Nessa put a glass of water in front of her. “It’s a crappy situation, boss, no doubt about that. But as my mom always says, no matter how bad things get there’s always someone worse off than you. I hate it when she says that. Seriously annoying actually, but I have to admit that mostly she is right. Although it’s true that right now I wouldn’t want to be you—”

“Thank you, Nessa,”

“Do you know who I definitely wouldn’t want to be?” She pushed her glasses up her nose and gave Joanna a meaningful look. “That girl in the car. Don’t know who she is or what she was doing, but I would not want her life.”

The girl in the car. Joanna didn’t know who she was or what she’d been doing, either.

The one thing she did know was that even though he was dead, Cliff Whitman had still managed to ruin her day.

3

Ashley

Ashley lay in the hospital bed, listening to the beep of machines. There wasn’t a single part of her that didn’t ache. She felt as if someone had pushed a knife into her side. Her head was foggy, but her brain was clear. She remembered everything. She wished she didn’t.

“You’re awake. That’s good.” A woman wearing a white coat stepped closer. “I’m Dr. Ramirez. How are you feeling?”

Like roadkill. Which was almost how she’d ended up. She was reliving it over and over again. The flashbacks were almost as scary as the real thing.

She tried to speak but her mouth was dry and a nurse stepped forward and gave her a sip of water.

“You were in an accident.” The doctor spoke carefully. “You were a passenger. Your car went off the road. Do you remember what happened?”

A weightless moment of horror. A scream. Hers? His? Rolling, rolling, not knowing which way was up. An explosion of pain. I’m going to die here. We’re both going to die here.

They couldn’t find out the truth, could they? They couldn’t know what she’d said to Cliff in the moments before he’d crashed? Now he was dead, she just wanted the whole thing to go away. She wanted to forget she’d ever come here. Forget she’d ever climbed into his car.

“Ashley? Do you remember anything at all?”

“No.” She remembered making a bad decision. A series of bad decisions. Her mother had raised her not to lie but all her instincts told her that this was one of those occasions when the truth was best withheld, at least until she’d had time to think things through. The way she felt, that moment might not be coming quickly. “My side hurts.”

Ashley tuned out as the doctor listed her injuries. There were lots of them, and that wasn’t counting the stuff they couldn’t see.