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dear ex-husband has plans for us. She dreads Edward’s plans, but she’s not afraid.
Nocturnal Animals 4
    ‘You drive,’ the man named Lou said.
    ‘Me?’
    ‘Yeah you.’
    The peculiarity of a stranger’s car, the wounded metal of the screeching door, the driver’s seat with torn seat back, the floor pedals too close. The man handed him the key. Tony Hastings was trembling, frantic with haste, he groped for the ignition. ‘To your right,’ the man said. The car didn’t want to start, and when Tony finally put it in gear it was long since he had driven with a manual shift, and the car stalled.
    There was Lou beside him, the man with the black beard, not saying anything. When Tony finally got going he drove as fast as he could, with plenty of speed in this car, rattling and squealing in the wind, but he knew with despair that mere speed would not catch the tail lights of the other car with their big start.
    The luminous green sign for an exit. He eased up. The second sign specified Bear Valley and Grant Center. ‘This exit?’ he asked.
    ‘I dunno, I guess so.’
    ‘Is this the way to Bailey? Why doesn’t the sign say Bailey?’
    ‘What you want Bailey for?’
    ‘Isn’t that where we’re going? Isn’t that where we’re going to report?’
    ‘Oh yeah, that’s right,’ Lou said.
    ‘Well, is this the way?’ They had come to the beginning of the exit ramp, and were almost stopped.
    ‘Yeah, I guess so.’
    A stop sign. ‘Left or right?’ The road was rural. There was a darkened gas station, and black fields merging into woods.
    It took the man a while to decide. ‘Try right,’ he said.
    ‘I thought Bailey was the nearest town,’ Tony said. ‘How come the signs mention Bear Valley and Grant Center and not Bailey?’
    ‘That’s strange, ain’t it?’ the man said.
    The road was narrow, winding through fields and patches of woods, up and down hills, past occasional darkened farmhouses. Tony drove as fast as he could, hitting the brakes for unexpected curves, chasing a car he could not see, while the distance extended to miles and more miles. In all that time, he met no other cars. They came to a reduced speed sign and another sign, CASPAR, and a small village all dark, nothing open. ‘There’s a telephone booth,’ he said.
    ‘Yeah,’ Lou said.
    He slowed down. ‘Listen,’ he said. ‘Where the hell is Bailey?’
    ‘Keep going,’ the man said.
    A crossroads, a somewhat bigger road, a sign to WHITE CREEK, a cluster of garages and roadside restaurants and stores, all closed. ‘Left,’ Lou said, and they left that settlement behind too. A straightaway, then a fork, one road going down, they took the other, climbing again in hills and woods. ‘There’s the church,’ Lou murmured.
    ‘What?’ It was a small church in a clearing with a little white spire. The woods closed in on both sides of the road. There was a light-colored car parked in a turnout on a curve. It looked like his car, then he was sure, by God. ‘That’s my car!’ he said, and he stopped beyond it.
    ‘Don’t stop on the goddamn curve.’
    ‘That’s my car.’
    Whatever it was, it was empty. There was a lane into the woods and a house trailer above among the trees with a dim light in one of its windows.
    ‘That ain’t your car,’ the man said.
    Tony Hastings tried to back up to look at the license plate, but he had difficulty getting the car in reverse.
    ‘Don’t back on the curve, for Chrissake!’ Tony thought, I haven’t met a single car on the road since we left the Interstate. ‘That ain’t your car. Your car’s a four door.’
    He looked. ‘Isn’t that?’
    ‘What’s the matter with you, can’t you see?’
    Looking, trying to see the car beyond the man sitting on his right, who was telling him the car was not a four door, asking him to look and see for himself – he recognized panic distorting his judgment and perhaps his eyesight, and he resumed driving.
    A winding road making a slow ascent through