One way would have been to pull down the curtain and let the sunlight hit her sleeping body. But he’d dismissed it outright. She would probably live long enough to wrap herself in the canvas and chloroform him again. The trip would be unpleasant as it was. It would be worse if he had to spend every day lashed to the passenger seat with bungee cords. That was what she had threatened, and he knew she’d do it.

The other way was much more fun to fantasize about. He would pull over to the side of the road and climb in back with her, weeping and in need of comfort. When she tried to put her traitorous arms around him, he would sink the stake into her back.

But with no one to drive at night while he slept, the trip would, again, increase in difficulty. Not to mention the fact he had no money and only the clothes on his back. He wouldn’t get far on those.

He gripped the steering wheel tighter. No, that wasn’t the only reason. He couldn’t kill her, because every time he imagined it, he remembered the tender way she’d helped him care for Mouse, and then he thought of Mouse looking down on him from the proverbial white clouds of heaven and being disappointed in him.

It was a silly thing to think of. He’d been dead before. He knew what happened. Washed-out, blue nothingness. On one hand, he hoped Mouse wasn’t let down by the reality of the afterlife. On the other hand, his mortal soul dared to doubt she truly went to the same place he’d been when he’d died. Perhaps that realm was hell, reserved only for vampires and sinners. Despite her indiscretion with him, she’d possessed a pure heart.

Guilt, an emotion that proved to be a real nuisance now that he bothered to feel it, clenched his gut. Maybe what they’d done together had barred her forever from the heaven she’d believed in so deeply. Those blasted saints she’d prattled on about had certainly been prized for their chastity. He wished for a moment there were some number he could dial, someone he could phone up and explain it all to. Listen, it wasn’t really her fault. Extenuating circumstances. You’d really be making a mistake if you blamed her.

He thought of the stories she’d told him, the ones where the pure, good-hearted maidens believed so deeply in Christ and his Blessed Mother that even something so shameful as being unwillingly defiled by a man didn’t keep them from beatification. That certainly had to be the answer here. He’d been the demonic monster preying upon her flesh, never able to touch her soul.