Chapter 8: Road Trip-UpsPete watched Didi carefully fill the final oval of her To-Do List. She had just inserted a new purifier filter; the discard looked like a used tea bag.
Offering to carry a twelve by twelve by twelve cardboard box overfilled with cartons of cigarettes and lighters in Day-Glo colors, he staggered in exaggeration.
“I don’t know how much they’ll cost down South,” Didi observed. “It’s not like they’ll go stale.”
Then, she activated the security alarm and locked the kitchen door.
Pete had placed the box between a white Styrofoam cooler in the backseat and their luggage in the trunk when he noticed, then counted, ten brown paper bags, neat and crisp, as though they’d been ironed with starch. Each, all under the mail slot, was stacked to the top with canned goods. Shami
