“There are a couple of things I need to tell you, Autry. First, the State Police were here, asking a lot of questions, searching, finding nothing. Second, the television interview just concluded, here at my place. It went fairly well and will be shown tonight on the Public Broadcasting channel. Seven pm.”
“Git out a town. So ya done good, huh? Me and the Mrs. will be sure to watch it. But listen up, the badges were here too. Probably asked the same questions you got asked. I told ‘em Tracy was headed south in Tennessee and that I had no reckon of what happened to the Mehras. I might be in the clear, but I figure we ain’t quite done yet with ‘em.”
“You’re probably right about that. What you and I told them seems to match up fairly well. Autry, can you tape the TV program? I would like to have the girls watch it later on, but I hesitate to drive down to your house in daylight with them aboard.”
“It’ll be dark around 8:45. Come on down, we’ll leave a light on for ya.”
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Darryl Hicks’ scraggly beard would be a perfectly suitable home for a family of wrens. The equally disgusting unwashed hair snaking out in haphazard strands from under his oily John Deere cap, the smell of ten thousand spent cigarettes, and the missing front tooth did little to enrich Tracy’s new found freedom. Her liberty was to be short-lived. The big rig driver pulled into a rest area some twenty miles north of Knoxville.
“This is as far as ya go, little honey. Theys a weigh station just ahead and I can’t take no chance a your weight makin’ ‘em pull me aside. Sides, I seen ya bend down when we passed that cop. You on da run, ain’tcha? I seen it plenty a times. Out ya go, blondie.”
Tracy begrudgingly climbed down out of the rig, grabbed her luggage, surveyed her surroundings, felt hopeless, and lost. She checked her cash supply….one hundred-eighty American. She had to make it last. She asked two different travelers for a lift to the Knoxville airport, citing that her car was broken down a few miles back, but to no avail. Finally, exasperated, and not feeling all that well, she called for a cab. It was going to be expensive. She would have to use her credit card, and that was very traceable. Desperate people do desperate things. So be it, she thought.