Page 51 of Gone Tonight
I lifted my duffle bag off the front seat and walked toward the other vehicles. I reached an eighteen-wheeler first and crept around it in a slow circle, trying to figure out if there was a way to conceal myself inside. I climbed up on the running board and the steps above it and stood onmy tiptoes to peek in a window. There was a second row of seating—a long bench with some scrunched-up blankets where the driver must take naps. I could hide in the footwell behind the driver and cover myself with one of the blankets. When the trucker stopped for his next meal, I’d climb out. It wasn’t a great plan, but I couldn’t think of any other way to get out of the area fast.
I tested the door. It was locked.
I stepped down and circled around the front of the truck and climbed up on the opposite side, stretching my hand toward the passenger’s door handle.
Then a man’s voice cut through the night. He asked why I was trying to break into his truck.
Fear and relief crashed through me in equal measures. The voice behind me—male, adult, annoyed—didn’t belong to James.
I stepped down, keeping my head low, and mumbled that I wasn’t going to steal anything, I just thought I could catch a ride. I started to hurry away, toward the highway.
But he called after me to stop.
I halted. I hadn’t gotten a good look at the trucker, but I’d seen enough to know he was much bigger than me.
The trucker didn’t say anything immediately. I waited, listening as the silence was briefly broken by the whoosh of a car speeding by. Maybe he’d let me continue on to the highway, where I could try to hitch a ride. Maybe he’d call the police.
It was almost a relief to have my fate rest in someone else’s hands.
Finally he said that if I wanted a ride, all I had to do was ask.
I turned around. The trucker was standing there, gesturing for me to climb into the passenger’s side. He looked to be in his late fifties, and he wore a red-and-blue plaid shirt. I couldn’t read his expression.
I needed to be gone tonight. I had to get into that vehicle.
I slowly walked over, my head still hung low. He unlocked the door and I got into the cab. It smelled like French fries. There was an open can of Coke in the beverage holder and a half-empty roll of Rolaids in the console. And a decal stuck low on the front windshield of a youngwoman in a bikini, sitting with her arms behind her so that her boobs popped out.
The trucker walked around to the other side and began to hoist himself up and into the driver’s seat. I knew this was it. If I wanted to jump out and run, now was my chance.
I stayed.
What could he do to me that was worse than what my mother or Coach or James had already done?
My fate still rested in the trucker’s hands.
He settled into his seat and released a sigh, then reached for his leather belt and hiked it down, saying he’d eaten too much.
I watched him out of the corner of my eye as I waited for him to start the engine or put on his seat belt.
Instead, he turned toward me, his big arms reaching out.
I squeezed my eyes shut and tried to press myself in the other direction, but the door kept me pinned in place.
I couldn’t breathe. All I could do was wait for his hands to land on me.
I heard his voice again, telling me he just needed to get a little something out of the back.
I opened my eyes. He was almost completely twisted around now, reaching toward the bench seat in the back of the cab.
The trucker lifted up a tiny, old Chihuahua from the nest of blankets. Her eyes seemed to look in opposite directions, and she had a vaguely annoyed air at being awoken.
He told me her name was Cookie, and that she usually sat right where I was.
Cookie stayed on my lap the whole drive.
CHAPTER NINETEENCATHERINE
The last time I came to work, every resident in the Memory Wing wore my mother’s face.
