“Close the door, Paulus.” Did she have to tell him everything? This thought disturbed her. It made her realize that the rising tension of the situation was causing her to lose her patience with him. Taking a step back, she slowed her breathing, working to clear her mind and start over with him. Something was terribly wrong; she could see it written on his face as if he had printed it there.

She was about to reengage him in the manner she knew would get through to him when her gaze passed across her rearview mirror. A quick flash of reflected light came from a car three rows behind her. A figure was sitting behind the wheel, binoculars trained directly forward. Valerie was visible, as was the figure, through the windshields and rear windows of the intervening vehicles.

Lindstrom, whose antennae were always up even when he was seemingly calm, said, “What’s the matter? What’s going on?” He saw Valerie’s eyes flick down from the rearview mirror to the mobile in her lap.

“Don’t turn around, Paulus,” she said.

“Is someone watching us?”

“Tell me about Lizzy,” she said as she began a text to Preach. Lizzy was the boxer Lindstrom’s parents had had when he was a boy. He had loved that creature more than life itself.

Lindstrom closed his eyes. “I don’t want to talk about Lizzy.”

“Sure you do. You love talking about Lizzy.”

“Not now,” he insisted weakly.

“Remember the time you taught her how to sit up and shake hands?”

Lindstrom smiled. Valerie finished her text to Preach and sent it off. Ten minutes was all the time it would take, but at the moment that seemed like a lifetime away.

“How did you do it, Paulus?”

“With treats I made especially for her. She wouldn’t eat the store-bought treats my mom would buy her. She was a picky eater.”

“Just like you, Paulus.”

The smile that had faded on his lips arose again. “Just like me,” he sighed.

His eyes were still closed. He did this when he was remembering his childhood or when he was really frightened in the present. Valerie kept one eye on the rearview mirror and the other on her mobile’s screen. Having received the text, Preach had established an open line, which now consisted of a digital clock counting down the seconds.

Paulus continued with his memory of a boy and his boxer.

But now the figure in the car had put down the binoculars. Valerie could see that it was a man, but his features were indistinguishable at this distance. He turned off his engine, and her heart rose into her throat. He bent over, as if he were drawing something out of the glove box. Then he opened the door. Valerie’s nerves were shrieking.