Ultimate Thriller Box Set - Crouch Blake (лучшие книги без регистрации txt) 📗

His notebooks. His photo albums. His cameras, of course. His cash. And Summer.

It took him three trips to get everything into the GEO. There was a lot he was leaving behind, but he couldn’t help that. Although no one had put his picture up on television, he could feel them breathing down his neck. He knew he was one step ahead of their snapping jaws—he could feel it. He always trusted his instincts.

They knew who he was. Maybe it was the way the cop had looked at the motor home. He should have jumped on that earlier. At least they didn’t know about the GEO.

After he’d stuffed everything into the back seat, he stood by the car, the sun beating down on him, hyperventilating.

Where would they go?

Mexico?

He’d have to put her in the trunk. But what if the Mexican customs asked to see inside?

He’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

Or he could head east or west on the interstate. Or take the back roads, lay low.

Later. He’d figure it out later.

He went back inside, feeling strangely jazzed. She was going to give him a battle. He knew it. The wildcat.

And so he prepared everything ahead of time. The chloroform, the rag, his handcuffs, duct tape. It was all in the same place he’d stashed them after he’d used them on Jessica—

The boyfriend, standing there in the doorway of the Pace Arrow. What’s going on?”

The image so strong it seemed like real time. Stupid kid, surprising him like that. The girl, who’d just stopped struggling, a dead weight. He had no choice but to act—and act fast.

Still amazed no one saw him drag the kid down into the woods.

He had the rag, the bottle at the ready. Knocked on the door.

No answer.

He felt the beginning of impatience.

“Summer, we can do this easy or we can do this hard. I guarantee you won’t like it hard." He tried not to laugh at the pun.

Nothing.

Bitch

To think he’d bought a present for her. He reached into his shirt pocket and extracted the key to the padlock, unlocked the door, and pulled it open.

Something jumped out at him like a jack-in-the-box.

“What—?”

He saw the stick clenched in her hands, and his mind had only a split second to wonder what it was when it hit him right in the midsection, punching into his side.

Pain, tingly and bright and blood-colored. He thought he screamed.

He grabbed at her as her impulsion carried her past him, his fingers snagging her dress—

She jerked away, and through a fine haze of pain, he saw her bolt through the hallway and out the door, the door banging wham wham wham—

And he was aware that he was holding his side and it was kind of like hot pudding, slick as snot as his father used to say, and he staggered back, spun around, and that was when he saw the object on the floor. Wood tapering down to a band of brass glimmering at the bottom.

It was a leg off the swing-out table.

She’d sawed it off. Somehow.

Smart girl.

He grabbed a towel from the bathroom and pressed it to the wound. Compress. It hurt like a sonofabitch, but it had missed everything vital. There were splinters, though, big ones.

Time slowed. His nerve endings screaming. The towel turning red. Still, he’d better go get her and think about cleaning this mess up later.

49

As Laura walked across the parking lot to the Motel 6 entrance, the overheated asphalt yielded under her shoe like brownie dough. Traffic hummed and sighed on the street behind her, a constant pedal point. She shielded her eyes against the glare and glanced back at the van parked unobtrusively near the edge of the property—a unit from the Pima County Sheriff’s SWAT team inside.

The young woman at the desk looked like a college student. She wore a nice blazer with the name tag “Marci”.

Laura asked Marci if she had either a Dale Lundy or Jimmy de Seroux registered.

Marci looked through the book. “No one by that name.”

“Anything close? Maybe a combination of the two? Dale de Seroux? Jimmy Lundy?”

Uncertain, the girl pored over the names again.

Laura looked at the names upside down. “That’s it. James E. Lund. Could you pull the card please?”

“I don’t know—“

“We have a warrant.”

“Oh. Okay." Marci found the registration card and pushed it diffidently across the desk.

The date of check-in was July 15. James E. Lund, Glenwood Springs, Colorado. Drove a 1994 white GEO Prizm with a Colorado plate. He was in Room 17.

A white GEO?

Laura wondered if he’d ditched the motor home or if he’d just added the car. Sometimes the simplest things could slip under the radar. All the agencies were on the alert for a motor home. But they might not even see a motor home towing a car.

She asked Marci for the key to Room 17. Marci handed it over without asking to see the warrant, which was good because Laura didn’t have one. Victor Celaya was on his way with it.

“How did he pay for the room?” she asked. “Cash, check, or credit card?”

Marci looked up the receipt. “He paid cash in advance.” She anticipated Laura’s next question. “For a week.” Laura counted up in her head. He had three days left.

She walked back out into the gun-metal haze.

At this time of day, between check-out and check-in, there were few cars in the parking lot and no white GEO Prizm with Colorado plates.

She walked back to the 4Runner, got in, and turned the air conditioner on full blast. Immediately her cell started bleeping. It was Charlie Specter. “A TPD officer spotted a motor home in a trailer court on Benson Highway that looked suspicious. He says it fits the description and the photo—the Pace Arrow. From the looks of the street numbers, it’s less than two miles from where you are now.

“I got hold of the owner of the trailer court, asked him if he had anyone there by the name of Lundy or de Seroux. He said the guy with the motor home gave his name as John de Seroux.”

Summer ran through the trailer park pounding on doors, screaming for help.

But the trailers just dozed in the summer sun. Nobody was going to open their door to her. She didn’t know why, but she knew it was true.

She started running up the lane toward the street.

Behind her the motor home door banged open and she heard running feet.

She knew it was him, but looked back anyway. Dale got into his car, backed it up and swerved around, heading toward her in a funnel of dust.

Summer knew she wouldn’t make it to the road. She scanned the trailer court and saw a break in the fence near the last trailer she’d been to. She had to go back in the direction of the GEO, but the good news was he’d have to turn around.

He saw what she was doing and hit the brakes, but by the time he had stopped the car, she was past him and was already cutting across the concrete pad next to the trailer. Behind her, she heard the tiny engine roar as he put it in reverse. She darted toward the break in the fence, trying to figure out how to get through the clumps of prickly pear guarding it.

Behind her she heard the car slam into park and the door jerk open.

She had to get down on her stomach, which took time, and shimmy through, careful to avoid the cactus. chain link snagged her dress and she had to yank at it, legs flailing. Then she was free, out into the desert and running.

“Summer, get back here!” Dale yelled.

Then: “Dammit!" And the slam of the car door, the squeal of the engine again as he charged up the drive, spraying gravel.

Summer’s mind raced. What would he do? Could he drive into the desert? He’d have to get out onto Benson Highway and get past the other businesses before he could get to the empty lot. It would be fastest and easiest for him to make a right onto the highway and another right, so he would probably be up ahead. She switched directions, following a path through the scrub, her sandals scarfing up dirt like an open mouth and stickers pricking her feet and legs. She stepped on the point of a doghead that went through the bottom of her sandal and yelped. Pulled it out and kept on going.