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Endpapers by heart. “I won’t be coming in today,” she told Roy when he picked up.
    “Okay,” he grumbled, probably thinking of all the actual work he would have to do. “Are you sick?”
    “No. I’m having”—she glanced at Tristan, who raised his eyebrows at her—“uh, family trouble. I need a leave of absence.”
    “How long are we talking?”
    Dawn hesitated. “Indefinite.”
    On the other end of the line, Roy sighed. “This is really last minute, Dawn. I know you’ve worked here five years, but I might have to hire someone to replace you. I can’t guarantee you’ll have a job whenever you decide to come back.”
    “I know. I’m sorry.” She turned her head and whispered rapidly. “Roy, call the p—”
    Tristan jammed a finger down on the receiver. “Nice try.”
    She hung up in defeat and then lifted the phone again to slam it back into the receiver, just because she felt like it. A light touch on her shoulder startled her. She stiffened and turned to face Tristan just as his long fingers pulled slowly away. Wordless, she waited.
    “Time to go,” he said.
    At certain times in her life Dawn had observed in herself an ability to remain detached from unpleasant situations. During her parents’ divorce she had been the picture of composure, while her younger sister had sobbed herself to sleep every night for months. In college she had habitually forgotten important assignments and test times, and she’d just shrugged at her plummeting GPA. She could recognize these things mattered, but her brain refused to engage.
    Maybe she needed to force herself to feel nothing now. She could trick herself into thinking she was perfectly safe driving upstate, or wherever the hell they were going, with a man who looked like a hot drug addict. A man who might kill her at any time.
    “What is it?” Tristan said.
    She’d been staring at him. “Nothing.”
    She fiddled with the rolled, ragged edges of a road atlas stuck between the seats and wondered how often Tristan had done this, just taken off at someone’s request, or on a wanderlust whim. The atlas looked like it had been used a lot, though she hadn’t seen him use it at all since leaving Las Vegas.
    “Have you done a lot of road trips?” she asked tentatively.
    He gave a one-shouldered shrug and didn’t look away from the road. “Not really. The occasional ghost town, if I’m bored.”
    A disconnected, introverted feeling settled into her as she watched the road ahead disappear b eneath the hood. This was someone else’s body, these were someone else’s eyes. Yesterday she’d broken up with her boyfriend, the day before that her best friend had been kidnapped, and the day before that she’d only had to worry about having enough money to pay her half of the rent. Life had been normal. Now Dawn didn’t know what to call it.
    They’d left the 15 some time ago while she’d slept. They drove through the desolate middle of Nevada, past low brown or gray mountains and scrubby desert life. The occasional lone house loomed back on some unmarked, unpaved road. Dawn leaned her head back, elbow propped up by the window, one hand shading her eyes. Her glasses had no tint and her eyes hurt from squinting. There was nothing much to see.
     

 
    T hree
     
    T ristan cranked his window down as they rolled into Ely two hours later. The cooling afternoon air swished across Dawn’s shoulders and through her hair, blowing it into a state of wildness she usually allowed only during the in-between hours of day and night. The sun was beginning to take on the reddish tinge of evening.
    “ I’m tired of driving,” Tristan said. “We’re staying here for the night.”
    He pulled into some random crappy motel right on the highway. Red neon letters announced v acancy. Dawn stood beside Tristan as he checked them in without removing his sunglasses. She wasn’t optimistic about her chances of surviving the night.
    The room had two beds, at least, but that