The truck slows as it turns off the South Loop towards Kirby Drive, then into a grid of huge parking lots. The stadium on the horizon holds seventy thousand people, and contained even more during Hurricane Katrina. But there’s nothing on right now, so the lot is deserted. Twenty-six thousand parking spaces—hundreds of acres of empty concrete. We drive through the darkness, past the stadium, towards the Astrodome, which is surrounded by abandoned construction equipment. They’re renovating it—turning it into even more parking spaces.

A single car is parked alone in the moonlight. Hope Biggs steps out from behind the wheel.

CHAPTER 42

CHAPTER 42

I have two bodies, joined in one. The more I stand still, the faster I run. What am I?

Shannon parks twenty or thirty yards away, making Hope walk stiffly through the cold.

‘Just to be clear,’ Shannon says, ‘if you try to tell her where we’re going, I’ll kill her, then I’ll kill you. Got that?’

There’s no point appealing to his conscience. If he has one, he ignores it. Like me.

‘If you do that,’ I say, ‘you have no present for Fred.’

‘There are plenty more girls where this one came from,’ he says. ‘And I don’t really need you at all. Don’t try it.’

Hope opens the back door and climbs in behind Shannon.

‘Hope!’ he says. ‘Glad you found a parking space.’

‘Shannon,’ she says. Neither begging for mercy nor telling him to go fuck himself. She looks at me, and raises an eyebrow.

I try for a reassuring smile, but it comes out as a grimace.

‘What happened?’ she asks.

‘Mr Blake was in a car accident,’ Shannon says. ‘Sit behind him, please.’

Hope slides across, out of my field of view. We have no way to communicate without Shannon knowing. I hear her put on a seatbelt. Shannon starts driving. We cruise across the acres of empty parking lot.

‘Where are you taking us?’ she asks.

‘A hospital.’

‘Why is Mr Blake taped to the seat?’

Shannon shoots me a sidelong glance as he turns back on to Kirby Drive. ‘You two have met?’

The car is accelerating. It’s almost fast enough for me to grab the handbrake and crash it. But now that Hope’s in the back seat, I can’t.

‘My dad’s missing,’ Hope said. ‘You might have heard. Mr Blake and his partner interviewed me.’

‘I see,’ Shannon says. ‘Well, after his accident, I was worried about his spine. That’s why I taped him to the seat.’

He says this with presidential confidence. Like he doesn’t care whether she believes him or not.

‘That’s real nice of you,’ Hope says flatly.

We take the on-ramp towards the South Loop. The pick-up zooms through the night towards Houston’s outskirts.

‘How much did you tell him?’ Shannon asks Hope.

‘Everything,’ Hope says.