The Three-Day Affair Read Online Free PDF Page A

touch me!” She yanked her hands away.
    “Take it easy,” Nolan said. “Nobody’s going to hurt you.”
    “You
kidnapped
me!” Her eyes were wild. I couldn’t stop looking into the rearview mirror. A car blared its horn at me for drifting into the oncoming lane.
    “Jeffrey,” Nolan said, “what in God’s name—”
    “I had to take her,” Jeffrey said. “I swear—now wait a minute. Just listen to me for a second. Just listen. The thing is, I’m flat broke.”
    This was either a brazen lie or an astonishing revelation. Either way, I couldn’t have cared less.
    “What’s your point?” Nolan asked.
    “My point?” Jeffrey sounded offended. “Didn’t you hear me? I lost it all! You can’t imagine—”
    “The girl,” Nolan said. “Connect this to
her
.”
    “Connect?”
    “Why is she in our fucking car?”
    “She would’ve called the police,” Jeffrey said, as if this made perfect—or any—sense.
    “What am I missing?” Nolan asked.
    Jeffrey sighed. “I sort of robbed the place.”
    “No, you didn’t.” Nolan shook his head. “Tell me you fucking didn’t. Holy Jesus Christ.”
    I tried to imagine Jeffrey committing a crime. What had he said? Did he have a weapon? But the details would have to wait. What mattered right now was the girl in the backseat. Through the rearview I could see that she had a small nose, freckles, thin lips. I might have seen her before, working at the Milk-n-Bread. I’d probably flirted with her a little at the register, just to convince myself that I was still young enough to flirt with someone her age, even though I knew I wasn’t.
    “What’s your name?” I asked.
    She met my eyes through the rearview. “Are you insane? I’m not telling you anything.”
    “Well, I’m going to take you back to the store now.”
    “Don’t you dare turn this car around.” Nolan’s voice was almost calm, as if he’d made a decision and already come to terms with it.
    “Nolan.”
    “Think about it. Robbery, kidnapping … it doesn’t matter how
long
we kept her. No one will care about that.”
    I shook my head. “You’re only saying that because of the election .” It was easy to imagine the headlines. The scandal. Even if we let her go and Jeffrey were somehow able to take the heat alone, Nolan was still ruined. That much seemed obvious. “You’re afraid of bad press. That’s why you’re thinking—”
    “Bad press? You don’t get it—if you stop this car, the three of us are going to prison. Trust me on that.”
    Jeffrey groaned. “I think I’m going to be sick.” The girl scooted farther away from him.
    I could better comprehend vomiting than kidnapping. Cynthia and I had just finished paying off the car. And the prospect of Jeffrey getting sick in it was what finally made this unreal moment all too real, leaving me with a new set of facts.
    We had been driving for almost five minutes.
    We were already several miles away from the Milk-n-Bread.
    We had not yet returned the girl.
    The radio played on. Rain smacked the windshield. My hands were sweating on the steering wheel as the tang of panic rose higher in my throat.
    “We have to take her back,” I said, “or go to the police ourselves to explain.” But I was already in the next town and had no idea where the police station might be. Mapping police stations had never been my compulsion.
    “Wrong,” Nolan said. “We need to go someplace—Will, shut the goddamn radio off.”
    I shut it off.
    “We need to go someplace,” he repeated, “where we can talk this thing through. Work out a solution.”
    “We’ve only gone a few miles,” I said.
    “Wake up, man! Look at what’s just happened. Three men in their thirties just took a teenager against her will and
drove away with her
. Do you think the police will care how far we went?”
    “I thought she was injured! I was heading to the hospital.”
    “Liar!” screamed the girl, who’d clearly had enough. “You all planned this—I mean,