The GPS brought me down the highway for another three miles, then off onto a two-lane blacktop that snaked up into sandy hills. We were in the desert – and even though it was early evening the temperature was still in the high nineties. The air here was bone dry. Not a hint of moisture. High desert plains. Low hills. A cluster of houses. Then a back road. Narrow. Winding up a slight incline. Reaching a small trailer. The car tires crunching across sand. I told Elise to text Klara when we were minutes away. The trailer had lights on inside and out. It was a battered old thing with a tin roof and corrugated cream metal siding. There was an air-conditioning unit rusting in one of its few windows, its fan creaking away. The door opened. Klara was there. I waved hello. She nodded tightly. Behind her was a cheerleader-tall young woman with a bump defining her belly. Her hair was blonde and cascaded to her waist.

‘Hi, Poppa,’ Klara said in a hushed voice.

Amber gripped Klara by her left arm. In her other hand was a pistol, nuzzled into the jaw of my daughter.

‘You bring food?’ Amber asked.

‘Yes, we brought food,’ Elise said.

‘Who’s the old lady?’

‘The old lady,’ Elise said, ‘is here to help you.’

‘You a doctor?’

‘I work with the doctors you need. My name is Elise. And if you let us in I will cook you dinner.’

Amber waved us in with her free hand, the gun still up against Klara’s head. She motioned for my daughter to sit in a broken-down armchair. The trailer decor was hippie crash pad from somewhere back in the 1970s. I moved over to my daughter and tried to reach for her hand.

‘Who said you could do that?’ Amber shouted, brandishing the gun in my face.

‘Is there any need for that?’ Elise asked, her tone light, almost strangely breezy.

‘You shut up,’ Amber snapped back.

‘No problem,’ Elise said, unpacking the groceries. ‘Hungry?’

‘I told you to shut up,’ Amber said, cocking back the hammer of the gun and putting it up against Klara’s temple, making it impossible for me to make a grab for it.

‘Are you going to shoot her if I don’t?’ Elise asked, scouring the kitchen drawers for a knife.

‘I’ll shoot you all.’

‘Why?’ Elise asked, finding a small black chopping knife and going to work on an onion.

‘Because how do I know you won’t fuck with me?’

‘When did you last sleep?’ Elise asked.

‘You shut up.’

‘When did you last sleep?’

‘Two days ago.’

‘No wonder you’re acting crazy.’

‘You say that again I’ll kill her.’

Elise said nothing for a moment. When she spoke again her voice was still moderate, easy – as if this was some sort of normal conversation.