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Dinah

One week later

“Three letters. Flightless bird.” I say the clue out loud for his benefit as I write it in: E-M-U.

Joe takes a bite of his sandwich as he eyes the puzzle. We are side by side in the booth, our shoulders touching, elbows brushing as we eat. I am on the right side so I can write without poking him, and every once in a while, his knee bumps against mine underneath the table.

Each touch gives me a jolt of giddiness. When my mom told me our spark would die after a few months of marriage, she’d never been so wrong.

“Want my fries?” I ask, noticing that he’s eaten all his.

“No.” He picks up his tea and rattles the ice, then takes a sip.

I try not to react at the lack of a thank you at the end of his response. It’s punishment. He’s making it as clear as he can that he is still mad at me. It’s fine; I didn’t expect instant forgiveness. After all, I’ve uprooted our entire life.

He’s of the staunch opinion I should have let him kill Jessica in the house.

If I had, we wouldn’t be road-tripping through Central America, our entire life left back in California.

He doesn’t understand why I stopped him, and I don’t understand why it doesn’t occur to him that a mother—even an estranged mother who never had a relationship with her daughter—might not want to see that daughter killed.

Yes, I was about to kill her myself, but would I have gone through with it? Maybe I wouldn’t have. A week out from the event, I’m thinking that I had hesitated. That my motherly instincts were starting to kick in and that I would have set down the scalpel and walked away.

And yes, I am responsible for us uprooting our lives, but I had a reason to be mad at him also. He was brushing all his actions to the side, diminishing them in the light of my exposed secrets, but I haven’t forgotten everything he has said or done to me.

A black SUV pulls into the parking lot and parks beside a big dusty bus.

I watch it as I take a bite of a chicken tender with too much breading.

So far, the food sucks, but maybe that’s what we get, ordering like a bunch of Americans.

I’ll reserve judgment until after we are settled in Costa Rica and have a chance to sample all local cuisines.

“Forty-six down is befuddled .” Joe chews, then wipes the corner of his mouth with a brown paper napkin.

I move my pen to the spot without checking the clue and write it in.

Trust in your partner is crucial, which is why I understand that my deceit is hard for him to overcome or forgive.

It will take time, but that’s okay because we have lots of it now.

No cases on my end. No patients or students on his.

Nothing but the empty road and three more stops before Costa Rica.

I reach over and touch his hand. He pulls it away and I sigh, then look back at the crossword.

“Mr. and Mrs. Marino?”

There is an officer standing at the table, and I look away from him and out the window, and that’s when I see a row of local police cars, all parked at various angles, their noses pointing toward the restaurant.

On the edge, there’s a black SUV, two suits standing beside it, and I bet my platter of chicken tenders that they are Feds.

It’s a scene I’ve been in a number of times, only in those incidents, I was the one in the uniform, on the periphery, watching as the Feds swooped in on a guilty target.

I wait for the panic to swell, my body to stiffen, my fight-or-flight instincts to flare to life, but instead I feel a deflation of everything in my soul.

It is over. We are not going to Thelma & Louise our way out of this. Death is not worth the escape, and Joe and I are not built for combat. We fight with our brains, not our brawn, and this scenario is on our extension escape plan.

If cornered, if caught, surrender. Let the lawyers and the loopholes get us out. Don’t confess to anything. Don’t say anything. Keep your mouth shut, and let our money work.

“Joe.” I nudge my husband with my elbow, pulling his attention away from the officer and to the view out the window. “Look.”

And just that quickly, our run comes to an end.

I reach over and grab hold of his hand, and this time, he doesn’t pull it away.

He turns his palm over and squeezes, and our eyes meet across the table, and it’s just like the first time I met him, in his office, on the ninth floor of the west-department tower.

That solid, reassuring, warm look that told me everything was going to be all right.