Snowbound (9 page)

They sprang for one room in a motel across from Big Al’s Truck Stop, caught a few winks on the pair of queen-size beds, figuring they had no way of knowing when they might have a chance to sleep again. When Will woke up, it was already dark outside and Kalyn was sitting on her bed, hunched over a laptop, the small black plastic case she’d borrowed from her PI friend in Sun City open beside her.

“What time is it?” Will whispered.

“We’ve got two hours.”

“God, it’s almost nine?” He slipped out of bed and pulled the covers back over Devlin, sighed against the first gut-prickling announcement of nerves.

He sat down beside Kalyn and stared at the computer screen.

“I’m just installing the software,” she said.

“For what?”

“TrimTrac GPS. That wireless vehicle-tracking system I was telling you about.”

Will lifted a black rectangular device the size of a whiteboard eraser. “Where does this go?”

“Anywhere on the truck, preferably underneath and out of sight. It’s weatherproof and has enhanced sensitivity, so it doesn’t have to be directly exposed to the sky.”

“How’s it attach?”

“There’s a magnet kit. All right, look at this. You a fast learn with computers?”

“I do design Web sites for a living.”

She punched in a URL on the keyboard. “I’ve opened a free account on SoniyaMobile’s Web site. You’re gonna be able to track the truck from this computer.”

“How does it work?”

“The TrimTrac device sends location updates through international SMS and GPS to a Soniya back-end server. The locations are saved and stored and you can access them on a Google map. You’re gonna be operating this thing, so here, you do it.” Kalyn set the computer in Will’s lap. “You’re in semiauto mode, and I think that’s what you’ll probably need to stay in. Go up here and click that. Okay, now enable the motion detector, since you only need the TrimTrac functional when the truck’s moving. That’ll save power. And you’re gonna want real-time tracking. Click here, set update intervals at five minutes.”

They spent another half hour, Will familiarizing himself with the program. While Kalyn installed the adapter, computer, and extra batteries in the Land Rover, Will mounted the magnets to the TrimTrac device.

When Kalyn returned to the motel room, her demeanor had changed. She looked pale, her eyes distracted and distant.

“Hey,” Will said, “come here.” She came and sat beside him on the bed. “You all right?”

She looked up, her eyes boring into his. “You up for this, Will?”

“I think so.”

“I need to know for sure.”

“Yes.”

“I’ve tried to figure out some way to smuggle a gun into the trailer with me. Or that device or a cell. But it’d be too risky, so what I guess I need you to know is that my life is in your hands. Whatever truck I wind up in the back of, you cannot lose track of it.”

“Look at me, Kalyn. I won’t.”

She nodded. “I’m sorry. I’ll be fine here in a minute. Just pregame jitters, you know?”

“Yeah, I’ve got them, too. I keep thinking about what might happen. What if Jonathan freaks out when he sees me? What if he doesn’t buy it? Demands to speak to Javier? Asks some question I can’t answer? I’m guessing people in their line of work don’t like last-second curveballs.”

“It’s a risk,” she said.

“A big one.”

“I’ve been mulling it over, and I think we may need a different approach with this guy. The whole ‘Javier sent me instead and I’m sorry we didn’t let you know before’ is shit. I think he’d see straight through it. But you know what works with these kind of people?”

“What?”

“Fear.”

“I don’t understand where you’re going with—”

“Remember how Javier said there were two gringo Alphas?”

At 10:50
P.M.
, Will and Kalyn sat in the Land Rover under the seventy-foot
BIG AL’S
neon sign, the smell of diesel overpowering, even from inside the car. For the third time in the last minute, Will wiped his hands across his leather pants.

“You gotta quit that,” Kalyn said.

“Sorry.”

“You are cool and calm and in control.” She handed him her Glock. “It’s loaded.”

“Where’s the safety?”

“There isn’t one, and there’s a round in the chamber, but don’t get all Jack Bauer on me. That’s last resort right there. If you have to use it, things are seriously fucked-up.”

Will closed his eyes. “He’s gonna know the second he sees me that I’m—”

“It’s like acting, Will, okay? Ever do any high school theater?”

“No.”

“Well, you were an attorney, right? Ever represent someone you knew was guilty?”

“Sure.”

“Ever get them acquitted?”

“A few times.”

“Then you’ve acted. Convinced
twelve
people. Tonight, you only have to convince one.”

“The stakes aren’t even in the same league.”

“You know what to say?”

“Yeah.”

“Want to run through it again?”

“No, I don’t wanna sound rehearsed.” He held up the gun. “Where do I even put this thing?”

“Just slide it down the back of your waistband when you get out of the car. And make sure your shirt and leather jacket are pulled over it. Listen. If you have to use it, if it comes to that, you calm yourself down first. Center mass is what you aim for. That’s a forty-five-cal. Thing’s got plenty of stopping power.”

“Jesus.” Will looked at the clock: 10:54.

He opened the door, stepped outside.

“Good luck,” Kalyn said. He nodded, felt like he was going to be sick. “I know you can do this,” she said. “So quit doubting yourself.”

• • •

But he didn’t. He doubted himself as he shoved the Glock into his waistband, as he looked back across the interstate toward the motel where he’d left Devlin, as he shoved his hands into his leather jacket and started across the parking lot.

Will stepped into the convenience store that adjoined the café.

Big Al’s was bustling for almost eleven, and, no surprise, 80 percent of the customers had the look of truck drivers—bearded, bulging guts, bloodshot eyes bleary with loneliness.

He walked past the drink machines, saw a black man filling what must have been a gallon-size cup from every soda dispenser—shot of Sierra Mist, Coca-Cola, orange Fanta, lemonade, Dr. Pepper—a potpourri of colored, carbonated sugar water.

He headed for the rest rooms, found an empty stall, and sat for a moment on the toilet, making himself breathe, holding the Glock, turning it over, trying to settle into the weight of it. As he washed his hands, he caught his reflection in the mirror. He studied his eyes, wondered if the man named Jonathan would see the cold, callous burning that he did not.

He walked back through the convenience store, heading toward the restaurant’s entrance.

A clock above the cash register read 11:02.

The hostess looked up, said, “Just one tonight, honey?”

“No, I’m meeting someone.” He strode past her, made a quick scan of the tables and booths, the stools at the counter. Soft drink signs and old license plates adorned the walls. A sign over the grill read
KISS A TRUCKER
.
Breathe, Will. Breathe
. The place was packed. Smell of fried things, onions, old coffee, bacon, body odor, eons of accumulated cigarette smoke.
Long red hair, bushy beard, weighs over three hundred pounds. Aside from the long red hair, Javier’s description matches a third of the custom
—
There
.

In the last booth, not far from the kitchen doors, an enormous man with braids of red hair and an unkempt beard occupied an entire bench seat. His back was to the wall, and he was staring at Will.
You aren’t breathing
. Will breathed, then moved carefully across the checkered floor to the booth, the man watching him with uncertainty.

The food on the table could have fed five, breakfast, lunch, and dinner, all major fried-food groups represented.

Will slid into the booth.

“Jonathan?”

“Who the fuck are you?”

Breathe
. Will’s lower lip ached to tremble. He bit his tongue, glared at the man, summoning all the hate in his arsenal.
He had a hand in taking Rachael.

“Once more. You Jonathan?” The man returned the onion ring he’d been holding to the basket and wiped the grease from his hands onto his size XXX T-shirt, which displayed three naked women engaged in some act that was indeterminate due to the stretched, faded quality of the cotton.

When he started to rise, Will pulled the Glock from his waistband, set it on the table, the barrel pointed at Jonathan, his finger on the trigger.

“You crazy?” The man’s eyes cut to every corner of the restaurant, but Will didn’t move. “Where’s Jav?” Jonathan whispered.

“Jav went to be with the Lord.” Will wiped his right hand on his pants under the table, sweat running down his sides. He tapped the Glock on the table. “Should I put this away or—”

“Yes. Nobody told me nothing about this. Who are you?”

It hadn’t occurred to Will that he might be asked to give his name, and he said the first thing that popped into his head: “Never mind what my name is. We discovered that Jav had this little operation going on the side. And you know what the upsetting thing was? He never shared.”

“Then why are you here?”

“Because I have the product.”

Jonathan picked up an enormous hamburger and bit into it, juice and catsup running down his chin. He wiped his forearm across his mouth and spoke as he chewed.

“You think I’m gonna do business with someone I never met, never seen, never heard of? That how
you
do business?”

Will exhaled slowly through his nose. “How I conduct my business is not your affair. Just for clarification … you are ending your arrangement with us?”

“Us?”

“The Alphas.”

Jonathan’s face blanched. He swallowed. “I suspected,” he said. “But I didn’t know. Sure as shit didn’t ask.”

“Are we doing business tonight, Jonathan? I need to know right now.”

Will set the Glock back on the table.

Jonathan sighed. “Yeah. Course we are. Course we are. And I apologize if I—”

“Just shut the fuck up. I’m tired, and I’d like to get some sleep. Where’s your truck?”

“Space one fifty-one.”

“Be there in five.”

Will unlocked the Land Rover, climbed into the driver’s seat, and shut the door. Kalyn lay silent and unmoving across the backseat, and when he glanced at her, he couldn’t help seeing Rachael, and it hit him again that she’d been through all this alone, without him.

“He went for it,” Will said.

Kalyn didn’t move. “What now?”

“We’re meeting him at his truck.”

“How do you feel?”

“Like someone jammed an adrenaline shot into my heart.”

“Yeah, it’s a rush, huh?”

“Kalyn, it’s not too late. We can still just drive away, forget this whole thing. You sure you wanna be put in the back of a trailer? God knows where it’s going.”

“Of course I don’t, Will. I’m scared beyond shitless. But in spite of the fear, I want to know what happened to my sister. She went through exactly what I’m getting ready to experience. Nobody tracking her. Nobody watching her back.”

Will cranked the engine, shifted into drive. He pulled around the side of the building that housed the restaurant and convenience store, soon found himself driving through row after row of semis, at least a hundred of them, dark and dormant, their drivers asleep for the night. Will lifted the TrimTrac device from the passenger seat, slipped it in his pocket.

“Kalyn, I’m worried. What do I do when the next transfer is made? What if he just passes you on to another truck?”

“There’s no way of knowing what’ll happen, where I’ll wind up. You just be close and ready to improvise. But listen, don’t get yourself and your daughter killed over this, okay?”

Up ahead, just a hulking shadow in the dark, Jonathan stood waiting, the back of the trailer already open.

“I see him,” Will said. “Get ready.”

He parked the Land Rover behind the truck and killed the engine, then stepped out, slammed the door. He didn’t like his surroundings—dark, quiet, a thousand places for someone to hide.

“Where is she?” Jonathan asked.

“Unconscious in the backseat.”

Impossibly, Jonathan managed to hoist his gigantic frame up into the trailer. In the poor light, Will could just make out large cylindrical containers, wondered briefly what Jonathan’s ostensible cargo was.

Will opened the door, reached under Kalyn’s arms, and pulled her carefully out of the backseat. Then he slung her up so she draped over his shoulder and started toward the truck, her chest heaving against his back.
Settle down, Kalyn. Settle down.

“Got a pretty one there?” Jonathan asked.

Will made no reply, just gave Kalyn’s thigh a gentle squeeze.

At the back of the trailer, Jonathan pulled Kalyn off Will’s shoulders and placed her down. He knelt beside her, ran his hands over her legs, arms, between her thighs.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Will said.

“My ass is on the line now. I’ll rest easier knowing it’s coming into my possession with only the clothes on its body. And that you haven’t done nothing to it.” He continued to frisk her. “Taller than the others, ain’t it?”

“You tell me. I haven’t seen the others.”

“Jav pick this one out?”

“Yes.”

Jonathan struggled onto his feet and dragged Kalyn back into the darkness of the trailer.

Will took the TrimTrac out of his pocket as Jonathan fumbled with a set of keys. He ran his hands under the metal step beneath the Idaho license plate.

A door in back of the trailer creaked open. Kalyn slid along the floor.

Will couldn’t find a surface large enough for all the magnets.

A door slammed, keys jangling.
Fuck
. Jonathan lumbered toward him as Will’s hands passed over the largest flat surface he’d yet encountered. He lifted the device to the metal, felt the magnetic pull as the TrimTrac locked into place with an audible
clang
.

Will crept around the corner of the trailer, stood up, unzipped his pants.

“The fuck are you doing?” Jonathan said.

“What’s it look like?” Will zipped his pants and spun around, Jonathan staring at him. “We done here?” Will said.

“Yeah. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, I’m gonna have to tell my contact that Javier is no longer selecting. Up to the buyer if he wants to use you guys again. Won’t have nothing to do with me. I just wanna be clear so you don’t … if it turns out we can’t do business again, won’t be me ending the relationship.”

Will walked to the Land Rover and, despite his trembling hands, managed to get in and start it. He turned around between the rows of trucks and drove slowly away, watching Jonathan in the rearview mirror, and fighting against the thought that he’d seen the last he’d ever see of Kalyn Sharp.