Serial Uncut - J. A. Konrath [16]
“What am I supposed to do?”
“That’s for you to figure out. Are you going home?”
“No. And my car’s booted. I only have a hundred and fifty dollars and my guitar case.”
Orson reached into his pocket, opened his wallet, pulled out a roll of bills. “Here,” he said. “This should get you started.”
Lucy thumbed through the money. Almost five hundred dollars.
“Thank you,” she said, but the sadness was still there. “How am I supposed to get anywhere? I don’t have a car.”
“You could hitchhike,” Luther said.
“That’s dangerous.”
“You’ll have to be careful,” Orson said. “Although, I have a feeling, it’s the poor people who pick you up that we should be more concerned for.”
Luther laughed. “You need to get your hands on some painkillers. Oxycodone. Something hard-hitting that you can drug people with. That’s the only way you’ll be able to overpower someone bigger than yourself. And let’s face it. Everyone’s bigger than you.”
“Seriously.” Orson reached across the table and touched Lucy’s hand. “You have to be careful. You have to learn to read people. One day, you’re going to meet someone out there like me and Luther, only they may not be so hot to take you under their wing. They might rather hang you up in a shower.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“How?”
“I won’t trust anybody.”
“Good.”
Lucy squeezed his hand. “Thank you, Orson,” she said. “I’m glad I met you. You too, Luther.”
Luther smiled. It was still scary, but for the first time, he didn’t look like he was thinking about killing her.
They walked Lucy through the lobby and out the revolving doors of the hotel. Bellhops were stacking suitcases on luggage carts and hailing cabs.
“You could stay one more night,” Orson said.
“Thanks, but I’m ready to go.” She wrapped her arms around Orson and squeezed him. “I’ll never forget you.”
He knelt down in front of her. “You’re a special girl, Lucy. You know what you are, and you’re not afraid of it, and I admire that. I admire the hell out of it.”
She turned to Luther and shook his hand, then lifted her guitar case and walked away from the hotel, out onto the sidewalk into the night.
Lucy had walked ten blocks before the first pair of headlights appeared in the distance.
She dropped her guitar case on the pavement, a small pit of nerves tightening in her stomach.
The car was getting closer.
She could hear its engine, and for the first time in her life, but certainly not the last, she stuck out her thumb.
A minivan pulled over to the curb and the front passenger window rolled down, a thirty-something woman smiling under the dome light.
“You need a ride, sweetie?” she asked.
Lucy conjured up a smile. “If it’s not too much trouble. It’s really cold out here.”
“I’ve got groceries in the front seat, but you’re welcome to climb in the back.”
Lucy pulled open the side door and stepped into the minivan, stowing her guitar case on the floor and sitting down beside a car seat, where an infant slept.
The woman looked back between the seats at Lucy.
“Just try to keep it down, if you don’t mind,” she said quietly. “As you can see, my little angel is sleeping.”
“No problem,” Lucy whispered, staring down at the baby, thinking, No Luther, not everyone’s bigger than me.
Wisconsin, 2007
1
Taylor liked toes.
He wasn’t a pervert. At least, not that kind of pervert. Taylor didn’t derive sexual gratification from feet. Women had other parts much better suited for that type of activity. But he was a sucker for a tiny foot in open-toed high heels, especially when the toenails were painted.
Painted toes were yummy.
The truck stop whore wore sandals, the cork wedge heels so high her toes were bent. She had small feet—they looked like a size five—and her nails matched her red mini skirt. Taylor spotted her through the windshield as she walked over to his Peterbilt, wiggling her hips and wobbling a bit. Taylor guessed she was drunk or stoned. Perhaps both.
He climbed out of his cab. When his cowboy boots touched the pavement he reached his hands up over his head and stretched, his vertebrae cracking. The night air was hot and