Now he was probably searching for me.
I figured that I’d covered about 20 of the 105 miles that make up the Overseas Highway, but I still wanted to put a little more distance between me and Key West before I tried to hitchhike. I wanted to be far enough away that anyone picking me up wouldn’t think to put me and my planned disappearance together.
After another ten minutes, I stopped and sat in the sand and finished the Combos. I stood immediately after I dozed off for a second. I couldn’t put it off any longer, I decided. I had to hitchhike now. If I didn’t, I’d fall asleep on the spot.
Peter was certainly back by now, and there was only one road out of Key West. If I was on it come morning, he would find me. I couldn’t let that happen.
I stood as a pair of northbound lights appeared in the distance behind me. I walked to the road, tentatively lifting my thumb.
The vehicle’s high beams dimmed as it slowed. I heard loud music coming from the radio.
Who would stop for someone out on this isolated piece of road? I thought, holding my breath. A good Samaritan? A weirdo? Peter?
I bit my lip to stop it from quivering as the lights hit me, and the car rolled to a stop.
It wasn’t actually a car, I realized, but a vintage hot rod pickup with windsurfing boards and sails jutting out over the cherry red tailgate. The radio was blasting AC/DC.
I took a breath as I made eye contact with the two people inside of it. The driver looked friendly enough, a young guy with short, reddish blond hair. He wasn’t wearing a shirt. Neither was his wiry, older, and meaner-looking friend, who had a bottle between his knees and a well-endowed-mermaid tattoo on his forearm. I winced as I spotted their glazed red eyes and caught the reek of pot.
Damn, I thought. What have I gotten myself into?
“Hey, punk-rock girl. Need a ride?” said the wasted driver, turning down “Hells Bells.”
His Red Hot Chili Pepper reject of a friend took a swig of Southern Comfort and burped. “Cab’s a little crowded, but let me clear off a seat for you,” the tattooed guy said, wiping at his face.
I knew it, I thought, as icy pinpricks of fear made a path down my spine. I should have waited to hitch until I was at a place with more houses, more lights.
“Actually, guys, I changed my mind,” I said, walking away. “I think I’m going to keep walking. Thanks. My boyfriend will be here any minute anyway.”
I could feel my heart beating madly in my throat as the truck rumbled. I felt like crying as it kept pace alongside me.
The driver called to me, “Honestly. We’re more than happy to give you a ride.”
The truck suddenly shot off the road and did a half doughnut in front of me.
“Yeah, come on and stop being a bitch already,” said the skinny guy with a smile as he opened his door. “We won’t rape you. Promise.”
Chapter 43
I DROPPED MY BAG as I turned and sprinted in the other direction. The skinny bastard laughed and gave a rebel yell as the truck rumbled again. I looked over my shoulder to see the truck reversing.
Were they just trying to scare me? They were doing a damn good job.
I was thinking about heading into the brush to hide when I saw another set of headlights. A car was coming off the bridge to the south. I ran out into the road, waving frantically. It slowed and then stopped ten feet in front of me. It was a dark Mercedes.
“Say, are you OK?” asked the man behind the wheel. He had a British accent. A feisty Jack Russell began barking from the passenger seat behind him.
Before I could answer, the reversing pickup came to a sand-raising stop in front of the luxury sedan. The two shirtless men hopped out.
“Beat it, fool. Before we put you in the hospital,” said the mean, wiry guy, brandishing his booze bottle like a club.
Instead of screeching away as I feared he would, the Mercedes driver just leaned out of his window and smiled.
“Oh, I don’t want to go to the hospital,” he said to them in a campy, whimsical Shakespearean voice. “How about if we just stay here and play doctor in the back of that butch truck of yours instead? I call doctor. Who wants to get examined first?”
He was a member of Key West’s vast gay community, I realized.
The wiry guy with the tattoo gave the bottle a deft flip as he stepped over to the driver’s side of the Mercedes.
“The only thing that’s going to get examined is your wallet, queen. After I knock all your teeth down your throat.”
That’s when the Mercedes driver opened his door and my jaw dropped.
The handsome black-haired man was massive, well over six feet, his bodybuilder chest and arms stretching his black polo shirt to the breaking point.
“Forgive me for being so forward, young man,” he said, stepping toward the windsurfing punk with his veined arms crossed over his fifty-inch chest. “But has anyone ever told you how utterly striking those eyes of yours are? Let me guess: you’re a Sagittarius?”
The two windsurfing fools looked at the WWF-sized gay Brit and then at each other in utter horror before racing back to the truck. A boogie board flipped over the tailgate and onto the road as they peeled out.
“I get the hint. Two’s company and three’s a crowd,” the big Brit said to me with a wink and a sigh. “If that isn’t the sad story of my life.”
Chapter 44
“SIR FRANK, at your service, m’lady,” the Brit said, walking over to me and offering his hand. “And that little brat in the car there”—he gestured toward his Jack Russell—“is my loyal squire, Rupert. Those weren’t friends of yours, I hope?”
“Not at all,” I said, shaking Frank’s large hand. “Just two jerks who offered me a ride. Thank you so much for stopping. Do you and Rupert always go about rescuing damsels in distress?”
“To tell you the truth, we’d much prefer to rescue a prince, but in your case, just this once, we’ll make an exception. Hop in. I’m only heading up as far as Little Torch, but you’re welcome to join me.”
“First you rescue me, then you offer me a ride?” I said. “If I weren’t so road-grimy, I’d hug you.”
“If you weren’t so road-grimy, I’d let you,” Frank said with another smile. “Actually, I have one minor request. Rupert and I have been celebrating a little too exuberantly tonight, I’m afraid. Sometimes there’re police along this stretch of the road, and we’d prefer not to get a DUI. You, on the other hand, look sober. Would you drive?”
Drive?! I thought. A Mercedes? Duh. “Not a problem,” I said. “Assuming that it’s OK with Rupert.”
Sir Frank leaned over and conferred with the dog.
“Rupert says hop in and step on it.”
I smiled at my tan, muscular friend as I walked around the car to the driver’s side.
Gay British Prince Charming to the rescue. Only in Key West, I thought.
The car had wood trim everywhere and sumptuous leather seats that smelled like expensive cologne. I would have accepted a ride in the back of a chicken truck, I thought, closing the door with a heavy vaultlike clunk. My luck was definitely turning.
I slid the gearshift into drive and tapped the gas. Sand flew as the car roared and lurched onto the road like an uncaged lion.
“Ease up a tad, would you?” Frank said as he produced a silver flask from the glove compartment and took a sip. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name.”
“Nina.” I made it up on the spot.
“To you, fair Nina,” he said, taking a tipple.
I was really enjoying the car. I’d never been in a Mercedes, let alone driven one. I liked the way it handled and especially the way it was making the highway railing blur by on both sides, putting distance between me and Peter. My escape plan was working out even better than I had expected.
“Hitchhiking on the Overseas doesn’t seem very safe, Nina,” Frank said. “Tell me. Are you running away from something or to something?”
“Neither,” I lied again. “I’m just down h
ere on vacation from New Jersey. My girlfriends and I are staying up in Big Pine. Got separated from them at a party in Old Town.”
“New Jersey?” Frank said, taking in my Goodwill attire and scrunching his face in doubt. “Yes, well, quite.”
“I love your car,” I said to change the subject.
Frank smiled as he pushed his rakishly cut black hair out of his face. There was an almost Asian cast to his dark eyes. His teeth seemed a little too perfect. Were they capped? I wondered.
“Funny you mention that,” he said. “That’s exactly what I said to its owner when he picked me up an hour ago. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to squeeze the big son of a bitch into the trunk.”
What did he just say? I thought, laughing tentatively.
I turned to him. He took another sip from the flask and sat staring ahead silently. The only sound was the rushing air in the dark. After a long, awkward and tense moment, he laughed loudly.
“Do-do-do-do. Do-do-do-do,” he said, imitating the Twilight Zone theme before laughing again. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. You should see your face. You need to learn to take a joke, fair Nina. Though it is dangerous to hitch. You’re lucky I’m a good person. Who knows what some completely crazy wanker might do to you out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“Thanks again,” I said after I swallowed.
Was it me? I wondered. Or was this getting weird very quickly?
I was doing my best to keep my eyes on the road ahead when there was a flash and a loud click beside me.
Frank, now holding a Polaroid camera, pulled out the advancing instant film and started shaking it.
What the? Now he was taking snapshots?
“Photography’s a little hobby of mine,” he said, blowing on the film. “You know what my favorite American expression is? ‘Take only snapshots, leave only footprints.’ You look shocked. Don’t tell me a pretty girl like you doesn’t like getting her picture taken?”
That’s when a snatch of the Jump Killer news segment I’d watched in the hospital came to me. My lungs stopped working as I almost ran off the road.
The car theft and the body in the trunk may have been jokes, but the wrapper for Polaroid film was found at the site of one of the prostitute abductions!
“Say cheese,” Frank said, raising the camera again.
Chapter 45
“YOU HAVE nice bone structure,” Frank said, shaking the second instant film sheet as we drove along. “I have a friend who does some model scouting. Would you like a makeover? I could do wonders for you. Take some head shots. After I do something with that vile hair. Did a blind person color it? You could shower at my motor home.”
At the mention of the words motor home, my throat closed, as if it had been stuffed with a rag. The Jump Killer was speculated to have one of them as well. For the first time, I noticed the key chain dangling from the ignition.
No.
I closed my eyes as my hands started shaking on the leather steering wheel.
It was an eagle on a black shield. I’d been around enough military down in Key West to know that it was the Airborne symbol. Airborne meant parachutes and paracord. And how could a British guy be in the U.S. Army?
“So what do you say? Head shots? Shall we do it?” Frank said, as every molecule of saliva in my mouth evaporated instantly.
I saw some lights up ahead. Red neon in a small window. It was a bar. I accelerated toward it.
“I have to use the bathroom. I’m going to stop,” I said weakly.
“Don’t bother,” Frank said. “My motor home is parked just up the road. You could go there. Won’t be another second.”
I kept gunning it and put on the turn signal. “It really can’t wait,” I said.
“Fine,” Frank said as he put down the camera. “As you Yanks say, ‘When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.’ ”
Maybe I was wrong about him. Was I jumping to conclusions? It didn’t matter, I decided. He had turned out to be a lot creepier than I’d first thought.
Frank capped the flask and put it back into the glove compartment as I braked for the turn into the bar’s parking lot. When he took his hand back out, he was holding a blunt black gun. He pressed its barrel into one of my nostrils.
“On second thought. Keep driving, skank,” he said suddenly in a New York accent. He definitely didn’t sound British anymore. In fact, he no longer even sounded gay. “I freakin’ insist,” he said.
Chapter 46
THE JACK RUSSELL started barking from the little space behind the seats as the red lights of the bar disappeared on my left.
“What is this?” I managed to stammer out through my utter shock.
“This? It’s a Walther P99,” Frank said, waving the ugly gun in front of my eyes. He definitely didn’t sound so whimsical anymore. His voice was deeper now, ice-cold.
“Why are you doing this?” I said.
My breath came irregularly. I was on the verge of hyperventilating. I couldn’t believe this was happening. Maybe I’d fallen asleep on the side of the road and was dreaming. That’s what it felt like.
Because how could this have happened? I’d set out to pretend to be abducted.
Now I actually was!
“You know what I hate?” he said, sounding like Robert De Niro. “Cute little things like you who think that all they have to do in life is shake their ass, and the world will beat a path to their door. If I were a woman, I’d hang myself when I hit puberty. I swear to God, I would. You’re too disgusting for words.”
From out of my terror-induced fugue, I remembered reading somewhere about how victims had to try and humanize themselves. If your abductor thought you were human, it would be harder to hurt you.
“Please don’t do this. I’m pregnant. Please let me go.”
“Pregnant?” he said. “Does the father know?”
“Are you him?” I said, trying to shift the attention off myself. “The man in the paper? The one who’s responsible for the missing women?”
“What do you think?” he said with a sigh. “The Jump Killer. What a stupid name. Not a single reporter could come up with something better? How about you?”
Pain blossomed in my mouth as he suddenly raked the barrel of the gun hard over my lips and teeth.
“How about instead you shut your face before I break those exquisite cheekbones of yours.”
I felt dizzy. The surface of the road seemed to ripple through the windshield. My stomach suddenly clenched into the world’s tightest knot.
After a moment, I realized it was full-blown nausea, from Combos and exhaustion and more terror than I’d ever felt in my life. The contents of my stomach started to slosh and churn, demanding immediate release.
I was leaning to my left, about to vomit out the window, when another thought occurred to me. What did I have to lose?
I turned and heaved loudly and violently onto the Jump Killer’s lap.
As he howled in disgust, I impulsively reached over and unclipped his seat belt. The engine screamed as I dropped the accelerator to the floor and wrenched the wheel to the right.
Even with the air bag popping, the shoulder belt friction burned into my neck as we hit a telephone pole head-on. The hood of the car folded back into the windshield, shattering it before the momentum of the crash swung the car up and to the right. I heard the world’s loudest nails-on-a-chalkboard screech as we skidded along the concrete railing.
Then we flipped over the guardrail backward, and we were falling through the air.
Chapter 47
STARS GLITTERED through the shattered windshield as we free-fell. My skull whacked off the headrest as we hit the water with a booming splash. It felt like I’d been hit from behind with a baseball bat.
It was amazing how quickly the cold, black water poured into the car. Definitely a lot faster than I could think what to do about it.
I tried to open the door, but it was too heavy, and by then the water was up to my neck. I took a last gulp of air as it
closed over my head.
I couldn’t see anything. The car seemed to twist around and swing forward as we submerged. I wasn’t sure if we were upside down.
Along with panic, I was now attacked by a strange, sudden paralysis. Could I find an air pocket? I wondered stupidly. Should I try opening the door again?
I realized the window was open. I tried to pull myself out of it. I couldn’t. I was stuck. Then I saw that I was still wearing my seat belt.
Pain bloomed at my right elbow as I desperately tried to unclip myself. It was the Jack Russell. He was biting me under the water. I shoved him away in the dark and finally freed myself. The dog nipped at my boot as I was on my way out. I turned and reached in. My hand wrapped around fur and I dragged him up with me.
I don’t know who was gasping louder when we broke the surface, me or the little dog. He tried to bite me again as I pulled him by his collar toward some mangroves growing from underneath the concrete roadbed of the highway to the left.
“Stop it!” I screamed at the dog. “Do that again, and I’ll leave you for good!”
He finally seemed to get the message. He made a whimpering sound as he relented and let himself be dragged. In the heavy boots, I was hardly able to keep us both above water.
When I was close enough to the shore to stand, I turned back toward where we’d gone under. There was no sign of the Jump Killer. Did he make it out? God, I hoped not. The whole thing had happened so fast. I think I was still in shock.
The Jack Russell barked and followed at my heels as I headed out of the water through the brush and sand toward the road. I cursed. With its wall angled away from me, it was going to be hard to climb. The top edge of the metal railing was about three feet over my head.
It took me four jumps off a large piece of driftwood to grab on. Because of the angle, I couldn’t use my legs. I was hanging there, swinging back and forth, trying fruitlessly to get my huge, heavy-booted leg up onto the top, when there was a splash behind me.