17
Jack cruised the Thruway truck stop lot till he found what he was looking for: an idling eighteen-wheel rig parked facing the food court and between two others of its kind. He backed up to the space between it and its neighbor to the right, then opened his trunk and hauled Bolton out. He grabbed the coil of half-inch nylon cord he'd just picked up at a Home Depot along the way, then crawled under the refrigerated trailer, dragging the struggling Bolton behind him.
He'd gone on autopilot along the way, feeling nothing, almost as if he were watching himself from afar as he looped the cord around Bolton's taped legs, tying multiple knots on knots, then secured the other end to the cab's rear frame rail. All through the process Bolton twisted and thrashed, breath snorting through his nostrils as he made frightened squeals and moans behind the tape.
When Jack finished, he looked at him. Couldn't make out his features in the dark; all he saw was a wriggling, oblong shape making faint, muffled, panicky noises.
"Having a bad day, Jeremy?" he said, raising his voice above the sound of the engine as he patted him on a shoulder. "It's about to get worse."
More whining and thrashing.
"I want you to take this personally. I'm sending you off to your greater reward this way because I don't want you identified for a while, maybe not ever. I also don't want you to die too quickly. It won't take you near as long as it took Gerhard, but long enough."
He crawled out from under the trailer and stood listening: The noise from the idling cab drowned out Bolton.
Jack returned to his car and parked it halfway between the truck and the on-ramp to the Thruway. Then he took out a sheet with the phone numbers Russ had found for him.
Two names, two numbers, two women. The widows of Doctors Horace Golden and Elmer Dalton. Nancy Golden had remarried, Grace Dalton had not. Never ceased to amaze him how many secrets could be ferreted out through the Internet.
He dialed Nancy Golden—now Nancy Emerson—then Grace Dalton. He gave them both the same message: Jeremy Bolton has disappeared from Creighton. No one's talking because no one knows where he is. Then he hung up.
Exactly thirteen minutes after the second call, a lean man in a cowboy hat and boots strode up to the cab, flicked a cigarette away, and climbed in.
Jack got out and stood by his door as the driver did some revving, then ratcheted into gear and started moving. Bolton must have worked the tape off his mouth somehow, because Jack heard him. His scream dopplered up, then down as the truck accelerated past.
He got back in and followed. The rig had barely made it to the entrance ramp when Jack's headlights picked up a gleaming line of red winding from beneath the trailer.
A line of blood… a bloodline.
… my bloodline'd kick your bloodline's ass!
Jack stared at the red streak.
There goes your bloodline.
But this was not the end of Bolton's bloodline—or Jonah Stevens's. It lived on in Thompson and in Dawn, especially in her baby. Where was Jonah's bloodline headed? The man had concentrated it for a purpose, aimed it toward some end. What?
He couldn't help thinking of Emma and his own bloodline. Where would she have taken it?
Nausea tickled his stomach. He pulled over and onto the shoulder, stopped for a few deep breaths.
Bloodline…
Had to call Levy tomorrow… set up a meet… needed some info only he could supply.