“Yeah?” was the first thing he said.

Dea realized that she and Connor hadn’t agreed on a cover story. But without hesitation, Connor started talking. “I been working on my dad’s car,” he said. His voice had changed. It sounded gruffer. More Fielding-like. As if he’d just come from drinking beers and fiddling with a transmission. “He’s got an old VW. An original. Busted to hell, though, and we need some new parts. I heard you might have parts.”

Sanderson’s jaw was working back and forth over a piece of gum. His eyes moved from Connor to Dea, and she was glad that she had her hood up. Reflected in the smudgy glass window, she barely looked like herself—just a sickly-pale girl with stringy hair and big dark hollows for eyes. She highly doubted Sanderson knew who she was, but just in case.

“We towed a VW about a week ago or so, yeah.” Sanderson turned his eyes back to Connor. He spoke slowly, as if each word was an effort. Dea imagined that if she could hear his inner thoughts, they’d sound just like radio static, or the buzz of a fly in an empty room. “Got pretty banged up. Don’t know how much good it’ll be for parts. Might be better for scrap. What’re you looking for? You working the engine or body?”

Connor dodged the question. “Can I see it?”

Sanderson shook his head. He picked up a paper cup and spit into it, a thick brown liquid, like tar. Dea realized he wasn’t chewing gum, but tobacco. “Don’t have it here,” he said, and her stomach sank. “Cops got it in impound behind the station. We won’t see it till they’re done. Could be weeks. You want me to call you when it’s ready to go for scrap?”

“Sure,” Connor said. He scrawled down a name and phone number—both fake, Dea noticed—on a piece of paper, then fed it through the gap under the grille. “Thanks a lot.”

They reversed out of the lot, and Mark’s brother swung the gate closed and locked them out. All the time, he was watching them as if he knew something. She was glad to be back in the car.

“Well, that’s that,” Connor said, as soon as they were on the road.

“What do you mean?” Dea said. “Sanderson said my car’s still in impound. So that’s a good thing. It means it didn’t get junked yet.”

“A good thing?” Connor repeated. “Dea, the cops have it. That’s a very bad thing.”

“Please.” Dea’s voice cracked. She knew she sounded desperate. She was desperate. And guilty, too—Connor should have stayed far away from her. He should have known better. “We have to try.”

“Try what? The cops are looking for you, Dea.”

“They’re looking for me. They’re not looking for you,” Dea said. Connor went silent. She’d never known guilt to feel this way, like there was something alive inside her stomach trying to get out. She added, “Besides, the last place they’ll look is at the police station. Right?”

“This is crazy,” Connor said, shoving a hand through his hair, so it stood up in spikes. Dea remembered, then, the first time she’d seen him: how he’d emerged from the water, how he’d smiled at her. “I have my own shit to worry about, Dea. My own shit to deal with. And everyone knows we’re—” He broke off suddenly.

“Everyone knows we’re what?” Dea asked. There was an ache deep in her chest. How was it possible for things to change so quickly, for time to squeeze down like a giant thumb, for everything to go so wrong? In dreams, everything was reversible. There was no time, and so nothing was done that couldn’t be undone.

She wished real life were like that, too.

“Nothing,” Connor said, shaking his head. “Everyone knows we’re friends, that’s all.” Funny how she used to love hearing him say the word friends. Now it sounded flat to her, like soda left uncapped. “My uncle knows. As soon as the hospital gets in touch with him, he’ll know I helped you run.”

“That just means we have to hurry,” Dea said. “You promised to help me,” she added softly.

They were coming up on Fielding again. Dea could see the ExxonMobil and mini-mart, casting beams of light toward the sky—like earthbound stars, drowning in the dark. A single red light was blinking at the intersection. If Connor turned left, they would reach Route 9, his house, her house. Her old house. She had never known how much she loved it until now: the old rooms, most of them unused, the vast comfortable sprawl of the place with all their pretty rented belongings.

Right was Route 22, which went past the police station—and from there, west out of Aragansett County and eventually all the way out to California.

Connor slowed the car to a crawl and then to a stop. For a second, they sat bathed in intermittent red light.

“Damn it,” he said, and wrenched the wheel to the right.

Dea could have kissed him.

SEVENTEEN

A half mile before they arrived at the police station complex, when Dea could already see a halo of light hovering above the sprawling one-story building, Connor pulled over, bumping the car onto the side of the road.

“Get in the back,” he said.

“What? Why?”

He exhaled heavily. “You know this is idiotic, right? Because it is. Idiotic. I’m not going to get in trouble for harboring a fugitive or whatever the hell you are, and I’m not going to let you go to jail, either. I’m not even supposed to be here, okay? I’m supposed to be at Gollum’s, helping her birth a frigging calf.”

“Really?” Dea couldn’t help but say.

“It was her idea,” Connor said exasperatedly. “So my dad would be too grossed out to check. The point is, you do what I say now. So get in the back, and when I say get down, get down. Got it?”

Dea knew it was no use arguing with him. A small dark crease had appeared between his eyebrows, like it always did when he was going to be stubborn about something. Besides, he had a point. So she climbed out and moved around to the backseat, which was cluttered with random clothing and sporting equipment, old textbooks and a backpack, dirt-encrusted hiking boots, and empty soda bottles, as if all of the runoff from Connor’s life flowed and accumulated here.

She cleared a space among the piles of clothing. She felt better back here, protected, concealed by the dark and surrounded by so many forgotten objects. She drew the blanket over her shoulders, folded it around herself like a cloak, like it might give her superhero powers.

They were nearing the police station now.

“Get down,” Connor said, his voice tight. Dea flattened herself against the backseat, her face pressed to an old sweater, inhaling wool fibers and the faint taste of cologne. A second later, she heard sirens shriek by. There must be an accident somewhere. Or—her stomach clenched—the cops had been called out to the hospital, to track her down, to bring her back.

She’d been expecting Connor to turn into the lot, but he kept going straight. She was desperate to sit up but knew Connor would yell at her, so she stayed where she was. Her cheek was starting to itch where it was pressed up to the wool.

“What do you see?” she finally said.

“I’m making a loop.” Connor was whispering, as if they might be overheard otherwise. “Checking out the impound lot. Entrances and exits. I want to know what we’re dealing with.”

She couldn’t stand it anymore. She sat up cautiously. She could feel the cold vibrating through the glass. Connor glanced at her in the rearview mirror but said nothing. They had passed the main entrance to the station, anyway. Connor hooked a right, and then another right down a service road.

“That must be the lot,” he said, narrating as if she couldn’t see for herself. He was nervous. This lot was much smaller than Sanderson’s but similarly fortified, encircled by a tall fence topped with chicken wire. “Guard hut.” Connor’s fingers were so tight on the steering wheel that even from the backseat, Dea could see the white indentations of his knuckles. “Two cops.”