The Highway ch-2

by C. J. Box

  As she watched, Danielle slowed her movements until they stopped and the tin slipped to the hard concrete floor.

  “Danielle?” Gracie yelled, but it was like screaming at an empty shell. She’d lost her again, and maybe forever.

  Gracie began to weep.

  * * *

  After a WHILE, Gracie said, “Maybe we should pray.”

  They were seated together again side by side. If nothing else, Gracie wanted to offer some comfort to her sister. And she needed some herself.

  Danielle didn’t respond.

  “To God,” Gracie said. She reached over and grasped her sister’s hand. It was clammy and barely responded to her touch.

  “Please God,” Gracie said, “help us out of here. We know we haven’t paid much attention to you but we’re asking you now to help us.”

  When she looked over, Danielle had tears in her eyes that glistened in the orange glow of the heater.

  “Maybe we could pray for Mom and Dad?” Gracie said. “Can you imagine how they must be just freaking out?”

  Gracie grasped both of her sister’s hands in hers.

  “Look at me, Danielle.”

  After a long moment, Danielle’s eyes met hers. Gracie leaned close enough that their faces were inches apart. She didn’t know how to pray formally. She didn’t know the words and the religious phrases she could think of seemed stuffy and false.

  “Please, God,” she whispered, “if you’re up there please help us find a way out of here. And please help my sister.”

  Gracie steeled herself. If she made the choice to believe she couldn’t back out of it later. She wasn’t sure how that would change her life or improve their situation, if at all, but she thought she was willing to do it. She needed something to believe in, something greater than herself to help her through this. God had always been out there in her peripheral vision, she thought, but she’d refused to turn her head and look at Him directly. Now was the time if there ever was a time. She liked the idea of handing herself over to a greater power.

  But she wondered how many girls in the same room had prayed to be let out? All of them, she guessed. And did it work for any of them?

  * * *

  While Gracie and Danielle touched hands, there was a slight vibration in the floor. Their eyes met. It was the third time there had been some kind of movement from the other side of the door. This time, though, it was followed by a distant and faint deep male voice. Gracie couldn’t make out any individual words, but she got the feeling more than one man was speaking.

  “They’re outside,” Danielle whispered. She was terrified.

  Instinctively, Gracie and Danielle scrambled across the cold cement floor to the far corner. Gracie noticed that Danielle had left the tin on the floor when she pushed back.

  When Gracie looked over at her sister she saw the glimmer of lucidity was gone again. Danielle had slipped back into darkness with her eyes wide open.

  34

  10:13 A.M., Wednesday, November 21

  Ronald Pergram paused on the bottom of the dark stairwell before opening the door. He stepped back to give himself some room, then practiced reaching back through his open coat for the.380 from his waistband and brandishing it. He was quick. He made sure there was a cartridge in the chamber so he wouldn’t have to rack the slide. He thumbed the safety off and fitted it back into his jeans. Then he reached down into his coat pocket and repositioned the.45 Derringer so it pointed forward. He cocked the hammer and left it there. He knew he could reach down and fire it through the fabric of his coat, if necessary. As long as he was close, the firepower was tremendous.

  Then he opened the heavy door and stepped inside the room without a word. He took a step to his right with his back against the wall and his right hand in his pocket, gripping the Derringer. His senses were tingling almost as if he’d summoned more white crosses into his system. The door wheezed shut behind him.

  Jimmy and Legerski were already there. They didn’t leap up to confront him and didn’t seem surprised by his sudden entrance. Legerski sat in a plastic lawn chair, leaning back so the front two legs were suspended a few inches above the concrete floor. He was in full uniform and his arms were crossed over his big belly. Although he was mostly still, his jaw worked furiously on a piece of chewing gum. He eyed Pergram with calculation. Pergram noted Legerski’s holstered service weapon on his belt, safety strap buttoned. Because of the trooper’s crossed arms and relaxed posture, drawing the weapon would be a production.

  Jimmy paced. He had a jerky, disconnected way of moving, especially when he was nervous or excited. He kept bringing the palms of his hands together in front of his chest, then dropping them to his sides as he walked. His head bobbed to an interior monolog Pergram had no interest in hearing. Although he might have a weapon hidden somewhere in his clothing, he appeared to be unarmed. Jimmy liked to dress old-fashioned western, in tight jeans and form-fitting faux-pearl snap-button shirts, so it would be difficult to conceal a pistol unless he had one in the shaft of his cowboy boots. He wouldn’t be able to draw fast, either. But Pergram wasn’t concerned with Jimmy.

  Really, this was between him and Legerski, Pergram thought. Jimmy was a sideshow and always had been.

  Pergram raised the ammo box so Legerski could see it.

  “Are they all in there?” Legerski asked. This was the big question.

  Pergram said, “Mostly.”

  “I need them all. I need to be positive I can’t be identified in any of them. I’ve been so careful.…”

  “Not careful enough maybe,” Pergram said. “But you just keep believing that.”

  The chewing stopped. Pergram could see Legerski’s face harden into a mask.

  “What are you guys talking about?” Jimmy asked, obviously aware of the tension between them.

  * * *

  Schweitzer had built the underground concrete bunker in the shape and dimensions of an unbalanced barbell. The room they were in was by far the largest, and it had once been crammed with stacks of metal shelving containing crates of freeze-dried food, water barrels, weapons, and survival gear necessary to live for years after the nuclear apocalypse. The shelving had been cleared out but some of the original items remained. An old gasoline-powered generator also remained, but they’d never started it. The power for the bunker and the air-filtration system came from outside, from the power grid. Switching over from outside power to the inside in an emergency was a matter of flipping a switch and firing up the generator.

  Schweitzer was a prepper-preparing for the end-long before the description was common. In those days, Pergram knew, the threat was perceived to be external. These days, with preppers, the threat was thought to come from within. Those church idiots, he thought, were ahead of their time.

  To the right was the makeshift studio. That’s where the bed was located. What made it different from a normal basement bedroom, aside from the lighting and camera tripod, were the ringbolts in the concrete walls, the wooden box of sex toys and leather restraints, and the curled-up garden hose just out of camera view that was used to wash off the walls and floor after they’d used it. Under the bed was a large grated drain. The fitted sheet over the mattress was heavy duty plastic, so blood wouldn’t soak through.

  There was a dark hallway leading off the studio area that led to another room. That room was unfinished and had never been used by Schweitzer. It’s where they kept the girls Pergram brought back, on the other side of a heavy steel door with a single one-inch-by-three-inch viewing slot closed by a steel slider.

  * * *

  “Mostly,” Legerski echoed, shaking his head and glaring at Pergram. Pergram shrugged.

  “What are you talking about?” Jimmy asked again.

  “Shut up, Jimmy,” Legerski said sharply. Jimmy shut up. For a moment he stopped pacing and nodding. He seemed to finally sense a confrontation brewing in his feral way, Pergram thought.

  “What do you mean when you say mostly?” Legerski asked.

&nb
sp; “I think you know,” Pergram said. “Why should I cash in my insurance policy just now?”

  “You aren’t fucking thinking clear,” Legerski said. “You’re leaving loose ends around. You’re leaving evidence.”

  “They aren’t loose. They just aren’t with me here.”

  Again, Jimmy said, “What are you two talking about?” His voice went up an octave as he asked.

  They ignored him.

  Pergram said, “Maybe you shouldn’t have killed that Hoyt guy. You acted alone in that. Maybe you should have thought about what that could bring down on our heads.”

  Legerski flushed. He was angry, but he didn’t want to show it. He said, “If I didn’t we’d already be fucked. It was something that had to happen, given the circumstances. I already explained this to you. And if you really think about it, you’ll see I made the right decision at the right time.”

  Pergram hesitated, then said, “Maybe. But you also said you could handle whatever came afterwards.”

  Legerski held out his hands, palms up. “This lady cop from Helena. I could never have predicted her showing up this morning. I figured if anything they might send a cruiser down from Livingston to check out the roads and check in with me. I know all those guys up there and I get along with all of them. No way did I think someone from Helena would just show up like that. She could really screw everything up.”

  “I thought you said you could handle it.”

  “This is different,” he said, looking down at his boots. Pergram felt his stomach roil.

  “What’s so special about her?”

  “Nothing,” Legerski said. “She’s got no real experience. I checked on her and she’s new to the department. She’s a diversity hire and shouldn’t even be there. Her husband was in the military and got whacked in Afghanistan so she’s a single mother and if she was smart she’d just ride things out and do her time and build her pension.”

  “So what’s the problem?” Pergram asked, starting to get annoyed with Legerski. “You’re supposed to sweet-talk people like that.”

  “Normally, I could,” Legerski said. “But she’s taking everything personally. She knew this Cody Hoyt-he was her partner. She wants to find out what happened to him and she thinks it’s connected to those girls back there.” When he said it he jerked his head toward the dark hallway. “She’s getting the Park County Sheriff’s office involved and she asked me to go to Judge Graff and get a warrant to search the compound.”

  Pergram was confused. “Isn’t that what you wanted? For them to suspect the church?”

  “Yeah,” he said without conviction, “I wanted them to go out there and hit a dead end. You know, cast some suspicion on the members and interview a few of them even. Then the investigation would just sort of fade away because she wouldn’t find anything to implicate them. But she’s not your average cop. Like I said, she’s taking this personally and asking a lot of questions I never thought would come up.

  “Look,” Legerski said, “I know cops. I am one. I know the difference between mailing it in and getting in your hours and really going after something. I mean, she’s down here on her own time. I can’t see her just filing a report and going away. She talked to me like I was a suspect. She fucking interrogated me. But she just kept hammering away with one more thing, one more thing. Then she asked me if I knew any long-haul truckers who lived around here.”

  Legerski let that sink in.

  “Ask Jimmy if you don’t believe me.”

  Pergram looked to Jimmy. Jimmy said, “Yeah, it was at my place an hour ago. She’s a bitch. She’s got no sense of humor. One of those types, you know?”

  Pergram felt a stab of red rage rush up his throat. “You didn’t…”

  “No, I didn’t tell her anything she could go on,” Legerski said, waving Pergram’s question away with a big paw. “Like I said, she got me to agree to see the judge this morning and get the warrant. I don’t have a choice. It was that or come off like I was impeding her investigation. So that’s where I’m headed as soon as we’re done.”

  “What did you tell her?” Pergram asked.

  “Nothing. But she’s not going to let go of it once she clears the folks on the compound. If she starts to ask around it’s no secret you and me know each other. Locals will tell her that. I can’t deny it if she asks.” Legerski leaned forward and the two front legs of his chair lowered to the concrete.

  “So what if you know me?” Pergram said.

  Legerski flushed. “It’s the same thing Hoyt asked, is what I’m saying. You’re a kind of logical conclusion given the circumstances. I can see it plain as day. They’ve got a bead on you even though they don’t know who you are. It’s just a matter of time before she puts two and two together.”

  “What?”

  “You’re a type, Ronald,” Legerski said. “You fit the profile. I always knew it.”

  Pergram felt suddenly angry. “What profile?”

  The way he said it made Jimmy’s eyes go big. He stared at Pergram gap-mouthed, as if this was all new to him.

  “Jesus,” Legerski said, glancing again at his boots, “I’d hoped it wouldn’t come to this. But it’s the same way I found you in the first place. I looked back at the cold case files and found that friend of your sister’s. What was her name, Melody? Yeah, Melody Anderson. Seventeen, high school athlete in Livingston. Tall, a little crazy. She vanished, as you know.”

  Pergram stepped back involuntarily. He had no inclination Legerski knew about Melody. His first. And his first mistake, in a way. He’d learned things since, he wanted to shout. No more locals. Obviously, they’d look close when it came to locals. So to ensure a steady supply and avoid area gossip and suspicion, he’d learned to cast his net much wider. And concentrate on targets with no support system, no anxious friends, family, or relatives. So that when they were gone no one would really miss them. It took a while to get it figured out, but he’d mastered the system. But Melody, the first, would always sit back there calling at him. Like she was now. Since then, he’d always been so careful.…

  “You’re a fucking poster child for the profile,” Legerski said. “Think about it. Late forties. Single. Gone for long periods of time. A determined cop could start to match up known disappearances with your long-haul trucking logs if they did the research. Hell, I did it. They’d start to see a pattern of missing women that corresponded with your routes. So when Hoyt asked I looked into his eyes and I saw he was one of those rare bulldogs. He was going to grab this thing with his teeth and run this out. What I did to him saved your miserable life, Pergram.”

  With that, Legerski grabbed the cheap plastic armrests of his chair and pushed himself up until he was standing. His right hand hovered over his weapon.

  “And for saving your life, you give me this shit,” Legerski said to him.

  Pergram looked around the room, trying not to meet Legerski’s or Jimmy’s eyes. He had to think for himself and not be influenced by them.

  He said to Legerski, “You’re making this out like you were saving me. But you were really saving yourself because you didn’t know where the videos were hidden, or how many copies I made.”

  The trooper’s mask cracked. Pergram knew he hit home. The illusion was shattered. Until Legerski had all of the videos in his possession, he wouldn’t be in complete control of Pergram, and they both knew it.

  Pergram said, “You did what you did to save your hide. You never gave a shit about me. I’m the one who made all this possible. I never needed you, or this bunker, or anything else. I started this and you and Jimmy weaseled your way in. So don’t get high and mighty and say you killed a cop to save me.

  “You don’t care about me,” Pergram said.

  Legerski filled his huge chest with a deep intake of air, as if it was a response. His eyes and face betrayed his defiance and acceptance, Pergram thought.

  No words were spoken for a minute. Pergram and Legerski glared at each other. Pergram thought about dropping his right han
d into his pocket and grasping the.45 and pulling the trigger.

  Jimmy suddenly said, “I want to see them girls. I want to do them now.”

  Legerski said, “You’re out of your fucking mind, Jimmy. This is not the time.”

  Jimmy rolled his eyes theatrically and put his hands on his hips. “You two have seen them. I haven’t even seen them yet.”

  “Later,” Legerski said.

  “Bull-shee-it,” Jimmy moaned. Making the word stretch over three syllables. “We got girls back there I’ve never even seen. Young meat, from what you told me. But you two assholes are standing around struttin’ like peacocks. I say we go back there and see what the Lizard King brung us.”

  “I said,” Legerski whispered, “not now, Jimmy. You know the rules. We all participate or none of us do.”

  “We’re all here,” Jimmy said, sweeping his hands toward Legerski and then Pergram. “I been up all night with your bullshit. Now it’s time to meet the new chickens.”

  Pergram stared hard at Legerski. The only reason Jimmy was involved was because the trooper had brought him in. Pergram never wanted additional participants. It made things too complicated.

  “Fuck you two,” Jimmy said, turning on his heel toward the dark hallway. “I’m gonna go get them and bring them out here and we’re gonna have a good time. Why the hell else would I even agree to come here?”

  “Jimmy,” Legerski cautioned.

  “From what you said, we might all get busted,” Jimmy said over his shoulder, “so I want what I want in the meantime. Ya’ll can come along with me or stay around here arguing about who done what first.”

  Pergram hated the fact that things were chaotic. The idea of Jimmy getting to those girls first was an unspeakable affront.

  “This was my thing a long time before you two came into it,” he said. “You two shouldn’t even be here.”

  Legerski ignored him, and filed in behind Jimmy as he went down the hallway.

  Pergram closed his eyes for a moment and despised Legerski for being involved. And despised Jimmy for what he was doing. Then he followed them both down the hallway.