I must have fallen asleep, because my cell had woken me.

Graham had called for the second time for a tow. I mentally cursed Roy for being a drunk, lazy ass and my father for enabling the guy. Where the hell were those two? If I wasn’t supposed to be doing anything but the books behind a desk, then why weren’t they answering their damned phones?

I’d thrown on some clothes and driven to the shop to pick up the tow truck, wondering if I was enabling them as well. I was a doormat to them. They assumed I’d take care of everything. Clean up all the messes. Fill in for them when they decided to be lazy, drunk, entitled jerks.

I had. Blindly. For years. God, I’d been doing my dad’s accounting for even longer than that. He’d forgotten how to do it. I was starting to see nothing would change unless I did.

I cut through the early morning darkness on the way out of town, riding high in the tow truck. The seat was old and had me bouncing over the slightest bump.

I’d been back from Bozeman for two years. In that time I’d built up my accounting business. Had good local clients. But I’d gotten nowhere with my dad. The one person who should’ve been helping me fulfill my dreams. He knew I wanted to run the shop. I’d made it clear over and over.

And yet he stalled, just like a car with water in the gas tank.

I eased off the accelerator as the flashing blue and red lights came into view. I was on the two-lane stretch that connected The Bend to the interstate. It was a straight and level road, but accidents happened. I flipped on my hazards and the yellow tow lights on the roof and slowed to a crawl as I took in the scene that was well lit from a fire truck and two police cars. I counted six first responders milling around.

There was a single car off the road. Flipped. I pulled past the scene, then parked on the shoulder. Cutting the engine, I hopped down from the cab, grabbed the reflective vest that was tucked into the pocket on the door, and shrugged it on. Then I grabbed my leather gloves.

I walked around the back and down into the ditch. The four-door sedan was snagged on the barbed-wire fence that ran along the road. The car was set back about fifteen feet, and from the wheel tracks that cut through the mud and grass, it must’ve been going pretty fast.

I had to figure out how best to get the tow truck into place so I could use the winch to get the vehicle up onto the bed. Since it was upside down, front or back didn’t matter.

I pushed up the slight incline and came into the beam of the fire truck’s bright lights. I raised my foot to step, but freaked and jumped back, practically high stepping like a horse. It wasn’t a snake, which usually made me lose my shit. But this was no snake. There on the ground was a body. A very dead one based on the fact his head was turned at an angle only seen in exorcisms from ’80s horror movies. It was the fence post that stuck through his chest that made bile rise in my throat. A strange gasp escaped, and I felt the blood rush from my face and my fingers began to tingle.