“But when to mischief mortals bend their will,  How ...

The room was empty. Whoever it was was gone, leaving traces of their search everywhere. Most people wouldn’t have noticed but Jenny was blessed—or cursed—with an almost photographic memory. She’d had this ability to remember the details of places and things she’d seen only once even before she could talk. She could walk in the dark through rooms she’d seen in daylight because she knew where the furniture was. She could help people find lost things. Tonight it meant everywhere she looked, she saw where things had been moved, saw unknown hands touching her possessions.

She leaned against the door, fighting a rising panic. She wasn’t fleeing because of other people’s unrealistic worries. This was real. Someone was after her. She slid slowly down to the floor, pulling herself into a tight, defensive ball. Nothing in life had prepared her for this. Where do you go when you can’t go home, when your apartment’s been trashed, and all your friends there are gone? What do you do when the only people you can trust have told you to run?

She heard her mother’s voice. “Jennifer Cates, you get up. You can’t sit there on the floor in a hopeless muddle. You’ve got to take charge. Straighten those shoulders. Lift your head. And think.”

She stood up. In case someone was watching, she turned off the lights and sat in the dark, running her mind around the parking lot. Were there any cars she remembered seeing during the day? The white Ford Taurus with Massachusetts plates and two large men in it. She’d noticed it behind her two or three times, figuring someone was taking the same route from Portland to New York. It happened all the time on long trips, seeing the same car over and over. The Taurus had stopped when she’d stopped. Bought gas when she’d bought gas. She’d found it rather friendly. Now it didn’t seem friendly at all.

So two men were watching her, ready to grab the diary and heaven knew what else. She couldn’t stay here, but how could she leave without being followed? Was there anything else she’d seen? Another car? Another person? No. The absence of a car, or, more specifically, a van. Nina said she was driving a van. When she left the cafe, she’d walked to the far end of the parking lot. But there’d been no van there. And instead of driving away, she’d met someone and they’d stepped out of sight. Nina, who had ducked Jenny’s questions about stained glass. Who’d repeatedly tried to get her talk about her family. Who’d tried to get her drunk. Nina, claiming to be an artisan rushing to meet a deadline, who had perfectly manicured nails.

Jenny changed out of her muddy pants, put her jacket back on, picked up her purse, and walked to the office. As she’d hoped, the man behind the desk was the same one who had offered the complimentary dinner. She gave him her best smile. “Thanks for the dinner. It was great.”

“It seems fine. Actually, it’s my brother’s car and he’ll kill me if anything happens to it.”

“I was hoping you could help me,” she said. “You know the woman I was in the parking lot with? The tall blonde. I met her at dinner in the cafe, and since we were both alone, we decided to eat together. Anyway, she invited me back to her room for a drink. I said I had to make some calls and I’d be over, but I’ve forgotten her room number.”

“Hold on a sec.” He thumbed through some cards. “Here it is. Keris Carlyle. 22. If you’re interested in cars, that little BMW roadster is a real beauty.”

She checked the parking lot before moving carefully up to number 22 where there was the usual motel Peeping Tom gap. She could see Nina, or rather, a woman named Keris Carlyle, sitting on the bed facing the men from the white Taurus. If she moved fast, she’d be out of here before they finished their conversation.

She knelt beside the fancy BMW and let the air out of one front tire, a trick she’d learned from Uncle Billy. The way things were going, it looked like Uncle Billy would be a valuable resource. Her mother had encouraged character, reasoning, and initiative, her father generosity and compassion. Uncle Billy had taught her law-breaking, derring-do, recklessness, and the importance of covering your ass. With luck, this odd assortment of mentors had provided the tools she’d need.

Back in her room, she threw her stuff into the suitcase, snapped it shut, and carried it out to the car. She left the television on, the key on the dresser. One more chore and she was out of here. She walked to the white Taurus, took out her Swiss Army knife, and punctured all four tires. Good thing, she thought with the heady glee that comes from performing wicked acts, that the police didn’t follow through on their promise to patrol the parking lot frequently, or she’d be on her way to jail.

Fifty miles down the road, the high had worn off and she deeply regretted the wine. Dandy’s car was just as hard to steer, her body just as tired, the number of hours she’d gone without sleep even greater. She needed a major coffee infusion. She needed sleep. She stopped at a rest area, bought a large coffee and a map, and forced herself to think. What you do when you can’t reach your destination because you’ve physically run out of gas is call your friends. Brittany Carnevale, Britt to her friends, lived in Saratoga Springs. North of Albany. Jenny thought she could make it that far. If only Britt was home and not in Florida or skiing in Idaho with her boyfriend.

She dug out her address book and pulled out her phone. No cell phones, she’d been warned. Too easy to trace. But there was no pay phone here. By the time Britt said, “Hey, Jenny, what’s up?” she was almost crying with relief.

“Friday night I found Drew in bed with Betty,” she said. “I’ve been going around in a muddle ever since. I started driving home but I can’t face that right now. All the questions they’re going to ask. I was wondering. Could I stay with you for a few days?”

“What a bummer,” Britt said. “I can’t believe Betty would do that. Of course you can stay here. I’ve only asked you like a thousand times, right? Where are you?”

“I’m not sure. Maybe an hour from Albany. I’ve been driving blind, trying not to think. It’s going to be pretty late but if you don’t mind, I’ll just keep driving.”

“Get here when you get here,” Britt said. “We’re a pretty easy going bunch. You need directions?”

“Hold on.” She dug out a pen and wrote down directions.

“You’ll love it here,” Britt said. “Absolutely nothing ever happens except reading junk books and watching junk movies; the bathtub is big enough to stretch out in and there’s always food.”

“Sounds like heaven.”

“Oh, and my mom just baked a chocolate cake with frosting an inch thick. Which you will need, chocolate being the universal panacea.”

“I’m on my way.”

“Drive carefully, Jen. I’ll leave the porch light on.”

She finished her coffee and hit the road. She turned the radio up loud and opened the window so cold air blew in her face. She was still achy and had to work to keep her eyes open, but having a destination helped. Funny what Britt had said—that she couldn’t believe Betty would do that. Did that mean she believed Drew would, or was it just the instinctive reaction of sisterhood where one of the rules of the game was you didn’t steal your friend’s guy?

She hadn’t thought much about Betty, though the image of Betty’s aggressively female nakedness haunted her. Why would a friend, someone she’d helped write papers, someone she’d shared so many hours and cups of coffee and confidences with, do that? Maybe what Drew had said was true for Betty, too. Maybe they both thought sex was okay if they didn’t care about each other and Jenny was totally out of sync with the times.

Jenny couldn’t imagine being that intimate and exposed with someone you didn’t know and love, someone you could trust with your moods and your secrets, but she knew so little. The sum of her sexual experience, other than some strong-arm struggling in high school, and dates that hadn’t gone much beyond kissing, had been with Drew. She’d believed she was making a serious commitment; he’d said he felt the same. Had he been lying? Just been having some fun with her, too? Had all the things he’d said been lies?

Suddenly, she felt surrounded by lies. She’d spent a lifetime finding similarities between herself and her father. He’d always said, “You can trust me. You can tell me anything because I’m your father and I love you more than anyone else in the world.” Now she knew part of that wasn’t true. Her real father was not the good and gentle man she’d always known, but a slick politician. She had believed in parental invulnerability and now her mother was in a coma. The first man she’d ever loved and trusted had screwed her best friend for fun.

They might not be physically here to counsel her, but their voices were in her head. Her mother’s especially, gently but firmly inquiring how she planned to handle this. Her mother had always been direct. When things didn’t go well and Jenny would fall into a funk, her mother’s question would be, “Well, what are you going to do about it?’ while her father would say, “Oh, Lila, she’s just a kid. Give her a chance to brood a bit.” Right now, their competing voices, one urging her to face it and plan, the other to rest and regroup, overwhelmed her.

“Stop!” she said aloud, scaring herself and veering over the line. She gripped the wheel firmly and pushed the questions away.

Those headlights behind her had been there too long. The road was deserted, and in deference to her tired state, she was traveling at a law-abiding pace. No one else should have been going so slowly. But the car stayed there, always maintaining the same safe following distance, like someone stuck in Driver’s Ed forever. As a test, she moved into the right lane and slowed down. The headlights moved with her and stayed there, imprinted like a baby duck.

She felt a gut-tightening surge of fear, followed by anger. How many of them were there? Had a whole platoon been sent to keep an eye on one small woman? She longed for Adele’s shotgun again. If these people didn’t stop following her, she’d find a handy local gun dealer and buy herself one. She sped up. Her escort did the same, but she didn’t have time to watch them closely. She was coming to a whole bunch of signs and needed to follow Siri’s directions for 87 North.

She took the exit too fast. The Fury lurched wildly. She hauled it back onto the road, wondering why Dandy was so fond of this damned car. It handled like a truck; the rear-end was too light, and it spun its wheels like crazy whenever she accelerated from a dead stop. It did have a big engine. Maybe that was what he liked. Maybe the rich, throaty roar when he accelerated made him feel like a kid again. He’d bought it when his wife left. That was when men bought impractical vehicles.

She raced up the entrance ramp, put her foot down, and headed north. The Fury took off. “All right, assholes,” she muttered. “Let’s see what your car can do.” She leveled off when she got to ninety, watching the mirror. No sign of those stupid little lights, too close together like eyes in a narrow face, that had been boring into her for miles. She kept her foot down, amazed at how much better the car seemed now that she was breaking the law. Maybe it was just a badass car.

They always get you when you let down your guard. Hadn’t her mother told her that a thousand times? Hadn’t she been raised by a wily trial lawyer? Taught to be cautious, suspicious, to watch her back? She remembered too late. They must have had a whole goddamned platoon because the vehicle that slammed into her, sending the Fury into a wild, fishtailing plunge across the lanes, was not the narrow-eyed bastard, but a squatty, bull-like Toyota Landcruiser.

She wrestled the Fury back under control but the vehicle came roaring back, gave her another whopping slam in the side and sent the poor puke mobile careening right off the road, across the breakdown lane, and ass-over-teakettle down a steep bank. It was like the Octopus, the Tilt-a-Whirl, and a dozen other carnival rides rolled into one, except it wasn’t fun. She was caught on the ropes, hung up by her seatbelt, upside down, right side up, the belt scoring her in a dozen places, arms, legs and head flailing helplessly, slamming into things, until finally she landed with a truly bone-jarring crash, upside down, at the bottom of the hill.

Dazed with pain, she tested her arms and legs to see if they still worked. Running on instinct now, figuring that bad guys determined enough to do this would be efficient enough to check and see if they’d finished the job, she fumbled the seatbelt loose, dropping into a mass of broken glass, found her purse, kicked out the rest of the window, and crawled through. When she was away, lost in the night, she could experience the pain that was making her breathless and take stock of her injuries.

She slung her bag over her shoulder and started walking.

Her body wasn’t with the program. She had to force her legs to move. Left, right, left, right, forward, march. She might have been wading through sludge. One foot. Two feet. Black and blue foot. How could anyone’s life change so much in two short days? Left, right, left, right. Blood running down her face, blinding one eye. Not that it made any difference. It was black as pitch.

She knew she was going slowly up hill. The ground was becoming shrubby, making her stumble more often. Behind her there was a pop, like a small explosion, and then another. Something on the car was exploding. She didn’t look around. If the car was on fire, it would light up the night. The last thing she should do was turn around and let her white face be illuminated. Otherwise, she was just another shadow. Dark clothes, dark coat, dark hair. Everything except her shoes was dark. She shoved her hands in her pockets and kept walking.

She walked until she ran headfirst into a tree trunk, uttering a dazed “excuse me,” as she staggered around it and fell to her knees. On hands and knees she kept going until she found a tree with low spreading branches. Like a child playing house, she crept forward until she was inside an evergreen tent. The ground was thick with needles, and dry. She curled up in a ball, wrapped her arms around her knees, and cried herself to sleep.