12:22 p.m.

Melanie was tired of Jared bossing her around again. This way and then that way. Right then left. They were backtracking and still headed in the wrong fucking direction, and she knew it. And it wasn't about keeping off the interstate or confusing law enforcement officials. No, Jared had something else planned. She could feel it. And he wasn't telling her again. Just like he wouldn't tell her about the baby. How hard would it have been to tell her the baby was okay, instead of simply saying he had taken care of things?

She glanced over at Charlie, sitting next to her reading another comic book. He was quiet and content, no sign of this morning's outburst. She didn't want to think about that again. It only made her angry, angry that Jared would involve Charlie in this. It was Jared's fault. All of it. The entire mess. She knew she should be relieved that Jared hadn't killed that little baby. Only a monster would do something like that, a monster like her father. And, no matter how angry she was with Jared, she knew he wasn't any more a monster than she was.

She looked up in the rearview mirror and Andrew Kane's eyes were there to meet hers. He was watching her, studying her as if trying to figure her out. Maybe he was grateful she hadn't let Jared kill him back at the hotel. Maybe he simply wondered what would happen next. She ignored him and looked, instead, for patrol cars. Most of them would have been busy this morning looking for a white SUV and not a black Toyota Camry. They were sticking to the two-lane highways, although from the signs she knew they were approaching the interstate again. After driving north and away from it, here they were again driving south toward it.

"We have to make a stop," Jared said suddenly. "I want you to get on the interstate and head west." "I thought we were avoiding Interstate 80." "There's a truck stop. It shouldn't be too far." "You're hungry again?" It couldn't be much after noon yet. "No, we're not eating there. I need to pick something up." "'What can you possibly pick up at a truck stop?" "Just do what I fucking tell you to do, Mel." Her face burned. Her hands balled into fists around the steering wheel. She kept her mouth shut and her eyes ahead. Sometimes he reminded her of her father, and this was one of those times.