Eyes of the Predator (35 page)

Hunt. Things had changed for him.
This had started as a search. But now? Yes, that’s what this was feeling like
now, a hunt. He wasn’t sure who the hunter was, but there was an uneasy feeling
that Lyn had somehow become the prey.

The rain slackened as they
approached Columbia, South Carolina. The cool night air caused the mist to rise
eerily from the wet pavement. But eerie was not a word that troubled Lylee
Torkman. In the eyes of most others, he was normally the eeriest person around.

On the outskirts of the city, he
pulled the Chevy off the interstate and into the parking lot of a small,
deserted convenience store in a shabby part of town. He could see an older,
heavyset woman reading a magazine behind the counter. She squinted out the
window at the headlights that pulled up. He knew that in the glare of the lights,
she could make out no details in the car from inside the store.

Lylee glanced around. The lot was
empty. The street was empty. The rushing of traffic on the interstate was the
only sound. He looked at the girl beside him.

“We need food. I’m going to get
us something to eat. You stay still and quiet. You hear? No sound. Nothing. Any
noise and I will kill that old lady, and then I will kill you.” He lifted the
knife that was never far away and let the tip rest under the girl’s left
breast. After a moment, he lifted the breast with the tip of the knife and
smiled as she winced. He added as an afterthought, as if she might not
understand, “I’ll make it hurt. Hurt bad. So don’t move and no sound. Got it?”

He expected an answer, and Lyn
struggled to give a nod that demonstrated her understanding while still
maintaining her resistance. The best she could do was to look him briefly in
the eyes while giving one quick up and down jerk of her head. It was enough to
plaster one of the sick smiles on his face. She was becoming accustomed to
those smiles, and more frightened by each one.

Moving suddenly, he was out of
the car and through the door of the store. She could see him inside rapidly
gathering up bags of chips, candy bars and sodas. He dropped them on the counter,
paid the clerk, and was back in the car. He could not have been gone more than
two minutes.

Lyn had watched him frantically
trying to decide what to do and if she should attempt to escape. It was
useless. Her right hand was still strapped to the frame of the seat. The door
was locked and could not be opened from the inside; there was no one around,
except for the old woman in the store who probably couldn’t even see if there
was someone else in the car.

As it was, he was back, and she
was still there. He pulled open a bag of chips and popped a can of Coke,
munching a handful of chips as he backed away from the store.

A minute later, they were back on
the interstate. With one hand, he held the bag of chips in front of her as he
drove. When she made no move, he looked at her and shook the bag. “Eat. Don’t
know when we’ll be stopping again.”

Lyn reached up and took a chip
from the bag. She had forgotten how long it had been since she had eaten and
how hungry she was. Quickly, she reached up and grabbed another chip before the
bag moved away.

Lyn could see that they were
circling a city on a large highway, an interstate. The signs said Columbia, and
she knew this meant she was in another state. She had never been in another
state, not even Florida which was not many miles from her home in Pickham
County.

After a while, she saw a sign
that said Augusta. She knew that Augusta was in Georgia.

Lylee watched her, and the grin
was back. It seemed always to be there when he hurt her or she was confused or
scared.

“Figure out that we’re not headed
to Canada, did you?”

Lyn stared out the window at the
interstate signs that said I-20 Augusta, Georgia.

“Well, I figured we could take a
little detour. Did you know that if you get on I-20 here and drive west, you
can go all the way to west Texas and hit I-10 east of El Paso? From there just
keep heading west and you end up at the Santa Monica pier in California. What’s
that the old pioneers used to say? California or bust.” He made the little
snickering sound that caused her flesh to crawl.

Lyn made no reply. In her heart,
she knew that she had no more chance of seeing California than Canada. All she
could do was stay alive as long as possible and hope for some chance of escape.

Sharon Price wheeled the
unmarked, silver-gray Ford into the lot of the state patrol post, splashed
through a puddle, and came to rest beside an old pickup parked by the front
door. The car rocked to a halt. They had taken one car so that they could more
easily discuss the case and developments with the young man who had been
stopped by the patrol. George would be bringing his county pickup.

“Nice landing.” Bob Shaklee was
unbuckling the seatbelt he had snugged down when they left Everett. Bob was a
better driver than he was a passenger, but they both knew that Sharon was the
better driver when it came to getting somewhere quickly, and they had gotten to
Statesboro very quickly. He couldn’t deny that.

Walking briskly to the building,
they peered into the bed and interior of Clay Purcell’s pickup as they passed.
There was nothing remarkable inside.

“Looks innocent enough,” Price
commented.

“Yeah. He seems to know a lot
about this though,” Shaklee replied, referring to Clay’s knowledge of the old
Chevy and the physical description of the driver, details he claimed to have
picked up at the truck stop. “We’ll see.”

The door squeaked open and then
clattered shut. Clay looked up from his seat across from Trooper Collins and
eyed the two persons who stood there for a moment taking in the surroundings.

One of them, the male, looked
over at the desk across from Clay. “Trooper Collins?”

“Yep.” Collins stood. “You
Shaklee?”

Bob nodded affirmatively.

“Come this way and I’ll fill you
in.”

Bob Shaklee followed him into the
hallway to Clay’s right and then into the first small room where they closed
the door. Clay was left alone in the office area with Sharon Price. She
regarded him intently, as if waiting for him to say or do something. Her silent
gaze continued for what seemed like a much longer time to the young man, but
was probably no more than thirty seconds. The intensity of the look mixed with
the silence and absence of any conversation made Clay uncomfortable in the
extreme. Just as he was about to speak and at least fill the room with
something besides her silent stare, the woman smiled and took a step towards
him.

“My name is Sharon Price.” She
held her hand out. Without thinking, he shook it as she continued her
introduction. “My partner and I are with the Georgia Bureau of
Investigation…GBI.”  She pulled the leather badge and identification case
from her waist and held it up for inspection.

Clay nodded. “I know. The officer
told me you were coming to ask me some questions.”

“Did he tell you what we wanted
to ask you about?”

“Not much. He stopped me for
speeding.”

“Were you?”

“Yeah, I guess I was,” Clay
nodded and gave a slight, boyish grin. In the land of NASCAR, a speeding ticket
was almost a badge of honor for young men, and Clay was no exception. But the
seriousness of the reason why he had been cruising the interstate returned to
him, and the grin evaporated.

“So you were speeding and the
trooper stopped you, and you told him why you were speeding.”

Clay nodded.

“Tell me.”

Bob Shaklee and Trooper Collins
watched on the video monitor in the small room they had entered as Clay
recounted the day from giving Lyn a ride at the diner, to the phone message she
had left him, to his search for her at the truck stop.

Sharon Price waited until he had
finished before speaking. “Do you still have the voice message?”

“Yes, ma’am. On the phone.” Clay
nodded towards the desk where Trooper Collins had been seated.

“Do you mind if I check the voice
mail on the phone?” The words were spoken very clearly and louder than she had
been speaking, which put a look of surprise on Clay’s face.

“No. Go ahead,” he replied,
nodding slightly.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Purcell. Are you
saying that you are giving me permission to check the voice mail on your
cellular phone? If you are, please speak clearly for me.”

The look of surprise faded. Clay
realized he was being recorded. “Yes,” he said, raising his voice and speaking
self-consciously in clear, separate syllables. “I give you my permission to
check the voice mail.”

Price smiled and spoke more
softly as she walked to the desk to retrieve the phone. “Thanks, Clay.”
Flipping the phone open, she found the voice mail button quickly. “Password?”

Clay told her, and Price punched
the keys with familiarity. She held the phone to her ear and then asked, “Who’s
Cy?”

“That’s my brother,” Clay said with
a sigh.

“He doesn’t sound happy.”

“No, he’s not.”

“Does he know about all this?”

“Yeah. Everything except getting
stopped for speeding and…” Clay looked around the small state patrol office,
“And being here.”

“So Cy was with you all day.”

“Yes, until I left to go back to
the truck stop. He’s pretty pissed off right about now.”

Price smiled at him, “Yes he is.
Where’s he at now?”

“Motel in Savannah. Where we stay
during the week while we’re on the job.”

Price noted the name of the motel
that Clay gave her. It was a budget place; the kind that tradesmen and truck
drivers stay in on the road. Then she punched up the next voice mail. Her
eyebrows furrowed as she listened intently to the young girl’s voice. When it
was done, she replayed it, turning the volume up, and putting the phone on
speaker so that Clay could hear, along with the video recording device.

The sound of Lyn’s timid,
frightened voice filled the room, and the look of anguished concern that came
across Clay’s face was unmistakable. When the playback ended, Price saved the
voice mails and ended the call. She looked up at the camera in the corner of
the room by the ceiling. A moment later Trooper Collins came into the room.

As Price walked towards the small
room where Bob Shaklee waited, she spoke over her shoulder to Clay.

“Be back in a few minutes, Mr.
Purcell. Please wait here with Trooper Collins.”

Clay glanced at Collins who had
retaken his seat behind the small desk. Collins nodded at him, and he nodded
back. Yep, he would just wait here with Trooper Collins. It seemed like a good
idea.

Collins picked up the radio
microphone and repeated the BOLO that he had given earlier, adding a few
details and directing that the information be passed to surrounding states and
jurisdictions. Listening intently to the entire description broadcast by
Trooper Collins, Clay made mental notes. In addition to what Clay had told
them, he learned that the man with Lyn was wearing a Texas longhorn ring. He
wondered how they had come upon that bit of information. When Collins was done,
Clay asked, “Can I go now? I really want to get out and see if I can find her.
I won’t speed and I’ll be careful. I promise.”

Trooper Collins’ face had lost
the hardness that had been there earlier, but it was still firm. “No son. You need
to sit here for a while. There may be some more questions. We have units out
looking all over the state. You can do more good helping us here.”

It was all Clay could do not to
go through the door and to his truck. He had cooperated, and he didn’t think
they could hold him legally. But where would he go? It seemed like they had a
plan at least. He had nothing. He would sit and wait, for now.

An hour and a half after turning
west on I-20, Lylee’s senses told him there was enough distance between him and
Pickham County. It was time to get off the interstate system and onto roads
where the old Chevy would blend in and where he could make a quick change of
direction if necessary.

Taking U.S. 441 north from the
interstate, the old Chevy proceeded quietly through the dark, empty streets of
Madison, Georgia. The old antebellum mansions spared by Sherman on his march to
the sea stood elegantly silent as the Chevy passed by. Lyn had never seen homes
like that. They reminded her of the movie ‘Gone With the Wind’ she had seen on
television once.  An hour later he had skirted the city of Athens, home of
the University of Georgia, on side roads and then picked up 441 again as it
headed to the north Georgia mountains.

As the distance from the busy interstate
increased, Lylee’s senses relaxed. He knew that on the old country roads the
old car would not draw attention. If someone had seen him abduct the girl at
the truck stop, and had been interested enough to take the time to report the
act, the local authorities would likely have only given the information to the
state patrol. He was familiar enough with the workings of law enforcement in
its various forms to know that the likelihood of the description of the Chevy,
the girl, and himself making it to some rural, north Georgia deputy this
quickly was remote. He leaned back and stretched contentedly as he drove. It
was time to start looking for some place to stay. Unlikely as it was that they
would be identified, he wanted to be off the road come daylight with the car
parked somewhere out of sight.

Then, as the daylight hours
passed, he would see how thick the young girl’s shell was. He knew she was
putting on a show of strength, preserving her identity, and exercising what
little control she had in order to make it harder for him to kill her. He
smiled at that. She knew very little about her captor. Her resistance only made
his hunger for her deeper. The end would be the same. He would feed and be
satisfied, and she would pay the price for her attempts to resist. But she was
right about one thing. He needed to break her first, to crush the hope from her
chest and to feel her trembling terror vibrate from her body electrifyingly
into his. That would be the moment. The end would come for her then.