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starts to crumple the map up and Sue grabs it back from him, stuffing it down between her knees, then turns around far enough to look him straight in the eyes. “Leave it alone. I don’t know who you are or what you want but so far all I’ve seen you do is jump in my car and come unglued. It’s been an insane night so far and unless you start telling me what you know about my daughter you’re bouncing right out of here even faster than you came in, and I don’t care who you’re running from.”

    “Listen to me, Sue, Ms. Young, seriously—” The earnestness that comes into his voice now is almost as alarming as the fact that he knows her name. “I’m sorry about earlier, when I stopped you up the road. I figured that you were calling the police, or even worse, on the phone with him, and I knew if I tried to say anything to you, he’d hear me. I panicked and got back in the truck and drove away.”

    “Who is he?”

    But Jeff Tatum is looking out the windshield at the road ahead. “I don’t know what he told you about this route or these towns, or what you think you’re doing, but this is really a huge mistake.”

    “Let me tell you what I know,” she says. “I know that somebody kidnapped my daughter tonight. Whoever it is killed her nanny and he’s given me orders to drive through these roads and these towns by tomorrow morning if I want to get her back. I don’t know why he wants me to do it, and I don’t care. All I know is that I’m driving his route.”

    Of course she’s left out one small detail, the thing wrapped in garbage bags in the back of her car, the whole point of everything. And the kid seems to know it too. He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes watch her in the rearview mirror, reminding her of how they gleamed from the truck’s mirror earlier, only now they look softer, haunted by something deep inside.

    “Why were you following me?” she asks.

    “I already told you, to protect you.” He sounds like he means it. “To protect you and your daughter and other people from getting killed.”

    “You’re protecting me by stopping me from doing what this guy is telling me to do?”

    “Exactly.”

    “That doesn’t make any sense.”

    “If you know your history it does.”

    “History of what? People who do stupid things?”

    “The history of murder in New England.”

    “And you know about this, why?”

    “I’ve done research. I know this route. I know what it can do. Just trust me, okay, this is not something you want to mess around with.”

    That does it. Sue takes her foot off the gas, letting the Expedition roll to a gentle halt. Of course the kid notices this and pokes his head back up hopefully. “Wait, we’re stopping?”

    “Get out.”

    “Wait, you can’t just leave me here.”

    “Believe me,” Sue says, “I’d like to.”

    “I’m trying to help you.”

    Sue opens her door and climbs out into the cold stillness of the long, empty road in front of them. “Come on, let’s go.”

    “What are you doing?”

    “Rearranging a few things. You’re sitting up front with me. And then you’re going to tell me what I need to know.” She looks him right in the eye. “I mean it.”

    11:39P.M.

    Their first job is hoisting Marilyn’s body from the front seat and transferring it to the back. The kid holds Marilyn’s legs and Sue takes her under the arms, with the nanny’s head propped against her chest so it doesn’t fall backward. For about two seconds Sue thinks this is going to be difficult for her emotionally, cradling the lifeless body of the woman who cared for her daughter, but she surprises herself with her own stoicism. Not that she doesn’t love Marilyn like a little sister, not that the horror at what happened has diminished one iota. But these feelings have become remote, as if her heart’s fallen asleep the way a leg or a foot might when circulation has been cut off.

    The kid—well, the kid is a different story.

    He tries to