The Terminals Read Free

coin as it settled, spilling its contents onto the table.
    â€œYeah, that’s me.”
    His fingers pressed into the bread, oil bubbling up around the tips of long nails. A tattoo snaked around his wrist and strange letters trailed down each of his fingers. The napkin he’d been hiding was uncovered now, reading like a family tree. Many of the names she’d heard before, but they seized her like hands at a throat: Gilles de Rais, the Black Knight, Rasputin, Le Barbe Bleu, Jack the Ripper, the Axeman of New Orleans, Oskar Dirlewanger, the Zodiac Killer. It ended with the confirmation she’d feared: Hillar the Killer. She gaped at the napkin, unable to look away, but knowing she must.
    She swallowed under his gaze and shifted her eyes to stare into the sun, hoping her cousin would be here soon.
    â€œLike any more coffee?” she murmured, feeling as though she floated. “Cream.”
    â€œI asked if you were all right.”
    â€œYes, dear …” She didn’t look down, watching from the periphery, like a spirit that hovers above an operating table, helpless to the drama below it.
    He was reaching into the rucksack with one hand, and with the other, the greasy left hand, he snared her wrist.
    â€œâ€˜Cause, if I didn’t know better, I’d say you’ve made me.”
    She spoke fast and quiet. “I won’t tell nobody.”
    â€œLook me in the eye when you’re talking.” A gun emerged from the bag, and she clenched her eyes shut and whimpered.
    â€œIn the eye!” he yelled.
    When his voice rose, she knew she was dead. He didn’t care about being found out. Three other patrons were eating in The Frying Pan; any one of them could have a phone.
    â€œNo!” She twisted, and her arm slid in his oiled grip, but then the fingers tightened further, vice-like and crippling, taking her to her knees. For the first time in six months, she prayed. She prayed not to God, but to see the sun tomorrow. One more day to set things straight between her and her mother. A chance not to regret just about everything in her forty-four years.

    Lieutenant Gordon Handso was angry with himself. When Agnes had called, he’d been three minutes shy of The Frying Pan, driving the wrong way. He’d just finished a platter of flapjacks and one too many coffees. He’d relieved his bladder before leaving, and probably strode right past the killer with a nod of hello. If anyone found out, he’d be laughed out of town. But if on the other hand he arrested the most wanted man in the country, well, then he might just earn a parade. What he needed to do now seemed pretty darn clear.
    Handso practiced what he’d say during the media interviews sure to follow the takedown. Despite my lack of family, or perhaps due to that lack, I feel a special bond to Agnes. Like a sister. I had to act. Some people call that heroic, but I just call it risking my life to serve my country.
    In the diner’s lot were a white van, a battered Ford pickup, Agnes’s Chevy hatchback, and a Lincoln looking low-class with missing hubcaps. Handso bet heavily on the van being the killer’s.
    With the sirens off, he pulled into the vacant car dealership next door. Gravel crunched beneath the tires of his Dodge Charger LX. Those kids had disappeared at a diner not much different from this one. Dust filled Handso’s nostrils, filtered by a heavy mustache. His radio barked at him, Agent Volt calling the shots on what had become the largest manhunt in the history of the FBI.
    Volt was in over his head. Initially, the retirement-track agent had led a small team from the Critical Incident Response Group, but with the recent kidnappings, the Child Abduction Rapid Deployment Team had thrust their hands into the pie. Now, he coordinated about thirty agents, hundreds of state troopers like Handso, and nearly a thousand volunteer searchers.
    They’d had a tough time. Hillar seemed to move