Less than a minute later he swerved suddenly onto an off-ramp, as if it had been a spontaneous last-minute decision. He made a right onto a city street that was signed Route 1, and drove for a few blocks until several gas stations came into view in the early morning light.
“Here’s how it’s gonna be,” he said. “We’re gonna find a place with the bathrooms on the outside. Not in the store. I’m gonna park close to ’em. Real close. Blocking it right off. We’re gonna wait till there’s nobody around for you to run to. If you try to run inside the store, or out into the street, I’ll be on you in a heartbeat. If somebody sees me put you back in the car, so be it. I’m a good actor. I’ll tell ’em you’re my kid, and you’re a runaway, and I’d do anything to get you home safe this time. If you try something, you’ll lose. And after you lose, you’ll be one sorry little girl. Sorrier than you’ve ever been in your very short life so far. Got that?”
It was the first direct threat from him, and it caused Allie’s heart to beat erratically again. Too strong, then skipping beats.
“Got it.”
He pulled into a deserted station. Drove as close as he could get to the ladies’ room door without jumping a wheel up onto a curb. Unfortunately, the restrooms were located around the back of the place. Utterly out of view of the street. That was a bad break, and Allie knew it.
She felt her hopes sickeningly contract. Wither. All but die.
He cut the engine. Got out. Came to the back door of the car and unlocked it with his key. Swung it wide.
Allie felt the fresh air hit her face. The freedom of the real world. Life was going on all around her. Other people were having average mornings.
He took hold of her arm and dragged her three steps from the car to the ladies’ room door, which he held open. He peered inside, as if to assure himself there was no window. No other exit. He stopped her before she stepped inside, his voice a deep growl in her ear.
“I’ll be inches from this door. Inches. And don’t lock it.”
He gave her a strong push and closed the ladies’ room door behind her.
With shaking hands, Allie used the toilet and washed up at the sink. She really did need to, especially now, when a flurry of activity was about to happen. For better or for worse, even if it resulted in the beating of a lifetime. Even if she didn’t survive. She had to try. She couldn’t just step back into the car and let him drive her to a life of utter, demoralizing slavery.
This might be her last chance.
She heard a bumping on the door, and jumped.
“Just a reminder,” he said. “That I’m . . . Right. Here.”
Allie walked to the door and touched it. It was encased in sheet metal. Heavy and huge. Probably because it opened onto the outside, and the gas station people didn’t want anyone breaking into it to sleep at night. Homeless people slept in gas station bathrooms, if they could. Allie had heard this somewhere. She couldn’t remember where. But she understood now. It made sense, suddenly, that so little shelter and comfort could seem appealing.
Maybe she should stay in here. Lock the door in spite of his directions. Wait it out.
No. He was a good actor. He’d tell the gas station mini-mart clerk that his runaway daughter was locked in the bathroom. Get the guy to open the door.
Allie felt the walls of her life close in around her.
She was going to try something. She had to try.
She heard his fingers tapping a rhythm on the other side of the door.
“Right. Here,” he said.
Good. He was right there. Right in the trajectory of this heavy, metal-encased door. Allie pulled back a step, holding the door handle, and threw all her weight, every ounce of her energy, into sending the door flying open. She felt it hit him. Heard an oof sound come from him. Then the door swung freely again, until it hit his legs where they lay on the concrete.
She burst out through the open space, her breath coming in ragged gasps. He was down. Down on his back, blood streaming from his nose. She had hit him cleanly in the face with that heavy door. Maybe even broken his nose. And there was a split on his forehead that was bleeding heavily, so he hopefully had a concussion.
Good.
She jumped over him.
She winced, expecting him to grab for her ankle. He didn’t. Or he missed. She didn’t know which one. Only that she was across him, and free.
She ran.
She sprinted around the station to the street, desperately looking back over her shoulder. Expecting him to be up, on his feet. Right there, gaining ground. Ready to grab her.
He wasn’t there. Not yet. Somehow he must still have been down.
She ran past the mini-mart door, craning her neck to look inside. But she could see no one behind the counter. She couldn’t take a chance on that.
She looked behind her again. Still no giant.
She bolted for the street.
Traffic was light to nonexistent as Allie ran out into the middle of this business route section of Highway 1, desperately holding out her thumb.
The only car she could see coming was a shabby older white van with some kind of writing on the side. As it pulled closer, Allie could see an old woman behind the wheel, and, on the dashboard, a curled and sleeping cat.
This odd pair of travelers was looking like her one and only chance.
PART THREE
BEA
Chapter Seventeen
Kids Today—All Phone Scammers and Carjackers
“No!” Bea said out loud to the inside of the empty van. “No, no, no. I don’t pick up hitchhikers. I don’t know you, and it’s not safe.”
The girl was a good half block down, standing in the middle of the traffic lane. Bea was speaking in a normal tone of voice with the windows rolled up tight. So it was a set of comments made to herself, not so much to the hitchhiker in question. Which might explain why it had that nice forceful tone, like something she’d say in one of her imaginary confrontations. Bea hadn’t experienced one of those flights of fancy since leaving home. Life was changing. She was braver on the outside these days.
The girl looked impossibly young to be standing out in the road by herself. Like a child. A little girl. Which probably meant she was halfway through high school. The older Bea got the younger these kids appeared.
This one . . . there was something wrong with her. She couldn’t hold still. The closer Bea drove to her, the more she could see the child’s unnatural agitation. The girl was jumping around. Looking over her shoulder. Waving the arm that held out the offending thumb—the one that presumed Bea’s precious van could be hailed like a taxicab. Waving it wildly, as though Bea would somehow not notice it without all the theatrics.
Drugs, Bea thought. She must be on drugs. So many of the kids are these days. Not like when I was a girl and we were busy working part-time jobs and getting good grades. We had no time to engage in such dangerous foolishness.
As she pulled close enough to see the girl’s face, Bea could only assume the girl could see Bea’s face as well. She knitted her brow down until she could feel the wrinkling of it. She shook her head firmly and steered into the left lane.