They seem to take it in stride that a recently widowed, recently drugged, in-the-midst-of-crisis woman is interested in a date with a cute boy. When she leaves, they are smirking, pleased with themselves. Cell phones in hands, the two are flopped on the couch, more or less watching TV.

Eddie, in his truck, picks Rose up four blocks from the house.

“You did good with the scary,” she comments as she buckles herself in. Eddie grunts. Instead of his usual deck shoes and cargo shorts, he is wearing black Levi’s, heavy motorcycle boots, a long-sleeved black pullover, and black leather gloves. The empty index finger of the right glove sticks straight out where he holds on to the steering wheel. Rose considers telling him she didn’t really eat his finger, and he can have it back if all goes well, but she doesn’t.

Rose is neither scary nor disguised. She wears gray slacks and a pink oxford shirt borrowed from Izzy’s closet. On her feet are pink-and-gray Nike running shoes. In a Harris Teeter tote she carries cardboard signs she’s made, and a brick.

“Got something to cover your head?” she asks.

“Got it.” Eddie is clearly not enjoying the prospect of their evening out.

“Mud on the license plate?”

“Yeah. For all the good it will do.”

Rose heard mud was one way criminals made their vehicles less identifiable to law enforcement. She, too, doubts its efficaciousness, but stealing or switching plates adds a new level of lawlessness to an already damning pile.

“My contact”—Rose hopes to keep Marion’s name and existence as deep a secret as she does Mel’s —“has rented a house near Brevard in a development called Connestee Falls. It’s yours for three weeks. Private, lots of trees, lots of seasonal folks and renters coming and going. You should be safe there.”

Eddie grunts again.

“It’s got a pool, a golf course, a gym, and pickle ball courts,” she adds enticingly.

“What’s pickle ball?”

Rose doesn’t know. “It’s fun,” she says. “My contact also assured me that the nurse I’ve worked with previously is on duty tonight.”

It is Karen’s dedication to duty—or her aversion to admitting the extent of her dereliction of duty—that put this idea in Rose’s head. The plan hinges on Karen working the night nurse’s station. Even so, the cola-loving nurse and the handmade placards are the weakest point in Rose’s plan. If Karen is not sufficiently in hate with Rose, this whole house of cards will come crashing down. Should that happen, Eddie might get away, but Rose probably won’t see the outside of a prison cell for the foreseeable future.

Negative thoughts.