Secluded Parking

Chapter 1

Lugging a Weary Stone

Teams of Machu Picchu’s builders must have dragged each rough-hewn stone at an agonizing pace, lugging it along the ground with fiber ropes.  Sometimes the stones were so heavy, they were abandoned in a field.  But the men were not punished, rather, the Incas preferred to "blame” the rocks, calling them saycuscai – weary stones.

Readers Digest Great Wonders of the World

Peter L. Stein, scriptwriter

Years had passed since anyone stepped foot on Dylan’s property, and he certainly hadn’t extended any invitations recently. Yet, there it was: the high whine of an engine climbing the steep switchback drive.  With his dog Alley at his side, Dylan hunkered down in the garden, sucked in a long breath, and peered past the skunky pot plants.

From the sound of the motor, he guessed it to be a Volkswagen – the hollow sounding click, click, pop and the high RPM revving.  When the van passed the first turn, he caught a glimpse of its roof.  He was right; a blue Vanagon chugged its way up the hill.  Dylan was surprised the van could make such a steep climb with all the hard turns.

Upon reaching the top, the driver stepped out and circled Dylan’s detached pickup camper.  His voice was distant and weak.  “Mr. Massey.  Hellooo.  Mr. Massey.  Are you home?”

The stranger seemed to knock hesitantly, as if afraid drumming too hard might topple the old cabover off its concrete blocks and rusted jacks.  He circled the gravel parking area, checked out the vegetable garden and knocked at the small tool shed as if Dylan might be hiding in there.

“Mr. Massey?” He put his hand over his eyes and looked through the glass on the greenhouse Dylan had slapped together using old windows.  Dylan only kept legal plants on his property for just that reason.  He grew his pot and occasional poppies on the national forest side of his land’s boundary.

The guy was too far away for Dylan to make out much more than the mustard color of his jacket and the fact he wore a baseball cap.  As Dylan watched him, though, he also noticed the fellow had some sort of nervous tick; more than once, he reached inside the jacket as if checking on something.  Though it was the right location for a shoulder holster, Dylan ruled out a gun because there was no way this squeaky-voiced guy was a cop.

 “Mr. Massey!? Helloooo.” Though Dylan could barely make out his voice, it sounded a little off.  Sounded like he hadn’t reached puberty.

The stranger pulled a small pad from his front pocket, scribbled a note, and tucked it into the camper’s screen door.  Perhaps because of Dylan’s own previous life as a journalist, he figured the notebook indicated the guy was either a reporter or a cop, and he had already ruled out cop.  Back in his van, the guy maneuvered a three-point turn between the greenhouse and shed.  He chugged down the drive past the Weary Stone Lane sign Dylan had carved and attached to a bark-bare madrone.

After hearing the shift to second gear, Dylan saw the van’s roof disappear just before the third switchback.  The gears made a hard grinding sound as the engine revved.  This was followed by a squeal from squeaky brakes and the sound of tires sliding on gravel.  Then, the horrific sound of a crash.  Dylan dropped his bag of freshly clipped buds and, in a blur of wingless flight, he and Alley ran down the hill toward the scene of the accident.

At sight of the upended van, Alley Dog grumbled her Siberian Husky mumble, which was not a growl and not a bark, but more like the sound of an old man complaining about the Democrats or Republicans or perhaps the president of the condo association.  Dylan quieted her by lifting a sticky, brown and green-flecked finger to his lips, and then grabbed her collar to keep her from running off.

A cloud of dust floated in the air and the van’s wheels spun freely.

The sight of the undercarriage caused it to look like a turtle on its back.  It appeared to have rolled over once on the slight embankment and come to rest against a stand of short Red Alders.

Everything was oddly quiet – no blaring horn or screaming victim.  This was definitely a bad omen.

As he fell to his hands and knees and peered past the broken glass of the driver’s side window, Dylan noticed that the stranger was passed out.  That was also when he noticed the stranger was actually a woman.

Her cap had fallen off, and she hung upside down suspended by her seatbelt.  There was a nasty bump on her head where it met the steering wheel.  She inhaled slightly and Dylan reached out to rub the back of his hand against her cheek.  Her eyes sprung open and she let out a scream.

“It’s all right maam.  I’m here to help.”

Her arms and legs thrashed against the unyielding strap of the black seatbelt.  Dylan twisted his body until he lay prone and reached his hand through the open window.  “It’s really not a good idea to move until we can get some medical folks out here.”

The woman ignored Dylan’s advice and continued to flail.  “Get me the hell out of here.”

“OK, hold on.  Hold on.”

She teetered to a pause.

With a practiced flick of his thumbnail against the leather flap, Dylan opened the sheath that hung from his belt and removed his Puma knife.  He snaked his shoulder into the van enough to support her weight.  He then allowed the blade to kiss the seatbelt and he sliced with one deft motion, though a few strong threads refused to give in.  The woman started again with her machinations, so Dylan raised his voice enough to get her attention:  “You need to quit moving maam or you’re gonna get cut.”

He snipped the remaining threads and she landed on him and then bounced like a pinball against the steering wheel and fell onto the passenger side of the van’s roof.  In the midst of the thuds, Dylan also heard a dry rip, which flashed him back to a wet rip he’d once heard in a village outside San Salvador.  Though Dylan was prone against the roof of the van, he was not prone to flashbacks, so he shrugged it off and craned his neck to find the source of the sound.

The young woman’s shirt had ripped; the tail was clamped into the seatbelt buckle so one side of her vintage, button-down now draped from the end of the belt to the woman like a powder blue streamer at a going away party.  Dylan averted his eyes while she took the knife from his hands.  He heard another rip and glanced long enough to see only a tiny triangle of cloth peeking out from the buckle.

He noticed a slight odor of gasoline as he belly crawled from the wreckage amidst the sound of his own grunts, thuds and minor wheezing.  With little noise, she followed and stretched into a standing position alongside him.

Dylan reached a hand out for his knife.  She made a V with her brows and hesitated before returning it to him.

Dylan spoke, “How do you feel?”

“I don’t know.”

The stranger looked up and searched her surroundings as if she were a sleeping child being carried from the car to the front door.  She paused and then asked, “What happened?”

“My guess is you couldn’t get into gear coming down the hill.  And from the looks of those skid marks in the gravel, I’d say the brakes didn’t do the trick.”

This seemed to jog her memory slightly and she scowled as she became more lucid.  “I was on my way to lunch.”

Dylan took his turn at a confused expression. “Lunch?”

She shook her head as if changing her mind.

They both stared at the van.  Except for a bent antennae and broken mirror, and despite being upside down, it looked to be in decent condition – wasn’t much of a wreckage after all.  Dylan turned and eyed her.  Her shirt and pants both appeared to be vintage, though they could have been some new style designed to appear old.  A flash of curved flesh caught his eye so he again looked away.  He gestured with his head to suggest she cover herself, which she did with a snort.  As she raised the zipper on the jacket, he caught a flash of something black and began to question his decision that she was no sort of cop.

“Don’t worry,” she snorted again.  “You can look all you want, but I like girls, so you’re not getting anywhere.”

Straight or gay, Dylan was sure she had no trouble getting dates.  Her face struck a pretty, yet perfectly androgynous pose.  Depending how the light hit her on any given day, she might pass as a slightly soft boy or a marginally macho girl.  Her skin looked soft and smooth, but her features were well defined.

In contrast, Dylan hadn’t shaved or cut his hair in nearly a decade and his jeans would probably stand up on their own if he were to take them off, though he wore an old belt just in case.  His work boots weren’t so bad looking though.  And he was shirtless, so there was no wardrobe faux pas to worry about there.

With concerned eyes, Dylan tilted his head forward to peer over his tiny eyeglasses.  The frames were homemade – put together with copper and solder.  The lenses were cannibalized from an old pair and ground down to fit.

She shot him an annoyed look and asked, “Are you Dylan Massey?”

He took a long pause before answering.  “Well…that depends who’s asking.”

“I think I was going out to lunch, then I was going to come back and wait for you…” Her face took on a green tint and she leaned against a tree and dry heaved.

“We better get some help.  A head injury’s nothing to mess around with.”

Alley Dog pricked up her ears as the stranger bristled.  "Listen to me; I don't need anyone else's help.  What I need is for you to answer some questions."

Her verbal tremor seemed to knock her off balance, and this time she leaned on the tree in what appeared an attempt to steady herself.  After a few seconds, she regained her balance and said, “Mr. Massey, my name is Jess Woodson, I’m a reporter for your old weekly newspaper, The Stranger.”

It was not just a stranger, but literally The Stranger that had come calling.  The Stranger was the younger but grumpier tabloid of Seattle’s two major weeklies.  Dylan again looked her up and down, not as a man looks a woman up and down, but as a coach might check out a new recruit.  He had been around journalists enough of his life to know they all had their techniques for getting a person to open the dam as it were, whether by drip-drop or flood.  He also knew it would take a lot to squeeze any moisture from him.

“What can I do for you?”

“I heard you lived out here somewhere.  So I started asking around, and somebody pointed me this way.”

Along with the surly attitude, Dylan noticed a touch of eye-darting nervousness but chalked it up to the head injury.  “Who told you where I lived?”

“That kid at the store down the highway.”

“I mean, who in Seattle told you where I lived?”

“I heard you used to stay in a loft above an art gallery on 12^th.  I stopped out there, and the guy who runs the place said he didn’t know where you lived now, but Madison Stone was with him and she told me you lived out in Brinnon.”

“Madison Stone?”

“The city council member.”

Dylan shrugged.  He’d never heard of her.  “OK.  So what is it that you want?”

“I need for you to tell me what you know about strip clubs and parking lots.”

Dylan maintained a blank stare.

“You filed a story about it around nine years ago.  I’m sure the name Burnett Wilkins rings a bell.  Used to run a club called The Grind.  Next door to that gallery?  Now he has a little joint in SeaTac called Club Exxxtasy.”

Dylan remained quiet.

“You won’t even nod your head for me?”

Dylan hesitated, but his own curiosity got the best of him, so he tossed her a bone.  “I suppose, but I really think you need to get some medical attention first.  My truck’s got a winch and I can get your van upright.  It’ll just take me a few minutes to get the truck running.”

She had been rubbing her neck and slowly twisting her head, but stopped when Dylan brought up medical help again.  Her face tightened and her eyes became thin slits.  “Fine, but I already told you, I don’t need any doctors.”

“I think you forgot to bring along a friend to play good cop.”  Dylan said as he pulled a dismissive laugh from his lower gut.  The word cop reminded him of the flash of black he’d seen under her jacket.  The flash of black reminded him that sometimes you had to be pretty damn careful with these head injuries.

Dylan’s eyes dropped to the jacket before his better judgment could stop them.  Jess’ expression shifted – bam, bam, bam - from annoyed, to scared, to anxious. 

“Let’s just head up to your campsite and get that truck running.”

Dylan had seen the results of head injuries before; just out of college, he’d spent years in and out of El Salvador and Nicaragua covering the fighting.  He’d seen nice guys turn mean following a blow to the head and he’d seen Son’s-of-Bitches turn to saints.  If this was the head injury speaking, the best he could do was play along until he steered her to a medic.

As they began the hike up the drive, she remained quiet.  Even her breath was a mere whisper, while Dylan’s lungs rattled and clanged due to years of smoking weed.

Dylan’s truck was a hefty hunk of American machinery despite its obvious age and dilapidated appearance.  Cables ran from the front grill to a solar trickle charger that sat atop a concrete block.  The license plate tabs showed a date somewhere before the turn of the millennium.  He purchased it years ago at an auction of National Forest Service vehicles, and it still bore the faded remains of the NFS logo on its green cab.

He banged several times on the heavy steel hood of the F-250 before opening it.  Jess shot an inquisitive look.

“One too many critters have jumped out of here and scared the living crap out of me, so I like to give ‘em a warning.”

The hood popped open with a rusty creak. He brushed away spider webs, dirt, and a small pile of twigs and leaves atop the air filter that looked to be the start of some sort of nest. Dylan grabbed a handful of tools from behind the bench seat and a plastic bucket from the bed.  He crawled under the truck.  The hard gravel cut into his back.  He unscrewed the oil plug and let the black liquid shoot from the pan into the bucket while considering his options.

“While you’re working under there, you can answer this for me:  from the archives, it looks like you were doing a whole series on this parking lot scandal back in the day.  But a few weeks in, your byline just disappeared from the paper altogether.   The parking lot thing was never mentioned again in The Stranger.  What the hell happened?”

Dylan crawled from underneath the machine  “I need to get some oil.”

He headed to the shed with Alley Dog prancing ahead; she seemed excited to have a visitor.  Dylan replaced the drain plug, added several quarts, pulled a spark plug wire and, with his wrench, went after the first spark plug.

“You didn’t say you needed to do a complete tune-up.” Jess said.

“Just need to get it lubed up,” Dylan said.  “Condensation gathers up in there when it sits.”

He dribbled in a little oil and repeated the procedure seven more times.  Though he knew time was of the essence given her head injury, it would do her no good if his truck crapped out before it made it to the bottom of the hill.

After a shot of starter fluid, the truck kicked to life within a second of cranking it.  A plume of white smoke shot out the back and another from the side where the exhaust pipe was rusted through.  The engine hummed, seemingly ready to go.  The smoke dissipated and left behind only the even rumble of a well-oiled machine.

Dylan smiled at Jess, and she briefly appeared to soften.

“The truth is,” she started, “My 17-year-old daughter is mixed up in some sort of trouble with Seattle Parking Services.  She’s been missing for a couple of days.  She may be in some real trouble.”

While the truck sat in its mossy bed and purred, the wheels in Dylan’s mind picked up speed, though he acted as if he had not heard a word Jess was saying.

“It’s gotta idle for a bit.”

As quickly as she’d softened, her body tensed and Dylan could feel the anger growing alongside him; he’d made the wrong choice in ignoring her admission about her daughter.  Dylan looked again toward the slight opening in her jacket, where he’d seen both a soft curve of flesh and the flash of something black.

Jess apparently caught his glance; she unzipped the jacket while meeting his eyes with hers.  Dylan dropped his gaze and followed her shaking hand as she reached into the jacket and exposed her torn shirt, her left breast and the butt of a gun in a black shoulder holster.

Her shaking hand emerged with a Glock 9mm but Dylan was too slow to get any sort of purchase on the leather flap of the Puma sheath.

“Other hand,” she barked and motioned for him to remove the knife with his left. “Then toss it up into the woods.”

He did as told.

 “I think your truck is good to go now,” Jess said.  “Grab your dog and we’ll all go for a ride.”

“Whoa.  Listen…” Dylan saw her finger against the trigger; she was either new to firearms or didn’t care if it went off.  He guessed the former.

“I’m sure we can figure this out.  Why don’t you just do me a favor and put your finger outside of that trigger guard for starters?”

She shot a confused look and then ordered him to get in the truck.

“I need to grab a shirt and Alley’s leash.”

“Don’t make me hurt you.”  She said.  “You know more about my daughter than you’re letting on, so I guess you get to come with me.”

Her hand continued its tremors and the finger remained one twitch away from turning the whole situation tragic.  Though she would not allow him to grab a shirt or a leash, she let him whip off his belt and work it around Alley Dog’s neck.  Alley jumped in the bed of the truck and Dylan stuck the tapered end of the belt under the spare tire, which didn’t allow her much movement, but it would be better than having her jump out at the first stop sign.  Huskies were known to take advantage of any chance to escape.

As Jess climbed in the passenger side, Dylan noticed his license plate in the back window.  The aluminum plate was precariously wedged in place with a corner under the weather stripping.  As he reached for his seatbelt, he took the opportunity to bump the plate with his elbow.  It clattered to the floor behind the seat.

“What was that?”  Jess asked with a start.

“I don’t know.  Probably Alley kicking something around back there.”

Dylan figured a truck without plates was more likely to be stopped by cops, and for the first time in his life, getting pulled over seemed like a good idea.

“I really don’t have any other choice,” Jess said.  “I thought I could come out here and get to the bottom of what you know, but now I see you’re the kind of guy that needs a shove to get going.”

Dylan’s heart began to beat a quick rhythm in time with his shaking head.  Despite the possibility of some brain injury, she had pretty much sized him up.

They drove several miles south along the Hood Canal in silence.  Eventually, Dylan shot a crooked smile her way and spoke, “How’s about we pull over in Hoodsport and grab some food and talk about this?”

“No.  We’re not stopping until Seattle,” Jess said with no indication that she was open to negotiations.

“We could at least take the ferry and save some time.”

Jess took her turn at an amused expression.  “Think they’d let us on the ferry with a gun pointed at you?”

Dylan nodded.  “About that:  I’ll go wherever you want, but you have to put that gun away.  This truck isn’t running so great; one jerky stop and you’ll have blood on your hands.”

Jess aimed the barrel toward the dashboard.

“And I highly recommend you take your finger out of that trigger guard and just point it straight.  I promise it will take less than a second to slide it back in there and shoot me if you need to.  But if you don’t, one bump in the road and you put a hole into the engine and then we’re not going anywhere.”

She considered the advice, again pointed the gun at Dylan and said, “You need to remember who’s in charge here.”

Dylan nodded and Jess again took aim at the dashboard, this time with her finger off the trigger.

“I guess that’s a start.  Now what is this all about?”

“I told you.  My daughter is missing, and I need to find out what you know about it.”

“So you’re taking me to Seattle?  What are you going to do with me there?”

“Well, the way I see it, you’ll either tell me what I need to know on the drive there, or I’ll walk you into the East Precinct and you can talk to the detectives there.”

“Why me? All because of some old story I wrote?”

Jess turned to stare ahead at Highway 101 as it made its winding path along the water.  Past Jess and the passenger window, the hillsides were dense with ferns, conifers and rhododendrons taller than the truck.  On Dylan’s side of the road, flashes of deserted sand and blue salt water flickered between thin trees.  And then, introducing themselves each time like a visual gasp, a bluff would appear and open up the view.  The road itself was busy with logging trucks and Winnebago’s.

With her free hand, Jess gripped the bridge of her nose, and then pressed her thumb and index finger hard against her eyelids.  She appeared to be fighting a migraine or fighting off tears.  Dylan caught sight of her hand relaxing on the gun.

He could take a chance and grab it, though there were better times to get in a wrestling match than while driving 55 miles per hour on a winding scenic road.  He felt reasonably sure he could keep the tires on the pavement, but not so certain he could keep the truck straight enough to avoid ejecting Alley Dog from the back. 

Her right hand again tightened on the gun as her left loosed its grip on her head.

“A couple weeks ago, my daughter Dilly came home and was extremely nervous and was obviously hiding something in her bag.  Just the way she carried it and how the bag was all puffed out.   So when she went in to take a shower, I did some spying.  Last year, I caught her with some pot and I thought maybe she had some again.  Instead, I found an unopened package addressed to you.”

 “She was mailing something to me?”

Dylan was perplexed.  His sliver of raw land had no address.  No mailbox.  He’d never filled out an application or paid the $300 fee to Jefferson County to apply for an address.  When he first moved to Brinnon, he occasionally picked up packages addressed to him at General Delivery, but he hadn’t even done that for years.  Now he bartered down at Jaarvik’s Store when he needed clothing or tools.

How could some kid from Seattle be sending him anything?

“No,” she said.  “The package was addressed to Dylan Massey at 1122 East Pike Street, it’s a mailbox drop at 12^th and Pike.  The return address on the box was some company in Florida – some generic name – World Tech Supplies.  Turns out they distribute about a million different kinds of electronic doodads.”

The skin on Dylan’s face and forehead tightened.  “What was in the box?”

“I don’t know.  Dilly walked in and laid into me about not trusting her.  Said she was old enough to move out and she’d be doing it.  We really got into it - a big screaming match.  I think I was mainly scared and angry at her threat to move out.  But…I mean…I know she isn’t going to live with her mom forever.  I just didn’t want her to leave like that.  She still has her senior year ahead of her.”

Jess’ words drifted and Dylan could see the caring mother behind the tough exterior.  Dylan wondered if the kid didn’t just pull this disappearing act to get back at her mom.  Was she off staying with friends?  Was she up in the U-District sleeping on the Ave?  But these thoughts were just a whisper back near his collar somewhere.  The tsunami that stirred up the rest of his brain was concerned with his name on the package.

“What did she say about the box?”

“She told me she was holding it for a friend.  Then she said it was none of my business.  Then she said it was something for the band - something the drummer bought from a guy named Dylan.  She’s lead singer in this band you know, and I…but… I knew your name from around The Stranger offices.  They still have a framed cover in the lobby from your expose on that police corruption thing in ’93.”

“Listen Jess, I feel for you here.  The only problem is I don’t know anything about your daughter.  You says she’s 17, so she would have been 8-years-old when I left Seattle.”

Jess ignored Dylan and continued her story.  “The day after I found the package, I spent the morning at The Stranger poring over archives of your stuff.  The only thing that jumped out at me was that last series you were writing about the strip-club/ parking lot scandal.  That’s where Dilly worked for her summer job – Seattle Parking Services.”

Dylan swallowed hard, unsure if Jess noticed, but unable to stop himself just the same.

“I hired a private detective, but I could only afford a few days of his services and he came up empty handed. He said he’d do a little more checking around on the house, but frankly, I’m at a dead end.  You’re my only hope to find Dylan.”

Hearing his own name hit him like a brick in the forehead.

“Dilly is short for Dylan?”

Jess nodded and then looked away.  Though he couldn’t be sure, Dylan guessed she was fighting back tears.  They held the pose quietly for several minutes.  Dylan looked at the gun and then looked up to her.  She seemed to be holding her breath.

Maybe he would not have to wrestle the gun away after all.  He spoke in a near whisper.  “Hey Jess, I really hear that you need my help, so let’s head back and get your van running.  You don’t want to leave it back there.  That way I can get some stuff together for the weekend and maybe give you a hand.”

Her body and energy stayed soft long enough to give Dylan hope that his lie was working.  But she stiffened and again lifted the gun to his chest.

“I’m not convinced yet that you’re innocent in all of this.  So you can just keep on driving.”  She rubbed her head and tightly sealed her lips.

They were silent for the next hour through Olympia, Tacoma and Federal Way.  As they neared Seattle, Dylan saw another chance; in his periphery he watched her head make jerky nods.  The shadow of sleep descended on her, no doubt helped along by the bump on the head.

He let the truck coast to the shoulder, but his tires sang a rapid-fire bass against the rumble strips and she opened her eyes.  Dylan lifted his foot from the clutch in order to kill the engine.  He then reached for her gun, but Jess jerked it from his reach.  He hesitated briefly before sending his elbow into her nose, probably due to some childhood lesson about hitting girls.  But he made solid contact and her nose gushed red as he threw himself across the bench seat and again made a play for the Glock.

Jess held the piece with a tight grip, but his body atop hers kept her flailing to a minimum.  He gripped her wrist and slammed her hand against the window ledge, but she continued to hold tight.  On his second attempt, she managed to snake her arm loose and slide the gun between their bodies.

Jess flipped her leg over Dylan and nearly climbed onto him when a single shot range out.

For a brief moment, all was quiet as Dylan looked at Jess and Jess looked at Dylan.  He then caught a glimpse of his truck’s shattered side mirror past her shoulder.

Thank God, he thought, though the prayer was interrupted when his eyes returned to her face.  Her expression had shifted to one of intense fear.  Her eyes held on his and then moved down as she lowered her head and looked toward her lap.  Dylan followed her gaze and watched the spot of blood along her waistline as it grew in diameter.  Confused, he again looked to the mirror then back to her blood.

Some sort of a ricochet?  The broken mirror meant there was an exit wound which gave him some hope the damage wasn’t fatal; a gut shot was worse news if the bullet was still in there.

“Oh God.  Oh GOD.  SHIT.  OH GOD!”  Jess’ panic grew as quickly as the circle of blood.  Her body wiggled like worms tossed into a hot skillet.

“Call 911.  Please CALL 911.”

She continued her pleading and thrashed about as she lifted the torn threads of her shirt and attempted to unbutton her jeans.  The adrenaline had kicked in and she obviously felt no pain, only panic.

“Please?  PLEASE?”

Being a gut shot, Dylan knew that if the bullet had not already done her in, the shock soon would.  He crawled atop her and pressed her against the seat with his hands on her shoulders.

In a calm voice, he spoke.  “Listen Jess.  Jess.”

She quit squirming, though she still showed shock in her eyes.

“Jess, I need you to take a breath.  I need you to calm down here and I’m going to get help.”

Now her mouth moved, but only mumbles came out.

“As soon as you calm down, I’m going to drive you to the closest hospital.  Do you understand?”

She nodded slightly.

Dylan crawled off her, jumped behind the wheel and cut off a semi as he merged back onto the interstate.  Traffic crawled, and eventually he returned to the shoulder and managed to get the old truck to just over 90 miles-per-hour before taking the Harborview Medical Center exit.  He ran the red light at the end of the ramp and took a moment to glance at Jess.  Her breathing was shallow, and her eyes were rolled back in her head.  He slapped her lightly and she seemed to emerge from her near-death state.

“I’m sorry.”  She said.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered.

“I’m so sorry…it’s just… my Dilly…” She breathed.

In the turnaround drive for the Emergency Room, Dylan bounded from the cab and pulled Jess from the passenger side.  He cradled her against his bare chest and charged through the automatic doors.

“I need some help here!”

Doctors and nurses surrounded Dylan and then rolled her away.  Her torn shirt flapped alongside the gurney and her bare breasts lay flattened against her ribs as men and women in scrubs pushed her through a set of double doors.  As other patients stared from the waiting room, Dylan felt self-conscious and hyper-aware that he was shirtless.  He scanned the room for anyone who looked official.

One nurse looked his way, though her expression was one of someone who’d just smelled a bad fart.  She stared Dylan down briefly, whispered a call for security, and mouthed a phrase toward an orderly that Dylan lip-read as “rape kit.”

What the hell?  It was obviously a gunshot wound. 

Sure, if they did a rape kit he’d be cleared of that charge, but what good would it do to explain all this?  Nobody would believe any of it.  Who would believe that a seemingly upstanding citizen/ reporter/ mother like Jess would go crazy and kidnap an old hermit and his dog at gunpoint?  He didn’t ask for this trouble, and there was nothing more he could do to help her now.  If he told folks what happened, the outcome would probably be a lot of head shaking followed by some time in a jail cell.  If she recovered, she may corroborate his story, but if she didn’t… well… he really couldn’t take a chance.  He had Alley Dog to think about, after all.

Dylan quickly headed for his truck and then pointed it back toward Brinnon.

Chapter 2

Her Car Without Cruise Control

I need a car

You need a guide

Who needs a map

If I don’t die or worse I’m going to need a nap.

At best I’ll be asleep when you get back.

Built to Spill

Car

A couple days spent driving around with a dead body in the trunk could sour anybody’s mood, and Luke Vandyke was no exception.  What made it a bigger pain in the ass was the fact it was his girlfriend’s car and it had no cruise control. On top of that, if he went home, only she and the good goddamned Lord knew when she would wrestle the keys back.  With any luck, he would be able dump the body soon.

At one time or another, the car had cruise control, or so the stick on the steering column indicated.  At one time, it also had a starter that clicked to life immediately, though now it made a grinding noise half the time.

To top it all off, the right turn signal was out, which didn’t bode well for a guy driving around with a body.  So Luke mostly turned left, which had him going in big counter-clockwise circles around Seattle and the Eastside.

  He played the accelerator like a guitar god bends his strings, while still managing to lean forward and slip a couple fingers down his sock to scratch an itch.  Goddamn eczema acting up too.

This was not going well.

The first thing that went wrong was that she turned out to be this damn girl.  He was expecting a guy.  Shit.  If people knew, they'd assume he raped her first or…or something.

The name Dylan was a guy's name, but turned out she went by Dilly and she was a girl and …he was so screwed.  It was bad enough killing a 17-year-old dude, but a girl?  Luke was going to a special kind of hell for this.  Frankly, it seemed a good idea at the moment to get it over with.  Hit hell with both wheels spinning on the pavement. 

For a guy, 17 would be a great time to go.  A screwed up 17-year-old guy was best put out of his misery, because you could call ‘em by the time they were 17.  But a girl?  She still had a couple decades to turn herself around.  You couldn’t tell a girl for sure went sour until she's pushing 40.  This girl Dilly still had several good years left in her.  Not to mention, she looked a lot like pictures Luke had seen of his girlfriend Ione when she was younger.

His pocket vibrated with a text message as he approached the Ship Canal Bridge. 

>drop pkg ths pm<

Finally.

Luke took the Mercer Street exit and because he couldn’t get to 99 South any other way, he made a dangerous mini-loop involving too many right turns near Seattle Center.  He jumped on the viaduct and headed for Home Depot.

As he approached the hardware store, Luke chose a far off, semi-secluded spot in the big parking lot.  But when he returned while rolling the heavy cart of concrete mix, he found his girlfriend’s car flanked by white work vans.  And then, just as he opened the trunk, a smiling face floating above an orange apron offered to help.

“No I got it, thanks anyway.”

“OK then.” Orange Apron continued on to retrieve other carts.

Despite wrapping the girl’s body in a tarp and duct tape and covering that with a blanket, it was beginning to smell.  He carefully loaded the first of the bags into the trunk, laying them down lightly on the blanketed form.  His hands wedged between bags of cement mix and a wool blanket as he loaded the trunk.  The plastic tarp under the blanket crinkled despite his careful placement.

His damn foot was itching like crazy, so Luke rested it on the bumper and loosened his shoelaces enough to really get his fingers in there.  Just as he reached the spot, he was interrupted.

“Here you go.” Orange Apron suddenly appeared again beside him with one of the bags of mix from the cart.

Orange Apron threw the bag atop the blanket and it landed with a wet thud.

“Thanks anyway,” Luke said.  “But I have it from here.”

As the guy lifted a second bag, he crinkled his nose.  With a prissy expression on his face, he looked over to Luke.

“Ohhh my gawd.  It smells like something died in there.”

Luke reached behind his back and felt his pocket.  His fingers traced the hard outline of the Case Sidewinder he’d converted to a switchblade.  The knife was a nine dot that his dad came home with after a night at the bar.  It was his dad’s pride and joy, though it had no doubt been some other drunk bastard’s brand-spankin’ new, pride and joy before Luke’s dad either kicked his ass or stole it off his passed out butt in the bar parking lot.

Luke’s remembrance of how his dad got it from some bastard was all mixed up with the memory of how Luke got the knife from his bastard dad.

Orange Apron leaned toward the trunk for a closer sniff.

“Not to worry,” Luke said.  “I left a lunch box in there for a week and haven’t gotten the smell out.”

“Are you sure?  This smells more like some animal crawled in your car and passed on.”

Luke’s knuckles scraped against the rough stitching of his back pocket.   He slid his fingertips inside the pocket and caressed the wood handle.  There was comfort in the wood.  He owned a couple other knives, some with bone, some stag.  But the wood was smooth and sensual.

“You might want to check under your spare tire for some animal that has gone to meet its maker.”

Passed on.  Gone to meet its maker.  Was this orange-aproned freak some sort of Sunday school teacher?  Luke probably didn’t want to kill a Sunday school teacher.  He absolutely didn’t want to kill someone with his Sidewinder.  Its blade had never drawn blood from anything that was still alive.

Orange Apron backed away from the car and grabbed another bag.  After heaving it, this one landed with a loud crunch and a wet thud.

“Oh crap.  I’m sorry.  What was that?  I think I broke something.” He leaned into the trunk and took the bag out enough to uncover a section of blue tarp and duct tape.

“Listen jerkoff.”  Luke quit fondling the knife and instead grabbed the guy by what little scruff there was to his bony neck.  “First you bitch about how my car smells, and now you probably just broke my kid’s science fair project.  Just get the fuck back to work and leave me in peace.”

The guy looked at Luke with fear in his eyes, and then Luke saw him make the mistake of glancing at her car’s license plate.  Now he was screwed if he let the guy go.  Virgin knife or not, the time had come to use the Sidewinder.

He took a quick look around the lot, and then shoved the guy against the back bumper.  He pulled the knife from his pocket and hit the button with one easy motion, though nothing happened.  He pressed it again, and still the blade remained in place.

Drunk bastard.

He charged Orange Apron with his right shoulder leading and the guy fell backwards into the trunk.  Luke kicked his leg hard so the guy would pull it inside, then he slammed the trunk shut.

Drunk bastard.  He thought again, although his father was not the one who’d converted it to a switchblade. 

Luke jumped in the car and drove south on First Avenue.  Though muffled, Orange Apron’s cries were annoying as hell.  Near the railroad tracks, Luke rolled down the window and chucked the Sidewinder as far as he could throw it.  He cranked up the car stereo to drown out the yelling.