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And sheissuspicious. She got that way as soon as his wallet flopped open in her lap. He knows she saw his driver’s license because she got all nervous immediately after.
Honestly, the only thing that’s gone his way tonight is Charlie’s mental state. He knew she’d be a little messed up. After what she went through, it would be weird if she wasn’t. But this—this was unexpected.
Movies in her mind?
Talk about serendipity.
It allowed him to get out of the sticky situation caused by that game of Twenty Questions. Again, his fault. But he recovered quickly. He’s good at thinking on his feet. He has to be.
When he saw that Charlie was about to jump from the car at the toll plaza, he decided to turn the stereo back on, restart the song, and pretend everything in the previous ten minutes—Twenty Questions, the mention of the tooth, those tense taps on the brakes when that damn state trooper came up behind them—hadn’t really happened.
It was a wild, ridiculous idea. More of a Hail Mary pass than a rational plan. Yet he thinks Charlie really might have bought it. Thank God for small miracles, as his mom used to say.
Opening the Grand Am’s driver’s-side door, he slides behind the wheel and opens the center console. Inside, sitting among the empty plastic case for the Nirvana cassette, a scattering of loose change, and a pack of Juicy Fruit gum with one stick remaining, is his wallet. He grabs it and flips it open, coming face-to-face with his New Jersey license, which bears the same fake name as his New York and Delaware ones. He slides it out of its plastic sleeve, revealing another license behind it.
Pennsylvania.
Jake Collins.
He’d managed to switch them at the toll plaza. While chatting up the woman in the booth, piling on the charm, he had his wallet in hand, swapping out the real license with the fake one. Then he made sure Charlie saw it, hoping that, combined with her own fragile mental state, she’d believe everything else he told her.
And she did.
Possibly.
He’s still worried about what might be going down in that bathroom, what Charlie might be saying to the Oldsmobile chick, what he might need to do because of it.
He gets out of the car, opens the trunk, and shoves aside Charlie’s box and suitcases. He’s certain that when she finds out where they’re really going, Charlie will regret packing so much.
With her belongings out of the way, he grabs the things he wanted to keep her from seeing when he loaded her stuff into the trunk.
His own boxes.
One is cardboard, inside of which are license plates from New York, Delaware, and Pennsylvania. Unlike his driver’s license, he remembered to switch those before heading off to pick up Charlie. He assumed she’d freak out if she didn’t see a New Jersey plate on the car. Turns out she never even looked.
Beneath the license plates are several loops of rope in various lengths. Stuffed into a corner of the box is a white cloth that’s longer than a handkerchief but shorter than a towel.
His trusty gag.
Next to the cardboard box is a metal tool kit. The same one his piece-of-shit dad kept in the garage when he was a kid. Now his dad is dead and the toolbox is his. He opens it and sifts through everything inside, pushing aside the claw hammer, the screwdrivers with their chisel-sharp tips, the pair of pliers.
Finally, he finds what he’s looking for.
A set of handcuffs, the keys to which hang on the keychain in hispocket, and a knife. The knife isn’t big. It’s definitely not a hunting knife, although there’s one of those sitting somewhere inside the toolbox.
This is a classic Swiss Army Knife. Suitable for every occasion and easy to hide.
He takes the cuffs and the knife and shuts the trunk. Before heading to the restrooms, he slides the knife into one front pocket of his jeans and the handcuffs into the other.
He doesn’t want to use them.
But he will if he has to.
ELEVEN P.M.
INT. REST STOP BUILDING—NIGHT
Josh is there when Charlie leaves the bathroom.