Today is not starting off well. Then, I notice the trucker’s cellphone on the dash, and smile. Maybe it’s getting better.
“What the fuck do you mean you lost her??” Skull screams over the phone, and when I say scream, I actually mean it’s more like a cold, monotone question that’s meant to leave the person he’s talking to dead. That’d be me.
I just had to break it to him that Katie got away. I questioned the diner and found out what route that trucker normally takes. The waitress helped me where the others just looked at me like I was insane. The waitress made it clear that she’d like to nurse me back to health—especially my damned cock—and it pisses me off that the fucker crawled up and hid! My cock has always been a shower, strutting his magnificent self like a proud peacock and demanding the ladies’ eyes. The last two months, he’s changed somewhat. Nothing interested him—until Katie. But never in my life has he revolted when a woman reached out to pet him. Shit! That crap has got to change. Maybe they have electroshock therapy for your dick. I could get that desperate.
“Are you listening to me asshole?”
Shit, Skull. I don’t think he’d like to hear me say no. “I am, boss,” I lie. “I promise you, I got this. I already have her hunted down. I’m heading there now,” I assure him, and yeah, I’m lying out of my ass. I know a general vicinity though, and really, how hard can it be to hide a yellow eighteen-wheeler? Shit.
“You better, motherfucker. If I lose my chance to grab ahold of Beth—I mean, my daughter—I will end you. Entiéndeme?”
“I got it, boss. I’ll have her by nightfall.”
He hangs up, and I hope like hell I do have her, because if I don’t, I wouldn’t put it past Skull to come down here and hunt down Katie himself. I still have the urge to protect her and that’s fucked up. But boss isn’t thinking clearly. He might say this is to get his daughter, but I know it’s to get Beth. He wants his daughter, I don’t doubt that for a second. But… Beth. He wants Beth. What the fuck he’s going to do with her when he gets her all depends on exactly what the fuck caused her to run in the first place.
The damn jeep is sucking fumes, so I decide to take the next exit. Just another fucking reason to hate cages. If I was on my bike, I’d have already eaten up the interstate. I make a right towards the Shell station, groaning at the backed up traffic. There must have been a wreck. Hopefully I don’t run out of gas while I’m waiting for it to thin out; that’d be the fucking cherry on top of the shit pile that has been my day. My knuckles are bruised, I’ve got a headache from hell, and my fucking ribs are sore. Motherfuckers must have kicked me while I was out.
Traffic slowly starts moving. There’s a policeman directing all the traffic into one lane. As I get closer, I can see why, and I feel a moment of complete and utter fucking joy. There, surrounded by cops in the far lane, is an eighteen-wheeler. Not just any eighteen-wheeler, but a fucking bright yellow one.
I negotiate Katie’s jeep to the median and jump out to see what kind of fucking mess she’s gotten into now, because I have no doubt that she’s in the middle of whatever it is.
“What’s going on here?” I ask.
“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to return to your vehicle. We’re trying to prevent traffic from being backed up.”
“Oh, I hear ya. It’s just that at the Waffle King in Brownville, that very fucking truck was there, and I saw its driver force a woman into the truck with him. I tried to tell the police there. They wanted me to come in and make a report. I did, but I don’t know if they did anything about it.”
“Shit. You’re kidding me!” The officer goes off running to one of the other men there. I walk closer, expecting to get a glimpse of Katie, but I don’t see her anywhere.
“There wasn’t a woman in the truck?” I call out, and I try not to let my inner fear free. Shit, if she got herself hurt by pulling her damn stunt…
“There wasn’t anyone here,” the officer answers. “Witnesses say they saw a brunette limp out of the truck and start walking towards Casey. They reported her limping heavily and looking like she’d been in a fight.”
“David! We don’t release details of the case,” another cop says, which is kind of stupid, though probably a hundred percent true—and smart. Dumbass. For all he knows, I could be the owner of the truck.
I need to find Katie. Shit. I hope she’s okay. I start to turn away when I hear one of the cops yell.
“Hey! Sarge! Dispatch just got a call from the Angel Drop Motel, said some woman stole his rig.”