“I’m finished,” he says.

The hard man goes to the door, unlocks it, and Benito follows behind him and keeps on walking, for he never wants to see that man and his daughter ever again.

The air in the room is still stuffy and smells lousy, but Tom doesn’t care. His little girl is safe, she’s with him, and that’s all that counts.

He says, “You okay?”

She nods and pulls away. “I am. You can put me down now.”

He gently puts her on the bed. Her face is dirty where she’s cried, and her pretty nose has dripped snot, but she’s smiling.

“Did you do it, Daddy, did you?”

From under his shirt he pulls out what he had seen earlier, what he had grabbed from the Hispanic man’s toolbox: a wooden-handled cutting tool used for linoleum, with a curved, razor-sharp blade.

With one arm he hugs his little girl. “Thanks to you, I did.”

“What now?” she asks, wiping her nose with her hand.

“You know how you wanted Mommy to kill them?”

“Yes.”

Tom examines the blade again. “I’m not going to wait.”

CHAPTER 69

FOLLOWING ANOTHER bit of thievery this morning—taking Texas license plates from a dented white Subaru wagon and putting them on my Wrangler— my new best friend and I stop for a quick drive-through meal from McDonald’s.

He still hasn’t said a word. I tell him what I’m going to have for breakfast—coffee, OJ, and Egg McMuffin—and he just shrugs, so I double the order that is our morning meal. Following directions from a helpful senior citizen out for his morning walk, we’re on North Main Street, pulling up to the Victoria Public Library. The area around the squat, bare concrete building has small homes and one-story businesses, with lots of trees. I park my Wrangler in a nearby parking lot, hiding it from the main street, and after shutting off the engine, I give the old man a good, long look.

I say, “So we have a situation, you and I. I need to spend some time in the library, doing research. But I can’t leave you here alone. So you’re coming in with me.”

He doesn’t say anything, but his eyes look intelligent, so I’m sure he’s understanding what I’m saying.

I say, “I’ll be as quick as I can, but you’ve got to be at my side. I can’t have you running away while I’m in the library. You see…”

My voice catches for a moment.

But just a moment.

“Somebody has taken my husband and my daughter, and to get them free, I need you as a trade. And we’re going to do that in Florida. But don’t try to run away. Back at Three Rivers, I killed two men to get you. Trust me when I say I’m not going to let you run away.”

He just looks at me.

I reach for the door. “If you try to run away, I won’t kill you. But I’ll break your arm. And you’ll be hurting all the way to Florida.”