“You like it?”
The girl was looking coy. “Kind ofme, you know.”
Parker smiled too. At sixteen, soon to have her driver’s license, the girl had been planting seeds about what kind of car her mother would buy her.
“What color can I get?”
It would depend on what was for sale at CarMax or Carvana or the local used car lot at a reasonable price. But, not wanting to endanger the minor détente between them, Parker said, “I’m sure it’ll come in any color you want. Short of puce. Or amaranth.”
“What?” Hannah was frowning. “That’s not real.”
“Yes, it is. Kind of red-pink. Comes from amaranth flowers.” She shot her daughter an enthusiastic look. “Oh, wait! I know! What you need is a car that’s coquelicot.”
Hannah was giggling.
“Wait!” Parker whispered, laughing herself. “Gamboge...”
“Fake, fake, fake!”
“Real, real, real!” Parker was going to say look it up but remembered, just in time, that she’d forbidden the girl from going online.
Hannah was unable to speak for the laughing and Parker’s heart was near to bursting with happiness.
They each ate a Hostess crumb donut, the particles tumbling down their chests and into their laps. After a moment, several sips later, the girl grew serious. “I’d want red or yellow. They’re hot.”
Parker didn’t know about the hot but she wouldn’t object to the hues. They were more visible at night and in bad weather.
She also knew that those two colors were more often targeted by the police than any other. A thought that led to Jon and chilled some of the joy.
It was 6:24, according to her new phone. They would stop soon, a small non-chain motel. She’d pay cash. She could have driven on to her final destination tonight—another two hours. But her plan was to make sure that her ex didn’t guess where she might be headed.
If after two days, Jon hadn’t shown up, they’d continue north, to what she was thinking of as her “safe house.”
If he hadn’t been rearrested by then.
Where was he now?
What did he happen to be thinking at this moment?
How drunk was he?
How furious was he that he hadn’t caught her at the rental house?
Don’t. Think. About. It.
And as if that were a magic incantation, an image of the seahorse appeared.
So did a taste-memory, metallic, from the blood in her mouth.
Her sobbing.
Why are you doing this to me?
The impact of the pistol cracking her cheekbone.
The—
“What?” Hannah asked.