Eyes of the Predator (22 page)

The girl, Beth, smiled some more,
tilting her head slightly and looking up at the person just out of view. It was
definitely a flirtatious smile, pretending to be shy or flattered, but the
unspoken message was, ‘Yes,
I am
the cutest thing you’ve seen today.
Keep talking. You might get lucky’.

George almost smiled himself at
the young girl on the tape. Suddenly an arm was thrust into the picture from
the spot just out of view. A bill dropped from the outstretched hand onto the
counter. George stopped breathing and hit the pause button. The arm was a man’s
arm, covered by a long sleeve shirt. Nothing remarkable about it. Not too big,
not too small. Just an average sized arm belonging, no doubt, to an average
sized man. But the outstretched hand bore a ring. He squinted hard at the
screen. There was no zoom function on the system, but the more he looked the more
he was sure that the ring was in the shape of a steer’s head…a Texas Longhorn,
or at least it could be. George looked around for a minute and then called.

“Tommy!”

“Yeah, George?” The manager poked
his head through the door.

“Do you have something to make
the picture bigger?”

Tommy thought for a second,
wrinkling his brow in concentration. “Well nothing technical or anything like
that, but…” he stepped into the cramped office behind George and rummaged
around on a dusty shelf. Lifting a stack of yellowed papers, he pulled out an
old magnifying glass. “Here try this. It might work.”

“What the hell are you doing with
that? Burning the wings off of flies?”

Looking slightly offended, Tommy
replied, “No, we keep it to check out suspicious bills. You know, counterfeits.”

“You know how to recognize
counterfeits?” George was amazed.

“Well, not really,” Tommy
confessed, “but if we get a suspicious bill and bring out this big old glass,
sometimes they get intimidated and leave. Actually works…sometimes.”

George shook his head, even more
amazed. He had no idea that Tommy was that clever. Probably no one else did
either.

 He took the glass from
Tommy’s pudgy hand and stared at the screen, adjusting the distance to magnify
the image. It wasn’t great. The GBI would have to clean it up, but it was
unmistakable. A shiny, almost triangular shape with two curving prongs coming
out of the top. There it was.

George knew he was looking at the
hand that had struck the poor girl in the weeds. The hand that had inflicted
all of those painful cuts. The hand that had slowly killed her, taking her life
in the slowest most painful way he could. That hand was attached to a body and
to a bad man. A very bad man who, except for his hand, could not be seen in the
video.

George let the tape run forward
and saw two men walk into the frame. Truck drivers. They must have startled the
man with the ring.

He rewound the tape and went
through it one more time looking for anything he had missed. Cute little Beth
did not know how fortunate she was. Probably lots of customers flirted with
her, and she flirted back. Flirting with this one, the man with the ring, might
have been her last if the two truck drivers hadn’t showed up.

Well, now he had a witness. Beth
had talked to the man with the ring. She might have noticed his vehicle, the
vehicle George had seen the night before while he tried to doze in his county
truck. He winced once more at the thought.

 George felt the adrenalin
surge. The hunt was on, but time was short. The word had to get out before
there was another young girl in the weeds somewhere.

“Tommy!”

“Don’t have to shout, George. I’m
right here.” Intrigued, Tommy was staring over George’s shoulder at the screen.
“What’s up?”

“I’m taking this tape and get me
Beth’s address.”

“Uh, okay, George. Something
wrong?”

“Get the address, Tommy.”

George ejected the tape from the
old VHS machine, and leaving the cramped office, moved quickly outside to his
pickup and the radio. Sitting behind the wheel, he reached for the microphone.
For a moment, he closed his eyes, and the image of the old car from last night
floated in his mind. He imagined an average sized man’s arm and a hand holding
the steering wheel. On the hand was a ring, a ring that matched the mark on the
forehead of a young girl. The average man with the ring had dumped the girl
like garbage in the weeds alongside a dirt road…a dirt road that he had been
responsible for patrolling.

George’s eyes snapped open; soon
there would be more than just an arm and ring in that picture. Beth would help
with that.

Lifting the mike, he spoke.

“301 to car 2.”

Ronnie Kupman’s voice answered,
“Go ahead, 301.”

“We have a witness with a
possible ID on the perp. Need you to meet me.” George didn’t elaborate on which
perp. There was only one right now. He read out the address Tommy had given
him.

“On my way, 301,” Ronnie
responded and then added, “Good work, George.”

Sheriff Klineman, listening on
the radio in his car, winced. Great. George again. The hits just kept on
coming.

He watched the big red
Freightliner leave the fuel pumps and pull through the parking lot of the truck
stop. As it passed his car, he could just see the top of the girl’s head in the
passenger seat. He was prepared to follow, waiting for his opportunity. He did
not have to wait long.

The truck did not pull onto the
highway and head towards the interstate. Instead, the heavyset trucker steered
around to the back of the truck stop where there was a large gravel lot full of
parked rigs. Some of the drivers were there to catch up on sleep; others were
inside the truck stop relaxing for a while. Henry had his own plans.

The old Chevy followed carefully,
the driver watching as the trucker pulled to the farthest end of the lot where
he parked along the edge where no other truck would be next to him. The big
diesel engine clattered and shut off as the air brakes hissed. It was quiet.

Lyn looked at Henry
questioningly.

“What are we doing?” Her voice
quivered slightly.

Henry turned and stood up, bent
over in the space between the two seats.

“Oh, I reckon you know, girl,” he
said grinning.

“But you were going to give me a
ride north. You said as far as Richmond, then you go west.”

“Yep. I did say that, and I will.
But first you gotta pay the fare.”

“Fare? What fare? You said…”

“Listen girl, don’t play dumb. I
know young girls like you have done it lots of times. This one more time ain’t
gonna hurt nothing. You might even like it. I know I will.” Henry smiled.

“Now climb back there,” Henry
said jerking his head towards the sleeper behind the truck cab.

Lyn had tears in her eyes, “No…I
just want to go away. You said Richmond. Just…”

Her words were broken off, and
she let out a small shriek of pain at Henry’s rough jerk on her arm. Lyn
grabbed the seat armrests as the big man pulled.

Pulling his car alongside Henry’s
trailer, Lylee walked quietly in the hard packed gravel to the driver’s side
and stood outside the truck cab. He could hear the exchange inside. His hand
rested on the door handle. At Lyn’s shriek, he jerked the door open.

Inside the truck, Henry whirled
at the sound of the door opening. He was still standing bent over between the
seats with a large hand around Lyn’s upper left arm. As he whirled, he nearly
jerked Lyn out of her seat. Looking down from the cab, he saw a slight man
holding the door open.

“What the fuck do you want?” He
said in as threatening a manner as he could muster through his surprise.

Not even a jackal, Lylee thought,
just a horny yard dog.

“Let her go,” Lylee said simply
and firmly.

“What?” Henry was rattled. He
wasn’t used to being challenged.

“Let the girl go, now,” Lylee
said, each word distinct and separate from the others for emphasis.

Letting go of Lyn’s arm, Henry
slid into the driver’s seat and then put his feet on the access step outside
the open truck door. He looked closer at the man holding the door. He was not a
large man, but there was a hardness in him. There was something else too. The
look on his face wasn’t angry or determined. It was something else. Dangerous.
The eyes were completely focused, entirely on Henry, examining him in an
uncomfortable way. The mouth seemed to have a barely perceptible grin. Henry
sensed that the grin was a warning, telling him that he had already lost.
Something in the look also said that he hoped Henry wouldn’t take the warning.

He was dangerous and in control,
and Henry knew better as he stood up on the truck step. He knew better, but
pride required him to do something. Looking down at the smaller man, there
seemed to be no other choice. Twice now in a day, he was being challenged,
first by that bitch, Kathy, at the diner and now by this jerk off. Henry wasn’t
used to that. He didn’t particularly want to, but he knew he had to do
something or leave and never come back. The look on the smaller man’s face made
him hesitate, but eventually he moved.

Stepping tentatively down to the
next step, it was instantly apparent that he had made a mistake. The smaller
man’s eyes glinted, and the smile flickered and grew broader for just a
fleeting moment, like a spark in the breeze. His arm struck out with the
quickness of a striking snake. Henry felt an iron grip take hold of his belt
and then jerk with great force. There was nowhere for Henry to go but down.

The big man thudded heavily onto
the hard gravel as Lylee stepped deftly to the side. Releasing the door, he
took a step to where Henry lay. He was on his side, cradling his left arm. His
face was scraped raw from the impact with the gravel and a cut on his forehead
dripped blood onto the ground. Bits of sand and gravel clung to the raw scrapes
on his face. He was a mess.

Lylee placed a heavy, work booted
foot on the side of Henry’s face and pressed. Henry let out a moan. Lylee knew
that with a little more pressure, he could snap the bones in Henry’s cheek and
jaw.

“Don’t do it, son.”

Lylee’s head snapped around to
the right. Two truckers approached. One was about Henry’s size and build
wearing a camouflage ball cap. The other was smaller, shorter than Lylee but
with massive forearms.

“What?” Lylee’s tone was sharp
and severe. His animal eyes narrowed and focused on the larger of the two.

It was the smaller of the two who
replied.

“I said, don’t do it. You made
your point. He ain’t gonna bother anyone now.”

Lylee looked down at Henry. The
animal rage and lust for the prey boiled in his blood. He exhaled slowly,
deliberately trying to calm the urges within. He had made a mistake, and he
wasn’t used to making them. Normally thorough and careful, as evidenced by the
string of tortured bodies scattered across a dozen states, he had been careless
for the second time today. His first easy success with the girl last night had
made him overconfident. The bloodlust was in him, and he was not paying
attention. He had been completely unaware of the approach of the two truckers.

He slowly took his booted foot
off Henry’s face, turning his gaze to the smaller of the truckers. His fiercely
intent animal gaze was returned by a calm, unafraid look. This man was not
intimidated. Predator that he was, Lylee was able to recognize the look of confident
strength in the other man. For a moment, he fingered the knife in his pocket
and then withdrew his hand. Deliberately, he forced a small, almost humble
smile to his face.

“Sorry boys,” he said. “Just got
carried away. I saw this pig pick her up inside and figured she might need some
help. That’s all. Got angry and carried away.”

The trucker’s gaze was intent and
unblinking, weighing Lylee’s words. He spoke to his companion.

“Leon, see if you can get her to
come down.”

The large trucker, Leon, called up
into the truck cab.

“It’s all right now. Come on
down, young lady. No one’s gonna hurt you. Come on now.”

Lyn had watched all this
transpire in trembling silence. It was too much. What was she thinking? Not
thinking at all really, she realized. Head spinning, she moved across the cab
to climb down. She placed one foot on the step and stood up. Everything went
black.

Leon reached up with is burly
arms and caught her as Lyn collapsed and tumbled off the step. He sat her down
on the bottom step and let her head sink forward. With a look of concern, he
looked at the other trucker.

“Bob, we might want to call an
ambulance or something.”

“Let her catch her breath for a
minute,” Bob replied calmly.

He turned his gaze back to Lylee.
“We saw what you did. We were parked over there,” he said, jerking his head to
two trucks parked fifty yards away. “You did good, but it’s enough now. Let’s
get this girl inside and find out what’s going on.” Bob looked closely at Lylee
for any reaction. Good or bad.

Lylee exerted all of his control
to remain calm. The prey was so close. He could smell it, almost taste it. All
of his senses twitched.

“Yeah. Sure. You’re right. I just
got carried away,” he said calmly, almost softly.

Leon looked down at Henry, who
still lay on the gravel cradling his arm, hoping to be forgotten in all this.
“What about him?”

“Well as far as I can see, not
much to do with him or for him,” Bob said. Then leaning over a bit he spoke
clearly to make sure Henry heard. “You took an ass whuppin’ for sure, and as
far as we can tell, you deserved it. You decide you want to press charges
against this fella here, and we might have to say something about an attempted
rape. You understand me?”

Henry looked up through his
bloody face and nodded slowly.