Chapter Five

VAL WOLFED THE BURGER and fries like a starving woman listening to Aunt Rose give the latest on Tip Beranger and the Hell’s Angels who had killed him and eaten him. Apparently Beranger and the cannibal bikers were all anyone in this part of Nebraska was talking about at the moment. And any motorcycle rider who looked a bit on the questionable side was fair game for gossip and speculation. No one seemed to have much more love for Beranger than Val did. Most just hoped the poor bikers didn’t get heartburn from eating the bastard.

‘I’m telling you I won’t sleep a wink tonight,’ Aunt Rose was saying.

Maybe Aunt Rose wouldn’t sleep, but after hot quasi-sex with a hunky trucker, Val was good to go. Two Snickers bars and a Diet Coke later and she was drifting in quiet oblivion in the back seat with visions of Hawk, naked and erect, dancing through her head. In her lovely dream world, he was just about to do very nasty things to her equally naked body when suddenly the car pulled to the side of the road and stopped.

‘What’s going on?’ She yanked out the earplugs and was blasted by Aunt Rose’s ranting. ‘You young people don’t take care of anything these days.’

‘The hot light’s on,’ Sally said.

‘When I was your age, a car had to last us.’ Aunt Rose ranted. ‘Money didn’t grow on trees. And there were no credit cards either.’

Val could see a cloud of steam rising from under the hood. ‘Shit!’

‘And that’s another thing. In my day, a lady didn’t cuss.’

Ignoring her aunt, she got out of the car. Sally pulled the hood release then joined her.

‘My poor Harry’ll be dead in his grave by the time we get there,’ Aunt Rose wailed.

‘I don’t think anyone ever died from a nose job, Auntie,’ Sally called over her shoulder.

‘What would you know about it? He has a deviated septum.’

Val fanned steam with Aunt Rose’s copy of The National Enquirer. ‘There’s the problem. Broken radiator hose.’

“Isn’t there duct tape in the tool box?’ Sally asked.

‘Aunt Rose took the tool box out to make room for her second bag.’

Their aunt stuck her head out the window. ‘Do you have any idea how dangerous it is for three women stranded along the side of the road with all the rapists and perverts on the loose?’

‘The nearest town’s Gruid,’ Val said.

‘You mean with the bird reserve … and the dead businessman.’ Sally shot a wide-eyed glance up the road. ‘What’re we gonna do?’

Aunt Rose stabbed a red fingernail down the highway. ‘There’s a motorcycle coming. Oh dear lord! It looks like the cannibal.’

Sally grabbed Val’s arm. ‘I knew it! We’re goners. We know too much.’ She nodded to The National Enquirer still in Val’s hand.

‘It’s the Enquirer, Sally, not secret documents from the CIA. Besides, for all we know, Beranger’s vacationing in the Bahamas having a good laugh at the hoop-la in the newspapers.’ She tried to sound convincing, but even she could only take so much talk of murderous cannibal bikers before she got spooked, and this guy had been passing them off and on all day. Not to mention his deal with the cop. Who didn’t seem to be all that bothered about it, she reminded herself. Maybe the cop was in on the whole scheme. But the biker had got them out of a speeding ticket. Come to think of it. Aunt Rose was right. It did seem a bit strange.

Sally vice-gripped her arm, bringing her attention back to their present circumstances, which were not shaping up well at all. ‘Oh God, Val! He’s stopping.’

Aunt Rose wheezed and clutched the sweater tight around her frontal geography. It’s the cannibal all right. And he paid your fine. He owns us.’

Sure enough, the man on the Harley pulled up behind them and dismounted. And there was no denying, he looked badass in the leather jacket and black helmet with mirrored glasses hiding all emotion. But his scuffed boots looked familiar. And his large hands looked like they could easily grip a… pool cue?

‘We have to stop meeting like this.’ Sure enough it was Hawk who slipped off the helmet and ran a hand through dishevelled hair. ‘Looks like you could use a little help.’ He held her in his iced blue gaze over the top of his glasses, and for a second Val thought she would pass out. Sally whimpered and eased her way back into the car, abdicating the driver’s seat for the safety of the back, but his attention was riveted on Val. ‘It’s gonna cost you.’ He offered a crooked smile.

‘You said you were a trucker,’ she hissed at his broad back as he dug through his panniers for some duct tape.

‘I never said I was a trucker. I said it was a company truck and they let me use it.’ He shrugged making the leather jacket look like it was swallowing his neck. ‘Well the driver let me use it. He’s a neat nick, Bill, so don’t worry, everything in there is sanitized within an inch of its life every morning. Had to do some serious negotiating to get him to let me use it.’

He turned to face her with a roll of duct tape in one hand and a very large pocket knife in the other. ‘Now, let’s get your chariot driveable again.’ He held her gaze. ‘I’d gladly give you a ride, but thhog’s not big enough for all of us.’

‘You’re a biker, then?’ she said, following him back to the car, and trying not to let the way his magnificent backside filled out the jeans distract her.

‘Sometimes, when it suits me.’

She watched with growing unease as he deftly taped the hose and emptied his water supply into the radiator.

‘There.’ He wiped his hands on his jeans. ‘That’ll get you to Gruid. It’s not much of a town, but there’s a nice bird sanctuary close by.’ He nodded to the Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology sticker on her bumper. ‘No doubt, you’d enjoy that.’

‘I’d love to see the cranes, Val said. ‘Though this late in the spring, most of them have probably already gone.’ She mentally kicked herself for letting him distract her with birds. That was a cunning ploy. One that a cannibal biker just might use.

‘Oh there are still cranes around. You just have to know where to look.’

‘And you know?’ She followed him back to the hog. Cannibal biker or not, if he knew where the cranes were, well he couldn’t be all bad, could he?’

‘Of course I know,’ he said, stuffing the tape and the knife back into the pannier. ‘The cranes are one of the best things about this place.’

He walked back to the car and turned his attention to Aunt Rose, who was now leaning cautiously out the window watching what had been going on. ‘There’s a garage in Gruid with a hotel across the street. I’ll phone ahead. They may be able to fix the car before closing time. You can have a rest, then be on the road first thing in the morning.’

Aunt Rose snorted more nasal spray. ‘Good. I’m exhausted, and the pollen count’s making my sinuses ache.’ She honked into her lace hankie.

The cannibal raised his voice above the honking. ‘I’ll follow you into town just in case.’

Fifteen minutes later, the bedraggled convoy limped into the parking lot at the Starlight Motel, Restaurant and Lounge.

‘Look at all those bikes in front of the diner.’ Sally pointed to three long rows of mean-looking Harleys gleaming in the low sun. She grabbed the Enquirer Val had thrown over the seat. ‘I thought so. You see?’ She nearly poked a hole through the article. ‘This is the diner Beranger disappeared from. I bet those bikes belong to the guys who did it.’

Aunt Rose heaved herself out of the car. ‘Well I don’t care. I’m tired. Besides, I have a little surprise for anyone who tries to mess with me.’

‘Oh God, Aunt Rose, please tell me you’re not carrying a gun.’

‘I’m not stupid, Valerie. It’s illegal to carry concealed. The Peacemaker’s at home under my pillow, where it always is.’

Val shuddered at the thought of the woman waking up some morning to find an ear blown off. As hard as her aunt’s head was, she doubted the bullet would penetrate anything more vital.

Aunt Rose opened her handbag and peeked inside. ‘I brought mace, and a stun-gun, and oops ...’ She snapped the bag shut on her arsenal and smoothed her hair daintily. ‘Well I’m pretty sure that law doesn’t apply to the Walther. It’s so small, and besides it’s foreign. More like a piece of jewellery, really.’

Val desperately wished she’d bought the Jack Daniels instead of the Snickers.

Hawk, if that was his real name, was waiting for them beneath the green-striped awning above reception. ‘Give me a second. I’ll see the manager treats you right.’ He disappeared into the office.

‘Bet the manager’s in cahoots,’ Aunt Rose said.

‘God,’ Sally groaned. ‘I won’t sleep a wink.’

He returned promptly and handed Val the key. ‘I got you the suite and a discount because you’re with me.’

‘I’m sleeping with the Walther,’ Aunt Rose mumbled.

Once inside the suite the two women forgot their distress. ‘Would you look at the size of that television?’ Aunt Rose ran a covetous hand over the remote.

‘Free movie channels, plus movies on demand.’ Sally flipped through the directory. ‘And look at what’s on!’

Soon the smell of microwave popcorn wafted through the air. Aunt Rose and Sally were well into Sleepless in Seattle and hardly noticed when Val excused herself to take the car across the street to the garage.

The gossip at the garage was all about Beranger, with speculations on ever-more gruesome methods of demise. The mechanic said he couldn’t get to her car before morning now. When she asked how much it would be, he said Hawk had already taken care of it. Her debt seemed to be mounting at a frightening rate.

Feeling more than a little sorry for herself, she pulled the pair of binoculars from the glove box and walked back across the street to the hotel, but instead of going in, she parked herself on the bench outside the door under the striped awning. She closed her eyes and leaned back against the wall. She couldn’t bear the thought of an evening dominated by the television. Damn, she had hoped the car would be done tonight. She had wanted to sneak out to the bird reserve. No one would miss her, and besides, she had earned a little R&R. Well she wasn’t going to get it now, was she?

Her silent pity party was interrupted by the roar of a motorcycle, and she opened her eyes to find Hawk in front of her, astride the hog.

‘Figured I’d find you here. Auntie let you out on good behaviour?’

She offered him an anaemic laugh, hoping he wouldn’t hear her heart jack-hammering. ‘Movies on demand put her in a much better mood.’

Beneath the open bomber jacket, he wore a fresh T-shirt with Grateful Dead stretched 3-D across well-developed pecs. She wondered if the muscle came from eating all that red meat. The stubble was gone, and without the sunglasses she could see a slight bump far up the bridge of his nose – broken in a biker brawl, no doubt. At least she hoped it was nothing more sinister. She hadn’t noticed it when they were in the truck, but then she had been somewhat distracted.

He smiled, revealing dimples the stubble had hid. ‘Figured she’d like the television. Told you I could help make it easier for you.’

‘Yes, you did. Thank you for that, and for everything else. I’ll pay you for the car. I don’t like being in debt. If you’ll just tell me how much I owe you, I really have to go. Aunt Rose’ll be worried about me.’ The words tumbled out in a torrent of nerves. ‘I told her I’d only be gone a little while. As I said, thanks so much, you’ve been very kind,’ she glanced at her watch. ‘But I really have to be going now.’

‘With movies on demand, I’m betting your aunt won’t even miss you.’ He looked at his own watch. ‘And the complimentary pizza should be delivered any minute now, so what’s your hurry?’ He offered her the extra helmet that was hanging over the handle bars. ‘You afraid?’

She stuffed her hands in her pocket, so he wouldn’t see them shaking and ignored the helmet. ‘Should I be?’ Her voice sounded breathless in the early evening stillness.

‘Not of me, you shouldn’t.’ He offered her the helmet again. ‘I can show you where the cranes are.’ He nodded to the seat behind him and revved the engine.