We lost about half an hour detouring to Jeremy’s father’s house, so making it to New York tonight was no longer an option. As we neared Kingston, I felt it was time to start looking for a place to bed down. There was a Quality Inn we could see from the highway, but there were plenty of other hotels to choose from if we were willing to drive a mile or two.

I pulled up in front of the Quality Inn. “Wait here,” I said to Jeremy. He’d been pretty sullen since we’d left his father’s house.

I took the car key, and parked close enough that I’d be able to see my Honda from the registration desk. I wasn’t convinced Jeremy wouldn’t make a run for it if the mood struck him. So far, he’d seemed pretty agreeable to the whole road trip idea, although he had to be thinking dropping in on his dad had been a bad call. Then again, he could be setting me up. Maybe he’d figured out a way to get a message to his girlfriend Charlene, and she was waiting around the next bend in her Miata.

I went to the desk and asked if they had a room available with two beds. Single, double, queen, didn’t matter. While the woman was scanning her computer for availability, a young couple came through the main doors.

I could hear their conversation as they walked through the lobby in the direction of the elevator.

“That was him!” the woman said.

“That was who?” the man asked.

“From the news. The Big Baby kid. That was him in the car.”

“Seriously?”

They slowed, the man craning his head around to look back at my car.

I said to the woman on the desk, “Never mind.”

“I’ve got something,” she said. “Two queen beds and—”

I shook my head. “No thanks.”

I got back into the car, put the key in the ignition and started the motor. I reached for the seat belt, buckled myself in.

“Full up?” Jeremy asked.

“Yup,” I said.

The Hampton Inn and the Courtyard were full, but the Best Western had a spot for us. At all three places, before heading in, I made a point of not parking under any bright lights where someone might be able to spot Jeremy. Once I had us a room, I hustled him through the lobby as quickly as possible.

“They’re going to think you’re some sort of pervert who likes little boys,” Jeremy said.

“You’re not a little boy. You’re eighteen.”

“Oh, so it’d be legal?”

“That’s not the point I was trying to make.”

The room was adequate. First thing Jeremy did after tossing his bag onto one of the two beds was grab the remote and troll through all the available channels. “Wanna order a movie?” he asked.

“No.”

“There’s dirty ones, too.”