Miles shook his head, forcing the thought away. No reason to dwell on it, except for the reason that the attraction had once again reminded him that he wanted to start over. He wanted to find someone again; he didn’t want to live the rest of his life alone. Some people could do that, he knew. There were people here in town who’d lost their spouse and never remarried, but he wasn’t wired that way and never had been. He’d never felt as if he’d been missing out on something when he’d been married. He didn’t look at his single friends and wish that he could lead their life-dating, playing the field, falling in and out of love as the seasons changed. That just wasn’t him. He loved being a husband, he loved being a father, he loved the stability that had come with all that, and he wanted to have that again.

But I probably won’t…

Miles sighed and looked out the window again. More light in the lower sky, still black above. He rose from the table, went down the hall to peek in on Jonah-still asleep-then pushed open the door to his own bedroom. In the shadows, he could see the pictures he’d had framed, sitting on top of his chest of drawers and on the bedstand. Though he couldn’t make out the features, he didn’t need to see them clearly to know what they were: Missy sitting on the back porch, holding a bouquet of wildflowers; Missy and Jonah, their faces close to the lens, grinning broadly; Missy and Miles walking down the aisle… Miles entered and sat on the bed. Next to the photo was the manila file filled with information he’d compiled himself, on his own time. Because sheriffs didn’t have jurisdiction over traffic accidents-nor would he have been allowed to investigate, even if the sheriffs had-he’d followed in the footsteps of the highway patrol, interviewing the same people, asking the same questions, and sifting through the same information. Knowing what he’d been through, no one had refused to cooperate, but in the end he’d learned no more than the official investigators. As it was, the file sat on the bedstand, as if daring Miles to find out who’d been driving the car that night.

But that didn’t seem likely, not anymore, no matter how much Miles wanted to punish the person who’d ruined his life. And let there be no mistake: That was exactly what he wanted to do. He wanted to make the person pay dearly for what he’d done; it was his duty both as a husband and as someone sworn to uphold the law. An eye for an eye-wasn’t that what the Bible said? Now, as with most mornings, Miles stared at the file without bothering to open it and found himself imagining the person who’d done it, running through the same scenarios he did every time, and always beginning with the same question. If it was simply an accident, why run?

The only reason he could come up with was that the person was drunk, someone coming home from a party, or someone who made a habit of drinking too much every weekend. A man, probably, in his thirties or forties. Though there was no evidence to support that, that’s whom he always pictured. In his mind’s eye, Miles could see him swerving from side to side as he made his way down the road, going too fast and jerking the wheel, his mind processing everything in slow motion. Maybe he was reaching for another beer, one sandwiched between his legs, just as he caught a glimpse of Missy at the last second. Or maybe he didn’t see her at all. Maybe he just heard the thud and felt the car shudder with the impact. Even then, the driver didn’t panic. There weren’t any skid marks on the road, even though the driver had stopped the car to see what he had done. The evidence-information that had never appeared in any of the articles-showed that much.

No matter.

No one else had seen anything. There were no other cars on the road, no porch lights flicked on, no one had been outside walking the dog or turning off the sprinklers. Even in his intoxicated state, the driver had known that Missy was dead and that he’d be facing a manslaughter charge at the least, maybe second-degree murder if he’d had prior offenses. Criminal charges. Prison time. Life behind bars. These and even more frightening thoughts must have raced through his head, urging him to get out of there before anyone saw him. And he had, without ever bothering to consider the grief he’d left in his wake. It was either that, or someone had run Missy down on purpose.

Some sociopath who killed for the thrill of it. He’d heard of such people.

Or killed to get back at Miles Ryan?

He was a sheriff; he’d made enemies. He’d arrested people and testified against them. He’d helped send scores of people to prison.

One of them?

The list was endless, an exercise in paranoia.

He sighed, finally opening the file, finding himself drawn to the pages. There was one detail about the accident that didn’t seem to fit, and over the years Miles had scribbled half a dozen question marks around it. He had learned of it when he’d been taken to the scene of the accident. Strangely, whoever had been driving the car had covered Missy’s body with a blanket.

This fact had never made the papers.

For a while, there were hopes that the blanket would provide some clues to the identity of the driver. It hadn’t. It was a blanket typically found in emergency kits, the kind sold in a standard package with other assorted items at nearly every auto supply or department store across the country. There’d been no way to trace it.

But…why?

This was the part that continued to nag at Miles.

Why cover up the body, then run? It made no sense. When he’d raised the matter with Charlie, Charlie had said something that haunted Miles to this day: “It’s like the driver was trying to apologize.”

Or throw us off the track?

Miles didn’t know what to believe.

But he would find the driver, no matter how unlikely it seemed, simply because he wouldn’t give up. Then, and only then, could he imagine himself moving on.

Chapter 6

On Friday evening, three days after meeting Miles Ryan, Sarah Andrews was alone in her living room, nursing her second glass of wine, feeling about as rotten as a person could feel. Even though she knew the wine wouldn’t help, she knew that she’d nonetheless pour herself a third glass just as soon as this one was finished. She’d never been a big drinker, but it had been that kind of day. Right now, she just wanted to escape.

Strangely, it hadn’t started off badly. She’d felt pretty good first thing in the morning and even during breakfast, but after that, the day had nose-dived rapidly. Sometime during the night before, the hot-water heater in her apartment had stopped working and she’d had to take a cold shower before heading off to school. When she got there, three of the four students in the front of the class had colds and spent the day coughing and sneezing in her direction when they weren’t acting up. The rest of the class seemed to follow their lead, and she hadn’t accomplished half of what she’d wanted to. After school, she’d stayed to catch up on some of her work, but when she was finally ready to head home, one of the tires on her car was flat. She’d had to call AAA and ended up waiting nearly an hour until they showed up; and by the time she got back to her apartment, the streets had been roped off for the Flower Festival that weekend and she’d had to park three blocks away. Then, to top it all off, no more than ten minutes after she’d walked in the door, an acquaintance had called from Baltimore, to let her know that Michael was getting married again in December. That was when she’d opened the wine.

Now, finally feeling the effects of the alcohol, Sarah found herself wishing that AAA had taken a little longer with her tire, so she wouldn’t have been home to answer the phone when it rang. She wasn’t a close friend of the woman’s-she’d socialized with Sarah casually, since she’d originally been friends with Michael’s family-and had no idea why the woman felt the urge to let Sarah know what was going on. And even though she had passed on the information with the proper mix of sympathy and disbelief, Sarah couldn’t help suspecting that the woman would hang up the phone and immediately report back to Michael how Sarah had responded. Thank God she’d kept her composure. But that was two glasses of wine ago, and now it wasn’t so easy. She didn’t want to hear about Michael. They were divorced, separated by law and choice, and unlike some divorced couples, they hadn’t talked since their last meeting in the lawyer’s office almost a year earlier. By that point, she’d considered herself lucky to be rid of him and had simply signed the papers without a word. The pain and anger had been replaced with a kind of apathy, rooted in the numbing realization that she’d never really known him at all. After that, he didn’t call or write, nor did she. She lost contact with his family and friends, he showed no interest in hers. In many ways, it almost seemed as if they’d never been married at all. At least, that’s what she told herself.