Chapter 10
The black SUV followed me down the mountain.
Two cars back.
Far enough that I couldn’t see who was driving.
Close enough that I knew they were there.
I gripped the steering wheel until my knuckles turned white.
Thought about the gun in the glove compartment.
I was three hours from the nearest town.
Two hours from any house.
One wrong turn and I’d be dead.
They’d waited until I was alone.
Until I was vulnerable.
Until I’d let my guard down.
Stupid.
So stupid.
I’d spent a year being careful.
Paranoid.
And the second I thought it was over, I’d walked straight into another trap.
I accelerated.
The SUV accelerated too.
Kept pace.
I couldn’t outrun them.
Not on these roads.
Not in this rental car.
I needed help.
My phone had no signal up here.
Of course not.
I’d chosen Frank’s location because it was off the grid.
And now that choice was going to get me killed.
The road curved sharply to the right.
A thousand-foot drop on the left.
I slowed for the turn.
The SUV didn’t.
They sped up.
Intent on ramming me.
On pushing me off the mountain.
A perfect accident.
Just like my children.
Full circle.
I saw it coming.
Swerved at the last second.
The SUV hit my rear bumper.
Hard.
My car spun.
Fishtailed.
I fought the wheel.
Managed to straighten out.
Inches from the guardrail.
Inches from the drop.
They were coming again.
Faster this time.
Determined.
I had one chance.
One small, stupid chance.
The next turn was a hairpin to the left.
Guardrail on the right.
Rock wall on the left.
I waited until the last possible second.
Hit the brakes.
Hard.
The SUV tried to swerve around me.
But they were going too fast.
Too committed.
They shot past me on the left.
Scraped along the rock wall.
Sparks flying.
Lost control.
Spun across both lanes.
And crashed through the guardrail on the right.
For a split second, I saw them.
The driver.
My blood turned to ice.
It wasn’t a stranger.
It was someone I knew.
Someone I’d trusted.
Someone who’d been on my side from the beginning.
Mark.
The detective.
The one who’d helped me.
Who’d looked the other way when I’d done things that were technically illegal.
Who’d told me “good for you” when Ryan was arrested.
He was working for Ryan all along.
The SUV went over the edge.
Disappeared into the trees.
I heard the crash.
Felt the ground shake.
Silence.
Absolute silence.
I sat there for a long time.
Hands on the wheel.
Breathing hard.
Trying to process.
Mark.
Why?
How?
I got out of the car.
Walked to the broken guardrail.
Looked down.
The SUV was at the bottom.
Smoldering.
Upside down.
No movement.
No one getting out.
I called 911.
Finally had a signal.
Told them there’d been an accident.
Gave them the location.
Then I waited.
Sat on the hood of my car.
And I thought.
Mark had been Ryan’s friend for years.
Longer than he’d been mine.
He’d been the first officer on the scene of the crash.
He’d written the initial report.
Said hydroplaning.
Said accident.
He’d been the one who’d “found” the evidence in Ryan’s office.
Evidence I’d planted.
He’d let me think I was winning.
Let me think I was the mastermind.
All while he’d been pulling the strings.
Ryan had been a pawn.
Brooke had been a pawn.
Jesse.
Arthur.
Frank.
Even me.
We’d all been pawns in Mark’s game.
He’d been the one who’d suggested the insurance policies to Ryan.
The one who’d connected him with Arthur.
The one who’d planned the whole thing from the very beginning.
And when Ryan got greedy?
When he started making mistakes?
Mark had decided to cut his losses.
He’d let me take Ryan down.
Let me do all the work.
Take all the risk.
And he’d planned to walk away with the money.
All of it.
Ryan’s hidden millions.
The insurance payout.
The settlement.
Everything.
Once I was dead.
Another tragic accident.
The grieving mother who’d never gotten over her children’s deaths.
Who’d driven off a mountain road.
No one would have questioned it.
No one would have investigated.
And Mark would have been the detective who’d handled the case.
Who’d signed the death certificate.
Who’d walked away with everything.
It was brilliant, really.
Evil.
But brilliant.
The police arrived an hour later.
Ambulance.
Fire trucks.
The whole thing.
They pulled Mark’s body from the wreck.
He was dead on impact.
The officer who took my statement was young.
New.
He believed every word I said.
Lost control on the wet road.
Tried to pass me.
Went over the edge.
Terrible accident.
He wrote it all down.
Shook his head.
Said how sorry he was.
That I’d had to see it.
That I’d had to go through so much.
I played the part perfectly.
Shaken.
Tearful.
The grieving widow who couldn’t catch a break.
They let me go that night.
Drove my car down the mountain.
Followed me to the nearest hotel.
Made sure I was okay.
And then they were gone.
I sat on the edge of the hotel bed.
Stared at the wall.
It was really over now.
All of it.
Every last person who’d had a hand in my children’s deaths.
Every last secret.
Every last lie.
All gone.
I was the only one left who knew the full truth.
The only one who carried all the weight.
I thought about going to the police.
Telling them everything I knew about Mark.
About his involvement.
About the conspiracy.
But what good would it do?
He was dead.
The others were in prison or dead.
No one else was left to punish.
And the truth would only hurt more people.
Mark’s wife.
His kids.
Who’d thought he was a hero.
A good cop.
A good man.
Let them keep that.
Let them have their memories.
I’d taken enough.
I drove home the next day.
To my little house by the ocean.
The sun was shining.
The waves were crashing.
Seagulls crying.
I walked inside.
Dropped my bag.
And I knew.
I couldn’t stay here.
Not anymore.
This place had been my refuge.
My safe place.
But it was also full of memories of the fear.
The letters.
The paranoia.
The near-death on the mountain.
I needed a fresh start.
Somewhere completely new.
Somewhere no one had ever heard of the Carter twins.
Or Ryan.
Or any of it.
I packed a bag that night.
Just the essentials.
Clothes.
Toothbrush.
And the one thing I couldn’t leave behind.
A small box.
Filled with Ava and Ethan’s things.
A lock of hair.
Their first baby teeth.
The drawings they’d made me.
The tiny handprints.
Everything I had left of them.
I put the house on the market the next morning.
Donated the furniture.
Left the keys under the mat.
And I drove.
No destination.
No plan.
Just the open road.
The box on the seat next to me.
The sun on my face.
The wind through the window.
I drove for three weeks.
Across the country.
Saw mountains.
Deserts.
Cities.
Small towns.
And finally, I found it.
A tiny town in Vermont.
Population three hundred and twelve.
No stoplights.
No crime.
Just trees.
And hills.
And good people.
I bought a small farm on the edge of town.
Old farmhouse.
A barn.
Twenty acres.
Plenty of room.
I got two horses.
Five goats.
A dozen chickens.
And three dogs from the local shelter.
I started a small business.
A therapeutic riding center for kids who’d been through trauma.
Kids who’d lost people.
Kids who were hurt.
Kids who needed someone to listen.
Every day, I watched them ride.
Watched them heal.
Watched them learn to trust again.
And slowly, I healed too.
A year passed.
Then two.
Then five.
I never married again.
Never had more children.
I didn’t need to.
I had the kids at the center.
I had my animals.
I had my peace.
And I had Ava and Ethan.
Everywhere I went.
In the wind in the trees.
In the sound of children laughing.
In the sunset over the hills.
They were with me.
Always.
I never heard from Ryan again.
He died in prison four years after the trial.
Shanked in the yard by a man whose niece had been one of his embezzlement victims.
No one claimed the body.
He was buried in a potter’s field.
Alone.
Just like he deserved.
Brooke died two years after that.
Drug overdose in the prison infirmary.
Jesse got out on good behavior after twelve years.
He moved to another state.
Started a program for at-risk kids.
Spoke at schools about making bad choices.
About redemption.
He sent me a letter every Christmas.
I never wrote back.
But I read them.
And I forgave him.
In my own way.
Arthur died in prison.
Heart attack.
No one mourned him.
And Mark?
He became a cautionary tale at the police academy.
A good cop gone bad.
A warning about what happens when you let greed win.
Life went on.
The world kept turning.
And I kept living.
One day at a time.
Sometimes good.
Sometimes hard.
Always honest.
I was sitting on my porch one evening, watching the sunset, when a young girl from the center walked up.
She was seven years old.
Same age Ava would have been.
She’d lost her mom in a car accident six months before.
She rarely spoke.
But she loved the horses.
She handed me a drawing.
Crayon on construction paper.
Three people on horses.
Me.
Her.
And two smaller figures with wings.
“Who are they?” I asked, pointing to the winged ones.
She looked at me like I should know.
“Your babies,” she said simply. “They come when you ride. They watch you. They’re happy now.”
She smiled.
Turned.
Ran back to her parents.
I looked down at the drawing.
Tears filled my eyes.
But they weren’t sad tears.
They were the good kind.
I held the drawing to my chest.
Looked up at the pink and orange sky.
And for the first time since that terrible rainy afternoon…
I felt it.
Peace.
Real, lasting peace.
The war was long over.
The revenge was done.
And the broken mother?
She’d finally found her way home.
Not to a house.
Or a place.
But to herself.
To the woman her children had always known she could be.
Strong.
Kind.
Brave.
May you like
And finally, after all these years…
Free.
