I pulled the car over into some murderous-looking little rest area, the kind with crumbling asphalt and a battered box the size of a phone booth meant for donating old clothes. My hands were shaking. I texted back: I think you’re nuts. I came all the way up here to get a few pieces of paper that probably won’t be useful for anything, but I was willing to see you. I really believed you wanted to help Stefan and me. If you just want to spy on me, then leave me alone. Esme, this is your last chance. Do you want me to meet you? I started the car and backed it up so that my way back onto the road would be a straight shot. No need to put the car in Reverse. I checked all the locks, turned the old Marvin Gaye song that just came on the radio up as high as it would go, pulled my coat around me and closed my eyes. Just then, I got a text from her. Tell me where you are. I’ll be there in ten minutes, it said.

I typed in the mile marker sign and hit Send. Then I panicked. Who might she bring with her, to this lonely apron of concrete surrounded by a thicket of spindly trees cackling in the wind? I sat still, trying to breathe my mind and hands into a semblance of composure.

Then a car pulled into the rest area. It couldn’t be Esme; I’d barely completed my last text message to her. The driver stopped, opened the door. Striding toward me was no slight college-age girl, but the androgynous young guy in the hoodie and aviator glasses who now stood next to my car. It was the same person, the same narrow shoulders, the same lanky swing of the arms. Slow, slow thoughts slid into my consciousness like syrup: Move, Thea. Move, for your life. I jammed the car into Drive, so wildly that I all but ran him down, and spattered gravel onto the highway right in front of an eighteen-wheeler whose driver sent out a blast of air-horn outrage as he hauled his rig into the next lane. I never even dared to glance in the rearview mirror.

I’d driven at least ten miles before I remembered that I had left my things in the room at Connell’s Glory Be Bed-and-Breakfast. I should turn around, I thought. Nothing would make me turn around. I could call when I got home and ask the owner to mail them to me and add that to my bill.

When the fuel light blinked on an hour north of Portland, I did not even stop for gas. Let it run down to nothing. That was what the tow trucks from AAA were for.