Honeymoon for Three (23 page)

“
So the tsunami uprooted redwood
trees, washed them out to sea, and then they were deposited on this
beach. Holy cow, as you say. That was some powerful
wave.”

“
I want my picture taken with one
of the tree trunks.”

Penny ran down the slope to the sandy beach
and raced over to a gargantuan piece of driftwood. Gary ran after
her, holding the camera. They took pictures of each other being
dwarfed by the white trunks of what used to be redwood trees. They
felt insubstantial, like a mouse would feel when encountering
ordinary driftwood.

When they had their fill of photography, they
walked down close to the water.

“
Look,” Penny said. “This is black
jade. And here are agates.”

“
Aren’t the pieces of jade too big
for our table?”

“
They’re so beautiful. Maybe we
can use them for something else.”

Penny began picking up the rocks.
Her enthusiasm was infectious, and Gary joined in. When she was
happy, he was happy. They soon had an armload of the
rocks.

“
We’re going to have trouble
getting these in the car,” Gary said. “Let me take a load back and
see how many more we can fit in.”

Gary carried the rocks up the
slope to the parking area. He placed the rocks on the ground,
unlocked the door of the VW, and popped open the hood. He didn’t
want to place the dirty rocks inside the car. He squeezed them into
the storage space under the hood and returned to the beach. He saw
that Penny had more rocks.

“
I’ll take these up,” Penny
said.

“
Okay, but that’s the last
load.”

“
Promise.”

“
I’m going to walk down the beach
a little way and take pictures of some of those other
trees.”

Gary ambled along the beach, stopping now and
then to take a picture. After five minutes he turned around to see
whether Penny was returning from the car. He didn’t see her. Oh
well, it was time for them to hit the road again. They had to keep
moving. The honeymoon was winding down, much as he didn’t want it
to end.

Gary retraced his steps and went
up the sandy slope to the parking area. As the car came into view,
he noticed that the hood was open, but he didn’t see Penny. Maybe
she was inside the car. He reached the top of the slope and looked
through the car windows. No Penny.

Where was she? Maybe she had to go—she might
be taking a nature hike as they called it in the boy scouts. Bushes
grew alongside the road. Penny didn’t like to go in the bushes, but
if she were desperate…

Gary went to the car to close the
hood and noticed that a couple of the rocks she had brought up were
lying on the ground in front of the car. He became mildly
irritated. That was sloppy. He picked up the rocks and placed them
inside the storage area. Then he saw a scratch on the car just
below the opening that he was certain hadn’t been there before. A
falling rock must have struck the car. He became more
irritated.

He would chew
her out for that. No he wouldn’t. What did it say in the Dale
Carnegie book he had read,
How to Win
Friends and Influence People
? Don’t
criticize, condemn, or complain. But she had to learn to be more
careful.

Gary waited beside the car, glancing at the
nearby bushes for a sign of movement. Another five minutes passed.
He began to worry. Where could she be? At least he knew that she
hadn’t been attacked by a bear. They had left the bears in
Yellowstone. He walked for fifty feet along the highway, calling
Penny’s name. Then he walked the other way, doing the same. The
only answer was the sighing of the breeze.

After fifteen minutes he began to panic. His
heartbeat accelerated and sweat soaked his underarms. Had she
decided that marriage was a big mistake and run away? She couldn’t
have picked a more remote location to do that if she had; she
wouldn’t get far. Even if she wanted out, she wouldn’t run away
here. Had she been hit by a car? No, because, gruesome as that
sounded, her body would be on the road.

Had she been abducted? Who would
do a thing like that? An awful thought came into Gary’s
head.

CHAPTER 25

When Penny and Gary stopped at a turnout on
the highway, Alfred had to keep going. If he pulled in after them,
it might be enough to arouse their suspicions, even if he parked
fifty yards away. In any case, they were bound to notice the
camper, and it was conspicuous enough with its bubble top that they
would recognize it if they saw it again.

Alfred drove around a curve until he was out
of sight of the green VW. He stopped on the side of the road and
waited five minutes. The waiting was nerve wracking because he
wanted to time it just right. He had to keep focused on his watch
to prevent himself from immediately going back to where they had
stopped.

The tension stimulated his bladder, and he
desperately had to pee. He got out of the camper and found a clump
of bushes, pretty much out of sight of the highway, and picked a
time when traffic was almost nonexistent to relieve himself.

Back in the camper, he watched the
secondhand creep around the watch. He had spent a lot of the past
few days waiting for something to happen or not happen. He was
growing tired of it. This was the last time. Finally, the five
minutes were up. He started the engine, made a U-turn, and went
back to where their car was parked. Penny and Gary were out of
sight, down on the beach. Good. He parked on the inland side of the
highway, down the road from the Beetle, and got out of the
camper.

He let a logging truck loaded with big tree
trunks rumble by and then crossed the highway. As he approached the
slope down to the wide beach, he couldn’t believe what he saw.
Giant pieces of driftwood lay on the sand, some of them a
significant distance from the water. These trunks were as large as
those of the redwood trees. They
were
redwood trees,
bleached white and stripped of their bark by the water and sun.

Alfred didn’t have time to ponder the whys
and wherefores of how they had come to be on the beach. They could
be helpful to him, allowing him to keep out of sight. That was what
counted. Maybe this was a sign from heaven.

Standing behind a rock, he scanned the beach
for Penny and Gary. He spotted them some distance away. They were
taking pictures of each other posing with the huge logs. He watched
them, wondering whether he should go down the short slope to the
beach and try to get closer to them.

If he did that, he would have trouble
keeping them in sight. The tree trunks would be a hindrance to him,
as well as a help. He was safer where he was now, and he had a good
view of the whole beach. If he had to, he could retreat without
them seeing him. He didn’t want to retreat. He felt in his bones
that this was the place to take action. This might be the best
opportunity he would get. He was charged up and ready.

Now they were down by the gray ocean picking
up things—rocks, perhaps. Gary took an armful of whatever they had
collected and started walking back toward the car. Alfred watched
him until he was sure that Gary was coming all the way. It was too
late to make it across the street to the camper. Alfred worked
himself further into the rocks beside the parking area, out of
sight of Gary’s car.

This was a perfect opportunity if he wanted
to kill Gary, except that he didn’t have a suitable weapon. He had
a better idea. Killing Gary would also kill any chance he might
have of winning Penny. At least, killing him now would. After Penny
saw things his way, it might be different. He needed to have a
little more patience. Gary was coming up here alone. Perhaps Penny
would do that next.

He peeked out and watched Gary open the hood
of the car and place a number of black rocks inside. He closed the
hood but didn’t latch it and walked back down to the beach. Why
were they picking up black rocks? Who cared? What Alfred cared
about was whether Penny might take the next trip to the
car—alone.

He looked back down at the beach. Penny had
an armful of rocks. He held his breath. She was walking toward the
car. By herself. Gary was walking in the opposite direction, along
the beach. Perfect. Penny struggled up the sloping sand toward the
parking area. In a few seconds she would reach the top of the slope
and be out of sight from the beach. Out of Gary’s sight.

Alfred retreated to his hiding place. She
would walk right past him. When she placed the rocks in the front
of the car, she would be within a few feet of him. Her back would
be toward him. This was the opportunity he had been waiting
for.

***

Penny was happy. She loved to collect pretty
things. The small rocks, including the agates, they would use in
the coffee table they were going to build. They would place them on
top of the table and then cover it with liquid plastic. The larger
pieces of jade couldn’t be used in the coffee table, but they were
too pretty to leave behind.

She came up the slope and saw the car. Gary
said he had left the hood unlatched. She walked directly to the
front of the car. How could she open the hood without putting down
her rocks? She bent her knees and managed to hook one finger around
the handle of the hood and pulled. The hood came up. She bent over
the storage area and carefully let go of some of the rocks.

An arm snaked around Penny’s upper body from
behind and jerked her upright. She screamed and dropped her
remaining rocks.

“Shut up.”

Alfred’s voice was unmistakable. Penny
twisted, trying to escape his grip. A sharp pain in her back
stopped her. She grunted but swallowed the next scream that
threatened to come out. It wouldn’t do any good, anyway. Her first
scream had been carried away by the wind. Gary was too far away and
couldn’t have heard it.

“Don’t move. And don’t scream.”

The pain in her back increased. He had a
knife. He had acquired another knife. Penny stopped struggling. How
had he gotten out of Yellowstone? How had he found her? Why was she
thinking these inane thoughts? He was going to kill her. She tried
to relax her muscles so he would stop hurting her.

“That’s better. Now I’ll tell you what we’re
going to do. We’re going to walk across the road and go to the VW
camper.”

She saw the white camper with the bubble
top. It was parked across the highway about a hundred feet south of
them. How had Alfred obtained a camper? Had he stolen it? If so,
the police must be looking for him. Oh yes, they were already
hunting him for murder and car theft. Where was Gary? Penny turned
her head as far as she dared and realized she couldn’t see the
beach from here. Gary couldn’t see her. She was on her own.

Alfred’s arm was wrapped around her body at
the level of her breasts and held her tightly. Her back was pressed
against his belly. His potbelly. The thought almost made Penny
giggle, in spite of her situation. She was on the verge of
hysteria. She had to control herself. They marched in lockstep
toward the road. When they reached the road, they waited for a
lumber truck to roll by at high speed.

Penny thought about trying to signal the
driver. Her arms were free; she could wave to him. What would that
accomplish? He would think she was being friendly and wave back.
They were just two lovers, out sightseeing. Even if by some remote
chance he recognized her plight, by the time he brought the big rig
to a stop and came back to help her, she would be dead, and Alfred
would be gone.

She had to cooperate with Alfred—for now.
They made it across the highway before a couple of cars zoomed
past, heading north. They were going too fast to see what Alfred
was doing to her. She had to admit that at sixty miles per hour
they would look like lovers. Ha. Big joke. And the knife? She
didn’t feel it. He must be hiding it, somehow.

They made it to the right side of the
camper, the side away from the road. If Alfred wanted her inside,
he had to open a door. He would have to use one of his hands to do
this. His left arm held her. His right hand presumably held a
knife. He reached his right arm around her and unlatched the
sliding door. There was nothing in that hand—no knife, nothing.

Penny simultaneously twisted out of his grip
and ducked under his right arm, which was still on the door handle.
She stumbled for a moment and then regained her footing. She took a
couple of steps toward the front of the camper, intending to cut
around it and cross the highway just ahead of a car she could hear
approaching.

Alfred tackled her from behind before she
could make the turn. The wind left her lungs with an oomph as she
hit the ground. She struggled to breathe. The stumble had cost her
too much time. The car went by, but the passengers couldn’t see
them. They were hidden by the camper. She felt a sharp pain in her
back again and gave an involuntary grunt.

“If you do that again, I’ll kill you.”

Alfred was breathing hard. She didn’t doubt
that he would do what he said. He removed the knee from her
back—that’s what had hurt her—and put his arm around her neck in a
chokehold. She got to her knees and then to her feet. She had no
choice if she wanted to breathe. Alfred guided her back to the
sliding door.

The door was partially open. He pushed it
farther open with his shoulder. Then he shoved her onto the floor
of the camper. Before she could move, he had closed the door and
was on top of her again with his knee in her back. It hurt. What
now? She found out. He bent both of her arms behind her back and
bound them together somehow. He worked fast.