Jason's good arm was starting to go numb, but he didn't dare move it. While Rachel threaded through the thick interstate traffic, Ana had nestled into the crook of his shoulder and fallen asleep. Neither Jason nor his sister had passed the early hours in the motel peacefully; he'd barely slept, and she'd woken up more than once. Sometimes he wondered if she dreamed so much when awake that her mind didn't have time for sleep at night.

When she was little, she used to wander through the house so often at night that his parents thought she was sleepwalking. Instead, she just seemed to be an insomniac. Drifting through the house like a moonlit ghost, she'd startled him on more than one late-night trip to the bathroom.

In sleep, her face was slack and serene, eyelashes fluttering softly. Her complete peace in this one moment set a stone in Jason's chest. She trusted him to take care of her; Mom had trusted Jason to take care of her. But Jason wasn't Dad. He wasn't the one who stayed home with her, who knew her every want, her every quirk, who knew when to accommodate her or redirect her, to give in or to stand firm. Dad, he thought, would have brought Ana back into the restaurant. We can't expect unreasonable things from her, he would often say, but we also can't expect her to be unreasonable. But Jason didn't know for sure. He couldn't. His family wasn't a phone call away. There was no one to give him advice or check his work or swoop in and clean up his mistakes. It was like he was balancing a precious glass trinket in his hands and one misstep would send it shattering to the ground.

"We'll be there today, you know," Rachel said, breaking the long silence. "Sign we passed just said two hundred miles."

"Great," he answered flatly. "Thank you." What's wrong with you? He wanted to beat himself. He could always turn friendly off and on like a switch, but somehow his circuit was blown.

"You scared?"

The question was uncomfortably perceptive, and he shook his head in reflex.

She sucked on that split. "Should be."

"Thanks for that."

"Well, I ain't your therapist." She switched lanes, narrowly avoiding side-swiping a car, and they honked at her. "It is what it is."

Ana stirred, and Jason shushed her. She eased back to sleep. "You know, you could try not killing us," Jason suggested mildly.

"You see all these cars?" She gestured at the eight-lane road. "I'm sure you could find someone else to haul your butt to New York."

Jason snorted.

"That's what I thought." She narrowly avoided running over another car as she pulled to the far right lane, angling toward an exit. "We need gas."

The traffic thinned out a little, stone sound barriers giving way to the occasional tree. They reached a stop sign, with 7/11's and McDonald's and Aldi's stretching out to the left and right. Rachel flipped her blinker on, but her eyes weren't on the local cars, looking for an opening. They were on the cars behind them.

Jason started to turn his head, but Rachel snapped at him. "Don't look back! I think someone's following us."

"There are a million cars on the road, Rachel." But the hairs on the back of his neck prickled.

"Yeah, well I've seen this one for about two hours now. Sometime after we left Berlin."

"That was the Roach Motel town, right?" Jason couldn't resist anymore; he glanced behind them. His first impression was just of traffic, but as they turned, he caught it—an unassuming little grey Chrysler, just a few cars back. It wasn't new; it wasn't old. It caught his eye exactly because it was unremarkable. It was the kind of car he wished they were driving.

He'd thought so when he'd seen it in the parking lot of Pankake House too.

"We can't stop for gas now," Jason said.

"I don't know how your cops got on us so fast." Rachel sucked on her lip, picking a road seemingly at random. Her hand hit the rim of the steering wheel, and she cursed.

"Hey, we don't know it's the cops," Jason said, trying to keep her calm.

"Yeah, maybe it's one of your mom's mob buddies. Much better."

"Let's just see if we can lose him." Jason's eyes flicked over the businesses and streets. "Get out of this area. Head west. That way"—he pointed—"downtown."

"Downtown's gotta be way more crowded than here," she protested. "I'll get stuck in traffic."

Jason glanced back at their pursuer, only able to see flashes of the grey paint. "Just trust me."

Muttering, she made the turn, weaving her way into narrower and narrower roads. The Chrysler copied, though it dropped further back, as if a few more cars might hide it. And it did, every now and then. A couple of times, Jason lost it and thought maybe that was all there would be to it. But then he'd catch a flash in one of Rachel's mirrors and keep his eyes peeled for what he was looking for.

"There." He pointed at the starry blue and white sign ahead. "Turn in there, Rachel."

"You're insane," she said. "No way I'm pulling into the freaking police's parking lot."

"We won't be there long."

"Any time is too long!"

The turn was coming up fast. Sliding Ana off, Jason leaned forward and set his hand on Rachel's shoulder. She stiffened, but he left his hand light against her. "Please, Rachel," he said, low and desperate. "Please."

"Screw it," she muttered and spun the wheel.

There was a bump as they pulled into the parking lot, jarring his arm. He hissed. Empty police cruisers sat like sentinels around them. Rachel didn't park but turned parallel to the building, car thrumming beneath them as if it were as anxious as she seemed to be.

"You think your detective buddy isn't going to just pull in here right after us?" she hissed.

"A minute ago you said he was mob."

"Oh, shut up."

"Just watch," Jason said. The Chrysler rolled up the same road they had, drawing closer and closer and—

Passed up the turn. It stopped at a crosswalk, allowing a family to meander across the road. The car that had followed them for a hundred miles was now only three hundred feet away. Jason squinted. The sun's glare on the windows made it hard to make the figure out, but he seemed to be alone. The pedestrians made it to the other side of the road. A sun passed over the cloud. Casual as you please, as if he knew Jason could now see him, the man turned and politely raised one dark gloved hand.

And then he drove off.

"Did he just wave at you?" Rachel said.

"That's... what it looked like." His heart thrummed in his chest, and he took a breath to quell it.

They both startled as a knock came on Rachel's window. A police officer stood outside, brow raised expectantly.

"Don't take off," he told Rachel as she tensed. Goodness knew she'd slam on the gas and run over the guy's foot while she was at it. "Just roll down the window."

She shot him a glare in the mirror but hit the button anyway.

The officer peered around the inside of the car. "Something I can help you kids with?"

"Sorry to bother you officer." He let his voice take on a shaky, high tone, like the kids at school who carried around an inhaler more as a safety blanket than a medication. "We thought some creep was following us."

"He waved," Rachel added, her voice all bubblegum pop rather than the gravel and grit he was used to. It was everything Jason could do not to stare at her slack-jawed.

Instead, he nodded several times, as if what she'd said was particularly incriminating evidence. "Yeah, he's been following us for streets now, ever since we pulled out in front of him, and my parents always said—"

"Yeah," the cop said, waving the end of Jason's sentence away. "You did the right thing pulling in here. Probably just a case of road rage. You guys want to file a report?" He crossed his arms and took a step back like he was really, really hoping they didn't.

"You think we should?" Jason asked, glancing back at the road where the Chrysler no longer was.

Rachel turned full body toward him and glared bullets. But her voice was full of juvenile whine when she said, "I thought we were going to go shoppp-ing. I don't wanna be stuck in a precinct all day."

The cop took another step back. "I'm sure you all are fine. Stay safe out there."

"You too!" Jason called, a friendly arm raised, as Rachel rolled the window up. "Do not tear out of here," he murmured to her. "They're not chasing us."

"You think I don't know that?" she hissed back. Her fingers jittered against the wheel, but she eased out of the parking lot, looking both ways twice like she was taking her driving test. She turned the corner and put the police precinct out of sight.

"Hey, Rachel," he said as he leaned back, trying to ease the knots out of his muscles. "You do have a driver's license, right?"

She laughed. "Sure. And you've got a gun license and a paper trail for where all that money came from."