Another chill passed through me.
“I saw it again,” she said. “At least I thought I did, behind me on the freeway in Pennsylvania, maybe a quarter mile back. So I took the next exit, switched off my lights, and turned off the road behind a building. It was after one in the morning. There was no traffic at all. This dark van came down the off ramp after me, moving quickly. But then it stopped at a stop sign and waited a while, too long, as if the driver was looking around, then it took off, fast, like it was hunting me.
“I was scared to death after that,” she said. “My father was missing and here was this van, following me around. I didn’t think I could sleep, and I didn’t have enough money for a room. All I had was twenty or twenty-five dollars and that Citgo card. So I drove the whole way, no motel—which was awful toward the end, I was so tired.”
“Did you ever see the van again?”
“No. I mean, I saw lots of dark vans, but none of them stayed behind me like that. I kept thinking about it though, seeing it pulling up behind me again, as if the person inside knew exactly where I was headed. I was on Interstate 80 almost the whole way. The worst was when it got dark again, that second night, from Iowa most of the way through Wyoming. What happened to Rocky—”
I held her, imagining a faceless person in a dark van, tracking her across much of the continent. It felt surreal.
“I buried him in Indiana,” Kayla said. “In a field at a rest stop.”
She fell silent. Outside, another coyote howled.
I didn’t say anything, and Kayla had run out of words. We lay in each other’s arms in the shallow bowl of the bed, warm, away from the world, away from reporters and prying eyes, and in that silence I drifted off to sleep so smoothly that I have no sense of when it happened.
* * *
We stayed in Austin most of Sunday, leaving only when the sun was low in the west, which promised a much cooler ride through the desert back to Reno. Breakfast at the Toiyabe Cafe, green-chili-and-Swiss omelets for both of us, a late lunch at Carol’s Country Kitchen. Quiet strolling amid the weathered buildings, leisurely shopping at local arts-and-crafts shops and miniature sidewalk bazaars where locals haggled with a small handful of tourists over prices. Over Kayla’s objections I bought her a silver-and-turquoise necklace at Eve’s Craft Shoppe, because they took MasterCard and it’s only plastic, and because the thing looked great on her. I had fun. Even before putting on the necklace she turned a lot of heads, including mine.
We were in the relative coolness of the International, resting our feet and having Cokes at the bar, when the day’s news came on TV. The usual wail and moan, a train derailment here, unrest and riot there, things you can do nothing about and that do not enhance your life in the slightest to know. Most of it is nothing but voyeurism in a silk suit, like the Sjorgen and Milliken murders for example, in which no progress had been made. All it got was a ten-second mention.
Then a story out of Honolulu: the University of Hawaii had hosted a North American-Asian Karate Championship. Diana Mobley from Savannah, Georgia, had won the coveted Open Division and was all smiles, raising a trophy belt over her head on the victory platform, short honey-blond hair still frazzled from her efforts. Beside her was a stone-faced Korean woman. Jeri DiFrazzia had taken third place, and fourth place went to a French Canadian gal whose name I didn’t catch because I was staring open-mouthed at Jeri.
Jeri. She’d taken third.
I pointed. “That’s Jeri, there. Few inches shorter than the others.”
“Jeri?”
“DiFrazzia. My boss.”
Kayla stared. “Oh, my God.”
Yeah. That’s what I thought, too.
“She’s very pretty, isn’t she?” Kayla said after a few seconds. “Gorgeous, even.”
Yes, she was. Sweat, disgusted frown, and all.
* * *
We didn’t get back to Reno until after midnight. My house was still standing, not necessarily good news since it’s insured and it could use a new roof, new carpet, better insulation. We showered together, which was great fun, held each other for a while, then slept. In spite of all the talk and all the touching and all the innuendo, we still hadn’t made love.
Why? Hard to say. There might have been something in the talk and the touching that was enough. Anticipation is sexy. It charges the air, and charged air is worth a lot all on its own. Slam-bam takes the edge off before there’s an edge worth taking off.
Or, maybe our timing was off. Or Aphrodite was on sabbatical. Or the image of Jonnie raping fourteen-year-old Jacoba Woolley was still a dark specter gliding through our thoughts, leaving behind a damper that would have put out a forest fire.
Lots of reasons.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
I GOT TO Jeri’s at 8:10 Monday morning.
She was rummaging through a desk. Rainbows glided throughout the room. The vegetation gave off an interesting, musty jungle scent that made me think a rubber tree was exactly what I needed back at my place. Without looking up, she said, “You’re late.”
I removed the wig she’d given me and dropped it on her desk. “Dock me a dollar sixty-seven cents.”
She stared at the wig. “I think I’ll just work you harder.”
“Too late.”
“Oh?” She looked up, suddenly suspicious.
“By the way, how’d your case go this weekend?”
“Could’ve been better, and why am I too late?”
Time to come clean. I’d learned too much to keep it from her. I told her about Stephen Oleson’s secretary, Austin, Emmaline Dorman, even the
