54.

Polly’s thugs weren’t about to come back, of course. That wasn’t in the script.

Kirsten drove east, through farmland and a couple of tiny towns, past I-57 and into Indiana. Then, at a crossroad in the middle of nowhere, she pulled into what was once a gas station but was now a burnt-out shell on an island of crumbling concrete. She opened the trunk, showed Carlo the baton, and told him to stay put … and to listen.

“Until I came along you were headed for your uncle Polly,” she said. “He’d have tortured you for a while to see if you knew where your sister Debra is, and then he’d have killed you. Everyone knows this. And if you don’t know it, you’re out of your mind.”

“Fuck you,” was his whispered answer. His throat still bore the ugly scar from the County Jail incident.

“I’m giving you a chance to avoid Polly,” she said, “and here’s why. Your sister is holding my husband somewhere. She plans to kill him. I’m going to offer her your life for his. If she doesn’t like the deal, you die.”

“You won’t kill me, bitch. You don’t—”

“Kill you? Not me. I just take you back to Polly. Finishing that job on your throat is the least of what he’ll do. Count on it.”

That seemed to get through to him, but all he said was, “He’d kill you, too. For taking me.”

“He’d do his best, maybe,” she said. “But that won’t help you. What you need to know is this: unless I get my husband back, I don’t give a damn what happens to me.” Her voice was trembling. “Do you understand that?”

He didn’t answer, but it was true and she was sure he believed her.

“So here’s the deal. If you and Debra cooperate, I give you to Debra and she gives my husband to me, and that’s it. Otherwise, you go back to Polly. And meanwhile if you behave, I treat you decently. I’m not into pain. But if I need to, I will hurt you … whether it’s with this baton or by putting a bullet into your one good leg. You got it?”

Again, no answer.

“Okay,” she said, “that was fun. We’ll chat again later. Oh, and I hope you have good bladder control.”

*   *   *

The next time they stopped was at a rest stop along I-94, in Michigan. She parked at the far edge of the area designated for trucks and took the long walk to the restroom. She left Carlo in the trunk. He wasn’t going to kick his way out—not with one false leg and little room to maneuver. Renfroe had made it impossible to open from the inside, and then—his own idea—had reinforced the wall between the trunk and the backseat, and added a bit of soundproofing. He’d let Kirsten lock him inside for a while, to prove he hadn’t cut off the air supply.

She bought two Cokes and three sandwiches at the vending machines, then went back and maneuvered the car so its rear end faced away from the parked trucks. It was damp and cool and getting dark, but not raining.

She ate a sandwich, then opened the trunk. “Hungry?” she said.

“Fuck yes.” The first real answer he’d given so far. Progress.

“I’m going to let you out, and if you run I’ll catch you.” She held up the baton.

“How fast can I run with this damn thing?” He patted his cuffed hands on his thigh.

He was stiff and sore, and she wasn’t about to remove the handcuffs, so it took him a while to get out and get half-standing, half-sitting against the edge of the open trunk. Eating with handcuffs proved awkward, and she had to alternate giving and taking back the Coke, then a sandwich, then the Coke. He downed both sandwiches—turkey and Swiss—and seemed to enjoy them, although she hadn’t detected any flavor at all in the one she ate. They didn’t talk. She kept the baton handy.

When he was finished she let him stand up and stretch a little before she ordered him back into the trunk. He started to get in, then looked back at her. “I gotta go to the bathroom.”

She glanced around. They were quite isolated. “Hey, don’t mind me.”

“No, I mean … you know … I gotta take a dump.”

“Get in,” she said. “I’ve been thinking. Just hold it a while.” He got in and she closed the trunk and drove out of the rest area.

There was highway construction going on everywhere along I-94, with lots of idle machinery and no workers around this late in the day. She’d do whatever she had to, but she didn’t look forward to standing close by as he squatted behind a bulldozer. She found a site with portable toilets and stopped and—thank God—found one unlocked. She explained what he should do and then walked him to the toilet.

“Try anything,” she said, waving the Panther baton at him, “and you’ll spend the entire rest of our time together lying in your own filth.”

He went inside and stuck his hands back out and she removed the cuffs and shut the door. When he came out again she didn’t put the cuffs back on him, but—baton in hand—walked him to the car. He got into the trunk without her saying anything, and she still didn’t cuff him. She sensed he was getting resigned to having to cooperate. Maybe hard time had done that to him. Or maybe hour after hour spent in the fetal position. And maybe the baton and the Colt .380 helped a little.

She closed the lid and drove on.

*   *   *

Nine hours after she had taken Carlo from Polly’s goons, Kirsten stopped at a small, nearly deserted motel outside Saginaw, Michigan, and rented the end unit. She’d thought a lot about how to deal with Carlo overnight. She took her backpack and his gym bag inside. In his bag was the wallet she’d taken from him—with fifty dollars in it—a change of clothes, and a few toilet articles, including a disposable razor which she tossed up onto the roof of the one-story motel. She checked the bathroom to be sure there was no hair dryer or coffeepot, or any other potential weapon, then left the bags in the room and drove to a gas station and then to a KFC.

Back at the motel she parked down at their end with the rear of the car facing away from the row of units. She cuffed him again and got him out of the trunk. Inside the room he headed straight for the bathroom, turned, and held his hands out toward her.

“Uh-uh,” she said. “Go figure it out.”

When he came out she sat him at the little table. She left the TV off and neither of them spoke while she ate salad and he—with his hands still cuffed—ate chicken nuggets and french fries. When they finished she said, “Do you know where we are?”

He didn’t answer.

“Right,” she said, “who cares? We’re only killing time until your sister calls. So get used to fast food and living in the trunk.” She gathered up the remains of their meals and threw them out. “Maybe you’re wondering how you can get away. You being big and strong and all that. But why? Even if you made it—and you won’t—where would you go? You have no money, nowhere to hide from your uncle. The only reason he didn’t go after you again, after that night in County Jail, was because it looked like you stopped talking to the feds. And some day you might lead him to Debra.” She paused. “Do you know where she is?”

“Hell no. Why would I give a shit?”

“Because she loves you?”

“Fuck that. She’s … you know … weird about stuff.”

“Oh? I hadn’t noticed.” She wondered, though, whether his time away from Debra had made him wake up to how weird she really was. “Anyway, I guarantee you that Polly will track you down. He’ll find out first if you know where she is, and then he’ll kill you like a dog. You and Debra killed his only brother—his twin, for God’s sake. You think he’ll ever let that go? Debra knows how to hide. You don’t.”

“When you run out of bullshit,” he rasped, “I wanna watch TV.”

He settled on a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond and watched it with his usual blank expression, but surprised her with a chuckle now and then. She sat across the room, her eyes on him and her mind racing. On Saturday morning Debra had said she’d call back in a few days. This was Monday night, and the call might come any time now.

However Carlo felt about Debra after being beyond her influence for so long, Kirsten was counting on Debra still caring about him. A lot. When she’d last seen them together the sexual tension was humming like current through high-voltage wires. Made all the more weird by Debra’s maternal smothering of Carlo, her domination over him. He was a bit slow; Debra was the real crazy. Kirsten shuddered at the memory.

After back-to-back episodes of Raymond, Carlo wanted to watch something else, but she took him out and put him in the trunk. There were a few more cars in the motel lot, but none down near them. The night was cool, somewhere in the fifties. She went and got all the pillows and blankets from the bed, and set them on the pavement and opened the trunk.

“Here.” She gave him the pillows. “Arrange yourself.” He did the best he could, with his hands cuffed; and she helped the best she could, holding the baton. Then she covered him with the blankets. “You forgot to say ‘thank you,’” she said, and closed the trunk.

She relocated the Impala, this time backing it into the slot right in front of the room. Inside she turned off the lights and dragged a chair over to the open door. She wrapped herself up in the bedsheets, and a spare blanket from the closet, and sat down. She’d be almost as uncomfortable as Carlo, but able to see anyone who wandered too close … and to hear Carlo if he raised a fuss.

She was way too keyed up to sleep.