My fingers curled against my palm.

“Were you in the vehicle?”

“Yeah.”

“Then you’re lucky.”

Another silence.

Evan moved closer.

“You sure she’s not awake?”

The older man answered without hesitation.

“Son, if she were awake, she’d be screaming.”

Evan stayed another few seconds.

Then his footsteps moved uphill again.

I waited.

The man crouched beside me.

“Keep your voice down.”

I opened my eyes.

“Who are you?”

He reached inside his jacket and showed me a worn leather identification holder.

I caught only the name.

Martin Vale.

“I’m a private investigator.”

I stared at him.

“Why are you here?”

He looked toward the ridge.

“Because Daniel hired me.”

My breathing stopped for a second.

“Daniel?”

“Your husband.”

“Daniel has been dead three years.”

“I know.”

Martin put the identification away.

“He hired me before he died.”

What Daniel Had Been Afraid Of

I had dozens of questions, but Martin gave me only pieces.

Daniel had contacted him after months of unexplained problems.

Dizziness.

Confusion.

Missing conversations.

Medication that seemed to affect him differently from one day to another.

At first, doctors blamed stress and then the cancer.

Daniel wasn’t convinced.

“He thought somebody was tampering with his medication,” Martin said.

I stared at him.

“Who?”

Martin hesitated.

“At first?”

He looked directly at me.

“You.”

I couldn’t answer.

Daniel and I had been married eleven years.

I had driven him to chemotherapy. Organized his pills. Slept in a chair beside his hospital bed.

And he had hired someone to investigate me.

Martin must have seen something on my face.

“I found nothing connecting you to it.”

“Did Daniel know that?”

“Yes.”

“Then who?”

Martin looked uphill again.

“Later, he found crushed medication in Evan’s backpack.”

I closed my eyes.

Evan had been fourteen when Daniel died.

A difficult kid, yes.

Angry.

Especially after Daniel remarried.

But fourteen.

“Daniel never told me.”

“He was trying to be sure.”

Martin reached into his jacket.

“And he was trying to protect you without turning his son into an enemy before he had proof.”

A faint siren sounded somewhere above us.

Martin took out a small recorder.

“What Evan said down here is on this.”

I looked at it.

“All of it?”

“Enough.”

For the first time since the brake pedal dropped beneath my foot, I felt something other than fear.

There was evidence.

Not my memory.

Not my word against Evan’s.

Evidence.

Then Martin’s eyes shifted past me.

His hand closed around the recorder.

“Don’t move.”

I heard rocks sliding.

Evan was coming back.

Through the corner of my half-closed eye, I saw him descending the slope.

This time, he was carrying a short metal bar.

Martin slipped the recorder into his jacket.

I let my head fall sideways and shut my eyes.

“Still nothing?” Evan asked.

“Still nothing,” Martin said.

The metal bar scraped against stone.

Then sirens grew louder above us.

Evan stopped.

Martin didn’t move.

Neither did I.

A man shouted from the road.

“Fire department! Anybody down there?”

Martin raised his voice.

“One injured woman! Vehicle below the ridge!”

More voices followed.

Boots.

Equipment.

Radios.

Evan dropped the metal bar into the wet brush.

I heard it land.

Martin looked down at me as the first firefighter descended toward the SUV.

He didn’t smile.

He simply touched two fingers to the pocket holding the recorder.

And for the first time that afternoon, Evan was no longer the only person who knew what had happened on Miller’s Ridge.

The Story Evan Told the Police

The first firefighter reached me less than two minutes later.

After that, everything happened around me.

Someone stabilized my neck. Someone cut the seat belt. A paramedic asked my name three times because I kept losing track of the question.

Above us, I could hear Evan talking.

“She just panicked.”

His voice carried down the slope.

“The car started going too fast and she grabbed the wheel. I told her to slow down.”

I looked at Martin.

He was standing several feet away, speaking quietly to a sheriff’s deputy.

Evan continued.

“She’s been having a hard time since my dad died.”

That was the part that made me open my eyes.

A paramedic noticed.

“Lydia, stay with me.”

“My stepson.”

“He’s safe.”

“Keep him away from me.”

The paramedic stopped adjusting the strap across my chest.

“Okay.”

“Please.”

She nodded toward the deputy.

“I’ll tell them.”

As they carried me uphill, I saw Evan standing beside an ambulance with a blanket around his shoulders.

He looked seventeen again.

Wet hair.

Scraped cheek.

Shaking hands.

Anyone arriving five minutes earlier would have seen a frightened boy who had nearly died with his stepmother.

Then Evan saw Martin.

His face went still.

Martin said nothing.

He only put one hand inside his brown jacket.

Evan knew exactly what was in that pocket.

At the hospital, doctors found a fractured hip, three cracked ribs and a deep cut near my hairline. I needed surgery that night.

Before they took me upstairs, a Tennessee Highway Patrol investigator came into the room.

“Mrs. Mercer, do you remember the accident?”

“Yes.”

“Your stepson says you lost control.”

“My brakes failed.”

He wrote something down.

“Anything else?”

I looked toward the doorway.

Martin was standing there.

“Talk to him.”

The investigator followed my eyes.

“Who is he?”

“The man who recorded Evan.”

For once, I didn’t explain anything else.

I let the evidence speak before the anesthesia put me under.

The Envelope Daniel Left Behind

When I woke the next morning, Martin was sitting beside the window.

There was a large manila envelope on his lap.

“How long have you been here?”

“Twenty minutes.”

My mouth felt dry.

“Evan?”

“Being interviewed.”

“Arrested?”

Martin shook his head.

“Not yet.”

He placed the envelope on my blanket.

My name was written across the front.