got sixty pounds on her easy and a lifetime of working with these hands, and I didn’t even have to shake her loose. She just couldn’t hold me.
“Don’t,” she begged. “You don’t understand. If he comes back and that trunk’s open, he’ll know I tried to run. He’ll know. Please, mister, please.”
“Then he can take it up with me.”
The latch was jammed. Somebody’d messed with it, bent it so it wouldn’t open easy. I got my fingers under the lip of the trunk lid and I pulled, and the old metal groaned and gave.
The little trunk light flickered on.
And inside, curled up against the spare tire, was a little boy.
He couldn’t have been more than four years old. He was wrapped in a dirty blue blanket that had cartoon trucks on it, the kind of blanket a kid loves to pieces. His wrists were
