Driving the back roads with no specific destination in mind, Rachel had grown accustomed to light traffic and picture-postcard views of rural southern small-town life. She passed a haggard man at a roadside farm market with a sign reading: PEACHES and BOILED PEANUTS. She'd known people like him who had walked the hard road convinced that if they pressed onward day-by-day it would lead them out of ruin. Instead, the road ate them in small bites, the effort of walking diminishing them until they crumbled, believing the delusion that they had lived a life.

She withdrew a few french fries from the paper bag on the passenger seat and brought them to her mouth. For a girl on the run, fast food dining offered several advantages. The food was filling and inexpensive and could be purchased with cash. Drive-thru service sheltered her from the watchful eyes of servers and other customers. But the high grease content and low nutritional value of the food were taking their toll. She had more pressing issues on her mind.

She was tired of sleeping in the car, tired of the raging anxiety every time she opened the trunk. A safety deposit box was not an option. That would require a bank account, which was an impossibility for someone with no social security number or confirmation of identity.

In the past, she could carry a shoebox full of money or a pouch of jewelry in her overnight bag. But not four hundred thousand dollars in twenty and fifty-dollar denominations, weighing nearly forty pounds. Maybe another remote storage locker wasn't such a bad idea. Maybe she could--

A streak of black fur darting across the road triggered a reflexive action that drove her foot down hard on the brake pedal. As her tires screamed, scoring black marks on the roadway, she watched a dog disappear into the field grass.

A young boy in a Little League uniform, his eyes wide, face blanched with panic, gave chase. "Pepper!" he cried. "Pepper, get back here!"

She steered her car to the side of the road.

"Pepper!" he hollered on the verge of tears, tromping through the grass. "Pepper, come!"

"Leave the dog!" A man's voice hollered from a house across the street. "You're gonna be late for your game."

Rachel grabbed the foil-wrapped sandwich from her bag, exited the car, and jogged across the road. The runny-nosed kid didn't notice her until she came up beside him.

She unwrapped her burger. "This always works with my dogs." She gave half of the sandwich to the boy. In a loud, exaggerated voice she cooed, "MMmmmmmmm, this is sooooo good."

Catching onto her ploy he called, "This burger is awesome."

"Crinkle the wrapper," she said. "Mmmmmm." She chewed loudly. "Soooooo good."

The field grass rustled and when the dog emerged, Rachel threw a chunk of meat onto the ground, which Pepper eagerly gobbled up.

"He's a fine-looking boy," she said, scratching the animal's head, his tall black ears laying back against his neck.

"Rickie!" A man shouted from across the street. "Rickie, I said let's go!"

The kid knelt, hand-feeding his dog. "My pa. He's the one let Pepper run." He gripped the dog by the collar and started across the street, meeting his dad at the mailbox, which stood at the end of their rutted driveway.

"Who's that?" his dad asked, watching Rachel drive off. The kid shrugged.

########

After three attempts, Blake was able to navigate the Chevy Tahoe reasonably close to the curb across the street from the Goodwill thrift store. Why anyone would ever need a vehicle the size of a battleship escaped him. And more concerning, the SUV was brashly conspicuous.

He climbed down from the driver's seat and hobbled across the street to the Goodwill, slowing once he reached the sidewalk, feeling light-headed and feverish. He winced and massaged his temples, hoping that it was a combination of the lack of food in his belly and the suffocating heat of the day rather than a fever signaling an infection from a ruptured kidney or a laceration of his liver. A fleeting thought floated its way into his head. Back in Pittsburgh, it was probably snowing.

He pushed open the door of the Goodwill and choked down his nausea, looking like a guy who'd mistaken the thrift store for a soup kitchen. Rows upon rows of racks of second-hand clothes filled the cavernous store.

Reading Blake's expression of bewilderment, a middle-aged woman in a purple cardigan approached. "How can I help you?" she asked.

He felt her eyes drift from his swollen face down to his ravaged shirt and pants. "Do you need medical attention, sir? I could call--"

"I just came from the hospital." He wiped the dampness from his blotchy cheeks.

"And they didn't stitch that eyebrow and--"

"I need a pair of jeans and a shirt," he said.

She pointed toward the back corner of the store. "Your best bet would be to start over in aisle fourteen. If you don't see anything to your liking, we also got some mark-downs in the cut-out bins."

He nodded like he had a clue what she was talking about, then started for aisle fourteen, feeling increasingly queasy.

He found a gray t-shirt that looked like it was practically brand new and a simple GAP denim shirt that showed signs of light wear but for five bucks, he wasn't going to complain. But when it came to jeans, the task became infinitely more challenging. Skater boy jeans that may as well have been yoga pants, ripped jeans, camo, distressed, tie-dyed pants. For God's sake. Were there no just plain men's denim jeans? After circling the racks for the third time, he finally settled on an acceptable pair of acid-washed jeans that were at least three inches too long.

With his selections draped over his arm he made his way toward the checkout counter but stopped short when, through the store's front window, he saw two hulking men checking out the Tahoe then crossing the street toward the Goodwill. They looked like members of a biker gang.

He retreated between the closest racks of clothes, ducking down and watching. A long-haired dude wearing a bandana huddled with a bearded slab of human in a leather jacket.

"Who wears a leather jacket when it's eighty-five degrees in the shade?" Blake wondered, which led to his next thought. It was a rookie move to leave the gun in the car.

When the men paced leisurely toward the back of the store, their wallet chains jingling against their thighs, he took the opportunity to hurry to the checkout.

The woman in the purple cardigan asked, "Did you find everything you need?"

"Yep. Thanks." He raised up on his tip-toes and surveyed the back of the store but he'd lost track of the men.

"We got some nice golf shirts that just came in yesterday." She scanned the price tag on his jeans. "I believe they're in aisle twelve. They'd look sharp with these trousers."

"I'm kinda in a hurry." He reached for his money. "What do I owe you?"

One moment he was breathing Goodwill store air and the next, fighting his gag reflex against the overwhelming pungent odor of perspiration, not run-of-the-mill sweat, but the stench of perspiration pooling between folds of unbathed flesh.

The bearded guy in the leather jacket with the glistening forehead and his long-haired companion advanced in quick strides. Before Blake could react, the checkout clerk said, "Joanna ain't here today, fellas."

The broad shoulders beneath the leather jacket slumped with disappointment.

"Her little one had a doctor's appointment," she said, folding Blake's jeans.

"So she ain't here then." The man scratched the wiry whiskers on his chin, talking past Blake as though he didn't exist.

"Nope. She's gone off to the doctors. She left about an hour ago."

He looked at his companion. "We maybe could wait on her, then." His buddy nodded.

"I expect she's taking her boy on home after the doctors."

He watched her fold the clothes with vacant eyes, a glaring example of human deficiency.

The clerk clarified, not with annoyance but with a tone suggesting that slow repetition was necessary to convey information to these men. "She ain't coming back to work today, fellas. So there just ain't no use waitin' on her. She'll be back tomorrow."

"Tomorrow," said the guy with the bandana. "Alright then." His buddy followed him to the exit.

"Let's see," she said to Blake. "The T is two dollars, five dollars for the denim shirt. You're a good shopper, hon. That's a really good price."

He forced a polite smile, in disbelief that anyone could become accustomed to such noxious body odor but relieved that the men weren't Uncle Geo's proxies.