She halted mid-step, a breath trapped in her lungs.
This little hand gripped a grate-like material behind the icy glass — white fingers gently unwrapping one by one, in that uncoordinated way of a child still mastering their own nervous system — and then abruptly, it drew back into the darkness. Gone from view. It all happened in three, maybe four seconds, leaving Darby in stunned silence.
No way.
The interior was quiet. Motionless again.
She crept closer, cupping her hands against the window, squinting inside. Her eyelashes fluttering on cold glass. Barely visible in the blackness, near where the tiny hand had vanished, she made out a small crescent, a barely-there reflection of dim sodium-vapor light. It was a circular combination lock. Holding a latticework of metal bars, which the child’s hand had been gripping. Like the kid was in a kennel.
Then Darby exhaled — a mistake — and the glass went opaque with her breath. But she’d seen it. There was no unseeing it.
She stepped away, leaving a handprint on the door, feeling her heartbeat pounding in her neck. An intensifying rhythm.
There’s . . .
There’s a child locked inside this van.
8:17 p.m.
She went back inside.
Ashley glanced up. “Any luck?”
She didn’t answer.
He was seated now, at the wood table, playing cards with Ed. A new woman was here, too — Ed’s wife, apparently — sitting next to him. She was a fussy little forty-something with a black bowl cut and a crinkly yellow parka, busily popping cartoon bubbles on her tablet. She’d been the one in the restroom.
As the door clicked shut at Darby’s back, she tallied three possible suspects: Chatty Ashley, sad-eyed Ed, and Ed’s frumpy wife. So who did the gray van belong to?
Oh, my God, there’s a kid outside in that van.
Locked in a cage or something.
It hit her again, all at once. She tasted raw oysters in the back of her mouth. Her legs went mushy. She needed to sit down, but was afraid to.
One of these three people did it—
“Make sure the door is shut,” Ed said.
Like nothing had happened, the card game resumed. Ashley checked his hand and glanced sideways at Ed. “Four of hearts?”
“Go fish. Two of spades?”
“Nope.”
Something else was wrong, Darby realized. The math didn’t add up. There were three cars outside besides her own. Three suspects in here. But Ed and his wife had almost certainly traveled together. Right? So there had to be a fourth person at the rest stop. But where?
She glanced from Ashley, to Ed, to Ed’s wife, scanning the room front to back, her heart seizing with slippery terror. Where else could—
Then she felt a warm breath touch the back of her neck. Someone was standing behind her.
“Jack of clubs.”
“Go fish.”
Darby stood still, hairs prickling on her skin. A chill racing down her spine. She wanted to turn around, but she couldn’t. Her body wouldn’t move.
He’s right behind me.
He was breathing down the back of her neck. A mouthy waft, lifting her hair, tickling her bare skin. Gently whistling past her ear. Somehow she already knew this fourth traveler was a man — women just didn’t breathe like that. He was standing less than eighteen inches behind her. Close enough to touch her back, or reach around her throat and put his fingers around her windpipe.
She wished she could turn around and face this fourth person, whoever he was, but the moment felt strange, floaty. Like trying to throw a punch in a nightmare.
Turn around, she urged herself. Turn around now.
In front of her, the card game continued: “Queen of hearts?”
“Ah! Here you go.”
“Nine of diamonds?”
“Nope.”
Behind her, the breathing halted for a few seconds — long enough that she briefly hoped she’d been imagining it, all of it — and then it sucked in a heavier gulp. Mouth-breathing. Standing there in rigid silence, Darby realized she’d done it again. She’d entered the room without checking the corner on her left.
Jesus, Darby, just turn around.
Face him.
Finally, she did.
She turned slowly, casually, with one palm up, like she was just obliging Ed’s request to ensure the door was closed properly. She turned — turned until she was face to face with the man.
Man was a stretch. He was tall but slouching, rail-thin, nineteen at most. A weasel-like profile to his acne-encrusted face, all overbite above a shapeless chin shrouded with peach-fuzz whiskers. A Deadpool beanie and a baby-blue ski jacket. His narrow shoulders were wet with melted snow, like he’d just been outside, too. He was staring at her, so she met his gaze — tiny hazel pupils, rodent-like in their flat stupidity — and she returned a shy smile.
The moment smeared.
Rodent Face’s breath reeked of milk chocolate mixed with the earthy sourness of Skoal. His right arm lifted without warning — Darby flinched — but he was reaching past her to press the door shut. It engaged with a deadbolt click.
“Thanks,” Ed said, turning back to Ashley. “Ace of hearts?”
“Nope.”
Darby broke eye contact and left the man by the door. Her heart banged against her ribs. Her footsteps sounded magnified. She squeezed both hands into fists to hide their shaking and took a seat at the table with the others. She pulled up a chair between Ashley and the older couple, and the wooden legs honked on the tiles.
Ashley gritted his teeth at the harsh sound. “Uh, nine of hearts.”
“Shit.”
Ed’s wife smacked his elbow. “Language.”
Darby knew Rodent Face was still watching her with those dim little eyes, studying her. And she realized she was sitting rigidly — too rigidly — so she sprawled in her chair a bit and pretended to play with her iPhone. Hunching her knees up to the table. She was play-acting now, just an over-caffeinated Art Major with a Honda full of gravestone rubbings and an exhausted phone battery, stranded here at the edge of civilization like everyone else. Just a harmless CU-Boulder sophomore.
He lingered by the door. Still watching her.
Now Darby began to worry. Could he know? Maybe he’d been looking out the west-facing window and seen her peering inside his van. Maybe he’d seen her footprints. Or maybe her demeanor gave it all away the second she’d wobbled back inside the lobby with her nerves frayed and her heart in her throat. She was usually a good liar, but not tonight. Not now.
She tried to find an ordinary explanation for what she’d witnessed — like, one of these four people’s not-yet-mentioned-kid was just napping in the back of their van. That was plausible, right? It had to happen all the time. That’s what rest stops are for. Resting.
But that didn’t explain the circular padlock she’d glimpsed. Or the wire bars the hand had been gripping. Or, come to think of it, the deliberate placement of the towels on the rear windows — to conceal what was happening inside. Right?
Am I overreacting?