I’m torn between the compulsion to run and the urge to stand still and hope the danger will pass. (Koren Zailckas)

Vincent arrived as scheduled. Rider met him at the docks with a couple of his friends. They moved the crates into three separate trucks and drove them out of town. Vincent drove with Rider in his borrowed pickup truck. They met at the pre-determined spot on a gravel road off the highway in the dessert.

Two crates were unloaded to the waiting Winnebago. They threw the bags of powder into the back. Penny covered the heaps of product in blankets while Tommy settled with the drivers and talked with Vincent who had at the last moment decided to stay with Rider for a little while and would fly back later.

Rider emerged from a car where he had been sitting alone when Penny hopped out of the Winnebago, ready to leave.

“You look cold,” he told Penny.

“I’m fine,” she said. “It’s the desert.”

“Take my jacket,” Rider insisted.

“No, that’s fine – really.”

Rider forced his jacket over her shoulders and whispered, “Keep it.”

She looked at him curiously but didn’t argue.

Tommy and Penny said goodbye and set sail across the country in their Winnebago. A little further on their journey the heat got to Penny and she took off Rider’s coat. She slung it over her seat and if she hadn’t been so nervous about the load they were transporting she could have easily missed the slip of paper that fell out of Rider’s jacket and landed on the floor.

Penny picked it up and unfolded it carefully. Rider’s scribbled handwriting spread across the sliver of paper. The writing was scrawled but the message was clear:

It’s a setup. Vincent is going to screw you over.