’t seen?

He reached over and grasped the door handle and opened it a few inches. It was that damned Chamois and Muttonchop.

He didn’t open his door more than two inches, so they couldn’t see inside.

“Hey, buddy,” Chamois said, “We just heard I-90 West will likely be closed all night.”

“Why?”

“Big propane truck jackknifed a few miles past Laurel. The Montana State Patrol shut down both lanes.”

That explained the sudden arrival of traffic, he thought.

“No shit?” he said, angry they were there but assuming they’d interpret his curse being about the highway.

“Yeah,” Chamois said, “We’re likely to be here all night. The Montana state boys are taking every precaution that jackknifed truck don’t blow up.”

He looked down through the gap between the door and the frame. Muttonchop stood shoulder to shoulder with Chamois but he couldn’t see his face. The Lizard King wanted them to leave. Their presence might spook the lot lizard working her way to him. Or they might turn on her, the Bible-thumping bastards.

“Well,” the Lizard King said, “thanks for letting me know. I may give it a try later, though. I’m not that far from home base and there are a few other routes I can take.”

“Where’s home?” Chamois asked. “Livingston, Montana?”

He was taken aback that they knew, but then realized they’d read it on his door.

“Yeah.”

“That ain’t that far.”

“That’s what I’m sayin’.”

“Well,” Chamois said, as if killing time for a reason the Lizard King couldn’t discern, “you’ll have to decide for yourself which road you take.”

He said it in a way that caused the Lizard King to think it had nothing to do with the highway.

“That I’ll do,” he answered, trying to keep his rage from overtaking him. These bastards were mocking him . “In fact, I’ll do whatever the hell I want and I don’t need any help or advice from you,” he said, slamming the door shut.

As he watched them walk away toward their trucks in the front row, he saw Muttonchop playfully punch Chamois in the shoulder as if they were sharing a joke. He thought of shoving his gearshift into second and mowing them down.

Then he saw her, the blond one. She was descending from the cab four trucks away. The lights inside came back on. And she was teetering toward him on her high heels.

Everything was set up perfectly, but too many factors nagged at him. The closed road, for one. And all the attention the Bible-thumpers had paid him. One of the beauties of the road was its anonymity. The Bible-thumpers would likely be five states away by morning. Still, though, they’d seen his face. They knew his rig. If they were somehow found and questioned later …

A voice in the back of his head squawked: Abort-abort-abort .

But the closer she got, the more his entire body coursed with electricity and it seemed like his nerve endings were firing, shooting sparks. It had been so long, and he was ready to explode. He thought of that red-haired girl calling him a loser. Those Bible-thumpers mocking him. His perfect, perfect plan and preparation.

He almost felt sorry for the lot lizard because she had no idea what kind of hell she was getting herself into.

4:48 P.M., Tuesday, November 20

Eighteen-year-old Danielle and sixteen-year-old Gracie Sullivan were traveling north on I-25 in Danielle’s red 2006 Ford Focus with the green Colorado PLNTDNL license plates and music blaring, the wipers smearing spots on rain and snow across the windshield, and the check engine light on. PLNTDNL stood for “Planet Danielle” and it was her car.

Gracie was simply along for the long ride to Omaha to be with their dad for Thanksgiving. Their parents had divorced years before and the girls rotated holidays between Denver, where they lived with their mother, and Omaha, where their father had most recently moved with his software engineering firm.

He even sent them a GPS and a road atlas for their Thanksgiving trip to Omaha. The atlas was in the backseat, where Danielle had tossed it after determining their route. The GPS was still in its box in the trunk unopened, because Danielle didn’t want to take the time and trouble to figure out how it worked. Their bags were stuffed in the trunk and the backseat floor was littered with fast-food bags and wrappers and empty plastic water bottles.

Danielle was at the wheel. She drove like she lived-with wild impulsive fits and starts. Gracie would watch the speedometer slow to fifty while Danielle searched for a song she liked on the sound system or texted on her phone, then gritted her teeth when her sister sped up to eighty with the rhythm of the music. It drove Gracie crazy.

“At least go the friggin’ speed limit ,” Gracie said, wide-eyed and pleading. “Don’t you have cruise control? Why don’t you set it so you don’t kill us before we get there?”

“We’ll be fine,” Danielle said. “Stop freaking out.”

“You drive like a crazy person.”

Danielle let up on the accelerator pedal and reset the cruise control at exactly seventy-five. “There. Are you happy now?”

“Yes!”

“This is boring.”

“That’s okay!”

They’d left that morning at nine. It was eight hours to Omaha; north on I-25 to Cheyenne, then east on I-80. Gracie wished she was old enough to have a driver’s license so she could drive. Danielle was dangerous. Lanes meant nothing to her.