by L.T. Ryan
Chapter 10
I drove without stopping for close to three hours. The clock on the dashboard said the time was after twelve in the morning. We crossed into the city limits of Charlottesville, Virginia. Shopping centers with empty parking lots lined the main road through town. Cars huddled around late night restaurants and bars. Neon signs announced their presence.
I pulled into a twenty-four hour gas station and stopped the car next to an outward facing pump. I placed the gas nozzle into the Audi’s fuel tank and clicked the handle to auto pump. I walked inside the convenience store, grabbed a four pack of water bottles out of the fridge and filled a 20 ounce cup with fresh coffee. Hunger pains attacked my stomach, so I milled about a few minutes looking for something to eat, ultimately finding nothing. I stepped up to the counter where a freckle-faced teenager with red hair and a name tag that read “Stan” waited behind the register. He asked me how I was doing without bothering to look at me.
He grabbed the water bottles and scanned them. Looked at the coffee and punched a couple keys on his register. He looked up at me with a nervous tick of his head that threw his hair to the side and out of his eyes.
“That all?”
“Gas at pump three.”
He looked at his display. “It’s not finished pumping yet.”
“Guess we’re waiting then.”
He rolled his eyes and looked away, adding a sharp click of his tongue to further express his annoyance. He walked away, pretending to attend to something else, anything to avoid dealing with people, I supposed.
I leaned back against the counter and looked around the store, taking note of all the security cameras. There seemed to be an overabundance of them.
“Have a lot of trouble with robberies here?” I said.
“Huh?” he said.
“The cameras.” I pointed to the four cameras positioned throughout the store, mounted to the ceiling.
“Nah, maybe just college kids stealing stuff.”
I nodded slowly. Time dragged. “Gas done yet?”
He walked back over, looked at his screen. “Yeah. Total’s forty-three fifty.”
I handed him three twenties and waited for my change.
I stepped out into the cool night air, put the coffee and water in the car and scanned the parking lot. There was a payphone butted up to the corner of the store.
“I’ll be right back, Bear.”
Two directories dangled from the base of the phone. I grabbed the white pages and thumbed through it, tearing out a page when I found what looked to be the correct listing. I needed a map, so I went back into the store and asked the kid if they had any regional map books. He pointed to an aisle full of books, magazines and car accessories. A large regional map book of Charlottesville and its surrounding areas sat next to a rack where the top of every magazine in the row was covered except for its title. I searched the directory in the back of the book, found my street and ripped out the corresponding page.
“Hey,” the kid said. “You can’t do that.”
I walked to the door. “I’m sure the cameras caught it, kid. You can report it.”
He yelled again as I pushed through the door. I paid no attention to him. Got in the car and started the engine. Backtracked half a mile and took the bypass around the city. Hopped onto I-64 for a couple miles then exited into a residential area. I turned on the dome light and compared the street names with the map in my hand.
“Where’re we going?” Bear asked. He held his right arm tight to his chest. It had been partially numb for the last hour. I began to worry he suffered nerve damage. Not a good thing for his career.
I said nothing and kept my speed steady at forty miles per hour while checking the names on the street signs of every neighborhood we passed. Finally, I found the street I had been looking for and made a right turn into the cookie cutter neighborhood full of two story colonial style houses. It looked like the builder made three models available and decided to follow a model a, then b, then c pattern during construction. I pulled over to the side and stopped next to the curb. The page torn from the white pages sat on my lap. I found the address and compared the house numbers, then turned off the dome light and pulled away from the curb.
“Jack,” Bear said, half question, half demand.
“Jessie,” I said.
Bear laughed for the first time since being shot. “Kline?” He shifted in his seat to look at me directly. “Jessica Kline?”
I hiked my shoulders a few inches and looked away.
“After what happened to you two?”
I said nothing. After another thirty seconds, I found the house number I’d been looking for, drove half a block past and parked the car next to the curb.