Read Online NIGHT CRUISING by Billie Sue Mosiman - Free Book Online

the
folded towel he could still see the bright wash of car lights swing
past the car window though it was almost daylight.
    The world was alive,
teeming with night people, many of them winding down now as the dawn
slipped catlike over the land. He must be asleep by then. Before the
sunrise.
    Before the world was
brimming fire and the land revealed its seams and cracks, its
underlying ugliness and squalor.
    He replayed the life
and death of the doomed Hollywood scriptwriter, and drifted softly
into a comforting dream.

    #

    Mark Killany unlocked
the door to room 202 at the Holiday Inn just west of Beaumont, Texas.
At his back and below him stretched the lobby with the waterfall in
its center. Rising high above him on three sides were balconies
dripping long green vines. The air was misty and green. A few people
in the lobby sat in club chairs watching a big-screen television. It
looked like a situation comedy was playing. Two patrons were belly-up
to the bar, neither of them giving attention to the other.
    Mark ignored the
activity behind him and slipped quickly into his room. He dropped his
suitcase near the bed and went into the bath, turned on the shower
full force, waited for the temperature to get to the proper degree
while he undressed.
    It was turning into a
long, lonesome trip. He wasn't used to the melancholy mood that was
upon him. It cramped his style, made him lapse into periods of
self-pity. All his life he'd been in control of his own destiny. He
knew what he wanted out of the military and worked hard to get it:
authority, security, respect. He had met Molly's mother after he made
lieutenant and knew he wanted her in his life. She never complained
about compound housing, official politics, or his dedication to his
job. She gave him what he needed. Unconditional love, loyalty, and a
beautiful, intelligent daughter. She had given her life, he realized
in regret, to bring a child into the world.
    And he had always
thought Molly intelligent, that is, until she'd pulled this stunt of
running away from home. Now his destiny was uncertain, his life in a
chaos not of his making, and evidently beyond his control. Molly had
usurped his authority, left him to worry himself sick over her. While
he drove sometimes he felt the anger coming like a runaway train.
Molly was a spoiled, selfish creature unfit to be called his
daughter. She'd learned nothing from his examples, rejected those
values and beliefs he felt she needed most.
    Other times sadness
invaded him, that quality of melancholy that filled him like pie in a
pastry shell, and he moaned aloud, wishing to be anywhere, in any
situation except this one. Dealing with a teenager was turning out to
be like defusing a bomb. It took iron will, steady hands, unswerving
patience, and skill. All those characteristics he lacked except for
the will. And that had been too muscular, not limber enough for the
job at hand.
    He stepped into the
shower's spray and let it cascade over his bowed head. He closed his
eyes and breathed through his mouth.
    He was neither angry
nor sad right now. Just beaten. No telling how far ahead she was. She
might have changed cars, hitched with another driver. She might have
decided not to go to the West Coast, and at this moment was on her
way back east or north or even to the Midwest. The United States was
a big country, all spread out., thousands of places to hide or get
lost in. She might have stopped off in one of the towns along the
route he traveled, and was now melting into New Orleans or Lake
Charles, vanishing like a wisp of fog.
    It was sheer misery
that drove him to continue. He needed rest. A few hours in a bed. But
then he'd be on his way again, heading west, asking his questions,
showing Molly's picture. He knew no other way to live with himself.
Even if he hired private investigators, they might take months and
come up with nothing. The agencies looking for runaways were swamped
with calls from frantic parents looking for kids. He knew