The Vanishing Gary Brown (booksvooks TXT) 📖

the front of the rig, and sent them scurrying across the parking lot.

“Oh, my gracious! Look what I’ve done,” Earl Bentley exclaimed. Together they corralled the loose papers and photographs. “I’m terribly sorry, ma’am. My wife says I’m clumsy enough to crack the eggs inside a chicken.”

Claire laughed. “It’s all right, Mr. Bentley. No harm done.”

Atop the pile of papers, the old man noticed the surveillance photo taken at the University. He stared at the picture.

“Something wrong, Mr. Bentley?” Claire asked.

“No ma’am,” he replied nervously.

“Are you sure?”

“Well, it’s just that, I think I might know him.” Earl Bentley pointed to the thin man in the photograph standing beside Amanda.

“Know him?” Claire asked. “What do you mean?”

Martin took the photo from Claire, handed the trucker the picture. “Take a closer look, Mr. Bentley. You say you know the man in this picture?”

“Well, know him may not be the right way to put it,” Bentley replied, “but he sure looks the spitting image of a fellow I gave a ride to a few days ago. His car had broken down about ten miles north of here. I saw him walkin’ along the side of the road, so I offered him a ride. Strange sort. Truth be told, he made feel kind of uncomfortable.”

“Why is that?” Martin asked.

“Hardly said two words to me the entire way,” the trucker explained. “I offered to drop him here, where he could call for a tow, but he said it wasn’t necessary. Just had me drop him off on the side of the road. Then he walked into the woods and disappeared. Strangest thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve been driving these highways for forty years and given a lot of rides in my time, but no one ever made me wish I’d just kept on goin’ the way he did.”

“And you’re sure this is the man you gave the ride to?” Martin asked.

“Sure as I can be. Why? You and your police dog lookin’ for him?”

“Something like that,” Martin said. “Would you mind showing us where you dropped him off?”

“Sure, if you need me too. I’m always willin’ to help the police.”

“We’re not the police, Mr. Bentley. But we are looking for this man. And your instincts were right. He is dangerous. We need to know where you saw him last. Will you help us?”

“Hell, yes.”

“Then lead the way. We’ll follow you.”

52

MARK ANSWERED HIS cell phone on the second ring, though he never got the chance to speak. “Oyama.”

“Mark, it’s Martin. Forget the university. We may have found Reginald Fallon. Meet us in Kettawash. I don’t have time to explain everything right now. Just get here as quickly as you can.”

Martin ended the call.

Mark stared at the phone. He’d never heard Martin sound so anxious, so concerned.

Kettawash.

He punched the gas.

The car lurched ahead and raced down the highway.

53

UNHITCHED FROM THE restricting weight of the trailer she had faithfully pulled for the past twelve years, Nellie Blue rallied up the country road, sending plumes of dust billowing up behind her. Martin followed the cloudy wake at a distance. Corn stalks raced past the windows of the Navigator as though they were driving headlong into the fields rather than alongside them.

“So, what happens now?” Claire asked as she gazed through the breaks in the corn rows as they rushed past. In the distance, a rugged mountain climbed into the sky. Near its peak, a family of hawks soared graciously on isotherms of cool, crisp air.

“What do you mean?”

“If Mr. Bentley is right, and it was Reginald Fallon he recognized, what do we do?”

“We do as Mark said. We wait until the rest of the team arrives.”

Claire sat silently, then spoke.

“I disagree.”

“Too bad.”

She turned in her seat, faced Martin. “Martin, listen to me. First, we need to find out if this is even worth following up on, don’t we? If Mr. Bentley is wrong and we end up dragging the others away from the university for nothing, then we’ve wasted valuable time; time they could have put to better use where they are now, showing Amanda’s picture around campus. I say we look around. Not long. Ten, fifteen minutes at the most.”

Martin said nothing.

Brake lights beamed through a dust cloud as Nellie Blue rumbled to a stop. A whooshing hisssss escaped the air brakes.

“Fifteen minutes,” Claire repeated. “That’s all, Martin. Please?”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Martin said. He turned off the ignition.

Earl Bentley opened his door, gripped the grab bar on the side of his truck and climbed down the cab’s steps to the ground. He walked back to the Navigator.

“There,” he said. He pointed to a narrow clearing in the woods on the opposite side of the road. “That’s where I dropped him off.”

“Are you sure that’s the spot?” Claire asked.

“Oh, yes ma’am,” Bentley replied. “Sure as my wife makes the best peach cobbler this side of Seattle. Let me show ya.”

The elderly trucker walked across the road to the clearing. A cluster of branches, brittle and gray, slumped down over the trunk of a once noble willow. He folded back the branches and revealed a numbered sign affixed to a fence post.

“See?” he said. “Mile marker 14.5. Up the road is 15, down the road’s 14. When you drive for a living like I do, remembering your last mile marker can save your bacon. Broke down once myself on a back road upstate, just outside Ettersburg. I got on my phone and gave the towing company the number of my last mile marker. They had me and ‘ol Nellie Blue hooked up and on our way to a steamin’ bowl of truck stop chili in no time. Yep, one thing I never forget are mile markers. And your man walked into the woods right here at 14.5.”

“You’re a very astute man, Mr. Bentley,” Martin said.

Earl Bentley beamed. “Well, sir, coming from you, I’d call that a mighty fine compliment.”

Martin watched as Claire walked to the Navigator, rummaged through the rear cargo hold, then returned