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the minor prophets.”
    “This ought to be good,” said Landis, sitting on the edge of the bed to listen. “I’m a sucker for the minor prophets.”
    She closed her eyes. “Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum . . .”
    “Bert, Ernie, and Kermit.” Bernice stood up. “I’m getting you an aspirin.”
    She went into the bathroom and fumbled through her bag. From where he was, Landis could see her reflection in the mirror, her smooth strong arms tanned and pretty against the white of her T-shirt. She came back in with a half tablet in her hand.
    “Don’t you give kids Tylenol?” asked Landis. “I think aspirin might be bad for them.”
    “Ever hear of baby aspirin?” she said.
    “Seems like they just give that to old people.”
    Bernice held the pill in front of Emily’s flushed face. “Anyway,” she said, “this is Tylenol. I just said aspirin.”
    Emily turned her head and looked at Landis for a moment, then brought her attention back to Bernice. She swallowed the half pill, washing it down with water Bernice gave her in a plastic cup.
    “The water tastes bad,” she said.

    Landis got up and peered out the side of the blinds. He could see across the parking lot to the lobby, where a fluorescent light illuminated the Vacancy sign. There were two other cars in the lot, both of which had been there when they’d arrived. He wondered if they belonged to guests, or if they were always there. He tried to put himself in the Hardings’ position. They would have called the police pretty early this morning—Bernice said they got up around eight. The police would have asked who they thought might have taken the child. Would they think of Bernice? It hardly mattered. Even if Landis and Bernice could somehow manage to return Emily without getting caught, the child could identify them.
    “I can get us a Nova, I’m pretty sure,” Landis said. “Then I think maybe we should turn around and take her straight back. Drop her off on the corner, give her a push in the right direction, and run.”
    Bernice stood silently in the middle of the room, her hands in the back pockets of her jeans. “Are you backing out on me?”
    “No, of course I’m not.”
    “Do you think I’m crazy?” she asked.
    “I don’t know. No.”
    “But you think it’s possible, right?” She came over and leaned against the wall beside him. With the air-conditioning off, the room had quickly grown stuffy. The walls were permeated with old cigarette smell. “I need to hear from you that except for the engine blowing up in my car, and for Emily getting sick, this was an OK plan.” She pushed up against him and touched his arm with her hand. “Please? Can you just say that?”
    In the various conversations they’d had about this through the spring and early summer, he’d tried to talk to her about alternatives. The courts, for instance, regardless of the papers she’d signed. But she wouldn’t listen, claimed he didn’t know what he was talking about. “You think knowing how to run a PA system qualifies you to give legal advice?” she’d said.
And then they’d stopped talking about it, except that it was always there, an underlying hum in the system that would not go away. She was the strangest girl he’d ever known, and time and again, he’d thought that if he were smart, he’d have nothing more to do with her. But then he’d see her, with that infectious smile, that look in her eyes that suggested imminent sex, an electric surge that seemed to radiate from her and make everything in her vicinity vibrate. Some days they made love four, five, six times, doing it in her unmade bed and on the floor and just about anyplace, until both of them had reached a point of exhaustion, until Landis was so sore it hurt to button his jeans. But then she’d disappear for a day or two, and he wouldn’t know what to think. He’d feel her absence in his whole body, like a fever. As long as her plans about Emily had remained hypothetical, he