“How could I not know that guy?” I said. “Huffing and puffing, talking to his toddler really loud so everyone can hear, ‘I’m sorry, Ryan. I can’t throw you in the air. I’m holding Margaret. I only have two hands, and Mommy’s at work because she needs to feel fulfilled and important too. If Mommy were here, I could throw you, but Mommy is at work.’ That passive-aggressive douche is begging for a pity blowjob.”

Desiree’s laugh exploded in the car and her pleasure, brute and wild, pinged at my heart. “Oh my God, you nailed it,” she said. “That’s totally him.”

“He doesn’t seem like a fit for this town.”

“You got that right. So the other day he asks me if I wouldn’t mind holding his baby. Actually, it was my fault,” she said sarcastically. “Because I said, ‘Cute baby.’ He said, ‘Yeah, you want to hold her?’ Like every human with a pussy loves babies. I didn’t want to. I just said the baby was cute to be nice because I could tell he wanted me to say it. I said, ‘Sure.’ I held his baby. I held that baby for like fifteen minutes. And I loved it, that bald baby head, I actually kissed his baby’s head, smelled it, which is weird, it’s like I’m smelling his wife’s residual pussy juice, it’s so sweet, it’s like beer and sugar, actual sugar, how the fuck does it get that way? But then, like in an instant, I can’t stand holding the baby. I want to drop it in the water, get its skin off my skin. I had to tell myself, Don’t throw the baby in the water. I told the dude I had to go to the bathroom so I could give him his baby back. I was working. Can you believe he asked me to hold his leech baby in the first place? Can you imagine if he asked one of the guy instructors?”

I understood her completely, but at the same time, I felt stupid. Who tells a criminal they’re a natural with kids and asks them for advice?

“Take a right here on Meridian, and a quick left onto Chokeberry. I’m kinda far for you. You regretting you picked me up?”

Hell, yes.

“No, it’s fine.”

“Dead skunk,” she said. My headlights flashed over the dead animal on the gravel shoulder. Split open at the belly, its pink insides spilling out.

“Turn right here, River Road,” she said.

No cars on this road except that car still behind me. Its headlights grew larger in my rearview. He was gunning it, actually, approaching my bumper fast. I checked my speedometer, and pressed down slightly on the gas because I was hovering around the limit.