Can’t touch me.
Can’t touch my son.
I’m free.
The thought comes fast and bright and terrible.
Then guilt slams into it.
Because he is dead.
A man I married. A man I once believed loved me. A man who was August’s father, even if he turned that word into a weapon. A man who made me afraid enough to run. A man I wanted gone but did not know gone could be this final.
My knees buckle.
Derby catches me before I hit the ground.
“Easy.”
I clutch his shirt. “How?”
“Car accident.”
I close my eyes. “No.”
“Brake failure.”
My eyes open. I look at him. His face tells me he knows exactly what I hear in that.
Brake failure. Not a crash.
Not only.
A message. A method.
“Where?”
“Hell Road.”
A road answering a prayer I never said out loud.
Dead Man’s Curve flashes through my mind.
Hell Road.
The Widow.
Derby’s voice in the dark, telling me some say she warns women and some say she wrecks bad men.
I don’t believe in ghosts.
But I understand now why women invent them.
“Did you do it?” I whisper.
Derby flinches.
“No.”