When they returned to the house, she made herself a sandwich from the groceries they’d picked up, claimed an old paperback someone had left behind, and closed herself in the bedroom. Loneliness wrapped around her like a too-heavy overcoat. Had Ted done anything to find her? Apparently not, considering that he hadn’t tried to stop her from leaving the church. And what about her parents? She’d called Meg twice from Panda’s phone, so it couldn’t be that hard for the Secret Service to locate her.

What if Mat and Nealy had written her off? She told herself they wouldn’t do that.

Unless they were so disgusted with her that they didn’t want to see her for a while.

She couldn’t blame them.

SOMETHING ODD HAPPENED OVER THE next few days. Panda’s manners underwent a marked improvement. At first she didn’t notice the absence of all those belches, slurps, and scratching. It was only when she saw him cut a piece of chicken neatly from the bone and carefully swallow his first bite before he asked her to pass the pepper that she became thoroughly confused. What had happened to that open-mouth chewing and using the back of his hand as a napkin? As for any suggestions of sexual violence … He barely seemed to notice she was female.

They went into the town of Marshall for groceries and supplies. She bought sunglasses, kept her hat pulled low, the baby bump she’d grown to detest in place, and with Panda close by, no one noticed her.

He worked on his bike, taking things apart, reassembling. Bare chested, and with a blue bandanna wrapped around his forehead, he lubed and polished, checked fluid levels and changed brake pads. He set a radio in an open window and listened to hip-hop, except once she’d gone outside and heard an aria from The Magic Flute. When she’d commented on it, he accused her of messing around with his radio and ordered her to change the damn station. Occasionally she’d catch him talking to someone on his cell, but he never left his phone around, so she had no opportunity to check his call records.

At night, she sealed herself in her bedroom while he sat up, sometimes watching a baseball game on television, but more frequently sitting on the deck, staring out at the water. The numbness from the first few days began to fade, and she found herself watching him.

PANDA DRAGGED THE MUSKY SCENT of the bayou into his lungs. He had too much time to think—too many memories crowding in—and each day his resentment burrowed deeper.