It was a terrible idea, but she knew there would be no way to dissuade him now that he had an idea and felt it was a good one.

She remained silent and watched the other car, which stayed back so it was only a pair of headlights. She hoped it would make a turn somewhere soon.

The lights stayed behind them for the next two miles until he went upward toward the place where the mountain road began. Bob drove up, his speed higher than it should be, bouncing and turning on the uneven, inclined pavement. A couple of times Bob took a turn too tightly, and she heard weeds and sticks scraping the side of the truck. He went up about three hundred yards and then stopped. He jumped down from the cab, went to the locked toolbox, opened it, and took out an AR15 rifle.

From far behind them, Leah could see that the pickup’s headlights were now stationary, tilted uphill. They looked like a funnel of light shining upward to illuminate the upper branches of the trees. Then they went out. The pickup had stopped.

Leah drove along the highway toward the entrance to the uphill road, but then stayed on the highway instead of turning upward. She drove on for a few minutes, until she was sure the red pickup truck hadn’t turned around and come back down to follow her. She made a turn at the next opportunity and took a slightly longer route toward the hotel where she was staying the night.

Up the mountain road, Bob and Charlotte Carpenter were in the open flat bed of the pickup. She sat with her back leaning against the cab and her arms folded, while Bob crouched, his rifle at his shoulder and resting on the built-in toolbox, aiming the weapon at the center of the narrow road.

As the minutes passed, Charlotte felt more and more firmly convinced that the second car had not been following them. Why would anybody do that anyway? To rob them? Any conscious adult human being who got one look at Bob Carpenter would know he was not the man they wanted to pick on. He was big and formidable physically, and everything about him said he was probably armed. She hoped he wasn’t going to get paranoid every time he got drunk.

She didn’t mind this time, really. They had gotten out for an evening away from Ararat. She loved dancing, and there had been a good country band. It was also nice to be reminded that she was still a pretty woman. Even though she was past the bride stage, she had drawn a fair number of appreciative looks from men tonight. If she had been alone, they would have bought her plenty of drinks and competed for her attention.