Макс Коллинз - You Can’t Stop Me

“No!” Jenny’s cheeks were burning.

“Didn’t think so. You know what I think? I think it’s time we got that bony ass of yours out of them jeans and into a dress.”

Jenny shook her head, nervous now, fear rising. “No! I don’t even own a dress.”

Next to Jenny, Carmen said, “You know, I’ve got the cutest little black dress — you would look so hot in it.”

“I don’t think so.”

Nancy said, “We’ve all seen the looks our Southern-fried Beach Boy sneaks at you.”

“What? Who?”

Laurene said, “The cute chemist . Talk about chemistry! I don’t even dig men, but he’s worth looking at, coming and going.”

“He was never looking at me,” Jenny insisted.

“He sneaks peeks all the time, sugar.”

“Why would he do that?”

Carmen said, “Looking to hook up.”

“Hook up what? I’m wireless.”

The laughter of the other girls took a while to die down, before Jenny removed her blank expression and let a smile form.

“ Got you,” she said. “I’m quiet, not... inexperienced.”

She guessed they didn’t know she used to fish for child molesters online, and that she knew a lot more than she let on, much of it disgusting and revolting.

They sat and chatted the rest of the way to Pratt, Jenny feeling more at home with these strangers — these new acquaintances — than she had with her co-workers back in Wyoming.

Maybe here, on this bus, with these women, she could find the freedom to be herself, not the Jenny that she was always expected to be back home. Out here, she was Jenny Blake, computer guru.

Whoever the hell that was.

Now they were on his trail for real.

Still, he’d had to practically spoon-feed them, to get them this close. Using the same gun in New Mexico that he’d used at Harrow’s seemed at the time heavy-handed, too obvious a clue; but the so-called superstar Killer TV team had proved only slightly better at deciphering his messages than the myriad police departments and state police around the country, where he’d made deliveries over the years.

The gun had told them it was him. Trading license plates along his route gave them the road map they needed to get close. That damn female bartender in Pratt driving off into the night threw a slight monkey wrench into his plans.

But they would have to figure that one out for themselves. He could deliver messages to help them understand, but he could not simply hand himself over on a silver platter — they had to earn it.

Didn’t they know nothing was free in this life?

The license plate he’d placed on the bartender’s van in exchange for the original was from his hometown, but most certainly wasn’t his own plate. Hell, it didn’t even belong to the monster who’d turned him into the Messenger!

No, it came from the dark blue Ford F-150 of that yahoo down the street with the dog that wouldn’t shut its yap. He’d asked the guy to keep his dog quiet, but the thoughtless asshole had laughed at him and told him to buzz off.

Would have been sweet to see how the yahoo liked it when the Crime Seen! team, the Kansas State Police, the FBI, and God only knew what other law enforcement agencies crawled up his hiney, thinking he was the one delivering messages. Would have been a hoot to watch, from just up the street. He’d have been laughing his ass off at how close they’d come to him while striking out.

If he’d been feeling really cocky, he’d have driven to the grocery store for a quart of milk while all those cops were right on his block tearing the yahoo’s house to hell and gone. Could have driven right through all the cars, parked haphazardly on the street, their lights blinking, so consumed with the yahoo that they’d never have even seen the real Messenger among them.

Parked in his own F-150 now, eyes closed as he leaned back, daydreaming about getting even with the yahoo with the dog, the Messenger felt the thing between his legs quiver.

The thing had been dead for so long, he barely recognized the sensation. The feeling was both familiar and wonderful and gave him a second or two of hope before he came back to reality.

The bartender with the van had disappeared — a message that never got properly delivered, and if the stupid bitch turned up within the three and a half days until the show, maybe the asshole and his dog would still get their due.

Otherwise, it was just another dashed hope, just like every other goddamned hope he’d ever clung to in his life.

Hope — sometimes he thought he hated that word more than any other. Hope represented not only everything that he could never have, now or in the future, but also the loss of his dreams for the futures of those he’d loved most.

The mere thought turned his knuckles white as he caught himself practically strangling the steering wheel. He fought back the rage, though it still coursed through him, barely controlled. His hope (that word again) was that he’d keep the rage in check, at least until his target arrived.

He figured the Crime Seen! team would be spending most of their time this week in the place where the trail went cold — that meant Pratt, Kansas, which was where he was now. Pratt, known as “The Gateway to the Great Plains,” was famous for having two water towers that didn’t feature the town’s name, instead bearing the legends HOT and COLD. Ha ha.

The Killer TV team wasn’t here yet, but they’d be on their way. He and his Ford were in a corner of the parking lot of one of Pratt’s seven motels, which — along with the police department — were all he had to cover. Sooner or later, Harrow and his cronies would show up in their big obnoxious tour buses plus that semi-trailer rig, not only advertising the show, but pinpointing their location.

This team was so accustomed to being the hunters, never occurred to them that they might be the prey. That gave him a huge advantage. They’d be so busy searching for him, they wouldn’t see him right in front of them. Like a snake in the rocks, he would strike before they even knew he was there.

And there’d be no rattle of warning, either...

The Messenger was at the police department when, an hour later, the first Crime Seen! bus arrived. He was right there, coming out the glass double doors of the brick police department when the big stupid vehicle rolled up and parked right in front. Having gone inside, just another citizen using a public bathroom, he’d come out at the perfect time. He stood frozen, mesmerized by his good fortune, staring as the door of the bus swung slowly open.

J.C. Harrow himself stepped down, jeans, navy blue sports coat, white button-down shirt open at the throat. He had dark glasses on against the afternoon sun as he crossed the sidewalk, as square-jawed and ruggedly handsome as the hero in an old western.

Breaking out his first genuine smile in a long while, the Messenger held the PD station’s door open as Harrow passed him and went on into the building, the reality show host even granting the Messenger a nod of thanks.

Thinks he’s the star of this show , the Messenger thought with inner glee.

As Harrow strode to the front desk, the Messenger watched through the glass and savored the moment. Then he held the door for the blond pretty-boy chemist and the muscle-bound dwarf DNA “expert” too. The chemist thanked him in a cornpone drawl; the dwarf relinquished a crisp nod. After that, some crew members were coming from the bus, and they could open their own goddamn door.

He strolled back to his truck, whistling, a long-abandoned habit from his old life, back when he was still alive.