Eyes Of Danger (17 page)

I passed a small used-car lot and stopped to retie my shoe. I set my backpack down against the front of a small truck in the front of the lot that had several older cars with lots of For Sale signs painted in white on the windows. The truck had a sign that said
For Sale $900
.

I looked at it for a long time. I picked up my backpack, gripping it as I slowly walked around the truck. I didn’t know a lot about used vehicles, but the tires still had tread and the body didn’t have any rust. The paint job was old, so it probably was the original. I finally drew the attention of a man with a potbelly, but, thank goodness he did not have a cigar.

I had a little over five thousand dollars scattered over my body. I hadn’t thought about stealing a car as I didn’t know how to hot wire or start one without keys, but I was wondering what it would take to buy one, besides $900 in cash.

“Can I help you, Miss?”

Hey, he was doing better and better, he didn’t call me
little lady
.

“Yes, be honest and tell me what is wrong with this truck?”

He looked at me for a second, then he broke into a good laugh.

“You know, I don’t think in all my years selling cars, no one has ever come right out and asked me that question.” He chuckled some more. “It will give me something to share with my wife over supper.”

He placed his hand on the hood of the truck. “It deserves an honest answer. First, it is a V-eight automatic. If you don’t know what that means, you don’t have to shift, but you have to put the high-octane gas in it. It uses a lot of gas so it likes the gas stations. That’s why the guys around here won’t buy it these days. You should change the oil more often in it also. Because of its age, I’m not going to give any warrantee, but I will say it is in pretty good shape. You should go a decent distance, depending on how you treat it.”

He patted the hood and I noticed the insignia of Ford on the front. “Can I get in it and start it up?”

“Sure, step up in it while I go get the keys.” He opened the door for me, then without waiting, headed for the office. The inside was clean. The seat was a bench seat, so I put my backpack beside me, reached down to adjust the seat, and felt the whole seat move forward. The rubber floor mats had some wear, especially under the gas pedal, but I would guess that the long-time owner had not been a smoker.

“Here we go, Miss. By the way, my name is Hutch.” He pointed to the sign that said
Hutch’s Used Cars
. “I brought a temporary license in case you want to take it for a spin.”

I put the key in, made sure the car was in neutral, and started the engine. The truck did not sound too bad, but again, what did I know? Hutch was busy attaching the license. I turned the key off to get out of the truck. Hutch looked at me with a question on his face.

“Is there a problem?”

I looked at him with a smile. “Not with the truck. With me, can we talk in your office?”

He looked a little taken aback for a second, but then nodded. I followed him back to the little trailer that served as his office and restroom area. It, too, was clean and neat, with a nice area for customers to sit in an air-conditioned room.

“Hutch, I have a problem. I don’t want it to be yours. First of all, I have never bought a car before, so I don’t know what is involved. I have fifteen hundred on me, so I can buy the truck for cash. I will still have enough for gas to get to my mom’s. The problem is my boyfriend. I told him that the last time he hit me would be the last time he would see me. He got drunk and hit me one more time. I waited until he went to sleep. I took my money I had hidden away and I started hitch hiking.”

Hutch reached over to put his hand on mine. “Sweetheart, I have daughters and I would shoot any SOB that was stupid enough to raise a hand to them. You did the right thing. We can get the paper work done today on the truck.”

“Hutch, you don’t understand. My boyfriend is a cop. His buddies protect him. I made a mistake by calling a local police department on him one time. I had a whole bunch of different cops down on me. They were telling me to get into a self-help program. They said how this could ruin his whole career. In other words, they told me to shut up and take it. I wouldn’t want to bring them down on you.” I let the tears that I had been repressing all day finally start to fall. I could use them.

Hutch sat for a moment. Then, he reached under his desk. He brought out an opened box of Kleenex.

“Look, here is what we are going to do. Let me take a copy of your driver’s license and an address where you are going to be in two weeks. Give me the $900 and we call it even, tax and all. Take the truck with the temporary tags on it. In another week, I will register the sale and send you the new tags. You can send back the temps. Maybe by that time, your boyfriend will be looking for someone else.”

I gave him the money and went down the road in my truck. I felt bad because I had lied to a very nice guy. I was going to destroy this fine old truck and I was going to throw away his temp license.

Okay, I was starting to reclaim my senses. Tim had said to go home. I didn’t have a road map, but I knew I needed to head east, so the first main route I found, that was what I did. I drove for as long as the gas held out. That lasted until night. I stopped, filled up and found a highway rest area. I pulled in to catch a couple of hours sleep. I woke with a start with someone tapping on my window. A man was looking in, but I only rolled the window down an inch.

“The cops are here. This is a good time to leave or go to the bathroom. They will ticket you if they catch you sleeping.”

“Thanks,” I said to him. I watched as he went to another car parked further down. Just a Good Samaritan. I looked around to see the state troopers, two of their vehicles parked at the end of the line of the parking area. I got out, heading to the bathrooms. On the way, I waved at one of the troopers who headed my way. I ignored him as I kept on to the restroom. I used the toilet and washed my hands, but when I came out, he was on the sidewalk outside.

“Thought I would wait and see you get back to your truck safely.” He touched the edge of the wide brim of his hat smiling.

I smiled, thanking him. “I couldn’t wait any longer. I was relieved to see you guys pull up.” We reached my truck. “Thanks.” I got in, locked the door in a way that he could see, then started it up. He stood on the sidewalk watching as I backed out. I pulled out the exit drive. I glanced into my rear view mirror, but I couldn’t see either trooper in the darkness of the park.

I merged into the light traffic on the highway. At the first main road, I turned south. I stayed in a southern route until dawn. By then, I came to a decent sized town. I pulled into a
Denny’s
for breakfast. Hutch had been right about the gas, as after breakfast, I found another gas station to fill up the truck. Then, I found another good size state route heading east. Now, I settled in for a long day on the road.

I tried the radio, pretty sure this one was safe. When I came over a hill following a line of traffic to see the road blockade, it was almost eleven in the morning. It was at least a mile ahead. There were a few cars coming towards me, but they were scattered out as they had been stopped and then allowed, one at a time, through the blockade.

Without slowing down, I spun the truck around in the road to head back. Although the truck might have been as heavy as the Town Car, the rear end was light, as there was nothing in the bed of the truck. It came around too fast. I fought the fish tail, but my driving gloves held onto the wheel. The heavy V8 engine pulled me through as long as I kept my foot on the gas. I remembered Tim’s lessons and resisted the urge to hit the brakes. The truck leveled out. I was traveling in the opposite direction doing close to fifty without a single hiccup.

I smiled as I became aware that I had not even received a single honk from some surprised driver. I didn’t know if they were looking for me or some escaped convict, but I was not going to take a chance. Tim had made me a believer.

I turned south on a county road and followed a farm truck for several miles until we hit another state route that led to a good size town. I pulled up in front of a home-style restaurant. I locked up the truck, as I’d decided to have a long lunch. I’d also decided to take a meal with me that I could eat in the truck to avoid stopping except to get gas, but after seeing the roadblock, I needed to let my nerves relax.

The meal was good—gravy meatloaf and biscuits. The waitress fixed up a nice roast beef sandwich for my boyfriend and filled a cold cup with Ice Tea. I was going to have to make a strong effort to get some fresh salads down before long as the last several days had been good on the carbs, but bad on the low cal items.

Traveling this way, it took me a week to get close to Cincinnati and home. I was getting to be an expert of traveling back roads. I learned how to avoid anything that might draw suspicion. I picked up newspapers sitting with my laptop at WiFi restaurants that had other customers with laptops up as they used them.

I never logged into my own site and I didn’t try to retrieve any email. I just got maps and looked up information on the accident on Black Ops. I studied how far Government authority could go with Homeland Security in place. It seems it could go pretty far now. Scary.

I did check on the
HELP
charity that I had worked at and where Tim had left some bodies in an alley. No news about the bodies, so someone had cleaned that up. The web site for the church with the charity was up and running, asking for donations and pointing out their good deeds. Again, I found it frightening that there was no mention of the bodies in the alley. I was learning a lot about this country I lived in. I didn’t like what I was discovering.

On the Kentucky side of the Ohio River, I knew of a couple of old junk yards that nobody paid much attention to, with the vegetation growing up inside. I crossed over to locate one. I drove the sound little truck into one, driving back behind piles of rusted metal. I sat for a while waiting to see if anyone came out. I beeped my horn, but there didn’t seem to be anyone on the property, which suited my purpose.

I found what I was looking for, so I drove the truck around and into a pile of old tires and got out. I pulled my backpack out and carried it towards the road about fifty feet. I wandered around until I found two plastic containers, one half-full on something I just dumped out on the ground. The other was empty and discolored. I pulled a clear plastic hose from behind the seat of the truck. I started siphoning gas from the tank into the two containers. I had on my gloves, so I twisted the nuts off the license plate and stuffed it into my shirt to take it with me. I then doused the interior of the truck with one container of gas, leaving both door open. I poured a trail of gas from all four wheels to the pile of old tires I had pulled into. I retrieved a box of matches that I threw, with one lit, onto the seat. There was a small whoosh as the flame spread. Following the trail back to the truck tires, it also moved forward to the pile of old tires around the front of the truck.

I turned, not looking back. I picked up my backpack and walked to the road. I started walking and every time I heard a vehicle on this two-lane curvy road, I stepped into the high weeds on the side. I would hide until they passed. At last, after about twenty minutes, I heard the first siren. It actually was coming from the other direction. I turned and I could see the ugly black smoke that comes from rubber burning. Fire departments don’t put out fires that are rubber tires burning. They are almost impossible to douse. In this back area, I was pretty sure the local fire department would be an
all-volunteer
unit. Not that there was anything wrong with them, but it would give them one more reason not to waste time or any effort on a rubber tire burning, just let it run its course.

I came out on one of the main highways that circled around and crossed the Ohio River. I finally stuck out my thumb. Within a couple of minutes, an old Chevy pulled over. A young kid, probably just got his licenseand had been driving tractors since he was ten, waited for me to catch up and get in.

“Where ya’ headin’?” He smiled and asked with the southern drawl.

“Cincinnati.” I returned the smile as I settled my backpack between my feet.

“Well, I’m goin’ across the river, but I’m not goin’ east so I will drop ya’ off on the main route an’ ya’ can get a ride into town.”

We chatted a little about nothing until he did pull over to let me out so that I could approach the turn on to the main east-west highway going to Cincinnati. It didn’t take me long to get a ride with a salesman. He was talkative, so I got to hear all about his wife, the three kids, and the house. He had crab grass, all of this information before he hit on me. Yep, life is wonderful. I was able to put up with him. I put him off until we got to the outskirts of town, then I got out. I thanked him for the ride.

I walked a block before I found a taxi. I showed the driver I had the fare as he insisted, then he took me across town to the parking lot where my jeep had been. I had him drop me off on the corner. I walked on the outside sidewalk looking in at the busy parking lot. I knew where the jeep had been parked, but it was no longer in the spot. I didn’t bother to search for it, since it wouldn’t have been moved to another spot. If it wasn’t where I had left it, it had either been hauled away by the supermarket as left too long, or more likely the
spooks
had it. I was not going to ask either group for it right now.

I decided to check out my house. It was only a few blocks away. I knew a shortcut through some back yards. When I was in the yard next door, the neighbor’s Rottweiler growled, but, then recognized me. I might not have known my neighbors very well, but I did know their pets and I liked Gunther. I knelt and scratched his ears, watching the back of his house. His owner must be at work by this time.

I took my backpack off. I went over to hide it inside of Gunther’s doghouse. Gunther nosed it a little, then decided to ignore it. He tried to follow me to the length of his chain. I followed the fence to the sidewalk, carefully looking around, but didn’t see anyone. I came out on the sidewalk and turned to go in the opposite direction, away from my house. I walked around the block and came back down on the other side. I didn’t see anyone. No one was looking out of neighbor’s windows, no one lurking in the bushes, no black clad warriors in dark wraparound sunglasses with dangerous weapons.