The Highway (30 page)

Pergram knew there were others out there on the highway, but it wasn’t like they were in some kind of club or association. They didn’t have a Web site where they could share videos or stories or tips. He wasn’t sure he’d even like meeting another one.

Once, at a bank of urinals in a truck stop out of Valentine, Nebraska, he’d stood next to another trucker who seemed to emanate a certain aura of familiarity. The other driver was pudgy and dark and had dead, ravenlike eyes. As he zipped up, Pergram looked over to find the man staring at him in an unexplainable knowing way. Pergram nodded and the man smiled slightly, then turned away and zipped up himself. They’d exchanged something, a common thread, but didn’t mouth a word to each other. Pergram just
knew
. He’d waited outside in the hall for the driver to come out. He wanted to ask him about methodology, tactics, disposal. But in the end, he chickened out. He was on the road south toward North Platte before the other driver came out of the truck stop and mounted up.

*   *   *

There was a small white house on the valley floor. Next to it was Legerski’s cruiser and Jimmy’s Jeep Wagoneer.

He parked next to Jimmy’s Jeep and climbed out of the Buick with the ammo cans from the seat. But instead of walking toward the sagging front door of the house he went to the side where there was a thick concrete abutment emerging from the ground.

He leaned over and grasped the steel handle of the door and pulled. It was unlocked.

As he went down the wide stairs, his rage suddenly morphed into absolute calm and he became the Lizard King without even willing it to happen.

33.

10:02
A.M.
, Wednesday, November 21

D
ANIELLE SAT WITH HER BACK
against the wall near the space heater hugging her bare knees close. Her eyes were wide open but she was in a world of her own. Gracie observed her closely but Danielle didn’t seem to know it or care. Danielle was silently chanting something, her lips moving in a kind of rhythm.

Gracie tried to figure out what her sister was chanting while she sipped on one of the bottles of water the man had tossed in earlier. Neither had eaten anything that was in the bag except for sharing a package of beef jerky.

Gracie said, “Danielle?”

Danielle didn’t look up, didn’t stop her mantra.

“Danielle, goddamn you!” Gracie shouted.

Her sister stopped murmuring and slowly looked over. Gracie had never cursed at her sister before that way, and it seemed to have penetrated.

“What?”

“What are you saying to yourself?”

Danielle’s voice was soft and hoarse. “I’ll never fall in love again. I’ll never trust a boy. I’ll never fall in love again. I’ll never trust a boy.”

“Got it,” Gracie said, alarmed. Then, “What does that have to do with anything?”

Danielle gestured to their surroundings, as if it answered the question.

“That’s not the problem,” Gracie said. “The problem is you won’t take any real responsibility, that’s what. We aren’t here because you care so much, Danielle. You blame this whole thing on the fact that you were trying to get to Justin and convince him to come back.”

“That’s what happened.”

“No, it wasn’t,” Gracie said. “We aren’t here in this place because you wanted Justin and you trusted him.”

“Please don’t blame me,” Danielle said softly. “I can’t take it if you blame me.”

“I’m not
blaming you
,” Gracie said, wrapping the thin blanket over her shoulders. “But you’re not getting it. How about ‘I’ll never lie to my parents.’ Or, ‘I’ll always get my car checked out at the mechanic shop so it won’t die in the middle of nowhere.’ That’s what I mean.”

The vacant look returned to Danielle’s face.

Gracie said, “Or maybe, ‘I won’t put my little sister in danger ever again by being stupid.’”

“We’re going to die here,” Danielle said softly.

Gracie had no response. The situation they were in was too immense and horrible to think through. Twice in the last twenty minutes they thought they heard sounds from beyond the heavy door. Each time, they stopped talking and stared at it, terrified of it opening. Each time, nothing happened.

*   *   *

“It’s not like we have any weapons or what we could use as weapons,” Gracie said, looking around. The only objects in the room were the cheap space heater and the plastic chemical toilet Danielle refused to use. She wondered how long her sister could hold out before she slipped into madness. Danielle seemed perilously close to just …
going away.
Gracie thought that if she could somehow engage her sister, create a task—something to keep Danielle in the present—they might have a chance.

“We can fight them,” Gracie said.

Danielle arched an eyebrow of doubt.

“We can kick him in the balls and scratch his eyes out. We bash him on the head with the space heater. We can surprise him.”

Danielle shrugged.

Gracie held up a corner of the thin blanket. “We do have this.”

Danielle said, “A blanket?”

“It’s really dark in here, especially if you’re coming in from outside. It has to be hard to see at first. Maybe if we were ready for him when he comes back we could hide in the dark and throw the blanket over his head the second he comes in.”

Danielle simply looked at her.

Gracie continued, “We knock him down and kick him in the face and balls, then we run out the door. We don’t stay around because he could kill us. We just run. We’re not like Krystyl—we have two good legs.”

Danielle narrowed her eyes and seemed to think about it. Gracie thought,
I’m getting through.

“If we’re quick,” Gracie said, warming to the idea. “I throw the blanket over his head and you shove him down as hard as you can because you’re stronger. Then we kick the shit out of him and run. That’s how it would have to work, I think.”

“Where do we run?”

Gracie shrugged. “We just run and don’t stop. I think we could outlast him if he chased us.”

“What if he manages to grab one of us?”

“The other one keeps running until they can find somebody and call the police. That’s all I can think of. If we stop to help each other, he might get both of us.”

Danielle nodded. Gracie couldn’t tell if Danielle was still with her or was simply reacting to react. She feared she’d lost her sister again.

Gracie sat in silence, fuming and fighting tears, then suddenly bolted up and grabbed the tin of Altoid mints. She picked it up, squinted at it, saw how it fit in her palm. The brushed metal on the bottom of the tin reflected the orange bars of the space heater.

“We’ll use this,” she said.

Danielle looked up again. “Mints?”

“No—the tin. Look at it,” she said, holding it up. “It’s the size and shape of a cell phone. It fits in my hand like a phone.”

Gracie turned it upside down and mimicked tapping out a text on the surface of the tin with her thumbs. “See…”

Daniella shook her head, puzzled. She was not getting it.

“It looks like a cell phone from a distance if it’s partially covered by my fingers. What if that driver looks in here and sees you sitting there acting like you’re sending a text? Maybe he’ll panic and think somehow he missed one of our phones when he threw us in here? He’ll think he didn’t miss anything but he may not be absolutely sure. He’ll panic and come rushing in. I’ll be on the other side of that door,” she said, gesturing. “That’s when I throw the blanket over his head and we kick him and bash him with the space heater and run.”

Gracie paused, her eyes wide and expectant.

But Danielle shook her head. “That won’t work.”

“Why not?”

“He’ll know it’s not a phone.”

Gracie stamped her foot. “How will he know that if you really act like you’re texting? If you
sell
it.”

Before Danielle could object again, Gracie blew up and threw the tin of mints at her sister as hard as she could. The tin smacked the wall with an explosion of little round white candies.

Gracie screamed, “Listen to me! We’ve got to
do
something. We’ve got to
try
. Look at this room. Those men are going to rape us and kill us no matter what. They can’t let us go. Don’t you want to try and get out of here?”

Danielle looked away but after a beat, she said, “Yes.”

“Then work with me here.”

“You didn’t have to throw that at me.”

“I’ll knock some sense into you if I have to,” Gracie said, feeling their roles reverse from big and little sister. “Now take that tin and pretend you’re texting.”

Danielle slowly found the tin, shut it with a snap, and listlessly bounced her thumbs off the metal.

“Sell it to me.”

Danielle texted furiously.

“That’s better.”

As she watched, Danielle slowed her movements until they stopped and the tin slipped to the hard concrete floor.

“Danielle?” Gracie yelled, but it was like screaming at an empty shell. She’d lost her again, and maybe forever.

Gracie began to weep.

*   *   *

After a
WHILE
, Gracie said, “Maybe we should pray.”

They were seated together again side by side. If nothing else, Gracie wanted to offer some comfort to her sister. And she needed some herself.

Danielle didn’t respond.

“To God,” Gracie said. She reached over and grasped her sister’s hand. It was clammy and barely responded to her touch.

“Please God,” Gracie said, “help us out of here. We know we haven’t paid much attention to you but we’re asking you now to help us.”

When she looked over, Danielle had tears in her eyes that glistened in the orange glow of the heater.

“Maybe we could pray for Mom and Dad?” Gracie said. “Can you imagine how they must be just freaking out?”

Gracie grasped both of her sister’s hands in hers.

“Look at me, Danielle.”

After a long moment, Danielle’s eyes met hers. Gracie leaned close enough that their faces were inches apart. She didn’t know how to pray formally. She didn’t know the words and the religious phrases she could think of seemed stuffy and false.

“Please, God,” she whispered, “if you’re up there please help us find a way out of here. And please help my sister.”

Gracie steeled herself. If she made the choice to believe she couldn’t back out of it later. She wasn’t sure how that would change her life or improve their situation, if at all, but she thought she was willing to do it. She needed something to believe in, something greater than herself to help her through this. God had always been out there in her peripheral vision, she thought, but she’d refused to turn her head and look at Him directly. Now was the time if there ever was a time. She liked the idea of handing herself over to a greater power.

But she wondered how many girls in the same room had prayed to be let out? All of them, she guessed. And did it work for any of them?

*   *   *

While Gracie and Danielle touched hands, there was a slight vibration in the floor. Their eyes met. It was the third time there had been some kind of movement from the other side of the door. This time, though, it was followed by a distant and faint deep male voice. Gracie couldn’t make out any individual words, but she got the feeling more than one man was speaking.

“They’re outside,” Danielle whispered. She was terrified.

Instinctively, Gracie and Danielle scrambled across the cold cement floor to the far corner. Gracie noticed that Danielle had left the tin on the floor when she pushed back.

When Gracie looked over at her sister she saw the glimmer of lucidity was gone again. Danielle had slipped back into darkness with her eyes wide open.

34.

10:13
A.M.
, Wednesday, November 21

R
ONALD
P
ERGRAM PAUSED
on the bottom of the dark stairwell before opening the door. He stepped back to give himself some room, then practiced reaching back through his open coat for the .380 from his waistband and brandishing it. He was quick. He made sure there was a cartridge in the chamber so he wouldn’t have to rack the slide. He thumbed the safety off and fitted it back into his jeans. Then he reached down into his coat pocket and repositioned the .45 Derringer so it pointed forward. He cocked the hammer and left it there. He knew he could reach down and fire it through the fabric of his coat, if necessary. As long as he was close, the firepower was tremendous.

Then he opened the heavy door and stepped inside the room without a word. He took a step to his right with his back against the wall and his right hand in his pocket, gripping the Derringer. His senses were tingling almost as if he’d summoned more white crosses into his system. The door wheezed shut behind him.

Jimmy and Legerski were already there. They didn’t leap up to confront him and didn’t seem surprised by his sudden entrance. Legerski sat in a plastic lawn chair, leaning back so the front two legs were suspended a few inches above the concrete floor. He was in full uniform and his arms were crossed over his big belly. Although he was mostly still, his jaw worked furiously on a piece of chewing gum. He eyed Pergram with calculation. Pergram noted Legerski’s holstered service weapon on his belt, safety strap buttoned. Because of the trooper’s crossed arms and relaxed posture, drawing the weapon would be a production.

Jimmy paced. He had a jerky, disconnected way of moving, especially when he was nervous or excited. He kept bringing the palms of his hands together in front of his chest, then dropping them to his sides as he walked. His head bobbed to an interior monolog Pergram had no interest in hearing. Although he might have a weapon hidden somewhere in his clothing, he appeared to be unarmed. Jimmy liked to dress old-fashioned western, in tight jeans and form-fitting faux-pearl snap-button shirts, so it would be difficult to conceal a pistol unless he had one in the shaft of his cowboy boots. He wouldn’t be able to draw fast, either. But Pergram wasn’t concerned with Jimmy.

Really, this was between him and Legerski, Pergram thought. Jimmy was a sideshow and always had been.