He closes up early, puts the bags on the passenger seat of his car and pulls out into traffic. If anyone tries following him, they’ll find themselves lost in the school run. Hopefully. It starts to snow, and he realises how cold it is. He puts the heater on full blast and leaves town, heading north, part of a loose convoy of cars and pickups. One by one they turn off the narrowing roads, until there’s just Danny with one other car in his rear-view. It’s dark by this stage, and Danny swings smoothly round a bend and picks up speed on the straight, but when there are no headlights behind him he slows a little and drives on, the wipers sweeping the snowflakes into little triangles on his windshield.

He doesn’t know what he’d expected when he imagined someone actually asking about her. He’d expected journalists, maybe photographers, or cops. Maybe the FBI or the Marshals Service or someone. He hadn’t expected an old man and a fat man. He hadn’t expected the menace they brought with them. Not for the first time, he wonders about Stephanie, about who she is and what she’s done. Maybe today’s the day she’ll tell him. He hopes she won’t have to kill him afterwards.

Approaching the turn-off for her farm, Danny happens to glance in his wing mirror and catches a glint of something behind him in the snow, something polished and dark. He curses, once and loudly, and tugs at the wheel, fishtailing slightly before getting the car back under control. He passes the turn to Stephanie’s place, his palms sweaty, his throat dry. They had turned their headlights off. That’s all they’d done. They’d turned their headlights off and he’d almost led them straight to her. Almost.

Danny keeps driving, his mind a frozen blank. What happens now? Is he going to drive until he runs out of gas? Out of road? What will happen once they realise he’s been driving aimlessly? Will they pull him over? What will they do to him? What are they capable of? Will they hurt him?

He doesn’t know, he can’t know, but he feels it. He feels sure they’ll hurt him. An old man and a fat man. He’s young, in better condition than either of them, but he’s never been in a fight in his life. Not even at school. He isn’t built for physical confrontation. He has no idea what to do. He digs in his pocket, yanks out his phone. No signal. He curses again, but this one is quiet, like he doesn’t want them to hear.