Young lovers meandering slowly through the mall, holding hands and ice-cream cones, lost in their bliss.
An old man shuffling along behind his wife, with a look on his face that says, Take me home, please.
We’re not safe here.
We’re not safe anywhere in this city.
I ask, “Are you with me?”
She hesitates, looks at Charlie.
Then back at me.
“Yeah,” she says. “I’m with you.”
“Good.”
“So what do we do now?”
We leave with nothing but the clothes on our backs and a bank envelope filled with cash from our emptied checking and savings accounts. Daniela puts the rental car on our credit card, but every transaction going forward will be cash-only to make us harder to track.
By midafternoon, we’re cruising through Wisconsin.
Rolling pasture
Minor hills.
Red barns.
Silos form a rustic skyline.
Smoke trickles out of farmhouse chimneys.
Everything sparkling under a fresh blanket of snow and the sky a brilliant winter blue.
It’s slow-going, but I keep off the highways.
Stick to the country roads.
Take random, unplanned turns with no destination in mind.
When we stop for gas, Daniela shows me her phone. There’s a stream of missed calls and new texts, all from 773, 847, and 312 Chicago-area phone numbers.
I open the messaging app.
Dani—It’s Jason, pls call me back at this number immediately.
Daniela, this is Jason. First of all, I love you. There’s so much I have to tell you. Pls call me as soon as you get this.
Daniela, you’re going to be hearing from a bunch of other Jasons if you haven’t already. Your head must be spinning. I am yours. You are mine. I love you forever. Call me the moment you get this.
Daniela the Jason you’re with is an imposter. Call me.
Daniela you and Charlie are not safe. The Jason you’re with isn’t who you think he is. Call me right away.
None of them love you like I do. Call me, Daniela. Pls. Begging you. Love you.
I will kill them all for you and fix this. Say the word. I will do anything for you.
I stop reading, put a block on each number, and delete the messages.
But one text in particular calls out to me.
It’s not from an unknown number.
It’s from Jason.
My cell number. He’s had my phone all this time. Since the night he grabbed me off the street.
You’re not home, not answering your cell. You must know. All I can say is that I love you. That’s why. My time with you has been the best of my life. Pls call me. Hear me out.
I power off her phone and tell Charlie to turn his off as well. “We have to leave them off,” I say. “From here on out. Any one of them could track us if they’re transmitting.”
As the afternoon turns toward evening and the sun begins to slip, we drive into the vast Northwoods.
The road is empty.
Ours alone.
We’ve taken numerous summer vacations to Wisconsin but never ventured this far north. And never in winter. We go miles without seeing any signs of civilization, and each town we pass through seems smaller than the one before—crossroads in the middle of nowhere.
A hard silence has taken hold inside the Jeep Cherokee, and I’m not sure how to break it.
Or rather, that I have the courage to.
All your life you’re told you’re unique. An individual. That no one on the planet is just like you.
It’s humanity’s anthem.
But that isn’t true for me anymore.
How can Daniela love me more than the other Jasons?
I look at her in the front passenger seat, wondering what she thinks of me now, what she feels toward me.
Hell, what I think of me is up for debate.
She sits quietly beside me, just watching the forest rushing by outside the window.
I reach across the console and hold her hand.
She looks over at me, and then back out the window.
—
At dusk, I drive into a town called Ice River, which feels appropriately remote.
We grab some fast food and then stop at a grocery store to stock up on food and basic necessities.
Chicago goes on forever.
There’s no breathing space even in the suburbs.
But Ice River just ends.
One second we’re in town, passing an abandoned strip mall with boarded-up storefronts. The next, the buildings and the lights are dwindling away in the side mirror, and we’re cruising through forest and darkness, the headlights firing a cone of brilliance through a narrow corridor of tall pines that edge up close on either side of the road.
Pavement streams under the lights.
We pass no cars.
I take the third turnoff, 1.2 miles north of town, down a one-lane, snowy drive that winds through spruce and birch trees to the end of a small peninsula.
After several hundred yards, the headlights strike the front of a log house that seems to be exactly what I’m looking for.
Like most lakefront residences in this part of the state, it’s dark and appears uninhabited.
Shuttered for the season.
I pull the Cherokee to a stop in the circular drive and kill the engine.
It’s very dark, very quiet.