When we arrived at the gas station, I pulled out my wallet, offering some cash for the trouble. He shook his head with a grin. “Happy to help,” he said, waving it off.
We thanked him, and he drove off into the night, disappearing as quickly as he had appeared.
For years, we thought of him as nothing more than a kind stranger—one of those rare people who help others without expecting anything in return. That small act of generosity stuck with us, a reminder that good people still existed in the world.
Then, years later, everything changed.
One evening, I was in my office when my wife called, her voice shaking. “Turn on the news,” she said.
I grabbed the remote, flipping through channels until I saw the breaking news banner. The image on the screen made my stomach drop.
It was him. The “college student” who had picked us up that night.
The news anchor reported that he had been arrested after years of being on the run. He had been involved in a series of incidents where he targeted stranded drivers in remote areas. But for some reason, that night, he had simply let us go.
I felt a chill as my mind replayed our encounter. Why had he helped us? Had he changed his ways? Had something about us made him hesitate?
I’ll never know for sure.
But what I do know is that my wife and I had walked away from that night completely unharmed—never realizing just how close we had come to something far more unsettling.
It was a moment that could have gone differently. And we had no idea.