The Lonely Mile (21 page)

And then he knew.

He was in the middle of vacuuming out his van—not because the carpeting was dirty, but because he needed something to do—when the significance of the letters revealed themselves to him. The resulting vision of the truck was so clear that Bill could hardly believe it had taken him this long to figure it out.

The breakthrough came in the form of a mental picture, sort of a waking version of the dreams he had suffered through the last few nights. He thought he had seen the letters before because he
had
seen them before, and when the vision clicked on in his brain, he could picture the truck in his head as it existed prior to the sloppy, amateur paint job as clearly as if it were parked in the driveway in front of him.

In its earlier incarnation, the truck had been used as a delivery vehicle for a small produce supplier called Specialty Farmers Market, LLC. The company was local and independently owned, supplying grocery stores and markets in the area with fresh produce and vegetables. Bill had seen the trucks on occasion, driving as much as he did between his two stores, and he suspected he may even have supplied the company with tools and small power equipment sometime in the last few years.

The design of the company’s logo had not changed as far as Bill could remember. He figured at some point the owner of Specialty Farmers Market must have upgraded his delivery fleet and sold off his old truck or trucks.

The I-90 Killer had been in the market for just such a vehicle, and Bill assumed he must have bought one of them. Obviously he couldn’t drive around kidnapping teenage girls with foot-high identifying letters emblazoned in green on the side of his getaway truck, so he had done a quick repainting job, and now that paint was beginning to fade. It was a huge blunder for a man who had evaded an intense manhunt for nearly four, long years.

Now that Bill could clearly picture the vehicle, the sixty-four thousand dollar question was this: had the owner of Specialty Farmers Market sold the truck to the I-90 Killer himself, or had he involved a middleman—such as a dealer—from whom the kidnapper had purchased his vehicle?

There was one way to find out.

* * *

In addition to trucking their produce to various area locations, Specialty Farmers Market operated an independent store, in which they offered their own products for sale, as well as basic grocery staples, like bread and milk. The market was housed in a long, rectangular-shaped rustic log building that looked like a cross between an ice arena and a steroid-enhanced version of Abraham Lincoln’s boyhood home. A mammoth concrete and aluminum warehouse protruded out the rear of the store, angling away to the left, with a paved employee parking lot located at the rear of the property.

Bill had never been inside Specialty Farmers Market, but he had driven past it once or twice, so he knew where it was. He figured it was as good a place as any to begin the process of tracking down the company’s owner.

He was well aware that his first move should be to alert Agent Canfield to the potentially critical piece of information he had recovered. He also knew he was going to do no such thing. Bill had spent a lot of time thinking about the situation regarding the I-90 Killer since his meeting with the FBI agent at the coffee shop this morning, and the more he kicked it around in his head, the more a surprising realization began to solidify.

He was going to rescue Carli himself. Forget the authorities.

This lunatic, this “I-90 Killer,” had targeted him specifically; setting his twisted sights on Bill Ferguson’s family solely because Bill had interfered with his attempt to kidnap an innocent girl at an interstate rest stop. He had taunted Bill, approaching his daughter on the street and spelling out in a letter exactly what he intended to do with her, and then he had gone and done it, just a couple of days later.

The authorities, the same ones he was expected to now trust with the job of rescuing his child, had analyzed the letter after its delivery and concluded the I-90 Killer was full of crap, that he was boasting and bragging but would do nothing. Well, he had turned out not to be full of crap; he had done exactly what he said he was going to do. He had taken Carli, and right out from under the noses of the very people who were supposedly protecting her.

And now the FBI, in the form of Special Agent Angela Canfield, was telling him to do nothing; to hand over any information that might be helpful in the search for
his
daughter, and then to just stay out of the way. Let the professionals handle the search. For the man they had been hunting without success for nearly four years. With Carli’s life hanging in the balance.

No way. Bill didn’t care how sexy and alluring Angela Canfield was, he was not about to run to the phone and pass along the information he had finally managed to recover, and then step aside and wait for Canfield or one of her FBI flunkies to report back to him at their convenience the fate of his only child. The I-90 Killer had snatched Carli Ferguson for a reason; a reason above and beyond the fact that he was a perverted, murdering, slave-trading psycho. He had targeted Bill’s child. And Bill was going to get her back.

Or die trying.

* * *

May 28, 2:45 p.m.

Business was brisk at the retail home of Specialty Farmers Market, LLC. Cars filled the customer parking lot nearly to overflowing, and people entered and exited the front doors in a more or less continuous flow. Bill wondered what in the world the place could be selling that was so popular. It was too early in the season for most fresh veggies, but he supposed since the store was open year-round, they must offer some other enticing homemade food products, as well.

He hurried across the lot under slate-grey skies that had been threatening rain all day but had not yet followed through. The moisture in the air was so heavy and thick it felt almost as though the skies had already opened up, even though the rain had yet to begin falling. One massive storm was on the way and would be arriving later this afternoon; that much was clear.

Parked at the rear of the lot was a white box truck, with “Specialty Farmers Market” emblazoned on the side of the cargo area in green, block letters. The truck was similar in size and style to the repainted one he had watched the I-90 Killer escape in last week at the rest stop, only newer and less worn down. He glanced at it, confirming what he already knew, before continuing through the front entrance.

Bill walked into the store and approached the lone cash register, operated by a girl roughly Carli’s age. She was maybe fifteen pounds overweight, sporting jet-black hair with a maroon stripe dyed into the bangs, and wore a look of intense concentration as she dealt with the line of shoppers waiting to pay for their purchases.

“Excuse me,” he said, stepping up to the counter. “Could you please tell me where I might find the manager?” The customer currently standing in front of the register, waiting while her purchases were being rung up, glared at him like he was planning on cutting the line. He ignored her. He doubted her daughter was being held captive by a homicidal maniac.

The cashier looked up at him defensively, as if he had just caught her with her hand in the till. Bill figured she must assume he wanted to talk to the manager because he had a complaint, maybe about her. “Straight ahead, all the way to the back of the store on the left,” she said testily before returning to her work.

Bill nodded his thanks, a waste of effort since she was no longer paying any attention to him. He weaved his way through the shoppers to the back of the building. A cold case filled with milk, a few different brands of juice and soda, and maybe the best selection of beer this side of the average college student’s dorm formed most of a back wall. To the left of the case, though, was an open doorway giving on to a short corridor. Halfway down the length of the corridor on the right was a unisex bathroom, and on the left, the manager’s office.

The office door was propped open, and inside, a grey-haired man worked on a computer that took up most of the space on his desk. Whatever he was doing involved a lot of typing, and Bill was impressed by the speed he was able to manage, particularly given the fact he was typing with just one finger on each hand.

He knocked on the open door and the man waved him in, glancing up for about a half-second before returning his attention to his project. “Be right with ya,” he said. “Take a seat, if you like.” He gestured vaguely with his left hand at a single chair placed in front of the desk and continued typing with his right.

Bill sat, tapping his foot impatiently. The man pounded the keyboard for perhaps another three minutes, finishing with a grunt of satisfaction, before lifting a pair of eyeglasses to his face from a chain around his neck and peering at Bill. “How can I help you?”

“You the manager?”

“You could say that,” the man answered with a wry smile. “This is my business. I own it. Ray Blanchard,” he said, leaning across the desk and offering his hand.

Bill shook it and said, “Nice to meet you, Ray. Bill Ferguson. I can see you’re occupied, so I’ll get right to the point. I wanted to ask you about your trucks.”

“About what?”

“Your delivery trucks. How many do you have?”

“Just the one. Listen, Mr. Ferguson, as you said yourself, I’m quite busy here. Are you an auto salesman or something? If so, you should know, I’m not in the market for a new truck and don’t expect to be for quite some time.”

“No, sir, it’s nothing like that. And I’m not trying to waste your time, but this is very important. Is it possible I may have seen one of your old trucks on the road recently?”

“I suppose so,” Blanchard answered. “When I bought my current delivery vehicle about four years ago, I sold the old one. It was still running well at the time, so, if it’s been properly maintained, it is entirely possible that truck’s still on the road. What is this all about?”

“Did you go through a middleman, like a dealer, or did you sell the truck on your own?”

“I sold it on my own; I thought I could strike a better deal that way, and I did. Y’know, I’m just about out of patience here, so I’ll ask one last time: What is this all about?”

“Well, Mr. Blanchard, I need to know the name of the person you sold your old delivery vehicle to.”

The market owner lifted his glasses off his face and chewed on the end of one of the earpieces. It was clearly a subconscious act; Bill could see that the plastic had been destroyed by countless similar moments. Finally, Ray Blanchard shook his head. “I can’t tell you that. For all I know, you’re some sort of serial killer. Why would you possibly need that information, anyway?”

Bill hesitated, then decided to level with him. The clock was ticking, and it was imperative he make the man understand the urgency of the situation. “I assume you’re familiar with the I-90 Killer the authorities have been chasing for years?”

Ray Blanchard nodded. “Of course. You’d have to be blind, deaf,
and
dead to live in these parts and not be familiar with that sick piece of garbage.”

“Well, I’m more familiar with him than most—at least I am now.” Bill hurried through the whole story despite his impatience, leaving out nothing, beginning with the chance encounter last week in the rest stop, emphasizing the kidnapping of Carli, and finishing up with his deciphering the significance of the green letters barely visible on the repainted side of the I-90 Killer’s truck.

“That explains it,” Blanchard said, snapping his fingers. “I was sure I had seen you somewhere before, I just couldn’t place where. I saw you on the TV news after you saved that young girl.”

“That’s right, and it was that news coverage that resulted in the I-90 Killer piecing together enough information about me to target my daughter. I intend to get her back, and that bill of sale is how I’m going to do it.”

Ray Blanchard placed his glasses back on his nose and peered into Bill’s eyes. “This is a matter for the police. Why aren’t they here requesting this information?”

“Honestly, Mr. Blanchard, I haven’t informed them yet about what I deciphered regarding the guy’s truck. They are busy attacking the case from another angle, and I figured I would determine for myself whether this was a dead end before taking manpower away from other avenues of investigation.”

The man hesitated, and Bill was sure he was going to send him packing, then he leaned back, rolled his office chair the three feet or so to the back wall, and opened the bottom drawer of a small, metal file cabinet. He riffled through papers for a few moments and Bill had to choke back the urge to scream at him to hurry.

Finally he muttered, “Aha!” and lifted a single sheet of computer paper out of the cabinet, placing it face down on the desk between them. “This is the bill of sale I made up when I sold the truck, complete with the name and address of the vehicle’s purchaser.” He sat looking at Bill expectantly, his weathered right hand resting lightly on the paper.

Bill waited and the man made no effort to show him the document. “May I have a look?”

“Maybe. Depends what you’re going to do with it. You wouldn’t be planning to go after this man all by your lonesome, now, would you? I know if it was my daughter the I-90 Killer had taken, I’d be storming his front porch myself. Not that I’d blame you for doing that, but it’s a good way to get yourself killed.”

Bill smiled uneasily. Valuable time was passing and all of this gamesmanship was wasting too much of it. He was tempted to simply rip the paper out from under the farmer’s hand and leave with it—that’s exactly what he
would
do if it became necessary; he certainly wasn’t leaving this office without the address of the man holding Carli—but he had come this far, so he decided to play along just a little longer and see where it led.

“Of course not,” he said. “Me sticking my nose where it didn’t belong was what resulted in this whole mess in the first place. Once I have the man’s name and address, I’m going to bring that information straight to the lead investigator, FBI Special Agent Angela Canfield.”

“How sure are you that the man who purchased my truck is the man you’re looking for?”