With the rifle case in the trunk of my car I had my handy set of bolt cutters, and in my purse I had a box cutter, which I’d carried there, for sentimental reasons, since the day the planes flew into the towers. I could cut myself a little with it sometimes, in dull moments and discreetly, inside my upper arm or the concavity under my hip bone.

Except for that I hadn’t packed. I had cards in my purse and a little cash. It hadn’t seemed wise to go into the trailer.

What would Pauley do? I thought confusedly, driving south on 93. Back in the day I knew how to steal cars, but twenty-first-century cars were too complicated. Computer chips, alarms, all that.

I stopped at a roadhouse near I-40, pulling deep into a big parking lot. Bass sounds throbbed from the windowless pillbox. Even money no one would come back soon. I broke the tip of the box cutter twice, changing plates with the car next to mine, but it didn’t matter much since I had plenty of spare blades.