The Lonely Mile(15)
She laughed again and said, “We’re stretched a little thin at the moment, as you might imagine. Everyone available is back at the rest area cleaning up your mess.” She said it with a smile.
The pair walked out of the State Police barracks and the heat rolled over them. The pavement felt soft and mushy underfoot. “Seriously, though,” Canfield said, “nice work back there. You could have been killed, but you managed the situation, and now that seventeen-year-old girl is going home with her parents tonight when she could have been God-knows-where, facing an unthinkable fate.”
They slid into an unmarked Chevrolet Caprice, and Canfield cranked the engine. “I don’t know if you’ve had a chance to think about this, but the media is going to be all over you when we get back to the crime scene. I called our people at the plaza, and there are television trucks and reporters everywhere. We can’t order you not to talk to them but would prefer that you don’t—”
“Don’t worry about that,” Bill interrupted. “I have zero desire to be a reality TV star.”
“Good. We will be behind most of the assembled media when we enter the parking lot, so, with a little luck, you might be able to make it to your van unseen, but I wouldn’t hold out too much hope on that score. I’m sure they’re staking out your vehicle, just waiting for you to come back to pick it up.”
“If they know which one it is.”
“They’ll know.”
The pair cruised westbound along the interstate to Exit 1, then crossed over the highway and turned back east. Less than five minutes later, Canfield eased the unmarked vehicle into the massive service area parking lot. She hadn’t been kidding. The media were buzzing around the location like bees at a honey pot. He pointed out his van and the FBI Special Agent pulled to a stop as close to it as she could manage without alerting the throng of reporters to their presence.
“Good luck,” she said as he opened his door, “and remember what I told you. Feel free to call me any time if you think of anything else that might be helpful. No detail is too small.”
Canfield handed him his gun with a smile. “I know it will be tempting, but try not to use this on those vultures out there.” She nodded toward the gathered mass of television and newspaper reporters milling about at the front of the parking lot.
Bill secured the weapon in the shoulder holster under his jacket and stepped out of the car, walking casually toward his van, covering roughly half the distance before being spotted. The horde of media turned their attention from the front of the service plaza toward Bill as he picked up his pace. Television cameras tracked his progress, questions were shouted, flashbulbs popped. He reached his van and yanked open the driver’s side door as the quickest of the news people shoved microphones in his face.
“I have no comment,” Bill said, grimacing and shaking his head at the chaotic scene. It occurred to him that he had felt safer and more in control with the I-90 Killer’s gun stuck in his face than he did right now. He eased the door closed, using his right hand to shove three stubborn microphones out of the way while he pulled on the handle with his left. He could have closed the door on the reporters’ hands with no problem at all. These people were relentless.
The van started with a rumble, and Bill pulled carefully around the men and women holding cameras, microphones, and notebooks, making his way slowly but steadily toward the on-ramp and the freedom of the interstate. Finally, he broke loose from the crowd and accelerated smoothly away, anxious see Carli, who by now would be home from school. It was a weekday, so she would be at Sandra and Howard’s home rather than at Bill’s apartment, but he didn’t think Sandra would mind him stopping by for a few minutes to chat with Carli. It was something he really needed to do.
That blonde teen who had come so close to being taken by the gunman at the service stop reminded him so much of his own seventeen-year-old daughter that he needed to see his little girl for himself, to hug her and tousle her hair the way she hated, to see her and talk to her and feel her. To convince himself she was okay and not the unwitting victim of some random act of violence committed by a sociopath with a gun.
Because you never know. That was the lesson of the day—you just never know.
CHAPTER 14
MARTIN KRALL SAT ON his threadbare couch staring at the TV, a dirty glass of flat cola warming on the table next to him. The porn videos he had planned on watching were forgotten because something even more interesting had caught his attention. The moment he arrived home he had flicked on the television, certain he would be able to find breaking news reports from back at the rest stop, but he almost couldn’t believe the scene that greeted his eyes.
The highway rest area was a madhouse. All of the local stations had preempted their afternoon programming in favor of live coverage of the attempted kidnapping. Apparently, the breathless reports went, a citizen inside the building had thwarted the I-90 Killer in his attempt to abduct another girl, his fourteenth over the past three-and-a-half years, the first time the infamous outlaw had ever been unsuccessful.
On the screen, reporters interviewed the victim’s tearful mother as she stood in the shade of the overhang on the top step just outside the entrance to the rest stop. Her arm was wrapped tightly around her daughter’s shoulder, and it appeared she had no intention of ever removing it. The blonde girl looked exhausted.