“Police there. A roadblock.”

The man muttered something angrily. Probably about the delay, the congestion.

March wiped sweat from his eyes and gripped his pistol.

The car squealed to a stop.

He could hear an indistinct voice from outside, asking questions. A female voice. Was it Kathryn Dance?

No, these were line officers. Not the Great Strategist, the woman so intent on capturing him…and the Get.

Wiping sweat.

Silence.

Trunk inspection? Shoot the cop, commandeer the car and drive like hell.

No option.

Footsteps.

But then the car started forward again. The radio grew louder. The boy said he was hungry. The man—father, surely—muttered something indecipherable. The mother said, “At the hotel.”

After forty minutes of highway driving they made several turns and stopped. The radio went silent and the car was put in park. Doors opened and closed.

The valet took charge and drove for five minutes, up a series of ramps. Then he parked. Closed the door, locked it and left.

March gave it five minutes and, when he heard nothing outside, pulled the emergency release cord and climbed out of the trunk. And closed the lid. He looked around the garage.

Empty. And no CCTV eyes in the sky.

He walked back and forth, stumbling like a drunk, to revive the circulation in his legs. Once, he had to sit down and lower his head to his shaking knees.

Then on his feet again and into the hotel itself. A Hyatt. He went into the restroom in the lobby and examined himself in the mirror: He didn’t look too bad. The glistening head, which he’d shaved the minute he heard his description on the radio several days ago, showed a bit of stubble. Like Walter White on Breaking Bad. He opened the Global Adventure shopping bag and pulled out his gym satchel. From this he retrieved the blond wig, which he’d been wearing since the shaving, at least when he was out in public.

Porn star meets Mad Men…

March pitched into the trash the wig, baseball cap and the worker’s jacket he’d worn at Stan Prescott’s apartment and when he’d first broken into the theme park (he’d stripped them off as he’d stood in the interminable queue near the Tornado Alley roller coaster, and donned a souvenir jacket that he’d bought. Nobody noticed the quick change; everyone was watching the flamboyant ride, racing overhead).

He now dumped the Global jacket too and shopping bag.

Then outside into the lobby. He got a look at the TV in the bar, reporting on the event at the theme park. No pictures of him, no artist’s rendering, no reference to Solitude Creek.

In the gift shop he bought a windbreaker, sunglasses and a tote—into which went his gym bag.

He took a cab to a downtown Hertz office to rent a car. There he told the clerk he’d be dropping off the rental in San Diego in three days—the police could be looking for rentals to the Monterey area. He’d call later and extend the rental and ultimately switch the return destination to somewhere in Central California. A flight might be safer but he had only the one pistol; he couldn’t afford to leave it here—there was no way of getting a new weapon in California.