down her coffee. Her stomach had soured. She knew what was coming next, sure as if it were a freight train bearing down on her and she was tied to the tracks.
“Take what happened with that musician Jake Forsythe. I know Jake, I’ve been a big fan of his music for a long time, and I always try to catch one of his shows when I’m in Austin. Now, I’m not pretending to know what happened between him and that girl that night. Maybe he crossed a line. Maybe he made her uncomfortable. Maybe, God forbid, he even hurt her, though I honestly believe that if he did, it was unintentional. I don’t know. None of us do, except for the two people who were in that bedroom that night. What I do know from speaking with Jake is that she never gave him a chance to explain himself or to apologize for what happened. She just ran out of his bed and went straight to tell her story on the Internet, where he was hanged, drawn, and quartered by the court of public opinion. What bothers me the most is that she did it anonymously, so she couldn’t be questioned on her account of the evening, and her credibility couldn’t be verified.” He stopped, ran a hand through his hair, shook his head. “I’m not saying she’s a liar, but to me, that doesn’t sit right. To me, if you come out and accuse someone of wrongdoing, you should stand behind your words. Personally, I believe that—unless a crime has been committed—matters of the bedroom should be kept private between two consenting adults, rather than aired on the Internet for strangers to judge.” He took a breath. “I believe in women, and I believe that men who have been proven to hurt women should be punished. But I also believe in responsibility, and civility, and the right to privacy in our homes and our bedrooms. Because if we lose that”—another shake of the head—“we lose the very principles that bind us together as a nation.”
The applause was deafening. Whoever was filming was clapping so hard that he knocked the phone right out of his hand, and the video cut off abruptly.
She checked the tally at the corner. Seven hundred thousand views and climbing.
Yeso, New Mexico—141 Miles to Albuquerque
They passed a burnt-out shack, its blackened eyes staring back at them sightlessly, piles of curled-up rubber tubing stacked in front of the boarded-up front door. Low-slung brick bunkers crumbled by the side of the road, their metal doors bolted shut and rusted, faded graffiti sprayed across the fronts.
Rebecca’s face was pale in the moonlight. “Where are we?”
“The village of the damned, basically. Don’t worry, we’ll be out of here soon enough.”
They passed a derelict barn, its door hanging from the hinges, the timber frame bleached white in the headlights. Outside, a tractor lolled on its one remaining tire. “It’s like the whole place got wiped out in a single day,” Rebecca marveled as they rolled through. A factory loomed over them, its cement smokestack cracked and crooked. It looked abandoned, too. “I wonder if the factory shut down.”
“Maybe. I’ve been through here a couple times and have never seen a single sign of life.”
Rebecca shuddered.
They passed what once had been the post office, the painted sign rubbed to a dull smear on the bricks. There was nothing for them in a place like this, at least nothing they’d welcome. It felt like something was watching them. Something, not someone.
“Let’s get out of here,” Rebecca whispered.
Cait nudged the gas. She could see the edge of town up ahead. Just one last building, and then a return to the cold emptiness of the desert.
They passed a house, a clapboard Cape with a sagging front porch. A pair of rocking chairs slumped there, still in the breezeless night. If you squinted, you could see what it looked like once: a dollhouse writ large, all lace curtains and painted woodwork and sweet, folksy charm. But now it was like the rest of the town: hollow-eyed and barely standing, the paint bleached away by the harsh desert sun, the wooden frame splintered and rotting. Forgotten and unloved.
In the window, a single candle flickered.
“You don’t think anyone lives there, do you?”
Cait shook her head. “I don’t know. But somebody must have lit that candle.”
“Jesus.”
A pair of headlights swung out from behind the house.
“Someone’s awake,” Cait said, her eyes locked on the rearview mirror.