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decent-looking Marriott from the highway and took an exit that said Deming—I guess we were in New Mexico—and pulled into the parking lot, parking a fair distance from the front door. I turned off the engine and sat. After a minute, I responded.
    “My life ended with Karen’s death. I assume you don’t have any children.” She shook her head. “There is no way to explain the deep grief you feel when you lose a child. ‘Shattered’ is the only word that comes to mind, and that doesn’t even come close. I have a gun in my trunk. I had visions of pulling off the highway someplace out here, in an area like this—Texas, New Mexico, or Arizona—of walking into the desert, and ending it. Let the buzzards and desert animals take care of my body. The problem is, there is still a tiny particle of me that wants to stay alive. And I have no idea why. When my money runs out, what am going to do? I can’t go back to my old life, my old career. I never liked it to begin with. I don’t see myself taking a job washing dishes in some small-town diner for the rest of my life, eventually being known as the crazy old guy with the mysterious past. I was hoping my brother could help set me straight when I get up there, but that’s expecting a lot. No, until I met you, I was just running out the string, delaying the inevitable.”
    I paused, then continued, knowing that I had made my decision. “As whacked out as your story is, it gives me some sort of purpose. If you’re telling the truth, and God knows, I think you just might be, is it possible that I might be able to redeem myself in some way for Karen’s death? All I can say is your ‘Voice’ steered you in the right direction when it picked me. I have absolutely nothing left to lose. I’m probably the safest person you could be with.”
    She leaned over and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you.”
    “Okay, here’s how we should do this. I’m afraid you’re going to have to share a room with me. I think you should stay as far off the grid as possible. I don’t know what kind of crazy monitoring equipment they have nowadays, but they could be keeping an eye on hotels. If a guy is traveling alone for days, then he suddenly requests two rooms, or a room for two, it might flag something in their supercomputer. So I’ll get a room for one and bring in all the luggage. Then we can go get some dinner. That sound good?”
    “I’m still not capable of making decisions, so I’ll trust your judgment. I never would have thought about them checking hotel anomalies like that, so I’m comfortable leaving it up to you. In the movies if they are trying to stay anonymous, they pay cash at hotels. Should you do that?”
    “That’s not as easy as it once was. I will pay cash, but I’ll still have to leave my credit card for the deposit. As long as they don’t know who I am, I think I’m okay.”
    I checked in while Jess waited in the car. As they gave me my key card, I heard the name Hillstrom and walked over to the bar, where Brian Williams was on a big screen TV reporting the national news. Staring at me was a 60-inch version of Jess. Luckily, it wasn’t a great picture of her—probably her driver’s license photo—and she looked like about a million other women. I just caught enough of the report to know that the prime suspect was one Jessica Norton. So far they seemed to be concentrating their search in the general DC area, but I knew that would expand nationwide soon. Maybe it already had.
    “Seems like all the good-looking chicks turn out to be murderers,” said the bartender. He was looking at me, and I realized there was no one else in the bar.
    “Makes you not want to date anymore,” I replied.
    “You said it. Can I get you anything?”
    “No thanks. I was just checking out the bar. I’ll probably stop in later. I gotta go bring in my bags.”
    “Okay, see you later.”
    I felt like running to the car, but I restrained myself. When I got there, I said to