“There’s got to be thousands here,” Hugh said. “It’s probably your uncle’s share of his hijackings. I take it he didn’t trust banks.”
Jenny held the box, staring at the contents. “I guess it’s mine now, as his next of kin.”
“What do you want to do with it?”
“I don’t want any of it for myself. How about if we invest it for Jimmy’s college? I think that would be fitting.”
“That’s a good idea, Jenny. We can do that.”
The rest of the house didn’t offer anything else she wanted to keep. Her uncle did not make housekeeping a priority, and Hugh could see a lot of evidence of the bachelor lifestyle he had led – a lot of booze bottles, beer cans, old pizza boxes. The guy was basically a mess.
She locked up on the way out, and halfway down the entryway sidewalk she tossed the key into the weedy front yard.
“So much for that. I’ll never see this old place again,” she said.
She placed her Social Security card and birth certificate alongside her California driver’s license in her wallet and put the wallet in the glove compartment.
Back on Highway 58 heading east, they took a late lunch and restroom break at the Tehachapi travel stop, and then pushed on straight through for Kingman after connecting with I-40 at Barstow.
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Hugh took the exit off of I-40 for the travel stop located a little east of Kingman.
It was almost seven, so Hugh wanted only to make a pit stop, microwave a couple of his mom’s dinners and call it a night. He had pushed his fourteen right to the limit. Because he had started his day at 5 a.m., it had been a long day.
He performed all of his shut-down tasks, and then he and Jenny walked to the facility.
William and two other employees of Rico Investigations, one of them Kent, and a new guy named Greg, saw Hugh’s truck pull in and park. They hadn’t been sitting there long since getting the word from Frank to drive up to Kingman. For them, it was only about a three-hour drive.
William had told them the plan of how he intended to grab Jenny. He didn’t want to make it a big fight, either inside the facility or outside in front of other truckers. So, he had planned to take her inside the Women’s.
“Inside, boss?”
“Yeah. That takes care of two things. It keeps us from having to tangle with the trucker, and it can be done quietly without drawing attention to ourselves.”
“I’m not afraid of a truck driver,” Greg said.
“You should be,” William said. “He’s one tough son-of-a-bitch. You can ask Jason. That is, when he’s able to talk again.”
They saw Hugh and Jenny enter the store, and they followed quickly behind. They took a different route to the restroom area in the back, and when Hugh had gone into the Men’s they quietly slipped into the Women’s.
William hadn’t thought about what he would do if there had been other women in the restroom, but they lucked out, and Jenny was in there by herself.
They waited while she finished and exited her stall, then walked up to her. William saw she was a little thing, so he expected to put a hand over her mouth and lead her forcefully out of the restroom, and out the back service entrance.
But, no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy, and Jenny proved that maxim by striking like a coiled snake at the closest guy, who happened to be Greg. She shot her arm straight out, fingers curled to present a hard row of knuckles, and landed a crushing jab to Greg’s throat.
As Greg toppled over backward, he caromed off the faucet fixture, cut a deep, bloody gash into the back of his head, and hit the sink with his head on the way down.
Kent tried to get a hold of Jenny by grasping her upper arm, but grabbed nothing but air because Jenny was already moving fast. She put all her weight on her left foot, arced her right leg, and lashed out with a debilitating kick to Kent’s groin. His head went down, and Jenny’s knee went up.
That movement swung her out of reach of William … but only for a brief moment.
William had had enough of this contest, and he rushed in to encircle Jenny from behind with his strong arms and put her in a vicious bear-hug. He pinned her arms against her sides, then he lifted her bodily off of the floor, rendering any leg action ineffective.
Jenny tried in vain to headbutt William’s chin, but she was too short and he was too tall. She was only able to bang her head into his upper chest.
In the end, William’s sheer weight, height and strength advantage was too much for Jenny.
“Tape this bitch’s mouth shut,” William shouted to Kent. Greg was in no shape to do anything to help the men subdue the still struggling girl.
Kent had difficulty just trying to keep standing upright, but he managed to put a piece of duct tape over Jenny’s mouth. He zip tied her hands and feet. They then carried her out the restroom door, down the hall and out the service entrance.
William did most of the carrying. For his part, Greg was dazed and confused, and he left a bloody trail on the way out. Kent managed only a bent-over, hobbled kind of walk. He was bleeding from his nose broken by Jenny’s knee.
They’d had their van parked behind the building right by the service door, and were able to throw her inside and take off. William drove.
“Holy shit! What the fuck happened back there?” Kent yelled from the front seat.
