Prologue
Prologue
R odrigo Gomez was in the zone. He had been driving the same route for five years now. He could do it in his sleep, and some days he almost did. Pick up the cargo from Corpus Christi, haul it ten hours to El Paso, eat, sleep, repeat. Day after day after day, it had been his life so often it could only be distinguished by which audiobooks and podcasts he chose to listen to. When the day was new and he was fresh and energetic, he preferred westerns, something to make him appreciate the iconic surroundings of the vast Texas flatlands. When he felt cynical or world weary, he played spy thrillers or true crime. And when he was exhausted, he blasted heavy metal. Right now Metallica blared through his speakers, bearing witness to the heaviness of his lids. Three more hours. He could make it three more hours.
As far as trucking went, it was a pretty cozy setup. Staying solely in Texas meant the picky federal rules didn’t apply. But, being Texas, it was large enough to afford him ten solid hours of driving a day. And really, ten hours was nothing. Not to a seasoned teamster like Rodrigo.
But lately he had begun to wonder if he was too seasoned. Sometimes, like now, his mind began to wander, his eyes began to droop. With effort, he turned up Metallica and dragged his mind back to the road. Focus, moron. At times like these, all he had to do was picture the possible headline to wake himself up. Trucker Falls Asleep At Wheel, Takes Out Family of Five in Minivan. Not that there was a minivan nearby. Not that there was anyone nearby. The beauty, and curse, of Texas was that parts of it were virtually deserted. He was in one of those parts now, a two-lane highway so flat it seemed one dimensional, like a cartoon rendering of a road.
Until suddenly it wasn’t deserted. A car emerged in his blind spot and darted in front of him, so fast it was like seeing one of the ubiquitous jackrabbits that lined the roadway.
“Ease up, buddy, it’s all yours,” Rodrigo muttered. The car, like so many fast little sports cars that dotted the roadway, seemed to have something to prove. Little car syndrome, as Rodrigo laughingly labeled it. They were the Chihuahuas of the highway, eager to take on the big dogs and prove their toughness by being faster and more aggressive. Rodrigo’s response was to let them. To him, they were as a fly to a cow—annoying but nothing to get worked up over. He was the biggest and baddest thing on the roadway, hands down, no contest. With one tap of his foot, he could flatten the little car. He knew it so deep in his bones he felt no need to prove it. When other drivers were aggressive or threw up a challenge, he backed off and conceded. He might occasionally say things under his breath his Mama would be ashamed to hear, but he never retaliated, never played their game, never engaged in the driving version of chicken. It wasn’t worth it, not worth the loss of his job or the loss of someone else’s life. Because that was what would happen; Rodrigo wouldn’t be the one who would be injured. The person sitting on eighteen wheels was rarely ever the one who paid with his life.
The little car didn’t speed up, though. Once it had achieved first place in front of Rodrigo, it tapped its brakes, causing Rodrigo to do the same, albeit not without a muttered curse. What game was this guy playing? Did he not realize how long it would take the truck to come to a complete stop? It amazed him how many people discounted the basic laws of physics while driving. An object in motion stayed in motion, especially an object as large as Rodrigo’s semi. Though it might have been a woman in the driver’s seat. From this distance, Rodrigo couldn’t tell. He hadn’t glimpsed the person, merely the car’s taillights as it hovered an impossibly short distance ahead.
Rodrigo sped up as if to pass. The car sped up and moved to the center of the two lanes before slowing down again. What game are you playing? Did the car’s driver have a death wish? Hate truckers? Not realize what it was doing? What?
Before Rodrigo could decide, the little car sped up and zoomed out of sight. Weird, Rodrigo thought, and then forgot the little car completely in his quest to stay awake. At least you had twenty minutes of alertness while you tried to figure out what it was up to.
Wearily, he finally arrived at his destination. He wanted a steak, a shave, and a nap, in that order.
“Problems?” Sheila, the distribution company’s team leader, always greeted him the same way.
“You have a suspicious mind,” Rodrigo said, the same rejoinder as always. It was their little routine. If she’d been a bit cuter, he might have thought she was flirting with him. As it was, she was ten years his senior and looked like more of a trucker than he did.
“That’s why they pay me the big bucks,” Sheila said, cackling at her own joke before turning away to spit a stream of tobacco.
“You kiss your husband with that mouth?”’ Rodrigo asked, making no effort to hide his grimace.
“Not since he ran off with my cousin ten years ago,” Sheila said, spitting again. She tapped the back door of the truck, Rodrigo’s signal to open it up for her inspection. She made the inspection at every arrival, signing off on it before it could be unloaded. With so much riding on each shipment, the added layer of security was a matter of course. And of course they couldn’t require Rodrigo not to make any stops, but it was the unspoken rule, one he gladly followed. The sooner he dropped his load, the sooner he could reclaim his time. His bladder didn’t thank him for ten hours without a break, but his wallet did.
He opened the door and stepped back, checking his phone as Sheila leaned forward to make her inspection.
“This some kind of joke?” Her sandpaper voice was suddenly taut. Rodrigo’s head rose lazily, glancing behind him. Was she talking to one of her coworkers? But, no, she was talking to him.
“What?” he asked, focusing on her instead of his truck.
She motioned there, angry. “Think you forgot something, dummy.”
“What are you talking about?” he asked, genuinely confused.
“Where’s the load?” she demanded.
Rodrigo poked his head into the trailer. He forgot his bladder, his exhaustion, his hunger. He forgot everything in light of the sight that greeted him—a trailer so empty it glistened. “What…” he stammered.
“What happened?” Sheila demanded. She forced concern into a tone that would otherwise be panicked or angry. “Trailer swap? Did you forget to load up? It happens, the nights get long and…” she trailed off, unable to be convincing with the care and concern any longer. “What happened?”
Rodrigo swallowed, but it did nothing to relieve the parched feeling in his throat. “I saw them load it.”
“Where’d you stop?” Sheila demanded.
“Nowhere! I swear I didn’t stop for anything. I never do, you know that.”
“Then how do you explain this…” she waved a hand at the blank trailer, using her other one to grip the door and hold herself aloft. Five hundred thousand dollars in cargo. Gone without a trace.
“I can’t. I saw them load it. I saw it. I came straight here. Nothing unusual happened. Noth…” He broke off, remembering the little car that cut him off. But surely that couldn’t have anything to do with this. He had been doing eighty at the time. Until the car cut him off and slowed his pace to sixty. Rodrigo thought they had been challenging him, but what if they’d done something worse?
“Call the Rangers,” Rodrigo said, his voice sounding reedy and thin and full of shock. “I think I’ve been robbed.”