She tells herself Josh can’t hurt her when they’re going this fast.
She tells herself that she’s safe as long as the car’s in motion.
She tells herself that when the Grand Am starts to slow—and it will at some point; it has to—she’ll hop out and run like she should have done back at the toll plaza.
“Did you hear me?” Josh says, insistent. “I asked if you’re sure you’re not getting carsick.”
Charlie sits completely still. She should say something. No, she needs to say something. But her tongue sits dead inside her mouth, useless. After a few more seconds of struggle, she’s able to croak out a word.
“Yes.”
“I don’t believe you.”
She almost snorts out a bitter laugh. The feeling is mutual. But then Josh says, “Let’s get off the highway,” and the laugh withers in the back of Charlie’s throat.
“Why?” she says.
“To look for a place to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“I am,” Josh says. “And I think some food will do you good.”
Charlie knows it’s all a ruse and that it’s time for the inevitable. The moment they’ve been leading up to since she first got into the car.
An exit ramp appears, and Josh slides the car into the right lane. Charlie tells herself to stay calm.
Don’t let him know she knows.
If she can do that, then maybe she’ll be okay.
But Charlie’s not sure she can do that. Not with the Grand Am sliding off the exit ramp and onto a road far different from the interstate. Once they get past the competing gas stations and a shuttered Burger King clustered near the off-ramp, it becomes just two lanes of blacktop slicing through mountain woods, dark as far as the eye can see. The road is devoid of other cars. It’s just them and the woods and the dark night and the snowfall trickling to a halt.
Charlie tenses when she sees a street sign bearing the name of the road for which they traded the highway.
Dead River Road.
Not the name of a place anyone would willingly go. It sounds to Charlie like the name of a place people try to avoid. A place frequented only by the lost or unsuspecting.
But Josh doesn’t seem lost. He seems to know exactly where they’re going, steering the car confidently through the forest, the sweep of the headlights brightening the trees that hug the side of the road. Charlie assumes this is because he has a spot already picked out. He’s done his research.
She knows now is the time to act and she should finally make a leap from the car. But fear, that heavy, unwieldy thing, keeps her pinned in place.
Charlie wonders if Maddy was in this same situation two months ago. She hopes not. She hopes Maddy had no idea what was about to happen to her. That the last moments of her life were as grand and vivacious as she was.
“We should turn around,” Charlie says, her voice robotic because she’s trying to keep her fear from peeking through. “There’s nothing here.”
“There is,” Josh says. “I saw a sign for a place back on the highway.”
The only sign Charlie remembers seeing is the billboard for that now-defunct lodge.
“It’s late,” she says. “The place is probably closed.”
Josh remains focused on the road, driving with his fingers tight around the wheel and his forearms rigid. “It might still be open.”
Charlie keeps disagreeing, because it’s all she can do at the moment, even though it’s clear Josh isn’t going to listen to her.
“It’s so late and we’ve wasted so much time and I just want to go home.”
Her voice breaks on the last word. A bit of sadness slicing through it.
Home.
Nana Norma is there right now, probably waiting up for her. Charlie pictures her on the couch in a robe and nightgown, nursing a bourbon, her eyeglasses reflecting a Busby Berkeley musical playing on the TV. The thought makes her heart crack just like her voice.
Arriving on the heels of that desperate ache is an urge to fight. A surprise to Charlie, who’d spent so much of this drive thinking only of flight.
But fighting might be her only choice.
Hurt Josh before he can hurt her.
Charlie looks down at the backpack at her feet. Inside are things that would normally be found in a purse. Her wallet, spare change, tissues, and chewing gum. Gone is the pepper spray Nana Norma had given her when she left for Olyphant. Charlie lost that more than a year ago and never thought to replace it. All that leaves for self-defense is her keys, which jingle at the bottom of the backpack as Charlie picks it up.
She unzips the bag and reaches inside, feeling for the keys. They aren’t much. Certainly not as good as pepper spray. But if she holds them with the keys poking out from between her fingers, Freddy Krueger–style, she might be able to fight off an attack from Josh.
Not that Josh looks remotely close to attacking. Calm behind the wheel, he points to the horizon, where the sky is lightened by a soft electric glow. Within seconds, a diner comes into view. One so traditional Charlie thinks it could be mistaken for part of a film set.
Chrome siding runs below the diner’s wide front windows, beyond which are red booths and blue tables. A sign hangs on the front door—red-on-black letters telling them that, yes, they’re open. There’s another sign on the roof. Neon. It spells out the name of the place. The Skyline Grille. The “e” on the end flickers slightly, like even it knows it’s unnecessary.
“Told you there was a place open,” Josh says as he steers the Grand Am into the parking lot. “You need to trust people more, Charlie.”
Charlie gives a wary nod, knowing the opposite is true. Trust is what got her into this situation. A heaping dose of suspicion would have helped her avoid it entirely.
As Josh pulls into a parking spot, Charlie sizes up the situation. It leaves her stumped. For reasons Charlie can’t begin to understand, Josh brought her to a place where help is within reach.
“Ready to eat?” he says. “I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”
They get out of the car, Josh a few feet ahead of her. As they cross the parking lot, Charlie cradles her backpack and ponders what to do next. It would make sense to end things immediately. Just burst into the diner and scream that Josh is trying to kill her, that he’s killed before, that he’ll keep doing it until someone stops him.
There are three other cars in the parking lot. A black Ford pickup, a boxy compact car, and a powder-blue Cadillac deVille with a dent in the driver’s-side door. She wonders if the driver of at least one of them is capable of restraining Josh. He’s a big guy. Strong. It’ll take someone equally as big and strong to subdue him, and Charlie doubts the drivers of the compact car and the Cadillac are up to the task. That leaves the pickup driver.