signal: flick the lights three times quick, and she’d know they weren’t coming. Two flicks meant there was trouble and she should call the police.
So far that night, there’d been nothing.
She wasn’t worried, at least not yet. She scanned the road again. All quiet in Pleasantville. Every car tucked up in its garage, every person tucked up in bed.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught something. One hand gripped the wheel, the other the gearshift. This could be it. Her heart pounded in her chest.
She watched a possum slinking under a thick hedge and shuddered. She’d grown up with possums, but that didn’t mean she didn’t hate them. They were cute enough as babies, but when they were full-grown, they were mean little suckers. Still, a possum wasn’t going to give her any trouble.
Eyes back on the house. Still dark, still nothing. The clock read 12:15. She’d give it another five. They weren’t meant to linger. Lingering attracted attention. If one of the neighbors happened to get up to use the bathroom and see a beat-up old Jeep parked out front, they’d call the cops quicker than a lightning bug in July. And nobody wanted the cops involved in something like this. You never knew which way they’d swing.
One of the curtains in the house twitched, and a moment later, a light came on downstairs. This was it: now or never. She straightened up in her seat and wiped the mascara smudges from under her eyes.
Get ready. As soon as she gets in the car, you’ve got to go.
A few seconds later, a blond woman wearing a pressed white shirt and khakis emerged. She had a bag slung over her shoulder that looked expensive. Actually, her whole person looked expensive—slick and golden and whistle-clean. Cait watched the woman lock the door behind her, hesitate, check again that it was locked.
Sweat pricked at the small of Cait’s back. Comeoncomeoncomeon.
The woman stole glances at the neighboring houses and hurried down the path.
Cait reached over and swung the passenger door open from the inside. The woman’s face appeared.
“Hi, Rebecca?” Cait made sure to smile when she said the woman’s name. It was important to put them at ease as quickly as possible. The woman nodded and climbed in. Her smell filled the Jeep, cotton and vanilla and sandalwood. “I’m Caitlyn,” she said, though the woman would have known that already. “But you can call me Cait.” The woman nodded again and pulled her bag tight to her lap. “The seat belt comes from the back,” Cait said, and the woman frowned before reaching behind and snapping the belt into the clasp. She stared straight ahead, through the windshield, at the deserted suburban street.
Cait shifted into drive and pulled away from the curb. “Do you have a phone?”
The woman blinked.
“A cell phone,” Cait prompted. Sometimes they got nervous and froze. She had learned to coax them. “If you do, you need to turn it off.”
The woman’s eyes widened. “Why?”
“GPS.”
The woman’s frown deepened. “Is that really—”
“Yeah, it is. Sorry, I know it seems a little extreme, but—” She left the rest of the sentence hanging in the air. Both of them knew that these were extreme circumstances.
The woman fumbled around in her bag and pulled out her phone. Cait kept one eye on the road and watched until she’d switched it off.
“How long will the drive take?”
“About six hours. Maybe a little less. There’s bottled water in the back if you want it. Help yourself.”
Rebecca hugged her bag tighter to her chest. “I’m fine, thank you.”
In the rearview mirror, Cait saw a light snap on in a neighboring house and a face appear at the window.
Take it easy. Just drive normally; don’t read anything into it.
“Are you close with your neighbors?” She kept her voice casual.
Rebecca looked at her, surprised. “Not really.”
Cait’s eyes were locked on the rearview. The curtain fell back across the window, the light flicked off. She let out a sigh. “It looks like the kind of place where you’d all be friendly. Block parties, that kind of thing. Is there a neighborhood watch?”
Rebecca shook her head. “I don’t think so.”
“Good.” She’d run into trouble with neighborhood watches in the past. Give a guy a fake badge and a pinch of authority and things could go sideways fast. The rest of the houses stayed dark. No cars on the road, either. They were almost out of the development. It would be easier once they got on the major roads. “Do