He drove on for a time, but she could tell he wasn’t keeping the car straight or steady. He was drifting and then correcting. She watched his eyes closely and kept glancing at the speedometer to be sure he didn’t keep the needle creeping up. He was a man who could be a lot of fun when he was out drinking, but sometimes later, after the drinking was over, he could get cranky and mean. She wanted to keep on his good side so that didn’t happen tonight.

She felt a bit uneasy about things right now. He had been out with Dave Sherman on a handyman job for four days, building a corral and a shed-size barn for a woman in Fayetteville whose daughter had a horse. That was when she had invited Ed Leonard to visit her. It was a matter of importance to her to keep Bob feeling warm and confident about her.

He could be suspicious, and she didn’t always have to make a mistake to make him that way. When he acted jealous, she often sensed that it was because while he had been away on a job, he had slept with another woman and projected his guilt on Charlotte. If he was doing it, maybe she was too.

He had been with Dave Sherman this time, and that was a sign. Dave Sherman was a good-looking single man with no rules to follow. He was sometimes gone for a short job—a delivery or a shopping trip—for five or six days. She had never seen any advantage in spying on her husband when he was off with Dave Sherman. What would she get for catching him? But she thought Bob’s straying at those times was pretty likely. And he did seem to be blaming her for whatever had happened.

Charlotte was determined to keep everything easy and calm tonight, so she said nothing when she saw he was speeding up.

He said, “Wow, that’s irritating.”

“What is?”

“The headlights of that car back there.”

She turned in her seat and looked out the rear window over the truck bed. There was a pair of headlights back there. They didn’t seem overly bright, but they were there. “I see them,” she said. “They’re pretty far back.”

He began to speed up some more. “I didn’t mean the glare. But I don’t want to have them follow us home. We’re only a couple of miles out from Ararat.”

She smiled. “You want me to drive while you get out your toolbox and throw roofing nails on the road?”

“No. I’ll pull onto the uphill road and stop a ways up to wait for them to round the bend, then stop them to ask what they’re up to.”