Just then the white, paneled van pulls off the southbound lanes and parks parallel to her. When she’d come to a stop, the car hadn’t been nose to the viewpoint railing, hadn’t been facing the sea. She is parallel to the highway. This larger vehicle pretty much prevents passing traffic from seeing her. The side of the van doesn’t bear a company name. She doesn’t like how it blocks her from Highway 101.

The guy who gets out of the van is wearing a hooded raincoat, not one of those yellow slickers, but a dark and roomy garment, so it almost looks as if he’s wearing a cape. There is no Dracula. Keep that in mind, Carlino. Just a guy in a raincoat. He has left his headlights on, and the viewpoint parking area isn’t pitch-black as before. He comes to the window in the driver’s door and peers in at her. He has a nice face, like a furless teddy bear, and he looks very concerned when he says, “You broke down, Miss?”

In the front passenger seat, David looks past Emily to Ronny Jessup’s face in the side window, and terror electrifies him as if lightning has penetrated the car and struck him. He reaches for the tire iron in the driver’s footwell, but his hand closes around an emptiness, as if either he or the iron isn’t real. When he looks at the window, Jessup’s face is that of Patrick Corley, but an icy coldness against his forehead transforms the face into that of Ronny Jessup, and once more David is looking out through Emily’s eyes.

As nice as this guy looks and as sweet as his smile might be, he is nonetheless a big man, humongous, and his size makes Emily uncomfortable. She speaks through the closed window. “I’ve called the triple A, they have a tow truck on the way.”

He raises his voice above the storm. “Hard night for a tow-truck driver. Lots of folks stuck. Maybe hours before he gets here. You want, I’ll give you a lift into Goleta, then you deal with this here in the morning.”

“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?