Free Highway to Vengeance: A Thomas Highway Thriller by Brian Springer Page A

I was horrible at tailing, and I probably
would have just ended up in a situation worse than this if I had
tried to do it for any extended period of time.
    It was time to come up with a new plan.

 
     
    CHAPTER TEN
     
    I briefly considered calling it a day after
the Alvarez tailing debacle, but I knew I was still way too wound
up to go back to the warehouse. The last thing I wanted to do was
sit around and stare at the ceiling, alone with my thoughts. I had
no doubt they would eventually turn to Josie, and I couldn’t deal
with that right now, especially after what I’d just done—or, more
accurately, had miserably failed to do.
    My first thought was to find a bar and start
drinking heavily; the idea being that the only way I was going to
be able to sleep would be to pass out. But the more I thought about
it, the more I realized how bad an idea that would be.
    I knew that right now my head wasn’t in a
good place, and if I started drinking (especially without Willis
around to keep me in check) I would eventually find someone to get
in a scrap with. It’s not like I’d start something, but there was
no doubt in my mind that I’d eventually find myself in a position
where something would get started, and then I’d have no choice but
to finish it.
    And I didn’t want that.
    Not only could it curtail me in the search
for Josie’s killer were something to go wrong, but hurting someone
else wouldn’t make me feel better. To be sure, it might do
something for my ego, right there, right then, but tomorrow I’d
wake up and deeply regret what I’d done.
    I’d been there before, back in my pre-Josie
days, and it always ended the same way. I wasn’t going to revert
back to it now that she was gone.
    So I decided on a different route and pulled
into the first place I saw on the way home, Gracie’s 24-hour diner.
I walked in and headed towards a booth near the back exit, just in
case. I had my choice of seats; there wasn’t another customer in
the place.
    An extremely young, extremely pregnant
waitress came out from the kitchen and headed towards me, shuffling
along like she was sixty years old. The tops of her shoes were
scuffed, her hair was dirty and her nametag was blank but she was
putting on a good face for the customers.
    “What can I get for ya?” she said in a
mock-enthusiastic voice.
    “Give me your Farmer’s Breakfast,” I said.
“With two large orange juices.”
    She nodded her head and wrote on her little
pad.
    “Plus an order of hash browns, a large stack
of pancakes and a piece of cherry pie ala mode.”
    She looked at me with raised eyebrows and
her head tilted slightly. “You trying to eat yourself to
death?”
    “Nope, just into a coma. I figure it’s the
only way I’m going to get any sleep tonight.”
    “Oh yeah? Things are that bad huh?”
    “Not really,” I said, not wanting the poor
girl to feel sorry for me. She obviously had enough problems of her
own. “I’m just wound up, that’s all.”
    “I hear you,” the waitress said. “Although
getting to sleep isn’t much of a problem for me these days. It’s
waking up that’s hard. Know what I mean?”
    “That I do.”
    Her gaze lingered for a moment and she
nodded her head absently. I could practically feel the exhaustion
radiating off her body.
    “Well, I’ll get this in for you,” she said
suddenly, as if awakening from a light doze, then turned and headed
for the kitchen.
    I felt a wave of despair as she waddled
away. Poor girl had to work the worst shift at a 24-hour diner just
to make ends meet while assholes like Russo lived the high life by
selling their country out to the first scumbag that came along with
some cash. All of a sudden I wished I had just killed the son of a
bitch.
    I shook my head and forced myself not to
think about it. Worrying about things that I had no control over
was only going to dispirit me further. I had more than enough on my
plate without outside assistance. Instead I started thinking of