But the old lady says, “Oh, please. I don’t want to drag you both out tonight,” and she pulls her flannel shirt around herself and says that it’s cold.
But of course I can’t leave her alone, though the woman promises to be an excellent assistant. She begs me not to drag my girlfriend out on a night like tonight. It’s cold out, she says. Nightfall is coming soon.
But I can’t leave her. If I leave her here, she might just run. I picture her, tearing through the woods as fast as she can, a mile or so away by the time I manage to fix the flat and get back. It would be dark by then, and there’d be no chance in hell I’d be able to search the woods in the dark and find her.
The woman apologizes for doing this, for being such an inconvenience. I picture my hands, closing in around her neck, compressing the jugular vein to stop the flow of oxygen to the brain. Maybe that’s what I should do.
“I’m just going to do the dishes,” the girl objects, quietly, “so we don’t have to worry about it later,” and she gives me a playful look, as if implying intimate plans later tonight.
“I think you should come,” I say gently, laying a hand on her arm as if I can’t possibly stand the idea of being apart.
“Romantic getaway?” the woman asks.
I say, “Yeah, something like that,” and then turn to the girl and whisper roughly, “You’re coming—” I lean closer and add, “Or that lady doesn’t leave here alive.” She’s deathly still for a split second. Then she sets the plates on the ground and we head for the truck and climb in, the woman and me in the front seat, the girl smashed in back. I swipe remnants of rope and duct tape from the passenger’s seat, hoping the woman didn’t see. I thrust them in the glove compartment and slam the door, and then turn to her and smile. “Where to?”
In the truck the woman tells us how she’s from southern Illinois. How she and some girlfriends stayed at some lodge and went canoeing in the Boundary Waters. She pulls out a camera from her purse and shows us digital images of the four old ladies: in the canoe, with sun hats on, drinking wine around a fire. This makes me feel better: not a trap, I think. Here’s the proof, the pictures. She was canoeing with girlfriends in the Boundary Waters.
But she, she tells us—like I give a shit—decided to stay an extra couple days. She’s a recent divorcée, in no rush to return to an abandoned home. A recent divorcée, I think. No one at home waiting for her return. There would be time before she was reported missing—days, if not more. Enough time for me to run, to be far enough away when someone stumbled upon her body.
“And then, there I was,” she says, “making my way back to civilization when I got a flat. Must’ve hit a rock,” she says, “or a nail.”
The girl responds impassively. “Must have,” she says. But I can hardly listen. We pull up behind a compact car. But before we get out, my eyes survey the thick woods that surround us. I peer through the tangle of trees for cops, binoculars, rifles. I check to make sure the tire is flat. It is. If this was an ambush, no one would go to such elaborate measures to trap me. By now, as I step from the truck and approach the abandoned car, I’d be facedown on the ground, someone on top of me with a pair of cuffs.
I see the woman, watching me, as I grab some tools out of the bed of the truck, and remove the hubcap and loosen the nuts, as I jack up the car and switch the tires. The ladies are talking, about canoeing and the northern Minnesota woods. About red wine and a moose, which the lady saw on her trip, a male with enormous antlers strolling through the trees. I make believe she’s trying hard to connect the dots, trying to remember whether or not she saw us on TV. But I remind myself that she’s been in the middle of nowhere with girlfriends. She was canoeing, sitting around a campfire, drinking wine. She wasn’t watching TV.
I thrust a flashlight in the girl’s hands and tell her to hold it. It’s getting dark out by now, and there isn’t a streetlight around. My eyes threaten her when they meet, reminding her to avoid words like gun and kidnap and help. I’ll kill them both. I know it. I wonder if she does.
When the woman asks about our trip, I see the girl turn to stone.
“How long are you staying?” the woman asks.
When the girl can’t answer, I say, “Just about another week.”
“Where are you all from?” she asks.
“Green Bay,” I say.
“Is that right?” she asks. “I saw the Illinois plates and thought—”
“Just haven’t gotten around to changing them, is all,” I say, cursing myself for the mistake.
“You’re from Illinois,” she asks, “originally?”