Lucy gave Nealy the frantic baby. Nealy waited for her to follow Mat outside, only to watch the teenager make her way to the sink and fix her sister’s bottle. When she was done, she took the baby back.

“I’ll give it to her. She doesn’t like you. You’ll make her get sick all over again.”

And then she’ll die. . . . The awful, illogical thought flew through Nealy’s mind. “I’ll—I’m just going to take a little walk.”

Lucy was feeding the baby and she didn’t respond.

The night air felt like velvet as Nealy stepped outside. She gazed around and saw that the campground was set in a small clearing beneath a rim of foothills faintly visible in the moonlight. She heard the muted sound of a radio coming from the next campsite, smelled an old charcoal fire. Dim yellow bug lights mounted on crude poles threw spots of weak illumination over the gravel road. She walked toward it, only to hesitate. Something was wrong, and it left her feeling unbalanced and disoriented.

Then she realized what it was. There were no soft footsteps behind her, no quiet murmur of voices whispering her whereabouts into a two-way radio. For the first time in years, she was by herself. Contentment seeped through her, right down to her bones.

She’d barely gone ten yards, however, before a familiar voice intruded on her solitude. “Already running away from our happy home?”

She turned to see a dark figure sprawled at a picnic table set into the trees. He was sitting backward on the bench, leaning against the table with those long legs stretched out and the root beer can in his hand.

Even as she felt herself drawn to him, she realized she knew nothing about him other than the fact that he disliked children and worked in a steel mill. There were questions she needed to ask, ones she hadn’t been able to pose around Lucy.

“Am I likely to get myself arrested for being with you?”

He rose and began to walk beside her.

With his height and muscular build, he might have been Secret Service, but he didn’t feel safe like the agents she was used to. Instead, he felt like danger.

“What makes you ask that?”

“For a man who wants to travel quickly, you did a good job of keeping us off the turnpike.”

“I don’t like turnpikes.”

“You love them. You’re a turnpike kind of guy. Be honest, Mat. What’s going on with you and those kids?”

“I’m not kidnapping them, if that’s what you want to know.”

She’d been fairly certain of that. Lucy complained about bumpy roads and warm Coke—she’d hardly keep quiet about being kidnapped. “So what are you doing with them?”