No Regrets

nervous, but the man kept talking to her—explaining that they were headed for Reno. He jingled change in his pocket as he said they were going “gambling.”
    Kari said what John had told her to say: that her brother-in-law had dropped them off outside the airport.
    “I thought they were having an affair,” the Hertz clerk said later, “and that was why they seemed so anxious.”
    The woman showed her a credit card in the name of Ben Lindholm (which the clerk noted did not match the name “John” that the man had given her).
    The woman began to write a personal check for the car, saying, “It’s OK—he knows about this.”
    That made the Hertz representative believe even more that these two were sneaking away for a stolen weekend. “John” was being absolutely charming and charismatic, babbling on about how he and “the wife” were going to have a fabulous holiday in Reno. Still, when Kari handedher check over, the clerk told her she couldn’t accept the check. She had to have something with Kari’s name on it.
    Kari glanced at John, and he seemed perfectly at ease, playing his role as her husband. Kari had her Chevron Travelers’ Card, and the woman behind the counter said that would do. Kari knew it was out of date, and she hoped the clerk would notice that and at least call her manager or
someone.
Any other time she would have, but this time, she was distracted by John’s rapid-fire conversation. The clerk didn’t care who they were or what their relationship was—as long as their credit was good.
    Although Kari darted her eyes around the rental car area, she didn’t see anyone she could run to for help; at this time of day, it was virtually deserted. If she screamed, she would only endanger the Hertz clerk. The two women would have no chance of overpowering John, not with his knife just beneath his sweater. As far as finding a place to hide in, there was nothing, no stairwell or cubbyhole or door she could rush through and shut behind her. The moment John realized she was trying to escape, she would be as good as dead.
    She gave up for the moment. Maybe she would get another chance at their next stop.
    Soon, they were out of the airport and headed toward the red and white Thunderbird that John had selected. Once more, Kari wondered about his common sense; it wasn’t an inconspicuous car. It was a dumb choice for someone who wanted to avoid the police.
    “You drive,” John ordered. “I don’t have a driver’s license. Mike will follow us in your car until we find a place to ditch it.”
    She almost laughed. John had already broken a number of laws that were far more serious than driving without avalid license. But she didn’t argue; she climbed behind the wheel and put a shaky foot on the accelerator.
    “We headed back toward the river,” Kari remembers. “It was about ten miles away from the airport, and we were on the road that ran beside the river again. John told me to take a road off to the right, but I missed it, and had to turn around. We were in a farming area and he finally told me to pull the car off the dirt road next to some kind of abandoned structure, with a lot of trees around. I knew that they were probably going to kill me at that point and stuff my body in the trunk of my car.
    “John told me to get my belongings out of my car. There was no one around, not a person, not a car, for miles.”
    She wondered if this was to be the “field” where they would “drop her off.” Or if they were going to lock her in her car trunk. In California in September, under a hot sun, she would suffocate in there before anyone found her.
    And then, just as Kari accepted she was about to die, she was surprised to hear John order her into the rental car. She sat in the middle of the front seat between Mike and John—who had changed his mind about the dangers of not having a license and was now driving.
    The men seemed to have relaxed a bit, now that they had another car, and, seemingly, a new identity. But Kari was still full of dread. “My life depended on my getting that three hundred dollars for them.”
    Kari had homed in on their predictable behavior, but that didn’t make her feel much safer. Their pattern of response was up and down, and back and forth. But she figured they needed her at
least
until she got the money for them. They were leery of going in to cash a check without her. As she tried to lull John and Mike into believing they could trusther, Kari found herself