The Highway

1

He called himself The Lizard King. The prostitutes known as lot lizards feared him. More precisely, they feared his legend, the idea of him. None of them who’d ever seen his face up close lived to describe it.

He was parked in the back row of trucks with his diesel engine idling, his running lights muted, his hair slicked back, and a bundle of tools on the floorboard on the right side of his seat within easy reach. He was hunting but there was no need to go after his prey. The lot lizards would come to him.

The truck stop was four miles west of Billings, Montana, off I-90. A cold mist hung in the air and moisture beaded on the windows and the paint jobs of more than seventy big trucks. The black asphalt lot shined as if freshly varnished between the rows of semis, reflecting the lighted highway signs and hundreds of streams of horizontal running lights from the parked trucks themselves. The air outside hummed with rumbling engines. Tendrils of steam rose from beneath the engines and combined with the undulating waves of heated exhaust that rose from beneath the big rigs.

From his high perch in the dry and warm cab, his sight lines were clear. The truck plaza itself was filled with activity and he noted it carefully. Vehicles entered and exited the long banks of fuel pumps in front of the garish low-slung building a hundred yards away. Professional truckers filled 150-gallon aluminum tanks with diesel fuel on one side of the lot, passenger cars and vans filled up with gasoline on the other.

Inside the truck stop restaurant, waitresses served the $10.95 T-bone special advertised on the marquee near the exit. Drivers lounged in the “trucker’s only” section checking e-mail, comparing road conditions, or drinking coffee. Truck stop employees cooked up fried chicken and potato wedges for the lighted bins at the front counter and manned the cash registers selling salted snacks, energy boosters, beef jerky, and drinks.

This was the way it was on the open road; islands of lighted activity in a sea of prairie darkness. Cars and families on one side, truckers on the other, but sharing the same facility. Two vastly different worlds that met only at places like this. Inside, truck drivers and citizens barely acknowledged each other and the modern truck stop was designed so there would be little interaction. Sure, the drivers would get on their radios and laugh at the rubes they’d run into inside and mock their looks or stupid conversations, but inside they were segregated between the amateurs and the professionals, the clueless consumers — the civilians, the amateurs — and the cloistered universe of the providers.

He was on the road so much his outlook on it had changed completely over the years. It no longer seemed like he was moving, for one thing. Now he felt as if he were stationary while the road rolled under him and the scenery flowed by. The world came to him.

Like the captain of a large ocean vessel, a large swath of the landscape was off-limits to him, as he was confined by the shipping lanes that were interstate highways. When he parked his truck at a rest area or truck stop for the night he couldn’t venture into town because he had no way to get there unless he walked. It was like a captain who had to anchor his boat and take a dinghy to shore.

Oh, how he resented the smug people in those towns. They thought their food, clothing, furniture, appliances, and electronics simply appeared at stores or on their front doorsteps. They didn’t stop to think that every item they ate or wore or used was likely transported across the nation in the trailer of his truck or those like him, or that the hardworking blue-collar rednecks they avoided in real life and despised on the road were the conduits of their comfort and the pipeline of their wealth.

It was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, so there was more traffic on the highways than usual. It would be much worse the next day as families moved across the country with a lull on Thanksgiving and another spike on Sunday as people returned home. He was used to it. The rhythms of the road were like rivers that flooded and receded in perpetuity.

The Beartooth Mountains to the south were light blue with new snow and the lack of stars indicated heavy cloud cover. It was still warm enough on the valley floor that the moisture hadn’t turned to snowflakes, but there was a snap in the air outside and he watched as travelers left their cars and zipped up coats on their way into the truck stop. He snorted at an overweight family of fools wearing T-shirts and shorts who practically ran from their passenger van to the door that led to the restrooms. Fucking idiots. What if they broke down wearing clothes like that? Who would they look for to rescue them? Me, he thought. The invisible, faceless trucker.

In the darkened cab of his eighteen-speed Model 379 Peterbilt, the Lizard King was alone, quiet and still, the cab perched over 550 horses of steel muscle under the iconic squared-off snout. The truck was flat black, stripped of chrome, and as subtle as a fist. It was a trucker’s truck the way a Harley-Davidson was a biker’s bike. He’d even painted the twin stacks with black chimney paint to eliminate any hint of flash.

Without looking down, he let his right hand slip down on the side of the seat until he could find the string that held his bundle together. He pulled the cord and the bundle unrolled. His fingertips traced each item. Everything had been wiped clean and sterilized since its last use: the tire thumper, which was a short lead-filled wooden baton used to check the pressure of his eighteen wheels, the pliers and wire cutters, two pairs of handcuffs, four knives — the heavy hunting Buck, the short folding Spyderco, the long thin filet knife, and the stainless-steel hatchet. His lightweight Taurus 738 TCP semiauto in .380 ACP. In an oblong, hard, and hinged box once used for sunglasses was a syringe filled with Rohypnol. And his vintage fourteen-inch long Knapp butcher saw with the aluminum T-grip and both bone and wood teeth on opposite sides of the blade. It was designed for the rapid field butchering of big game. He ran his thumb gently along the bone teeth.

Satisfied that everything was in order, he removed the tire thumper and placed it on the dashboard next to his roll of one hundred-mile-an-hour brown Gorilla tape. Both were standard items used by every trucker and they wouldn’t draw a second glance. He bundled the rest of the tools and reached under his seat for the satchel, which contained heavy plastic bags, the wire ties, his folding shovel, the 300,000 volt Stun Master stun gun, and the three-inch-wide roll of duct tape. He put the bundle of tools back into the satchel and zipped it closed.

If things went well, he wouldn’t even need to reach for the satchel. If things went well …

The Lizard King glanced around the cab to make sure he’d completed all the items on his mental checklist. The carpeted floormats had been pulled and stashed, leaving a bare metal floor. Both seats were fitted with clear plastic covers. All logbooks, maps, and other paperwork — anything that could absorb fluid — had been stashed away. He turned in his seat. The cloth drapes separating the cab from the sleeping cabin had long ago been replaced by clear shower curtains that allowed him to see clearly into the back. On his bunk was a specially adapted cover made from blue tarpaulin, and plastic sheeting lined the walls. The single small window of the sleeper was blacked out.

He’d forgotten nothing. There was no cloth or porous surface for blood, hair, or fiber to cling to inside, and the cab and cabin could be hosed clean in a few minutes by a power washer.

He was ready.

He waited for the segregation between the professionals and the amateurs to breach. It did when a rusted-out van cruised the trucking lanes and parked in shadow on the side of the truck stop. North Dakota plates.

Two lot lizards got out and the van drove away. That meant they had thumbed a ride or made arrangements for a pickup later. Meaning there would be no telltale vehicle left at the truck stop to raise any alarm. That was good.

What wasn’t so good was that there were two of them. It wasn’t unusual; they tended to partner up to some extent. Which meant if one of them vanished the other would know.

One lot lizard, who was short and heavy and dark — maybe an Indian from the res to the south — started off for the far corner of the lot. She’d work that side first, he guessed. He breathed a sigh of relief.

The other one put her hands on her hips and looked in his direction.

She looked thin and gaunt and had long stringy blondish hair haloed by the blue overhead lamps and the mist. He couldn’t see her face yet because of the darkness. A long sweater or shawl-like cape hid her figure, which was one of the tricks of the trade. She teetered on high heels and held her hands out to her sides as if for balance and she baby-stepped toward the parked lines of trucks.

Perfect.

He stubbed his cigarette out and squinted through the curl of smoke and the rain-smeared windshield. He could feel his insides start to knot.

Since that morning outside of Chicago the Lizard King had been planning the hunt. He’d awakened in his bunk thinking about it, and at breakfast he’d gone through his mental checklist. It had been several weeks, and he was due.

He pulled a fifty-three-foot trailer known as a “reefer,” meaning the inside of the box was controlled by a separate diesel refrigeration-slash-heating unit mounted on the front. Depending on the contents of his load, he could keep the box cool to freezing, and his loads were primarily pallets of fresh or frozen food. He ran coast-to-coast, picking up apples in Yakima, Washington, and delivering them to Boston, and completing the circuit with yogurt from Connecticut or potatoes from New Jersey to be delivered in the west. The loads and destinations varied from circuit to circuit, and sometimes he forgot what he was hauling. It took him four and a half days to run from one coast to the other, and he generally completed two full laps of the nation before returning home. His life was a rhythm of three weeks on the road, a week at home to recuperate and get repairs, then three more weeks of running. He was on his way home after nineteen straight days on the road; meaning no more than eleven hours of driving in any fourteen-hour period, and ten hours of rest in order to legally drive another eleven.

The Lizard King knew mileposts on every highway in America and knew which truck stops to fuel up and which ones to avoid. He timed his routes to avoid as many weigh scales — called “chicken coops”—as possible and he’d rather use his piss-jug than be forced to stop at highway rest areas frequented by homosexuals known as “pickle parks.” Like all truckers, he did his best to avoid states with overbearing troopers and stupid regulations like Minnesota, Ohio, California, Oregon, and Washington, and he gave a wide berth to other trucks from companies known for poorly trained drivers.

It had taken just one glimpse of a young woman the night before, red-haired and college-age, her car filled with boxes and clothes she was taking home for Thanksgiving break, who passed him on an incline and swung back into his lane so recklessly that he had to tap his brakes and lean on his horn. When he was able to catch back up with her in the passing lane she looked up and their eyes met for a brief second. Then she flipped him off with dismissive contempt. That’s all it took. Rage blasted through him and orange spangles erupted in front of his eyes.

Before he could swing his rig over into her lane and force her off the highway she stomped on her accelerator and shot ahead. Their bumpers almost kissed but she gained distance. He cursed the half-load in his trailer that held him back. It was like dragging an anchor behind him. He cursed that red-haired girl until her taillights faded away in the dark.

He’d kept an eye out for her all the way to Janesville, Wisconsin. But by the time he got to Chippewa Falls he’d lost her somewhere. She’d either continued to speed home straight ahead or she’d taken an exit off the interstate.

She had no idea, he thought, how lucky she was. Outside West Fargo, he’d barely slept and he thought of what she’d look like bound in cuffs and tape with a whole new attitude toward him.

So after breakfast, in light rain outside of Mandan, he parked at a rest area and pulled on his raincoat. The first thing to do was to make his loaded eighty-thousand-pound truck invisible. He did it by covering the transmittal dome of his Qualcomm unit with a shower cap lined with aluminum foil and sealing the bottom with tape. This way, neither his employers nor curious troopers could track his movements or his speed.

His anticipation built throughout the day as he rolled west. He paid special attention to the radio and slowed in advance of the speed traps or scales outside Wibaux and Bad Route, Montana, and he didn’t stop for lunch or mandatory rest periods although he lied in his logs to say he did. He shot across I-94 in Montana maintaining the perfect speed of sixty-three miles per hour for maximum fuel efficiency for his Caterpillar C15 motor to get as far ahead of schedule as possible. They shouldn’t expect him before 10:00 P.M. If the dispatcher, that bitch, said she had trouble tracking him via his Qualcomm, he’d curse and say it must have malfunctioned again like the last time.

He gained four hours, he figured, by the time he hit Miles City, Montana. Four hours of free time, where no one would be watching. He’d carry that four free hours with him as he pounded west, and not withdraw a minute of it until he got to the truck stop outside Billings.

Four hours was more than enough time to do what he needed to do. He’d done it in two, so he was sure of it.

He’d arrived early to the truck stop, an hour before dark. At that time there was plenty of room in the back row of the trucker’s lot when he arrived, and he took a middle space without neighbors on either side.

Choosing the back row meant something to other truckers. Either the driver wanted to get some real sleep in his cabin behind the seat, or he wanted privacy to rest or do paperwork, or, in this case, he was sending a signal that he was available to the truck stop prostitutes who worked the facility. The lot lizards.

He carried a duffel bag across the lot in the dusk and went straight to the trucker’s entrance of the building. Inside, he paid eleven dollars for a shower. He shaved and changed into a disposable one-piece Tyvek jumpsuit with elastic bands on the sleeves and cuffs. The jumpsuit got no strange looks in the trucker’s lounge because truckers wore all kinds of strange clothing. A driver with a full beard, a multicolored serape, and flip-flops sat at a table reviewing his logbook. The man didn’t even look up. One driver he knew drove in his underwear with the heat on high.

Still, though, when he became the Lizard King he knew his presence made a statement. People shied away from him when they saw him coming. Conversations stopped as he passed by, like there was some kind of malevolent black cloud hanging over his head. And when he stared at others they tended to quickly look away. It used to bother him, but now he took a kind of perverse pride in it. He didn’t want to make new friends, anyway. What was the point?

The Lizard King had never felt brotherhood toward other drivers. In fact, he found many of them as disgusting as the amateurs on the road. He noted how many piss-jars and urine bombs had been tossed on the side of the road, how many Walmart bags of feces. He’d seen the cutaways in the floorboards of some trucks, and he cringed when he witnessed fat truckers parking as close as possible to the truck stop restaurant so they wouldn’t have to waddle far to eat. And then there were the Bible-thumpers …

He avoided the public retail section of the truck stop, and took a long route back to his Peterbilt through dozens of idling trucks so no one would track where he went. As he passed between two semis in the first row he was dismayed to find a small knot of five drivers shooting the breeze back and forth. Three men leaned against the fuel tank of a blue Mack on the left and two others mirrored their posture against a red Kenworth on the right. He had no choice but to walk right through them and to betray no surprise or caution. To his chagrin, they were arguing about a Bible passage.

“That ain’t what it means,” one of them said. The man was tall and well built and clean-shaven. He wore a yellow chamois shirt and a ball cap that read TRUCKING FOR JESUS. His Mack truck had the same logo painted on its door behind him. He said, “Listen: ‘The discretion of a man defers his anger, and it is his glory to overlook a transgression.’ That’s in Proverbs. It means look the other way.”

The driver he was arguing with leaning against the Kenworth had bushy muttonchop sideburns and wore a cowboy hat. He shook his head and said, “No, you listen. Romans 12:20 says, ‘If your enemy hungers, feed him; if he thirsts, give him drink; for in doing so you shall heap coals of fire on his head.’ That says to me God will get your revenge for you so you don’t need to do any thumpin’. That says God don’t look the other way but you should.”

“God doesn’t do revenge,” the man in the chamois shirt said, rolling his eyes. “He does love and forgiveness. Maybe you ought to do the same.”

“And I will if I know God will do the thumpin’. But if he’s just going to let the bad man get away with it — naw, that don’t seem right.”

“You’re readin’ it wrong, friend,” Chamois said. “Remember that later in Proverbs…”

“Excuse me,” the Lizard King said, “just passing through.” He wanted to get by them as quickly as possible. He hoped they were so deep into their discussion they wouldn’t even recall him later if asked. The front row truckers weren’t all Christians, but many of them were. They’d park next to each other in their sanctimony and self-righteousness and spout verses and lessons to each other while looking down on people like him. He avoided them whenever possible.

The Bible-thumpers sometimes hung bras out their drivers’ side windows at night as a way of warding off the prostitutes since it suggested a husband and wife driving team inside. It was a message known well among truckers, but not all the whores knew what it meant, which caused great consternation among the faithful.

“Hey, you look familiar,” the muttonchop driver said to the Lizard King.

Since he couldn’t just charge through now without making more of an impression than he wanted to, he glanced up at Muttonchops and said, “Sorry, I don’t recall.”

But he did. The truck stop out of Amarillo. Muttonchips had been down there, parked in his Kenworth the row in front of the Lizard King, when that fat lot lizard in the Ugg boots and micromini waddled her way to his Peterbilt. The Lizard King was ready—oh, he was ready—but as he reached down to let her in he looked up to see Muttonchops watching him through his side sleeper window.

It ruined the moment, and destroyed his plans. If Muttonchops was later questioned and could say he saw the fat lizard get into the Peterbilt …

So instead of inviting her in and starting the process, he’d opened the door and as she reached up for his hand to climb inside greeted her face with a kick from his size twelve hunting boot. She fell in a heap on the pavement, blood streaming out of her nose. She was angry but not nearly as angry as he was as he slammed the door shut. He hoped like hell Muttonchops didn’t get a clear look at his face that night when he opened his door.

“McAllen, Texas, then?” Muttonchops said, not sure. “The Flying J down there?”

The Lizard King shrugged. “Nope,” he lied. “I ain’t been down there in years.”

The McAllen truck stop was one of the better locations for lot lizards in the country. It ranked right up there with the Vince Lombardi Service Area on the New Jersey Turnpike or any truck stop in Gary, Indiana. Other infamous lot lizard high spots included El Paso, Detroit, and the Port of Albany in New York. Although truckers rarely used CB radios anymore, they still had them. Lot lizards knew it, and he’d hear his radio crackle with, “Anybody need company tonight? If you do, take it to 21. This is Barbie Doll…”

Once the lot lizard and the trucker switched to the other channel — along with everyone else parked at the stop who wanted to listen in — there would be a discussion of services, prices, and the location of the man who wanted company. The Lizard King didn’t ever respond. He waited for them to come to his door.

“Feel free to join us, brother,” Chamois said. “You’re more’n welcome. You don’t have to know nothing about the Bible. My friend here doesn’t, either.”

Muttonchops said, “Hey,” as if offended and a couple of the others laughed.

“Thanks,” the Lizard King said, waving over his shoulder but not looking back.

“You a Christian, son?” Chamois asked.

“Sure,” he said without conviction.

“God bless you, buddy,” Chamois said. “Whatever you are. Whatever the deal is with you.”

And one of the others said, “He needs it.”

The Lizard King didn’t stop or turn around to see who said it. Was it Muttonchops? Did Muttonchops just remember where they’d met and what nearly happened?

As he reached the back bumper of the trucks and turned left, he shot a quick look over his shoulder at the Bible-thumpers. They were still looking in his direction, and Muttonchops was in the middle of them, talking low.

“He needs it” stuck in his craw as he watched the skinny blond lot lizard climb up into a cab ten trucks away. Who were they to judge him, those bastards? he thought. Weren’t they supposed to show some tolerance? Wasn’t their whole act about forgiveness?

She was making her way toward him, truck by truck. Most calls were refusals, but four trucks away he saw a hairy arm reach down from a cab and a big hand grasp hers and pull her up. The lights in the cab went out and he saw cheap curtains pulled sharply across the sleeper cab window. He’d gotten a glimpse of her thin and haggard face from the interior dome light of the cab before it went out, and it wasn’t a face to write home about. But it would do, he thought. He slid the elastic cuff up over his wristwatch and checked the time. In about five minutes she’d be done. It rarely took longer than that. Truckers wanted blow jobs and not much conversation. Rarely did they want anything else that would take more time. Five minutes tops, and the lot lizards backed out, usually grasping stained and crumpled tissue.

He hoped she had all her teeth but if she didn’t, he hoped she had none. He remembered that one in Utah after he’d knocked all her teeth out …

There were more and more semis entering the truck stop by the minute, and more cars. They were pouring in. He couldn’t account for the sudden traffic, but the more chaos and confusion on the lot, the better for hunting.

He sat back, trying to stay calm until she reached him.

He visualized the dispatcher, that dried-up old crow, trying to track him by his Qualcomm and flipping out because she couldn’t locate him or his truck.

His ears hummed with tension and he was so preoccupied he almost didn’t hear the rapping on his driver’s door. The sound jerked him out of his internal debate, and suddenly all was quiet and he was focused.

He wondered how the hell she’d gotten there so fast. Had everyone else rejected her? Or was there a new one, a new lot lizard he hadn’t seen?

He reached over and grasped the door handle and opened it a few inches. It was that damned Chamois and Muttonchop.

He didn’t open his door more than two inches, so they couldn’t see inside.

“Hey, buddy,” Chamois said, “We just heard I-90 West will likely be closed all night.”

“Why?”

“Big propane truck jackknifed a few miles past Laurel. The Montana State Patrol shut down both lanes.”

That explained the sudden arrival of traffic, he thought.

“No shit?” he said, angry they were there but assuming they’d interpret his curse being about the highway.

“Yeah,” Chamois said, “We’re likely to be here all night. The Montana state boys are taking every precaution that jackknifed truck don’t blow up.”

He looked down through the gap between the door and the frame. Muttonchop stood shoulder to shoulder with Chamois but he couldn’t see his face. The Lizard King wanted them to leave. Their presence might spook the lot lizard working her way to him. Or they might turn on her, the Bible-thumping bastards.

“Well,” the Lizard King said, “thanks for letting me know. I may give it a try later, though. I’m not that far from home base and there are a few other routes I can take.”

“Where’s home?” Chamois asked. “Livingston, Montana?”

He was taken aback that they knew, but then realized they’d read it on his door.

“Yeah.”

“That ain’t that far.”

“That’s what I’m sayin’.”

“Well,” Chamois said, as if killing time for a reason the Lizard King couldn’t discern, “you’ll have to decide for yourself which road you take.”

He said it in a way that caused the Lizard King to think it had nothing to do with the highway.

“That I’ll do,” he answered, trying to keep his rage from overtaking him. These bastards were mocking him. “In fact, I’ll do whatever the hell I want and I don’t need any help or advice from you,” he said, slamming the door shut.

As he watched them walk away toward their trucks in the front row, he saw Muttonchop playfully punch Chamois in the shoulder as if they were sharing a joke. He thought of shoving his gearshift into second and mowing them down.

Then he saw her, the blond one. She was descending from the cab four trucks away. The lights inside came back on. And she was teetering toward him on her high heels.

Everything was set up perfectly, but too many factors nagged at him. The closed road, for one. And all the attention the Bible-thumpers had paid him. One of the beauties of the road was its anonymity. The Bible-thumpers would likely be five states away by morning. Still, though, they’d seen his face. They knew his rig. If they were somehow found and questioned later …

A voice in the back of his head squawked: Abort-abort-abort.

But the closer she got, the more his entire body coursed with electricity and it seemed like his nerve endings were firing, shooting sparks. It had been so long, and he was ready to explode. He thought of that red-haired girl calling him a loser. Those Bible-thumpers mocking him. His perfect, perfect plan and preparation.

He almost felt sorry for the lot lizard because she had no idea what kind of hell she was getting herself into.

2

EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD DANIELLE AND sixteen-year-old Gracie Sullivan were traveling north on I-25 in Danielle’s red 2006 Ford Focus with the green Colorado PLNTDNL license plates and music blaring, the wipers smearing spots on rain and snow across the windshield, and the check engine light on. PLNTDNL stood for “Planet Danielle” and it was her car.

Gracie was simply along for the long ride to Omaha to be with their dad for Thanksgiving. Their parents had divorced years before and the girls rotated holidays between Denver, where they lived with their mother, and Omaha, where their father had most recently moved with his software engineering firm.

He even sent them a GPS and a road atlas for their Thanksgiving trip to Omaha. The atlas was in the backseat, where Danielle had tossed it after determining their route. The GPS was still in its box in the trunk unopened, because Danielle didn’t want to take the time and trouble to figure out how it worked. Their bags were stuffed in the trunk and the backseat floor was littered with fast-food bags and wrappers and empty plastic water bottles.

Danielle was at the wheel. She drove like she lived — with wild impulsive fits and starts. Gracie would watch the speedometer slow to fifty while Danielle searched for a song she liked on the sound system or texted on her phone, then gritted her teeth when her sister sped up to eighty with the rhythm of the music. It drove Gracie crazy.

“At least go the friggin’ speed limit,” Gracie said, wide-eyed and pleading. “Don’t you have cruise control? Why don’t you set it so you don’t kill us before we get there?”

“We’ll be fine,” Danielle said. “Stop freaking out.”

“You drive like a crazy person.”

Danielle let up on the accelerator pedal and reset the cruise control at exactly seventy-five. “There. Are you happy now?”

“Yes!”

“This is boring.”

“That’s okay!”

They’d left that morning at nine. It was eight hours to Omaha; north on I-25 to Cheyenne, then east on I-80. Gracie wished she was old enough to have a driver’s license so she could drive. Danielle was dangerous. Lanes meant nothing to her.

Danielle was dark-haired, big-eyed, with a full figure and a wide mouth. She was everything Gracie wasn’t. Gracie was pencil-thin with reddish blond hair, freckles across her nose, and of course she wore glasses because contacts irritated her eyes.

“And you need to stop texting,” Gracie said.

“You are such an old lady,” Danielle replied. “You should have blue hair and a walker. And orthaconic shoes.”

“Orthopedic.”

“Whatever.”

“Look,” Gracie said, “I was up until two this morning getting all my homework done. I’m tired.”—Danielle rolled her eyes. She never did homework. — “and I want to get some sleep. But I can’t sleep with you speeding up and slowing down and weaving all over the road.”

Danielle didn’t respond and didn’t indicate she even heard her. She was looking at her phone.

“He won’t answer,” she said.

“Who, Justin?”

“Of course Justin. Who else?”

“Oh, stop it,” Gracie moaned.

“He always asks about you. He thinks of you as the dorky little sister he never had.”

“God!”

“I tell him how smart you are, how you got all of the brains while I got all of the rest. How all the teachers can’t believe we’re even related and blah-blah-blah.” She wriggled her fingers in the air while she talked because she knew how much the gesture annoyed Gracie and always had. “And he asks, ‘Is she still a flat little plain Jane?’”

“He did not!” Gracie whined. The fact was, Danielle was more than a little correct. Justin was a genuinely great guy, smart and athletic, always positive. He was a reader, too, and Gracie and Justin had discussed books while Danielle stood aside rolling her big blue eyes. Gracie and Justin probably had more in common than Danielle and Justin, Gracie thought. They had both read the entire Harry Potter series, for one thing. But Justin had moved with his mother to Helena, Montana, in the spring. Danielle hadn’t seen him since, although they were in constant contact via cell phone, Facebook, and Twitter.

“Well, no, maybe he didn’t exactly say it,” Danielle said, enjoying the torture of her sister, “but he was thinking it. I know this because the two of us, Justin and me, are like one. I’ll bet you never in a million years would have guessed we’d still be together two years later.”

“You’re right,” Gracie said. “How long before he figures out you’re dumber than a box of rocks?”

Danielle ignored that. She said, “We are, you know, like one being. Like we had a mind-meld. We can finish each other’s sentences. I bet you didn’t know that about us.”

Gracie said, “Anybody can finish your sentences. All they have to say is, ‘That’s, like, friggin’ awesome.’ See how easy it is?”

“You can be such a little bitch,” Danielle said, stung.

“I’m tired!”

“Then go to sleep,” Danielle said. “Leave me alone.”

Gracie sighed and sat back. She tried not to think about Danielle, or the fact that the moment she closed her eyes her sister stomped on the gas pedal and started texting on her phone.

Gracie slept hard, and when she awoke she sat up and rubbed her eyes. She was surprised to see that it was late afternoon and the sun was slanting shadows across the empty landscape.

“You snore,” Danielle said.

There were distant mountains to the west and it took her a moment to say, “Where are we? This doesn’t look like Nebraska.”

“Really?” Danielle smirked. “It doesn’t?”

“Danielle,” she said, alarmed, “where are we?”

Her sister flipped her hair back and said, “Somewhere between Casper and Sheridan, Wyoming.”

Gracie was suddenly wide-awake. “You missed the turnoff. We’re in Wyoming instead of Nebraska. We’re north instead of east. Turn around!”

“Calm down,” Danielle said. “I know what I’m doing.”

“What?”

“I’m going to Helena to see Justin. He won’t answer my texts and he won’t take my calls. There’s something wrong and I have to see him.”

It took a few seconds for Gracie to comprehend what she’d been told. When she did, she said, “Have you lost your friggin’ mind?”

“No, I’ve found it,” Danielle said theatrically. “Someone has gotten to Justin and I won’t let it happen.”

Gracie shook her head in disbelief. “Turn around or I’m calling Mom.”

Danielle snorted.

Gracie realized why when she reached into her bag on the floor of the car and her phone wasn’t there.

“Give it back,” Gracie said.

“I will when you calm down,” Danielle said. She refused to meet her sister’s eyes, and for once concentrated on the road ahead of her. Gracie had rarely seen Danielle so determined … or so irrational.

“I’ll clear it with Dad,” Danielle said. “If he’s okay with it, you should be okay with it. He’s the one making the call here. Mom will have Thanksgiving with Aunt Susan and it won’t matter where we are if Dad says it’s okay.”

“But he won’t,” Gracie pleaded. “He’ll tell us to turn around and now we won’t get there until the middle of the night.”

Danielle said, “So you’ll agree that if he says it’s okay, you’ll calm the fuck down?”

Gracie balled up her hands and pounded them once, hard, on her knees. “This is so stupid I can’t believe it.”

“Hush,” Danielle said, “I’m calling.”

As soon as Gracie heard Danielle say, in her most girlish and syrupy voice, “Hi, Daddy, it’s Danny,” she knew how the conversation would turn out. And she hated her father for it.

Danielle activated the speaker on her cell phone and Gracie could hear both sides of the conversation.

Their dad was a pushover, especially for Danielle’s pleading, and especially since he still felt guilty about the disaster of their back-country trip to Yellowstone Park two years before. He was still trying to make up for it and the only way he knew how was to give in to anything Danielle asked of him and to try to get himself back into her good graces.

“Does your mom know?” Ted Sullivan asked. Gracie could hear the fear in his voice.

“Not yet,” Danielle said. “But don’t worry. I’ll tell her.”

Silence.

Finally, Ted said, “But if I know what you’re doing and I don’t tell her…”

“I’ll handle Mom,” Danielle said with confidence.

Ted obviously wasn’t convinced, though. He said, “She asked me to call her when you girls arrived. I can’t call her and lie. I just can’t.”

Danielle frowned for a moment, then grinned. “I’ve got it,” she said. “Just don’t call at all. Tell her tomorrow you forgot. That sounds like something you’d do. By then everything will be fine.”

“Boy, I don’t know,” Ted said with doubt in his voice.

“Daddy, we all know how scatterbrained you can be. This won’t be the first time you forgot something.”

“That’s true,” he said.

“Dad!” Gracie shouted. She couldn’t remain silent another second. “Did you forget you have two daughters?”

“Hi, Gracie,” he said sheepishly.

“Maybe I don’t want to go, did you think about that?” Gracie said. “Did you think maybe I don’t want to spend Thanksgiving with Danielle’s boyfriend?”

Before Ted could respond, Danielle switched off her speaker and pulled the phone up to her ear. “Daddy, you really like Justin, don’t you? Remember when you told me that?”

Gracie was so angry she could barely hear the rest of the conversation. It went on for another five minutes before Danielle said, “Goodbye. I love you, Daddy,” and dropped the phone into her lap.

“He says he might fly to Helena for Thanksgiving to be with us,” Danielle said. “So will that make you happy?”

“Not really,” Gracie said. “He’s such a wimp at times.”

Danielle told Gracie Dad seemed to enjoy being in on the deception because it was something he could share with his girls.

“He can be such a limp weenie.” Danielle laughed.

Gracie didn’t like to think of their dad like that. She wanted him to be brave, tough, admirable, and stoic. But Danielle was right.

After an hour of angry silence, Gracie pointed at the red CHECK ENGINE light.

“Hey, what’s with this little engine thing that’s lit up?”

“Don’t worry about it,” Danielle said.

“Shouldn’t we get it checked?”

“By who? We’re in the middle of friggin’ nowhere if you haven’t noticed,” Danielle said, gesturing outside toward the darkening mountains in the distance. They’d just entered Montana. The last sign they’d passed said they were entering the Crow Indian Reservation. “Just don’t worry about it. It’s been on for hours.”

“Danielle!”

“We’ll ask Justin to check it out when we get there. He knows something about cars, I think. Just quit worrying about everything all the time.” Her sister noted the time on her phone and changed the subject. “It’s four. Time to text Mom and tell her we can see Omaha from here. There’s no reason to make her worry.”

Gracie winced. “You mean, other than you’re lying to her.”

“Better that than spending her whole holiday worrying. And I promise to call her when we get to Helena. I’ll take all the blame, don’t worry.”

Danielle sent the text and threw back her head and laughed. “I can talk anybody into anything,” she said, looking over and batting her eyes, letting her voice take on the syrupy tone she’d used on their dad. “It’s just this thing I have. This gift. This wonderful skill.”

Gracie clamped her jaws tight and fumed. But it was true, and it was unfair. Her beautiful and oh-so-popular older sister had the ability to manipulate people in amazing ways and she had no qualms about doing so.

“I can’t believe you’re doing this,” Gracie said, shaking her head. “I can’t believe I’m letting you.”

“It’s because you love me,” Danielle said. “And who can blame you?”

“God!”

“Justin loves me, too,” Danielle sang. “He said I’m the best thing that has ever happened to him. And you know what? I am. He might have forgotten it a little or gotten, you know, distracted. But once he sees me again, and remembers what it’s like to be on Planet Danielle…” she saw no need to finish her thought.

“You can be such a—”

“Wonderful sister,” Danielle interjected. “That was the word you were looking for. We’re here because of love. You love me and you want to support me in my relationship with Justin, even though you are a little jealous because he’s so hot and sweet and sexy.”

“I’m worried about this engine light,” Gracie said.

“Forget about it.”

“I can’t forget about it. What if the car breaks down? Then what do we do?”

“It won’t break down,” Danielle said, petting the dash with both hands, “it loves me, too. My car would never let me down.”

Danielle interrupted her monologue long enough to hand Gracie’s phone back to her and open her own. Gracie watched her sister speed dial a number.

“He won’t pick up,” Danielle said to her in a stage whisper. Then, on Justin’s voice mail, she said, “Guess who is driving right now to Helena to spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend? Call me.”

Danielle closed her phone and beamed.

3

Cassie Dewell sat in a hard chair across the desk from Sheriff Tubman in the Law Enforcement Center and became proportionately more alarmed as his mounting glee became apparent. She found herself squirming in the chair, trying to find a comfortable position. She wasn’t even aware at first that her hands ached because she was squeezing them together between her thighs.

Tubman slowly studied each of the printed photographs she’d brought him, his eyes dancing across every inch of every one, the set of his mouth pulling back into a smile of satisfaction. After he studied a photo, he placed it faceup and side by side on his desk in chronological order as they’d been taken. Soon, the photos stretched across the desk from corner to corner in three neat rows.

She had no desire to look again at the photos. After all, she’d taken them the night before. She was sick about what she’d set in motion. What Tubman had forced her to do.

The large envelope containing the prints had been locked inside her briefcase under her desk the entire day. They were there when she and Cody met to start assembling the murder book on Roger Tokely. Cody was patient with her and walked her through the process of methodically assembling the crime scene reports and photographs, the preliminary coroner’s report, the case file time line, the written recap of their initial investigation.

They were there when the crime scene techs, twenty-year veteran Tex McIntire and Alexa Manning, his new twenty-seven-year-old lesbian assistant (further proof of Tubman’s diversity program at work), burst into the investigator’s office to announce their find in Tokely’s garbage can. Not only did they locate a credit card receipt signed by Brantley Meyers, aka “B. G.”, but they’d also bagged fragments of food that might determine B. G.’s presence, via DNA, inside the Tokely residence on the night of the murder.

She’d watched Cody closely when they heard the news. He seemed genuinely pleased.

Cassie knew what she had. And she dreaded showing the photos to the sheriff. He’d been out all day on a campaign swing to Lincoln and other small communities in northern Lewis and Clark County. With each hour, her tension increased. She’d passed on lunch when Cody asked, and said she was trying to diet. He nodded back knowingly, practically telegraphing his approval to try and lose a few pounds, but reminded her of the maxim he’d always lived by: “Take every possible opportunity you can to eat and take a shit, because this county is 3,500 square miles, a third of it roadless.”

As soon as he was gone she drove to Taco Bell and ate herself through half the menu, it seemed. Stress did that to her. So did boredom. So did everything, she thought ruefully.

Sheriff Tubman had returned to the Law Enforcement Center at four thirty and looked in on Cody and Cassie. When she looked up and met Tubman’s eyes he knew immediately.

“Got a minute?” the sheriff asked her.

“Yes.”

“My office, please,” he said, and shut the door behind him.

Cody had asked her what the meeting was about.

“How should I know?” she lied.

“Tell him he’s a prick,” Cody had said. “Tell him I’ve seen better leaders on the end of my fly line.”

“I’m sure I’ll do that,” she responded, and grabbed the handle of her briefcase on the way out.

It was more than two weeks since daylight savings time had ended and she hated how early it got dark. As she sat across from the sheriff she looked over his shoulder through the window. White-blue lights were strobing to life in the parking lot. She could see clerical staff trundling out to their cars in heavy coats, condensation puffs revealing their conversation. After five, the LEC cleared out. She wished she was one of them. And given what was about to happen, she wondered for the first time since accepting the job if she was really cut out for it.

“Here you can clearly see he’s turned his headlights out,” Tubman said, looking at the first two photographs. She’d used the night-vision setup on her digital Canon Rebel. Cody had taught her how to use it, she thought with a stab of guilt. The full moon had really helped as well.

Tubman said, “The only possible reason he’d do that would be so the citizens up on the bench wouldn’t notice a vehicle. That’s the only real explanation, since we all know the Tokely residence was empty.”

She nodded once but said nothing.

“What’s this in his hand and under his arm?” Tubman asked, looking at the next few photos. “It looks like a bag of something. A paper bag.

“And here he is standing on the front porch looking back. Trying to see if anyone is watching him. Is it possible he could see you?”

“No, sir.”

“That’s obvious,” Tubman said, practically rubbing his hands together with joy. “Because in the next shot he’s bending down picking the lock. That’s breaking and entering right there, as well as proof that he’s trying to do something worse. Because if he had a legitimate reason to go back into that house, all he had to do was file a request for the keys from the evidence room.”

She tried to swallow but her mouth was dry.

“So we jump ahead,” Tubman said. “The next few shots show nothing, just his vehicle and the dark house. But that tells us something right there, because he made a decision not to turn on any lights. Why would an investigator do such a thing? Why would a red-blooded, honest cop sneak into a crime scene and bump around in the dark? Gee, that’s a tough one,” Tubman said with heavy sarcasm.

“And here he comes out of the house. How long was he in there, Investigator Dewell?”

She cleared her throat but had trouble speaking.

“How long? I didn’t get that.”

“Seven minutes, sir.”

“Seven minutes. That’s a very short period of time to do a thorough investigation or follow up on a lead, don’t you think?”

“Please, sir,” she said.

“Okay, be that way,” he said dismissively. He turned his attention to the last few prints.

“He comes out after seven minutes and what do you know? He no longer has the paper bag! He must have thrown it away inside because he’s such a stickler for littering, don’t you think?”

She said nothing.

“And here he is looking around again. Trying to see if anyone saw him. Do you think at that point he was suspicious of you?”

“He might have heard my car, sir. I started it up because I was freezing and I wanted to turn the heater on.”

“But he didn’t see you.”

“No.”

“And he hasn’t asked you what you were doing last night?”

“No.”

Tubman sat back in his chair with a grin and looked at her. He said, “Good work, Investigator Dewell. Damned good work. I’ve finally gotten that son of a bitch, thanks to you.”

She looked away.

“I know you didn’t feel comfortable following him when I asked you,” Tubman said. “But you did your duty. You should be proud. No one wants a crooked cop in their department, much less a crooked partner. Why do you look like I shot your dog?”

“I just don’t feel good about this,” she said. “He’s such a great cop in so many ways.”

“Bullshit,” Tubman said sharply, sitting forward and glaring at her over the prints. “He’s been a pain in my ass since we hired him. There’s a good reason why he got kicked off the Denver Metro police force — because he’s a renegade. He might have solved some cases but who is to say he didn’t plant evidence then?”

She said, “He had the highest arrest rate in Denver. I looked it up. And he’s got the highest rate here. He’s your best cop when it comes to solving felonies. You know that.”

“What I know,” Tubman said, “is that the happiest day of my career is when I see his ass going out my door.”

Before she could respond, Tubman reached for his phone and punched the intercom button.

“Hoyt,” Tubman said, “I need to see you in my office.”

He grinned as he lowered the handset onto the cradle.

Cassie felt like she’d been punched in the stomach. She said, “You’re going to do this while I’m in the room? You’re actually going to do this now? So he knows who brought him down?”

Tubman waggled his eyebrows like Groucho Marx. He said, “I need a witness to the execution.”

“I’d rather it not be me, sir.”

“You’re looking at this all wrong, Dewell,” Tubman said. “You brought down a crooked cop. The Independent Record will love it. The Billings Gazette will love it. And the voters will love it.”

She took in a ragged breath of air and exhaled it through her nose. “I’m not running for anything,” she said.

“Keep up this good work,” he said, “and someday you might be. I mean, plenty of years from now.” He meant it as a good-natured joke but she didn’t smile.

There was a knock on the door.

“Come in, Investigator Hoyt,” Tubman said.

Cody took in the scene quickly. She watched as he squinted at the prints, at Tubman’s triumphant grin, and turned to her without saying a word.

His face didn’t twitch but the light went out of his eyes as he looked at her. They were the eyes of a man who had lost it all.

4

The Lizard King watched as the lot lizard approached the Mack parked next to his. She tottered on her high heels and held her arms out for balance as if navigating a high wire. She’d be at his truck in five minutes, tops. Less if the driver refused. Because she was on the other side of the Mack at the driver’s door, he couldn’t see her.

He was barely breathing, and he felt himself becoming aroused. Not by her, but by what he was going to do to her.

The dome light went on in the cab of the Mack as the driver opened his door to answer the knock. The Lizard King could see the back of the Mack driver’s bald head and a dark crown of fuzz that wrapped from ear to ear in the back. The bald head nodded up and down. He was talking to her.

“Come on, buddy,” he whispered. “Do it or don’t. Quit fucking negotiating. Get out your forty bucks and stop trying to make a deal.”

The last three words came out in a shout.

The Mack cab light doused. He couldn’t see inside but he hadn’t seen her enter. The driver pulled the wrap-around cab curtain closed.

There were four kinds of sleeper cabs on the road, from the “coffin” type with a tiny twenty-four-inch bed accessible through a porthole-like hatch to the lavish studio sleepers that were practically camper trailers with wide beds, showers, sinks, and entertainment centers. Between the extremes were “condos” where the bed lifted to the ceiling to allow some headroom and “midroof” models where the bunk was on the bottom with storage compartments on top. The Lizard King preferred the midroof, but all of the designs were big enough to allow two people to cavort inside. Lot lizards didn’t need much space.

Then there she was, coming around the front of the Mack, her hand out on the grille of the truck for balance. The driver in the Mack had sent her away. She was shaking her head as if she couldn’t believe it. It was obviously a refusal from the driver. Maybe he’d said something, or gotten a quick free grope, he thought. She paused and quickly composed herself; smoothing her hair down on the sides and tugging at the hem of her skirt. Then she put on her game face and looked up and started toward his door as if nothing had happened.

The ten seconds it took for her to rap on his door seemed like an eternity. Then he heard it: three blows. These girls weren’t subtle, he thought.

He reached for the door handle with his left hand and cracked his door a few inches. With his right he reached down and touched the plastic grip on the stun gun with the tips of his fingers.

“Yes?” he asked.

“Are you looking for a little company tonight?” she asked. He could see one eye through the crack. Too much dark eyeliner, as usual. The collar of her coat was faux fur and it sparkled with flakes of snow.

“I am,” he said.

“Are you alone or do you have a partner, too?”

“Just me.”

“Then,” she said, drawing out the word, “why don’t you open your door and let me inside so we can party?” She gestured toward the slightly open door: “I’m skinny but I ain’t this skinny, dude.” Her laugh was rough — a cackle.

He shot a quick look through the windshield. No one appeared to be watching, but with those Bible-thumpers one never knew. He looked across. The driver in the Mack had apparently settled into his sleeper for the night. The Lizard King could see bands of light blue from a television under drawn curtains.

He opened the door and could see her in full. She was older than he’d hoped. Her eyes peered from dark hollows, like a raccoon. Her face was angular, emaciated, with a gash of bright red lipstick. She didn’t part her lips when she smiled up at him. Probably ashamed of her teeth, he thought. As he reached down for her hand she hesitated for a moment, looking up at him. She seemed taken aback by the white Tyvek jumpsuit, and when she saw his face she recoiled.

“Are you coming in or not?” he asked, annoyed.

Although she seemed to be reconsidering, she extended her hand. He grasped it and pulled her up into the cab. As she wriggled over and sat on his lap he shut the door and the dome light went out. He could feel her bony hips through his suit. There wasn’t much meat on her. And she could no doubt feel how hard he was beneath her.

“You’re ready for me, ain’t you, cowboy?” she said.

He grunted. Her coat and hair smelled of damp and stale cigarette smoke.

“So how do you like it, sugar?”

He said, “Rough.”

She froze, but before she could reply he reached up and plunged the twin prods of the stun gun into her bare neck beneath her jawbone. There was the angry snapping sound of electricity and she arched her back with more strength than he thought possible for a meth head.

He took the stun gun away and could smell burned flesh and hair in the cab as her body went limp. He roughly pushed her off him and she fell away and thumped on the bare metal floor at his feet.

Then, as he reached down to pull her back into the sleeper cab, she started to convulse. Her arms and legs jerked spasmodically and her head turned to show a gaping mouth. Teeth missing, he thought. He was right about her. He shrunk back, alarmed and angry. What was happening? One of her feet twitched so rapidly her shoe came off and bounced off the door. She’d struck back wildly with her fist and hit his ankle.

She made an “uunnh” sound and stopped moving. Her head was still twisted to the side and a long thin breath clattered out of her. He knew she was dead.

He cursed aloud and kicked the body hard. Nothing. This had never happened before. Was she so strung out the voltage triggered cardiac arrest? He didn’t know and didn’t care.

He just knew he was angry and not at all satisfied. He hated that bitch for dying on him so soon.

He bellowed, “Goddamn it!” and thumped the steering wheel hard with the heel of his hand.

And he heard the laughter and looked up. Chamois, Muttonchops, and the other Bible-thumpers had once again assembled between two trucks in the front row. They weren’t looking at him, but they were laughing and gesticulating over some private joke. It was like they were mocking him.

The Lizard King rolled her body over. There was blood everywhere, rivulets coursing through steel channels on the floorboard and pooling in dents where the metal was screwed to the frame. Then he saw the curved bone handle of the knife sticking out from her breast. Right into her heart. Her ratty purse fell away as he rolled her to her back.

So she’d packed a knife of her own, he thought. A cheap hunting knife hidden in her soft cloth purse. Without a sheath. And when she fell to the floor the blade pierced through the purse and her own weight sunk the blade into her chest.

Stupid, stupid bitch, he thought.

5

In Helena, Montana, eighteen-year-old Justin Hoyt scooted his chair back from the table and the laptop and listened again to the voice mail. He held up his hand to his friend Christian to shush him while he called. Christian hovered behind the sofa in the family room off the kitchen, watching ESPN Sportscenter with the sound off and making comments along with the two other guys and two girls crammed onto the couch. The coffee table in front of them was littered with empty beer bottles, an open laptop showing YouTube videos, and an iPad.

Christian, who was a tall and wide-shouldered linebacker for the Helena high school football team and who’d volunteered his home for the party because his parents were in Great Falls, rolled his eyes and lowered the volume on his iHome with a remote. He was pale-featured and wore his hair in a semi-buzz cut that looked like a beige carpet sample. A couple of other boys, who were pounding beer after beer in the kitchen and were also on the football team, howled in protest that they liked that song.

“Just a minute,” Christian said to them with mock seriousness, “Justin is listening to something really important.”

“I hope it’s not his dad coming over,” one of the girls said. “That dude scares me.”

“Thanks,” Justin said. Like his friends, he wore a gray BENGALS FOOTBALL hoodie, jeans, and a baseball cap. He had borrowed Christian’s laptop to try and track Danielle and Gracie and it sat open in front of him. Justin hadn’t drunk any beer and had made a promise to himself to hold off until his guests arrived. And then maybe just one. He had no natural attraction to alcohol, maybe because his life had been shaped by it — courtesy of his father.

“Guess who is driving right now to Helena to spend Thanksgiving with her boyfriend? Call me.”

He felt his insides contract and he looked up.

“What is it, man?” Christian asked.

“Remember Danielle?”

Christian rolled his eyes. “The crazy bitch?”

“I never said that,” Justin said quickly.

“But you thought it, man. What about her?”

Justin gestured toward his phone. “She left me a message saying she’s coming to see me. Tonight.”

Christian’s eyes got big and he looked around before he burst out laughing.

“For Thanksgiving,” Justin said. “She’s coming here.”

Christian leaned in close to Justin. “Didn’t you say you dumped her finally?”

Justin felt his face blanch.

Christian leaned back and grinned. “You didn’t pull the trigger on it, did you? You wussed out.”

How could he explain? Justin thought. Danielle was relentless. She didn’t take hints. And she blew right past any mention he made about his new life in Montana, the new friends he’d met, the football team, the new friends he’d met …

He didn’t hate her, he thought. He just didn’t like her anymore. She was too much — dominating every conversation, telling him what he should think, what bands he should like, how he should apply to Colorado State University because that’s where she would likely go.

They’d been through such a trauma together two years ago in Yellowstone they’d emerged extremely close. They’d been through a trauma that would have ended badly if Justin’s dad Cody hadn’t intervened and saved them. But afterward, after Justin moved to Montana with his mom and Danielle returned to Colorado, the separation made him realize she drove him crazy. He’d asked himself if he would even want to be around her at all if she didn’t look like that. And his answer was no.

Christian said, “Didn’t you say that if you could take her sister’s personality and put it into Danielle’s body, that—”

“Shut up,” Justin said, giving Christian the evil eye and checking around to see if anybody had overheard. “I was goofing around. And that was just between us, dude.”

Christian replied with a broad conspiratorial wink and drained the last of the beer bottle he held in a meaty hand. “Hey, I get it,” Christian said. “I’ve seen her profile on Facebook. She’s smoking hot, man.”

“What are you guys talking about over there?” one of the girls from the family room called out, “Christian, you went to get me a beer, remember?”

“Coming up!” Christian called back, walking into the kitchen to pull another beer bottle from the cooler of ice.

The girl, named Kelsie, got up from the sofa and smiled at Justin and shook her head to indicate Christian was an idiot. Kelsie had short red hair, sparkling green eyes, a little too much makeup, and breasts that strained at the buttons of her blouse.

She said, “I heard. So is this the girl that kept you unavailable to the fine girls of Montana?”

He didn’t respond.

“Justin, are you there?” she asked, annoyed. Justin heard Christian curse in the other room and looked up.

“Sorry,” he said. “I’m not sure what I should do.”

“Tell her to turn around,” Kelsie said. “Yes!” Christian agreed as he walked back. “But tell her to sext you some photos first.”

“Shut up, Christian,” Kelsie said coldly. Christian shut up.

Then to Justin: “Tell her to go home.”

“You don’t know her,” Justin said, sighing. “Plus, she has her sister with her. They’re on the highway hours from Denver.”

“She’s manipulating you,” Kelsie said. “Can’t you see that?”

He slumped back and looked at the ceiling for any answer other than yes.

6

In the shadows of the rear row at the truck stop, The Lizard King dragged the body into his sleeper cab and wrapped it in plastic sheeting and secured the bundle with hundred-mile tape before sopping the floor clean of her blood so his boot soles wouldn’t stick to it. Then he stripped off his bloody one-piece, tossed it into the corner of the sleeper, and pulled on another. The inside of the truck would have to be thoroughly washed out and disinfected as soon as he could do it. But not here. Not with a body in the sleeper. He couldn’t risk the chance of letting anyone look inside until he figured out how to dispose of the body and the bloody rags. Luckily, there were plenty of empty miles between the truck stop and home.

He sat back heavily in the driver’s seat after he’d stashed all his tools and weapons. The Bible-thumpers were still out there.

His blood was up and he suddenly wanted to kill them all. But there were five of them and one of him, and they stood in between the shelter of the truck trailers so he couldn’t run them down.

Furious, he released the parking brake and slammed his gearshift into low and the Eaton-Fuller transmission bit in. The laughing Bible-thumpers were bathed in his headlights as he revved the motor and lurched forward toward them. They scattered except for Chamois, who held his hand up as if that could stop tons of steel and rubber.

But the Lizard King didn’t drive over him. Instead, he cranked the wheel sharply and roared out of his space and down the driveway, nearly clipping the bumper of the truck next to him with the end of his trailer.

He wanted to get out of the lot as quickly as he could, to leave this place of wicked humiliation. The faces and trucks of Chamois, Muttonchops, and the others would forever be burned into his memory. He’d never forget them, and he’d get his revenge one by one. He didn’t care if it took years to get them all.

In the meantime, he’d have to take it out on somebody, some bitch.

He roared out the exit to the highway going way too fast. In his rage he didn’t check his mirrors before sliding onto the interstate.

7

Danielle had her phone on her lap, texting furiously and giggling. Justin had replied.

“Justin is sooo excited for us to get there,” she said to Gracie.

“He is?”

“Don’t sound so … pissy,” Danielle said.

“What did he say exactly?” Gracie asked. She couldn’t imagine Justin texting that he was “sooo excited.” Gracie was constantly taken aback by her sister’s blissful ignorance on so many serious subjects. But she couldn’t fault Danielle’s ability to get what she wanted when she wanted it and to drag others along into her orbit. Like her.

“So what did he say?” Gracie asked.

Danielle shot her an annoyed look. “He said, ‘Okay.’”

“That’s it?”

“He’s a man of few words,” Danielle said with her patented lah-de-dah intonation, although the set to her face belied her tone.

The thing was, Gracie thought, Justin wasn’t necessarily a man of few words at all, although he probably didn’t get many in when Danielle was talking. The simple “okay” in response wasn’t encouraging. And of course Danielle knew it.

Despite the situation Danielle had put them in, Gracie felt an unexpected wave of sympathy for her sister. Danielle, despite her bluster and lah-de-dah, was fragile and needy. Their parents’ divorce, when Danielle was thirteen, had crushed her and she’d yet to recover. Danielle was too emotional, too desperate for male attention. She’d surrounded herself with boys as if trying to fill the void left by Ted. Before Justin, Danielle was a little slut. Gracie had been embarrassed by her sister, and was too often chosen as a sounding board by the boys Danielle had thrown aside. But after Justin, Danielle straightened up. In a way, Justin had taken Danielle off the market and allowed her to grow. Even a distant Justin gave Danielle an excuse to take herself out of the game. He was good for her in ways he didn’t understand, and in ways that were unfair to him, Gracie thought. She didn’t blame him for perhaps wanting to be cut loose. But at the same time, she didn’t want her sister to spin out of control.

“I’m in prison on the Planet Danielle,” Gracie moaned.

“What brought that on?” her sister chirped. “Besides, you could be worse places.”

Gracie glanced over at the display panel and changed the subject.

“That light is still on,” Gracie said.

“Oh that again.” Danielle sighed.

“When is the last time you got the oil changed in this car? Do you even know?”

“Barely … out … of … Billings,” Danielle said while she punched in the letters of the text to Justin. Then: “Mom sent me a text back. She said to say hi to dad. Woo-hoo! We’re still in the clear.”

“I see some lights up ahead,” Gracie said, gesturing with her chin. “There’s a truck stop or something. I wonder if they’d have a mechanic working or we could find someone to take a look at this?”

Danielle looked up, angry. “We’re not stopping to waste time. Justin or his dad can look it over when we get there. They’ll fix it.”

“What if we don’t make it?”

“What if monkeys fly out of your butt?”

“Really, Danielle—”

“We’re gonna keep driving!”

Gracie took a big gulp of breath and held it in.

The lights of the truck stop drew closer. There looked to be a lot of activity on the lots; plenty of cars and big trucks. Someone, possibly, who could help them.

Gracie said, “If you don’t stop to check on the car, I’m calling Mom.”

Silence.

“I’m not kidding,” Gracie said, holding up her phone to show her sister she was serious. “We can’t take the chance this car will blow up. Then what would we do?”

“You can’t keep threatening me with that every time you want your way. It’s childish.”

“I’m being childish?

“Yes. Stop it with the ‘I’m calling Mom’ crap.”

“Then take the exit so we can get your car looked at.”

“Who is going to pay for a mechanic? Did you think of that?”

“You have a credit card,” Gracie said.

“Why should I use my money?”

“Because it’s your car!”

Danielle rolled her eyes theatrically once again, but flinched when Gracie touched the button on her phone that lit it up in anticipation of placing a call.

“Don’t,” Danielle said.

Gracie pressed the speed dial for home. The rapid sound of the connection being made could be heard through the speaker.

“Okay!” Danielle yelled, “I’m turning in.”

Gracie killed the call before it could be answered.

Danielle shook her head and tapped the brakes. “You’re such a baby. See, I’m turning in.”

Danielle eased to the right and slowed to turn on to the exit to the truck stop. Gracie lowered her phone to her lap and breathed a sigh of relief. Then, out of nowhere, a massive toothy semi-truck grille and front bumper filled her window just a few feet away. Gracie screamed. The powerful bass roar of the diesel engine from the truck right next to them vibrated through the floorboards of the little car.

The truck tire was so close she could see beads of water on the chrome of the fender. Danielle jerked the wheel to the left and for an instant the inside of the car exploded in light from a single full-sized truck headlight. Somehow, they avoided getting hit. Although the near miss hadn’t been Danielle’s fault, the truck driver hit his horn and the sound was earsplitting.

“Jesus Christ!” Danielle gasped. “What happened?”

Gracie was practically on top of the center console, and would have scrambled even further if the seat belts wouldn’t have restrained her. Her heart whumped in her chest.

“That big truck,” Gracie said, barely able to speak, “He came out of there and didn’t even slow down. He nearly ran us over.”

Now the big black truck was in the right-hand lane pulling away from them, a line of amber running lights strobing through the interior inside their car.

Gracie was shaken, and eased back into her seat. The truck pulled away.

“He nearly killed us!” Gracie said. “And we missed the exit because he was in the way.”

“Asshole!” Danielle screamed at the taillights of the big rig. “You’re an asshole!”

Gracie regained her ability to breathe in and out. She looked into the side mirror to make sure there wasn’t another oncoming truck bearing down on them but the highway behind them was clear.

Danielle suddenly accelerated.

“What are you doing?” Gracie said.

“I’m going to pass that asshole,” Danielle said through gritted teeth.

8

The Lizard King saw a flash of red just outside the driver’s side window and glanced over to see the little Ford Focus careen into the passing lane where he’d accidentally forced it. The car had been in the turning lane but he’d been so consumed with his situation he hadn’t seen it coming. And because of the darkness and his high vantage point, he couldn’t see the driver.

“Watch where you’re going,” he said aloud. To himself as well as to the driver of the Ford.

He dismissed the other car while he took out part of his frustration on his empty passenger seat, hitting it over and over with his fist as he drove, stopping only to shift into higher gear as his rig picked up speed.

He pushed his truck hard. It felt good to drive fast; eighty thousand pounds hurtling down the highway like a bullet shot from a gun. The lights of the truck stop receded in his mirrors.

Still, though, his nerve endings were sparking like live wires. The humiliation back at the truck stop hadn’t stopped his needs, but prolonged them. The pressure built inside him. He had a vision while he drove of his skull exploding like a melon on his shoulders, spattering the inside of the cab with brain matter.

The next several miles of the highway was a long straight 5 percent grade. He’d driven the stretch a hundred times. The grade slowed his truck down to the speed limit and he grabbed a lower gear. The long hill was known to truckers as a “dragon fly”—dragging up one side and flying down the other.

Then, in the driver’s side mirror, he saw the headlights. He recognized the little red Ford coming up behind him as the one he nearly hit, but he didn’t even look back except to note in his rearview mirror that there were two people in car. They weren’t big people. Probably still pissed about being cut off. He didn’t care. He wanted to leave them behind. He wanted to leave everything that happened at the truck stop behind.

Because the Peterbilt was slowing down climbing the mountain pass, the little red car was catching up. In fact, it was right behind him, so close he could see two faces painted red by the glow of his taillights. Young people; girls. Two young girls.

Two young girls on a desolate stretch of interstate highway in the dark.

He shook his head and bared his teeth as the Ford eased into the passing lane. It was a stupid move to try and go around him, he thought. He glanced over as he drove, wondering if he’d see them closer at all or simply the top of their car as it passed him. Over the years, he’d seen all kinds of scenes in cars when he looked down through the windows; kids driving with their legs folded Indian-style while yapping on their cell phones, couples humping in the backseat, reprobates smoking crack, men masturbating with their pants gathered around their thighs, women performing blow jobs on the driver.

Now, he wondered, were there other passengers in the backseat? Men, husbands or boyfriends? Maybe children?

For the Lizard King, passenger cars and trucks on the highway and the people who drove them existed in a kind of low-level subspecies; an annoyance and a hazard. They existed in a world far below him both literally and figuratively; amateurs in the world of professional drivers. They existed because he let them exist, because he could so easily crush them, drive them off the road, or run them down. The drivers of these little cars didn’t realize they were on borrowed time and that in any conflict with an eighteen-wheeler, they’d lose.

The angle was just right and he could see both the driver and the passenger through their windshield in his side mirror. Two unaccompanied girls. No one in the backseat. Colorado plates that read PLNTDNL, whatever the hell that meant. So they were hundreds of miles from home with the entire huge state of Wyoming between their home and him. The driver was older than the passenger. She was a looker. Oval face, big pouty mouth.

The passenger was younger and his amber running lights reflected in her glasses. She didn’t look old enough to have a driver’s license.

The girls had no idea how far they were over their heads, he thought. How typical …

They were of that “self-esteem” generation he despised. Unlike him, they’d grown up stupid with every adult they knew praising them, telling them how wonderful and special they were, making sure they never lost a contest or a competition, teaching them nothing but contempt for men who kept the nation running by working long hours with their hands and dripping sweat … like him. And he’d known someone like that, in fact a few of them. They belonged to a generation of know-nothings with heightened self-esteem and no respect for working men like him who’d done it the hard way, and were still doing it the hard way.…

When the little car was about ten feet from catching his rear bumper, he grinned and jerked the wheel hard to the left, cutting it off.

The headlights vanished from both of his mirrors.

He had the same thought he had earlier when the lot lizard approached his truck: they had no idea what kind of hell they were getting themselves into.

9

The double rear wheels of the trailer sprayed a mist on the windshield that blinded Gracie, and Danielle gasped as the huge truck suddenly swerved into their lane. The truck was so close Gracie could see its underbelly; long metal shafts, glistening hoses, swinging suspended tire chains, elbows of steel.

Gracie felt the Ford slowing down. She couldn’t see anything ahead now except glowing red taillights undulating through the moisture on the windshield. For all she knew, Danielle was in the process of driving under the rear end of the truck trailer.

“Turn on the windshield wipers!” she screamed at her sister.

“I am!”

“Slow down!”

“What do you think we’re doing?”

And Gracie realized it was true: the taillights filling the windshield were pulling away. Danielle had the wipers on high now, and the glass cleared. The big truck was a quarter mile in front of them, far enough now that the double sets of tires didn’t spray them.

“He did that on purpose!” Danielle seethed.

“I think he did,” Gracie agreed, completely unnerved by the thought.

Just before the huge truck had swung over to cut them off she’d caught a glimpse of the driver’s face in his mirror. He was fat and doughy with a square head and light-colored wavy hair and eyes set too close together. But she hadn’t seen him well enough to identify him if asked.

“He did that on purpose,” Danielle said again, this time in awe. “He could have killed us.”

“Again,” Gracie said.

“What an asshole.”

Gracie nodded.

“Is it possible he didn’t know we were back there? Maybe he was texting or talking on his phone or something?”

“I don’t know.”

“What an asshole.”

The grade of the road got steeper as they sped back up to the speed limit.

As it did, the big truck slowed. It was still in the passing lane.

“I’m going to try it again,” Danielle said, stomping on the gas.

“Danielle, don’t!”

“What,” her sister said, “you want to follow this jerk all the way to Helena? I want to get rid of him once and for all, the asshole.”

And with that they once again closed the gap between the Ford and the truck.

Gracie sat back deep in her seat and tried to say a prayer for them. She was unpracticed and couldn’t concentrate. They’d caught up with the rear wheels of the tractor itself and were nearly parallel to the door of the cab. The Ford wouldn’t go any faster up the grade, but neither could the truck. Gracie knew that if the truck driver swerved again into their lane he’d force the Ford off the road. She could only hope — and pray — that Danielle would shoot around him before he could change lanes again.

She looked over and watched the progress. Danielle stared straight ahead, leaning over the wheel, a look of crazy determination on her face. Through her window she watched their progress. One set of wheels by, then another. Amber running lights coursing through Danielle’s window as if being pulled through. Then the tires of the cab of the truck and the door. There was frontier-type lettering on the door but it was too high for Gracie to read in full. A name in script she couldn’t make out and the words, Livingston, Montana. She turned to look ahead and focused on the road, on the white stripe on the left side of the left lane, keeping a steady eye on it so the mist being thrown from underneath the tires of the truck wouldn’t further blind her. She didn’t know how well Danielle could see the road. They were nearly past.

Gracie jumped when cold wet wind howled through the inside of the little car.

“What are you doing?” she yelled at her sister.

In Gracie’s peripheral vision she could see Danielle leaning out her window with her left arm extended. The door of the truck just hung there, not receding, not pulling ahead.

“Loser!” Danielle screamed through the open window, raising her middle finger outside, “Fucking loser asshole!”

“Stop it!” Gracie yelled. “Get back in the car and go!”

“Loser! Asshole!”

“Danielle!”

With a satisfied smirk, her sister brought her arm back into the car and floored it. The massive headlights receded in the rearview mirror as they approached the summit of the long climb. Danielle reached over and hit the button and the driver’s window whirred back up.

“Ha!” Danielle said. “I told him.”

“Could he see you?”

“I think so,” she said. “I saw him lean over and look at me. I could just see the top of his forehead. He had the forehead of a loser.”

“You’re crazy,” Gracie said, meaning it. “Why did you have to yell at him? Why didn’t you just pass him and leave things alone?”

“And let him get away with it?” Danielle said. “No fucking way. He’s lucky we didn’t call 911 on his ass.”

Gracie sat still until she could breathe again. “Please stop talking like a truck driver,” she said.

10

The Lizard King had been preoccupied by the body in the back. When he’d swerved earlier that damned body had been thrown out of the bunk in his sleeper. It had landed with a thump behind him, and he was looking at it on the floor — he could make out its blank dark eyes through several layers of plastic — when the Ford made its move. By the time he looked up, the car was parallel to the cab. And when he stretched and looked over …

They were right there, the two young snotty girls in the little red Ford. Right below his passenger window. They were too far along now to easily force them off the road because he could no longer use the trailer as a bludgeon. When the car didn’t advance, he was curious and strained up in his seat to get a look at them.

That’s when he saw the contorted face of the looker thrust out of her open window. She was screaming at him but he could make out the words: Fucking loser asshole.

Loser.

It was like a hard slap in the face.

And because of the steep grade and his load holding him back, the Ford pulled away. He couldn’t push his rig any harder to catch up on the hill.

He bellowed in rage as the car passed him and gained distance before it summited the long haul and vanished down the other side.

As he topped the hill, he looked out ahead of him. He could see for miles. In the distance, maybe a mile away, were the two tiny red taillights of the Ford. There were no other cars on the interstate in either direction for as far as he could see.

Less than ten miles ahead was the roadblock set up by the Montana Highway Patrol. He’d no doubt catch up with them there. He envisioned a scenario where he pulled them out of their car and tore them apart with his hands.

Then a cold and razor-edged calm took him over. He’d felt it before, many times. It was the feeling he got when he was stalking prey.

The Lizard King reached into his jumpsuit and pulled out his cell phone and speed dialed his partner.

“I’ll be there tonight,” he said.

“You got a load?”

“Negatory.”

Silence. Pained, angry silence.

Then he said, “Remember that situation you said you wanted a while back? You know what I’m talking about.”

After a beat, his partner said, “No shit? Is this gonna happen?”

“Maybe, maybe not.”

“But it could is what you’re saying.”

“There might be an opportunity,” he said. “I won’t know until it happens.” Thinking, they could pull over to switch drivers. They could take an exit for a rest area. They might even stop to stretch, or walk around to keep awake, or to look at something. He’d have a chance as long as it wasn’t public, like a service station or a convenience store …

“What kind of opportunity?” his partner asked. His tone was anticipatory.

“Maybe a double load.”

Then, his partner’s tone rose. “You’re kidding?”

“Nope. Get receiving ready.”

“I’m tied up right now, damn it.”

“It’s a fresh load if it happens,” the Lizard King said. “Real fresh. A double load. We don’t want it to spoil.”

His partner moaned. It was a sound that slightly unnerved even the Lizard King. Then, “It may be a couple of hours.”

“That ought to work.”

“I wish you woulda told me earlier. I’ve got a situation.”

“Three hours, possible double load,” the Lizard King said. “Freshest meat you’ve ever seen.”

“Holy hell.”

“You said it.”

“Don’t screw it up. Please don’t screw it up.”

“Fuck you,” the Lizard King said and snapped his phone shut, thinking maybe he shouldn’t have told him until he had the double load secure.

Because if it didn’t pan out, he’d never hear the end of it.

11

Cassie had been home just long enough to feed her dog, look in on her mother and Ben, her four-year-old son, and change out of her uniform. While she pulled on jeans and took an inordinate amount of time in her closet before deciding on a long-sleeved Henley and a suede leather vest, she tried Cody’s cell phone. No answer. She debated whether to call his house and decided against it. Jenny, his ex-wife, had recently moved back in with him. If she picked up the phone and hadn’t yet heard what happened that day, Cassie didn’t want to be the one to deliver the news. And if Jenny had heard, Cassie didn’t want to hear what Jenny thought about it. She’d met Jenny once and recalled an intelligent, attractive, very strong-willed woman. She’d thought better of Cody after meeting Jenny.

But Cassie couldn’t discern what Jenny had thought about her—a younger single mother who was Cody’s new partner. And now the one, Cassie thought, who set up her husband to be fired.

So she pulled on her parka, told her mother and son she’d be back soon, and went out to find Cody. She needed to explain herself, justify her actions, and make him understand what she’d done wasn’t personal. Cassie was scared, though. Cody could be intimidating and he had an explosive temper. He might rip into her, even though she thought she might deserve it.

She drove her Honda past Cody’s house. His old pickup wasn’t there.

Cassie located Cody’s pickup where she hoped it wouldn’t be: the Jester’s Bar downtown on North Rodney. She parked her Honda Civic a block away, got out, and took a deep breath of cold thin air. She jammed her hands into the pockets of her parka, pulled them out again, and nervously smoothed down the front of her coat. A streetlight hummed above her through the leafless trees and threw cold blue light on the broken sidewalk.

Jester’s was a serious old-school bar located in the corner of a shambling historic stone building across the street from the brick building housing the Lewis and Clark County coroner’s office. She’d never been inside the bar — she wasn’t much of a drinker and her son prevented nights out on the town — but she’d heard the stories. Local cops were sent there frequently at closing time. The bar offered no food or big-screen TVs and catered to hard customers. From the outside it looked as inviting as a prison cell except with neon beer signs — Ranier, Pabst — filling the square windows. Three Harleys sat out front pointed out toward the street, front wheels cocked to the side.

Cassie paused at the door. She could smell cigarette smoke and hear the click of pool balls. She almost turned around and walked back to her Honda. Instead, she steeled herself and pulled the door open, to be greeted by a sensory rush of smoke, stale beer, and Lynyrd Skynyrd from the jukebox.

It was dark inside and unevenly lighted. The mood was as intimate as a small beat-up warehouse. There were photos tacked to the walls and names carved into the pine paneling. The floor was gritty with dirt.

Every head in the place swung toward her; the three bikers at the table near the bar, two tattooed pool players leaning across green felt, an emaciated cowboy emerging from the men’s zipping up his Wranglers, the pockmarked and pony-tailed bartender stubbing out a smoke, and the skanky old crow with dyed red hair and a tight black T-shirt seated on her stool.

And, in the corner in the back, illuminated harshly in yellow from a hanging lamp over a pool table, was Cody Hoyt. He was on a stool with his back against the wall at a high round table. Both his hands were on the table, framing a smoldering ashtray. A single tall glass half full with clear liquid sat near his elbow. His hooded eyes bored holes into her.

She nodded at him and took three steps in his direction and hesitated. He gave no indication he wanted her to join him. She flushed and looked around, embarrassed by the situation. One of the bikers winked at her. The old crow at the bar made a cackle that ended with a sharp punctuation of phlegm.

Then she turned back around and approached her former partner but didn’t take a seat. In her peripheral vision, the pool players quickly racked their cues and headed for the back door, their game unfinished.

“Mind if I join you?” she asked. She hoped her intonation wasn’t as limp as it sounded to her.

Cody didn’t say yes, didn’t say no. He simply glared at her.

“I’d like to talk with you, if you don’t mind,” she said softly. “About what happened.”

He blew out a sharp puff of smoke from his nostrils but he didn’t reply.

“Cody,” she said, trying to hold his eyes and not look away, which was difficult, “I didn’t mean to set you up. That was never my intention. I feel terrible about what happened. Sheriff Tubman…”

A terrifying grin cracked Cody’s face at the mention of the sheriff’s name and it froze her for a moment. She’d forgotten how mean he could look.

“’Can I get you?” she heard just over her shoulder.

Relieved, she turned. The pony-tailed bartender stood a few feet behind her. He was short and wiry and wore a long, sheathed bowie knife the length of his thigh.

“What?” she asked.

“I said, ‘What can I get you?’” he said.

She hesitated. “Maybe a glass of wine?” she said.

The bartender smiled coldly. “Red or kind of red?”

She didn’t ask. She said, “Red.”

He nodded, and turned his attention to Cody. “You gonna drink it this time?”

At first she didn’t understand. Then she had a vision of Cody ordering alcohol, staring at it, and sending it back untouched. She wondered how many times it had happened before she arrived. The thought stabbed her in the heart.

Cody nodded slightly. But the bartender didn’t move. Finally, the man said, “Do you two plan to be here very long?”

Cassie squinted at him, not understanding.

The bartender chinned to where the pool players had been before they left so quickly. “Look,” he said, lowering his voice so only they could hear. “We’ve got regular customers coming in until we close. They like to be able to relax, you know? Kick back? It ain’t usual for a couple of county cops to be sitting in here, you know?”

“We’re off duty,” she said.

“Still, you stink of it,” the bartender said. “No offense.”

She could feel her face flushing again. Cody cleared his throat and readjusted himself on his stool so his jacket opened and his .40 Sig Sauer could be clearly seen in its holster. He said to the bartender, “Get us our drinks, you mouth-breathing little ferret. And keep them coming if we want them. Because only one of us is off duty. The other is just an angry man with a gun who could blow chunks of your heart out your back before you cleared that knife. And believe me, I’m in the fucking mood to pop somebody. Do we have an understanding?”

The bartender’s eyes got huge and his mouth just hung there. After a few beats, he nodded and turned meekly toward the bar.

“I could never do that,” Cassie said, climbing on a stool and leaning across the tabletop toward Cody. She said sadly, “Please tell me you’re not drinking?”

“Not yet. Maybe I’m building up to it, though. This is club soda,” he said, pinging a fingernail on the rim of the glass. “It tastes like … the end of the world as I know it.”

Then he growled, “This is where it helps you to be a chick. Because if you weren’t, I would have kicked your ass the second you walked in that door.”

She’d heard stories about the infamous Cody Hoyt even before she graduated from the academy. He was a polarizing presence within law enforcement and throughout the state. Some LEOs (law enforcement officers) hated his guts, others winked when his name was mentioned. No one, it seemed, was neutral.

Cody had grown up in East Helena, from a long line of Hoyts, who were known as white-trash outlaws. The Hoyts were poachers, cattle rustlers, small-time crooks, and grifters. Somehow, Cody had chosen law enforcement and had worked himself up through police and sheriff’s departments in Montana, Wyoming, and eventually became the lead homicide investigator for the Denver Metropolitan Police Department. His record of convictions was remarkable, but as his reputation grew so did the whispers. He not only cut corners, department gossips (and defense attorneys) alleged, he invented new corners to cut. Although his work resulted in a firefight that brought a serial pedophile down, his methods — including the appearance of his uncle Jeter brandishing a ten-gauge shotgun — got him thrown off the force.

Given his reputation, most Montana LEOs were surprised when he landed a job as investigator at the Lewis and Clark County Sheriff’s Department. Stories of his carousing rivaled stories of witness intimidation, brutality, and tampering with crime scenes. But again, his results were inspiring. Two years before — after being suspended for shooting the county coroner in what was later deemed an accident — Cody came to the conclusion that a serial murderer responsible for the death of his AA sponsor was on a multiday wilderness horseback trip in Yellowstone Park. So was his estranged son, Justin.

Without authorization or backup, Cody had recruited an old-time wilderness guide and ridden into Yellowstone in a fury. When it was all over, bodies littered the trees and two large-scale conspiracies were brought to light, including one that involved the department. Cody had reconciled with his son and convinced his ex-wife to move back to Montana. Rather than prosecute his subordinate, Tubman — under pressure — had supported Cody. But he’d bided his time until he could pull the trigger.

Cassie realized now she’d ended up as the one holding the gun.

After the bartender delivered the drinks — a plastic cup of cheap Merlot for Cassie and an amber shot and a pint of beer for Cody — Cassie handed the man her credit card.

“Cash only,” he said, but without the attitude from before. She dug into her purse and handed over her only twenty and he went to make change.

“Run a tab,” Cody called after him. The bartender nodded.

“Can we talk about this,” she asked Cody insistently, “or should I just go home? This isn’t much fun for me, you know. I know about you,” she said, gesturing toward the drinks on the table. “I know you’ve been clean and sober for three years. I know that’s why your wife and son moved back. Everybody in the department warned me about you when I got hired. How you’d show up drunk in the morning, how you’d insult anybody who crossed your path. How you bent the rules when you wanted to. But I also heard you were the best investigator around and you’d cleaned up your act. I wanted to learn from you. I wanted to work with the best.”

“If you wanted to work with the best,” he said, “why’d you sneak around behind my back and fuck up my career? Hmmm?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer, except to say Tubman had ordered her to follow him. It wasn’t like she could refuse …

“Bullshit,” Cody said, cutting her off. “You could have handled it a dozen ways if you had any … balls. I understand you’re bright-eyed and bushy-tailed and you’re eager to please. But you haven’t been around much. You don’t know how things work.”

She sipped her wine. It was awful. She took a gulp. “What could I have done?” she said. “He gave me an order.”

Cody rolled his eyes with disgust.

“What?”

He fixed his horrible smirk on her and held out a hand and started counting the fingers on it with the other. “One, you could have said you lost me when I drove out of town. Two, you could have accidentally deleted the shots after you took them. Three,” he said, making sure she noted he was extending his middle finger toward her, “you could have told Tubman to fuck himself and send somebody else, because partners don’t rat on partners. Four, you could have begged off at the last minute. Said your son was sick or your mom fell down and broke her hip. Some kind of bullshit that would stick. And five, we could have worked it together so we still got the bad guy which, last I looked, was what I thought we were supposed to do out here.”

She held her tongue because she could tell he wasn’t done.

“How many murder cases have you worked?” he asked.

“You know,” she said.

“That’s right: none. How many major felony cases? Oh, same number: none. But you went to the academy and you got hired right away and promoted right over the heads of people who’ve been in that department for years. So I guess you know it all.”

“I don’t know it all,” she said with anger, “and I never act like I do. And I could have partnered up with Markey or Stegner or Curley. But I fought to be able to work with you. And you know why? Because I’d heard you were the best. That you were a bulldog and that you’d cleaned up your act.”

His face reddened and his eyes bulged. He looked like he was ready to explode. She looked away because the intensity of his glare was almost violent in itself. Then he surprised her by snorting again and he laughed softly, shaking his head. He seemed suddenly more interested in the untouched shot and beer than he was in her confession.

After a long pause, he said, “I know it was Tubman and you’re too green to go up against him, plus you owe your job to him. He used you, and you let yourself get used.”

“I know. I’m ashamed of myself.”

“Are you?”

“That’s why I’m here.”

His eyes bored into hers. She was surprised when they softened.

He said, “You’ll find, Cassie, that it’s us against the world. We do our damnedest to put away degenerates and douche bags so innocent people won’t be hurt by them, but all the forces out there are set up to make us fail. We’ve got county attorneys that won’t take on a case unless it’s airtight, judges who want to invent the law instead of enforce what’s there, defense attorneys who want to show publicly how fucking incompetent we are, and juries who want to stick it to the man. So when we’ve figured out that someone is guilty as sin, sometimes we need to stack the deck a little. You know what I’m saying?”

She shook her head, but was both scared and a little thrilled to hear what he’d say.

“Somebody’s got to defend innocent people,” he said. “They need a dark angel. The deck is stacked against them, too. All those good citizens out there just want to raise their families, go to work, go to church, and keep their heads down. They don’t give a shit about county politics or political correctness or who’s running for sheriff or the sheriff’s fucking diversity program. They just want to live their lives. Somebody’s got to step up and protect them, you know? And who is tougher on bad guys than me?

“Look,” Cody said, “B. G. did it. The two of them are big-time growers fighting for market share. I know these people because I grew up with them. I went to school with B. G., and he’s been a dirtbag in training from the minute he was born. B. G. went to Tokely’s house on some pretext and shot Tokely with Tokely’s gun, then made it look like a suicide. He murdered a man. We’re supposed to be against that. And I don’t give a shit about Roger Tokely, either. He was a reprobate just like B. G. But if we leave B. G. out on the street, look what we’ve done. We’ve allowed him to continue to beat the shit out of his wife and kids for years and they’ll never turn against him because he’s got them under his thumb. Worst of all we’ve showed him he can beat us. So the next time he gets high, maybe it’s one of those innocents out there who gets it. Maybe it’s your mom, or your kid, or my son. B. G.’s a typical douche bag. He’s been getting away with crap for years. He’s human shit and I just want to flush him away.”

She flinched when he suddenly reached back, but instead of the weapon he slapped his wallet on the table and opened it.

“This is Justin,” he said, jabbing his finger on a photo of a strapping, smiling teenager in a football uniform. “He’s just a great kid. He’s smart, he’s kind. He’s empathetic in a way I just look at and wonder where the hell it came from. I still can’t believe he’s my son, because all that bad Hoyt blood must have ended with me somehow. But I look at this kid, Cassie, and I say to myself I will never let him get hurt by some dirtbag like B. G. So B. G. has to go, simple as that.”

She looked up and was surprised to see the softness in his eyes.

“All I was doing in that cabin,” Cody said, “was spreading some bread crumbs around that would lead to other evidence. Now the techs are motivated, they’ll find more and more to place B. G. in that house. By the time they’ve got enough to arrest B. G. we might not even need to use the trash I put in his garbage can. The stuff I did wasn’t enough to railroad B. G. — but it was enough to get everyone looking in his direction. That’s all I wanted, was to put the spotlight on him. And that’s sometimes how you have to work it so the right scumbags go to prison.”

“But it isn’t ethical,” she said.

He laughed. “No, it isn’t. Which is why I did it myself and didn’t try to involve you. You’ve still got ethics, or so you think.”

“I didn’t want to believe you’d do something like that,” she said. “I felt if I followed you I’d be able to prove to Tubman you were clean.”

“You felt wrong,” Cody said. “You,” he said, jabbing his finger toward her, “let yourself get used. He used you to get me. And you just happily went along with it until you realized what you’d done. Now you come in here for what? Forgiveness? You want me to pat you on the head and tell you what a good girl you are? You want me to tell you thanks for saving me from myself? Is that what you want?”

She shook her head.

“The problem with people your age,” he said, “is you never understood the difference between thinking and feeling, and to you feeling is more important, which is bullshit. You felt like you were doing the right thing, so you did it. You felt that it was probably okay to screw your partner because your boss told you to do it. You felt like all you needed to do was come in here tonight and I’d see how genuine your all-important feelings truly are and I’d say, ‘It’s okay, Cassie. You meant well. All is forgiven, Cassie.’”

She felt like he’d slapped her repeatedly. She tried to blink away tears that were ready to burst behind her nose and inside her eyes.

“Well,” Cody said, reaching out for the shot glass and then recoiling as if the glass of bourbon stung him, “you’re not forgiven. And I feel like I’m going to get hammered tonight. Care to join me?”

“No,” she said.

“Then goodbye, and don’t let the door hit you on the ass on your way out.”

“Please, Cody,” she said, “Don’t do this. Don’t hurt yourself. Think of Jenny and Justin and all you’ve built up.”

“This is it for me,” he said. “I had a nice run but this is the end of the trail. When I got kicked out of Denver I thought I’d never get another gig in law enforcement. The only reason I wound up back here where I grew up was because Tubman thought I had the goods on him. Now he’s got worse on me. And he’ll make damned sure I never get another law enforcement job in Montana or anywhere else.”

With that, he suddenly tossed back the shot and chased it with half the pint of beer. She watched with fascination and horror as his eyes glistened and he smiled manically.

“Damn,” he said, “that was good. I miss this. And I want another one.”

“Cody…” she said.

He dismissed her and signaled for another round. Then he arched his eyebrows and said, “Leave or stay, I don’t care. But if you stay, things might get ugly.”

She watched as he downed the rest of the beer in time for the bartender to deliver another round. A second glass of wine appeared as well. Cody took the shot glass from the bartender’s hand before he could set it on the table — and downed it.

“Keep ’em coming,” Cody ordered.

Then to her: “Don’t get me wrong. I admire your guts coming here tonight. That shows me something. But I’ve got a question for you.”

“What?”

“Who is going to protect these people now?” he asked. “You?” He said it with incredulity.

She felt her face flush hot again, and she sipped the glass of wine for something to do.

“Cody,” she said, reaching out and putting her hand on his arm. He looked down at it suspiciously. “What do you have on Tubman?”

Cody froze for a moment. Then, that evil grin she both loved and hated stretched slowly across his face.

12

It was only minutes but it felt much longer as the headlights of the black truck retreated behind them. As they reached the top of the hill, Danielle kept the pedal floored, prepared to shoot down the other side. They’d played enough mountain yo-yo with big trucks on the drive north that day Gracie didn’t mind that her sister wouldn’t slow down and let the momentum of the black truck catch up with them.

Gracie’s stomach hurt. Seeing that truck grille so close to the car had unhinged her. Passing the truck with her sister screaming insults had unhinged her in a way she couldn’t explain.

She hated her sister for putting them in this situation and hated herself even more for going along with it. Cars, trucks, big lonely highways at night were serious. Steel and speed and pavement and weather didn’t give a couple of teenagers a pass. This was the real world and Gracie wasn’t sure she liked it. Danielle didn’t seem to notice because she lived, as she claimed, on “Planet Danielle.” But Gracie couldn’t live there, even though it was probably more fun.

Danielle was texting furiously on her phone. “I told Justin what happened,” she said. “He said to me, ‘Good driving back there.’”

“Great,” Gracie said sullenly.

“Yeah,” Danielle said. “I let that guy have it. I guess you should thank me for saving our lives, I guess.”

“Gee, you think?”

Danielle shrugged and flipped her hair back. The close call and hearing back from Justin seemed to have filled her sister with confidence and arrogance, which was her normal state.

Gracie said, “Did you text him about the engine light?”

“No way. I don’t want to worry him.”

Gracie covered her face in her hands.

After a few moments, Danielle’s phone chirped. She looked at the display. “Oh, no,” she said. “Shit!”

“What?” Gracie was suddenly buoyed: It was their mom. She talked to their dad. They were busted. They would have to turn back or drive to Omaha.

“Justin says he looked on the Internet and there’s a big wreck or something on the highway. It’s closed up ahead of us. Shit!”

Gracie didn’t have the same reaction. She thought, We can turn around and forget this whole thing. We can drive straight through the night to Omaha to Dad. We can get ourselves out of this! Relief flooded through her.

Danielle said, “He says not to worry. There’s another way to Helena but we’ll need to get off I-90.”

Gracie didn’t want to reveal her true thoughts, and said, “We shouldn’t leave the interstate. I don’t want to go out there”—she gestured with her chin toward the black mountains to the south—“we don’t want to be on crappy little country roads.”

“Don’t be such a baby,” Danielle said, dismissing her. “He says it’s not a bad drive but we’ll need to go back through a corner of Yellowstone Park. He’s going to e-mail me a map.”

“No way,” Gracie said.

“That’s what we’ll do,” Danielle said flatly. “It’s time we got over that Yellowstone trip. This is our opportunity to put it behind us.”

“No way,” Gracie said.

“We’re looking for the exit to Laurel,” Danielle said, “Highway 212.”

As she said it the headlights lit up a green highway sign that read: LAUREL 4 MILES.

“We’re in luck!” Danielle sang.

“Let me talk to him myself,” Gracie said. “Call him and hand over your phone or I swear to God I’ll make you turn around at the next exit and drive to Nebraska.”

Danielle huffed and rolled her eyes. She said, “Don’t you trust me?”

“Ha!”

Danielle punched the speed dial, held the phone up to her ear, and said to Justin, “J-Man, Gracie needs to hear from you directly. She’s getting cold feet and she’s making squeaky noises about not coming. So just give her the directions and she can navigate us there.”

Gracie couldn’t hear what Justin replied because her sister kept the phone close to her face, but whatever it was made her smile. But she held out the phone.

“Justin,” Gracie said. “I’m nervous about going off the interstate. Are you sure we should do this?”

His voice was deep and calm but resigned. He said, “Hey, Gracie. It sounds like you guys are coming to visit. I wish I would have known about it.”

“Me, too.”

“I can’t believe your mom let you.”

“She didn’t.” Gracie turned away from her sister, who was glaring. “So Danielle didn’t tell you?”

“Tell me what?” There was panic in his voice.

“She thinks we’re driving to Omaha to be with our dad right now.”

“Shit, Gracie,” Danielle said. “You’re such a narc.”

Gracie ignored her. “She did talk our dad into it, but you know how he is. But Mom doesn’t know.”

Justin sighed. “There’s probably no talking Danielle out of it, is there?”

The question confirmed Gracie’s suspicions. She shot a quick glance at her sister, who looked back anxiously. Gracie felt a sudden and unexpected pang of sympathy for her sister. Justin wasn’t enthusiastic about seeing her after all. He might have given her signals — the texts and calls that weren’t returned certainly should have conveyed something — but Danielle had blissfully chosen not to notice. Danielle was rarely denied anything by anybody.

“Maybe you could do it,” Gracie said. She held the phone tight to her face so Danielle couldn’t overhear Justin’s side of the conversation and realize what they were talking about.

“Do what?” Danielle asked.

Gracie ignored her.

Justin said, “I can’t just tell her not to come now. You guys are close and it’s dark. It might be dangerous to drive back all that way tonight.”

“That would be okay with me,” Gracie said.

“But would she do it?”

Gracie looked over at her sister, at the determination in her face. At the way she gripped the wheel.

“Probably not,” she said.

“Maybe you guys can stay here tonight and I can talk with her and you can go see your dad in the morning. I can talk to my mom about making up the spare bedroom. But telling her … man, that won’t be fun. You know how she gets when she’s mad…”

“You’re telling me?” Gracie said.

Justin laughed.

“What are you two talking about?” Danielle spat. “Are you talking about me?”

“Okay, so what we’ll do is make sure you get here in one piece.” Justin sighed, “Then we’ll worry about the rest later.”

“Okay,” Gracie said. She anticipated Danielle trying to wrest the phone from her and dodged her sister’s outstretched and grasping hand.

“Let me look at the computer,” Justin said, and she could hear keystrokes. While he found the site he wanted, he said, “So you bumped heads with a trucker, huh? Some of those truckers think they own the road, don’t they?”

“This one did.” She glanced up and there were no headlights in her rearview mirror. “He’s way behind us now.”

“Cool,” Justin said. She could hear voices of other boys in the background. Someone whooped, and Justin shushed him. “Okay, I’m sitting at my friend Eric’s computer and I’ve got Google Maps up. Where are you exactly?”

“Just a few miles from Laurel,” Gracie said. “Maybe three.”

“Great. I see where you’re at. The Montana Department of Transportation site says the road is closed between Park City and Columbus. But you’ll hit Laurel before you get there and that’s the place where you can get off the interstate and go around. It says they might keep the road closed all night so this is the smart thing to do. Now let me talk you through this. I’ve gone on this road before with my dad, and it’s a really cool drive. It goes right on top of the mountains and drops down and cuts the corner of Yellowstone Park and comes back up into Montana.”

“Yellowstone,” she repeated. “That place doesn’t have a lot of good memories.”

Danielle had stopped grabbing at the phone now that she was assured they were talking about the route to Helena.

“Believe me, I know,” he said. “But you won’t even be close to where we were on that pack trip. Not even close. And you won’t need to get off the paved road. You’ll barely be in the park and if you keep going you’ll come up through Mammoth Hot Springs and be back on track.”

He outlined the route on 212 from Laurel south through Rockvale to Red Lodge, and from there to Cooke City and Silver Gate via the Beartooth Highway and into the northeast corner of the park. Then they should exit the park at Gardiner, Montana, and drive north on Highway 89 to Livingston through the Yellowstone River canyon back up to I-90 and on to Helena via Bozeman.

“It sounds complicated,” she said.

“Yeah, but it isn’t,” he said. “There are only a few roads and I’d guess there won’t be much traffic at all except for other people who know how to go around the closed road. I’m looking and it doesn’t seem to be snowing on top of the mountains. That could be a big problem. But right now it looks like a clear drive and I’ll be right here the whole time tracking you on the screen. If you get confused, just call and talk to me.”

She took a deep breath but said nothing.

He said, “It’s too bad you guys don’t have a GPS.”

“Oh, but we do have a GPS,” Gracie said, shooting a look toward Danielle who looked back as if wounded. “It’s in the trunk of the car.”

“The trunk?”

“She’s your girlfriend.”

Justin laughed wearily, and said under his breath, “Not for long.”

“Hey,” Danielle protested. “Quit talking about me, you two. I’m right here. And if you want to pull over somewhere, I’ll get the GPS out and try to figure out how it works. Geez…”

“You heard?” Gracie asked Justin.

“Tell her it’s a good idea. That way we’ll both know exactly where you are.”

“One more thing,” Gracie said, “The check engine light is on. I don’t know what that means and neither does Danielle.”

Justin sighed and asked how long.

“Forever,” Gracie said.

“Is the car getting hot or doing anything strange?”

“Not yet.”

There was a long pause and she could hear him asking one of his friends about it.

“Eric says it could be a short or it could be serious.”

“Great.”

“He can look at it tomorrow morning,” Justin said. “I mean, if you get here.”

Gracie sighed.

“But, Gracie,” he said, “keep in touch with me. There are some cell phone dead spots, but if I know where you’re at and something happens I can call my dad. He’ll know what to do.”

Gracie recalled meeting Justin’s dad Cody. He scared her at first, but she ended up liking him. And he seemed to like her.

“I don’t know where he is right now,” Justin said. “He didn’t make it home for dinner. But he’s got a cell phone and I’ll give him a call if we need to.”

She found herself smiling and felt her shoulders relax. Justin’s voice was soothing, and he was saying all the right things. Danielle, she thought, never did deserve him.

Gracie felt a pang and lowered the phone to her lap and covered the receiver with her hand.

“Danielle,” she said, “maybe this is a really bad idea. It’s not too late to turn around and go back.”

“What? Are you out of your mind? We’re practically there.”

“But—”

“But nothing,” her sister said, tears glinting in her eyes. “We’ve come all this way to see Justin, and I’m going to see Justin.”

And Gracie realized Danielle wasn’t oblivious after all. She knew. She just couldn’t accept it and probably thought she could talk him out of it. And maybe, Gracie conceded, that would happen. Danielle could be very persuasive, especially with boys.

Gracie raised the phone. “Okay,” she said, “what do we do when we get to Laurel?”

Danielle let go of the wheel, pumped her fist in the air, and shouted, “Yes!”

13

The Lizard King looked ahead and to the left on the highway and saw the familiar halo of the inferno lighting up the misty sky — the refinery on the outskirts of Laurel. Rolls of steam lit by flames from the flare stacks hung low to the ground in the low pressure and mist, making the facility look otherworldly.

It fit his mood. He was locked in, engaged. His rage had receded into a dark steel box in the back of his mind to be unleashed later.

Since the red Ford had passed him a few miles before, he’d pushed his Peterbilt hard on the flat, keeping his eyes out for the two little taillights. He’d passed several other cars and trucks, and he was surprised he hadn’t yet caught up with the Colorado girls. He kept thinking of the dark-haired one and the way she’d sneered at him. Thinking of that full red mouth and that glimpse of white teeth.

How the boys must like her, he thought. She was one of those … filled with attitude and always flipping her hair around. It was always gratifying, he thought, how quickly their attitudes changed in the right circumstances.

Part of his ritual with the lot lizards, usually toward the end, was to ask them, “Tell me what you were like in high school?” He made them re-create those years, even to the point of describing what they wore and who they hung with. Most of them had never graduated, but a few had. And most of them had been druggies and losers. A number of whores couldn’t even recall the details.

But there were a few — he thought specifically of that redhead from Amarillo with the butterfly tats — who could recall high school with clarity and fondness. She told him how she bounced between the cheerleading crowd and the heavy metal drug crowd. How she’d gone to three of four proms but skipped the last one because by then she was into meth and goth. How she’d barely graduated and gotten hooked up with older men who didn’t look out for her best interests. But he didn’t care about what she’d become — it was obvious. He pressed her for details of her first three years. As long as she was talking, he kept her around. She admitted, finally, she’d probably been too cruel to some of the boys who weren’t good-looking or athletes. When he asked her if she regretted the way she’d been, she didn’t comprehend the question.

Then he ended it.

She had been his favorite so far.

Two things would ruin his night, he thought. The Colorado girls could just keep going past Laurel until they were slowed down by troopers enforcing the roadblock. There they’d sit with dozens of other vehicles with more stacking up behind them. It could be hours, and there would be too many eyes.

They could also turn off the highway before they got to where the crash was located. Maybe to get gas, maybe to get some food or directions. Either way, he’d probably lose them.

Or …

Far up ahead, in the fused ambient light of the mist from the Laurel refinery, he saw the red Ford. The girls were easing over to the right with the turn signal blinking.

He felt a charge of electricity shoot through him. The Colorado girls knew the way around the roadblock. There was still a chance their destination was this way, maybe Red Lodge, but he’d bet dollars to donuts they’d be taking the same route he intended to take — over the Beartooth Highway, into Yellowstone, out Mammoth, and toward Livingston to get back on the interstate.

The Lizard King eased off the pedal and downshifted to slow down the truck. He didn’t want to get close enough that they’d know he was still with them. He pulled over onto the shoulder and doused his headlights after he braked the truck to a stop. Good thing, too, because the Colorado girls had stopped as well.

He didn’t hit his emergency flashers because he didn’t want them to see him. The big rig sat still in the dark on the side of the highway, lights out, steaming and rumbling in the cold night.

The body of the lot lizard was surprisingly light. He hefted it back onto the bunk and secured it with long strips of tape. Just to make sure, he pressed his palm against the plastic sheeting where her mouth was. No warmth. No reaction. The body was already stiffening up. He wondered if bodies stiffened quicker when there was no meat on them.

He found his binoculars in a side pocket on his door and sat back in the driver’s seat and brought them up as the dome light of the Ford went on and the dark-haired passenger got out. He focused on her as she opened the trunk and was rewarded with a fine view of her heart-shaped ass that sent a tingle down his inner thighs. She found whatever she was looking for, slammed the trunk lid, and climbed back into the car. He waited until the Ford’s brake lights flashed and it started up the off-ramp to Laurel before lowering the glasses and reaching for the gearshift. He held in place until they were moving again.

As he climbed through the gears and rolled past the refinery he placed two calls from his cell phone. The first was to his dispatcher. He held the phone away from his ear until her railing subsided and then raised it back up.

“I told you,” he said, “Your Qualcomm unit is acting up, just like before. It ain’t my fault you installed a defective unit.”

“I still can’t find you,” she said. Her name was Yvonne and she was a bleached-blond fatty with moles on the folds of her neck. Like all dispatchers, she thought she was God.

“I told you,” he said, “I’m sitting in traffic outside of Park City. The state patrol has the roads shut down and I don’t know how long I’ll be sitting here before they let us go.”

Yvonne started screeching about his failure to call her sooner or she could have told him about the accident. That it could be hours before they’d open the interstate again.

“What do you care?” he said. “I’m half empty and every delivery was on schedule. I’m on my own time now.”

“You know you need to come into the office,” she said contemptuously, and he hoped no other truckers were listening in. “You’ve got a month’s worth of logs and receipts to turn in. DOT wants an audit on all our drivers like I told you weeks ago.”

“Screw ’em,” he said. Nearly adding, Screw you, too.

The Lizard King was an independent contractor, although it didn’t ever seem like it. The trucking company he was signed on with took 15 percent of every payday in exchange for brokering trips and administration. Between his company, the state regulations and rules, and the ever-growing federal regulations and mandates, it seemed like there was a conspiracy to throw every long-haul trucker off the road. There was the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration, the Safety Measurement System (CSA scores), random drug testing, rising fuel costs …

He pressed the phone against his groin so she could talk to his genitals.

Finally, he said, “I’ll call tomorrow after I get some sleep.”

“You need to get that Qualcomm looked at—”

He punched off.

Then he made another call as he exited the ramp. The Ford was a long way ahead but he could see the lights. It didn’t turn at Laurel, which meant they were headed for the Beartooth Pass. As it rang, he could imagine her cursing, pushing away her lap blanket, and struggling to get up to answer the phone. He could see her two large hands folding over the grips on the walker like reptilian claws and the lenses of her steel-framed glasses winking in the reflected light from the television screen. Her massive thighs rubbing together as she moved, those fat white cylinder-like ankles pinched into dirty shoes …

Just picturing her as she grunted and shuffled in that close house with dark paneling that smelled of stale cabbage and bacon and rotten garbage made the bile rise in his throat.

14

Danielle and Gracie were in Yellowstone and it was spooky. The roads were fine — no snow — but it was oppressively dark and it seemed like someone had flipped a switch and turned out all the lights. The sky was clear and it had stopped raining but the only illumination came from a thin sliver of moon and the gauzy, ghostly wash of a million stars that seemed close, as if tamped down by an unseen hand from above. The road was banked with walls of thick black pines that occasionally opened up to reveal grassy meadows. Although the tires hummed on the pavement, Gracie got a sense of immense quiet all around them. They’d encountered no oncoming cars since they’d entered the park out of Silver Gate, a tiny and sleepy town where the only human activity existed around a couple of bars.

“We’re back,” she whispered to Danielle.

“So let’s get the hell out of here as fast as we can.”

“The speed limit is forty-five,” Gracie said.

“Screw that.”

But her sister’s emphasis wasn’t on the circumstance that they were back in Yellowstone, Gracie thought, but because she wanted to see Justin and talk to him. Talk him back onto Planet Danielle.

Simply being in the park wasn’t as horrifying to Gracie as she’s anticipated it would be. The things that had happened to them there were the result of evil people, not the place itself. She still had nightmares, but they weren’t about Yellowstone. Her nightmares came from what she saw and experienced when the door had opened to reveal evil and violence that until that trip had been closed to her. Now she knew what some people — despite their manner and packaging — were capable of. It still shook her to her core.

And there was a bizarre kind of symmetry going on, she thought. They’d met Justin and his father Cody in Yellowstone and the bonds they’d forged were so strong that here they were, some time later, going to see them in Montana.

Gracie didn’t know how she felt about leaving the interstate highway. Despite their size and dominance and the close encounter they’d had with one, the stream of big trucks was also reassuring because it meant there were people on the road if something went wrong. Now it felt like they would be alone out there.

They rounded a corner to a constellation of piercing green dots ahead in the road. Danielle braked and waited for the small herd of buffalo, whose eyes reflected back green in her headlights, to amble across the cracked blacktop.

“That’s why you shouldn’t go so fast,” Gracie said. “Can you imagine hitting one?”

“My poor car,” Danielle said, petting the dashboard.

Danielle had attached the GPS unit to the windshield by its suction cup assembly and after fumbling around for twenty minutes finally figured out how to plug it into the AC outlet. Its glow and brightly delineated roads and lines was a comfort to Gracie and made it seem less like they were in the middle of Siberia. The feature she prized the most was the readout that claimed they were three hours and thirty-eight minutes from Helena.

“Oh my God,” Danielle gasped.

Her tone frightened Gracie, who peered ahead on the two-lane to see what had alarmed her sister.

“No signal,” Danielle said, staring at her phone. “I forgot there’s no cell service in this stupid place.”

Gracie said, “I can’t believe you forgot that. Don’t you remember getting hysterical about it when we were here? I do.”

Gracie sniffed the air and asked, “What’s that smell?”

“What smell?”

“Like something burning. Don’t you smell it?”

Danielle rolled her eyes. “It’s nothing to worry about.”

“How do you know? It seems like it’s coming from the motor.”

“Because I know my own car,” Danielle said with anger. “She’s been running for hours and she’s probably getting tired. Just don’t worry.”

“You mean you’ve smelled this before?”

“Of course,” Danielle said. “Besides, we’re in Yellowstone with all the geysers and such. They all smell a little like toilets.”

But Gracie wasn’t sure she believed her.

There was a long straight run and Danielle obviously felt comfortable speeding up. To the south was a wide-open vista that stretched out for several miles until it butted against dark tree-covered foothills. A wide black river serpentined through the meadow, the surface of the inky water reflecting the sliver of moon and the stars. Elk and bison grazed near the banks framed by wisps of thermal steam. Huge white trumpeter swans nested in the tall grass near the river. Danielle seemed transfixed by the screen of her cell phone and the NO SIGNAL message where bars should have been.

“It’s really kind of pretty,” Gracie said.

“What is?”

“Look out there. You can see wildlife in the starlight.”

“I thought they were cows.”

“This is Yellowstone Park, Danielle,” Gracie said. “They don’t graze cows in a national park.”

Danielle seemed to be thinking it over. Then she said, “I heard cow farts are one of the leading causes of global warming. That’s why we shouldn’t eat so much red meat.”

Gracie sighed.

But as they started a slow turn away from the Lamar River valley, she noticed a tiny wink of light through the back window in her rearview mirror a long distance behind.

“At least we aren’t the only people on the road,” she said.

“What?”

As they crossed over a long expansion bridge with a thin angry river far below them, Gracie could see a smudge of light ahead coming from beyond a shoulder of mountain. Then a small wooden sign reading: MAMMOTH HOT SPRINGS, 2 MILES. She glanced at the GPS. Three more hours.

“We’re just about out of the park,” she said.

“And I have a signal!” Danielle shrieked. As she said it her text box lit up.

“Two texts from Justin,” Danielle said. “That’s so sweet. He was worried about me.” To the phone, she said, “Don’t worry about me, J-Man. I’m coming to save you.” She began to text.

Fifteen minutes LATER, Danielle’s phone chirped. “He wants to know where we are.”

A beat passed, and Gracie said, “So tell him.”

“Where are we?”

Gracie sighed, looked at the GPS display, and said, “Tell him we’re in Montana again. We just drove through Mammoth Hot Springs and Gardiner and we’re going north on Highway 89.”

“Slow down,” Danielle said, tapping the keys.

“You could look at the screen, you know. It says we’re close to Yankee Jim Canyon.”

“Yeah, yeah,” her sister muttered.

The highway paralleled a river and there were high canyon walls on both sides. The night sky was a belt of stars straight above them, its expanse narrowed to a trough by the walls. Gracie thought the sky looked like a mirror of the river they were driving by.

Suddenly, the car lurched.

Gracie looked up, “What was that?”

“I don’t know,” Danielle said. But when Gracie leaned over and checked the temperature gauge she saw the needle had not only entered the red but was pressed tight to the far corner of it. The engine lurched again and went silent. It was as if the soul of the little car had left it, leaving the slowly rolling husk.

“Oh, no,” Gracie said.

“What is it?” Danielle asked, frantic. The Ford slowed.

“Something happened to the motor. The steering wheel is all stiff.”

It was a struggle for Danielle to crank the wheel even a quarter of the way but she was able to slightly turn the front wheels. When she pressed on the brake it barely responded, as if the life had gone out of it.

“Oh, no,” Gracie said again as the little Ford coasted to a stop a few feet before the front bumper tapped a crooked delineator post. The headlights still shined and the GPS screen glowed, but the car was dead.

Danielle tried several times to start the motor but it simply produced a grinding sound. She pumped the gas furiously and tried again. Nothing.

“We’re going to be here all night,” Gracie cried.

“Shut up and don’t think the worst. Here, you try it,” Danielle said to her sister.

“What can I do?”

“I don’t know,” Danielle said, quickly getting out and walking over to Gracie’s side. She opened the door. “Scoot over and give it a try,” she said.

For the next few minutes, Gracie twisted the key in the ignition but the engine didn’t start. Instead, there was the angry grinding sound.

“I’m just draining the battery doing this,” she said.

“Did we run out of gas?” Danielle asked angrily.

“No, we have half a tank. It must have something to do with that engine light. The fricking light.”

“Are you sure you can’t get it started?”

“Do you want to try again?” Gracie asked, a crack in her voice.

“This is terrible.”

“No kidding.”

They sat in silence and darkness. The display on the GPS began to fade. Gracie could feel cold seeping into the car from the floorboards.

“I can’t call him,” Danielle said softly, sniffing back a tear. “I’ve lost the signal again in this fucking canyon.”

Gracie said, “We could walk back to Gardiner. It’s only a few miles back there, I think.”

“Or we should stay with the car,” Danielle said. “And wait for somebody to stop and help us.”

That’s when the headlights appeared on the road behind them.

Gracie cracked her door so the dome light would come on, but didn’t open it any further. She turned in her seat.

One set of headlights, coming fast. And a long string of amber running lights flowing behind, like the tail of a comet.

“It’s slowing down,” Gracie said.

“That’s friggin’ awesome.” Danielle grinned.

“Danielle … it’s that truck.”

Bright headlights lit up the inside of Danielle’s Ford and Gracie turned to Danielle. The grille of the black truck filled the back window and she heard the hissing of air brakes. The harsh white light made her sister’s face look cartoonish. But there was no doubt Danielle was terrified.

“Lock the doors!” Gracie yelled.

And the lights behind them went out, leaving utter darkness. Gracie heard the thunk of the electric locks and thanked God the battery had enough power to perform the function.

The truck was so close behind them the Ford vibrated from the heavy engine.

Gracie craned in her seat, looking back. Her eyes couldn’t adjust to the darkness due to the blinding light a moment before. Green diamonds and orbs strobed in her eyes from the aftereffect. But she thought she heard a door slam.

“Maybe he’ll help us,” Danielle said, barely above a whisper. “I wish I wouldn’t have…”

There was a beat of silence and the passenger window exploded inward. Danielle screamed. Gracie tried to scream but nothing came out but a wheezy croak. She turned to see Danielle put her arms up to block the huge hands of the driver who was reaching inside.

What happened next came in rapid flashes.

The driver appeared to be reaching for Danielle’s throat as if to strangle her but there was something dark and squared-off in one of his hands. Gracie heard the angry crackle of electricity and Danielle’s sudden “Ungh!” followed by the sight of her sister stiffening like a corpse, raising herself out of her seat, her eyes rolling white back into her head, her mouth slack …

Gracie turned away. Tried to locate the toggle to unlock her driver’s side door so she could get out and run. Tried to remember whether the toggle was on top of the armrest or in its side or on the dashboard …

The hot smell of urine filled the car.

And in her peripheral vision, a big white form moved hurriedly from right to left in front of the car. It was the truck driver, wearing all white, something plastic, a glimpse of his big blocklike head …

She found the button and jammed it forward and all four door locks popped open.

Gracie pulled back on the door latch and it started to swing open when the driver wedged himself into the opening and reached toward her. She heard a thump on the top of the door frame as he hit his head trying to bend inside, the blow significant enough to rock the car.

It staggered him a moment and he paused, and she threw herself away, started crawling over the top of Danielle’s convulsing body toward the passenger door. But the driver recovered and she felt his fingers grasp the top of her waistband and jerk her back into the driver’s seat.

“Hold still, you little bitch,” he croaked and she saw him for the first time — huge, rough, flushed, fleshy — lips curled back to reveal crooked yellow doglike teeth, fresh blood from his forehead or scalp coursing down — and got a glimpse of the electrical device he had poised over her face and plunged into her neck.

The sensation was sudden and massive and debilitating. She no longer had control of her body, which stiffened, and she had an image of lightninglike electricity firing out from the tips of her fingers and toes. Every muscle and sinew seemed fused together with steel and she felt welded into a single mass of flesh.

But she was still conscious. She had no concept of time or motion, but she could hear the sound of his boots scraping gravel outside the car.

And she could feel the sharp prick of a needle through the fabric of her jeans into her inner thigh.

15

The Lizard King reached up and grasped the stitched nylon strap through the loop and leaned back on his boot heels and pulled it down hard. The trailer door slid down on its dual tracks with the sound of rolling thunder, but in the instant before it sealed he got a last look at the three still bundles of limbs and clothing inside, looking like oversized dolls tossed aside. There was a glimpse of thick dark hair from the older one and the soles of splayed running shoes from the other. They weren’t secured to the bare metal floor or the walls of the container and they’d no doubt flop around when he made turns or sudden stops. Unlike the third bundle that wasn’t going anywhere.

But they were both breathing when he lifted them inside, and they’d likely be alive — if bruised — when he got them to his destination. When the bottom of the door fitted into the channel he reached across his body and yanked the handle of the locking mechanism over so the upturned steel arm slipped snugly under the outside bolt of the bed. He threaded the hasp of a combination lock through the eyebolts of the mechanism and snapped it shut. The trailer was now locked securely from the outside. There was no way to open it from the inside. The trailer had vents in it so they wouldn’t suffocate, and he adjusted the reefer unit to sixty-eight degrees so they wouldn’t freeze to death.

His heart was beating madly and pulses of blood whumped in his ears but he was methodical in his movements and actions. All his work had taken place in the open on the side of the highway. His headlights were still off so they wouldn’t light up the little Ford he’d parked behind, but anybody driving by might recall seeing the huge Peterbilt pulled up tight to the car on the shoulder. It would look, he hoped, like he’d stopped to help out the occupants of the car. Since the smashed driver’s window could be seen from the road, he carefully pushed all of the remaining broken glass inside so it wouldn’t draw attention. He realized while he was working how visible his white Tyvek overalls were. The material seemed to absorb what little light there was and it could draw attention he didn’t welcome.

It was a miracle, he thought, that no one had driven by on either side of the highway since he’d stopped. In the back of his head a clock ticked, and he knew his odds worsened by the second. He’d accomplished his task within five minutes of stopping and the hard part was already done, but everything could be ruined if someone passed by and saw him. Or stopped to see what was going on. In that case, he’d have a decision to make. Involuntarily, he reached down and touched the heft of his .380 in his overalls pocket.

He lumbered out onto the asphalt of the highway to assess his situation. The Yellowstone River roared on the other side of the road. He could see white water lace streak the black surface of the water below. There were no houses or lights on either side of the canyon yet. The canyon walls were dark and high on both sides and the stars were oppressive in their silent intensity. The air smelled of juniper from the brush leading down to the river and diesel fumes from his idling truck. He looked both ways on the highway, knowing he would see headlights long before he heard a vehicle approaching. The road was empty.

The Ford couldn’t have broken down at a more perfect location, and he reveled in his luck. Gardiner was miles behind and out of view. Ahead on the highway, two miles north after the walls narrowed precipitously for a while, the canyon opened up on the opposite side across the river into a wide bench. That’s where the religious compound was located, where there were people and a smattering of lights and a clear view of the highway. Those members always seemed acutely aware of vehicles and traffic, and if the Ford had broken down there he would have kept on driving. But it didn’t.

He took a deep breath and walked back to the Ford. He noted an odor he hadn’t noticed before: the acrid smell of hot burnt oil that wafted up from beneath the hood. He wondered how it was the girls couldn’t have recognized the odor while they were driving. Maybe, he thought, they smelled it and had no idea what it was. That didn’t surprise him. Teenagers weren’t like they used to be when it came to cars or car care. They just got in them and drove off; he’d seen it. As long as the stereo system worked — that was all that concerned them. As a young driver so many years ago, the Lizard King treasured and babied his first used car, a 1978 Chevy half-ton pickup. He knew everything about it and he spent nights and weekends tuning the engine and keeping it in prime running condition. It disgusted him how little kids cared anymore, as if their cars were an entitlement and driving their right.

Unlike him. He’d parlayed his love and competence for wrenching and driving to truck driving school, where he’d paid $3,000 to earn his first commercial driver’s license (CDL), then hired on with Swift Trucking on their “Train, Lease, Drive” program that eventually paid for his first rig. That was four trucks and three million miles ago.

He threw open the driver’s side door of the Ford. The dome light came on but it was muted and weak — the sign of a dying battery. He rooted through his cargo pockets past the stun gun and the pistol and withdrew a mini-Maglite flashlight and twisted it on. With the flashlight clamped between his teeth, he leaned into the car. It was a mess, which confirmed his disgust. The floors and dash were littered with junk but he found what he was looking for: their two cell phones. He knew from experience that there was no service inside the canyon where they were located but that there would be a signal within two miles when the canyon walls receded and the Paradise Valley opened up to reveal the compound. He was blessed with luck! It was meant to be!

The phones, he knew, might contain GPS capability. But no matter. He grasped a phone in each hand as he backed out of the car and turned and fast-stepped across the road.

The phone in his right hand came to life and he nearly dropped it out of surprise. He lifted it and saw the call was coming from someone named Justin. Surprisingly, there seemed to be sections of the canyon where there was spotty cell service, and this appeared to be one of them. He refused the call and quickly powered the phone off and threw it toward the river.

As he reared back to throw the second phone there was a pinprick of light in his right eye. Someone was coming from the north. He threw the phone anyway, heard a second distant splash far below, and jogged back toward his truck trying to assess how much time he’d have before the vehicle arrived. The road to the north paralleled the serpentine river, so the oncoming car was temporarily tucked out of view. He figured he had two minutes until it arrived.

Opening the door, he emptied his pockets on the floor of his cab, his .380, the stun gun, the case with the syringe (now empty), the flashlight, and the handcuffs. Running his hands down his jumpsuit as if frisking himself, he was satisfied he’d left nothing behind. He quickly shed the Tyvek overalls and kicked the bundle off his boots. He stuffed the white mass into a dark plastic trash bag and shoved it under his driver’s seat to be disposed of later.

And suddenly the oncoming car was upon him, much sooner than he’d anticipated. A yellow wash of headlights lit him up as he stood but he fought the urge to look over his shoulder and show his face.

The car passed by but he could hear the motor decompressing as it did so, and he shot a glimpse under his right armpit to confirm that yes, red brake lights flashed. The car was slowing down.

Why? He wanted to shout. What had they seen?

He watched as the car pulled over to the opposite shoulder five hundred feet away and began a U-turn.

The Lizard King felt his face and scalp pull tight with rage. Everything had gone so well, and now this! He considered clambering inside the cab and roaring away before the car could reach him. But to do so would definitely create suspicion when the driver arrived to find the empty Ford. So he stayed where he was, frozen in time and space, but let his right hand creep back up into the cab until his fingers grasped the grip of the .380.

The car that had passed him stayed in the highway lane instead of pulling over. It slid up beside him and he squinted against the beam of the headlights, trying to figure out how many heads were inside; deciding that if there were more than two he wouldn’t fire because it would get too complicated …

The car was a late-model four-door sedan and as it arrived the passenger window rolled down. Inside was the grinning face of his partner.

“Scared you, didn’t I?”

“I should fucking shoot you anyway,” the Lizard King said, pulling the gun down in full view of the driver.

“Good thing you didn’t.”

“Yeah — good thing.”

“Jesus Christ, what happened to your face?”

The Lizard King absently reached up and dragged his fingertips through blood. He’d completely forgotten about his wound. The blood was hot and sticky.

“Guess I banged my head in all the excitement.”

“You better clean that up. You look like hell itself.”

He nodded.

His partner gestured toward the dark Ford. “Is this the double load you mentioned?”

“It is.”

“Young ones?”

“Like I said.”

“Anyone come by and see anything?”

“Only you.”

“Fantastic.”

“Everything ready at the place?”

His partner nodded. The grin seemed plastered to his face and in the green light from his dash he looked malevolent, like a gargoyle.

“You had better get in your rig and get going,” his partner said. “I didn’t see anyone behind me but that doesn’t mean someone might not show up.”

The Lizard King nodded. Now that the situation had defused itself he felt equal measures thrilled and exhausted. This was going to work. He said, “You going to follow me in?”

His partner said, “In a minute. Once you’re clear I’m going to push that car farther off the shoulder into the brush. I don’t want anybody seeing it or noticing the license plate until we get back here to drive it away.”

The Lizard King shook his head, “That car won’t run. I think the engine is seized up. You can smell it. We’ll need the tow truck to get it out of here.”

“Shit.”

“It is what it is. But believe me, this will be worth it.”

“That good, eh?”

“One of ’em, at least. I didn’t get that great of a look at the other. But this is exactly what we talked about that time, remember? And they’re not meth heads.”

“Kind of like Christmas, eh?”

“Yeah,” the Lizard King said. “Oh, there’s a dead one in there, too. It was an accident.”

“You’ve been a busy man.”

“I’m motivated.”

His partner nodded, then conspicuously peered out through his windshield ahead and checked his rearview mirror. “Still clear,” he said, “You better go. It’s going to be a busy night.”

“See you soon,” the Lizard King said, turning to pull himself back into his cab. “I’ll drop off the precious cargo before I unload.”

16

Danielle’s cell phone rang once and stopped. Justin held his phone away from his face and stared at it, unbelieving. He made sure he hadn’t misdialed and confirmed that he hadn’t.

Christian said, “What’s up, man? Didn’t she want to talk to you?”

“She hung up,” Justin said, surprised. “One ring. Maybe she was in the middle of something and she’ll call me right back.”

“Right,” Christian chided. He had a baby face despite his size, and it took only two beers for a blush of pink to bloom across his cheeks. He’d had at least two, Justin guessed.

“I don’t know,” Justin said. “Maybe they’re still going in and out of cell phone range. Last I heard they were going into the Yellowstone River canyon out of Gardiner, so that might be it.”

“Yankee Jim Canyon!” one of the boys on the sofa cried out. “I went on a white-water raft trip there last summer and froze my balls off.”

“Sweet,” one of the girls said, and the other laughed.

“Try again,” Christian said to Justin.

He punched the button. This time the call went straight to voice mail: You’ve reached the voice mail of the awesome Danielle Sullivan. Please leave a message and I’ll call you right back unless I don’t. Ciao!

“That’s weird,” Justin said. “She doesn’t take my call and then it goes straight to her mailbox.”

“Try it again.”

This time, Justin heard a recorded message from Verizon saying the number he was calling was not available.

“It’s like she turned her phone off. That’s just weird. Danielle never turns her phone off. I doubt she even knows how to do it.”

Christian shrugged. “Maybe her phone ran out of battery and she doesn’t know it. Or she forgot to bring a car charger. Didn’t you say she was kind of an airhead sometimes?”

Justin didn’t remember saying it but thought he probably had because she was.

“In fact, I’m going to try Gracie’s phone next.”

Justin scrolled down his contacts list for Gracie’s number and tuned Christian out. He wasn’t in the mood for Christian, and especially Christian with a few beers inside him. The party had already lost some people, who had moved on to other parties. Christian had called Justin a “buzzkill” because, he said, “nobody likes seeing a dude sitting at a table working phones and a computer when they want to kick back and relax.”

Gracie’s number repeated the same message from the carrier. He closed the phone, frowned, and looked up. Christian stood there, hovering. Justin responded with a shrug. “Both of their phones are off. That just doesn’t make sense.”

“Screw her,” Christian said. “You’ve got better things to do. I know I do.

“Who knows, man,” Christian said. “Maybe they stopped for gas and she met some studly biker. You know, chicks just say they want nice boys. Really, they want the bad ones.”

From the couch, Kelsie said, “Christian, you don’t know what you’re talking about as always.”

“It’s true,” Christian said to her, walking into the kitchen to pull another beer bottle from the cooler of ice.

In his absence, Kelsie got up and joined Justin at the table. She sat close and said, “If those girls don’t show up, Justin, you know who to call, don’t you?”

He looked up to confirm he’d heard her correctly and she smiled. She was sweet, cute, and available, he thought. Danielle would make mincemeat out of her if they were ever in the same room.

He waited ten minutes, then called both numbers again. Same result. He was getting worried. If they’d had car trouble, or had been in an accident …

Justin stood, closed his laptop, and shoved his phone into the pocket of his hoodie.

“I’m out of here,” he said to Christian.

Kelsie sat back, hurt.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “But if they show up at my house and I’m not there…”

She crossed her arms over her breasts and glared at him.

He went out into the night with his laptop under his arm and his cell phone in his hand. He climbed into the older model Toyota Camry his father had somehow obtained the year before from the county impound lot, and sighed deeply as it warmed up.

He wondered if Danielle was gaming him, making him worry so he’d be more grateful to see her. She was capable of it, he knew. But if Gracie was along, Danielle couldn’t get away with that, he thought.

It didn’t feel right to have a girl, even one as smoking hot as Danielle, so determined to be with him that she’d drive hundreds of miles herself. It should be the other way around, he thought. Maybe the whole thing was a ruse? Maybe Danielle had been in Denver or Omaha the entire time and the long drive was something she made up to shame him, to make him remember how close they’d been and how much he’d miss her if she was gone?

Involving Gracie was the kicker, though, and pushed him back over the line. He’d seen how tough and resourceful her sister could be. Gracie wouldn’t get involved in a deception.

Justin thought about the sequence of calls and texts earlier. She’s been in constant contact with him, seemed thrilled to hear back from him, and then … nothing. He could think of no reason she’d simply turn off her phone. And if her phone had run out of battery power, she would use Gracie’s or call from a pay phone to check in. Danielle hated a vacuum and felt obligated to fill it.

He thought he knew what to do next, but he hesitated. He kept looking at his phone, willing it to ring and for Danielle to be on the other end. He sent three texts, one after the other, asking if she was okay, asking her to call. He copied Gracie in each time. When neither responded, he once again tried to call and once again got the message.

The last thing in the world he wanted to do that night was to tell his mom what was going on. She didn’t like Danielle and didn’t approve of him pledging himself to a girl in another state throughout high school. Danielle had been clingy and proprietary. His mom would go ballistic if Danielle simply showed up for Thanksgiving. And she might not believe that Justin wasn’t in on it.

Should he call Danielle’s mother? He barely knew her.

He did know Ted Sullivan quite well. But what he knew of him didn’t fill Justin with any confidence. Ted would likely get hysterical and create problems that didn’t yet exist.

Then there was his dad. He wouldn’t be as emotional or judgmental about the situation. After all, he’d saved all their lives. But his dad was at best unpredictable. When Cody Hoyt had his fuse lit, anything could happen. Justin wasn’t sure he wanted to be the one holding the match.

17

At the table in the back corner of Jester’s Bar, Cody leaned toward Cassie, bared his teeth, and said, “That’s right. Tubman owns sapphire mines. Three of ’em. He leases them out with a contingency agreement. Tubman gets forty percent of the proceeds if the miners hit it big.”

Cody’s face was close enough to Cassie so that she could smell the alcohol on his breath. Two shots of Jim Beam, two bottles of Coors Light. Certain words—sapphire, contingency—were strung out and loopy when he used them. His once clear eyes were now slits. A veiny bloom of tiny red blood vessels had appeared on his nose and cheeks.

Since they’d been there, Cassie had counted thirteen people who’d entered the bar, seen them in the corner, and left without buying a drink. Thirteen people who had either had encounters with Cody Hoyt or knew of him by reputation and didn’t want to be in the same room with him. The bartender glared at them every time the door shut. Cody was either oblivious to what was happening, or didn’t care.

“I don’t get it,” she said, barely sipping on her third glass of wine. She was feeling it. But she wanted the dirt on the sheriff and in order to keep Cody talking, she needed to play along — even if there was no way she could keep up. She said, “So what if he has some mineral leases. There’s no rule against it that I know of.”

“There isn’t,” Cody said. “And from what I understand, he married into it. His wife Dixie’s family has lived in the county for years. The mines are in her name, but you know how that goes.”

Cassie shook her head, not understanding.

Cody rolled his eyes, apparently annoyed that she couldn’t connect the dots.

“There are a few legit miners,” Cody said. “Some of them are as honest and hardworking as the day is long. But think about some of ’em we’ve dealt with like Tokely and that fucking B. G. We know they use the mines as cover for dealing, right?”

“We suspect it,” Cassie corrected.

“We know it,” Cody said. “And guess what?”

“What?”

“Two of the mines Tubman owns are worked by Tokely and B. G.”

“Oh,” she said.

“That’s right. So haven’t you ever wondered why — as a department policy — we take it easy on those people up there? Haven’t you ever wondered why we don’t do any surveillance in the Big Belts? Haven’t you ever wondered why Mr. Law-and-Order Tubman hasn’t done a high-profile raid up there and hauled their asses in?”

“I hadn’t thought about it,” she said. “I haven’t been here that long.”

“Don’t get me wrong,” he said. “I don’t give a shit about them either. Live and let live, I say. I don’t care if they’re high on weed all the time or even if they shoot each other, as long as they keep it to themselves and don’t involve any civilians. But you’d think our sheriff might care, wouldn’t you?”

“I’m not sure where this is going,” she said.

“Where it’s going,” Cody said, “goes back to that contingency agreement I mentioned. Tubman gets forty percent of the gem revenue. But it seems to be an all-cash business, just like dope. So how do we know that forty percent comes from the sale of sapphires?”

She sat back. “You’re saying Tubman is involved in drug dealing?”

“Nope,” Cody said. “I’m saying he gets payments from those people. I doubt he asks for copies of receipts from gem sales, is what I’m saying. Guys like B. G. — do you think he keeps good records? Do you think B. G. keeps one set of books for gem sales and one set for drug sales? Hell no, he doesn’t. He commingles all his cash and he pays Tubman a percentage overall. Tubman probably never asks where the money came from, and B. G. probably couldn’t tell him anyway. But I’ve done some snooping. Tubman has a nice house worth three-quarters of a million, plus a property up on Flathead Lake. That’s a highbrow place. He’s got snow machines and four-wheelers and who knows what else. You think he was able to afford all those things on his sheriff’s salary?”

She nodded her head. “So how do you know you’re right about this? If the mines are in his wife’s name, how can you really say the sheriff is doing something crooked? It could be her money.”

Cody simply grinned at her. “Think what the newspaper would do with that info come election time?” he said. “All they have to do is report the facts. Voters might not look too kindly on a sheriff who appears to be getting rich doing his job. And you can bet anyone running against him would bring it up. If Tubman spends all his time defending himself, he looks tainted. And in local politics, perception is reality.”

He signaled for another round.

“Please, not another one,” Cassie said. “We’ve got to get you out of here before—”

“Before what?” Cody asked. “I’ve got nowhere to go, thanks to you.”

The bartender arrived with his head down. He looked whipped.

“I see what’s been happening, partner,” Cody said to him. “You’ve been losing a lot of business tonight.”

The bartender nodded.

Cody shifted in his stool and reached back and opened his wallet again. This time, he handed the bartender a Visa card.

“Buy everyone left in the place a couple of rounds,” Cody said to him. “And one for yourself because you look like you need it. And another wine for the pretty lady here.”

“I’m fine,” Cassie said quickly.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Cody said. To the bartender: “Keep it flowing until I tell you to stop. For everybody in the place. They’ll call their friends back and we’ll all have a good old time.”

The bartender left with the card, and announced to his remaining customers that the party had started. The bikers lifted their beer bottles in Cody’s direction. Cody took it all in, acknowledging the accolades.

To Cassie, he said, “This is how drunks make friends.”

She shook her head, “I’ve never seen you like this.”

“This is the real me,” he said. “I used to be a fun guy before I turned into a sober curmudgeon.”

And your son and your wife came back, she thought but didn’t say.

As the bartender delivered drinks to everyone, Cassie said, “I was asking you how you knew all this about the sheriff.”

“You were?”

“Yes.”

He held her eyes with his, and he smirked. “Have you ever met Dixie Tubman?” he asked.

“The sheriff’s wife?”

He tilted his head and grinned. It was an unfamiliar man-to-man gesture that unnerved her.

“Before Jenny came back I catted around a little,” he said, still smirking. “Dixie gets kind of lonely in that big house all by herself when Tubman is away giving speeches or politicking.”

“You slept with the sheriff’s wife?” she said, raising her voice. Someone had fed the jukebox and the guitar intro to Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Gimme Three Steps” was playing.

“I fulfilled a need.” Cody winked. “Didn’t do much actual sleeping. Damn, I always liked that song.”

She rubbed her eyes. “I’m trying to wrap my head around this,” she said. “So how did you find out about the mines and the contingency agreements?”

“Pillow talk.” He laughed. “When she wasn’t biting the pillow, I mean.”

“Don’t be an asshole.”

“I used to be an asshole when I drank,” he said frankly. “Everybody told me that. So many people told me I began to believe it might be true.”

“Does Tubman know?”

“Know what? That I was an asshole?”

“That you slept with his wife!”

“Keep it down, girlie,” he said, “All I know is I didn’t tell him.” He reached out and put his hand on hers. She pulled her hand away.

He was obviously drunk, she thought. The evening had taken a turn she had dreaded but anticipated. Men like Cody — in fact, most men she’d been around — would eventually make a play. It wasn’t that they pined for her, or wanted her, or even thought much about her during their day. It wasn’t even personal, which kind of hurt. It’s just what they did, what they were hardwired to want to do. She’d once mistakenly believed a situation like this might turn out to mean more. Hence, her son.

“So no more about the pillows, is what you’re saying.” He chuckled.

She turned and slid off her stool. The wine fogged her brain and she reached out to steady herself.

“I’m not going to stay,” she said to him. “I’ll drive you home.”

“Home?”

“You’re right,” she said. “I don’t think you want Jenny to see you like this. So I’ll drive you to a motel for the night.”

“What about your place?” he leered.

“My mother and son wouldn’t like it,” she said. “And I wouldn’t, either.”

Then he looked up over her shoulder and his face changed. The leer was gone. Suddenly, he looked stricken.

She turned and recognized Justin from the football photo Cody had showed her.

18

Justin drove cody home in his car. Cassie Dewell followed them in Cody’s pickup after Justin agreed to return her to her Honda later. His son drove with barely controlled fury, but laid out the circumstances of the night; how Danielle and Gracie Sullivan had suddenly stopped communicating with him.

Cody sat in embarrassed silence although his heart was racing and the comforting buzz of alcohol coursed through his blood stream. Home was a beige two-story ranch with a double garage, on a block lined with beige two-story homes in a new development on the north side of Helena. So new, that he could still see the seams of grass sod on the front lawns and all the cue-stick-sized tree trunks were secured with wires to T-posts so the wind wouldn’t blow them away. Justin swung into his driveway and nearly kissed bumpers with Jenny’s car, missing it by inches.

Cody said, “I can’t ask you to lie to your mom. But you could just not say anything.”

Justin refused to look over at him. He said, “Just help me find those two girls. Then you can go out and destroy yourself again.”

It was like a knife to the heart, and Cody moaned. He rubbed his face with both hands and tried to will himself sober. He hated the role reversal; his son as the parent, himself as the miscreant. He was embarrassed for Justin and angry with himself.

Justin got out and Cody followed. Cody’s boot caught a crack in the driveway concrete and he tripped and righted himself by grabbing the hood of the car. Justin simply looked at him, shook his head, and went inside the house.

Cody stood there for a moment breathing in cold air, feeling the frigid sheet metal of the roof numb his bare hands. He watched Cassie park his truck in front of the house and was still there when she walked up.

“You look like you’re waiting for someone to pat you down,” she said.

“Feel free,” he said sullenly.

She shook her head. “Just remind Justin I need a ride back for my car.”

“Come inside out of the cold,” he said, standing up. He was grateful he didn’t swoon. “No reason for you to stand around out here.”

She started to object but he said, “Please.”

She sighed and nodded.

“Jenny might start swinging,” he said. “You might have to protect me.”

“I’ll probably help her,” Cassie said, deadpan.

He paused inside the front door and kicked off his muddy boots. One thing he liked about the place was that it still smelled new — new paint, raw lumber, fresh carpet. It was the first new house he’d ever owned and he wondered how long it would take him to damage it. Every hovel he’d ever lived in he’d left with fist-sized holes in the walls, carpets stained from whiskey spills, and bullet holes in the molding. But that was before he stopped drinking and raging and before Jenny decided to give him one more chance.

She was standing at the top of the landing with her arms crossed, looking down at them. Justin stood behind her. Jenny had long dark curly hair, blue eyes, a pug nose, and was fit and trim due to her daily runs. She wore a loose-fitting sweatshirt and tight jeans.

As he evaded her eyes she said, “Are you going to introduce me?”

“Oh,” he said, “This is Cassie Dewell. She’s my … used to be … my partner.”

“What happened?”

Cody paused, hoping Cassie would say the right thing. But she remained quiet other than to say, “Nice to meet you” to Jenny.

“I got suspended again,” he said. “Well, fired actually.”

He would have preferred it if Jenny cursed or threw something at him. Instead, she closed her eyes and slowly shook her head. Her disappointment cut deeper than cursing or anger.

“I’m sorry,” he said, looking down.

“Justin,” Cassie said from behind him, “About that ride…”

Cody didn’t want Justin or Cassie to go. He didn’t want to be alone with Jenny.

“What did you do?” Jenny asked coldly. “I mean, before you went out and got shitfaced?”

He didn’t respond.

She said, “When you didn’t come home for dinner all kinds of things ran through my mind. You were on a case, or you where lying somewhere bleeding to death — all the things all cop’s wives think. But then when Justin told me what was going on and said he needed your help, I thought of all those times I couldn’t find you. But I talked myself out of it. I actually began to trust you again. Now you show me I was wrong.”

He closed his eyes. He had nothing to say.

Finally, after a moment, Justin said, “Mom? Can we please do this later?”

Cody thought that if Justin were close enough he’d kiss him. Jenny was protective of Justin — Cody thought unnecessarily so — and on the very rare instances where their son was upset Jenny got the long knives out to protect her child. Even from Cody. And from her own justified anger.

Justin said, “Those two girls are out there somewhere.”

Cody sheepishly looked up at his ex-wife. Jenny seemed to be conflicted what her course of action should be.

Cassie surprised him by saying, “Mrs. Hoyt, for what it’s worth, the second Justin showed up Cody stopped drinking. I know because I was there.”

“How sweet of you,” Jenny said acidly.

“It’s my fault all of this happened,” Cassie said. “I really feel responsible.”

Jenny said, “It must have been hard pouring drinks down his throat.”

“Mom, please,” Justin said.

Cody took a deep breath and said to Jenny, “Let me see if I can figure out where these girls are. You could help me out by making some coffee.”

Jenny finally nodded, and turned on her heel for the kitchen. Then she stopped short, and said to Cody, “Justin said it’s been hours since those Sullivan girls texted or called. You know how it is with these kids, Cody. They’re never not texting each other. I’m afraid something has happened to them.”

I’m afraid something has happened to them. The words hung there. They weren’t unfamiliar to Cody. He’d heard them countless times from the other side of his desk at the sheriff’s department from husbands and wives, boyfriends and girlfriends. People always assumed the worst when a loved one was missing. Sometimes, they were right.

Cody nodded and mounted the stairs to the living room. He was drunk but the immediacy of the situation seemed to have sobered him some. His head hurt — one of the signs that either the hangover would start to kick in or he’d need another drink to stave it off. There was no alcohol in the house. Jenny made sure of it. And he knew he’d cleaned out all of his hiding places two years before.

He grabbed a hardwood chair from the table in the kitchen, carried it over to where Justin was on the couch, and swung it around and sat down so he could face his son. He motioned for Cassie to come and sit next to Justin.

“Before we panic,” Cody said, “let’s review the situation and get all the facts in order so we can do the right thing and not waste anyone’s time. Justin, when was the last text from Danielle?”

“A few hours ago.”

“When exactly?”

Justin looked up blankly.

“Look at your phone,” Cody said, trying to remain patient. “Check the log.”

His son started scrolling. Finally, he said, “The last text from her was at eight twenty-seven. She said they were in Yellowstone Park.”

“Where exactly? It’s a big place.”

“She didn’t say.”

Cody squinted and sat back. “Why in the hell were they in Yellowstone?”

“There was a roadblock or something on I-90,” Justin said. “I looked at the map and figured out how they could go around it and get back on the interstate past the roadblock.”

“Yellowstone?” Cody asked again. “You had them go back there?”

“Dad,” Justin said, “I didn’t make them do anything. They wanted to get here as fast as they could and it looked like the best alternative route. That’s all.”

“I wonder if it creeped them out,” Cody speculated. “Maybe they got into the park and everything they went through before came rushing back so they freaked out and turned around and went home.”

“No,” Justin said, shaking his head. “They were fine with it. They’re not like that. You should know them better than that.”

“Well, I don’t,” Cody said. “I met them that one time and we didn’t exactly have a get-to-know-you chat. Gracie was all right, but her sister—”

“Her sister what?” Justin asked, his voice cracking.

“She just seemed kind of, well, unserious.” Cody said.

“She’s my girlfriend, Dad,” Justin said. “But I wanted to break up with her. She seemed to know that and wanted to come up here and talk me out of it, I’m sure. There is no way she’d just turn around and go home without telling me.”

“Let’s start over,” Cody said, shooting his sleeve and looking at his wristwatch. “Okay, so you last heard from her at 8:27. It’s 10:15 right now. That means she’s been in radio-free Montana for one hour, forty-five minutes or so. Son, I know that seems like forever to you but it’s really not very long. You know the cell service in the park is awful and it cuts in and out all the way up to Gardiner, if that’s the way she was coming.”

“That’s the route we talked about,” Justin said. “But she should have been well past that by now. She should be back on the interstate less than an hour from here. I did the math.”

Cody paused for a moment to do it himself. “Okay, you’re right if she didn’t get held up somehow,” he said. “And that’s a big if.

“Think about it,” Cody said, “They could have made a wrong turn.”

“Maybe,” Justin said. “But they said they had a GPS.”

“Okay, but who knows — maybe there was road construction in the park. There is always road construction going on in there and they never seem to get it done. Maybe—”

“I checked the Yellowstone Web site,” Justin said, shaking his head. “They have all the road alerts posted. There’s some construction way south of Mammoth down by Old Faithful, but that’s only in the summer.”

“Maybe they ran out of gas.”

“Then by now they should have found some and been back on the road,” Justin said, his jaw set.

“There are so many possible reasons why they haven’t called,” Cody said. “Their phones may have run out of juice and they forgot to bring a charger — like you do all the time. A cell tower could have gone down, or there might be a service interruption. Maybe they hit an animal. Or, God forbid, got in an accident. That’s certainly possible.”

Justin shook his head. “But it doesn’t make sense, Dad. I called both their numbers and they refused the calls. They didn’t go to voice mail. It was like they saw my name and refused the call.”

“That is strange,” Cassie said. Cody had practically forgotten about her.

He said, “But who knows? It could have been a problem with the cell service. They’re probably just broken down or something.”

Justin closed his eyes. “In that case, someone should know about it. Wouldn’t a wreck have been reported by now?”

“Maybe,” Cody said. “But those roads are remote and the place is under the jurisdiction of the National Park Service. The feds do things their own way. Not a lot of people travel through Yellowstone this late in the fall. It would be possible to have an accident and not get help for a couple of hours.”

“Which means,” Jenny cut in as she returned from the kitchen, “those girls might be hurt. And if that’s the case, we need to find out where they are and let their parents know what’s going on.”

Cody asked, “Do you know if they were in touch with their mom in Colorado?”

And, if possible, Justin’s face turned even whiter than it had before.

“What the hell do you mean she doesn’t know?” Cody shouted.

“It was Danielle’s decision not to tell her,” Justin said, staring at his shoes. “She lied and said they were driving to Nebraska to be with their dad for Thanksgiving.”

“Ted?” Cody said, “Ted is in on this?” He recalled Ted Sullivan with distaste. But as soon as he said it he wasn’t surprised. He said to Cassie, “Ted Sullivan is a pain in the ass. He thinks the way to be a father is to be best buddies with his kids and let them do whatever the hell they want so they’ll like him, even though that almost got them killed before.”

“Justin,” Jenny said, “I can’t believe you went along with this. How are we supposed to call Danielle’s mother and tell her we don’t know where her daughters are?”

“I know,” Justin whispered.

“But we’ve got to call her,” Cody said. “And maybe, just maybe, she’s heard from them. And what about Ted? Do you think he’s been in contact with them?”

Justin shrugged.

“What a mess,” Cody said, sitting back in the chair. His headache was getting worse.

“Cody,” Jenny said, “What are we going to do?”

He rubbed his eyes. “First, I need a couple of ibuprofen. Then I’ll call the highway patrol,” Cody said. “I’ll find out from the dispatcher if anybody has reported an accident or a breakdown between Gardiner and Bozeman. If not, I’ll try to raise somebody in law enforcement in the park to see if they know anything.”

“And if they didn’t?” Jenny asked.

“I’ll put the word out to start looking for them. Justin, what kind of car is she driving?”

Justin said, “It’s a little red Ford Focus. I don’t know the year but it’s used.”

“Do you know the license plate number by any chance?”

“P-L-N-T-D-N-L.”

Cody wrote it down on the palm of his hand. “What does that mean?” he asked.

Justin smiled a little when he said, “Planet Danielle.”

“Planet Danielle,” Cody repeated, shaking his aching head.

While Cody downed five ibuprofen tablets in the kitchen he felt a presence behind him. Expecting Jenny, he turned so she could let him have it. He was surprised to find Cassie.

“Let me help you with this,” she said.

He waved her away. “What is it you propose to do?”

She shook her head. “I don’t know. But it’s the least I can do.”

“That’s true. But I’m not even sure what you could do at this point.”

“Then let me know when you figure something out,” she said.

“Run out and get me a bottle of Wild Turkey,” he said.

“Except that.”

19

Gracie rolled over and felt like throwing up but she couldn’t open her mouth because it was taped shut. She knew if she got sick she could choke to death. In a primal reaction, her eyes bulged wide as she tried to control the rising waves of nausea. Her belly heaved but she fought against it, willing herself to stay calm, willing her body to try not to expel what was inside her stomach. Although she was conscious she couldn’t see a thing. Was she blindfolded as well? If so, she couldn’t feel the blindfold.

Although she couldn’t see, she had the impression she was in a long dark metal cylinder of some kind. It was dark and cold and the ground was pitching and she thought, I’m in a spaceship. The steel floor trembled and shook, it smelled of sawdust and varnish. She tried to reach out to push herself to her hands and knees but her limbs wouldn’t respond. Her stomach ached and splashes of color and sound swirled behind her eyes until she closed them again. She managed to roll to the side until her progress was stopped by something long, still, and stiff. It gave a little under the pressure from her body and she thought she felt the knob of a knee or an elbow in her ribs.

She scooted back, then rolled again toward the object so she was on her side facing it. She used the crown of her head to poke at the object to try and determine what it was. The middle was stiff but elastic. Further up was a soft rise — breasts — and she could make out the jut of a chin and then a brow. But the object didn’t move or breathe and the crackling and rustling sound she heard meant it was covered in some kind of plastic. The realization overcame her: Her sister was dead and cloaked in plastic sheeting.

Instinctively, Gracie scrambled away, inadvertently kicking the body. She was horrified and couldn’t process what she’d found.

Her progress was stopped by another object. It took her a moment to realize that the body now pressing against her back was heavy, warm, and still.

Danielle. She recognized her sister by her scent. But unlike the other body, Danielle was surely alive if still under. Gracie snuggled against her sister, spooning with her in reverse, feeling the warmth against her back and hearing slow, labored breathing.

She tried not to think of the other body but she wondered who it had been and why it was there.

Gracie tried to remember what had happened but it came in erratic bolts of mental videotape: the blinding headlights of the big truck pulling in behind them, the flash of pure white clothing as the driver, who appeared as a silhouette framed by the high headlights, had swarmed her, locking her head in the crook of his arm, and the sharp bite of a needle in her thigh. Locking up, feeling her consciousness fade away, impulses in her brain misfiring …

Then nothing, and even now she wasn’t sure if she was awake or dreaming or in some kind of state in between.

Gracie tried to say, “Danielle?” to the body beside her but her voice was muffled. She realized her hands were bound behind her back and her ankles were tied or taped together as well.

She bent her head back and thrust out her chin, still fighting the nausea, and felt an edge of the tape near her jawbone come loose. Pinpricks of sweat broke across her scalp and forehead as she tried to hold it in. Then, by dropping her chin to her chest and catching the loose adhesive of the free corner of the tape to her collar, she was able to wrench her head to the left and tear more of the tape from her mouth. Her lips felt suddenly cool from being exposed to air, and she wretched, emptying the contents of her stomach on the steel floor until there was nothing left.

Then she wiped her mouth the best she could by rubbing it against the clothing on her shoulder, and leaned in closer to her sister and said, “Danielle?”

Her sister didn’t respond. She breathed in the smell of Danielle’s hair, and closed her eyes and burrowed through the thick dark hair until her chin was against her sister’s throat. She could feel a slow pulse beneath Danielle’s skin and the swell of her sister’s breasts as she breathed.

“Thank God,” she whispered. Then, to Danielle: “Wake up, Danny. Please wake up.”

But despite her pleading, Danielle didn’t stir or open her eyes.

That’s when she heard a squeal beneath the floor of the room — the squeal of brakes.

They were in the trailer of the truck, and it was moving. She had no idea how long they’d been there or when the ride would be over.

The smell of her own vomit joined with the sawdust and varnish and cold stagnant air inside the container. Whatever was in the syringe was taking hold of her again, pulling her down, and she felt herself swoon. There was some comfort when she closed her eyes again, and she knew she wouldn’t last very long before she passed out again.

20

Cody’s cell phone lit up and he snatched it up from his home office desk and looked at the display: dispatch calling back.

“Edna,” he said, “Tell me something good.”

“Everybody always asks me that,” she said, “and I always let them down.”

He frowned. His head was pounding. The ibuprofen had done no good. Every cell in his body screamed, More alcohol! at him — a familiar feeling. He idly wondered what proof was listed on the bottle of Listerine in the bathroom.

Cassie was in the kitchen with Jenny. He had no doubt they were talking about him, since he was probably the only thing they had in common.

Edna was the senior dispatcher at the L&C Sheriff’s Department and she’d only recently given up trying to marry Cody off to someone — anyone — to complete one of her life goals. She hated the idea of single cops in the department, and she claimed she’d played matchmaker to eighteen relationships over the years. Of those, half were still married. Cody was grateful Jenny had come home for many reasons, but getting Edna off his back was an unexpected bonus.

“I checked with state dispatch as well as the NPS emergency center in the park,” she said. “There are no reports of accidents involving a car of that description either on state highways or in Yellowstone. I asked the troopers at the I-90 roadblock to look for a car of that description and we’re waiting for a callback.”

“Crap,” Cody said.

Edna said, “Of course, that doesn’t mean they’re not out there somewhere, but no one has called it in.”

Cody said, “That includes the Beartooth Highway, the road in Yellowstone from Cooke City to Mammoth, and Mammoth to Livingston?”

“You don’t have to repeat it,” she said. “I got it the first time. No one has called anything in on a red Ford Focus with Colorado plates.”

“Damn,” he said, leaning back in his chair. He’d been checking on his computer to monitor the roadblock on I-90—the Montana Department of Transportation site still said the road was closed. That was good because it isolated hundreds of westbound vehicles in one place and if the girls were stopped in traffic they’d be located. But the odds weren’t good, since Justin said they’d taken the alternative route.

“We need to put out an alert on that vehicle,” Cody said. “Let everybody know to keep a lookout and call you if they find it. Let the Wyoming folks and the Idaho folks know about it, too, just in case those girls really screwed up and went out another park entrance. Can you do that, Edna?”

“Already done,” she said. “This isn’t my first rodeo, Cody.”

“Here are the descriptions of the occupants of the car,” Cody said, giving Edna the details from memory.

“One of them is your son’s girlfriend?” Edna asked.

“Yes.” Then: “Sort of. Used to be.”

He thought of something. “Edna, have there been any reports of cell phone outages? That could explain the lack of communication.”

She said there had been no reports. Then she asked him to hold on for a moment, and he could hear the beeping of numbers being punched on a keypad, then Edna saying, “Just checking” to someone. She came back on the line and said, “I just called my sister Sally’s cell phone in Gardiner from my cell phone. It went right through.”

“Another theory knocked down,” he grumbled.

“I’ll let you know the second I hear something,” she said. “But you know how kids are. They could just be lost, or whatever.”

“Well, we need to find them,” he said.

“Have the parents been notified?”

“No. I’ll do it but I want to make sure I can tell them something one way or the other. In fact, can you look up a number for me in Omaha? Ted Sullivan. He’s the father.”

What wasn’t said between them was that the most horrific duty of anyone in law enforcement was to be the one to notify parents of missing or hurt children. Cody had done it too many times, and it tore his heart out. And he rarely even knew the victims.

“I’ll do that and get back to you,” she said.

“Send the number in an e-mail,” Cody said.

“Ten-four,” she said. Then: “I called a state trooper I know who is stationed between Livingston and Gardiner. He used to be married to Sally. His name is Rick Legerski and I left a message on his voice mail about what was going on. I hope you don’t mind that I left him your number.”

Cody sat back. “Thank you, Edna. That was good thinking.” He jotted the name down on his pad.

There was a long moment of silence before Edna said, “Cody, I heard you were suspended today.”

“Just a flesh wound,” Cody said. “Doesn’t mean anything.”

“Will I get in trouble with the sheriff for helping you out?”

“Maybe,” Cody said. “If you want to tell him.”

“I won’t.”

“Besides, would you really not want to find those stupid girls?”

“Of course not.”

“Well, then,” he said.

“Dispatch clear,” Edna said.

He mumbled a thank you and closed his phone.

“No luck?” Cassie asked from the door. He realized she’d been there since the phone rang and had been listening in.

“Not yet,” he said.

She looked over her shoulder in the direction of the living room, obviously checking to see where Jenny and Justin were, then stepped in and closed the door behind her.

“Cody,” she said, “what do you really think?”

“I honestly don’t know,” he said. “But I do know it’s not going to help anybody to panic. We’re pulling the trigger on this thing pretty fast. If someone called in the situation to me at my desk, given the short time period that’s lapsed between the last text message and now, I’d counsel them to calm down and wait for at least a couple more hours.”

She nodded. “This Danielle,” she said. “Is she trouble?”

Cody said, “Oh, she is. But she’s that kind of trouble boys find irresistible. You should see her picture.”

Cassie said, “Justin showed me a shot of her on Facebook. She looks like the kind of girl who used to take me aside and tell me I could be pretty if I just tried.”

Cody smiled.

“So,” she said, turning serious, “what do we do?”

He nodded at his phone. “We wait. Somebody out there will locate them.” He didn’t say how. Or what they’d find.

She came over and leaned against the edge of the desk, facing him. She said, “What does your gut tell you? Just between us?”

He looked away for a moment, then back at her. “We give it a couple of hours. The word is out to the highway patrol, local law enforcement, game wardens, and park rangers. There may not be a lot of ’em out there this time of night, but if they’re out on patrol there aren’t that many roads to check.”

She took in a deep breath and crossed her arms. “And if after a couple of hours we don’t hear anything?”

“Then we start to get worried,” he said. “This is the kind of situation where time is everything. If they are in trouble, well, we can’t act fast enough.

“In fact,” he said, squinting up at her, “if we don’t hear anything soon I’m going to head down there and start rousting people.”

“You’re in no condition to drive,” she said.

“I’ll be fine,” he said. “In fact, I’ve probably logged in more road miles drunk than most people have sober. But I can’t just sit around. I’ve got to get into the middle of things and start knocking some heads. Many times, a case doesn’t get solved until all the players involved — local sheriffs, cops, state guys — are properly motivated. And if there are suspects, I want to be the one asking questions. We can’t wait until morning.”

“I’ll go with you,” she said. It was a statement, not a question.

“Nope,” he said. “You won’t.”

“Really,” she said. “I can take a sick day.”

“Forget it,” he said. “You don’t want to be around me if I have to use some unorthodox methods to get answers, if you know what I mean.”

She said, “I read the report about what happened in Yellowstone. I know there were some allegations of brutality. One witness said you shot him in the knees and hung him from a tree.”

Cody shrugged. “Otherwise, the bears would have eaten him. I saved his miserable life. But you don’t want any part of that. You want to be as far from that kind of thing as possible at this stage of your career. Besides,” he said, “How do I know you wouldn’t just report me again?”

“You’re a son of a bitch,” she said angrily.

“Yes, I am.”

“Look,” he said, “if you want to help you can help me more by staying here. If I get onto something down there I’ll need someone to work the phones and access all the databases. I can’t rely on anyone else in the department considering my situation. So if you keep yourself available, you could be a hell of a lot more help than if you tagged along.”

She started to argue, but thought better of it. “Makes sense,” she said.

“So if this thing goes to hell, keep an eye on e-mail and keep your cell phone on.”

She nodded.

The door opened and Jenny came in. Justin hovered just behind her.

“Anything?” she asked.

“Not yet,” Cody said. Justin’s shoulders slumped in despair.

Over his shoulder, a chime on his computer sounded. He glanced over and saw it had come from Edna.

“Everybody out,” Cody said, “I need to collect my thoughts before I call that idiot Ted Sullivan and tell him his daughters are missing.”

21

A single dark cloud scudded across the slice of moon, halving it, while the Lizard King adjusted the control for the RPMs on the ancient Case backhoe. The powerful old engine revved roughly, rattling the metal floor of the cab, but settled into a banging muscular rhythm that could be heard for miles if there had been anybody out there to hear it.

Mountains rose on all four sides of the deep little valley and they were blacker than the sky. The night was still and cold. And beyond the growl and glow of the backhoe in the mountain meadow there was utter darkness.

The four lights mounted on the roof of his open cab threw harsh white light on the matted grass in front of the machine. He dropped the outriggers on both sides of the backhoe and triggered the stabilizers. They bit into the soil with a hydraulic hiss and he could feel the backhoe sit back on its haunches and settle in. He placed his gloved hands on the two tall lollypop sticks between his knees. The left stick maneuvered the hinged hydraulic arm and the right stick controlled the bucket curl. The scarred steel teeth of the bucket plunged into the soft soil and the motor strained as he lifted the first big mouthful and dumped it to the left of the backhoe. The ground was dark and moist with a few large rocks, and he should be able to dig a square pit that was fifteen feet long, twelve feet wide, and six feet deep within a couple of hours.

He knew this because it wasn’t the first excavation he’d performed in the narrow valley. In fact, if one looked closely, the valley floor was riddled with them.

The Lizard King was both incredibly excited and exhausted. He’d not slept for twenty hours and the night had been a roller coaster of anger, lust, fear, and triumph. He hadn’t been home yet and his cell phone was filled with messages. Since he knew what was on them and who had left them there was no reason to listen. No reason at all.

To the right of the hole he was digging was the little red Ford they’d towed in. In the glow from the light bar above his head he could see the reflection of his white Tyvek jumpsuit crumpled on the front seat of the car. On the passenger seat was a bundle of clothes and shoes that had been removed from the comatose girls. Everything would soon be buried under tons of dirt. Including that green Colorado license plate.

By morning light there would be no visible trace of the red Ford or the items inside it and the backhoe would be garaged in the county machine shed.

He thought of those two thin, flawless, half-naked bodies they’d unloaded. They were so unlike the lot lizards he’d brought back the last few months. Sure, there had been treasures from time to time when he got lucky and the circumstances were right. But for too many months, they’d had to make-do on a steady diet of lot lizards.

Then he pushed the thought aside as far as it would go so he could concentrate on his work.

22

As Cody reached for the landline phone to call Ted Sullivan’s Omaha phone number, his cell phone lit up. The display showed a 406 area code — Montana — but he didn’t recognize the number. In his move for the phone he’d knocked over half a cup of coffee Jenny had brought in for him — his third so far. Hot coffee flooded across the surface of his desk and a rivulet poured into his crotch where he sat. Cody kicked his chair back, daubed the spilled coffee with the sleeve of his shirt, and opened his phone with his free hand.

His voice croaked, “Cody Hoyt.” His throat was raw from cigarettes. The caffeine hadn’t sobered him up much but had simply made his nascent hangover more wide-awake.

“This is Trooper Rick Legerski of the Montana Highway Patrol. I got your number from Edna Mulcahy in Helena.” His voice was deep, gravelly, gruff, and no-nonsense. Cody could hear a radio or television in the background and assumed the man was calling from his home.

Cody introduced himself while sopping up more coffee with a series of Kleenex tissues from a box he kept on his bookshelf.

“Edna tells me you used to be married to her sister,” Cody said. This is how it went in Montana. Longtime residents sniffed around each other until they found someone they both knew. Usually, it didn’t take long.

There was a moment of silence.

“Sally, yeah,” the man said with a sigh. “Do you have any ex-wives?”

“One,” Cody said.

“I’ve got two. Love is grand, but divorce is a hundred grand. But enough about that.

“Yeah, Hoyt,” Legerski said, changing the subject, “I’ve heard of you before.” His voice was cautious and a little weary. Cody recognized the intonation and had heard it many times from older law enforcement types.

He smiled. “You’ve heard all good things, I imagine.”

“I knew your uncle Jeter,” Legerski said. “In fact, I busted his head open once when I spotted him weaving across the center line outside of Ekalaka with a dead bull elk in the back. He refused to take a Breathalyzer and got belligerent so I … subdued him.”

“So that was you,” Cody said. “I remember hearing that story.”

“His head was as hard as a rock,” Legerski said. “It bent my baton and I had to get a new one.”

Cody chuckled.

“And your name has come up a time or two around here,” Legerski said.

“I suppose it has.”

“You’re looking for a couple of missing teenagers in a vehicle,” the trooper said, done with small talk.

“That’s right,” Cody said, and repeated the make and model of the Ford as well as the names and descriptions of Gracie and Danielle Sullivan.

“Colorado plates?”

Cody spelled the license plate and recapped the story.

Legerski said, “I haven’t been down that road through Yankee Jim Canyon tonight but I haven’t heard of anything unusual. I was dispatched up to a roadblock on I-90 most of the night and I just got home and clocked out. I was just about to eat a late supper when I saw Edna called.”

“Sorry to bother you at home,” Cody said, not sorry at all. But he needed whatever help he could get so he said it.

“Part of the deal,” Legerski moaned. “A Montana state trooper is always on call.”

Cody rolled his eyes and pressed a ball of tissues into his lap to soak up more liquid.

He’d always had a knack for visualizing the details of people on the other end of the phone by the way they spoke, their choice of words, and their intonation. His former partner Larry used to bet him whether his premonition would be correct when compared to the real person when they finally met them. Most times, Larry had to pay up.

Because of the anecdote about Uncle Jeter, who had died three years before, Cody guessed Legerski was in his late fifties or early sixties, probably close to retirement. He was likely a big guy, as most troopers were, and because of his drawl Cody painted a drooping thick gunfighter mustache on a hawk-beaked craggy cowboy face. Since he’d mentioned working out of Ekalaka in Eastern Montana, Cody assumed Legerski was a lifer and had moved around the state throughout a long career. Ekalaka was in the middle of nowhere. Livingston and Gardner were in Park County, which was considered a high-profile and plum location because it bordered Yellowstone. So Legerski had moved up through the years. Which meant he got along within the state bureaucracy — the Montana Highway Patrol was a division of the state Justice Department — in ways Cody had never gotten along within his. Legerski’s tactic of introducing himself with a story about splitting open Uncle Jeter Hoyt’s head was right out of “Old Cop 101,” and designed to put Cody on the defensive right away and establish that Trooper Rick Legerski was a tough old bastard who had seen a lot and wasn’t impressed much by local sheriff’s department investigators.

Cody usually got along with tough old bastards, he thought. Except when he shot them.

Cody outlined the possibilities — breakdown, accident, cell phone outage, wrong turn somewhere. He repeated the line about “not that many roads to check.”

Legerski took umbrage to that. “There ain’t that many paved roads down here,” he said, “but that don’t mean there aren’t a lot of roads. We’ve got hundreds of miles of dirt and gravel roads. Old logging roads, old ranch access roads, fire roads, and two-tracks known only to poachers and old-timers. If those girls took one of those because their GPS steered them wrong or they were just dumb, that opens up a shitload of more possibilities. If they left the pavement at some point they could be high-centered in some wash or gulley out of cell phone range and we might not be able to find ’em for days.”

Cody winced. He listened haphazardly to Legerski outline two incidents he’d worked; one where a couple of elk hunters had knocked the axle out of their Jeep and didn’t get back to the highway for three days, and another where “some shithead Iraqi or Pakistani tourista” drove a Prius up a logging road and was found half-eaten by a grizzly bear ten days later. In both cases they’d flown a helicopter over the heavily timbered mountains but the vehicles hadn’t been spotted. Park County was still in litigation trying to get other governmental entities and federal agencies to share in the cost for the search.

Trooper Legerski, Cody thought, likes to talk.

“Okay, I got it,” Cody said. “And it’s possible they took a wrong turn somewhere. But from what my son tells me these girls were in a hurry to get to Helena. One of them, at least, has a level head on her shoulders. I doubt they’d just drive off the highway into the trees.”

“I don’t know why anyone would be in a hurry to get to Helena,” Legerski said, and laughed at his own joke.

“Yeah, yeah,” Cody said, waving it aside. Montanans loved to disparage their state capital. “But let’s assume for now they didn’t leave the road. How likely is it they’re broken down somewhere and no one has called it in?”

Cody heard a long wheezy intake of breath that he recognized as being from a fellow smoker. Then, “It’s possible, I guess,” Legerski said. “Not that many folks use that road this time of year. The touristas are all out of the park this late in the season because all the hotels and campgrounds are shut down. The road’s used mainly by locals this time of year and they’d likely notice an unfamiliar car on the side of the road and call it in.”

“So they might be down there along the road somewhere? Maybe in Yankee Jim Canyon where the cell service is bad?” Cody prompted.

“Anything’s possible, I guess.”

Cody wanted Legerski to offer to drive the road. The trooper was under no obligation since no one had called in a report of an accident or breakdown and he was off duty, but …

“I’d do it for you,” Cody said finally. “If you ever need a favor in Lewis and Clark County, I’m the guy to call.”

Legerski’s laugh seemed mocking and inappropriate, Cody thought.

“You must think we’re real rubes down here,” the trooper said.

“What are you talking about?”

“You must think that we’re so far off the beaten path that we don’t know about the Internet or something.”

Cody felt the hackles on his neck rise and vowed to himself to keep calm and not blow up.

“’Cause I got an e-mail sitting right here in front of me says you got suspended today. That as of right now you’ve been busted back to civilian.”

Cody wondered who’d sent it. But it didn’t matter.

“I’ll be reinstated within a week,” Cody lied. “In the meantime, there are two girls out there lost or hurt or worse on your roads.”

“Well,” Legerski said, “I suppose I can change back into my uniform and take the cruiser back out. But you’ll owe me if I don’t find anything.”

“I owe you anyway,” Cody said. Thinking, Now Justin owes me.

“Yeah, I wasn’t doing nothing anyway,” Legerski said sourly. “Just getting ready to grab some dinner and go to sleep for the night.”

“A Montana state trooper is always on call,” Cody said.

“You’re kind of a smart-ass, aren’t you? For a guy asking for a favor?”

“You’re right,” Cody said. “So thank you. And give me a call either way, okay? I’m sure I’ll be up. And if by some chance we hear from those girls, I’ll call you right away.”

“Call me on my cell,” Legerski said, giving Cody the number. “I can’t do any more overtime and if HQ knows I’m going out on a private call they’ll raise hell. So let’s keep this between you and me — back channel.”

“Fine,” Cody said, well aware of how many times he’d gone off the radar screen himself.

As he began to close his phone, he heard Legerski say, “Hoyt? You still there?”

“Yeah.”

“There’s one thing and we can talk about it later, I suppose.”

Cody frowned. “What’s that?”

“This isn’t the first,” the trooper said.

Cody sat up. “What do you mean?”

“Nobody wants to entertain this theory very much, especially the suits in HQ,” Legerski said. “But this isn’t the first time a car with females in it just up and vanished down here.”

Cody felt his scalp crawl. He said, “Come again?”

“Look, I better get going. But tell me your e-mail address before I go. I’ll fire you an e-mail with some links in it you might want to check out.”

“What do the links go to?” Cody asked.

“You’ll see,” Legerski said and hung up.

“Oh my God,” Ted Sullivan said when Cody told him. “Oh my God!”

“Don’t panic, Ted,” Cody said. “We don’t know enough yet for you to get hysterical.”

Ted Sullivan had light auburn hair so thin his freckled scalp undergirded it and hazel eyes that darted from one thing to another and seemed to focus up and to the left of the person he was speaking to. The one word Cody had heard over and over from others talking about Sullivan when they’d first met in Yellowstone was “weak.” Gracie hadn’t said as much, but she did concede her father was “not strong.” Cody had learned that Sullivan was a software engineer of some note within his own particular circles, something about cloud technology, and he’d been divorced for seven or eight years from Danielle and Gracie’s mother. He’d moved around the country with different firms and was now in Omaha. Cody was aware Ted Sullivan probably made ten times as much money as he did, but that didn’t impress him. Little about Ted Sullivan impressed him. But as a father himself, he almost felt for the guy. No one wanted to be on the other end of this particular phone call.

“Marcia is going to kill me,” Ted said morosely.

“She should,” Cody said. “You deserve it. Justin told me that Danielle called you and how you went along with it. We just found out about the scheme tonight.”

“She’ll take me back to court,” Ted said. “She’ll get my visitation rights taken away.”

“Enough about you, ass-hat,” Cody barked. “When was the last time you heard from them? Have you gotten a call or a text in the last four hours?”

“No.”

“Did you try to call them?”

“Well…”

“So you didn’t, okay. As I thought, you’re no help right now, but you need to know the situation.” Cody said. He noticed both Jenny and Justin were peeking in the room at him, probably because his voice had gotten so loud. He waved at them to go away. Neither moved. Jenny frowned back at him.

“That’s just not true,” Ted said. “I know for a fact that both Gracie and Danielle have GPS-embedded phones because I bought them for them. All we have to do is trace their whereabouts through cell-mapping software. They also have a Garmin I sent them. We can contact the company and—”

“Ted,” Cody said impatiently, “GPS doesn’t work if they’re out of cell range. This is Montana. And don’t you think that if their phones were working we wouldn’t be in the situation we are now?”

“Oh.”

“Okay,” Cody said to Ted while nodding at Jenny that he’d received the message from her to cool down, “You need to take off your geek hat and let their mother know. And when you do, find out if they’ve been in touch with her and when it was and exactly what they said. Give her my number if she wants to talk with me directly.”

Sullivan moaned. “You have no idea how she can be.”

“Yeah, Ted. You’re the only man with an ex-wife, so I wouldn’t know how that is,” Cody said, glancing at Jenny who looked back steaming. “You need to call her, Ted. Tell her what’s going on.”

There was a beat of silence. “Can you…”

“No,” Cody said. “I don’t even know her name or number.”

“I could give it to you.”

“Call your goddamned ex-wife, Ted!” Cody shouted. “Man up and call her.”

“Okay.” His voice was a whisper. Then, “I’ll be on the first plane to Helena in the morning.”

“Don’t come, Ted,” Cody said. “I’ve seen you in action. Stay the hell in Omaha by the phone. I’ll keep you posted on anything we find out.”

“But they’re my daughters,” Ted said. “They’re all I’ve got.”

Cody started to yell again but caught himself. He thought of what he’d do in similar circumstances, and he couldn’t blame Sullivan for wanting to be there.

He said, “I can’t stop you but if you come here you’re on your own if you do. I don’t want you around me trying to help. I’ve seen your version of help before. It results in a clusterfuck and dead bodies.”

There was a long silence. Jenny had covered her face with her hands and was shaking her head from side to side. Cody thought maybe he’d overdone it.

Then Ted said, “Call me the second you find out something.”

“I’ll do that,” Cody said, and closed his phone.

“Great bedside manner,” Jenny said. “I can see why you used to be the star of the sheriff’s department.”

“Best they’ve got,” Cody said. Thinking, And the best they’ve ever seen. At least that used to be the case when he had nothing to lose. He corrected himself: “Best they had.”

At that moment his e-mail chimed again. Cody looked up to see that the message had been sent from TROOPERRICK@gmail.com.

The subject line read: THE CHURCH OF GLORY AND TRANSCENDENCE.

He mouthed, “Oh, shit.”

Then, to Jenny and Cassie: “I’m going to gear up and drive down there. I want to talk to this trooper before too much more time passes.”

They argued about him driving, and Jenny agreed that Cassie should drive Cody’s pickup. He nixed it.

“We’ve had this discussion,” Cody said, forwarding the e-mail to Cassie’s e-mail address. “She’s going to man the command center here.” To Cassie, he said, “I just forwarded you something. Read it over and give me a call on the road. Let me know what it says and what you think.”

She nodded.

To Jenny, he said, “I’ll see you tomorrow, I hope.”

As he passed them in the doorway, he said to Justin, “Call me the second you hear from them if they text or call you. I wouldn’t mind coming back and getting some sleep. I’ve got a hell of a headache.”

Cody unlocked the door to the room in his basement where he stored his gear and flipped the light on. The heavy-duty steel shelving was packed with equipment. There were shotguns, hunting rifles, revolvers, semiautomatic pistols, a collection of brass knuckles, fixed-blade tactical knives, night vision goggles, sets of body armor — even a Kevlar helmet.

He selected an AR-15 rifle and a Benelli M1014 12-gauge combat shotgun and propped them in the corner to take along.

Cody packed a gear bag with two .45 ACP 1911 Colts with extra magazines, night vision goggles, body armor, 223 rounds for the AR-15 and 12-gauge buck for the shotgun, binoculars, rope, handcuffs and flex-ties, a pair of radios, and several cell phones. While he was bent over buckling a holster with a 9MM Model 26 “Baby” Glock to his ankle, the door was pushed open.

He looked up to find Jenny standing there with her arms crossed over her breasts. She didn’t have a key to the room and simply referred to it as his “man cave.” Her eyes swept the contents.

Most of the items still had evidence tags attached from the Law Enforcement Center to which, unbeknownst to the sheriff or the supervisor, he had a key.

“Cody…”

“I never take anything that might be used in court,” he said. “Only stuff that’s leftover before it gets sold or destroyed.”

“That’s not why I came down here.”

“I know,” he said. “You don’t have to say it.”

“I’ll wait until you get back,” she said. “Right now you need to help your son and find those girls.”

“Thank you.”

“But, Cody.…”

He nodded, and said, “I thought you were going to wait.”

Her eyes flashed with anger.

“Sorry,” he said.

“Just promise me one thing and keep it this time.”

“What?”

“Promise me you won’t take another drink tonight. I know how you are. Once you get started, you don’t stop. You can’t stop. And you’ve got a head start.”

“I stopped for two years,” he said.

“Until tonight. You started drinking again when your son needed you.”

“I didn’t know it at the time,” he said.

“Just promise me.”

“I promise.” Thinking, She didn’t say anything about a minute after midnight.

Then, as he stood and gathered his weapons and gear, he thought, No. Not tonight. He had a job to do. This is what he’d explained to Cassie at Jester’s. This, right here, was why he existed.

“I promise,” he said again.

23

Gracie awoke. She was in a different place.

The floor she lay on was hard slick cement instead of vibrating steel. But it was dark, like before, except for a slight airy hum somewhere in back of her. She was in a fetal position on her side, her knees tucked up almost beneath her chin. There was faint orange light in the room, emanating from behind her, but there was enough illumination for her to see that her knees were bare and white.

Painfully, she stretched out. Her arms raised up above her head — no bindings — and her legs straightened along the floor. The tape on her mouth had been removed but her lips and cheeks were still gummy with adhesive. She’d been stripped to her underwear and wore only her panties, bra, and socks. The thought of someone taking her clothes off while she slept disgusted and frightened her.

She reached down the length of her body and slipped her hand between her legs. Although she’d never had sex and didn’t know what it felt like afterward, she was sure she hadn’t been raped.

She flopped over to her back and her naked shoulders made contact with the cool concrete floor. The ceiling was dark and without features. The air in the room was musty and there was a sharp unpleasant odor on the fringes, something old and permanent. Some kind of human odor.

She still had no strength and it was hard to connect with her own body. A headache pounded between her ears and it was so all-powerful that she thought a quick movement would again lead to nausea.

Gracie rolled her head to the right. A wall, also concrete, without a door or a window. Faint pale lines about an inch apart like tooth-tracks from a rake, swept across the surface in an arc. The wall she thought at first was pitted wasn’t pitted at all, but flecked with dark stains and paintbrushlike smears of black.

Her heart raced, and with it her head pounded even harder.

It was silent inside the room except for that soft hum, but she had trouble hearing because of the liquid pulsing in her ears as she comprehended the nature of the place she was in.

She rolled her head to the left. Danielle was there, also undressed except for her underwear — a lacy black bra and ridiculous magenta-thong panties — her face hidden by a cascade of black hair. But there was rhythmic breathing, and Gracie heard Danielle issue a soft moan. She was still alive but unconscious.

“You want a blanket?”

The voice made her jump. It was low and raspy and it came from behind her out of view. Gracie rocked back on the crown of her head, chin up, to try and see who had spoken.

“Here,” the voice said, and Gracie’s head and torso were suddenly covered with a scratchy blanket that had been tossed on top of her with a soft whump.

Moving slowly to not trigger the nausea again, Gracie lifted her right arm to move a corner of the blanket off her face. The fabric smelled slightly of sweat, dust, and urine. Once her face was clear she shifted her hips so she could look up and see.

The figure — it took a moment to recognize it as a woman — sat with her back to the far wall, a bare knee propped up. Gracie couldn’t see all of her because she was half in shadow, but what she saw was white and skeletal. A thin scabbed-over ankle, a bulbous knee like knotty pine, the sharp angle of a corpselike shoulder, and oily hanks of long blond hair. One eye looked out from a sunken dark socket and it was lit orange by the electric heater that hummed beside her. The heater was the source of the sound and the only bit of light in the room.

The woman shifted and lowered her knee and her leg stretched out along the floor. There was something wrong with the gesture, something incongruous about her. Gracie realized it was because the woman only had one full leg. Her other thigh, which lay flat on the concrete floor, stopped just above where her other knee should have been.

“Lost it when I was little,” the woman said, and gestured toward the door. “They took my prosthesis and they won’t give it back. Like I was ever gonna fuckin’ run away,” she said, hissing out the words.

When the woman opened her mouth again Gracie saw a dark maw with no teeth.

“Now that they got you little girls they won’t have no use for me,” she said, and a single tear snaked down her cheek.

24

After dumping the body of the lot lizard in the trunk of a car next to the house, the Lizard King stood silently on the broken front porch of the house he’d grown up in, trying to calm his breath and slow his heartbeat. He’d dropped the two girls off, hidden the body in his sleeper while his truck was unloaded, then driven home. The events of the night had been fantastic but now he wanted to calm down. He welcomed the utter and pure exhaustion that came after the rush, because he knew the next few days would be incredible.

There was a light on inside.

He thought for a moment that he might just turn on his boot heels, get in his truck, and stay in his sleeper for the night. But being back in those familiar surroundings would bring it all rushing back again, the events of the day, and he’d never get to sleep. Plus, the cab reeked of disinfectant from being thoroughly scrubbed down. So he hoped she’d simply left a light on for him or forgotten to turn it off — it happened more and more often — and he reached down for the door handle.

The house itself was close, tiny, tired, and sad. It was obscured from the dirt road out front by sixty years of gnarled and tightly packed Russian olive bushes that rimmed all four sides like medieval walls. There was no garage — not even a carport. The paint peeled on the asbestos siding and most of the shingles on the roof were cracked. There was always a certain smell around the house, sickly sweet and ancient, from the coal that was once burned in the stove to warm it. That smell seemed to live in the walls itself. But compared to the odors inside …

He opened the door and stepped in quietly and eased it shut behind him. The light came from the kitchen and it was muted and lit floating dust motes kicked up by his entry. There was a tunnel of sorts through the living room to his bedroom. His shoulders brushed against a column of boxes and plastic tubs that rose from the floor to the ceiling. He had to turn slightly to make progress. The floor was gritty with dirt.

There was a side passage off his route to the kitchen and he took it so he could turn off the light. There was so much loose paper stacked throughout the kitchen and the rest of the house that leaving a light on was a fire hazard. He was always telling her that, always complaining about the stacks of newspapers and mail, about the columns of boxes, crates, and things she called her “collectibles” or her “memorabilia” that now filled the entire house except for his bedroom, telling her that the house was a fire hazard and a health hazard because of the old groceries rotting in the refrigerator and cupboards.…

Once, during a screaming argument, he’d told her he would borrow the Case backhoe and knock the house down and bury everything inside it. He’d told her the county would likely give him a medal for good citizenship for eliminating an eyesore. She’d screamed back at him, asking, “Where would I live? What would I do?” Breaking down into tears and sobs that disgusted him but somehow touched him at the same time and made him soften his demand. She’d promised to clean the place out, to sell what she could and have the rest hauled away. Except, of course, for her most valuable “collectibles,” she’d said, already backing off before doing anything. Adding that she’d also have to save her “memorabilia,” like the footlockers that once belonged to his dead sister JoBeth and all the medals and trophies she’d won in high school. Those she’d have to keep, of course. But the rest: gone!

She knew she had a problem, she said. But he’d been cruel and inhuman to point it out. After all she’d done for him, she said.

That was seven years ago. Since then, the hoarding had gotten worse. He’d not seen the top of the stove or the surface of the kitchen counter in years. JoBeth’s old bedroom was packed with boxes, clothing, papers, boxes filled with grocery bags and rubber bands — packed so tight the door barely closed.

There were missing cats. He’d brought them in and released them to silence the constant rustling he’d heard deep within the piles of “collectibles” and “memorabilia.” But the cats had vanished. She claimed they must have run off. He suspected they were long dead, moldering, crushed under the debris.

The only room in the old house that was habitable was his own. Sure, it was dark and small. The things on the walls — his first set of mule deer antlers, his diploma from graduating from Livingston High, the curled and yellowing ripped-out photos of hot rods and pickups and Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders — hadn’t been updated in years. But the room itself gave him warm and familiar comfort. It was his place to gather his thoughts, to dream, to masturbate. In a brushed-steel lockbox under his bed were his keepsakes and souvenirs from his successful hunts. He knew he shouldn’t keep them, and especially not in a place so close to him. But he couldn’t help it. He’d tried to dispose of the box once — taking it out to the pasture to bury — but he couldn’t do it. The contents were too important, and nothing he’d yet encountered would arouse the feelings he got when he rummaged inside.

He blamed the intense need he had for keeping the souvenirs on her. That evil wormlike trait had been passed on to him.

Before she got really bad, she used to enter his room while he was away. He knew it because the sheets on his bed were occasionally changed. And once when he returned the pinups of women he’d put up on the walls were simply gone. She denied she’d removed them but of course it was her.

Now he kept his door triple-locked and never left the keys. He never let her in there. Ever.

He’d often wondered how it was possible to so bitterly hate someone he loved. He chalked it up to blood ties and left it at that.

He slid through an opening in the stacks to enter the kitchen to turn off the light and there she was, glaring at him through her steel-framed glasses, a shapeless and massive woman in a flower-print housecoat the size of a mainsail. She was sitting at the table. Her elephantine ankles anchored her to the floor like tree stumps.

Her face was wide and fleshy, framed in a silver-white helmet of tight curls. Every week, no matter what, she made her appointment with her longtime hairdresser in Livingston. Her hair had never changed in style or length since he’d been alive. Why she cared about her hair and nothing else was another thing about her he couldn’t understand.

“It’s about time,” she said fiercely, biting off her words.

She was at the ancient table shoved up against a wall. The table had a foot of open surface on it, where she sat behind a plate and a bowl with something brown in it. Her meaty hands were curled on either side of the place setting.

“I didn’t know you’d be up,” he said.

“Of course I’m up. I made you dinner hours ago and waited and I’m still sitting here waiting. Your stew is cold now. I suppose you can still eat it but it’s cold. It’s as cold as your heart.”

“Stew?”

“Dinty Moore,” she said, shifting slightly back in the chair and lifting her chin. “An entire can of Dinty Moore.”

“How long has it been here?”

“I don’t know,” she said, blinking.

He paused. “I hate Dinty Moore stew.”

“You didn’t used to,” she said sharply, defensively. “You used to love it.”

“I never loved it. I never liked it. JoBeth loved the stuff — not me.”

“Oh, how you lie. You even lie about JoBeth.”

He shook his head. He thought again about getting the tractor and leveling the place. With her in it.

His cell phone vibrated in his pocket — a message. He ignored her and drew it out, read the screen, and dropped it back into his shirt.

“I have to go out again,” he said.

“What about this stew?” Her tone was filled with outrage.

“I don’t care,” he said, backing out, “Eat it. Put it in the refrigerator if you can find room. Store it in JoBeth’s room if you can even open the door.”

“You’re going to waste it?” she said, angry. “Where are you going, anyway?”

“To the shop.”

“The shop is closed. It’s nearly midnight.” Then, “Are you up to something, Ronald?”

“Just work.”

“Just work,” she mocked. “You come home at midnight, you stay long enough to insult me and my cooking, then you walk back out the door.”

“There are some loose ends,” he said.

“We need to talk about Thanksgiving. It’s coming up.”

“Let’s do what we always do,” he said. “Talk about it and then do jack shit when Thursday comes.”

“That’s a cruel thing to say.”

He shrugged.

“This stew,” she cried from the kitchen as he pinballed his way through the stacks of collectibles toward the front door, “You’re just going to waste it?”