Sacrifice Read Online Free

ogallala, 2 miles. He’d been on the road for nearly 12 hours, and it was time for a rest. He was humming a Creedence Clearwater Revival song when he pulled off the exit and headed for the center of town. The last place he’d gotten gas at hadn’t been big enough to call a “town” in his estimation. It had consisted of a graying general store that seemed more a giant moldering growth on the pavement than a planned structure, a Clark service station with orange, rounded pumps from the 1960s and a tilted rusting grain silo. It was essentially a crossroads where soybean farmers met on Friday nights.
    He hoped that Ogallala would prove larger. It appeared as a bold spot on his Nebraska map, which was a good sign.
    He was in the “downtown” area in minutes, and pulled up to a small brick façade that boasted in simple blue neon, brill’s. A Budweiser sign glowed in the window.
    Joe killed the engine and stepped out of the car into the crisp night air. He hadn’t realized how stuffy the car had gotten until he stepped out of it with a groan of stiff joints. His stomach turned over and he realized that not only was he stiff, but he was starving. He pushed open the heavy wooden door and stepped inside.
    Brill’s was a good-sized bar, with two pool tables off to one side, and a long bar on the other. He could see the grill behind the bar to one side, and a healthy selection of whiskies, vodkas and gins against the center wall.
    “Evening.”
    The voice was heavy and husky, but friendly. It came from a big man behind the bar, moving out of the shadows and into the red glow of a Pabst Blue Ribbon sign.
    “Hi,” Joe said, pulling up a stool at the bar. Only one other stool was taken. A thin, grizzled man nursed something amber over ice at the end of the bar.
    “Quiet night, eh?” Joe offered.
    The big man nodded, drying his hands on a stained white towel. Joe saw he’d been washing glasses in a small sink when he’d come in.
    “Not much going on here on a Tuesday night,” the man said, and held out a hand.
    “Frank,” he said. “Frank Brill. You just off the highway?”
    It was Joe’s turn to nod.
    “Then you’ll be wanting a meal and a room, yes?”
    Joe smiled. “You nailed it.”
    “I can handle the one; you’ll find the other about two blocks down. Prescott Hotel. Not a bad place for a night.”
    Frank pulled a menu out from beneath the bar and set it in front of Joe.
    “You can look at this if you want, and Jenny will rustle up anything from here that you want, but”—he leaned forward conspiratorially, after glancing over his shoulder at the double doors in the back of the grill area—“I’d stick with the hamburger and fries if I was you,” he whispered.
    “Done,” Joe said, pushing the menu back. “Got anything on tap?”
    “Miller, Bud, Coors,” Frank said. “What can I pull you?”
    “MGD,” Joe said, and glanced up at the TV flickering above them in the corner. A female news commentator with overly red lips and smallish eyes was mouthing cheerily as footage of a black body bag being carried to an ambulance played in a small window next to her sickly happy face.
    “You hear about this nutjob?” Frank asked, thumbing at the screen as he pulled a beer from the tap.
    Joe shook his head.
    “Third stiff they’ve found so far, and each in a different city.”
    “New serial killer?” Joe asked, and took a healthy swallow from the heavy pint that Frank passed over.
    “Apparently.” The burly barkeep shook his head and grimaced.
    “If the murders have been in different cities how do they know it’s the same guy?” Joe asked. The beer slid down his throat and took away the imaginary dust of a day of travel.
    “Same scenario in each place,” Frank said. “Real freak show. All three bodies have been found in hotels, in rooms rented by a woman with black hair. She apparently picks ’em up at a bar, brings ’em back, strips ’em and then slices their throats. The police aren’t