It was the perfect place to submit their passport applications, according to George Orson, though Lucy wasn’t sure why this town was better than another, why they had to drive three hours when there were surely a lot of cruddy post offices closer to home. But she didn’t bother to pursue the matter further. She had a lot on her mind at the moment. The sense of relief she’d felt when she’d discovered the stacks of cash had begun to dissipate, and now she was aware again of a flutter in her stomach. She had a memory of that roller coaster at the Cedar Point amusement park, back in Ohio. Millennium Force, with its three-hundred-ten-foot drop, the way you would wait there, once you were strapped in, the heavy ticking of the chain as you were pulled slowly up the slope to the top of the hill. That terrible anticipation. But she was trying to appear calm. She sat subdued in the passenger seat of the old pickup, watching as George Orson shifted gears, wearing the hideous pink shirt George Orson had bought for her, with its cloud of smiley-faced butterflies printed down the front.
