SERIAL UNCUT by Blake Crouch, Jack Kilborn J.A. Konrath Read Free Book Online

quieter
now.
    Orson bought Luther and Lucy dinner in the
restaurant downstairs, everyone happy for the moment, a quiet
contentment settling over the meal.
    " When do you guys leave?" Lucy
asked.
    " First thing tomorrow."
    " Can I come with you?"
    " No."
    Lucy felt a lump swelling in her throat.
"Don't you like me?"
    " Of course," Orson said. "But I can't
take you with me, I'm sorry."
    " What am I supposed to do?"
    " That's for you to figure out. Are you
going home?"
    " No. And my car's booted. I only have
a hundred and fifty dollars and my guitar case."
    Orson reached into his pocket, opened his
wallet, pulled out a roll of bills. "Here," he said. "This should
get you started."
    Lucy thumbed through the money. Almost five
hundred dollars.
    " Thank you," she said, but the sadness
was still there. "How am I supposed to get anywhere? I don't have a
car."
    " You could hitchhike," Luther
said.
    " That's dangerous."
    " You'll have to be careful," Orson
said. "Although, I have a feeling, it's the poor people who pick
you up that we should be more concerned for."
    Luther laughed. "You need to get your hands
on some painkillers. Oxycodone. Something hard-hitting that you can
drug people with. That's the only way you'll be able to overpower
someone bigger than yourself. And let's face it. Everyone's bigger
than you."
    " Seriously." Orson reached across the
table and touched Lucy's hand. "You have to be careful. You have to
learn to read people. One day, you're going to meet someone out
there like me and Luther, only they may not be so hot to take you
under their wing. They might rather hang you up in a
shower."
    " I'll be careful."
    " How?"
    " I won't trust anybody."
    " Good."
    Lucy squeezed his hand. "Thank you, Orson,"
she said. "I'm glad I met you. You too, Luther."
    Luther smiled. It was still scary, but for
the first time, he didn't look like he was thinking about killing
her.

    They walked Lucy through the lobby and out
the revolving doors of the hotel. Bellhops were stacking suitcases
on luggage carts and hailing cabs.
    " You could stay one more night," Orson
said.
    " Thanks, but I'm ready to go." She
wrapped her arms around Orson and squeezed him. "I'll never forget
you."
    He knelt down in front of her. "You're a
special girl, Lucy. You know what you are, and you're not afraid of
it, and I admire that. I admire the hell out of it."
    She turned to Luther and shook his hand,
then lifted her guitar case and walked away from the hotel, out
onto the sidewalk into the night.
    Lucy had walked ten blocks before the first
pair of headlights appeared in the distance.
    She dropped her guitar case on the pavement,
a small pit of nerves tightening in her stomach.
    The car was getting closer.
    She could hear its engine, and for the first
time in her life, but certainly not the last, she stuck out her
thumb.
    A minivan pulled over to the curb and the
front passenger window rolled down, a thirty-something woman
smiling under the dome light.
    " You need a ride, sweetie?" she
asked.
    Lucy conjured up a smile. "If it's not too
much trouble. It's really cold out here."
    " I've got groceries in the front seat,
but you're welcome to climb in the back."
    Lucy pulled open the side door and stepped
into the minivan, stowing her guitar case on the floor and sitting
down beside a car seat, where an infant slept.
    The woman looked back between the seats at
Lucy.
    " Just try to keep it down, if you
don't mind," she said quietly. "As you can see, my little angel is
sleeping."
    " No problem," Lucy whispered, staring
down at the baby, thinking, No Luther, not
everyone's bigger than me.

PART THREE
    Wisconsin, 2007

    -1-
    Taylor liked toes.
    He wasn't a pervert. At least,
not that kind of pervert.
Taylor didn't derive sexual gratification from feet. Women had
other parts much better suited for that type of activity. But he
was a sucker for a tiny foot in open-toed high heels, especially
when the toenails were painted.
    Painted toes were yummy.
    The truck stop