Jenks found a thin smile, his gaze going to Kisten’s Corvette. “Can I drive?” he asked.

Lips pressed, Ivy frowned. “We’re not going to all fit in that. Maybe we can bum a ride from Ralph. Give me a moment, okay?”

“We can fit,” Jenks said. “I’ll move the seat back and Rachel can sit on my lap.”

Ivy went one way and Jenks went the other. My protest froze when I found a point of stillness in the swirling mess of reporters, officers, and watchers. My lips parted. It was Brett, standing on a cement barrier so he could look over the crowd. He was watching me, and when our eyes met, he touched the brim of his cap in salute. There was a rip in it where the emblem had been removed, and with a significant motion he took it off and let it fall. Turning away, he started to walk for the Mackinaw City end of the bridge. And he was gone.

I realized he thought I had done it, and went cold. He thought I’d blown out the tires of the wrecker and killed Nick for trying to do a double run on me. Damn. I didn’t know if that kind of reputation would save my life or get me killed.

“Rache?” Jenks returned from pushing the passenger’s seat back as far as it would go. “What is it?”

I put a hand to my cold face and met his worried eyes. “Nothing.” Determined to figure it out later, I sent my thoughts instead to the bath I was going to take. I had beaten Nick at his own game. The question was, would I survive it?

Thirty-five

My boot heel slipped on the uneven sidewalk, and the sound of me catching my step was dull in the air heavy from the evening’s rain. The faint twinge in my leg reminded me that it wasn’t quite right yet. The sun was long gone, and clouds made the night darker than it ought to be, close and warm. I splashed through a puddle, in too good a mood to care if my ankles got wet. Pizza dough was rising in my kitchen, and I had a grocery sack of toppings.

Lunch was going to be early tonight; Ivy had a run, and Kisten was taking me to a movie and I didn’t want to fill up on popcorn. Passing under a lamp-lit, pollution-stunted maple, I reached to touch its leaves in passing, smiling at the green softness brushing my skin. They were damp, and I let my hand stay wet and cool in the night air. The street was quiet. The only human family living there was inside watching TV, and everyone else was at work or school. The hum of Cincinnati was far away and distant, the rumble of sleeping lions.

I adjusted the strap of my new canvas grocery bag, thinking that in the time we’d been gone, spring had shifted into high gear. It was almost a year since I’d quit the I.S. “And I’m alive,” I whispered to the world. I was alive and doing well. No, I was doing great.