Chapter 8 Ryker
EIGHT
RYKER
I slow down my SUV and pull over onto the side of the road. I lower the passenger side window and ask, “Where are you headed?”
The woman who hailed me is a young white woman with extremely short black hair, the sides of it buzzed so only the top has any length. She’s wearing an open hoodie, a t-shirt, jeans, and she has a large backpack over her shoulder.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen any vehicles on this stretch of road, which is a bit dusty, a bit less used. I like avoiding the highways when I can, just so I can see more scenery.
And so I can pick up victims with fewer witnesses.
Her eyes flick over me, silently assessing, before she says, “New Bristol. Don’t guess you’re going that far?”
I smile at her. “You’re in luck. That’s actually where I’m headed. Well, further north after that, but NB is right en route.”
I don’t know if that makes me more or less trustworthy. It’s up to her to assess the risk.
“Great,” she says. “I’d really appreciate it.”
Sometimes hitchhikers volunteer why they’re on the side of the road, but she doesn’t.
Instead, she climbs into the car and puts her backpack by her feet before strapping on the seatbelt. “Thanks, by the way,” she adds.
“No problem.” I wait until she’s fully settled before I start driving again. “I’m Rider. You?”
“Tanya,” she replies. “Nice to meet you, Rider.”
“You too.” I fiddle with the volume of the sound system. “Hope you like true crime, because that’s my entertainment of choice.”
This particular episode is coming to an end, playing the end credits with all the special thanks to the subscribers online who make the podcast possible.
I really should throw a few bucks at my favorite ones.
On the other hand, I’m already irritated by the list of subscribers. I don’t want to add my name and make it even longer.
Tanya gives me a skeptical look. “Yeah, it’s fine. Just as long as we’re not listening to stories about hitchhikers getting chopped to pieces.”
I laugh about that. “I think that was last season. But no, hitchhikers aren’t usually mysterious enough for the podcasters. They’re looking for serial killers.”
The next episode on deck starts playing. I grimace when I hear the theme tune to Cereals & Serials.
I really need to unsubscribe. The host irritates me to no end. Even the one joint episode she did with Liam wasn’t enough to get me to forgive her annoying, unprofessional way of speaking.
“Are you all having your morning coffee? Or maybe it’s a late-night coffee. Don’t worry, I don’t judge,” the host says. “I’ve got the biggest scoop for all of you.”
I roll my eyes. “Scoop, like she’s a reporter,” I say to Tanya. “She’s regurgitating somebody else’s work.”
“She’s obviously doing pretty well at it,” Tanya points out. “Or I guess she is? I don’t know. Maybe it’s a labor of love.”
“Remember a few months back, when a man was strangled in his apartment with toilet paper wrapped around his neck? Well, it’s happened again, guys.”
I nearly slam on the brakes.
Again?
No.
That brat wouldn’t have. He couldn’t have.
I increase the volume on the podcast.
“Another lonely single man who got murdered after a night out. A femme fatale, punishing the men of New Bristol?”
“Oh, that’s just stupid,” Tanya comments. “I doubt it’s a femme fatale, especially doing some stupid shit like putting toilet paper around a guy’s neck.”
“It’s extremely stupid,” I agree with more bite than I want to. “That’s a calling card. Once was whatever, but twice? Whoever did it wants to be caught.”
“It’s not even a cool calling card,” she replies. “Would you really want to be known as like… the toilet paper strangler, or whatever?”
I laugh. “No. I really wouldn’t.”
I almost make a joke about axe murderers, but I realize in time that it would do the opposite of putting my hitchhiker at ease.
Unlike Liam, she doesn’t have obvious blood splatters on her wrist. Her eyes aren’t wild. There might be a bit of grime on her, but nothing that screams a recent encounter with a corpse.
Or maybe she cleans up well.
I don’t judge.
I lower the volume on the podcast. “Can you look up info about that murder she mentioned? The episode is from a few days ago, so there must be something official now. I want it from a real source.”
Tanya gives me a strange look, but she pulls a phone out of her pocket.
“Um. I’m not sure what to search for. Toilet paper strangling, I guess?
” She shrugs, then starts tapping at the screen.
After a moment, she says, “There’s not really much out there.
Just the guy’s name — Reid Bertrand — that he was strangled, and they’re looking for any information related to the murder.
They’re not calling it a serial murder or anything. ”
Well, two murders is hardly a serial crime, after all.
Three is, if we count whatever happened before I picked him up the first time.
Unless there were more in between that I don’t know about. I threw myself into work to avoid thinking about everything else, and researching the brat’s possible other murders was far outside of my mind even before the mess with Madison.
“Anything about the toilet paper?” I ask. “I always feel like that podcaster embellishes things.”
“Seems like it was taken from the victim’s home, not brought in from outside.
Murder… um, the murder weapon wasn’t found on the scene,” she says.
“If they know what it was, it’s not in the article.
” She’s quiet for another several seconds, then she says, “Oh, shit. The guy was related to Senator Savage.”
I nearly choke on my own spit.
The little idiot.
The fucking idiot.
“Wow,” I say, clutching the steering wheel tighter. “That’s… extra stupid. Who goes out of their way to murder a politician’s son?”
“Not her son,” Tanya says. “Um, apparently a second cousin or… something. Her cousin’s grandson? I don’t know how that works out. Maybe she didn’t even know him.”
If she didn’t know him before, she’ll have heard of him now. And if she’s like any other politician in this state, she’ll be throwing her weight around to get things solved, regardless of whether she knew him or not.
It would look bad if she didn’t, after all.
This crime is going to have a lot more scrutiny on it.
Which means Liam had better have cleaned up after himself really, really, really well.
I sigh and reach for my water bottle, taking a long gulp. I notice Tanya eyeing me.
“There are water bottles in the bag behind my seat,” I tell her. “If you’re thirsty.”
“No offense, but I’m not drinking something a random stranger gives me,” she replies. “If you listen to a lot of true crime, you probably understand why. I can wait until we get to the city.”
I shrug and set my bottle back into the holder. “Yeah, that’s smart. I wouldn’t normally offer.”
I step down on the accelerator.
New Bristol is still a hundred miles away, so just under two hours depending on how fast I go—and if the usual construction doesn’t slow everything down.
The keys to Liam’s condo hang from my keychain.
“You hitchhike a lot?” I ask Tanya, just to get my mind off of him.
To get my mind off the growing itch under my skin that wants to get violent with somebody.
“Not until recently, but I needed to get back to the East Coast,” she says. “Not enough money to fly or anything.”
The way she says get back is strange. There’s a hesitation, which makes me think she’s lying about it.
Maybe it’s less about getting back and more about getting away from somewhere.
It’s not my business.
I fully understand why somebody might not want to go back to their hometown. Even two days with my parents—and one encounter with Madison—was enough for me.
“I get that. I travel a lot for work. I could fly, but…” I laugh softly. “I hate airports. And I get to see more of the country this way.”
Tanya nods. “What’s the furthest you’ve been?”
“I once drove all the way out to Calamity City,” I say. “Can’t say I like the desert much. The casinos were fine, but I don’t understand the appeal of dropping cash down the drain.”
“You don’t have to go that far for casinos,” Tanya points out. “There’s Mer d’Or. That’s a nice coastal town.”
“Yeah. It’s fine for a day. But I was in Calamity on business. I lined up my jobs to make the trip worthwhile.” I notice her giving me a curious look. “I work in consulting. I research companies, do some interviews, and figure out how to synergize their strengths for value added cost savings.”
Does Liam have a job? Outside of being a social media influencer. He hasn’t mentioned anything online, but that doesn’t mean much.
Most likely, he’s a trust fund baby who likes to waste his parents’ money.
“That sounds incredibly boring,” she replies. “But I guess it’s better than working retail somewhere.”
“It’s corporate speak for I give advice and you don’t follow it.”
I wish Tanya were a man.
I could kill her anyway. I could pull over and drag her into the woods, and it would be easier than usual because she’s so much smaller than me. She’d bleed just as well as a man.
But I try to imagine disrobing her to watch the blood trickle down her body, and it does nothing for me.
If I were interested in women at all, Madison might have had more luck.
Or maybe she’d be dead already.
Tanya chuckles, completely unaware of the course of my thoughts. If she knew what kind of man she was in the car with, she wouldn’t be nearly as calm. “Yeah, that doesn’t surprise me somehow. How many dickwads do you work with on a regular basis? All of them?”
“My point of contact is usually somebody in HR. Or maybe accounting. Whoever’s in charge of corporate structure.
The CEOs I meet…” I laugh to myself. “Maybe this is why I like true crime stuff. The crimes are simple. Cruel, but individual. The really big CEOs, not from the mom-and-pop shops, they’re happy to screw over everybody below them so they can make an extra cent. ”
That makes me sound like I’m a nice, caring person.
Tanya nods along. “I’ve been in retail at big box stores for a long time,” she remarks. “CEOs don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves.”
“Yeah? I consulted for one of the regional chains once.” I start telling her about that job, vague enough that it could be any of the big box stores, and she relaxes as the conversation flows, adding her own two cents about terrible bosses.
It’s a nice conversation.
This is why I like picking up hitchhikers. You learn so much.
With us chatting, the trip flies by a lot faster, until we finally near the bridge to New Bristol.
As expected, traffic slows down here. It’s six lanes of utter chaos, with people making last minute decisions about which exit they want and others hoping to speed by before they get cut off.
“I can drop you off near one of the subway stations,” I tell Tanya.
“Are you sure? I can get off here and walk. That way you won’t have to detour to keep going north,” Tanya says.
Ah, right, I’d mentioned that.
I shrug. “I’ve got some time, and I’m thinking of visiting a friend while I’m here. Besides, traffic is only going to get worse. I might as well take a break and skip most of rush hour.”
“Yeah, New Bristol traffic is always brutal,” she says. “Well, thanks. I appreciate it.” She smiles at me. “Thanks for being one of the cool ones. Sometimes, people are so creepy.”
“No problem. I just hope you keep playing it safe while traveling.” I take the exit into the city proper and pull up near the closest subway station.
I’m reminded of another hitchhiker I’d dropped off like this, on the other side of the city.
She climbs out of the SUV, grabbing her backpack on the way. “Thanks again,” she says, closing the door behind her and disappearing into the busy subway station.
With her back turned to me, she looks like a skinny twink. I fantasize about that for a few seconds before I shake the thought off and pull the SUV back onto the street.
I’ve got an entire free evening now.
I’m sure I can figure out a way to pass the time.