The Best Victim

by Colleen Thompson

  Durant glanced at her, concern in his brown eyes. “We’re about ten minutes out from Char-Lee’s on 35—the one that advertises such great restrooms—and I’m sure they’ll have all kinds of stomach medication, too. Think you can hold out that long?”

  Having made this trip to visit Rachel, she would have put it at more like twenty minutes. Feigning a distressed look, she asked, “Do I have another choice?”

  He shrugged. “Maybe we’ll come up on another fast food place or a gas station. Or if it’s a dire emergency, there’s always the side of the—”

  At her look of horror, he shut up.

  “I’ll hold out,” she said. “But please don’t dawdle.”

  They were quiet as he kept on driving, Lauren bending her knees and bracing them against her door. She thought about adding another groan or two, as well, but decided to go for pained stoicism instead.

  Since she hadn’t tried to duck out of the Burger Palace, she was counting on having earned his trust well enough that he’d never suspect her plan to ditch him at the always-crowded travel plaza. As frightening as she found the thought of going to a stranger, perhaps one of the employees, and asking to use a phone to call Detective Jimenez, she was more worried about allowing Brent Durant to continue to control her—feeding her only the information that would allow him to manipulate her to his end…

  Including his shocking plan to transform her into the Troll King’s wet dream. She hugged herself and shivered, sickened at the thought of attempting to remake herself in Rachel’s image. And even more terrified to imagine herself in front of a battery of cameras.

  Yet as disturbing as the thought was, Durant had by now, at least, become something of a known quantity, a man grappling with a grief too huge for him to contain. She sneaked a look his way, seeing the creases in his forehead, the tight grip on the wheel, the hard set of his square jaw. Seeing absolute obsession, clothed in well-toned flesh. As noble as it might be, chasing down some mysterious tormentor he blamed for his wife’s death, she reminded herself his dark fixation was no less dangerous to both of them.

  And not one iota less insane.

  Still, somehow, the fear of walking into the crowded travel plaza and spilling her story before total strangers darted beneath her skin like tiny electric minnows. She told herself the fear was baseless, that she’d be far safer among so many witnesses, but the nearly pathological social anxiety she’d always grappled with only tightened its grip.

  Not for the first time, she wished she’d inherited a fraction of Rachel’s trust in her fellow humans. But the thought of where such trust had gotten her far sweeter sister made Lauren’s breath hitch and her eyes burn anew.

  “You’re looking pretty pale.” Brent sounded genuinely worried. “If this is something serious, maybe I should try to find a clinic.”

  “It’s fine,” she said. “Or it’ll be fine, anyway. As soon as I take something for my stomach.”

  “Getting there as fast as I can,” he assured her, though she noticed that he was driving only a few miles over the posted speed limit. Which made sense, considering how much trouble he could be in if they happened to be pulled over and she asked the officer for help.

  Fortunately, Dumpling’s stomach issues settled enough that they were able to make it to Char-Lee’s without another stop. After a brief wait in traffic to pull in, Brent had to make a full circuit of the packed lot before finding a distant parking spot. “You want me to walk your mutt while you go inside?”

  She froze, realizing she hadn’t thought about poor Dumpling, who wouldn’t be allowed inside; she wouldn’t be able to take Dumpling out through the huge plaza’s other entrance, either. It was a weak point in her plan—she, who was so adept at carrying out the most sophisticated online incursions.

  It was one more sign of how this morning’s phone call had knocked her world off its axis. Of how she couldn’t trust herself to make good decisions. But the one thing Lauren knew for certain was there was no way on God’s green earth she was going to leave behind her best friend. No way she would risk Durant dropping off Dumpling at the nearest animal shelter—or worse yet, another roadside—where a fat, gray-muzzled dog like her wouldn’t stand a chance.

  “Do you think you could go inside, and I’ll stay with her?” she asked. “I think I want the fresh air, some of those Pepto-Bismol tablets, and a clear soda first. One with real cane sugar, if they have it.”

  He hesitated for a moment, his face an unreadable mixture of emotions.

  Sensing that he was trying to figure out whether to believe her, she opted for as much of the truth as she could risk. “It’s really crowded in there.”

  She looked anxiously in the direction of the travel plaza, shuddering at the swirling chaos of so many people going in and out. After spending the last few months alone at the farm, except for brief forays into a town where she wouldn’t see this much traffic if she stood on a corner for a solid month, it made her feel like an overloaded circuit.

  “I don’t—I don’t do crowds,” she confessed, darting a look his way. Because it was easier, she’d found, focusing on one person at a time. “Not well, anyway.”

  Durant nodded. “All right, Lauren. Just deal with the mutt, and I’ll go get your medicine and your ‘real cane sugar.’”

  He did so, taking the keys with him. Too bad, she thought, he had both her phone and her gun on him as well.

  But it couldn’t be helped, any more than she could help her nervousness as she scanned the people going to and from their vehicles. Most of them were paired or in groups, so she settled on taking Dumpling to the marked dog-walking area. There, she saw a tubby, middle-aged man picking up after a couple of tiny, white hairballs and a big, blond bodybuilder type who was jerking around an equally muscle-bound tan dog with a choke chain.

  The first man looked like the type to ask his wife, who might tell him to call the cops and keep his nose out of a stranger’s business. The second looked as if he might chop her into pieces and feed her to his sidekick.

  She looked around for a third choice, praying there would be a single woman…

  And knowing that the time for choosiness had passed.

  #

  Brent trotted outside, carrying a small bag containing the medicine, the soda, and some saltines, which Carrie used to nibble when she had an upset stomach, and realized when he saw the car, its back door standing open, that he had utterly been had.

  After looking around for any sign of her and realizing that her bags were gone, too, he blurted, “Son of a bitch!” furious at himself for being so gullible, so stupid that he’d fallen for a story a first-year rookie cop would have suspected…

  A story she’d trumped up using a freaking farting dog.

  Struck by the sheer ridiculousness of the situation, he snorted, thinking this was the kind of self-deprecating and ironic tale that would have his fellow agents springing for round after round at their off-duty get-togethers for as long he would tell it.

  An instant later, his amusement crashed and burned—because if he didn’t get out of here this minute, this was a story he wouldn’t get to tell at bars but behind them. And he wasn’t about to let the cops be the ones doing all the laughing.

  Grimacing at the thought, he kicked shut the back door, piled in the front seat, and started the sedan. Or tried to.

  A few minutes later, he laughed, louder and longer than he had laughed in years. People turned to look at him. One young mother snatched up her children’s hands and veered in the opposite direction—as if his insanity were some dangerous disease they might catch.

  Maybe it was, and surely he needed to put some distance between him and this car before the authorities showed up to arrest him. But for some reason, he couldn’t help but give it up for Lauren Miller, a woman who, with every reason to be a quivering mass of tears by now, had had not only the presence of mind and the know-how, but also the pure brass balls to do something to his car’s ignition before she’d left.

 
; As he glanced up, he spotted a big, red pickup leaving the lot, the kind of pickup with a lift kit, giant tires, and a monster dog chained in the back. Inside the cab, there was a flash of movement, the top of what looked like a woman’s head ducking out of sight.

  And pressing its nose against the side window, a flatulent little sausage wagged its tail as if to say goodbye.

  “See you again soon,” Brent rumbled, his voice a throaty growl. Because the better he got to know the woman that Cisco had informed him was known among white hat hackers as Litef00t, the more certain he was that she had what it took to finally bring the murderous Troll King to his knees.

  And the more determined Brent was to convince her that her sister had been willfully, methodically killed.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  When a woman needed a quick getaway, she could do worse than a truck-driving guy with a dog that probably left backyard land mines bigger than her dachshund, Lauren decided. Just as she’d hoped, the blond bodybuilder who called himself Big Mel had turned out to be the type to act first and consider the consequences later rather than sit dithering over whether the authorities should be called or the woman with the awful story of the abusive boyfriend could be trusted.

  Instead, Big Mel had asked her just one question. “You want this bastard flattened, or you just want to take off?”

  “Distance—that’s all I need. As soon as I make sure he doesn’t follow.”

  Clearly fascinated, the huge man had kept watch while Lauren raised the hood and found the ignition fuse. Crossing it over the car’s battery, she’d shorted it in record time before lowering the hood and grabbing her things.

  “You look like you know your way around an engine.” Sparing her an admiring glance, Big Mel pulled onto the feeder road. “So, your boyfriend a mechanic?”

  Lauren tried and failed to picture Durant with his white sleeves rolled up and his tie spotted with grease. “Not him.” And her ex-husband had been absolutely helpless, insisting on hiring someone for every repair or maintenance chore, even those she had repeatedly offered to take care of. It had taken her a long time to clap onto the fact that Phillip was embarrassed at the thought that neighbors in their upscale community might see her draining the transmission fluid or rewiring a broken outdoor light.

  She still didn’t get why it would matter to him what anybody else thought. When she’d asked, he had put on his most pompous real estate attorney face and told her, That question, in a nutshell, Lauren, encapsulates everything that’s wrong with you. And our relationship.

  “Your daddy, then, or a brother?” asked Big Mel, who looked older than she’d first thought, or maybe the leathery tan, blurred tattoos and an assortment of scars weren’t so much about years as hard-won miles.

  She shook her head, more amused than surprised that he assumed a man must have been the source of her unexpected knowledge. “Self-taught, or mostly, anyway. When there’s no money to get things fixed, somebody’s got to learn.”

  He grunted his agreement. “Sounds like we grew up on the same side of the tracks, girl. So where to now? Maybe you could use a place to lay low for a few days? My little house ain’t much, but I’d gladly share what I have.”

  She gestured toward the dashboard clock, which read 3:38.

  “I have to get to the medical examiner’s office on Sabine Street before five.” Her nerves jittered a warning that she’d somehow given him the wrong idea. Possibly by dint of having breasts. “The police called me this morning. They need me to—to sort out a mistake there.”

  “The medical examiner? Who’s dead?” He bypassed the freeway’s entrance ramp, keeping to the access road.

  “They’re saying it’s my sister.” She rocked in her seat as Dumpling snuggled closer. “But I-I told him—I told him that can’t be right.”

  “You mean that jackass of a boyfriend would pick a fight with you the same day you found out that your sister…?” The huge man grunted in disgust. “You sure you don’t want me to head back there and mess this dude up? Seriously, it would be my pleasure.”

  “Thanks.” Was it possible that, beneath his rough exterior, Big Mel’s heart had lain in wait his whole life for an opportunity to play the hero for some damsel in distress? But Lauren didn’t want Durant, who was a victim of his own tragedy, hurt so much as she wanted clear of the insanity that gripped him. At least until she could establish whether anything he’d told her had been truthful. “But I just need to get over to Sabine Street. Is there a rental car place around here where you can drop me?”

  She’d need wheels, anyway, to get around as long as she had to stay in Austin. And more important, to keep herself from having to beg rides from the Big Mels of this city.

  He thought about it for a minute, slowing for traffic as they passed a number of businesses, from self-storage units to an auto supply store to an urgent care center. “You know, between this, um, mix-up about your sister and your fight with your jackass boyfriend, I’d feel a whole lot better about it if you’d let me drop my dog off back at home and drive you over there myself, Miss—you never did tell me what your name was, did you, sweetie?”

  “Celia Blanchard,” Lauren said quickly, using one of the false identities she often employed on the Internet. One she could afford to burn. She was beginning to understand: she’d already given the bodybuilder more personal information than she should have. And her instincts warned her that the more pieces he had of her, the more he’d want to claim. It could be he was simply lonely, or maybe he was hoping for a sexual payoff for his good deed of the decade. A payoff he might be willing to use coercion, or maybe even force, to gain.

  A warning coiled just beneath her belly, shaking its rattles as it tasted the air inside the truck cab. She wished she were back inside the car with Durant, whose guns and grief and delusions suddenly seemed less threatening. Or why hadn’t she simply sucked up her fear of crowds and gone inside the travel plaza, where scores of witnesses would have served as her shield while someone called the police for her?

  A line of brake lights brought them to a stop. Though she couldn’t make out the reason, she spotted flashing emergency lights at the intersection up ahead. Had to be a wreck, she figured, her right hand inching closer to the door handle.

  “Well, Celia Blanchard,” Big Mel said, grasping hold of the false name in the casual way a man picked up a knife he’d owned for years. A knife that could be used for a variety of innocent reasons—or could serve as a reminder that he was the one with all the power. “It seems to me that the Good Lord might’ve put you in my path for a reason. Maybe it’s a sign I need to see that you get through all this safely.”

  She felt the sting of perspiration dampening her back beneath the jacket as her instincts told her the shift into the territory of God’s will was a bad sign. “That’s very kind of you, Mel. I can tell you’re a good man, and I want you to know I appreciate what you’ve done for me so far. But any more’s too much of an imposition on a stranger.”

  “Don’t think of me as a stranger, Celia. I’m a new friend, that’s all. A friend who wants to help.” There was something brittle in his voice, so brittle that she half-expected his clenched, yellow smile to shatter.

  “Right now, I need to be alone, Mel,” she insisted, the few words hammered thin and flat as foil. Ice cold, Phillip would’ve called them, another example of a “deficiency” he’d used to excuse his own.

  She might be wrong about the man next to her, as she so often was when it came to people, but having just escaped one stranger who’d wanted to manipulate her, she wasn’t about to fall prey to someone even worse.

  “But Celia, honey—” Big Mel started, creeping her out more with every second.

  “You might want to take my word for it on this one,” she said, grabbing the dachshund as she opened the door, “unless you want to see a brand of batshit crazy you’d never come up with in a hundred years.”

  #

  One thing about wrecker drivers: they could sniff out a disa
bled car from miles away, like vultures on the scent of a fresh kill. Within minutes from the time Durant popped the big sedan’s hood, he had several noisily vying for his business.

  Brent gave it to a driver standing behind the others, a dark-skinned man with a shot of silver through his springy hair and his thumbs hooked in the pockets of his stained coveralls as if he had neither the time nor the inclination to fight the young pups for a tow.

  Once the others had hurried off, responding to an emergency call on somebody’s scanner for an additional ambulance, he used his smartphone’s flashlight app to show the driver the fried filaments in the ignition fuse. “Instead of a tow,” he asked, “how ’bout I pay you for a lift to pick up another one of these?”

  “S’posed to tow you to the boss’s shop with no ’ceptions,” the driver said before adding a shrug. “But on a day as cold as this one, cash don’t leave no footprints.”

  They negotiated a price somewhere between high and extortionist, but Brent was in no mood to argue. So it was that he was riding in the cab of a truck that smelled of old coffee, stale sweat, and about a million cigarettes when he spotted a bright red pickup with a familiar dog chained in its bed. The truck had pulled over on the feeder about fifty yards ahead, near where scores of vehicles had backed up, waiting for a wreck to clear.

  “Up there! Up ahead,” he shouted, as the driver prepared to pull into the lot of an auto parts store.

  “We’ll miss our turn and have to go clear ’round, through all that traffic,” the man warned.

  “Fifty extra for your time,” Brent said, as ahead, the passenger side door opened and a slim figure stepped out, lost her balance, and spilled to the ground. As if she had been given a shove as she got out. “That woman—she’s my—She’s a friend.”

  Like the dachshund in her arms, who immediately popped up and started barking, Lauren Miller didn’t stay down. Scrambling, she ran after the red truck before the driver could nose his way back into traffic. Horns blared as the occupants of nearby vehicles honked warnings, but Lauren didn’t give up. Before Brent wondered if he could make it to her faster on foot, she reached in and snatched her bags, which she tossed onto the roadside, shouting a few choice words if her body language was any indication.