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“CAN WE GO HOME NOW, Sam?” Loretta wanted to know. “I don’t like hospitals. Too much white, the sheets are scratchy, and the food has no flavor. Too many sick people, too.”
“Soon as the doctors release you, we’ll go,” Sam pacified her for the tenth time in the last two days. “What are you complaining about? National Carrier’s insurance is covering your bills, and your job is waiting when you get back.”
Sam stood by her bed holding her hand. He was cleaned up and had a new set of clothes on, a new coat and hat. The bandage on the side of his head was smaller. He hovered over her like a guardian angel and softly pushed the hair from her face.
“When will that be?” she groaned impatiently as her fingers played with the edge of the sheet. She missed her daughter, her house, her three cats, and she wanted to go home.
“A few more days. You were pretty beaten up. Three broken ribs, sprained ankle, a broken arm, and internal bleeding aren’t something you can throw a Band-Aid on and walk away from. They say you’re doing fine but they want to keep an eye on you another day or two to be sure. Total recovery is going to take a lot longer but you can do that at home.”
“How much longer?”
“Weeks. But Cherie, Tessa, and I will see you through it.”
They’d missed Cherie’s birthday party but no one had seemed to care. Loretta had spoken to her sister and daughter a couple of times and they were only glad she was alive. They’d promised her a combination Cherie’s late birthday party and coming home party.
During one phone call, Tessa had insisted on talking with Sam and they’d gotten along better than she’d hoped. Next phone call Cherie had asked to speak with him.
Now both Cherie and Tessa couldn’t wait to meet him.
“I think Tessa likes me,” he’d remarked smugly after the second time he’d spoken with the girl. “And if I were you I’d watch out for that sister of yours. I do believe she was flirting with me.”
“You interested?” Loretta had teased.
“No, I have the woman I want, and I think I love her.” Sam had smiled and leaned over to give her a kiss, leaving no doubt whatsoever in Loretta’s mind that he was hers.
The threatening phone calls to Cherie had stopped. Wilder had extensively investigated the other truck and its driver, collaborating with police nationwide and in Oklahoma, and had found out his identity and background.
The phone calls to Cherie had originated along their route coming from Oklahoma and into Wyoming. The police discovered the man in the Freightliner had made them by tracing his calls. They had proof. The man’s cell phone had been thrown clear of the wreckage, yet they’d found it. From the phone’s records, they’d also gotten his name and address.
Robert Thornton from Wyoming.
Thornton was dead. His charred body had been found in his burnt Freightliner.
With Sam’s help, the police uncovered the fact that Thornton was the truckers’ killer. The police had found a sort of diary in the form of a trucker’s logbook at Thornton’s apartment. Its entries were rambling and disjointed, but enough to piece together most of the story. It described a paranoid vindictive man falling into madness.
Jed had actually been his first victim two years before. Thornton had run him over as Jed had been checking Baby Blue’s tire on the side of the road because Thornton had wrongly believed Jed had purposely sent Thornton’s truck into the ravine weeks before, but he’d been a killer in the making long before that. He’d had a reputation for being cruel to his wife and kid and having explosive road rage. Thornton had worked his way up to running Jed over and then couldn’t stop. Killing gave him the sense of control and power in his life he’d never had before.
In the end, the knife, according to Thornton’s logbook, was just easier than waiting for his next victim to be standing out on the road so he could mow him down.
When Thornton had seen Loretta that first morning as she was loading up at the weigh station, he’d remembered her as Jed’s wife and partner. He’d remembered their truck.
Later, in the midst of his new series of killings, somehow in his disturbed mind, Thornton had come to believe she suspected who he was, maybe knew what he looked like, what he was doing, and was searching for him. Why else would she be in Wyoming? He had to get rid of her but found it was more fun tormenting her and her new boyfriend. Making it seem as if her boyfriend was the killer. Driving her crazy.
So his vindictive game began. He’d kept track of it every step of the way in his strange logbook. He’d just never counted on Loretta and Sam outsmarting him and getting away.
According to Thornton’s family and friends he’d been behaving strangely for years, growing more angry and unstable. Drinking too much. He’d lost his trucking job a year before because of his growing road rage and DUIs. His wife, fearing for her and her son’s safety, left and filed for divorce. Which only made him more crazy and bitter at the world. She’d had to take out a restraining order on him. One day about six months ago he’d suddenly disappeared. No one knew or cared where he’d gone.
Now after it was all over and Thornton was dead, Loretta couldn’t pity him, not after he killed Jed, committed the other murders, and what he’d tried to do to Sam and her. His phone calls to Cherie and Tessa. Thornton had killed a lot of innocent, good people. She was glad he was gone.
“Thornton was clearly unbalanced,” Sgt. Wilder concluded as he’d visited Loretta that morning. He’d been updating her and Sam on the investigation. “Perhaps things in his life made him like that or perhaps he was born evil. Who knows? I’m only relieved it’s over.
“We found an eye-witness who saw a man fitting Thornton’s description slashing your tires at the 76 Truck Stop. Witness wanted to stay out of it but stepped forward when your and Sam’s story came out in the newspaper.”
“So he was doing the vandalism, too?” Loretta hadn’t been surprised. He’d probably taken her spare parts out of her truck at the weigh station when she’d begun her run, as well, because she’d been so sure she’d had them when she’d left her house.
“Looks that way. Anything to make you squirm and throw suspicion on you and Sam. Part of his little game.”
Wilder said he’d telephone or email if he learned anything more. “For now the case is closed. You two are vindicated and free to go.”
“Thanks, Sgt. Wilder,” Loretta told him gratefully. “For everything.”
Wilder looked at Sam and then Loretta, grinning. “You’re welcome. You two keep in touch now, ya hear?”
“Sure. You can count on it,” Sam answered as Loretta nodded her head.
And Wilder left.
Thank God, Loretta thought, as she stared out the hospital window into a clear winter’s day. They could go home and begin their new life. The nightmare was over.
“You know,” Sam said, “I guess life can drive some people pretty insane. In some ways it happened to me after Shelly’s murder and my beating. I went nuts. I hurt a lot of people in a lot of ways. Myself included.”
“You never killed anyone, right?”
“No, I never killed anyone. It takes a real sick person to become a killer. I never got that sick.”
“Are you still...angry at what was done to you?” She turned away from the window and met Sam’s eyes.
“No, not anymore.” He sighed. “I think what happened to us helped clear my mind. It put things in perspective. I’m getting over it. Getting better. The passing of time helps. Soon I might even be normal again.” He gave her a small smile.
She hoped so. She didn’t need an angry man around. “At least I know now you’re not a conniving liar or a vicious killer.” She smiled contritely at him.
“I can’t believe you really thought that of me!” His eyes were full of mock pain. “But I did behave pretty secretive, didn’t I?”
“You did, but I was as much to blame as you for the lack of trust.”
“I can’t blame you for thinking the worst of me. Did I tell you that Sgt. Wilder thought I was the serial killer for a while, too?”
“You did, but I’d guessed that the first time I met him.
“Why did you lie and say you left messages and spoke with Sgt. Wilder the day we left Wyoming?”
Sam looked embarrassed. “I didn’t lie about everything. I did leave messages but his dispatcher mislaid them. When I called later he was out of the office. I only lied about actually talking to him. I didn’t want to spook you any more than you already were. I was so afraid you’d leave me in some truck stop again. I thought I’d speak to him sooner or later and make it right. I couldn’t chance leaving you alone with the killer stalking you. That’s why I lied. Forgive me?”
“What...forgive the man that saved my life for a well-intended lie? I have no choice, I have to forgive you.”
Loretta let Sam kiss her. “But it’s all over.” She sighed. “Now I just want to have that good life you’ve promised me. The one that will make us both happy.”
“We deserve it, don’t we, Loretta?”
“You’ll get no argument on it from me. It’s time.”
They kissed again, slower, knowing that nothing would tear them away from each other, nothing would make them mistrust each other ever again, and a whole new life was beginning. Yes, it was time.