Page 114 of Graceless

"I took her out of her house and I brought her to a place with no telephone, and she asked me to bring her back and I refused." Level. Flat. No decoration on any of it. "She walked in the cold trying to get home. That is why she is in this car with a hospital bracelet on."

Nina's hands stayed exactly where they were on the wheel. Ten and two. She didn't look at him again. She drove maybe a quarter mile.

"Are you sitting behind me telling me you kidnapped her."

"Yes."

"Cate."

"He did," I said.

"And you're—" she checked the mirror, checked me, checked the road, "—you're sitting in my car with him."

"Yes."

"Because?"

"Because it's not what it sounds like," I said. "And because I can't tell you what it is."

"Try."

"Nina—"

"Try, Cate. Four days. Try."

"There are people who might come for me." It was the smallest true thing I had. "Being near him is dangerous. That's why he did it. He was wrong — he was wrong in the worst way anybody has ever been wrong with me, and he knows it — but he wasn't wrong about that part."

Nina's chin came up.

"What people."

"I can't."

"Are they coming to my house?"

"No."

"Are my kids in this? Cate. Look at me. Is Gina in this?"

"No. God, no. Nina, no."

"Then what people." Her voice was climbing. "Who is coming for you?"

"I can't⁠—"

"Not you." Her eyes went to the mirror and stayed there. "Him. You. Back seat. Who is coming for her?"

Silence from behind me.

"Oh, no. No, no. You had plenty to say twenty minutes ago." She checked the mirror again, and the road, and the mirror. "You sat behind me and told me you kidnapped my best friend like you were reading me a delivery order. So finish it. Who?"

"People who are not going to find her," he said.

"That's not an answer."

"It is the only one I have."

"Then here's mine." She had both hands on the wheel and she did not look back again. "From where I'm sitting, a man who takes a woman out of her house to a place with no phone is not the guy who protects her from the dangerous people. He is the dangerous people."