Adam caught Owen by the back of his jacket. Owen turned, dragging Nina with him. Adam pulled again. The fabric tightened across Owen's chest, and he let go of Nina to drive an elbow behind him.
Adam hit the edge of the door. It banged against the wall. Owen drove a knee into his thigh, and Adam's right leg folded beneath him. He caught the frame with one hand.
“Get them out,” he said.
Beth already had Theo by the sleeve. He ducked out of her grasp to snatch the camera from the floor, then followed her. Nina reached for Adam. He shook his head and shoved Owen toward the bed. They caught each other around the shoulders like two men trying not to fall.
“Nina. Go.”
She went down the steps after Beth. The car was still running. Nina climbed behind the wheel, pushed the seat forward and put her foot on the brake. Beth pulled Theo into the back. He was trying to put on a shoe with the camera trapped beneath his arm.
“Drive,” Beth said.
Nina looked up at the room.
Adam came backward through the door. Owen had a fistful of his shirt. Adam jerked away, leaving a pale strip hanging from Owen's hand, and nearly went down on the stairs. His foot skidded off a step before he got it beneath him again. Owen stopped at the top.
“That's it, then,” he called.
Adam didn't look back. He reached the car, pulled the passenger door open and lowered himself onto the seat with his right leg still out. Nina put the car in reverse. He grabbed the dashboard, and she braked long enough for him to get his foot in.
Owen had started down the stairs. Nina backed into the space behind them, turned too sharply and drove over the low curb at the lot's exit. Theo made a sound as the car landed.
At the first intersection Adam said, “Left.”
She went right.
Two blocks later she pulled into a busy service station and stopped where she could see the entrance. A van went past. Another car turned in, went to a pump and stopped. Nobody followed them to the edge of the lot.
Beth was holding Theo by both shoulders. He pushed one of her hands away.
“I'm fine.”
“Let me see.”
“He didn't touch me.”
Nina took out her phone and called for help. She gave the lodging address, Owen's name, what he had done and where they were now. The woman on the line asked about injuries, immediate danger, the car he might be driving. Nina looked at Adam; he supplied a description without trying to take the phone. Beth corrected the color of the jacket. Theo said Owen had grabbed his mother's bag first.
Each of them had seen a different beginning. Nina made herself stop supplying all of them.
When the call ended, she looked at Beth through the mirror. “I have an officer's number too. The one I spoke to about Martin. I'm calling him.”
“Call.”
She did. This time he answered. She told him what had happened and that she'd already reported the assault. He asked to speak to Beth. Nina held out the phone and got out of the car.
She stood beside the pump island with her palms flat against her thighs. Her wrist was sore. She could see the place where Owen's thumb had pressed and had an unreasonable urge to rub the shape away.
Adam opened his door. She looked over, ready to tell him to stay put, but he only set his foot down and took a breath before bringing his weight onto it. Then he stood beside the car, one hand on the roof.
“You should get that looked at,” she said.
“I will.”
She didn't offer to help him stand. A woman filling a truck nearby looked from him to Nina, then continued watching the pump. It was comforting, the ordinary possibility of being seen.
Beth wound down her window and passed out the phone.
“He said we can come in.”
“Yes.”
“I need to get Theo settled first.”
“Do you want to go somewhere together?”
Beth looked at Adam. “Not with him.”
“Then I'll take you.”
“I need a room for a little while. He's shaking.”
Theo turned his face toward the far window. “I'm cold.”
Beth put her hands in her lap. Nina saw her close them, then open them. They had somewhere they could go. Having somewhere didn't mean her son could instantly make the trip.
“There's a place near here,” Nina said. “You can pick. Or we go straight in. Either way.”
Beth looked down at Theo's bare ankle above the shoe he'd still failed to fasten. “A room. Then someone takes him.”
The room opened onto a walkway, with a window facing the lot. Beth paid cash. Nina waited outside with Theo while Adam leaned against the car. His right foot rested lightly on the pavement, taking little weight.
Theo turned the camera over. One corner was scraped. He put his eye to the small screen, lowered it, tried again.
“Does it work?” Nina asked.
“I don't know yet.”
She waited.
“Is the battery seated?” Adam asked from beside the car.
Theo put the camera into his coat.
Adam looked away.
Beth came back with a key. She let Theo in, then stood across the doorway.
“You're staying out here,” she told Adam.
“I will.”
“And you're not calling anybody.”
He held out his phone. She didn't take it.
“I don't want your stuff.”
He set it on the window ledge and moved away.
Beth looked at Nina. There was a red mark near her collar where the bag handle had caught her. “I need a minute with my son.”
The door closed. Through it Nina could hear a low voice, then Theo's louder one: “I know. I was there.”
She looked toward the street. A car slowed, found a space across from them and parked. She let herself watch until the driver got out with a bag of groceries and went upstairs.
Adam folded the torn part of his shirt against a cut on his ear. He'd run out of useful things to do. She could almost feel him looking for another one.
The room door opened again. Beth came out, shutting it softly behind her.
“You said your sister.”
“What?”
“Yesterday. He said your sister knew you were at the party. Would she take Theo? To the district. I need someone who isn't you or him.”
Nina took out her phone. “I can ask.”
“Tell her I'm asking. Not you.”
She did. Iris listened, asked what she was agreeing to and then asked to speak with Beth. Nina handed over the phone and moved away. No coaching, no account of what Beth would say if Iris only understood the whole thing. Her sister would have to hear a person she'd never met. Nina would have to allow that person to ask differently.
Adam watched the phone move between them. He didn't speak.
When Beth returned it, she said Iris was coming. She gave Nina no further details. Nina didn't ask.
The door closed again. Nina crossed to the car.
“Last night,” she said to Adam. “The invitation.”
He looked past her at the room.
“Beth's not answering for you.”
“I know.”
Three rooms down, someone had propped a door open with a sneaker. A television was on inside. A man in socks crossed the opening carrying a mug. Nina watched him for a moment, trying to remember how it felt to walk through a room with nothing worse waiting than a drink going cold.
“Who sent me the cancellation?”
“I don't know who actually sent it.”
She waited.
He looked at her. “Vivian arranged it.”
From the room came the scrape of furniture. Nina thought of Theo trying to make space for his broken little town.
“Why?”
Adam rubbed his hands against his trousers. “She wanted me to meet you.”
“Then why cancel it?”
He didn't speak.
“For me,” Nina said. “Why cancel it for me?”
“So we'd be alone.”
“An open house with one person invited.”
“It was a viewing. Your appointment.”
“We called it an open house at our wedding.”
He looked down. “The cancellation went out just before you were due. We thought you'd be on your way.”
“And if I'd read it?”
“I'd have had to find another way to meet you.”
The television down the walkway got louder. Somebody was winning something. Nina heard applause.
“You were waiting for me.”
“Yes.”
“You weren't late.”
“No.”
Rain on his jacket, his hair dripping onto his collar. He had come up the steps shaking his head, holding out a phone with its dark screen. She'd shown him the message on hers. He had leaned beside her to read it.
“Your phone wasn't dead.”
“No.”
The stupid physical closeness of the memory. His shoulder against hers under the narrow roof. She had liked his hands first, how he held the phone at its edges without taking it away from her.
“Did you have a key?”
He lowered his head.
“Adam.”
“Yes.”
She stepped back. He moved, and stopped himself.
“I had a job offer,” she said.
He looked sick. That was how she knew, before he answered.
“She said you were leaving. Unless something changed.”
Nina looked toward the door of the room. Behind it a woman and a boy were deciding how to get through their day. She wanted to go in there, shut him out, borrow the problem that made sense.
Instead she said, “How much?”