Laura repeated my instructions, then started walking away but stopped and came right back. “What?”

She leaned inside my open window and kissed me. “We are gonna do this, aren’t we?”

I watched her walk away. “Cher,” I said, getting comfortable, “what’s the traffic doing?”

It was kind of a cool plan. All it had to do was work. While Laura was shopping, Cher skipped around to various news and talk stations. Most of the stories were still focusing on the executions. The networks supposedly proposed moving the next hangings to prime time. There also were rumors that cable stations were preparing to make a substantial offer for pay-per-view rights. There wasn’t a word mentioned about fugitives on the road.

She returned about fifteen minutes later with two large plastic bags filled with goodies, among them two prepaid phones. “That was all they had left,” she said. She had activated both of them and made the necessary phone call. “It’s done,” she told me. “About forty minutes, they said.”

We had a lot to do in that time. I drove Van around to the rear of the mall. It reminded me of the late-night patrols we used to make into Indian country. It was dark and lonely, and the shadows faded into deeper shadows. A bare bulb over the rear door of the McDonald’s illuminated a black and green plastic mountain of garbage. The covers of several dumpsters were open; a cat leaped out of one of them and disappeared into the night. I parked under a spreading willow, leaving myself enough room to lower the ramp with space to squeeze in one car between Van and a high white stucco rear wall. Laura squeezed the Chevy into that space. I could see her in the front seat, turning and pointing Russell’s gun right at him. Damn, I was proud of her. It was pretty obvious she wasn’t especially comfortable with the gun, but hey, it was a gun. You didn’t have to be comfortable to fire it and probably hit something. He hunched his shoulders and involuntarily raised both of his legs protectively as high as he could. I heard her warn him, “We’re getting out of this car. I’m going to open your door and you’re gonna get out and you’re gonna get right into that van. You understand that?”

“Yeah. Yeah. Then what?”

As cool as if she had spent her whole life waiting to say this one line, she told him, “Then I don’t have to shoot you.”

With a big smile on my face I said, “Cher, open the side panel, please.” Chair was still locked in the wheel well, but I was pointing my Glock at the Chevy’s back door. “Move,” I said. “Now.”

Laura opened the Chevy’s rear door and stepped back several feet, holding her gun in both hands. Van was shielding all this from anyone passing in front. She kept her weapon pointing at Russell’s chest as he wiggled out of the car and managed to get into Van’s cabin. He sat on the carpeted floor. “Now what?”