27 Down
an excerpt

***
Eddie and Melissa were still on the state road. It was mostly bare, but every time they hit a red light in some rural town, fear swelled in Eddie's stomach.
She had her window down, now, and her seat tilted back. She rested her ankles on the window opening, so that her tiny feet hung in the breeze, and blocked the view of the side mirror.
Eddie didn't mind. He liked the view. She had nice legs for a short girl. They weren't as nice as Donna Kay's, but neither were Miss Universe's.
He noticed a puffy round scar the size of the end of a cigar on the inside of her thigh about half way up from the knee.
"What happened there?" He pointed to the scar.
She looked to him with sleepy eyes. "You keep your eye on the road, mister."
"It looks like someone put out a cigar on your leg," he said. He wasn't sure what it said about him, but he found the scar sexy, like that one flaw on the otherwise perfect stretch of porcelain skin made it more appealing. His professor from freshman year would have called it the piece de resistance.
She dropped her legs from the window, and made a show of tugging at the hem of her shorts, but there was only so much that thin swath of fabric could conceal. "The seat of my bike fell off when I was girl, and the post did that." She traced an unpainted finger around the circumference of the scar.
"That must have hurt," he said.
She nodded, and turned to face him. She rested her cheek against the head rest. "You look like you've had a rough life," she said.
"Thanks."
She giggled. It was an almost noiseless sound. She was probably the kind of girl that always laughed like that. Donna Kay snorted.
"Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean you were like grotesque or anything. It's just something in your eyes."
"Yeah, and probably the clothes I've been wearing for three days."
She bit her lip and frowned. "We'll have to something about that."
He needed to stop looking at her. He was going to end up in a ditch off the side of the road.
"We will, huh?" He said. "You never told me where you were headed."
"Away," she said. "Wherever you're going."
He felt her eyes slide from his face. Ahead, a neon sign flashed diner atop a silver trailer. Eddie felt like he had slipped back two decades. Donna Kay and he had broken down somewhere in the Low Country on their honeymoon right in front of a diner like this. They ate their first meal as husband and wife at that diner.
Eddie remembered that he hadn't eaten since the preacher's breakfast the day before. "Do you want to pull over for a bite to eat?"
She studied her feet. "I'm broke."
"That's okay, I never let a lady pay her way, anyhow." That was a lie, but he didn't intend to let the girl starve.
He pulled into the crushed shell parking lot and pulled into spot at a railroad tie lining the front of the diner. His legs felt arthritic when he crawled out of the car.
She walked with her shoulders hunched, sleep bearing down on her.
He held the door, and she smile up at him as she entered.
The interior of the diner was done up in stainless steel and red vinyl. A counter top with round red vinyl stools sitting on solitary steel posts separated them from the cook, a hatchet faced man with metallic gray eyes. He wore a brown apron over a white polyester shirt, and jeans that looked no cleaner than Eddie's. Atop his greasy sandy hair rested a white paper chef's hat. He was the only other person there. Above his head, a white wooden sign read _Welcome to McGee's_ in black hand painted letters. Above that was a round white clock, like the kind you remembered from your elementary school classrooms. It read five o'clock. It made Eddie's eyelids heavier.
Melissa climbed onto a stool, her feet dangling at least a foot from the floor.
He fell onto a stool beside her.
They ate a hearty breakfast of eggs, bacon, grits, and biscuits drenched in sawmill gravy.
As they were sopping up the remains of their food with their biscuits, Eddie noticed Melissa's eye shift to the door and then dilate.
Two cops in gray shirts and green pants with black piping entered the diner, and took seats at the end of the counter. They looked the same. Even without the uniforms they would look like cops. One of them tipped his hat at him.
"Mornin'," he said.
The cop studied Melissa and him. Eddie wanted to high tail it out of there, but that would be too suspicious. Besides the cook hadn't dropped him the check, and a dine and dash was out of the question here.
"Officers," Eddie said.
"You okay, miss?" the cop said.
Oh shit.
Eddie turned to look at Melissa.
Her forehead rested on her hand, her elbow propped on the countertop. One corner of her mouth tugged in an effort to smile. She looked whipped.
"I'm fine," she said in a monotone voice.
The cop looked Eddie up and down. He could read the disrespect in the cop’s eyes. This guy pegged him for a low life. Melissa didn’t belong with him.
The cook placed the check on his place mat, and removed their greasy plates. The bill came to nine-fifty. Eddy dropped a ten and a one on the counter, and they headed for the door.
The cop stopped them at the door; his partner remained seated, ordering his breakfast. He grabbed Eddie's arm. "May I see your driver's license, mister?"
"No, you can't," Eddie said.
Anger flushed the cop's face.
"It's lost," Eddie said. He jabbed a thumb at Melissa. "She's driving."
Melissa looked as if she'd swallowed a wad of chewing tobacco.
"Is that right, Miss?"
Eddie cut in. "She picked me up."
"You picked up a hitchhiker?"
Melissa remained silent, her eyes wide with fear. She nodded.
"May I see your license, miss?"
She walked to the car, and leaned in through the driver's side window.
Eddie wondered what she was looking for. She didn't have a purse with her. He stepped toward the car, but the cop stopped him with his hard, muscled arm.
"You stay here," he said. His eyes crawled up the back of Melissa's thighs and settled on the curve of her rump.
She looked over her shoulder at them, and smiled. Sleep had left her face. It was as if she had been making up her face this whole time she was digging around in the car. She opened the door and crawled behind the wheel. Her head ducked, searching the floor boards.
With her ass out of his view, the cop returned his attention to Eddie.
"Where are you headed?" he said.
"Key West," Eddie said.
"Why are you gay?" A smile crawled onto his face.
Then they heard the sound of the engine start, and his smile stiffened.
The wheels spun in the crushed shell lot, and peppered their shins with bits and pieces of shell and coral. The car darted backwards.
The cop looked from Eddie to her and back again. He was immobilized by shock.
Eddie ran after the car, but she sped off leaving him in a cloud of white dust, and a big pile of trouble.