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Dan sat up straight. “We’re in Ohio? Christ! What time is it?”
Billy glanced at his watch. “Quarter past six. Wasn’t no big thing; light traffic and no rain. I think
we got an angel ridin with us.”
“Well, let’s find a motel. You need to sleep and I have to piss like a racehorse.”
“Not surprised.”
Billy pulled off at the next exit showing signs for gas, food, and motels. He pulled into a Wendy’s
and got a bag of burgers while Dan used the men’s. When they got back into the truck, Dan took one
bite of his double, put it back in the bag, and sipped cautiously at a coffee milkshake. That his
stomach seemed willing to take.
Billy looked shocked. “Man, you gotta eat! What’s wrong with you?”
“I guess pizza for breakfast was a bad idea.” And because Billy was still looking at him: “The
shake’s fine. All I need. Eyes on the road, Billy. We can’t help Abra if we’re getting patched up in
some emergency room.”
Five minutes later, Billy pulled the truck under the canopy of a Fairfield Inn with a blinking
ROOMS AVAILABLE sign over the door. He turned off the engine but didn’t get out. “Since I’m
riskin my life with you, chief, I want to know what ails you.”
Dan almost pointed out that taking the risk had been Billy’s idea, not his, but that wasn’t fair. He
explained. Billy listened in round-eyed silence.
“Jesus jumped-up Christ,” he said when Dan had finished.
“Unless I missed it,” Dan said, “there’s nothing in the New Testament about Jesus jumping.
Although I guess He might’ve, as a child. Most of them do. You want to check us in, or should I do
it?”
Billy continued to sit where he was. “Does Abra know?”
Dan shook his head.
“But she could find out.”
“Could but won’t. She knows it’s wrong to peek, especially when it’s someone you care about. She’d
no more do it than she’d spy on her parents when they were making love.”
“You know that from when you were a kid?”
“Yes. Sometimes you see a little—you can’t help it—but then you turn away.”
“Are you gonna be all right, Danny?”
“For awhile.” He thought of the sluggish flies on his lips and cheeks and forehead. “Long enough.”
“What about after?”
“I’ll worry about after after. One day at a time. Let’s check in. We need to get an early start.”
“Have you heard from Abra?”
Dan smiled. “She’s fine.”
At least so far.
5
But she wasn’t, not really.
She sat at her desk with a half-read copy of The Fixer in her hand, trying not to look at her
bedroom window, lest she should see a certain someone looking in at her. She knew something was
wrong with Dan, and she knew he didn’t want her to know what it was, but had been tempted to look
anyway, in spite of all the years she’d taught herself to steer clear of APB: adult private business. Two
things held her back. One was the knowledge that, like it or not, she couldn’t help him with it now.