The Highway Kind(22)

“Okay,” he said suddenly. “Here.” He walked over to the front desk. The woman working behind it was there almost every night when Caro left, but they’d never spoken, and Caro didn’t know the woman’s name. The man took out his wallet. “Here’s my driver’s license,” he said to the woman working the desk, laying the piece of plastic down on the high counter between them. “And here’s my business card. See? That’s me. Chris Mitchell. Matches my name on the room, right?”

“I guess so,” the woman said. She was much older than Caro. Her eyes flicked back and forth between Caro and the man, suspiciously.

“And you already have my license number and my credit card and everything, don’t you?”

“Yeah.”

He looked at Caro. “So if something happens to you while you’re with me, they’ll know exactly who I am. Hell,” he added, turning to the clerk again, “if I’m not back in an hour, call the cops straight off, okay? Just to be on the safe side.”

Caro bit back a smile. He saw. She saw him seeing.

“Let me give you a ride,” he said. “That’s it. I promise.”

She thought about it for another second. “Fine,” she said.

The woman behind the desk shook her head.

It really was cold outside and Caro was shivering by the time he turned the engine on. His car was new, like his phone and his haircut. It smelled faintly of coconut and was very clean. There were a few coffee cups on the floor mats and a stack of CDs tucked into the console, but no fast-food wrappers, no dirty shirts balled up in the backseat. “The thing is,” he said, turning the heat up, “I wouldn’t want my daughter walking around this late at night in this weather either. Where do you live?”

“Why did you say an hour?” she said.

“Because I don’t know where you live,” he said patiently. “I mean, I’m assuming that if you walk, it’s relatively close. But I don’t know that. I’d like to help you out and all, but I don’t actually want to get picked up by the police on suspicion of kidnapping.”

“Not to mention the fact that I’m a minor,” she said.

He grimaced. “Even more reason for me to get you home safe. Where’s home?”

“You know where Main Street is?” He nodded. “Drive down Main Street and then take a left at the junior high.”

The car was beginning to warm up. As he pulled out of the hotel parking lot, she saw the streets were almost deserted. To get to Main Street he had to drive by the car, her car—no, not her car, never her car. It was there and gone in a flash of white, which seemed appropriate.

“That’s the car I was saving for,” she said. “We just drove past it.”

“How much do you need?”

“A thousand dollars.”

“That’s not too bad.”

“Might as well be a million.”

“How much do you have?”

“Right now? This minute?” She thought for a moment, subtracted the electricity bill, subtracted groceries. “A hundred and fifty.”

“That’s not much for a girl who works two jobs and lives at home.”

“Yeah, well,” she said. “I chip in.”

“Ah,” he said. “Would you like me not to ask any more questions about that?”

“Good instinct.” She flipped through his CDs. “So what’s your deal? Where do you live?”

“Outside Cleveland.”

“Vague.”

“I have a nice split-level house and a wife named Lisa.”

“Kids?”

“Not unless you count Kermit.”

“The frog?”

“The Havanese.”

“What’s a Havanese?”

“It’s the national dog of Cuba.”

“Little? Big?”

“Little. Fluffy.”

“Yappy?”

“Ours isn’t.”

“You don’t seem like a little-fluffy-dog guy.”

“What kind of dog guy do I seem like?”

Caro didn’t know much about dogs. “The dog-food-commercial kind. The ones that catch Frisbees.”

“Well, Kermit is great, but—yeah, that’s more my type,” he said. “Lisa has allergies, though.”

“How does she feel about you traveling so much?”

He shrugged. “She doesn’t love it. But she likes the money. It’s the way our life is, that’s all. So, does my answering all these questions mean I’m allowed to ask you some?”

“I’m just trying to get to know the stranger who’s driving me home,” she said. “There’s the junior high, up ahead.”

He turned. “I’ll tell you what,” he said. “You’ve piqued my curiosity. I’ll ask. You don’t have to answer. You live with your parents?”

“My mom.”

“What about your dad?”

“Have you ever heard the term sperm donor used in this context?”

“Got it. Your mom doesn’t work?”

She didn’t answer.

“Two jobs, plus high school,” he said. “Don’t you get tired?”