The brakes squeaked a little as the Impala came to a gentle halt, gravel crunching beneath her tires. A faint hint of a grimace tugged at the edges of Tom's features; the car was older than he was, and while he had gone to great lengths to keep her in the best condition possible, her previous owners had not been quite so gentle. Keeping her purring was like balancing a giant stack of cards: even one tiny twitch of a problem could bring everything toppling down into a gigantic bank-breaking heap.

Still, it wasn't something that Tom needed to worry about: not for the next 72 hours, at any rate. He leaned forward, peering through the windshield at the sign that proudly welcomed them to the Ceres Regency Spa & Resort: the finest holiday establishment in New Mexico that offered a respectable discount to employees of Treadstone Industries. This weekend, the stressful chaos of Los Angeles was a few hundred miles out of sight and even further out of mind. For three days, everything he needed to worry about was sitting with him in this car.

He turned to Alice, and offered her a smile. His organs had curled up into a little knot in the pit of his stomach as soon as they'd crossed the border into New Mexico; he couldn't even begin to imagine how Alice must be feeling. Hopefully though, it wasn't something that a few hours in the spa couldn't fix.

The driver side door groaned open, and Tom clambered stiffly out, thoroughly regretting that he'd passed up the opportunity to stop at a diner for lunch an hour and a half ago. His stomach was fine, but if he didn't find his way to a bathroom soon, there'd be problems.

Alice's door clunked closed; Tom's followed suit. The slightly too-quick third clunk made his stomach knot wriggle, not just because of the indelicate treatment of his beloved car, but because of what that third door slam meant. He'd hoped that they could leave everything behind in California, but as Katrina had so eloquently pointed out, "What kind of jerk brother would leave his baby sister alone with all this shit that's going on?"

Alice had sided with Kat, of course; maybe out of female unity, maybe because it stopped this being their first "weekend alone" together. Either way, Kat was here, and Tom's credit card was getting billed for two rooms, two spa treatments, and double the sneaky unexpected costs.

Thank god Treadstone pays well, he mused.