Now You See Her Part 12

"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 b.i.t.c.h 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 w.a.n.ker 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 s.n.a.t.c.h 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 prost.i.tute 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 do you say? Head shots? Shall we do it?" Frank said, as every molecule of saliva in my mouth evaporated instantly.

I saw some lights up ahead. Red neon in a small window. It was a bar. I accelerated toward it.

"I have to use the bathroom. I'm going to stop," I said weakly.

"Don't bother," Frank said. "My motor home is parked just up the road. You could go there. Won't be another second."

I kept gunning it and put on the turn signal. "It really can't wait," I said.

"Fine," Frank said as he put down the camera. "As you Yanks say, 'When ya gotta go, ya gotta go.' "

Maybe I was wrong about him. Was I jumping to conclusions? It didn't matter, I decided. He had turned out to be a lot creepier than I'd first thought.

Frank capped the flask and put it back into the glove compartment as I braked for the turn into the bar's parking lot. When he took his hand back out, he was holding a blunt black gun. He pressed its barrel into one of my nostrils.

"On second thought. Keep driving, s.k.a.n.k," he said suddenly in a New York accent. He definitely didn't sound British anymore. In fact, he no longer even sounded gay. "I freakin' insist," he said.

Chapter 46.

THE JACK RUSSELL started barking from the little s.p.a.ce behind the seats as the red lights of the bar disappeared on my left.

"What is this?" I managed to stammer out through my utter shock.

"This? It's a Walther P99," Frank said, waving the ugly gun in front of my eyes. He definitely didn't sound so whimsical anymore. His voice was deeper now, ice-cold.

"Why are you doing this?" I said.

My breath came irregularly. I was on the verge of hyperventilating. I couldn't believe this was happening. Maybe I'd fallen asleep on the side of the road and was dreaming. That's what it felt like.

Because how could this have happened? I'd set out to pretend to be abducted.

Now I actually was!

"You know what I hate?" he said, sounding like Robert De Niro. "Cute little things like you who think that all they have to do in life is shake their a.s.s, and the world will beat a path to their door. If I were a woman, I'd hang myself when I hit p.u.b.erty. I swear to G.o.d, I would. You're too disgusting for words."

From out of my terror-induced fugue, I remembered reading somewhere about how victims had to try and humanize themselves. If your abductor thought you were human, it would be harder to hurt you.

"Please don't do this. I'm pregnant. Please let me go."

"Pregnant?" he said. "Does the father know?"

"Are you him?" I said, trying to shift the attention off myself. "The man in the paper? The one who's responsible for the missing women?"

"What do you think?" he said with a sigh. "The Jump Killer. What a stupid name. Not a single reporter could come up with something better? How about you?"

Pain blossomed in my mouth as he suddenly raked the barrel of the gun hard over my lips and teeth.

"How about instead you shut your face before I break those exquisite cheekbones of yours."

I felt dizzy. The surface of the road seemed to ripple through the windshield. My stomach suddenly clenched into the world's tightest knot.

After a moment, I realized it was full-blown nausea, from Combos and exhaustion and more terror than I'd ever felt in my life. The contents of my stomach started to slosh and churn, demanding immediate release.

I was leaning to my left, about to vomit out the window, when another thought occurred to me. What did I have to lose?

I turned and heaved loudly and violently onto the Jump Killer's lap.

As he howled in disgust, I impulsively reached over and unclipped his seat belt. The engine screamed as I dropped the accelerator to the floor and wrenched the wheel to the right.

Even with the air bag popping, the shoulder belt friction burned into my neck as we hit a telephone pole head-on. The hood of the car folded back into the windshield, shattering it before the momentum of the crash swung the car up and to the right. I heard the world's loudest nails-on-a-chalkboard screech as we skidded along the concrete railing.

Then we flipped over the guardrail backward, and we were falling through the air.

Chapter 47.

STARS GLITTERED through the shattered windshield as we free-fell. My skull whacked off the headrest as we hit the water with a booming splash. It felt like I'd been hit from behind with a baseball bat.

It was amazing how quickly the cold, black water poured into the car. Definitely a lot faster than I could think what to do about it.

I tried to open the door, but it was too heavy, and by then the water was up to my neck. I took a last gulp of air as it closed over my head.

I couldn't see anything. The car seemed to twist around and swing forward as we submerged. I wasn't sure if we were upside down.

Along with panic, I was now attacked by a strange, sudden paralysis. Could I find an air pocket? I wondered stupidly. Should I try opening the door again?

I realized the window was open. I tried to pull myself out of it. I couldn't. I was stuck. Then I saw that I was still wearing my seat belt.

Pain bloomed at my right elbow as I desperately tried to unclip myself. It was the Jack Russell. He was biting me under the water. I shoved him away in the dark and finally freed myself. The dog nipped at my boot as I was on my way out. I turned and reached in. My hand wrapped around fur and I dragged him up with me.

I don't know who was gasping louder when we broke the surface, me or the little dog. He tried to bite me again as I pulled him by his collar toward some mangroves growing from underneath the concrete roadbed of the highway to the left.

"Stop it!" I screamed at the dog. "Do that again, and I'll leave you for good!"

He finally seemed to get the message. He made a whimpering sound as he relented and let himself be dragged. In the heavy boots, I was hardly able to keep us both above water.

When I was close enough to the sh.o.r.e to stand, I turned back toward where we'd gone under. There was no sign of the Jump Killer. Did he make it out? G.o.d, I hoped not. The whole thing had happened so fast. I think I was still in shock.

The Jack Russell barked and followed at my heels as I headed out of the water through the brush and sand toward the road. I cursed. With its wall angled away from me, it was going to be hard to climb. The top edge of the metal railing was about three feet over my head.

It took me four jumps off a large piece of driftwood to grab on. Because of the angle, I couldn't use my legs. I was hanging there, swinging back and forth, trying fruitlessly to get my huge, heavy-booted leg up onto the top, when there was a splash behind me.

Please be a sea turtle, I prayed.

"Nina? There you are. Wait up," the Jump Killer called from the water in a strangely calm voice.

Chapter 48.

"HOW AM I DOING, you wanted to know?" he continued, as he sloshed through the water. "Let's see. My collarbone is broken, my face is sliced to ribbons, and one of my eyes is full of gla.s.s. Otherwise, I'm as right as rain."

I started to cry as I swung my leg up as hard as I could. I managed to get the toe of my soaked boot onto the metal railing this time. But then it slipped off, and I was dangling there again helplessly as the splashes behind me got louder. I screamed as I tried again. Not even close. I was too terrified.

"Your arms aren't getting tired, are they?" the Jump Killer asked as the splashing became crashing through the brush behind me. "And what are you doing? Don't you know it's not legal to leave the scene of an accident?"

He would catch up to me in a second. My arms felt like wet spaghetti. I had to try again. I swung up. And missed!

"Darn nice try, Nina. You almost had it that time," the Jump Killer said directly beneath me as I swung back down.

I kicked out blindly behind me. My heavy boot heel came into delicious contact with his face. There was a strangled animal scream, and he was on his knees, holding his nose.

With the last of my strength, I changed my grip and did a chin-up to the rail. I hooked my right arm around it. It felt as if I'd torn a stomach muscle as I rolled over it and dropped into the road.

And heard the thunderous whine of an approaching truck.

You have got to be kidding me, was my only thought as I lay there on my belly with the blinding headlights of a truck coming straight at me. I couldn't do anything except watch the lights grow bigger and bigger as the air horn sounded. Its seizing brakes gave a drawn-out metallic chirp-chirp-chirp.

Chapter 49.

THE TRUCK STOPPED six feet in front of me with a deafening outrush of the air brakes. From my perch almost underneath the thunderously rumbling vehicle, its grille looked as tall as a skysc.r.a.per. It felt like my heart had stopped, too, as well as all of my major brain function.

"Are you out of your G.o.dd.a.m.n mind!?" someone yelled.

I looked up. Far above me, a middle-aged blond woman's p.i.s.sed-off face was sticking out of the tractor trailer's pa.s.senger window.

She jumped down and dragged me to my feet roughly. All I could do was stand there, staring at her. She was one of those heavy women that people think would be gorgeous if they were skinnier. As if that were relevant. I had post-traumatic stress disorder by this point.

"You stupid, stupid girl," she said, shaking me. "Do you have any idea how lucky you are that my husband didn't kill you? What happened to you? You're soaked. Are you drunk? Drugged out? Is that it?"

I looked back at the concrete wall I'd just climbed and then back at the woman with my mouth open. Where was the Jump Killer? Would he hop out now? Or was he hiding? Running away?

"She's not talking, Mike," the woman called up to the driver. "I think she might be some type of foreign person. Call the police on the CB."