“If it means you can take a cab instead of one ride from a stranger,” he said, “then that’s all I ask.” When still she hesitated, he said, “Consider it a favor to Foster Barnes.”
She took the money and then she reached for his hand. “Thank you,” she said, squeezing it.
“Best of luck,” he said. “Go with God.”
I’d sure like to, thought AnnieLee. But it’s the devil’s help I need.
Chapter
82
Ethan felt the Ram’s right rear tire go flat on the far side of Flagstaff. After pulling in at the next gas station to change it, he discovered that the spare, which should’ve been stored underneath the truck bed, was missing. He kicked the flat in anger. He hadn’t even made it four hours down the road.
The gas station didn’t have a repair shop, so Ethan got back into the cab and drove slowly back toward the city, hazards flashing, to the nearest Pep Boys, where he paced the lobby while a guy named Bobby worked on the Ram. He bought a bag of Lay’s from the vending machine, ate them, and then bought two more bags for the road. Potato chips—AnnieLee’s favorite food and probably her primary source of caloric intake.
Doubt crept into his head during the delay. What if his hunch was utterly wrong? What if she was still somewhere in Las Vegas?
He reached into his pocket and pulled out her wallet and her cell. The phone was locked, and her wallet contained nothing but a handful of prepaid credit cards, seventy dollars in cash, and a few receipts from Nashville coffee shops. There was nothing with her signature on it. There wasn’t a single photo. He couldn’t even find a driver’s license. It was like holding the wallet of a ghost.
Ethan walked over to the lobby window and watched the passing cars slow down at the stoplight. If there was one thing he knew about AnnieLee, it was that she didn’t back down from a fight. So if she’d run from the man who surprised her in her hotel room, that didn’t mean the fight was over. It was more likely that she was circling back for the knockout punch.
Ethan pressed his forehead against the cool glass. The man in the Aquitaine had come from the part of AnnieLee’s life that she couldn’t bear to talk about—he was sure of it—and whatever terrible secret she insisted on keeping was tied directly to him.
That was why she was hitchhiking back home, to the place she said she never wanted to go again. Ethan would bet anything that he was right. Caster County, Arkansas. All he had to do was follow and find her.
He really believed he could do it.
The light changed to green, and the line of cars surged forward. Ethan watched them, wondering what sort of drivers had stopped for AnnieLee. Where, exactly, was her final destination? And what did she plan to do when she got there? These were the questions that set his teeth on edge.
“Found the culprit, sir,” said a voice.
Ethan turned around to see Bobby holding up a two-inch screw.
“Sucker went right through your tire,” he said. “But she’s all patched up now, and you’re good to go.”
It was after 6 p.m. by the time Ethan was back on the highway. He figured he could go for another seven or eight hours before he needed to stop. As he drove, he thought about everything else he knew of AnnieLee, and about how little it added up to. She was stubborn and funny and beautiful, and her singing voice could give him chills. But he still knew more about his damn dentist’s life than he did about hers.
So how was it that he loved her the way he did? How had she become as necessary to his life as oxygen? He opened his second bag of potato chips. The world was full of mysteries, he supposed, and the human heart—his human heart—had turned out to be one of them.
As Ethan was pondering it all, a red Ford pulled alongside him in the left-hand lane. For a mile or two, the truck stayed there, matching its speed to the Ram’s. Ethan, finally glancing over to ID the incompetent driver, saw a man pointing and gesturing at him in some kind of wild pantomime.
What the hell? Ethan thought.
The man finally made a comprehensible motion: Roll down your window.
Ethan did, and the man screamed across the dotted line at him, “Your tire!”
Startled, Ethan realized that the steering wheel was vibrating, and the Ram was pulling to the right.
Another flat. Furious, he took the next exit off the highway.
Chapter
83
After saying goodbye to Foster Barnes, AnnieLee had wasted no time catching a ride to Fort Smith, Arkansas. But that was where her hitching luck had run out—not that she would have expected anything different from a state that’d ground her up and spit her out the way it did.