It’s not a long drive out to Becklea. Derek had made it in ten minutes flat the other night, when we realized we’d forgotten the cats, and Brandon had probably matched that record yesterday morning, after he heard about the bones. Mostly, the road is a wide two-lane highway, the speed limit around forty once the major construction of the downtown area is left behind. I was moving along at a good clip, feeling more and more comfortable with every mile that passed. The radio was tuned to a local station, and I was singing along with Bruce Springsteen as I crested the hill above Devon Highlands.

The road dips right there; not much-no more than a three or four percent incline, maybe-but enough that I got uncomfortable with the way the heavy truck was picking up speed and felt a need to slow down. There was a big ditch off to my right, between the road and the construction zone, and down at the bottom of the hill, the road turned, just beyond the entrance to the new subdivision. Directly in front of me were the impressive brick gates I had noted the other day, beside the so-much-more-than-life-sized billboard of Melissa’s smiling face. Coming up the hill in the other lane was a yellow school bus. And when I stepped on the brakes, they didn’t respond.

11

It was a terrifying moment, pushing the brake pedal all the way to the floor of the truck and getting no response. If anything, the car went faster; picking up speed as it accelerated down the hill.

I had maybe a second to decide what to do, and that’s not much time. If I continued straight ahead, I wasn’t certain I’d be able to make the turn at the gates. The truck was a monster, and if something was wrong with the brakes, the power steering might be kaput, too. There was a chance, a good chance, that I’d get to the bottom of the hill and smash straight into those impressively laid bricks. If I did, I might survive, but it was by no means a sure thing. The truck had airbags, yes, but I doubted they were tested for a frontal collision with approximately a ton of bricks and mortar at high speed. There was also the chance that I’d lose control of the car before I reached the bottom of the hill, and careen over into the other lane and hit the school bus. That would be even worse. The third option was to get off the road now, before anything bad could happen. Or anything too bad. (Option four, which was to open the door and jump out into the middle of the road, I discarded. If the fall didn’t kill me, the school bus would.) So I did the only thing I could think of and started looking for a likely spot to turn the car off the road. Somewhere where the ditch wasn’t as deep as it was in other places. Somewhere where I might actually survive the accident I caused.

Fleetingly, Derek crossed my mind. Not because my life was flashing in front of my eyes-I was too busy keeping my eyes peeled to see anything but the ditch to my right-but because we’d discussed my driving the truck only yesterday. I could hear his voice saying, “It’s just a truck.” And then I could hear him say, “If you drive it off the road, you’ll have to walk here from Waterfield every morning.”

Dammit, I thought as I wrenched the wheel to the right with all the strength I could muster, here we go; if I survive this, I’ll have to hitchhike from now on!

The tires bumped over the gravel shoulder, then the truck dipped, nose first, into the ditch. The impact was horrific: from sixty to a dead stop in a matter of a second. The front end of the truck buried itself in loose dirt and mud. I fell forward with a shriek, held up by the seat belt stretched across my chest.

Blessed silence fell, mingled with my own painful breaths. After a few seconds, I fumbled the key around in the ignition and shut the engine off.

Behind me on the road, I heard the sound of squealing brakes and then rapid footsteps thudding across the blacktop. A round face, eyes enormous and mouth open in a horrified circle, appeared in my window.

“Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Are you OK? Oh, my God!”

It was the school bus driver, a middle-aged woman in jeans and a red sweatshirt, her brown hair standing out around her pale face. She wrenched at my door, yanking it open. I cleared my throat, painfully.

“I think so. Thanks.”

“And your airbag didn’t even go off!” She reached for the latch to unhook the seat belt that held me suspended but seemed to rethink. “Looks like there are some people coming from the construction site. If you can wait a minute until they get here, we’ll get you out. That way you won’t fall forward when I release the belt. You sure you’re OK? Nothing broken?”

I shook my head. My neck protested. Loudly. Whip-lash, probably. “I don’t think so. I can move my legs and my arms, and nothing hurts too badly. Everything seems to work.”

While I was talking, my mind was skittering around what she’d just said. No, the airbag hadn’t deployed. It should have. So not only had the brakes malfunctioned, but the airbag, too.

After a minute, one that felt a whole lot longer than sixty seconds, a handful of workers from the construction site hoofed it up to us, out of breath and wide-eyed. With their help, my Good Samaritan was able to get me out of the car and onto the shoulder of the road, where I sat breathing in great gulps of air and shivering from delayed reaction. My neck and head hurt like hell, and I’d probably have severe bruising across my shoulder and chest, all the way down to my hip, where the seat belt had practically cut me in half. Thank God for it, though; if I’d hit the windshield at sixty miles per hour, I’d be dead at worst, and at best, I’d have a broken nose and possibly a lot of scarring, if the window had broken and cut me.

A truck pulled up on the shoulder behind me, one of the black Stenham Construction vehicles, and someone got out and ran toward me, high-heeled shoes clicking. I squinted into the sun. Blonde, elegant, lovely…

“Avery!” She squatted in front of me.

“Hi, Melissa,” I managed between chattering teeth. Beyond her, I could see one of my cousins-probably Ray-getting out of the driver’s side of the truck, more slowly. Raymond and Randall are identical twins, and I don’t know them well enough to tell them apart, but since this guy was with Melissa, he was most likely her boyfriend-Ray.

“Were you alone?” Melissa asked, redirecting my attention to herself again. “Was Derek in the car with you?”

“It was just me. He’s at the house already.” And boy was he going to be pissed when he heard what had happened to his truck! I should call him-he needed to know what had happened-he had a right to know what had happened, to me and his truck-but I could just imagine his reaction…

“Do you need to go to the emergency room? See Ben?”

Her use of Derek’s father’s first name was a little jarring, but of course he’d been her father-in-law for five years; I guess I couldn’t really blame her. Calling him Doctor Ellis after being his daughter-in-law would have been even weirder. It didn’t keep me from feeling just a little put out, though.

“I just want to see Derek,” I said. “He’ll be able to tell me if I need x-rays or bandaging.”

Melissa nodded, her shining cap of pale hair swinging. “I’ll drive you. One of the guys will get a chain and pull the truck out. Everyone’s cars are getting stuck in the dirt around here; they’re used to it. Ray…” She turned to her boyfriend, who nodded.

“Thank you,” I said. “It can’t be driven, though. The brakes don’t work.”

A couple of the other men arched their brows at this and came a little closer, listening. I noticed Lionel Kenefick’s freckled face among them. He wasn’t looking at me, but at the car, so I didn’t go out of my way to say hello to him.

“What happened?” Ray asked. I shrugged, grimacing at the resultant pain.