Three days later at dusk Henry Dixon pulled the BMW into the deserted parking lot for a small vista point off Route 9N on the west side of Lake George in upstate New York. Henry and Marcia Dixon were a few minutes early for the rendezvous, so Henry fed his dogs and let them run free for a while. They sniffed everything in the area with special attention to the trash barrels, and then trotted off to investigate the trees and brush around the lot, but kept returning to Henry and Marcia, who were out of the car and on their feet after a day of driving. Henry knew that they could tell he was sad about something, but they couldn’t imagine what made him sad. They smelled no enemies, and their noses told them nothing nearby had died.
The black BMW was pulled back near the hillside leading down from the main road hidden from view. Henry and Marcia were quiet, waiting.
When Emily’s Volvo turned down the drive and coasted into the lot, Henry stood still and watched. Emily stopped, turned the car around to face the driveway, and backed up close to the BMW before she parked and got out. She wore jeans and a bulky sweater and a pair of loafers, and her hair was pulled back tight, so the dark hair she inherited from her mother looked shiny and perfectly smooth.
The boys pushed the back door open, ran to their grandfather, and hugged him. Henry swung Adam, the eight-year-old, into the air and held him for a moment, and then put him down. He did the same to Mark, the six-year-old. The two eager dogs galloped up, bumped their shoulders against the boys, ran a few steps off, and then ran back to them. They had always loved the boys’ visits to the house in Vermont.
His daughter stepped up and hugged him. “Hi, Dad,” said Emily. “I’m so glad I got a chance to see you in person, and not just pick up Dave and Carol somewhere after you’ve driven off.”
“I’m glad to see you too,” he said. “But I can’t believe you brought the boys with you. You know this is a very dangerous place to be.”
Emily shrugged. “Mothers have to make impossible decisions. I decided I had to put them at risk for these few minutes. I want them to remember this.” Emily kissed her father’s cheek, then let go of him and turned her head. “You’re Zoe?”
“Yes,” she said. “It’s not going to be my name after this. I’m working on getting used to the new one.”
“I’m glad to meet you,” Emily said.
When her father moved off to play with the boys and the dogs, she said, “He told me on the phone that you were still with him. I never thought you would decide to do this. Nobody would have blamed you for walking away. Least of all, him.”
Marcia Dixon shrugged. “He wanted me to leave, but here I am. It doesn’t matter why, does it?”
“No,” said Emily. “But when it gets to be time, he’ll probably sense it. When he says to go, do what he tells you. You won’t be able to save him.”
They were silent after that, watching the boys and their grandfather playing with the dogs for a few minutes, and then Emily said, “Dad?”
He turned and walked back to her. “I know. It’s almost dark. We’ve all got to go soon.” He put his arms around her and held her for a moment. “Thanks for taking Dave and Carol.”
“Don’t worry,” she said. “We’ll all take great care of them. When you pick them up you’ll see how spoiled they are.”
“Do me another favor, and remind the boys once in a while that I love them.”
“Of course.”
“And give your husband my regards. Oh, what the hell. My love.” He went to the trunk of the BMW, popped it open, took out two big bags of dry dog food and a case of canned food, and carried them to the back of Emily’s car. When she opened the trunk he loaded them in. “Keep it open,” he said, and brought another box from the BMW’s trunk and put it in. “Your next three phones.”
“I figured.”
“They’re not preprogrammed this time. Too risky. But I have the numbers.”
The dogs and boys noticed that something was happening, so they all drew near.
Emily hugged her father tightly and talked so only he could hear. “Never doubt that you gave me a great life. You did. Now get out of here. And be really nice to Zoe, or whatever you’re calling her now. But protect yourself. All she has to do is pick up a phone, and it’s over.”
“I know,” he said. “I gave her every chance, but she didn’t.”
Henry Dixon opened the back door of Emily’s Volvo. He patted the backseat and said, “Carol. Dave.” The two dogs jumped up on the seat. He held Carol’s face up to his so they were nose to nose, breathing the same air. “Good girl.” He held Dave’s face up to his the same way. “Good boy.” Then he muttered, “That’s all there is to say.” He took the biscuits he always carried in his pants pocket and gave all of them to the dogs, and then shut the door.
He hugged the boys and watched their mother put them in the car. “Sit up here with me,” she said to the older one. “And give your brother a chance to be with the dogs until the first stop. Then you switch.”
She took a last look at her father, started the car, and pulled up the incline to the edge of the highway. She let a car go by and then turned left to get back to the entrance to Interstate 87 south toward New York City.
Marcia and Henry Dixon stood beside the BMW, watching them go, and then staring after them at the empty, darkening stretch of road. Marcia turned to him. “I thought she’d be like that.”
“Like what?”
“The looks, the voice. The way she is with you and the boys. Whatever gigantic screwups you’ve done in your life, you seem to have done at least one perfect thing.”
“Thanks.” They got into the BMW.
She said, “Should we think about hamburgers and a motel, or would you rather put some miles behind us first?”
“I’m ready to stop for the night.”
“Is it safe to stop around here?”
“The opposition is looking for an old guy with two dogs about nine hundred miles west of here. Lake George is a tourist area, so we’ll be tourists. The season is about over, so we shouldn’t have trouble finding a good hotel here.”
“What is the opposition thinking about me?”
“There will be some who think that I murdered you. They’ll be looking for a body in an Illinois cornfield. Others will think I kept you alive so I can use you as a hostage. If there are any conspiracy theorists in on it, they will have found out your mother was a Russian defector, and they’ll be all agitated about that.”
“So we’re safe here for the moment?”
“As safe as we’d be anywhere.”
They drove around the lakeshore until they came to a hotel that looked bigger and fancier than the others. It was called the Georgian. Marcia went inside to the desk and checked them in, while Henry parked the car.
They went to their room, showered, changed into clean clothes they had bought during the long drive to upstate New York, went to the hotel restaurant for dinner, and then ordered after-dinner cognac.
When they were back in their room they made love for the first time since their escape from Chicago. It was a long, unhurried encounter, an unspoken decision to celebrate the first time they were alone and not evading unseen pursuers on a highway. Afterward they lay together on the bed, their bodies still touching.
“That was why,” she said.
“Why what?”
“Why I couldn’t behave like a sensible adult and get out of your car the other day. I realized that what I really wanted was to live the rest of my life like this.”
“I’m flattered,” he said. “But it wasn’t a smart idea.”
“No need to feel flattered. It wasn’t actually about you. It was about me. One reason the first part of my life was a disaster was because I was too passive. I waited for things to happen to me. I danced with the one who asked me, and I stayed until he dropped me. No good. But I guess it made me ready for you. I wanted you, and I did the things I thought you would like a woman to do. Until recently I wouldn’t have done that. I seduced you. I’ve been proud of myself since then. And when I had time to see that you really did have to go on the run, I realized I had options. My kids are adults. Nobody depends on me anymore. I can do what I want. Was I going to throw my new life away so I could spend the next thirty years dusting that apartment in Chicago?”
“I want to talk you out of this,” he said. “I should, but I’m not in the mood right now.”
“You can’t. What you can do is try to keep us both alive as long as you can. That seems to be what you’re really good at.”