C. Box: The Highway

Danielle rocked. Gracie hoped there was some way to reach her.

“What do you say? Will you do it this time?”

* * *

There was a remote vibration in the floor and despite her freezing feet, Gracie could feel it. Danielle could, too, because her head jerked up and she stared at the door in wide-eyed terror.

Gracie whispered, “They’re back. Start texting and sell it.”

Danielle gathered up the tin and sat with her back to the wall, the Altoid box poised in front of her, her thumbs at the ready. Gracie was thrilled.

She rose, yanked the blanket from the dead body, and stood poised next to the door.

* * *

Gracie heard more distant and muffled sounds, but no conversations like before. Gracie was sure they were out there, but what were they doing?

After a series of heavy footfalls the sliding metal plate on the door slid back. Gracie stared in terror at the pair of shadowed, piglike eyes as they moved around the room until they settled on her sister.

“There you are,” the man said. She recognized the voice as belonging to the man with the badge, the man with the gun who’d shot the tall man in the corner.

“How’re you girls doing?”

Gracie looked over at her sister. Danielle had lowered the tin between her knees out of view. She wasn’t going to go through with it, and Gracie sighed and let the blanket slide to the cement floor.

“I see one of you,” the man said to Danielle. “Where is the other? Where’s your sister?”

Gracie froze. The man couldn’t see her because she was out of the sight line of the sliding panel.

Instinctively, Danielle’s eyes moved to her.

Gracie felt as if she’d been stabbed in the back by her sister.

“Come out where I can see you,” the man said.

Gracie stepped into the center of the room.

“Hiding, huh?” the man said. “You’re not the first to ever try that trick.”

Gracie looked down at her bare feet. She was afraid if she looked at Danielle she’d dive at her and try to tear her sister’s hair out.

“I shouldn’t really be here,” the man said, as much to himself as to Gracie, it seemed. “But I wanted to see how you’re doing.”

She nodded.

“Has my other friend been here since we left?”

“No,” Gracie said, looking up.

“You’re not lying to me, are you?”

“No.”

She could see him nodding through the slot in a satisfied way. He said, “I believe you since you’re standing.”

“I’ll be back in a few minutes,” the man said. “But you two need to keep something in mind. Your role here is to satisfy me . As long as you can do that, I’ll keep you around. I won’t let that trucker hurt you, and believe me-he will. He likes the sound of bones snapping. You saw what happened to Krystyl and the cook there. Think about them, and then think about me. Think of ways to make me happy. If you do that, girls, I can protect you from the trucker and we can discuss your future later. Got that?”

Neither said a word.

“Good,” the man said, and slammed the slider shut.

“If he doesn’t kill you, I will,” Gracie growled at her sister.

Danielle shrugged, tears in her eyes.

* * *

At the same time, Cassie Dewell kept one eye on the road and the other on her GPS unit as she coursed up the Highway 89 north from Gardiner. If she’d programmed the coordinates correctly, the screen said she’d be at the old Schweitzer place in six minutes.

Six minutes.

Back at the quilt shop, she’d debated with herself whether to wait on the highway for the contingent from the sheriff’s department in Livingston to storm the Schweitzer place en masse or to find it herself. Finally, she thought: What would Cody do?

She smiled grimly at the thought: WWCD.

Then she said good-bye to Sally Legerski, who was still in shock behind her silent sewing machine, and went out to the Ford. She made a vow to go back when it was over and offer what comfort she could. There were so many victims of crime, she thought. So many friends, relatives, and family members on the periphery of evil.

As she sped along the highway she noticed a black spoor of smoke to her right, toward the mountains. A big fire of some kind several miles from the highway. It seemed odd in the late fall/early winter when there was no wildfire danger. The low pressure of the storm front kept the smoke from rising straight up and flattened it on the top so it looked like a T. Because her driver’s side window was open, she caught a hint of the stench. It smelled like burning plastic and rotten garbage.

Her mind raced, fueled by adrenaline, lack of sleep, and horror. She imagined how horrible it would be to be a prisoner in the shelter without an inkling of who out there might be trying to find her, if anyone was. Every minute would be its own nightmare. The only positive aspect she could think of was how unlikely it was Legerski could have molested the Sullivan girls in such a short time since their abduction. She had to remind herself it had been less than twenty-four hours, and for much of the time Legerski had been entertaining Cody Hoyt and her. Inadvertently, that might have spared the Sullivan girls the fate of the girl on the DVD. But she couldn’t be sure, of course, and if he was given more time she had no doubt what their fate would be. One of the jarring impressions she had taken away from viewing the DVD was that he was well practiced.

She’d told Sheriff Pedersen she’d meet him at the Schweitzer place, but she didn’t say at the same time he arrived. She wanted to get there first, find and free Cody and the girls, and wait for the cavalry to arrive. She wanted to see Cody, put an end to the investigation, be the hero, and get home for Thanksgiving. It was something she could tell Ben about some day; how his mother was a hero like his father had been.

The GPS indicated she should turn off the highway within 0.5 miles, so she slowed down. The road displayed on the screen was nothing special; an ungraded private two-track with no official name. She looked ahead and saw that it wound up through the sagebrush and up and over a rise to what looked like a valley on the other side. As she turned she noticed a series of fresh tire tracks in the mud of the road, more activity than she thought there should be for such a forlorn location, and her heart began to whump.

And it was as if Cody was back in the Expedition with her, chain-smoking and doing one of his cynical monologues about human nature and the corrupt judicial system. She could hear him lay out the pros and cons, the very real scenario where everything they tried to do right turned out for shit.

What would happen if the evidence itself, the DVDs, turned out to be tainted somehow? What if the man who’d given them to her had stolen them? Would they hold up in court? What if Legerski claimed they were fraudulent, that some video sharpie with digital equipment had the know-how and technology to make it appear that he was raping and killing women? Isn’t that what they did in Hollywood-created realistic images of beings and people via computer? CGI-computer-generated imaging. What if they couldn’t find corroborating evidence to back up the images, or if the evidence they found was thrown out due to some technicality like an illegal search and seizure? After all, Cassie had made the decision to proceed with speed and force instead of careful deliberation. She hadn’t even tried to obtain a search warrant for the Schweitzer place or the shelter.…

There was still the truck driver who had blown the case open by leaving the disks. She didn’t know why he’d done it, whether he was somehow involved or whether he was a Good Samaritan who wanted to steer her in the right direction but leave himself out of it. Either way, the speed in which he’d driven away and his method of passing the damning evidence indicated he wanted to get out of town fast. She’d not called him in or put out an APB on his all-black truck, not wanting to risk Legerski hearing about the incident over his radio and panicking. She wanted Trooper Legerski to be caught before he knew he was a suspect.