“Ma-” Her mother was reaching her crescendo. Why don’t you just come home? You don’t come home enough. What are you, ashamed of me? There’s nothing wrong with being a secretary, you know. Not all young ladies get the wonderful opportunity to go off to college…

“Ma! Listen, I gotta run.”

Silence. Now she was in trouble. Worse than her mother’s lectures was her mother’s silence.

“Betsy’s out in the car,” Tina tried. “But I love you, Ma. I’ll call you tomorrow night. I promise.”

She wouldn’t. They both knew it.

“Well, if anything, I’ll call you by the weekend.” That was more like it. On the other end of the phone, her mother sighed. Maybe she was mollified. Maybe she was still hurt. With her, it was always hard to know. Tina’s father had walked out when she was three. Her mother had been going at it alone ever since. And, yeah, she was bossy and anxious and downright dictatorial on occasion, but she also worked ferociously to get her only daughter into college.

She tried hard, worked hard, loved hard. And Tina knew that more than anything in the world, her mother worried it still wouldn’t be enough.

Tina cradled the phone closer to her damp ear. For a moment, in the silence, she was tempted. But then her mother sighed again, and the moment passed.

“Love you,” Tina said, her voice softer than she intended. “Gotta run. Talk to you soon. Bye.”

Tina dropped the phone back on the receiver before she changed her mind, grabbed her oversized canvas bag and headed out the door. Outside, Betsy sat in her cute little Saab convertible, her face also shiny with sweat and gazing at her questioningly.

“Ma,” Tina explained and plunked her bag in the backseat.

“Oh. You didn’t…”

“Not yet.”

“Coward.”

“Totally.” Tina didn’t bother opening the passenger-side door. Instead she perched her rump up on the edge of the car, then slid down into the deep, beige leather seat. Her long legs stuck up in the air. Ridiculously high brown cork sandals. Hot-pink toenails. A small red ladybug tattoo her mother didn’t know about yet.

“Help me, I’m melting!” Tina told her friend in a dramatic voice as she threw the back of her hand against her forehead. Betsy finally smiled and put the car into gear.

“Tomorrow it’s supposed to be even hotter. By Friday, we’ll probably break one hundred.”

“God, just kill me now.” Tina straightened up, self-consciously checked the knot holding her heavy blond hair, and then fastened her seat belt. Ready for action. In spite of her lighthearted tone, however, her expression was too somber, the light gone out of her blue eyes and replaced now by four weeks of worry.

“Hey, Tina,” Betsy said after a moment. “It’s going to be all right.”

Tina forced herself to turn around. She picked up Betsy’s hand. “Buddy system?” she asked softly.

Betsy smiled at her. “Always.”

The sun setting was one of the most beautiful sights in the world to him. The sky glowed amber, rose, and peach, firing the horizon with dying embers of sunlight. Color washed across the clouds like strokes of an artist’s brush, feathering white cumulus billows with iridescent hues from gold to purple to finally-inevitably-black.

He had always liked sunsets. He remembered his mother bringing him and his brother out to the front porch of the rickety shack every evening after dinner. They would lean against the railing and watch the sun sink behind the distant rim of mountains. No words were spoken. They learned the reverent hush at an early age.

This was his mother’s moment, a form of religion for her. She would stand alone, in the western corner of the porch, watching the sun descend, and for a brief moment, the lines would soften in her face. Her lips would curve into a slight smile. Her shoulders would relax. The sun would slip beneath the horizon and his mother would sigh long and deep.

Then the moment would end. His mother’s shoulders would return to bunched-up tension, the worry lines adding ten years to her face. She would usher them back into the house and return to her chores. He and his brother would do their best to help her, all of them careful not to make too much noise.

It wasn’t until he was much older, nearly an adult, that the man wondered about these moments with his mom. What did it say about her life that she relaxed only when the sun eased down and signaled the end of the day? What did it mean that the only time she seemed happy was when daylight drew its last gasping breath?

His mother had died before he could ask her these questions. Some things, he supposed, were for the best.

The man walked back into his hotel room. Though he’d paid for the night, he planned on leaving in the next half hour. He wouldn’t miss this place. He didn’t like structures built out of cement, or mass-produced rooms with only one window. These were dead places, the modern-day version of tombs, and the fact that Americans were willing to pay good money to sleep in these cheaply constructed coffins defied his imagination.

He worried sometimes that the very fakeness of a room like this, with its garish comforter, particle-board furniture, and carpet made with petroleum-based fibers would penetrate his skin, get into his bloodstream and he’d wake up one morning craving a Big Mac.

The thought frightened him; he had to take a moment to draw deep breaths. Not a good idea. The air was foul, rank with fiberglass insulation and plastic ficus trees. He rubbed his temples furiously, and knew he needed to leave more quickly.

His clothes were packed in his duffel bag. He had just one thing left to check.

He wrapped his hand in one of the bathroom towels, reached with his covered hand beneath the bed, and slowly pulled out the brown attaché case. It looked like any other business briefcase. Maybe full of spreadsheets and pocket calculators and personal electronic devices. His, however, wasn’t.

His carried a dart gun, currently broken down, but easy to reassemble in the field. He checked the inside pocket of the attaché case, pulled out the metal box, and counted the darts inside. One dozen hits, preloaded with five hundred and fifty milligrams of ketamine. He had prepared each dart just this morning.

He returned the metal box and pulled out two rolls of duct tape, heavy duty, followed by a plain brown paper bag filled with nails. Beside the duct tape and nails, he kept a small glass bottle of chloral hydrate. A backup drug, which thankfully he’d never had to use. Next to the chloral hydrate, he had a special insulated water bottle he’d been keeping in the minibar freezer until just fifteen minutes ago. The outside of the container froze, helping keep the contents cool. That was important. Ativan crystallized if not kept refrigerated.

He felt the bottle again. It was ice cold. Good. This was his first time using this system and he was a little nervous. The plastic drinking bottle seemed to do the trick, though. The things you could buy for $4.99 from Wal-Mart.

The man took a deep breath. He was trying to remember if he needed anything else. It had been a while. Truth be told, he was nervous. Lately, he’d been struggling a bit with dates. Things that happened a long time ago seemed bright as day, whereas yesterday’s events took on a hazy, dreamlike quality.

Yesterday, when he had arrived here, three years ago blazed in his mind with vivid, Technicolor detail. This morning, however, things already started to fade and curl at the edges. He was worried that if he waited much longer, he’d lose the memories altogether. They’d disappear into the black void with his other thoughts, his nonflaming thoughts, and he’d be left sitting at the edges again, waiting helplessly for something, anything, to float to the top.

Crackers. Saltines. And water. Gallon jugs. Several of them.