Free Pit Stop by Raymond Khoury Page B

round backed away, mouths still open in horror. But a couple of them had screamed and shifted their gaze to something else, and were looking no less shocked.
    Glen managed to tear his eyes away from the dead man to see what could possibly be distracting these people from a sight as ghastly as this. It wasn’t exactly every day you came upon a man on fire.
    A man was staggering out of the men’s room, which was off on one side of the restaurant. He had blood across his face and held one hand against his temple, and was teetering unsteadily on his feet, barely able to walk. But even from this far, Glen could make out a fierce determination in the man’s face.
    He didn’t have too much time to dwell on it. The next thing he heard wrenched his heart out and squeezed the life out of it.
    It was a sound he was well familiar with.
    The starter drive of a Ford F-150.
    His Ford F-150.
    He snapped his gaze away from the injured man in time to see his truck charge out of its parking spot and roar off in the direction of the interstate.

    SEAN REILLY COULDN’T SEE CLEARLY.
    His eyes weren’t functioning properly. Not yet, not with the blood streaked across them, and the little information they were filtering in was being processed by a concussed brain.
    A direct hit from a toilet tank cover usually had that effect.
    He glanced around as he advanced, willing his head to clear up, trying to process whatever inputs he could pick up from the scene around him. He could make out a small crowd gathered off to his left. He could hear panicked screams and sobbing coming from them. And then the smell hit him, a horrific smell that he instantly recognized. A putrid, sickly-sweet smell that was unique and traumatizing to anyone who’d ever suffered the misfortune of coming across it. Mercifully, most people hadn’t. Then again, most people weren’t FBI field agents for whom the worst horrors the human mind could dream up were just part and parcel of the job.
    Reilly saw the rising smoke and instantly guessed what must have happened there. He also knew who had to be responsible for it—the same man who had left him for dead in the men’s toilet—and as anger spiked through him from that realization and morsels of clarity tumbled into his mind, he heard a man yelling out, “Kelly!”
    He saw a man burst out from among the crowd and charge off across the lot, chucking a fire extinguisher he was carrying. Reilly’sinstincts shifted all his attention away from the crowd and locked onto that man, and he willed his legs to propel him faster as he chased after him.
    The man stopped by a row of parked cars that were lined up outside the restaurant, and again screamed out the name, a reverberating scream that seemed to emanate from the very pit of his soul. He was glancing ahead, down the interstate, then his head darted left and right as Reilly caught up with him.
    The man must have heard and sensed Reilly. He spun around to face him, one arm raised high, its fist balled offensively and ready to pummel.
    â€œMy daughter,” he growled, his face burning with fear and fury. “She’s gone!”
    Reilly raised his hands defensively. “Wait a sec—”
    â€œKelly!” the man hollered again. “My girl, she was in my truck. It was right here, and now it’s gone. Heading for the highway!”
    Reilly understood.
    First, another innocent victim burned alive. A distraction, Reilly figured, to allow the man he was after to get away.
    Now this.
    This guy’s daughter, abducted.
    All because of him.
    His own fury took over.
    â€œIt was locked,” the man spat out as he shot another glance down the highway. “But the key was in it. The windows were down.”
    Reilly held both hands in front of him, his fingers splayed open in a holding, calming gesture. “You have a phone?” he asked the girl’s father.
    The man seemed momentarily confused by this.