Eartha was hauled off by Duke to isolation. Later, Duke came back and baited Betsy, calling her names, telling her he was going to keep Eartha in isolation for weeks unless Betsy “started being nice,” but she didn’t respond. She turned her back in her cell and wouldn’t speak. She felt awful about Eartha.

That night she had the premonition again, but this time there was a twist at the end.

She was on the same road. She was driving the red car. The sun was behind her, glinting through the trees. There were orange poppies. The road was narrow and she turned around the curve, cliff on her right, mountain on the left. She was distracted by the cliff, then turned her eyes back to the road and the blue truck. Before she could react, the truck turned and drove straight off the cliff.

“Oh, my God!” she screamed. She stopped, her car dovetailing. She called 911 and started tripping down the cliff. The woman’s truck was upside down, the windows were shattered, the airbags blown. The engine had steam rising from it.

The woman was halfway out of her truck, through the shattered window, limp and not moving.

Then the truck exploded.

She wanted to cry. She wanted to scream.

She did neither.

She vowed to change the ending.

Chapter 23

Chapter 23

“Evie,” Chief Ass Burn said to me outside the grocery store. He was not in his uniform. He was wearing a blue shirt that fit snugly, like a diaper, around his sagging gut. “I think we’ve gotten off on the wrong foot.”

I was carrying a bag full of healthy foods including: Truffles. My friend Nicky makes them. He used to be a sous-chef in Los Angeles. He quit so he could live a life. Now he makes truffles from his home in Doe Bay. And I might have had a fresh peach pie in my bag, too, that my friend Kat Metts made for the store. But I had bananas, too, to combat my anxiety. I would run later to burn off the truffles. I laughed out loud at my own funny joke! Running equals torture. In my right hand I carried a root beer float. They were giving them away. If it’s free, I’m going to eat it.

I saw his eyes slip to my chest, then hips, for a second. He disgusts me. “Is there something on my shirt?”

His eyes flew to mine.

“You looked at my chest, and I thought maybe there was something on my shirt. You’ve done it before.”

“No, nothing’s on your shirt.” He smiled, and it was a mix of being caught and triumph. He had gotten to me, and he liked knowing he could irritate me.

“Stop looking at my chest,” I told him.

“I’m not. Do not accuse me of something I haven’t done.” He smirked.