Truck Stop Read Online Free PDF

to get the key in the lock and twist it.
    He slid in behind the wheel and closed the door. He took a deep breath, pulled the hood off his head. He carefully set the soggy bag with his soup on the seat next to him and pulled out the napkin.
    He smiled when he looked at Kat’s number, then carefully folded the napkin and tucked it into his pocket. “All right, Lilly,” Roger whispered, so he would not wake his daughter. “No more stops. Straight on through to Salt Lake City.”
    He started the car and adjusted the wiper speed, again cursing the bulky wipers. He slipped the car into reverse, looked over his shoulder to back up, and stopped cold. The back seat was empty, except for the blanket.
    Lilly was gone.

CHAPTER SIX
     
     
    Roger slammed on the brakes and leaped out of the car. He shoved the seat forward, tossed the blanket aside, and looked around the back seat. This couldn’t be happening. She had to be hiding. He looked on the floor of both the back seat and the front passenger seat, but there was no Lilly, no pink rabbit.
    Roger spun back, scanned the parking lot. “Lilly?” he yelled.
    No response.
    He spotted a middle-aged man over at the gas pump. “Hey!”
    It was futile; the man couldn’t hear him over the wash of rain. Roger slammed the car door and ran over to him.
    The man looked up, startled, as Roger approached. “Excuse me! Hey, did you see a little girl get out of my car over there?”
    The man looked over at Roger’s Mustang and shook his head. “Not since I’ve been here,” he said.
    Roger spun around, squinted out into the wet darkness. Nothing seemed out of place—just the trucks coming and going. His stomach tightened as his panic rose. He yelled desperately, “Lilly!”
    Inside the diner, Kat was pouring coffee for the adults at the family’s table when she looked out and saw Roger running away from the gas pump and back toward his car. She could tell there was something wrong. She dropped the coffeepot off at the busing station and hurried to the front door.
    Roger was running past as Kat stepped outside. “Roger!” she yelled. Roger saw her and cut over to the awning, out of breath. “What’s the—?” Kat started.
    “You watched my car the whole time, didn’t you?” he panted.
    “Yeah, of course. What’s wrong?”
    “Lilly. My daughter. She’s missing.”
    “Missing?”
    “Yes. She’s gone. I went back to the car and she wasn’t there.”
    “But I—“
    “You didn’t see anyone go near the car, did you?”
    Kat shook her head “No. No one. And I didn’t see her get out, either.”
    Bart yelled from the diner behind Kat, “Order’s up!”
    Kat shot an annoyed look back at Bart. “Hold on a….” She looked back at Roger, but he was already running toward his car.
    “Kat, come on!” Bart yelled insistently.
    Kat sighed, frustrated, and reluctantly went back inside.
    Roger raced up to his car and looked around again. Kat had been watching her while he had been in the hallway and the men’s room, and they hadn’t been in the alcove more than five minutes. Even if she had noticed the adults’ inattention and purposely slipped out the far door of the car in the rain, which was unlikely, Lilly couldn’t have gotten far in five minutes. He looked over at the trucks parked closest to his car. Someone had to have seen something, he decided, and raced over to the nearest one.
    It was a glossy maroon-colored rig with the lights on in the cab. He pounded on the door. “Hello?”
    The door popped open and a woman appeared. She wasn’t at all what Roger expected to find in a trucker. She was in her early 60s, with short salt-and-pepper hair and kind, matronly eyes—the picture-perfect, favorite-aunt type. “What’s wrong, honey?” she asked.
    “I’m looking for my daughter. She’s seven, brunette, in pink pajamas and a blue sweatshirt. She was in my car over there.” Roger waved his hand at his Mustang.
    The woman squinted out into the rainy darkness,