Eyes of the Predator (38 page)

As daylight came on and the
Pickham County pickup disappeared up the road, Clay had pulled into a strip
shopping center on Washington Road in Augusta, Georgia, knowing that if he
continued following the deputy and GBI agent in the daylight, they would become
aware of his presence. They had made it clear that he was to head back to
Pickham County.

The shopping center had a
national chain electronics store, and Clay’s plan began to materialize.
Sleeping fitfully in his truck in the shopping center parking lot, he had
waited until eight o’clock when the sign on the store said it would open. It
was eight-fifteen when a young man walked across the parking lot, put a key in
the door, and then walked in, turning on lights as he went.

Clay waited a few more minutes
and then went into the store.

“Morning. What can I do for you?”
The young store manager seemed a bit surprised to have a customer so early.

“Well, I’m looking for one of
those radios that pick up the police and all.” Clay wasn’t sure exactly what he
was looking for, but figured the manager would know.

“A scanner?” The manager asked
with a puzzled look on his face.

“Yeah. That’s it,” Clay said with
some relief that the man knew what he was talking about. “A scanner that can
pick up police frequencies...state patrol frequencies.”

“Why do you want a scanner?” the
man asked with a puzzled look.

Clay was afraid that he had
stepped into some forbidden territory with his request and was wondering where
this would lead. “They’re legal, aren’t they? I mean I thought anyone could own
a scanner.” He tried to conceal the nervousness in his voice.

“Oh sure, they’re legal as hell.
Just not much use around here anymore.” The store manager saw that Clay did not
understand and added, “Everyone went digital encryption. Got away from analogue
radios. I can sell you a scanner, but you won’t pick up much around here.”

Clay’s face showed that he was
trying to soak this information in and extract its meaning. His reply was a
simple, “Oh.”

“What’s up, man? What do you need
a scanner for? Fill me in, and I’ll see what I can come up with.” The store
manager spoke with a ‘one young man to another’ familiarity.

Why not, Clay thought, and went
through the basics of the story. When he got to being stopped by the state
patrol on I-16 the night before, the manager interrupted.

“Wait. Are you the guy they
stopped last night? The one that gave the information about the man in the car
and a girl named Lyn? You got a voice mail from her, right?”

The rapidity of the questions,
and the fact that this young man seemed to know an awful lot about Clay’s
situation, caused his mind to whirl. “How…who…told you?”

“You did man. You did.” Laughing,
the manager turned and walked towards the back room of the store. “Follow me,”
he called over his shoulder.

The back room was a maze of
shelving stuffed with various electronic parts and components. In one corner
was a low workbench with a light on a flexible neck bent over some electronic
equipment on the bench that was a mystery to Clay.

“Here,” the manager said reaching
out and pressing a button on the equipment on the bench. Immediately the device
was illuminated and an LED display indicated a number. “Listen,” the young
manager directed.

Clay stood quietly listening to
nothing for a few seconds and was about to speak when a voice came from the
device. “One seven Alpha, ten - eight.” A different voice responded, “Ten - four,
one seven Alpha, ten - eight.”

The perplexed look on Clay’s face
drew a boyish laugh from the manager who explained, “It’s a radio from a local
Augusta police vehicle. I work on them.”

“You work on them?”

“That’s right. Have a contract
with the county. They bring me their problem radios, and I fix them. Good chunk
of our business here. Reason I come in at eight in the morning.”

“Sooo…” Clay said, absorbing the
information and trying to sort it out.

“So, I was working last night
late,” the manager said, adding, “Real late. I heard the trooper stop you, and
then later heard them take you to the Statesboro post. And then the information
you gave them about the old Chevy, the man, and the girl he has with him.” He
paused and then asked, “She’s the girl you dropped at the truck stop, right?”

“Yeah, she is,” Clay said slowly.
“You sure picked up a lot on that radio.” He was beginning to feel somehow that
his privacy had been invaded.

“Oh, that’s not all. They briefed
the GBI and some deputy from Pickham County over the radio, so I pretty much
heard the whole story. That’s how I knew about the voice mail and the truck
stop.” He paused to let this all sink in.

There was a delay before Clay
extended his hand to the manager. “Clay Purcell. From Pickham County.”

“Don Potter,” the manager said,
taking Clay’s hand. “So what’s your plan?”

“Well, it’s kind of sketchy.
Actually, I don’t really know, except that I thought I would follow the deputy
from Pickham.”

“That would be Pickham County
301. That’s how they identified him on the radio last night. What are you going
to do after you follow him?”

“That’s the sketchy part. I don’t
really know. Just want to be around if…
when
, they find the girl. When
they find Lyn.”

Don Potter nodded in solemn
understanding and said, “All right. Fair enough. Let’s get you fixed up.”

Half an hour later, Clay pulled
out from the shopping center parking lot. The portable radio leant to him by
Don Potter, the electronics store manager and police radio repairman, sat on
the seat beside him. He had been hesitant to take it, but Potter had assured
him that it was a loaner. He used it to swap out with the police department
when they brought him one for repair. It would not be missed. He made him make
just one promise. He could listen, but no talking on the radio. It was for law
enforcement, and Potter assured him they would both be in a world of shit if he
got caught broadcasting on it.

What had been a hazy plan was
materializing, thanks mostly to Potter and the loan of the radio. Proceeding
north out of Augusta, he followed the route he had last seen the deputy and GBI
agent taking.

Listening intently for any
transmission to or from Pickham County 301 that might give him a location to
head to, he drove steadily northwest along the Savannah River crossing back and
forth from Georgia to South Carolina as the highway led him.

Somewhere ahead of him, the
deputy’s pickup was doing the same. And somewhere ahead of them? The question
in his mind sent a chill down his spine.

He had chosen well. No lights in
the parking lot, only what little light escaped the frilly curtains of the
cabin windows. These would be empty until the weekenders came up from Atlanta
to take photos of the leaves beginning to turn colors on the centuries old hardwoods
that covered the mountains. Even if they had been occupied, the cabins were not
connected, making any noise transference unlikely, not that Lylee would have
allowed that to happen.

 In the gray morning mist
drifting up from the creek, he cut the bands holding her to the seat frame and
pulled Lyn roughly from the car. The hours of driving without the ability to
stretch or move had left her weak and shaky. She nearly toppled over as she
tried to stand, but the powerful grip on her upper arm steadied her while it
caused her to wince with pain.

 With a practiced hand,
Lylee kept the point of the knife blade in her back as he walked Lyn to the
cabin door. There was no one there to see, but had anyone been watching, the
couple walking so closely and intimately, they might have been taken for
newlyweds.

Entering the room, Lylee put the
chain on the door and without saying a word pushed Lyn into the bathroom.

“Stay here and stay quiet,” he
said with a small smile, putting his index finger to his lips.

Then he closed the bathroom door.
He had work to do, preparations to make.

In the main room, the curtains
over the window that looked out over the rushing creek waved in the breeze from
the air conditioner. The room was frigid. Lylee had turned the air conditioner
up to high, even though the early autumn mountain air was cool. The loud hum
from the fan covered any other sound in the room.

Although clean, the cabin smelled
slightly musty from years of guests. The air was scented with overtones of wood
smoke that had drifted for years from the fireplace in one corner and permeated
the furnishings. Such details were lost on Lylee who was oblivious to
everything except his preparations.

Leaning with her back against the
wall of the bathroom, Lyn looked around and saw that the only window was a
six-inch wide glass slit running horizontally over the tub near the ceiling.
Slowly, she sank down the wall until she was seated on the floor, her head
resting forward on her raised knees and her hands over her ears. She tried not
to hear the sounds coming faintly through the door.

A cricket hummed and chirped from
a corner behind the small trash can. She listened to the sound lilting and
rising and then quiet for a few seconds. When it stopped, she would count the
seconds until the cricket took up its song again. She forced herself to focus
on the cricket’s chirps until she drifted away; away from this place to a place
where time had no meaning anymore. She just was. There was no connection to
anything in the room; no connection to the man in the next room. She was in an
empty place, alone with the hum of the cricket.

She stayed in that empty, distant
place until, after a time, she became aware that she was no longer in the
bathroom. Raising her head, she saw that she was seated on a chair in the main
room of the cabin. The curtains over the window fluttered in the breeze.

It was cold. She wanted to move
to fold her arms together to warm up and realized that she was bound again,
this time to a steel tubular chair with a hard plastic seat. Metal rivets and
brackets holding the chair together cut into the bare flesh of her thighs and
back. Slowly, she became aware that she was nude. An uncontrollable shiver
overtook her thin frame, partly from the cold and partly from the fear of what
would happen next.

She stared hypnotically at the
swaying curtains in the window. Her eyes, fixed on the curtains moving in the
breeze from the air conditioner, saw nothing else. She had no idea how long she
had been sitting on the cold, hard chair. Tie wraps, like the ones that had
bound her in the car, now held her wrists securely to the steel tubular frame.
A piece of duct tape covered her mouth.

 Someone was with her, but
she stared past the form standing in front of her to the fluttering curtains. She
let them take her mind to a different place. The curtains became tall pine
trees swaying in a Canadian breeze. There were mountains in the distance. Not
like the Georgia mountains, these were tall and snow covered. She shivered in
the cool air blowing from the mountains. It was cold but refreshing. It was as
she had dreamt—cool, crisp and clean.

She had finally made her escape.
It was a quick trip, faster than the jets she had seen flying high overhead on
clear days in south Georgia. One moment she was in the small cabin room staring
at the swaying curtains, hearing the loud hum of the air conditioner fan; the
next, she was in the midst of the swaying pines and cool, Canadian breezes.

Tatters of memories, far past and
recent, flashed by in a confusing blur. The misery of her life at home in
Judges Creek, the pain and abuse inflicted by her father, the poverty, the
hopelessness, the emptiness at the loss of her brother, and more recent events;
the betrayal by Henry at the truck stop, and finally the man in the room with
her had all chased her mind to the faraway place.

Somewhere deep inside she knew
she was safe there, in the swaying pines. It was dangerous and frightening in
the cabin. She did not want to be there, could not be there. In the pines,
surrounded by the cool breezes, there was no pain, no betrayal, and no fear. It
was her running away dream. It had come true.

The faces of the brothers, the
ones who had dropped her at the truck stop, flashed by in the whirlwind of
scattered thoughts. The face of the young one came into focus for a moment.
Clay. That was his name. He looked concerned. She thought from the midst of the
pines that it was a good face. She wondered why he had not come to get her, why
he was not with her in the pines. But then she pushed the thought of the young
man away, because thinking of him threatened to bring her back to the cabin
room, a terrible place. No, she would stay away in the cool pines. No one would
find her, not the young man, or her father, or the other man. She was safe in
the pines.

A hand reached out to her, and
one of the horns of the man’s ring circled the nipple of Lyn’s right breast,
scraping it lightly. When there was no response, Lylee dragged the back of his
hand and the sharp horn of the ring across the breast leaving a red, bleeding
scratch.

Lyn’s head moved from side to
side, as if trying to escape from something. Lylee pushed the sharp ring hard
into her breast, and her head came up. Her eyes opened and focused on him for
just a second, and then she tried to flee to that far away place, but Lylee
would have none of it now. He grabbed her by the hair at the back of her head
and pulled her head back so that she was looking into his eyes.

“Time to wake up, hon,” he said
gently.

The softness of his voice and the
mock tenderness were more frightening than if he had screamed at her. The
incongruity of his tone now, with the harsh grasping pull on her hair and the
sting on her breast from the ring, was confusing. Bringing her eyes up to meet
his, they widened with fear. And this was, of course, what the man had
intended.