Day Three
July 23, 1952
Wednesday Night
Night crept out of the east and smothered Denver in a deep darkness. River sat on top of the middle boxcar staring east into the city lights. Next to him was a knife. Next to the knife was a bottle of Old Milwaukee with only a few sips left. Next to the bottle was a three-battery flashlight. Next to the flashlight was a Colt 45, not his old one-that was still out in the field somewhere with empty chambers-but his new one, the one just like it that he purchased this afternoon.
The chambers were full.
He checked twice.
He had racked his brain all day, going over every inch of his past, trying to detect the slightest clue as to who had hired him all these years, and consequently currently had Vaughn Spencer under employment.
He’d come up empty.
In hindsight he’d been a fool to let such an arrangement creep into his life. He should have resisted the money. He should have just lived a normal life.
Spencer would come for him.
Hopefully that would be tonight.
River would be here.
Come on.
Kill me.
I’m waiting for you.
The specter of tearing through the terrain on the motorcycle towards January’s hogtied body-only to find her gone-kept ricocheting around in River’s brain. Spencer must have been pissed beyond belief to go to the trouble of fetching the woman after he already had what he’d come for.
Where’d he take her?
He took her to the same place as Alexa Blank, clearly, but where was that?
River had spent all afternoon going from one hotel to the next, big and small, luxurious and flea-bagged, knowing that Spencer would now have a more secret place but hoping against hope that he might have taken a comfortable room when he first got into town, which was most likely in the last few days. No one had a registration for Vaughn Spencer, not at any point in the last month.
No one recalled a man with a scar down his face or a tattoo on his forearm.
So where was he?
Was he down in the old abandoned warehouse district?
Did he break into a vacant house that had a For Sale sign in the front yard?
Did he kill a farmer out in the sticks?
Did the person who hired him rent a house for him?
Something flew over River’s head, swooping within feet. It was too dark for birds. It had to be a bat. He checked the skyline and saw nothing, not for some time. Then there it was, a dark silhouette darting back and forth in a rapid, jagged flight.
River found a piece of gravel the size of a marble and waited. When it came close, he tossed it up. The bat darted for it, thinking it was a bug, then diverted just before it hit and knocked itself out.
River nodded with respect.
Good reflexes.
His eyes were getting heavy. It had been a long, long day. His thoughts drifted back to January and finding her gone. Nothing in his life had been as empty as getting to where she was and then not having her there.
He needed motion.
Sitting here wasn’t getting her found.
Come on, Spencer.
Hurry up.
Get your ass over here and kill me.
He heard a noise, something moving in the shadows, barely perceptible but definitely something.
A dog?
Spencer?
He held his breath.
No sounds came.
He listened harder.
No sounds came.
He shoved the flashlight in a back pocket and tucked the gun in his belt. Then with the knife in his left hand, he silently climbed down the ladder on the pitch-black backside of the boxcar.