And Mae suddenly knew without a shadow of doubt that Jerry intended to kill the man for what he’d seen. It was what Jerry did. He protected his girls.
“Jerry, no!” Mae shouted, scrambling to her feet and running between them. “Don’t!”
Frowning, Jerry halted mere inches away, clearly trying to make sense of her request.
The trucker took her by the arm and pulled her roughly aside as if to shield her from Jerry, then said, “Take another step, asshole, and I’ll put you down.”
Mae blinked, momentarily caught off guard. He thought Jerry was a danger to her. Jerry glanced at the tight grip the trucker had on her arm, and his face tightened.
“No,” Mae said, recovering from her shock. She jerked her arm free and faced the two of them. “Stop it! Both of you!”
The trucker kept his gaze on Jerry but spoke to her. “You’d better explain what the hell is going on here before shit gets real.”
Mae briefly closed her eyes, her head spinning. She thought of the man whose lifeblood currently soaked the gravel not four feet away from her boots and said, “I think shit’s already gotten plenty real.” She took a deep breath and added, “Let’s all just calm down.”
Roxy awkwardly retrieved and put on her other stiletto, then stood on wobbly legs, staring down at the dead trucker with wide eyes, tears cutting pale streaks down her dirtied cheeks. “That bastard. He tried to kill me,” she said hoarsely. Then to Mae, she said, “You … saved my life.”
She said it slowly. Almost in awe. As if part of her couldn’t fathom why anyone would do such a thing. As if her life hadn’t been worth saving.
“What happened?” Mae asked her.
“Who knows,” Roxy said, shaking her head. Her fingers quaked as she reached into her bra for a cigarette and lighter. “Jack’s always been a little funny. He gets real pissy if I’ve got a hair out of place or a stain on my clothes.” She looked down at a dark stain on the front of her skirt and laughed humorlessly. “Cum stains are kind of unavoidable in my line of work.”
“He attacked you,” the trucker guessed.
Roxy drew on the cigarette, its glowing ember quivering, and nodded, crossing her free arm tightly under her small breasts. “Went goddamned crazy. Started going on about ‘dirty whores’ and how I needed ‘cleansed’ of my sins.” She shook her head. “If it hadn’t been for Maybelline …”
The trucker looked at Mae. “He hurt you?”
She opened her mouth to reply, but the distant sound of sirens abruptly howled into the night. Her heart lurched. Across the lot toward Shifty’s, shouts rose as people presumably panicked over the recent shots fired. The world started closing in on Mae, and the weight of the gun in her satchel, which had previously gone unnoticed, suddenly felt too heavy. The realization that she’d just killed a man began to sink in hard and fast. Sure, it had been in defense of Roxy, but Crownville was a small town full of smaller minds. The cops would take one look at the situation and see two good-for-nothing prostitutes and a very dead trucker. They’d draw their own conclusions.
Roxy blanched, looking like a rabbit about to leap into the bushes. “Shit, I gotta get out of here.” She took one last puff of her cigarette and tossed it, then hesitated, glancing at Mae, her expression a mix of fear and regret. “You need to go, too, babe.”
The sirens grew louder, and the wavering beam of flashlights bounced off the night sky as people made their way through the rig maze.
All reasoning left Mae. What did she do? Did she run home? Did she toss the gun somewhere? Did she stay and face the music and hope the self-defense excuse held? A whirlwind of scenarios spun in her head, and she had no idea which way to turn. “Go,” she managed to Roxy, her heart kicking her ribs as if trying to break its confines. “Go, I’ll … figure something out.”
Tears welling in her eyes, Roxy hurried over to her, her stilettos ungainly in the gravel, and pulled her into a fast, fierce hug. Roxy let out a choked sob and whispered into Mae’s ear. “Thank you. I’m so sorry.” Then she pressed a quick kiss to Mae’s cheek and ran off, her pale legs flashing in the dark.
Mae could only stare after her, gripping the satchel’s strap with white knuckles.
Behind her, the trucker cursed. “Come on. I’ll get you out of here.”
Stunned, Mae turned to him. “What?”
Vaguely, she realized she was in a state of shock and that she needed to act. A man was dead. Roxy was in the wind. Mae’s life was about to change forever. Yet her boots remained rooted in place as if she already had shackles around her ankles.
“She’s right,” the trucker said, glancing in the direction Roxy had gone. Any minute, the flashlight brigade would be on them. “This doesn’t look good on you. You need to go.”
Jerry, whom she’d nearly forgotten about in the chaos, suddenly said, “Give me the gun.”
Sounding like a broken, terrified record, Mae spun to him and asked, “What?”
Jerry might have been a simpleton, but right then, he looked like a man who knew exactly what needed to be done.
And was willing to do it.
“Give me the gun,” he repeated, his slight lisp more pronounced in his rush. He glanced at her would-be rescuer, seeming to take the trucker’s measure in a blink. “Go with him. I’ll handle this.”
“You can’t,” she argued. “They’ll think you—”
“Mae!” he barked, angrier than she’d ever seen him. “Give it to me and get the hell out of here.”
Mae blinked at him. Jerry had never so much as raised his voice to her before.
He softened his tone, but the note of urgency remained. “I been on this lot for a long time. Seen a lot of bad things. Took care of them. Let me take care of this.” For a moment, she thought he might hug her, but he only added, “And I promised your mama I’d take care of you. Now go.”
Mae’s bottom lip trembled as she stared at him. He’d always been so good to her. To her ma. To all the girls. And now he was willing to sacrifice himself for her. The thought of him taking the fall for something she’d done—regardless of how justified—was abhorrent to her. Not only that, but she was supposed to steal away into the night with a hard-eyed trucker she barely knew? It was insanity.
It was also her only good option and she knew it.
She cut a glance at the trucker. Could she trust him? They certainly hadn’t started off on the right foot, but he hadn’t struck her as a rapist or serial killer. Then again, looks could be deceiving. He stared back at her with grim eyes that said she needed to decide and do it now. She turned to Jerry. “I could just go back to my trailer. Pretend I was never here. So could you.”
He shook his head. “Best if you get on out of town and lay low until this blows over.” He gave her what passed for his smile. “Ain’t nothing for you here anymore anyway.”
Tears brimmed in her eyes as she stared up at him, all the reasons why she should and shouldn’t go clawing at each other. In the end, she reached into her bag and pulled out the gun, passing it to him. “Will you be okay?” she asked, the tears falling as he took it from her.
He shoved the gun into the back pocket of his overalls and gestured with his chin. “Get.”
Mae squeezed her eyes shut, the tears hot and wet on her cheeks, then whirled to face the trucker. “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER FOUR
Shifty’s Petro & Go
Crownville, West Virginia
As Clyde ran past idling rigs, pulling his redheaded outlaw behind him, he asked himself for the eighty-sixth time just what the hell he thought he was doing. It wasn’t enough that he had a trailer full of illegal moonshine. No, he had to add a murdering prostitute to the list.
But, God help him, she was the most beautiful murdering prostitute he’d ever seen.
As if that somehow justified what he was doing.
The beam of a flashlight swung across the gravel between a break in rigs up ahead. Clyde drew to an abrupt stop, pulling her into the narrow space bet
ween an International’s cab and trailer. She bumped into him, her breasts, which were so noticeably braless, pressing into his back. She and Clyde stood utterly still as whoever it was kept on without turning down their alley, the murmur of voices drifting on the warm air. Behind him, she unconsciously dug her fingers into his shoulder and let out a breath of relief. He waited a moment longer. The wail of sirens was so loud now, he knew the law would fishtail into Shifty’s lot in less than three minutes, tops. He had to get her out.
“Come on,” he said when he was reasonably certain their path was clear. His rig was just two rows down. Despite the growing ruckus, trucks still rolled in and out of the lot, business as usual. With any luck, they could blend in and get gone before any traffic stops or roadblocks were set up.
Keeping low, they hurried through the alleys, sticking to the shadows provided by trailers. They had to halt twice more to prevent being seen before reaching his rig. When they finally came to a breathless stop at the white Freight Shaker, he lunged up and threw open the driver’s door. “Get in.”
She grabbed his hand and was up in the cab nice and quick. He jumped in after her, closed the door, and fired up the engine. That sweet, ear-rattling growl filled the cabin and vibrated up through his boots as he stomped the clutch and put it in bulldog.
Hurriedly settling into the passenger’s seat, she pointed to the right, toward the back of Shifty’s. “That way. Mt. Olive Road is just behind the trailer park. It’ll take us to the highway and keep us off the main drag.”
There wasn’t time to second guess her, so he shifted gears and stood on it. The Freight Shaker lurched and grumbled into the pathway, its headlights swinging wide as he brought the rig around. He took the turn faster than he normally would, and their seats bounced as the tires skidded on the gravel. When he straightened out, they bumped over the uneven lot, passing rigs and dumpsters along the way. As they neared the back of the fill station, the rig’s headlights picked up the rundown facade of the Queen Court Trailer Park, the old wooden sign leaning precariously, its letters faded and almost illegible. “Which way,” he demanded when they came to a split.
“Left,” she said, her wide eyes glued to the passenger’s mirror.
He obeyed and checked his own mirror. Just in time to see the red-and-blues turn off the main road, their lights bouncing off the night as they sped into the parking lot. Gritting his teeth, he refocused on the task at hand and prayed that the chaos the law’s arrival ironically provided would aid their escape. Once he’d guided the Freight Shaker through the turn and straightened ’er out once more, he relaxed minutely. They’d made it out of the lot, which was where every ear, eyeball, and flashlight would be pointed for the time being.
He hoped.
“Turn right,” she said, leaning forward to point at a one-laner that barely looked wide enough for a Pinto, let alone a big rig. He didn’t like it. You didn’t drive an eighteen-wheeler down a road you knew nothing about. It was begging for trouble, but he wasn’t spoiled for choice, so he followed her lead.
“This is Mt. Olive,” she explained. “It’ll take us all the way out to Route 2. Then …” her voice trailed off as if she was at a loss. She looked at him, her face cast in blue light from the cluster panel. “Where you headed?”
“Ohio,” he said, downshifting. In addition to his newly acquired ’shine, he had a load of fiberglass bathtub kits to drop in Cincinnati. From there, he’d intended on visiting Rose. But now … he had no damned idea. Then again, it’s not like his sister would care if he brought Miss Manslaughter. She hadn’t cared about anything for decades now.
“Ohio,” Mae murmured, glancing out the window at the passing rows of dilapidated single-wides. “I’ve never been there.”
He slowed as they neared a four-way. “I thought everyone had been to Ohio.”
“Not me,” she said distractedly, then grabbed the door handle. “Stop here.”
He started to protest, but she was already opening the door. He mashed the brakes with a curse.
“I’ll be right back,” she insisted, hopping down onto the roadside before he could stop her.
“Dammit,” he growled, watching as she leaped across the weedy ditch and into the yard of a ratty mobile home, its tiny, bowed porch lit by a single bare bulb. She bounded up the steps, her satchel bouncing on her hip. At the door, she dug in her pocket, presumably for a key, and hurried inside.
He checked his mirrors. The road behind him was empty, and what he could see of the trailer park from where he sat was quiet. Most of the mobile homes were dark, and only a few windows here and there were lit from within. One good thing about this shit going down right next to a place like Shifty’s, which was always crawling with truckers, hookers, and dealers, was that the natives were used to both engines and sirens. Still, the longer he sat there, the more uneasy he got. They’d been lucky so far, but luck ran out. If the local-yokels were even halfway competent, they’d be setting up checkpoints and stopping outbound rigs countywide on the double. This wasn’t the kind of get-out-of-town you stopped to pack a suitcase for.
Even as he thought it, she burst onto the porch with what appeared to be a cardboard box in her arms. She closed the door, hesitated for the briefest of moments, her hand on the knob, then turned, running down the steps and across the dark yard once more.
Clyde gripped the shifter and waited, eying the side mirrors grimly. From around the rear corner of Shifty’s, he could see red-and-blue flashers ricocheting off the surrounding scenery. “Hurry,” he called out the open door.
She jumped across the ditch and landed on the berm, doing her best to be careful with the cardboard box. What the hell did she have in there? Grandma’s ashes? Breathless, she managed to climb inside one-armed, holding onto the box for dear life with the other, then slammed the door behind her, saying, “Go.”
Nodding, he worked the gears and pedals. The rig roared in response and lurched forward. As they neared a stop sign that had seen its fair share of beer bottles, she pointed. “Left.”
He did as instructed, peering through the windshield at the shadowed countryside. There were a couple farmhouse silhouettes dotting the landscape, but it was mostly rural acreage consisting of pasture and corn. “How far to the highway?” he asked, eying his gas gauge, grateful he’d fueled up when he’d first arrived at Shifty’s last night.
She opened the box’s lid with still-shaking hands. “Twenty miles or so.”
Had they been able to exit via Shifty’s main entrance, they’d have been on Interstate 109 within a hop, skip, and a jump. As it was, it was going to be a dog-knot of minute-eating back roads.
Which should give him plenty of time to figure out what in the blazing fuck he’d gotten himself into.
As he was counting all the reasons why this was a bad, bad idea, the box meowed.
It goddamned meowed.
Resisting the urge to throw on the brakes, he demanded, “What the hell was that?”
Even in the blue-glow dark of the cab, he could see the wary but stubborn set of her jaw. “It’s Ken.”
He stared at her for a long, hard moment, then turned back to the road, rewrapping his fingers around the steering wheel. “You brought a cat. Named Ken. In my rig.”
Opening the box’s lid, she said dryly, “Seemed like a minor offense all things considered.”
“I’m not the damn ASPCA,” he growled, glancing over as a gray tabby with laid-back ears and wide, frightened eyes peeked over the edge of the box. Clyde shook his head. “Hell.”
“I wasn’t leaving him,” she said, then murmured to the cat, petting it with gentle, soothing strokes. “It’s okay, Kenny-Boy. Mama’s here. I won’t let the mean trucker get you. Don’t you worry.”
Clyde wanted to be outraged. He really did. But his bastard mouth curved against his will. He tried to hide it with an irritated grunt that wasn’t entirely for show. “Where’s it going to shit?” he asked, downshifting as they approached a stop sign. “You got a litter
box stashed in that bag of yours?”
She hesitated. “No.”
He shifted into first harder than necessary as he pulled through the stop. “Even better.”
She sighed, lifting the cat out and setting it on her lap before twisting to toss the empty box into the sleeper. “He’s leash trained,” she said, situating the nervous feline so it was tucked safely against her chest. “He knows how to go outside. It won’t be an issue.”
The entire situation was an issue from start to finish. But she was right—a ten-pound cat was the least of their worries. Still, he said, “First time it scratches something or pisses in here, it’s gone.”
She glared at him and kicked the various empty cans and wrappers on the passenger’s floorboard. “You’re not exactly Mr. Clean.”
He clenched his jaw. “My rig. My rules.”
She continued to glare as if on the verge of ripping him a new one, but then let out a long, tired breath. “Sorry.” Glancing out her window, she rubbed the cat’s ears. “You’re right. And he won’t be a problem. I should be thanking you.”
He stared at her profile a moment and then looked away. As he slowed to guide the rig through a narrow steel bridge that groaned dangerously beneath the thirty-thousand-pound load he was hauling, he softened his voice. “What you did …” He shook his head. “It was stupid as hell.” He shifted gears as the rig’s tires touched solid ground again. “But brave, too.”
She was quiet for so long he thought she wouldn’t reply, but then she said softly, “They’re people. They matter.” She looked down at the cat, who’d curled into a reluctant, I’m-here-but-I-don’t-like-it ball on her lap. “They don’t deserve to be kicked around and thrown out like garbage.”
He knew she was referring to working girls. Girls like her. Considering her profession, what she’d seen tonight had to hit close to home. Still, as he studied her, he couldn’t help but be struck once again by how wrong she was for the job. And by how much it bothered him. “No, they don’t.”
Mother Trucker (Crownville Truckers Book 1) Page 4