Beneath Blackwater River by Leslie Wolfe (love story books to read txt) 📕

And he was more and more of an idiot.

He touched his hat again and turned to leave, while an older woman commented, tongue in cheek, “Seriously?” as he passed by. Ignoring her, he left the store and welcomed the brisk evening air, even if the chill in it cut to the bone and the wind made him chase his hat all across the gas station, providing entertainment for a couple of rednecks fueling their trucks.

One more exit before he reached San Francisco, where all hope was gone. Four different gas stations, one of them a truck stop also.

He’d been driving for a few minutes when a call came through, the custom ring tone telling him it was the sheriff’s office dispatch. He answered on the car’s media system.

“Detective Young,” he identified himself, knowing all dispatch calls were recorded. “What do you have?”

“A truck driver on the tip line, says he saw your flyers, or something,” Deputy Farrell said. The younger deputies on the team took turns in covering dispatch shifts.

“Patch it through,” he replied, “I’ll take it.” In a split second, all tiredness had dissipated, leaving him refreshed, his mind alert, his senses acute.

“Hello?” a man said in a coarse voice.

“Yes, this is Detective Elliot Young. You have information for me?”

“I think I’ve seen the gal you’re looking for,” he said, then started coughing, but the sound was muffled, as if he’d covered the phone’s mic.

Elliot waited patiently, then asked, “Did you leave your name and contact number with dispatch, in case we get disconnected?”

“Yes, I sure did.”

“What do I call you?”

“Ben.” He wheezed, then continued, “It’s Benjamin, really, but you can call me Ben.”

“So tell me, Ben, what did you see?”

“You know the state line between Oregon and California, coming straight down on the highway?”

“Yeah, I know just the place.”

“First exit after that, the girl you’re looking for, I saw her climb into a fancy sedan.” He cleared his throat, then took a gulp of water by the sound of it. “It was a dark gray Lincoln Continental, last year’s model.”

“That’s pretty darn detailed for a casual spotting,” Elliot commented, wondering why someone would retain all that information. Could he be trying to set someone up, using the girl’s disappearance?

“I drive a big reefer hauling frozen meats from Mexico to Seattle. I’ve driven this road for seven years now. That’s how I pass my time, I look at cars. I know cars, I spend my life surrounded by them. This one really stood out.”

“How come?”

“At some point, we were still in Oregon, I was driving my rig right behind it. Then it sped ahead, and I lost sight of it, but then right after the state line I nearly crashed into the darn thing.” He paused for a beat, enough for Elliot to hear rustling of cellophane and the flicking of a lighter. “People don’t realize we can’t stop these rigs on a dime. This guy had stopped his Lincoln on the side of the road, blocking the right lane, and the girl was climbing into the front passenger seat. He didn’t even bother to pull onto the shoulder.” He exhaled a lungful of smoke that hissed against the phone’s mic. “Another car was passing me right then, after the turn, and I had to slam the brakes. I almost jackknifed and killed us all. That’s why I remember the dude and his fancy ride.”

“Ben, please make my day and tell me you got the tags on that Lincoln,” he said, holding his breath.

“Nah, man, sorry. You gotta do some work yourself, ha, ha. But I can tell you they were California tags.”

“All right, Ben, thank you, this is very helpful,” Elliot said. “Dispatch has your number, if I have any other questions?”

“Yeah, they do. Hey, forgot to say, I don’t think they drove that far from the state line.”

“Why do you say that?”

“You know trucks have a lower speed limit in California, right? Sure, you do,” he added, laughing quietly. “He didn’t pass me again. I drove the rig all the way to San Francisco without stopping, but he didn’t pass me again, and he should have.” He hesitated a little, then added, “I was kinda hoping he’d pass me, so I could honk at him a couple of times and make him soil his pants, if you know what I mean.”

Elliot frowned, then thanked Ben and ended the call with the invitation to call him directly if he remembered anything else. It was the first solid lead he’d got, enough to buy him some more time with the sheriff.

What was the distance between the first and second exits on the highway? If Ben’s rig had to slow down to 55 per state law, and the Lincoln was going 65 or above, how quickly should the Lincoln have caught up with the rig?

Wishing he’d paid more attention in math class, he wondered if the Lincoln had taken the next exit, and why. Was he a local resident? Could it be that simple? Not a whole lot of rural Californians drove Lincolns. A quick search could point him in the right direction. Or maybe the Lincoln had passed Ben without him noticing or had stopped at a gas station for dinner.

Another phone call disrupted his thoughts, but the name on the display brought a smile to his lips.

“Kay,” he said, but didn’t get a chance to say anything else.

She was panting hard, barely able to speak. “Elliot, I need you.” Her words were barely intelligible, rapid bursts of sounds on loud, erratic breaths. “He shot him,” she said, visibly struggling to stay coherent and not cry. “Herbert Scott shot my brother.” Then the line went dead.

Elliot slammed the brakes and turned on his flashers and siren, then found a spot where he could cross the median section, a severely graded section of about 40 yards of rough terrain. Once on the northbound interstate, he