“Thank you,” she says, her words lightly fogging the window. “Thanks, but I’ll wait for the tow truck. He’ll be here any minute now. I don’t want him to come and then I’m not here, and so he doesn’t tow the car.”

She’s talking too much. The guy’s staring at her, and she’s giving him a thank-you-but-go-away smile, but he’s probably reading the anxiety in her eyes. She should look away from him. But maybe not be the first to look away. Don’t appear to be intimidated. What is this—a staring contest?

The big man steps to the door behind hers and peers into the car. Why is he looking into the back seat?

And now he’s moving to the back of the car, now coming around to the starboard side. He arrives at the front passenger door and tries it and finds it locked.

“Get away from here!” she shouts. “I’ve got a gun. Get away!” He doesn’t believe the gun business. He’s got something like a ball-peen hammer. He smashes the window in the passenger door. Wind and rain rush past him, into the Buick. Oh, shit. Oh, Jesus God. He reaches inside and pulls up the door handle, he’s opening the door, the sonofabitch is going to come inside.

Nothing to do now but open the driver’s door and get out, taking the tire iron with her. Don’t even think about fighting him, he’s too big, a giant. Just sprint around the van, onto the highway, risk the traffic, maybe be run down, but that’s better than what this piece of shit has in mind. He won’t follow onto the highway. He’ll get in his van and split.

Oh, but he’s fast for a man his size, quick as a cat. She’s at the back of the van. No license plate, he took it off, which isn’t good, because maybe he’s been cruising for this, just this, wanting to be anonymous, and maybe he’s done it before, gotten away with it before. She makes for 101, but he snares her jacket and nearly jerks her off her feet and swings her around, and she expects the ball-peen hammer to come down on her head. But that isn’t what he wants, he doesn’t want to damage her, he bluntly tells her what he wants, shouts it in her face, the C word, shouts it and shouts it as he slams her against one of the double doors on the back of his van, punches her in the gut, knocking the wind out of her, pain radiating through her chest, giving himself time to fumble with the handle on the other door, intending to shove her inside and climb in after her and subdue her, take her away, and then she’ll be finished, gone forever.