Outside. By myself.

Anything could happen.

I was taught that I am a target. Outsider men wait in the shadows to hit me on the head and drag me away. I laugh to myself. Stupid. We are all so stupid. We’re more likely to find help than harm out here.

Before Dario, I would have been terrified to be here alone. Now I’m fidgety and impatient with a desire to get out of the car into freedom. Figure out what to do by myself.

Connor isn’t standing by the flyer-frilled pole. Must be too late. What’s he been waiting for anyway? A sign from heaven? A message from a man in a cage?

Tell him to choof off.

I gasp.

It comes to me like a blow to the head.

That message wasn’t for Massimo.

With a glance at the door Palmeri went in, I open his glove compartment. I find a pen and paper and scribble CHOOF OFF as big and thick as I can, tracing the letters over and over until they’re as visible as they’re ever going to be.

I get out of the car and go to the pole. There are offers of apartments, guitar lessons, massages. A reward for a stolen bike. A poem. I find a piece of tape holding a flyer for a lost dog and rip half of it away. I stick my CHOOF OFF on top of a hot pink gallery opening that has passed.

“What are you doing?” Palmeri says, and I gasp again.

“Just… I…”

“I told you to stay in the car.”

“This dog is so cute.”

He seems disappointed but unsurprised by my lack of discipline. “Let’s go.”

The night guard isn’t Sam. He’s younger. His head rests on the desk under the glowing screens. Palmeri must have given him the same sleep-helper he gave my grandmother.

When I saw Dario before, I went through the door to the right of the glowing screens. I never saw a door into the cells. Just empty cells behind glass I couldn’t pass through like vapor to my husband.

Now, we pass through a door so like the color of the walls that I didn’t notice it before. We turn down a different hall and to a door he uses his thumbprint to open. Beyond it is a short hallway with a door at the end. It has a little square window in it.

I look at Palmeri, and he seems to read my mind.

“I’ll be in the guard room,” he says, leading me down the hall. “Remember why you’re here. And remember, he’s dangerous.”

“Okay.” The window is too tall for me to see through. I don’t know if he’s awake or sleeping.

“Thirty minutes.” With a press of his thumb, Palmeri unlocks the door and backs out of the hall, locking the first door behind him.