CRIME THRILLERS-A Box Set (33 page)

He was trying to think of a weapon to use to get Molly back. He wished he had a gun. He should have asked the fucker who put in the CB at Guthrie's Truck Stop.

All he had was the tire iron in the trunk and the strength of his resolve. It would have to do. He was a
Marine
, god damn it. You had to be really good to beat a Marine.

#

Cruise was leading Molly down a street hardly wide enough for his shoulders. As they approached one of the intersections he heard footsteps. He stopped abruptly.

He pulled Molly to him and clamped his hand around her mouth. She struggled in his arms until he tightened his grip. "Sshh," he whispered close by her ear. "Someone's here."

The footsteps neared, halted, neared again. They paused every few feet as if the person was listening.

Cruise suddenly thought about Boots, his old infantry buddy in 'Nam, how he crept through the jungle so lightly so as not to alert the Cong.

Boots.
Boots.

No, it couldn't be. Boots had not visited him in twenty years. Boots died in 'Nam, everything leaking from the stumps of his legs. He was buried shallow under leaves and forest debris by Cruise's own hands.

Some of the stories Cruise told Molly were lies. Tall tales to fill the time driving over so many miles. Sometimes Cruise had told his stories to the witnesses so many times that he came to believe they were true. Sometimes, and he just now realized this truth, he couldn't distinguish between his lies and the real past. But the story of Boots was true. It was Boots who had persistently showed himself even though he had been dead, Boots who rallied him when he faltered in the jungle, who woke him when he slept, who lured him ever onward to the 'copter pickup point. Boots who saved his ragged ass.

Molly struggled anew. He held her fast, furious that she would give him trouble now when he least needed it. One more time, one more move, and he'd break her goddamned neck right where she stood.

The footsteps neared.

The wind gave a low eerie whistle as it eddied down the narrow rock walls.

Cruise kept still and waited for someone or something that was coming for him out of the night.

#

Mark found the truck. The front grille was still hot to the touch so it had not been here long.

Where was Molly?
Where had the son of a bitch taken her?

The City of Rocks was an endless maze of lanes leading he knew not where. He might follow them for hours without getting close.

His training kicked in and he began to creep down the canyons like a sniper on reconnaissance. He would move forward a few cautious steps, stop, listen so hard his ears started ringing, move forward again. Stop. Listen.

They were here somewhere.

His baby was here. Somewhere.

#

Cruise thought it the worst possible time for the worms to start wriggling beneath the skin of his arms.

He jerked Molly to the side and back again. She made a sound muffled behind his hand and he tapped her on the head with the heel of the knife. She shut up.

He jerked her back again, trying to relieve the pressure building along the veins and muscles of his forearms. He had meant to show her the cuts and ask her opinion of what he might do. He hadn't had the chance. Time had come unraveled, then the peaceful stars shining down on the City of Rocks had made him forget for a while.

But the closer the footsteps came, the more he wanted to throw the girl to the ground, and rip off his shirt, tear apart the bandages. Something had to be done and soon. He could cut off his arms they felt so inflamed. There were rolling sparks falling down his shoulders to his hands, leaving behind them burning tracks that made his muscles spasm.

He nearly cried out in agony.

The footsteps were close now, just around the corner, coming to get him. If it was Boots, by God, he'd have to kill the motherfucker, make him die a second death. He

didn't care who it was. Orson. Edward. Minde. Riaro. The screaming fat man with the diamond ring. The cowboy with the baseball bat, the woman in the Pick 'N Save, the truck driver.

Lannie.

Daddy.

Didn't care. Had to stop the creeping footsteps.

And then a man with a crew cut, bearing a tire iron before him, stepped into view.

#

Molly didn't know what happened. One minute Cruise was genial and trying his best not to frighten her, telling her about desert spoons and coyotes, and the next minute he had his hand around her mouth, crushing her lips against her teeth.

She fought to get free, adrenaline racing, heart pounding, thinking this was the end, but the more she tried, the harder he held her. Then she felt the blade of the knife cold against the blood throbbing at her throat and she turned to stone; she couldn't have moved had she wanted.

With her eyes wide searching back and forth for some way out, she saw him come around the corner not four feet from where Cruise held her in the vise of his arms.

Her father.

#

Mark came to the intersection with a stealth he thought undetectable. He did not expect to move beyond the wall and look to his right and see Molly imprisoned in the arms of the man. He almost dropped the tire iron. A weakness born of relief at seeing his daughter alive attacked his arms and legs in successive waves. The weapon wavered unsteadily in the air just above shoulder level. Her name fell from his lips. "Molly."

That's when it all went out of control. There was a flurry, the man moving faster than his vision could track, and he tried to keep Molly in view, saw her go down, flung aside, hitting the rock wall, crumpling to her knees with a cry. The man came at him holding out one arm as if he carried something in it, but Mark couldn't see anything, just a closed fist. A fist, nothing up against the tire iron, nothing to stop him from dropping the man to the ground.

He swung, strength returning from the place it had scampered, and imagined he hit the larger man, but knew a second later he was wrong, he hadn't touched him. How could that be?

How could it be that he felt the arm holding the tire iron loosen of its own accord and fall at his side like a mannequin's arm? The tire iron dropped against his knee, fell onto his right foot.

Mark looked down, then up, and the man was moving away from him down the canyon street, turning into another intersection, disappearing from sight.

Molly appeared next to him, a daub of darkness--blood?--on her forehead. She threw herself on him, but he could not get his right arm to work, couldn't get it up to hold on to her. When she stepped back screaming, the darkness dripping from her hands now, he realized finally that he was wounded. Badly.

He reached up with his left hand and touched his right arm where he saw now a river of fluid that soaked him. Jesus God. The muscles of his upper arm were slashed to the bone. Blood pumped over the lip of the slash and covered his hand the moment he touched open flesh.

He grunted and went to his knees. "Molly...Molly..."

She was frantic, crying, making gibbering noises. Gone crazy.

"Molly! Tear up your shirt. Tie it around my arm, make a tourniquet. Quick!"

He felt light-headed. He began to sway on his knees. He said again, "Molly, hurry."

She rushed to him, tearing at the shirt she wore, ripping it from the neck across the shoulder and down the side. He hung his head wondering how he was going to get them out of the maze of rocks if he couldn't get back his strength. It left him with each pint of blood that streamed down his useless arm.

He barely remembered hearing the screech of tearing cloth, the painful clutch of her hands as she wrapped the shirt around his upper arm above the cut and began to tie it off.

He felt along the ground with his left hand for the tire iron. Goddammit, where was it? Why was everything so goddamned fuzzy and unreal? The ground was a mile away, his hand elongated as the rubber fingers felt along the rocky earth, his head spinning. He slumped into his daughter's arms as he passed out. His last thought was,
I'm going to brain that bastard for this.

#

It was too much work to cut the intruder a second time. He knew he had opened his arm with one slice, and that should be enough. Let them both die out here from exposure for all he fucking cared. He was taking the truck and leaving. Right now.

He stood at the cab, feeling in his pockets for the key. Where was the fucking key?

He had the knife in one hand and that hindered the search. But the knife was bloody. His hand was drenched. His arm. One of the legs of his slacks.

Shit
. Couldn't stand the blood. Needed to bathe. Needed some water. Left it in the trunk of the Chrysler.

Shit.

Where was the key to the truck? What had he done with it? He had to leave now.

#

Molly tied off her father's bleeding arm, caught him before he fell, and lowered him to the dirt. She put her hand to his heart and felt the beat. He could live. He needed a doctor soon, but he wouldn't die if... She stood up, shaking.

Where was...?

The truck! If Cruise took it, she might never get help in time to save her father from death.

He couldn't take it. She wouldn't let him.

She grabbed a strip of her torn shirt and tied it around The Nubs.

She picked up the tire iron where her father had dropped it and stalked down the canyons toward where they had left the truck parked.

Daddy had done all that he knew how.

Now it was up to her. Oh yeah, it was up to her now.

#

In his agitated state, Cruise didn't remember that he had never taken the truck keys from the ignition. They dangled from the keyhole in the cab while he spent valuable time feeling his pockets, not believing the key wasn't there, and feeling the same pockets over again like a man who is being lied to by his senses.

His arms were jumping and throbbing, live wires jolted by bolts of electricity. He had to do something soon, soon. Take off his shirt, that's what he had to do, get the bandages free. Then he'd find the key and leave the bitch and the man behind.

He broke open the front of his shirt, buttons popping, some of them pinging off the metal door of the truck. He shucked out of it, and began immediately to tear at the bandages over his arms. He felt the wounds weeping great bloody tears as the last of the cloth slipped free and was thrown onto the ground around his feet.

He dropped the knife, sick of the slippery feel of it in his hand. He caught his arms with both hands, pushing, pulling at the flesh as his chest heaved up and down like an engine pushed to the limitation of its power.

Had that been Boots back there trying to ambush him? He wasn't sure. How could he be sure?

Had he really struck Boots a killing blow and ripped open his arm?

Fuck, fuck, he hadn't wanted to do that, not to the only friend he ever had.

#

Molly came into the lane where the truck was parked and sneaked behind where Cruise stood tearing at himself like a madman, his back to her.

She didn't pause to reflect on what she was about to do.

There was no turning back.

She had been left no choice.

Cruise felt the blow glance off his collarbone with a sharp crack that seemed to explode his eardrum. He howled and went to his knees from the impact. Bone fragments drove into his muscle and scraped against open nerve ends. He rolled onto his back, hands up to his chest like a man having a heart attack. His scream echoed off the rock face.

He saw Molly bending. He saw her leaping onto him. She straddled his middle and in her hand glinted the knife blade.
His
knife!

He tried to turn aside as she fell forward, both hands clasped around the knife hilt. The blade slashed into the tender area between shoulder blade and arm. He threw her off and groped for the knife.

A growling that rose like a hundred wolves baying at the moon made him crouch, the found knife clutched in his hand. He turned his head, listening. It was coming across the desert from the direction of the highway.

What?

Molly had sprinted away during the scuffle. He didn't even see in which direction she went.

His attention came back to the sound coming off the desert.

What?

He got to his feet, every movement a torment as bone and muscle tore and ripped at him.

It sounded like an earthquake. Even the earth beneath his feet shook to the deep-throated rumble.

He hurried down the street to the closest exit. He had to get away, get out of the City of Rocks, make his escape before disaster was able to bring him down.

#

Molly wept at not killing him. She leaned against a rock wall, clinging to it with her fingernails. When the sounds came she knew what they were and her heart rejoiced.

She began to run for the nearest exit from the City of Rocks.

#

Mark came to, his head trembling slightly against the hard ground. He didn't know what the sounds were but he had to find out.

He had to find Molly. He had to save her from the killer.

He had to get to his feet and make it to the nearest exit from the City of Rocks.

#

Cruise saw them coming for him as he ran jagged lines across the desert floor. There must have been dozens of them, could have been a hundred for all he knew. Headlights shining across the plain from the shaggy heads of monsters. They came from across the desert in a single sweep, side by side, bearing down on him, skirting the City of Rocks, closing ranks again, coming straight for him as he limped and staggered, his hand over the gaping fracture and the hole in his flesh where the knife had sunk. Miniature tornado trails of dust plumed behind the tons of metal bearing down on him. The trucks broke through mesquite trees and lumbered over ruts and hillocks of sand. They flattened cacti and came on, relentlessly, trailers banging across the land behind the cabs.

He ran as far as he could, as fast as his legs would carry him, and he knew it was not enough.

He stumbled to a stop and turned to face them. The headlights swarmed and surrounded him, forming a perfect circle. He growled deep in his throat, a cornered animal. Then they came to a standstill, engines lowering to idles, and from the cabs of the semis dropped men with mallets and baseball bats and guns and knives and lengths of pipe.