Sweet Dreams by William W. Johnstone Read Free Book Online Page B

vehicles as she roared out onto the highway. The stones spider-webbed windshields and shattered a headlight. The heavy Cadillac left tire tracks on the concrete.
    After several futile attempts, one of which forced another car off the road and into a telephone pole, Lisa managed to get onto the interstate. She lowered all the windows so the rushing wind could clear her head. Then she cursed Jerry Baldwin, the adrenaline from her anger surging through her and mixing with the alcohol in her blood.
    â€œOh, you bastard!” she cursed the image of her husband that was mirrored in her brain. She reeked of the smell of sex. She and her long-time lover had coupled like animals in the darkness of the parking lot behind the night club. They had fucked standing up, with Lisa’s back to a car.
    She laughed at the memory of that rutting. Then the face of her husband once more filled her head. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” she screamed.
    She pulled off the interstate and into the parking lot of a truck stop. Staggering inside, she got several containers of coffee to go and a greasy hamburger. In the car, she ate half the hamburger and promptly vomited down the side of her white Caddy. She tossed the half-eaten burger on the asphalt and sat, sipping the hot coffee.
    â€œYou all right, lady?” a truckdriver asked.
    Lisa glared at the man. “Leave me alone, you cretinous animal!”
    â€œ ’Scuse the hell outta me, lady,” the truckdriver said. “I was just tryin’ to help.”
    â€œYou’re all alike!” Lisa shouted drunkenly at the man and his partner. “I know what you want. You want my body.”
    â€œLady,” the truckdriver said. “The condition you’re in, I wouldn’t screw you with his dick!” He jerked a thumb toward the man beside him.
    â€œThanks a lot,” his partner said.
    â€œFilthy beasts!” Lisa squalled at the men.
    They backed away from her anger.
    â€œDamn you all to hell!” Lisa screamed into the night. She cranked her car and roared out of the parking lot. She clipped a small car, knocking it off the road and into a ditch.
    The truck drivers ran to aid the occupants of the small car. Luckily, no one was badly hurt.
    â€œLet’s call the Bears,” a truck driver said. “We gotta get her off the road ’fore she kills somebody.”
    â€œFor sure,” another driver replied.
    Inside the truck stop, one of the men phoned the state police and gave them the description of the car and the license number. “Headin’ south on 55. And in one hell of a hurry. You’d better stop her ’fore she kills somebody.”
    The dispatcher sent out the word.
    At Benton, Missouri, Lisa cut off the interstate onto highway 77. She crossed interstate 57 at Charleston and wound around the back roads of the county until she came to the town of East Prairie. A sheriffs deputy spotted her and gave chase, but he lost her when his patrol car stalled at one hundred and ten miles per hour.
    â€œCrazy bitch!’ the deputy said. He radioed the MHP and gave them the location of his last sighting.
    â€œShe’s heading for home,” the trooper radioed back. “Name is Lisa Baldwin. She lives in Good Hope.”
    â€œShe ain’t never gonna make it,” the deputy prophesied.
    â€œShe’ll probably make it,” the trooper said grimly. “Drunks being what they are. I just hope she doesn’t kill some innocent along the way.”
    Lisa was now hopelessly lost and confused. She drove down one twisting road and then another. Finally, she gave up and pulled onto a gravel road. Her headlights picked up what she mistakenly thought to be a circus tent.
    â€œOh, boy,” she muttered. “Lions and tigers and clowns.”
    She opened the door and fell out of the car onto the damp ground. The rain had been transformed into a light mist.
    A thousand yards away, beside a