Zoe tilted her head and stared at the ceiling.
There was no judgment there.
None she could see, at least.
CHAPTER TWENTY
March 23
He knew what he should do. It was what any sane person would do. He slowed slightly as a side road came up on the right, eyeing the potential path to freedom with a mixture of longing and trepidation. The old Tercel was some twenty yards ahead of him and had already passed the side road. He eased off the gas some more, hanging back a little as he thought about it. He still had time. A few precious seconds. He could whip the Galaxie in that direction, put the pedal down, and be on his way out of this madness. It was a tantalizing thought. He imagined Lindsey, Charlene, and his uncle Bill seeing this situation through his eyes, watching it like a scene in a suspense movie, sitting on the edge of their seats and loudly urging him to take the turn.
The Galaxie rolled past the side road. He spared it one last yearning look and returned his attention to the road ahead. The Tercel had slowed some, too. Roxie was probably watching him in the rearview mirror, waiting to see what he would do. What would she have done if he’d tried to flee? Probably execute a wide, gravel-and-dust-spewing turn and come after him at high speed. She couldn’t just let him go. Could she? He was a witness to several brutal murders. He could testify against her. Put her on death row. Why in hell would she risk that? It made no sense. He thought about it some more as he pushed the gas pedal down and narrowed the gap between the two cars.
He decided he was wrong. What Roxie was doing made no sense from the perspective of a normal, rational person. But she wasn’t normal. Or rational. She was the most reckless person he’d ever met. So in a way, what she was doing made perfect sense. It was part of a larger pattern of wild unpredictability. Also, she seemed utterly fearless and confident. She wasn’t worried about the possibility of Rob calling the law down on her because she was absolutely certain he wouldn’t do that. Didn’t doubt it for even a second.
And the hell of it was…she was right.
He might yet flee. He was still alone behind the wheel of the Galaxie. He wasn’t out of escape opportunities just yet. But even if he ran, he would do nothing more than return to his old life, covering his absence with a story about a wild bender to mollify his friends and loved ones. He would never tell the cops about Roxie or any of the things she’d done. Sure, she deserved to face some kind of justice for those things. And maybe one day that would happen. Hell, it was probably inevitable. She couldn’t run from that long trail of dead bodies forever. But it didn’t matter. Not right here and now. All Rob knew for sure was he would not be the reason it happened.
Not after last night.
Memories of the long evening of carnal indulgence made him shiver with renewed desire. Holy shit. Seriously, holy…fucking…shit. He had been with seven other women prior to Roxie, had no real bedroom complaints about all but one of them (the exception being weird Miss Carmichael, his sophomore English teacher). But nothing in his past matched the sheer erotic intensity of sex with Roxie. She was beyond wild, like a frenzied animal at times, and yet not out of control. She knew what she was doing and was able to manipulate him to the brink and back again over and over. She bruised and wounded his body, leaving scratches and bite marks all over his torso. He got hard again as he thought about what it had been like to penetrate her as she writhed and growled beneath him, her eyes alight with a fierce and intimidating hunger.
Holy ever-loving goddamn…
The Tercel started slowing down.
Rob gave his head a hard shake to clear the erotic memories and tried to focus on the task at hand. They were on a narrow and winding rural back road, a route Roxie had selected after careful consultation of an atlas. The road was very lightly traveled. They had passed only one other vehicle for the last three miles, a lumbering old pickup driven by a hunched-over elderly man. The road wasn’t just off the beaten path, it was the highway to the middle of fucking nowhere. At least it seemed that way. Considering what she had in mind, Roxie had chosen wisely. Of course, what she had in mind was more violent madness and he wasn’t too thrilled about that, but he couldn’t say he didn’t know what he was in for by this point. Nope, he was going into this with his eyes wide open, with the full knowledge that something horrible would be happening very shortly.
The Tercel continued to slow down. Rob craned his neck and saw another narrow side road coming up on the left. Roxie put on the Tercel’s blinker and slowed almost to a full stop. Rob laughed, the blinker being sort of unnecessary. She turned left down the little road and Rob followed her lead, leaving the gravel rural route for a rutted dirt passage that was more like a path through the woods than an actual road. The road was rough on the Galaxie’s old frame, and Rob winced at every bump and jounce.
The dense line of trees to either side of the road seemed to grow taller the deeper they plunged into the woods, almost to the point of blotting out the sky. The path widened a little at one point, and Rob was unsurprised when Roxie chose to stop there. She parked the Tercel and Rob pulled in behind her. He turned the key backward in the ignition, silencing the rumbling engine. He got out and stretched, tired from the long hours of driving.
The Tercel’s driver-side door popped open and Roxie stepped out. She was wearing the same tight T-shirt and jeans she’d worn the previous day. His breath caught in his throat as his eyes traced the luscious lines of her body. The memories stirred again. His hands flexed. Instinct. He could almost feel her soft flesh beneath his fingers. She saw him looking and smiled.
He smiled back.
Then he saw the gun tucked into the waistband of her jeans and the smile faded. He remembered why they were out here and a renewed sense of bleakness colored his perceptions, temporarily dampened his desire for her.
She came to him and put her arms around him, held him very close, let him feel the weight of the gun against his belly. She smiled. “You almost ran, didn’t you?”
He shrugged. “No. Not really. Thought about it. It was never really gonna happen.”
Her smile brightened. “Good.”
He was getting hard again. Crazy. Even now, knowing what was about to happen, he wanted her. Wanted her bad. He cleared his throat. “Roxie…”
She laughed, touched a finger to his lips. “Time for fun later. Business first.”
She let go of him and walked over to the Tercel’s trunk, twirling a ring of keys on an upraised index finger. The keys belonged to the person locked inside the trunk. A man who was about to die. Roxie whistled a perky tune as she stood there with one hip cocked out and sorted through the keys. She found the right one and opened the trunk. The man lying in that dark space reached out to her with a shaky, pasty hand, which she knocked away. She tugged the gun out of her waistband, stepped back, and pointed it at him.
“Get out, fucker.”
A sob emerged from the trunk.
Roxie’s posture became more rigid and she thrust the gun toward the trunk. “GET THE FUCK OUT RIGHT FUCKING NOW, FUCKER!”
Rob cringed, his ears ringing.
More sobs came from the trunk, but now the man grasped the rubber-covered lip of the trunk and started to haul himself out. Rob’s heart began to race, the harsh reality of what was happening hitting him again. A man was about to be murdered and he had no intention of doing anything to prevent it. His conscience jeered at him. Still think you’re not a monster, asshole?