I open my texts and type out a quick message to my dad.
Jasper’s car died off 93, Exit 39C in New Hampshire. Headed toward Maine on Route 203. In a black Subaru station wagon with New York plates and a Hillary 2016 sticker on it. We need help. Not safe maybe. I am trusting you. Don’t mess it up.
“Victoria, that’s a pretty name,” Lexi goes on, and with this tone—like she knows quite a few Victorias herself. Like the name says everything you need to know about this friend of ours. “Does she get herself into a lot of situations like this?”
“Sometimes,” I say, but way too high and way too loud. Be normal. Just talk about Cassie. She is not a lie. “She gets caught up and one thing leads to another and then she’s in over her head.” Like you guys. See, we get it. No hard feelings. “It’s not the first time she’s asked me to come get her. We’re just trying to bring her home to her mom.”
She has a home. She has a mom. They are good people. We are good people. And you should let us go.
“That’s good of you to do, especially more than once,” Lexi says, sounding wistful, as she turns to look out the window. “The two of you must be really close.”
“We are,” I say. “We are really, really good friends.”
The acid is kicking high in my stomach, trying to make its way up my throat, when I spot a little blue sign up ahead: a gas pump next to a crisscrossed fork and knife. Food and gas, an excuse to stop, to get out. To run. I rub my palms against my jeans, then squeeze my fingers tight.
“I’m sorry, but I have to go to the bathroom.” I point to the sign. “Could we stop? I’ll be really quick, I promise.”
I turn and look at Jasper. He nods. He may not know exactly what is going on, but he’ll follow my lead.
“Sure, no problem,” Doug says, and so easily, like I’ve imagined the danger. Or maybe like things are even worse than I thought.
The turn signal ticks like a metronome, the light flashing slow and steady in the darkness. The world has slowed. Every sound is amplified, every motion exaggerated. Doug’s eyes are on the road. Lexi’s are on her phone. It all looks so normal, which only makes me more convinced that none of it is.
“Wow, can’t miss that, can you?” Lexi says, pointing.
Floating high in the sky is a huge neon sign that reads Trinity’s Diner, with two red race cars and a checkered flag. It’s way too big, an eyesore out here in the woods. Especially when the restaurant itself is a smallish, rectangular metal trailer. Not the kind of place that’s going to be easy to lose Doug and Lexi inside. Once we start trying to get away, things could definitely get messy. I need to text Cassie, warn her that we could be out of touch for a while.
Ran into trouble. You should text your mom just in case. More important that you’re safe. Just tell her not to call the police. She’ll listen. I know she will. At least I hope.
It isn’t until I’ve hit send and closed out of that message that I see the red exclamation point next to the one I’d sent to my dad. Failed to deliver reads the red message next to it. My signal was already gone. All those choices I’d been mulling over about who to tell what about Cassie—they were no longer mine to make.
As we pull into the parking lot, I turn to Jasper, holding up my phone. I shake my head. No signal. He immediately looks down at his own phone. His face brightens for only a split second before he shakes his head, too. He doesn’t have a signal either.
“I should probably go in also, just in case,” Jasper says as we pull into the parking lot. In case? “I mean, so we don’t have to stop again later.”
Inside, Jasper and I will decide what to do. We can tell someone in the diner or we could ask to use the landline. Inside, there will be safety in numbers. And, after a while, when we don’t come back out, Doug and Lexi will probably drive away with their secrets, and without us. Happy to be gone, to be rid of us. We are a complication they didn’t ask for. Relieved, yes. There’s no reason to think they won’t be. Except as the gravel crunches loud under our tires, I do not believe that. Not at all.
Doug parks in a spot under the glow of the diner windows, next to a brand-new pickup with tinted windows, shiny hubcaps, and some kind of rack on top. For guns probably, given all the stickers: Maine Bears Arms, Terrorist Hunting Permit, an NRA emblem. There’s also a green tarp lashed to a back shelf, the tip of a hoof poking out from underneath. Not exactly who I was hoping to be asking for help.