“Then again, traffic might be light and you’ll get home early enough to bring me home.”
“I’m generally a pretty safe driver. As a rule, I don’t like to speed.”
She leaned into him and breathed into his ear. “That’s very conscientious of you.”
“I try,” he whispered, before their lips met. When he pulled back, he noticed half a dozen boaters watching them. He didn’t care. “How long did it take you to rehearse that speech?”
“I didn’t. It just sort of… came to me.”
He could still feel the remnants of their kiss. “Have you had breakfast yet?” he whispered.
“No.”
“Would you like to have cereal with me and the kids? Before we head off to the carnival?”
“Cereal sounds delicious.”
34
North Carolina was ugly, a strip of road sandwiched between monotonous strands of pine trees and rolling hills. Along the highway, there were clusters of mobile homes and farmhouses and rotting barns overgrown with weeds. He left one interstate and got on another, turning toward Wilmington, and drank some more out of sheer boredom.
As he passed through the unchanging landscape, he thought about Erin. Thought about what he was going to do when he found her. He hoped she would be at home when he arrived, but even if she was at work, it would only be a matter of time before she came home.
The interstate wove past uninteresting towns with forgettable names. He was in Wilmington by ten. He drove through the city and turned onto a small, rural highway. Heading south, with the sun coming hard through the driver’s-side window. He put the gun in his lap and then back on the seat again and kept on going.
And finally, he was there, in the town where she was living. Southport.
* * *
He drove slowly through town, detouring around a street fair, occasionally consulting the directions he’d printed out on the computer before he left. He pulled a shirt from the duffel bag and placed it over the gun to conceal it.
It was a small town with neat, well-kept houses. Some were typically Southern, with wide porches and magnolia trees and American flags waving from poles, others reminded him of homes in New England. There were mansions on the waterfront. Sunlight dappled the water in the spaces between them and it was hot as hell. Like a steam bath.
Minutes later, he found the road where she lived. On the left, up ahead, was a general store and he pulled in to buy some gas and a can of Red Bull. He stood behind a man buying charcoal and lighter fluid. At the register, he paid the old woman. She smiled and thanked him for coming, and commented in that nosy way that old women have that she hadn’t seen him around before. He told her he was in town for the fair.
As he turned back onto the road, his pulse raced at the knowledge that it wasn’t far now. He rounded a bend and slowed the car. In the distance, a gravel road came into view. The directions indicated that he was supposed to turn but he didn’t stop the car. If Erin was home, she would recognize his car immediately, and he didn’t want that. Not until he had everything ready.
He turned the car around, searching for an out-of-the-way place to park. There wasn’t much. The store parking lot, maybe, but wouldn’t someone notice if he parked it there? He passed the store again, scanning the area. The trees on either side of the road might provide cover… or they might not. He didn’t want to take the chance that someone would grow suspicious of an abandoned car in the trees.
The caffeine was making him jittery and he switched to vodka to settle his nerves. For the life of him, he couldn’t find a place to stash the car. What the hell kind of a place was this? He turned around again, getting angry now. It shouldn’t have been this hard and he should have rented a car but he hadn’t and now he couldn’t find a way to get close enough to her without her noticing.
The store was the only option and he pulled back into the lot, stopping along the side of the building. It was at least a mile to the house from here but he didn’t know what else to do. He brooded before turning off the engine. When he opened the door, the heat enveloped him. He emptied the duffel bag, tossing his clothes on the backseat. Into the duffel bag went the gun, the ropes, the handcuffs, and the duct tape—and a spare bottle of vodka. Tossing the bag over his shoulder, he glanced around. No one was watching. He figured he could keep his car here for maybe an hour or two before someone got suspicious.
He left the lot, and as he walked down the shoulder of the road he could feel the pain starting in his head. The heat was ridiculous. Like something alive. He walked the road, staring at the drivers in passing cars. He didn’t see Erin, even a brown-haired one.