Mean Streak(69)

“I didn’t notice. I don’t know much about pickups.”

“Color?”

“Blue. Sort of silvery blue. And…tall.”

“Tall?”

“High off the ground,” she said.

“What about him? He tall, too?” Knight asked.

“I described him to you earlier.”

“Yeah, but in all the confusion, you might’ve forgot something.”

At the combo service station/convenience store, the scene had been chaotic. Her reunion with Jeff. The excitement among the personnel running the place. Customers taking pictures of her on their cell phones. A man delivering tobacco products trying to get a selfie with her.

Amid all that, the two deputies had pressed her for an explanation as to how she’d come to be there, and, when she told them that a man had dropped her off a short distance away, they’d naturally wanted to know his name. Since she couldn’t provide them with that, they’d asked her for a general description. She’d been inordinately general: Caucasian male.

“Hell, that circus going on at the Chevron almost made me forget what Miz Knight looks like.” Knight’s broad smile did little to put her at ease. “Let’s start with the basics,” he said. “Like his age.”

“He was old. Ish. There was gray in his hair.”

“Height? Weight?”

“My perspective wasn’t good. I was lying down; he was standing.”

“Not even an estimate? Taller than me or Grange? Noticeably shorter?”

“Not shorter. Slightly taller than Sergeant Grange.”

By a head, at least.

“Good,” Knight said. “We’re getting somewhere. He have a belly like mine?” he asked, patting it. “Or was he more of a hard body like my partner?”

“Somewhere in between.”

He repeated the words in a mumble, as though committing them to memory. “Distinguishing features?”

“Like what?”

“Big ears? A wart on his nose? Facial hair, scars, tattoos?”

Keep kissing my lightning bolt at your own risk, Doc.

Why? What happens?

It strikes my cock.

She looked away from Knight’s perceptive gaze. “No distinguishing features that I recall.”

“Approaching town, which direction were you coming from?”

“The north, I think. I’m not sure. We took a lot of turns.”

“Huh.”

A short silence ensued then Grange said, “Since we now know for certain which trail you were on Saturday morning, several deputies have been dispatched to see if they can retrace your steps.”

“Why?”

“In the hope of locating this man who took care of you,” Knight said. “To thank him and such.”

She didn’t believe for a moment that was the reason they were trying to retrace her steps. Her heart began to thud. “I don’t think he would wish to be thanked.”

“How come?”

“He impressed me as someone who would shun the limelight. He was…shy.”

“Huh.”

Knight’s repetitive use of that single syllable was most eloquent. It implied he wasn’t believing what he was hearing.

Grange was more direct. “You perceived a character trait like shyness, but you aren’t clear on his height or general body build?”

She divided a look between them. “Why are you so interested in him?”

“No reason in particular,” Knight said. “Just seems strange that after he sheltered you for four days and nights, took such good care of you, that he’d just drop you on the side of the road instead of delivering you into the arms of your husband or turning you over to an officer of the law.”

She scrambled for an answer which, if not probable, wouldn’t stretch plausibility too far. “You referred to the circus at the service station,” she said. “He realized that my reappearance, my reunion with my husband, would result in exactly that kind of scene. Obviously this man values his privacy. He’s reclusive and wishes to remain so. I think everyone should respect that and leave him in peace.”

“So he knew that you had a husband crazy with worry over you.”

She looked at Grange, realizing that she’d trapped herself. She truly was a dreadful liar.

When she didn’t speak, the deputy continued. “Even if the roads were frozen over and too hazardous to drive on, why didn’t he at least call somebody to let them know you were safe?”

“Perhaps his phone was inoperable.”

“He had yours, Dr. Charbonneau. It was working this morning.”

She couldn’t think of anything to say, so she wisely said nothing.

“Why didn’t you call your husband?” Grange asked.

“Until this morning, I was drifting in and out of consciousness.”

“But you had intervals of lucidity.”

“I wouldn’t call it lucidity. I was awake, but my thoughts were hazy.”

“Too hazy for you to make one phone call?”

“It crossed my mind, of course. But fleetingly. In the abstract. I didn’t act on it because my phone was out of reach, and I didn’t have the wherewithal to ask for it, or to get up and retrieve it.”