(No, I’m not confusing being maternal with being concerned, Dr. Penny. All I know is that if Lincoln and I had a son he’d be as single-minded and stubborn as we are and that if anything happened to us I’d pray for someone to look out for him the way I’m looking out for Garrett….)

They moved quickly. Sachs was surprised at how elegantly the boy slipped through the woods, despite having his hands cuffed. He seemed to know exactly where to put his feet, what plants you could easily push through and which offered resistance. Where the ground was too soft to walk on.

“Don’t step there,” he said sternly. “That’s clay from a Carolina bay. It’ll hold you like glue.”

They hiked for a half hour until the ground grew soupy and the air became fragrant with the smells of methane and decay. The route finally became impassable—the path ended in a thick bog—and Garrett led them to a two-lane asphalt road. They started through the brush beside the shoulder.

Several cars drove by leisurely, their drivers oblivious to the felony they were passing.

Sachs watched them enviously. On the lam for only twenty minutes, she reflected, and already she felt a heart-wrenching tug at the normalcy of everyone else’s life—and at the dark turn hers had taken.

This is way past stupid, lady.

“Hey there!”

Mary Beth McConnell jerked awake.

With the heat and oppressive atmosphere in the cabin she’d fallen asleep on the smelly couch.

The voice, nearby, called again. “Miss, are you all right? Hello? Mary Beth?”

She leapt from the bed and walked quickly toward the broken window. She felt dizzy, had to lower her head for a minute, steady herself against the wall. The pain in her temple throbbed ferociously. She thought: Fuck you, Garrett.

The pain subsided, her vision cleared. And she continued to the window.

It was the Missionary. He had his friend with him, a tall, balding man in gray slacks and a work shin. The Missionary carried an ax.

“Thank you, thank you!” she whispered.

“Miss, you all right?”

“I’m fine. He hasn’t come back.” Her voice was still painfully raw. He handed her another canteen of water and she drank the whole container down.

“I called the town police,” he told her. “They’re on their way. They’ll be here in fifteen, twenty minutes. But we aren’t gonna wait for them. We’re gonna get you out now, the two of us.”

“I can’t thank you enough.”

“Stand back a little. I been chopping wood all my life and that door’s gonna be a stack of firewood in one minute. This’s Tom. He’s working for the county too.”

“Hi, Tom.”

“Hi. Your head okay there?” he asked, frowning.

“Looks worse than it is,” she said, touching the scab.

Thunk, thunk.