The Stranger You Seek - By Amanda Kyle Williams Page 0,58

guys in tight jeans. Mother packed picnic baskets for the drag races at Yellow River on Saturday afternoons when Jimmy and I were kids. We ate cucumbers with black pepper and white vinegar, potato salad out of plastic containers, and little black hamburgers that my father charred the shit out of on a portable charcoal grill. We came with a card table and a checkered tablecloth, which were meant, I think, to add class to our operation. The smell of exhaust and burning rubber was part of the meal. And the sound was absolutely deafening. But Saturdays at Yellow River Drag Strip, my father was a happy man. It was about the only time he wanted to leave our garage, where he tinkered constantly, and the only time he could not hear my mother’s voice.

I was eleven when he decided I should learn to drive. He stuck me in our beat-up Chevy pickup truck on a dirt road and nearly peed his pants laughing when I tore down part of a cornfield before I found the brake. Later, as teenagers, my brother and I would take long, silent drives with him. We’d stop for boiled peanuts and fresh peaches at roadside stands, then climb back into the truck and keep going, just me, my lily-white father, and my black brother, while the locals stared after us. Sometimes for me even now, tires humming against a paved road sound like the ocean. I can drive and drive, forget everything.

I found my phone and called Rauser. He was notoriously grouchy about wake-up calls. Cops at the station usually flipped a coin to see who had to wake him. It was after midnight now and I had the honors.

“This better be good,” he answered.

“It’s me,” I said as I paid the cashier and eased my old ragtop toward the airport exit. “I opened an email on the plane, a Wishbone letter addressed to you. A new one. Then I had the feeling I was being watched, but I’d already had this crazy dream, so I was totally creeped out. By the time I got to the parking deck, it was like he was all over the place. I felt him, Rauser. I think Wishbone was waiting for my flight. I don’t know why. I just felt it—”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa. There’s another letter?”

I paused at the exit and looked in my rearview. Three cars were coming out of different parking decks and approaching the cashier lanes. One pulled out behind me; the driver leaned on his horn when I didn’t move. Reluctantly, I pulled out into the stream of airport traffic and moved toward the ramp to I-75/85 North.

“Talk to me while I get dressed,” Rauser ordered. “And slow down. A letter came to you from Wishbone? Hmmm. This could be good news. We can trace that.”

I explained in detail and with a bit more calm the email I’d found in my mailbox, the letter Rauser hadn’t read yet, which included the promise of more killing.

The vibration in his voice told me he was walking fast while he listened. I imagined him locking his front door and heading down the sidewalk to the Crown Vic. “You think you’re being followed now?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t really make sense, I guess. Lot of cameras here. He would know we’d look at surveillance.”

“Well, I’m not taking any chances. Take your time getting out, give us a few minutes if you can. You’re coming 75/85 North, right? In the Impala?”

“Getting on the ramp now.”

I heard Rauser on his radio calling for backup. “Okay, Keye, go to the Capitol Avenue exit, hang a left on Pollard, and curve around past the ballpark. You’ll hit some traffic lights. Stay alert. Lock your doors, for Christ’s sake. We’ve got units close by. I’m working on getting the exits covered. Hopefully, I can get someone to pick up your tail before Langford Parkway.” He paused. “You sure you’re not just paranoid?”

“I think he wants to see if the letter’s spooked me. He needs to know that he’s gotten under our skin. There’s control in that, like moving the game pieces around.” I checked my mirror again. Nothing.

“Don’t stop for anything, Street. I don’t give a shit if Tonya fucking Harding skates out in the middle of the road and shakes her ass. You don’t stop.”

I knew what Rauser was worried about. We both knew too much about the ways killers acquire their victims. My mind automatically began a risk assessment. Almost