His mother looks back over her shoulder at the approaching vehicles. They travel another few yards, and then Bloom’s feet catch up to her brain and they stop walking. She sets the suitcase down by her heels.

The truck eases to the side of the road, slowing in the chalky margin and throwing up a haze of dust. Jack’s father sits at the wheel, staring at them from behind a pair of mirrored shades, Connor right beside him. The Road Runner parks behind the pickup, and Beth gets out. She stands holding the driver’s-side door, looking frightened.

“Whyn’t you come over here, Jack?” Beth calls. “I’ll drive you back to the house. Grown-ups gotta talk.”

Bloom tightens her grip on Jack’s hand. He stares up at his mother, then catches a movement from the corner of his eye and glances behind them. There’s another car coming, this one from the direction of town: a police cruiser. It glides along with the lights and siren off, and when it’s about fifty feet away, it parks on the other side of the road.

Only then does Hank McCourt, Jack’s father, the Separatist, climb out of the big beige F-150. Connor gets down from the other side, careful not to put his weight on his carbon foot. Jack’s cousin is the luckiest man he knows: he has a twenty-first-century mechanical leg, that souped-up Road Runner, and Beth. Jack would commit multiple homicides to have even one of them.

Jack’s father ambles toward them with his hands out to either side, palms down, in a gesture that seems to recommend calm. He’s armed, a Glock in a black leather holster on his right hip, but that’s no surprise. He only takes it off to shower.

“Get in the Road Runner, Jack,” Hank says. “Beth will drive you home.”

Jack looks at his mother. She nods and releases his hand. Bloom picks up the suitcase and moves to follow, but Hank steps between them. He reaches for the handle of the suitcase—a husbandly thing to do—but then he puts his palm against Bloom’s chest to keep her from taking another step.

“No. Not you. You can go wherever you were going.”

“You can’t just take him away from me, Hank.”

“And you can?”

“What’s going on here?” This from the lawman standing in the road behind Jack’s mother. “Hank, what can you tell me?”

Two town cops have spilled out of the cruiser. Jack recognizes the one doing the talking, one of his father’s friends, a hefty white-haired cop with a swollen nose full of twisty purple veins. The other is a scrawny kid who hangs a few steps back, hands resting on his gun belt. A white stick pokes out of the corner of his mouth. A lollipop, maybe.