You’ve got to be kidding me, she thought. Not this shit again.
“You feel tense,” he said.
She pushed his hand away. “Don’t,” she said.
He laughed. “Oh, don’t be such a prude,” he said. “I’m just being friendly. Let’s go have a drink. I know a spot a little ways up the road. I think you’ll like me. My name’s Wade. What’s yours?”
AnnieLee felt her arms go cold. “I think you’d better just let me out.”
“Are you crazy? It’s the middle of nowhere.” Wade sounded disappointed in her.
He drove with both hands on the wheel for a while. But eventually the right one found its way to her leg again. She watched it moving up toward her crotch, and for a minute she just sat there, frozen and horrified. Where was her gun when she needed it?
Suddenly she remembered her pepper spray, and she reached into her pocket. But somehow the little tube was gone.
“Shit,” she whispered.
“What, babe?” Wade said.
He ran his finger along the inner seam of her sweatpants. It tickled. And it made AnnieLee feel like she was going to vomit.
“Get your hand off of me, or else,” she said.
“Or else what?” he asked. When he looked at her, he didn’t seem drunk anymore. He seemed focused and dangerous.
AnnieLee’s mind had gone numb, but her body clicked into gear without it. She reached down, grabbed Wade’s coat, and clutched it to her chest. When the car slowed to make the next curve in the road, AnnieLee threw open the door. She didn’t hesitate, not even for a second. She flung herself out, holding the coat to cushion her fall. She landed with a horrific thud on the pavement and then rolled down into a ditch.
She lay there, panting, as the sound of the car engine faded. Her head was an explosion of pain and her vision was going in and out. But she gritted her teeth and tried to get up on her hands and knees. She didn’t think she’d broken anything, but every part of her hurt.
She crawled a little ways, unsure if she should try to make it back up to the road or drag herself into the woods like a wounded deer. Which was less dangerous? It felt impossible to think, and it was getting harder and harder to keep her eyes open. The world was spinning way too fast suddenly. She felt like she needed to lie down. She saw a flash of light and looked up toward the road.
She held her breath so she wouldn’t cry out in pain. Was someone coming to help her? She squinted through the dark.
It was Wade, picking his way down the hill.
“No,” she whispered. And then she blacked out.
Chapter
84
Ethan woke stiff and sore after five hours of fitful sleep in a convenience store parking lot thirty miles east of the Texas border. It was cold inside the cab and chilly outside, too, though he knew it’d get plenty warm once the sun got a little higher in the sky. He slipped on his boots and stumbled into the shop, where he bought himself a coffee, a bag of sunflower seeds, and a microwavable egg sandwich. After filling up the tank, he was back on the road.
Despite the flat tires, he was making good time. When Ruthanna called to check in, Ethan told her that he’d be in Arkansas before the day was out.
“And then what?” she asked. “Maya spent hours yesterday trying to find AnnieLee online—her hometown, her high school—and she didn’t come up with anything. It’s like she doesn’t even exist.”
Though this wasn’t the news he’d hoped for, it wasn’t exactly what he’d call surprising.
“So how’re you going to find her?” Ruthanna demanded. “Drive around the state calling her name out the window? Light a fire and send up smoke signals?”
“Eight hundred square miles,” he said. “That’s all I gotta cover.”
“What?” Ruthanna said.
There was a cop up ahead, and Ethan slowed down a little. “The county she’s from, Caster—that’s how big it is. But that was a joke. I don’t have to drive the whole thing. She grew up in the woods, right next to a creek that drains into the Little Buffalo River. I’ll find her.”
“Hang on,” Ruthanna said.
He could hear her tapping something into her phone, and a minute or two later she came back on.
“Caster’s nothing but woods and creeks!” she exclaimed. “Ethan, this is never going to work.”
“Yes, it is,” he said stubbornly. “Someone’s going to know her, Ruthanna, and that someone’s going to tell me where she is.”