Now You See Her - Michael Ledwidge [36]
I slid the gearshift into drive and tapped the gas. Sand flew as the car roared and lurched onto the road like an uncaged lion.
“Ease up a tad, would you?” Frank said as he produced a silver flask from the glove compartment and took a sip. “I’m afraid I didn’t catch your name.”
“Nina.” I made it up on the spot.
“To you, fair Nina,” he said, taking a tipple.
I was really enjoying the car. I’d never been in a Mercedes, let alone driven one. I liked the way it handled and especially the way it was making the highway railing blur by on both sides, putting distance between me and Peter. My escape plan was working out even better than I had expected.
“Hitchhiking on the Overseas doesn’t seem very safe, Nina,” Frank said. “Tell me. Are you running away from something or to something?”
“Neither,” I lied again. “I’m just down here on vacation from New Jersey. My girlfriends and I are staying up in Big Pine. Got separated from them at a party in Old Town.”
“New Jersey?” Frank said, taking in my Goodwill attire and scrunching his face in doubt. “Yes, well, quite.”
“I love your car,” I said to change the subject.
Frank smiled as he pushed his rakishly cut black hair out of his face. There was an almost Asian cast to his dark eyes. His teeth seemed a little too perfect. Were they capped? I wondered.
“Funny you mention that,” he said. “That’s exactly what I said to its owner when he picked me up an hour ago. You wouldn’t believe how hard it was to squeeze the big son of a bitch into the trunk.”
What did he just say? I thought, laughing tentatively.
I turned to him. He took another sip from the flask and sat staring ahead silently. The only sound was the rushing air in the dark. After a long, awkward and tense moment, he laughed loudly.
“Do-do-do-do. Do-do-do-do,” he said, imitating the Twilight Zone theme before laughing again. “I’m sorry. I couldn’t resist. You should see your face. You need to learn to take a joke, fair Nina. Though it is dangerous to hitch. You’re lucky I’m a good person. Who knows what some completely crazy wanker might do to you out here in the middle of nowhere.”
“Thanks again,” I said after I swallowed.
Was it me? I wondered. Or was this getting weird very quickly?
I was doing my best to keep my eyes on the road ahead when there was a flash and a loud click beside me.
Frank, now holding a Polaroid camera, pulled out the advancing instant film and started shaking it.
What the? Now he was taking snapshots?
“Photography’s a little hobby of mine,” he said, blowing on the film. “You know what my favorite American expression is? ‘Take only snapshots, leave only footprints.’ You look shocked. Don’t tell me a pretty girl like you doesn’t like getting her picture taken?”
That’s when a snatch of the Jump Killer news segment I’d watched in the hospital came to me. My lungs stopped working as I almost ran off the road.
The car theft and the body in the trunk may have been jokes, but the wrapper for Polaroid film was found at the site of one of the prostitute abductions!
“Say cheese,” Frank said, raising the camera again.
Chapter 45
“YOU HAVE nice bone structure,” Frank said, shaking the second instant film sheet as we drove along. “I have a friend who does some model scouting. Would you like a makeover? I could do wonders for you. Take some head shots. After I do something with that vile hair. Did a blind person color it? You could shower at my motor home.”
At the mention of the words motor home, my throat closed, as if it had been stuffed with a rag. The Jump Killer was speculated to have one of them as well. For the first time, I noticed the key chain dangling from the ignition.
No.
I closed my eyes as my hands started shaking on the leather steering wheel.
It was an eagle on a black shield. I’d been around enough military down in Key West to know that it was the Airborne symbol. Airborne meant parachutes and paracord. And how could a British guy be in the U.S. Army?
“So what