The Lonely Mile(50)
The 4:00 a.m. trip to the hospital had been interesting. Martin had driven himself to the emergency room, his sliced-up arm screaming in protest, even after he had swallowed all those ibuprofens. The road in front of the windshield had wavered and shimmied as if he were driving drunk, sometimes disappearing entirely for a second or two as his body dealt with the shock of the serious wound, before swimming back into focus, more or less.
Then, at the nearly empty emergency room, first the nurse and then the doctor who eventually stitched him up took one look at the chunk taken out of his arm and eyed him suspiciously. The injury had “domestic dispute” written all over it, and the concern of the medical staff was clearly for whoever had been on the other end of the knife, and what fate she might have suffered.
Martin chuckled, watching as his angel tossed and turned on the bed in obvious discomfort. The medical buffoons assumed it was a domestic dispute, and in a way they had been spot on. But of course, Martin had known what conclusion they would jump to and was ready with a story. He had been replacing the muffler on his car. “The wrench slipped,” he said, the picture of innocence, sincerity in his eyes, “and I gouged my arm on a loose piece of exposed sheet metal.”
“You were working on your car at three o’clock in the morning?” the doctor asked sarcastically, making no attempt to hide his disbelief. Martin didn’t blame him, really; the explanation was about as flimsy as they come. But what could the doctor do? Martin stuck to his guns, and, in the end, they had done the only thing they could do—suture the wound, give him a prescription for some high-quality painkillers, and then send him on his way.
They were suspicious, of course they were, but there wasn’t a thing they could do about it. Even if they decided to alert the authorities, their efforts would be wasted. The license and insurance information was all bogus—fakes provided by his contact for use in the event of just such an emergency.
By the time he walked back through his front door, daylight was dawning, although the sky was overcast and moisture hung in the air like evil intent. Martin was exhausted. He stumbled into the basement and checked on Carli, still passed out on the filthy bed, and then went back upstairs and taken two Percocets. He had slept like a baby. A baby high on prescription pain meds.
The disappointment of not being able to consummate his burgeoning relationship with Carli last night was fresh in Martin’s mind, but after participating in a knife fight, enduring the cleaning, and suturing of a serious stab wound as well as the accusatory stares of the hospital personnel, and being up all night to boot, Martin decided it couldn’t hurt to wait another few hours for the big moment. He wanted to be able to enjoy it, after all, and right now, with his forearm throbbing and barking at him, the sex wouldn’t be that much fun anyway. It would be nothing more than animal rutting, and he wanted it to be special. He wanted it to be something they could both remember with fondness as the years went by, despite the fact they might not ever see each other again.
There was still plenty of time, after all. He had six more days, and Carli Ferguson wasn’t going anywhere until every last hour of that time was up. He watched her sleep for a few more minutes and then rose and ascended the stairs. It was time for more Percocet and another nap.
CHAPTER 44
May 28, 2:05 p.m.
SPE
FAR
ET
EIGHT LETTERS CLUSTERED IN three distinct groups, running from upper left to lower right, down the side wall of a truck’s cargo box. Eight seemingly random-looking letters that obviously weren’t random at all. They had, at one time during the truck’s previous incarnation, signified something, something that meant enough to someone to shout it out to the world.
Bill chewed on the significance of the letters, certain he had seen them somewhere before, pacing his tiny apartment and walking the neighborhood under glowering skies, the air so heavy with moisture and the promise of rain that he felt as though he was practically swimming.
And then he knew.
He was in the middle of vacuuming out his van—not because the carpeting was dirty, but because he needed something to do—when the significance of the letters revealed themselves to him. The resulting vision of the truck was so clear that Bill could hardly believe it had taken him this long to figure it out.
The breakthrough came in the form of a mental picture, sort of a waking version of the dreams he had suffered through the last few nights. He thought he had seen the letters before because he had seen them before, and when the vision clicked on in his brain, he could picture the truck in his head as it existed prior to the sloppy, amateur paint job as clearly as if it were parked in the driveway in front of him.
In its earlier incarnation, the truck had been used as a delivery vehicle for a small produce supplier called Specialty Farmers Market, LLC. The company was local and independently owned, supplying grocery stores and markets in the area with fresh produce and vegetables. Bill had seen the trucks on occasion, driving as much as he did between his two stores, and he suspected he may even have supplied the company with tools and small power equipment sometime in the last few years.
The design of the company’s logo had not changed as far as Bill could remember. He figured at some point the owner of Specialty Farmers Market must have upgraded his delivery fleet and sold off his old truck or trucks.
The I-90 Killer had been in the market for just such a vehicle, and Bill assumed he must have bought one of them. Obviously he couldn’t drive around kidnapping teenage girls with foot-high identifying letters emblazoned in green on the side of his getaway truck, so he had done a quick repainting job, and now that paint was beginning to fade. It was a huge blunder for a man who had evaded an intense manhunt for nearly four, long years.