Everyone else had been relieved, but he knew better than to relax. Only time would tell if they had really gotten away with it and had gleaned the information they needed.

His attention turned to Molly as his thoughts did too often these days. He wouldn’t have shared the stress in any case, but she’d been smart to insist on minimal contact.

The next morning he headed to work, already strategizing his way through the various meetings and decisions on the docket for the day. As he slowed to a stop at an intersection, he caught movement out of the corner of his eye.

A semi, approaching too fast. It roared toward him. He spun the steering wheel hard, gunned the Audi. A gigantic force T-boned him from the other side and spun him around. Not the semi, he realized, dazed.

The door on the driver’s side was smashed in, immoveable. Not enough time to find his phone. He flung a communication spell.

Molly’s voice, sleepy and confused, “What… Josiah?”

He should have said it before, but he was so often his own worst enemy. He should have done so many things differently. “I love y—”

With a scream of metal, the semi hit his car from the other side. He felt a gigantic jolt, and then everything went black.

Chapter Twenty

Forty-two hours later, Molly’s plane touched down at the Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on a sultry, late-summer afternoon.

Thirteen weeks into her agreement with Josiah. Over four months after the death of her husband. She was fourteen weeks pregnant.

Two plainclothes detectives from the Atlanta PD met her as she deplaned. One of them, a world-weary man in a gray suit, introduced himself as Frank Williams. “Good afternoon, Mrs. Sullivan.” His tone was polite as he eyed her with a penetrating gaze. “I’ve got two uniforms appropriating your luggage from the airline. If you would kindly come with us to the police station.”

“Of course.” She kept her expression closed to scrutiny, her voice calm. “I expected as much. That’s why I called you.”

The drive to the station was riddled with pleasantries. How was her flight. Had she missed the Atlanta summertime. The air felt like pea soup today. Frank liked sweet tea on a hot day. His partner, Molly believed his name was Rubio, drove in silence. Apparently Rubio didn’t feel the need for pleasantries.

Neither did she. She stared out the window at the scroll of familiar scenery and answered questions when they were asked. At the station, they took her into an interrogation room and tucked her luggage into a corner.

Was she under arrest? No, of course not, but Frank didn’t mind if he said so himself: he thought it was exceedingly odd she would disappear for such a significant amount of time when her husband had just died and so many personal issues were unresolved.