Читать книгу Witness On The Run - Susan Cliff - Страница 10

Tala Walker was a woman on the run.

She’d fled Canada six months ago and never looked back. Now she was living under an alias in Willow, Alaska. She’d rented a room at a quiet boarding house. Every day she got up early and walked to the diner where she worked.

It wasn’t much, but she felt safe here.

This morning, the diner was in disarray. There were beer cans all over the countertops and broken glass on the floor. It reeked of booze and cigarettes. She sighed, shaking her head. Walt must have really tied one on last night.

A quick detour to the office down the hall revealed the man responsible for the mess. He was dead to the world, snoring away on a dilapidated love seat. His barreled chest rose and fell with every breath.

Tala didn’t bother to wake him up. Walt was her boss, the designated cook and the owner of the diner. If he wanted to sleep on the job, that was his prerogative. She’d opened on her own before. She could handle the early-morning customers herself. They were heading into the dark days of winter, and business was sparse.

She cleared away the trash and cleaned the floor. She thought of Duane, the husband she’d run away from, who’d also indulged in drunken antics. Only his hadn’t been as harmless as Walt’s. She pushed aside those memories and focused on her morning tasks. Alaskan truckers liked their coffee. She prided herself on brewing a good cup.

At 6:00 a.m. she turned on all the lights, flipped the Closed sign to Open and unlocked the front door. Soon after, a black-and-white squad car pulled into the parking lot. An officer in a navy blue uniform emerged from the vehicle. The sight reminded her of Duane also, and she had other reasons to be nervous about lawmen, but she knew he wasn’t here for her. Cops liked coffee, too. They drank it at Walt’s for free.

“Morning,” he said, hunkering down on a bar stool.

She put a mug in front of him and filled it up. The cream and sugar was within reach. “Can I get you anything else?”

“Just this.”

Tala nodded and inched away. She felt the familiar urge to flee, so she grabbed a clean rag and started wiping down the counter. She didn’t strike up a conversation with him. She didn’t strike up conversations with anyone. She wasn’t the friendliest waitress. Walt always told her she’d get better tips if she smiled once in a while.

A few minutes later, three roughnecks strolled in. Truckers were their regular clientele, but the diner took all kinds. These men had the weathered look of loggers or oil riggers. Tough guys weren’t unusual in these parts, or where she was from. She’d been born on a land reserve in the Northwest Territories. She was no stranger to hardworking men.

She brought them three mugs and three menus, glad for the distraction. As she poured their coffee, she noticed one of the men exchanging a glance with the police officer. She got the odd feeling they knew each other.

“You need another minute to decide?” she asked.

The man closest to her had dirty blond hair and bloodshot eyes. His friends were dark-haired. One had a long, skinny face and a goatee. The other was stocky, with boyish freckles. “Three breakfast specials.”

She collected the menus. “Coming right up.”

The police officer watched her walk away from their table.

“Ready for a refill?” she asked him.

He checked his mug. “I’m good.”

She retreated to the kitchen and turned on the griddle. She considered waking up Walt. Something felt wrong to her, like a bad spirit. Men made her nervous, especially when she was working alone. She told herself it was just her imagination. Not her past, catching up to her.

Not Duane, coming to get her.

She took a deep breath and scrambled eggs. By the time she was finished with the sausages and toast, she’d regained her composure. She brought them their plates. They acted like normal men. The blond one looked her up and down as he bit into his toast. She’d been leered at before, so it didn’t faze her.

“More coffee?”

The boyish one nodded, shoveling food into his mouth. She refilled his mug, noting that he had a better appetite than his companions. He also seemed more relaxed.

“Anything else?” she asked.

The blond one smirked, as if he’d thought of a funny joke. She waited a beat before she walked away, aware of his gaze on her backside. Her waitress uniform was a basic blue dress with white tights and a white apron. She wore sensible shoes and scraped her hair into a bun at the nape of her neck. Some customers were disrespectful, but lewd behavior was rare. Most of the truckers who frequented the diner were old married men, not young bucks on the prowl. They didn’t bother her.

There was only one customer so far who’d caught her eye. He was quiet. Strong, but not a roughneck. He was young and fit, for a trucker. He tipped well and didn’t leer. He smiled even less than she did.

Tala got busy rearranging some pies in the refrigerated case. The police officer left, tossing a few coins by his empty mug. The three men finished their breakfasts soon after. They paid in cash and walked out. She frowned as she cleared their table. Only one of the plates was clean, which was odd. Roughnecks usually ate every bite. Shrugging, she dumped the contents in the trash. It was full, thanks to Walt’s late-night party.

She put on her jacket and picked up the trash, grabbing the keys on the way out. The dumpster was in the back corner of the parking lot. It had to be kept behind a wooden fence, because of bears. She hurried forward and unlocked the gate. Male voices carried on the wind, which whipped around her stocking-covered legs. It was still pitch-black outside, and the air smelled like snow. She hefted the trash into the receptacle. Then she heard a loud pop.

Gunfire.

Close-range, small-arms gunfire. She knew guns. Her dad had taught her how to shoot. Duane had been an enthusiast himself. The sound was unmistakable, and chilling. Hunching down, she peered around the fence to locate the source.

Light from the diner windows illuminated three figures in the parking lot, less than twenty feet away. The blond man who’d leered at her was holding a pistol. One of his breakfast companions was slumped on the ground. The policeman stood right next to the killer. His badge glinted like an evening star.

She ducked lower, smothering a sound of panic. She wanted to run, but she was afraid she’d be spotted.

Two men loaded the body into a car while the officer stood guard. He was watching the street with his back to her. He clearly had no idea she was there. She clapped a hand over her mouth, horrified. Someone slammed the trunk, and the officer turned around to speak. His face was angry.

“Take care of this mess,” he said, pointing at the diner. “All of it.”

The blond man’s reply was lost on the wind.

Tala stayed hidden, trembling with terror. The officer strode to his squad car and got in. After a short hesitation, the two men headed toward the diner’s front entrance. She glanced at the back door, which was still ajar. They’d come out and find her any moment.

She couldn’t breathe properly. She couldn’t blink. She felt like her eyeballs might freeze inside the sockets. The mental picture of her frozen corpse got her moving. The instinct to flee was impossible to ignore. She had to run, now. She leapt out from her hiding place and bolted across the parking lot. She tripped over the first cement parking block she encountered and went down hard. Gravel bit into her hands and knees. It hurt like hell, but she didn’t dwell on the pain. She got up and kept moving.

There was a truck stop on the other side of a wide-open space. She ran toward it, because there was nowhere else to go. Dogs barked in the distance. She couldn’t hear anyone following her, but she couldn’t hear anything except her pounding heart.

She enjoyed running, under normal circumstances. She’d been on the cross-country team in high school and college. She could run for miles without tiring.

She reached a group of big rigs—huge trucks with trailers. There were four or five in a row, sitting idle while the truckers rested inside the sleeper cab or somewhere else. She didn’t know what truckers did when they weren’t driving. Maybe they didn’t sleep. They were magical, mythical creatures.

She hid behind one of the trailers and tried to catch her breath. Her blood was half adrenaline. Her veins might burst from the overload. She was having trouble with her eyes again. Everything in her peripheral vision was fuzzy. It was as if fate had decided she only needed to see what was directly in front of her.

Ice Storm.

That was all she could see. A gray semi with decorative lettering on the door of the passenger side. Its engine purred like a tiger. Between the cab and the trailer, there was enough space for her body.

She swallowed hard. The diesel fumes made her light-headed. She had no idea where the killers were, or if they’d followed her. She could run to the nearest building and scream for help. Or she could stow away on Ice Storm.

She bit the edge of her thumbnail. If she ran away from the row of trucks, she’d be out in the open again. She didn’t know if she’d make it to safety. What if she got shot, or fell into the hands of that police officer?

She chose the Ice Storm.

Her knees shook as she squeezed into the narrow slot and crouched down behind the cab. There was a metal bar to cling to, and electrical wires to avoid. Beneath her feet, a thin metal plate. It was a dangerous place to ride, but she was desperate. She hoped the driver couldn’t see her back here. The last thing she needed was an interrogation. He might call the police or leave her stranded.

She’d stowed away in a semitruck before. The day she’d left Duane, she’d climbed inside a trailer at a gas station on the outskirts of Carcross. She’d expected to go south to British Columbia. Instead, the truck had traveled north. And that was how she’d ended up in Alaska, with no money and no documentation. She’d used a stolen ID to find work and rent a room. Her biggest fear up to this point had been Duane hunting her down and dragging her back home. Now she had a whole new set of problems. The men she was running from made her ex look like a choir boy.

She tightened her grip on the metal bar as the semi moved forward. The gravel lot turned into a gray blur. Then it was smooth asphalt. Soon they were heading north on the highway. With the increased speed came a chill that penetrated her thin stockings.

Her jacket was no joke, made for arctic weather. She zipped it up to the neck and pulled the fur-lined hood over her head. But her exposed hands started to tingle and her feet felt like blocks of ice. She told herself to endure the discomfort, even though it was acute. She had to stay hidden for as long as possible. She also had to stay conscious. If she drifted into a hypothermic state and fell into the road...

Well. That would be a fatal mistake.

She closed her eyes and summoned the strength of her ancestors. She had the blood of Yellowknife warriors flowing through her veins. Her people had thrived in polar climates, with no modern conveniences, for centuries. She could handle a little freezing wind.

She held on tight, determined to ride out the cold.