Marcelline carried the bag out, and Carly couldn’t help but notice that she held it as if it were glass. She put it in the footwell first, checked it over, shook her head, went into the trunk for a blanket, and moved the whole bag onto the seat. She bunched the suit under the painting and wrapped the whole thing in the blanket, tucked up tight like a baby in bed. She buckled the belt over the bundle of it.

“Wow,” Carly said. “What’s with all that?”

“Hop in.”

Once they were in their own seats and as secure as John’s suit, Marcelline turned to her.

“Okay, this is where I’m going to ask you to trust me.”

“Okay.” It was a strongly not-okay okay, but Carly couldn’t think of anything else to do but agree. Why was everyone so freaking weird?

“I don’t want to take you straight home.”

It felt like a bubble rising in Carly, the worry that she’d gotten something very wrong. “What, like later? Like tonight?”

“Maybe.”

“But maybe not?” Carly’s voice slipped up on the bubble.

“Hang on. Listen. Everything’s going to be okay. Remember the other day, when you looked at my scars, when I said I could keep a secret? When we found that guy?”

Carly nodded.

“This is going to sound weird, but these scars, the guy, and even why I’m here at all is because of—”

“John!”

Marcelline looked confused. “Yeah, but—”

Carly pointed out the window, bouncing in her seat. “He’s here! John’s here!”

“Shit!”

Marcelline started the car, hands and feet frantically working the wheel and the pedals. She jerked the car out of the parking space, backward and around, flinging them over the blacktop. Carly shut her eyes over a blur of people, posts, and gas pumps speeding toward them.

Marcelline drove them to the opposite exit, with John coming up through the parking lot. They raced past the pump islands, banged over the tank covers, and screeched out into the street.

Marcelline’s car made it through the intersection, while John’s got held up by cars turning into the road between them. The street stretched straight ahead with a bend looping off in the distance.

Carly looked back at the traffic light. “He’s coming.”

“Okay.”

Marcelline went a little faster. When the road curved to the right, she hit the gas and the car dove in.

“He must have seen my car. Can he still see us now?” asked Marcelline.

Carly craned farther around to check the back window. “I don’t think so.” Carly felt the swooping pull of the long turn and tightened in her seat to keep from leaning.

“Okay. Hang on.”