Shiver

now. There wasn’t much traffic; it was too late at night. But there was some. Enough to be comforting—and to make her nervous.
    For all she knew the vehicles were full of would-be murderers—or U.S. Marshals. Or both.
    “Hmm,” he murmured.
    “What did you do to get put in the witness protection program, anyway?” Earlier, he’d refused to tell her anything. To keep her safe, he’d claimed. The fact that he was talking now alarmed her. What had happened to the whole if I tell you I’ll have to kill you thing he’d had going on?
    The thought that he considered that she was now so caught up in what was happening that it didn’t make any difference what she knew was too terrifying to contemplate.
    The truck had already sped past the little cluster of light and commerce surrounding the expressway entrance when it occurredto her that it was taking him a long time to reply. Glancing his way, she felt her stomach drop. His eyes were shut again. As bruised as it was, it was hard to be sure, but she thought his face had gone slack.
    Her heart thumped.
    “Hey.” God in heaven, she was so rattled she’d forgotten his name, which he had just told her maybe three minutes before. As the truck rolled past the giant Repent and Turn to Jesus sign that a church group had erected beside the cluster of nudie clubs she was coming up on, she racked her brain. “Marco?”
    That was it. She was sure of it. But he didn’t respond. Didn’t move. Didn’t so much as flicker an eyelash.
    He’d blacked out again.
    “Marco! Rick!”
    Nothing.
    What to do? Stop the truck and attempt to revive him? Hurry on to their destination? Dump him? Okay, that last was out, she couldn’t just stop, open the door, and let him fall from the truck in the condition he was in, but Sam was still torn between the other two when Miss Kitty’s loomed up on her left. A giant neon sign flashed the words Miss Kitty’s above an image of a woman wearing kitty-cat ears and a long feline tail. When the lights outlining it glowed green, she was wearing a pink bikini. When they glowed pink, she was naked. The long, low white brick building below the sign was situated in the middle of a black asphalt parking lot. Its size would have done justice to a shopping mall. Although it was nearly 4:00 a.m., there were stillmaybe two dozen cars parked close to the building. No one was in sight, but Sam circled the parking lot warily, staying to the shadows, keeping to its perimeter.
    Get the hell out of here.
    Every instinct she possessed screamed it. Driving around the back of the parking lot, Sam tried to look in every direction at once. If anyone was there to meet her companion, she couldn’t tell it.
    “Marco.” Reaching over, she tried shoving his shoulder. No response: he was out of it, eyes closed, dead weight.
    Shit.
    Her nerves were going haywire. She was breathing too fast, sweating, looking everywhere, seeing nothing pertinent.
    She shoved him again. “Damn it, Marco—”
    Her voice broke off as she spotted a pair of cars turning into the parking lot, one after the other, moving very fast. Big, dark cars: both Tauruses, she thought, or Saturns, which looked almost the same. Her pulse went into overdrive. Her heart thumped in her chest.
    “Oh, God, it’s them, isn’t it?” She jostled her companion again, with the same result as before. “Marco! You’ve got to wake up.”
    The cars made a beeline toward her. Sam didn’t recall Marco telling Sanders that he would be in a red wrecker, but somehow the cars seemed to know it anyway. Then she got it: the truck was the only other vehicle in the parking lot that was moving, and the only other one with its lights on. They had spotted her as easily as she had spotted them. Fighting back panic, drivingslowly, and hugging the far edge of the parking lot as she conducted a furious internal debate about what best to do, Sam clutched the wheel so hard her fingers hurt as she watched the cars racing toward her. Should she stop, or say to hell with it and try to make a run for it?
    She only had his word that they were U.S. Marshals, after all. Maybe he was wrong. Maybe he was lying. And even if he were right and telling the truth, did she want to get messed up with U.S. Marshals anyway? What would they do with her—and Tyler? What if they tried to whisk her away without her son? Being in their custody meant being under their control.
    Panic tightened her throat, formed a knot in her chest, and quickened