The Lion, the Lamb, the Hunted: A Psychological Thriller (26 page)

“How could you?” she said, voice trembling.

Head bowed, slowly shaking it, “I’m sorry…I…”

“How could you let me go in there? And how in the hell could they have known?”

I looked up. “What?”

“How could they have known we’d stop here?”

I swallowed hard.

CJ crossed her arms, looked away, and shook her head. “Behind us, now even ahead of us…it’s like they know our next move before we do. What the hell? Did they follow us here?” She looked around. “We’ll never get away from them, will we…ever? They’ll never let us go.”

I kept silent.

“Let’s get the hell out of here. Fast.” She began moving toward the car, then stopped and turned to me. “For God’s sake, Pat. Why didn’t you say something? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t want you go in there,” I said quietly. “I tried to stop you.”

Once inside the car, I locked all the doors, pulled out of the lot, got back onto the road. CJ was visibly shaken; so was I, but for different reasons.

I should have felt guilty for what I’d done in that restroom, for what I’d allowed CJ to think, for upsetting her. And part of me did. But the other part, the part that I couldn’t control, was bathing in the release of tension. That part of me thought it was much better for CJ to fear whoever was chasing us than to fear me.

And that part of me won.

Chapter Forty-Five

For the rest of the way, I managed to separate from my act, telling myself I was under extraordinary stress, that it wasn’t me in that bathroom.

That it was the disorder’s fault.

Telethon, Texas
finally
announced itself with an antiquated clapboard sign. Beyond that, it was no different than anything else we’d seen for the past seventy miles: more desert, more nothingness.

We drove past a service station with no customers, not even an employee in sight, then an old hardware store, and then—to my complete lack of surprise—a drive-through liquor store.

“Welcome to Telethon,” I said, enthusiasm absent from my voice.

“Welcome to hell,” she replied in a tone that matched.

Nowhere to hide. Not even a dumpy diner for strategizing. My stomach hit another nervous jag. Seeing the town made me realize even more what a big mistake this was.

“Just keep driving,” CJ said, jolting me from my thoughts and apparently reading them. “There’s got to be more to this place.”

“Yeah, the other side of hell.”

A few miles later, we hit the other side of Telethon and the Paradise Motel—an oxymoron if I’d ever seen one. Nothing remotely beautiful or tropical about it, just your basic motor inn: a single-story, nondescript, u-shaped affair with twenty or so homogenous rooms facing out.

“Pull in there,” CJ ordered, pointing to a vacant, gravel lot.

“Turning in,” I said. “Bates Motel, here we come.”

“Not funny,” CJ replied.

“Not trying to be.”

I pulled up in front of the office, turned the ignition key to off, then gazed at CJ—or maybe it was more of a glare. “Now what?”

“Let’s go in and meet Norman,” she said with her usual wry smile. “I don’t think his mom’s gonna be around, though. I hear she’s hanging back at the house.”

“Not funny.”

“Not trying to be.”

“Touché.”

We walked in past a rack of literature, presumably about Telethon, although I couldn’t imagine what there was to promote about the place. CJ grabbed a handful and shoved them into her purse.

About ten feet away sat a man behind the counter, fifty-ish and heavy-ish. He lifted his head as if we’d awakened him from a hundred-year nap.

“Looking to stay the night,” I said.

“Single or double.” It sounded like an automatic phrase.

CJ offered me a quick glance, then said, “We actually need two rooms.”

He dragged himself to the rack, grabbed two keys, then dragged himself back. The task looked painful.

I said, “Can we get adjoining rooms?”

“They are,” he replied.

“Is there anyone else staying here?” CJ asked.

“Nope.”

“Why’s that?”

“Off season.”

“When’s in season?”

“Summertime.”

“What happens then?”

“Nothing, really.” He shrugged. “Just …you know…summer.”

“I see,” CJ replied, but the look on her face said she didn’t.

***

Before even settling into my room, I sat on the edge of the bed and started writing
forgiveness
repeatedly. It hadn’t escaped me that my urge to list was becoming unmanageable, that I was out of control. I wondered where I’d be, who I’d be with, if the urge hit so strongly that I couldn’t stop it.

I made it to
forgiveness
thirty-five when I heard a knock on the connecting door. I shoved the pad into a drawer, then opened the door to find CJ waving a handful of pamphlets at me. The look on her face screamed,
g
et me the hell out of here.

“It’s official,” she said. “This place sucks.”

She came in and inspected the bedspread for cleanliness before sitting down beside me. “According to these pamphlets, the town’s attractions are the jail, the water tower, and the train station…oh, and the cemetery. It’s a bad sign, Pat.”

“I didn’t need a pamphlet to tell me that. Did you happen to figure out where there is to eat around here while you were doing your research?”

“In fact, I did.” She opened one up and read it. “We have Covey’s Diner, famous for their cow’s tongue.”

“Seriously?”

“And if that don’t strike yer fancy, well, a half mile on up the road is the Hash House where they serve…” She held out her hand as if waiting for my answer.

“Hash.”

A smile, one of those wry ones again. “Which one you got a hankerin’ for? Besides the tongue place, that is.”

“Three guesses.”

“I’m gonna say hash.”

She pointed at me. “I’m gonna say good guess. We can save the tongue place for our special
night.”

Chapter Forty-Six

The Hash House was everything we’d hoped it wouldn’t be: another filthy dive at the end of a dusty road. Country music twanged through ceiling speakers, with sizzling grease doing background vocals. I started to wonder whether Texas had any decent places to eat or if we were just missing them at every turn.

The sign said to seat ourselves, so we found a booth in back. Across the aisle from us sat a kid sporting a t-shirt that looked as if he’d spilled a can of oil down the front. He had a greasy ball cap to match and a serious case of teenage acne. He stared at us with his mouth half-open and a faraway look in his eyes—one that seemed to state the obvious: nobody’s home.

And then there was the young couple a few rows down who looked as though they hadn’t spoken a word to each other in years. She’d clearly used a fork to style her hair. He had a tattoo on the side of his neck that said
Mercy
.

My feeling exactly.

Finally, CJ said, “Okay, the mouth-breather over there is totally
creeping me out.”

“What, you don’t think he’s cute?”

“If you mean cute in a Charles-Manson-had-a-baby sort of way, then yeah, okay, I can see it.”

A sheriff’s deputy walked in, young, probably in his mid-twenties. Brown hair, blue eyes, nice-looking guy. He sat in the booth behind us with a smile of hello.

“Well there’s a welcome sight,” CJ said, giving him a little wave and smile in return.

“What’s that? Someone who doesn’t look like they were derived from a chicken embryo?”

“Yeah, and he even knows how to smile.”

“Y’all from out of town?” he asked.

CJ nodded. “Just passing through.”

“Whereabouts you from?”

“Dallas,” she replied.

“Not much going on around here, is there?” I added.

“Nope,” he said through a laugh. “The town’s so small, our New Year’s baby was born in March.”

CJ and I laughed, too.

A waitress breezed past our table—another ninety-eight-pound-twenty-something—and dropped two menus in front of us.

As she opened one, CJ said, “Is it me, or is there only one waitress in Texas?” Then she gazed around the room appraisingly. “It does have a certain charm, this place. I especially fancy the dead moose head on the wall over there.”

“I’m glad you like him,” I replied, nodding toward it. “He’s tonight’s special.”

“Very good, Pat,” she said, eyes wide with pleasant surprise. “It’s official. You’re now a card-carrying member of the Smart Ass Club. Welcome.”

“I proudly accept.”

CJ smiled, then her face grew more serious. “So what’s next?”

“Salad for me. I’m staying away from the mystery meat. The moose over there’s making me nervous.”

She gazed over the top of her menu, shot me a look. “You know what I mean. Our plan of attack.”

Before I could answer that, the waitress came to our table. She cracked her gum, took our order, never once bothering to make eye contact. Then she left.

“So…” CJ said, “Bill.”

“I’ve got the cousin’s address. Let’s start there.”

“And on the slight chance he’s there…” She reached for her purse, opened it, tilting it forward so I could see inside. The butt of a gun stared back at me.

Suddenly acutely conscious of the deputy sitting behind me, I said out of the side of my mouth, “You brought a
gun
?”

A smile lit up her face.

“Jesus… Do you know how to use it?”

She gave me a
what-do-you-think
look, and then, “This
is
Texas.”

“You’re just full of surprises, aren’t you?”

“You have no idea,” she replied with a wink. “Pull up a seat. The show’s just about to start.”

Exactly what I was afraid of.

Chapter Forty-Seven

The sun had barely peeked over the horizon the next morning as we drove through the center of town, everything looking orange and radioactive. Adding to the eeriness was a warm, prickly wind blowing from the east like oven fire. The feeling reminded me of the Southern California Santa Anas. Warm, early mornings always make me edgy. It doesn’t feel natural. The farther we drove, the more the winds seemed to pick up, blowing dust and loose debris into our path, making my nerves even more ragged.

“I didn’t think it was possible,” CJ said, “but this place looks even worse in the daylight.”

“Weirder, too,” I added.

“Seriously,” she said, watching a tree branch as it tumbled alongside us. “It’s like the bastard child of
Jerusalem’s Lot
. Like one of those movies where two innocent travelers wander into some godforsaken desert town, and everyone’s half crazy…and half-related.”

I made a sharp and sudden turn into a service station. Two guys sat on a bench; one of them had to be pushing eighty, the other, a skinny guy, probably in his twenties. Both wore vacuous, stoic expressions.

“Roll down your window.”

She did.

I pulled up to them, leaned across her, and said, “Excuse me, fellows. Either of you know a gentleman by the name of Bill Williams?”

Nothing. No sign of movement except for the wind blowing through their ears. The wooden expressions remained that way.

“Our father’s an old friend from high school,” I continued. “We heard he’s living around here. Promised dad we’d stop and say hi if we ended up passing through.”

Finally, a sign of life: the young guy looked at the old guy. The old guy shook his head, then the young guy looked back at us and shook his head, too. I waited a second or two, just in case one of them had a flash of recollection. Wasn’t going to happen; in fact, I had a feeling they’d already forgotten the question.