The interstate skirts the western edge of downtown. The Willis Tower and its brood of lesser skyscrapers glow with a serene warmth against the night.
Through the writhing panic and fear, my mind races, fighting to puzzle out what’s happening.
My address is in the GPS. So this wasn’t a random encounter. This man has been following me. Knows me. Ergo, some action of mine has resulted in this outcome.
But which?
I’m not rich.
My life isn’t worth anything beyond its value to me and to my loved ones.
I’ve never been arrested, never committed a crime.
Never slept with another man’s wife.
Sure, I flip people off in traffic on occasion, but that’s just Chicago.
My last and only physical altercation was in the sixth grade when I punched a classmate in the nose for pouring milk down the back of my shirt.
I haven’t wronged anyone in the meaningful sense of the word. In a manner that might have culminated with me driving a Lincoln Navigator with a gun pointed at the back of my head.
I’m an atomic physicist and professor at a small college.
I don’t treat my students, even the worst of the bunch, with anything but respect. Those who have failed out of my classes failed because they didn’t care in the first place, and certainly none of them could accuse me of ruining their lives. I go out of my way to help my students pass.
The skyline dwindles in the side mirror, falling farther and farther away like a familiar and comforting piece of coastline.
I venture, “Did I do something to you in the past? Or someone you work for? I just don’t understand what you could possibly want from—”
“The more you talk, the worse it will be for you.”
For the first time, I realize there’s something familiar in his voice. I can’t for the life of me pinpoint when or where, but we’ve met. I’m sure of it.
I feel the vibration of my phone receiving a text message.
Then another.
And another.
He forgot to take my phone.
I look at the time: 9:05 p.m.
I left my house a little over an hour ago. It’s Daniela no doubt, wondering where I am. I’m fifteen minutes late, and I’m never late.
I glance in the rearview mirror, but it’s too dark to see anything except a sliver of the ghost-white mask. I risk an experiment. Taking my left hand off the steering wheel, I place it in my lap and count to ten.
He says nothing.
I put my hand back on the wheel.
That computerized voice breaks the silence: Merge right onto the Eighty-Seventh Street exit in four-point-three miles.
Again, I take my left hand slowly off the wheel.
This time, I slide it into the pocket of my khaki slacks. My phone is buried deep, and I just barely touch it with my index and pointer fingers, somehow managing to pinch it between them.
Millimeter by millimeter, I tug it out, the rubber case catching on every fold of fabric, and now a sustained vibration rattling between my fingertips—a call coming in.
When I finally work it free, I place my phone faceup in my lap and return my hand to the steering wheel.
As the navigation voice updates the distance from our upcoming turn, I shoot a glance down at the phone.
There’s a missed call from “Dani” and three texts:
DANI 2m ago
Dinner’s on the table
DANI 2m ago
Hurry home we are STARVING!
DANI 1m ago
You get lost? :)
I refocus my attention on the road, wondering if the glow from my phone is visible from the backseat.
The touchscreen goes dark.
Reaching down, I click the ON/OFF button and swipe the screen. I punch in my four-digit passcode, click the green “Messages” icon. Daniela’s thread is at the top, and as I open our conversation, my abductor shifts behind me.
I clutch the wheel with both hands again.
Merge right onto the Eighty-Seventh Street exit in one-point-nine miles.
The screensaver times out, auto-lock kicks in, my phone goes black.
Shit.
Sliding my hand back down, I retype the passcode and begin tapping out the most important text of my life, my index finger clumsy on the touchscreen, each word taking two or three attempts to complete as auto-correct wreaks havoc.
The barrel of the gun digs into the back of my head.
I react, swerving into the fast lane.
“What are you doing, Jason?”
I straighten the wheel with one hand, swinging us back into the slow lane as my other hand lowers toward the phone, closing in on Send.
He lunges between the front seats, his gloved hand reaching around my waist, snatching the phone away.
Merge right onto the Eighty-Seventh Street exit in five hundred feet.
“What’s your passcode, Jason?” When I don’t respond, he says, “Wait. I bet I know this. Month and year of your birthday backwards? Let’s see…three-seven-two-one. There we go.”
In the rearview mirror, I see the phone illuminate his mask.
He reads the text he stopped me from sending: “ ‘1400 Pulaski call 91…’ Bad boy.”
I veer onto the interstate off-ramp.
The GPS says, Turn left onto Eighty-Seventh Street and proceed east for three-point-eight miles.
We drive into South Chicago, through a neighborhood we have no business setting foot in.
Past rows of factory housing.
Apartment projects.
Empty parks with rusted swing sets and netless basketball hoops.
Storefronts locked up for the night behind security gates.
Gang tagging everywhere.
He asks, “So do you call her Dani or Daniela?”
My throat constricts.
Rage and fear and helplessness burgeoning inside of me.
“Jason, I asked you a question.”
“Go to hell.”
He leans close, his words hot in my ear. “You do not want to go down this path with me. I will hurt you worse than you’ve ever been hurt in your life. Pain you didn’t even know was possible. What do you call her?”
I grit my teeth. “Daniela.”
“Never Dani? Even though that’s what’s on your phone?”
I’m tempted to flip the car at high speed and just kill us both.
I say, “Rarely. She doesn’t like it.”
“What’s in the grocery bag?”
“Why do you want to know what I call her?”
“What’s in the bag?”
“Ice cream.”
“It’s family night, right?”
“Yeah.”
In the rearview mirror, I see him typing on my phone.
“What are you writing?” I ask.
He doesn’t respond.
We’re out of the ghetto now, riding through a no-man’s-land that doesn’t even feel like Chicago anymore, with the skyline nothing but a smear of light on the far horizon. The houses are crumbling, lightless, and lifeless. Everything long abandoned.
We cross a river and straight ahead lies Lake Michigan, its black expanse a fitting denouement of this urban wilderness.
As if the world ends right here.
And perhaps mine does.
Turn right and proceed south on Pulaski Drive for point-five miles to destination.
He chuckles to himself. “Wow, are you in trouble with the missus.” I strangle the steering wheel. “Who was that man you had whisky with tonight, Jason? I couldn’t tell from outside.”