“ It’s just Black.”
“ First or last name?”
“ Both, I only got the one name.”
“ Like Cher?”
“ No, she’s got two names, Cher Bono, everybody knows that. I only got the one.”
“ On your birth certificate, you only have one name?”
“ Yep, just the one.”
“ Cool.” She swung back into the fast lane, passed another truck. Moved back to the right as the road turned straight, Ashland ahead, then Medford. She’d be there in fifteen or twenty minutes. Then she’d have to figure out how to lose Black and deal with Izzy Eisenhower. “So, tell me about Katie.”
“ Ah, Katie. She was, is, one for the record books. But I don’t think I want to talk about her. She’s been out of the limelight for a long time.” He sighed. “I’ve said too much.” Again a sigh, heavier this time. “You can drop me in Medford. I got a friend owns a little music store by Harry and David’s.”
“ Out of the limelight?” She turned to look at him, met his eyes for longer than it was safe, considering she was driving. “You can’t be talking about Katie Sullivan.”
The look in his eyes and his silence confirmed it for her.
“ You are, aren’t you?” She put her eyes back on the road, slowed some as she was closing on a black SUV with government plates. “Tell me about her.”
“ I can’t.”
“ You don’t have to tell me where she is or even if she’s still alive. I just wanna know about her, what kind of person she was. How she survived what she did.” She took the first Ashland offramp.
“ This ain’t Medford?”
“ I’m starved.” She pulled into a McDonalds parking lot. “Fancy a Big Mac?”
For the last quarter hour Izzy had been sitting on the edge of the bed, eyes glued to the flat screen TV. Other than the photo of her, the police didn’t seem to know any more than they did when she saw the story back in McCloud.
She had to do something.
But what? And what about Amy? Whoever was after her would eventually get Amy. That wouldn’t be good.
One thing for sure, she couldn’t go flying off the handle. Just getting in the car and driving wouldn’t be smart. She needed a plan. She needed help, too. Maybe it hadn’t been such a bright idea, dropping the girls off in Susanville. Amy couldn’t be much help, because now they shared the same face, but her friend Alicia would’ve been.
She thought about going back, recruiting the girls, but she’d dropped them there for a reason, because she’d wanted Amy safe. But now, with the stories on the news, she wouldn’t be. What if her daughter-in-law saw the news and called the police? She probably wouldn’t. She’d be afraid she’d lose the money. But it was possible.
Izzy had to go back. But first she had to eat. She called reception. Asked for the number of the quickest pizza place in town and ordered a large Hawaiian, extra ham and no pineapples on one side. She’d split it with Hunter, then get on the road.
Lila pulled into the drive thru behind a police car. Cops gotta eat, too, she thought. At the window, she ordered a Big Mac meal. Black did the same, but added an extra burger. Lila paid, then pulled into the parking lot. She thought about lowering the top, it was a gorgeous day, but seeing that cop made her decide against it.
“ So, Black, you knew Katie Sullivan. I find that hard to believe, but a few hours ago I’d’ve never believed a trucker I met by chance would shoot down a helicopter and save my life. The odds of us sitting here together are a bazillion to one, because I have worshipped Katie Sullivan ever since she killed those cops and disappeared. I know in my heart they were after her somehow. That they were somehow connected with that serial killer Ronny Stark. And since it’s come out that the cop she killed in El Paso was about to rape his stepdaughter, that makes Katie a hero in my book, not a cop killer.”
“ Mine too,” Black said.
“ But they never caught her. And Ronny Stark, who’d raped her and left her for dead, stopped killing and they never caught him either.”
“ What’s your point in all this.” Black bit into his burger, took almost half of it in one bite.
“ I don’t want to know where she is or anything like that, but I’d like to know if she’s doing okay, if she ever got her revenge, if she got the bastard.”
“ Her story is pretty unbelievable and better left untold,” Black said. “Safer for her.”
“ I’m not the kind of girl who tells.” She took a bite of her burger, small compared to his, but big for her. She was hungry. After a few seconds of silence, she said, “I’ve got a pretty unbelievable story of my own to tell.” She smiled. “How about if I tell you mine, you at least tell me if Katie Sullivan is doing alright, if she killed Ronny Stark.”
“ Your story have anything to do with a helicopter that recently crashed into my truck?”
“ Yes it does.”
“ Then you tell me your story and I’ll see after if I can trust you with Katie’s secret.”
“ Fair enough.” And she told him everything. She told him about her rotten childhood, about her stepfather and how she’d just killed her mother and her latest husband. She told him about the Waynes, Tucker and Mansfield. She told him how Mansfield had rescued her, then turned her into his private killer. She told him about Izzy Eisenhower and how she was all of a sudden young again. She told him about the dead back in Reno. She told him how she was supposed to get five million dollars for delivering Izzy alive to Mansfield Wayne. She told him how she thought Wayne had double crossed her. How she thought he’d called in his government pals, that that’s who she thought was up in that helicopter, government spy types who were off the books, or on them, she didn’t know for sure. She told him too much, more than she’d ever told anybody about herself. Something was happening to her and she wasn’t exactly sure what it was.
“ Real Coast to Coast AM kind of stuff,” Black said.
“ Yeah, weirdness to the extreme.”
“ Any of it true?”
“ Every last word.”
“ You want to know something funny?”
“ Yeah?”
“ I believe you.”
“ Really? Why?”
“ I had a radio in that truck. I know the official version about what’s going on in Reno. You story kinda jibs with that.”
“ But that’s not why you believe me, is it?”
“ No, it’s not. I believe you because I do. You don’t look like a liar to me. Besides, only an idiot would sit here and spin a yarn like that if it weren’t true and you don’t seem like an idiot. Then there’s that helicopter.”
“ So are you going to tell me about Katie?”
“ Do you know where Dr. Eisenhower is now?”
“ She’s in Medford.”
“ You know where?”
“ I got a GPS on my car, which was, the last time I checked, parked at the Marriott Suites.”
“ You remember the black SUV that was in front of us when you turned off the freeway.”
“ Shit, it had government plates.”
“ There were a couple more just like it in front of it. Three of ’em.”
“ Fuck, fuck, fuck!” She tossed the rest of her burger, her coke and fries out the window, fired up the car as Black tossed his food away, too.
