NATE STRODE QUICKLY ACROSS the hospital parking lot away from his wife. The sky was the color of a bruise, wet leaves slapping against his ankles. His pulse kicked hard in his veins. His stomach was tied in knots.

Kia had called to say they’d gotten Violeta’s credit card statement, and he’d jumped at the chance to get away from Emma. She was still refusing to tell him where she’d gotten the $98,004 to pay the hospital.

He couldn’t wrap his head around any of it. All Emma would say was that it had been required for Josh to get the infusion, although she’d promised to explain everything later, when they got home.

“We have to focus on Josh right now,” she’d hissed. “We can’t jeopardize his recovery.”

So while Kia headed to the hospital to interview Ben, Nate left and drove to the gas station where Violeta had made her last purchase.

The gas station was about a half hour away, and Nate spent the entire time trying to work out where the money could have come from. His windshield wipers shoved desperately at the rain, his aching head pounding with every swipe. He knew that Emma had received some money from her parents’ life insurance. He thought it had all been used up on medical school, but maybe she’d had some left.

Or maybe it had come from Ben.

Which begged the question: Was it legal money?

Had Ben stolen it? But from whom? There had been no reports of large sums of cash being stolen in the area.

Nate’s head hurt. All the jigsaw pieces he’d been putting together in his mind were shifting and reassembling in a different order, but he still couldn’t see the whole picture.

Nate parked outside a small redbrick gas station. Inside the old-fashioned building were rows of snacks and a wall of soft drinks. A very young woman with white-blond hair smiled at him from behind the cash register.

“May I help, please?” She had a thick Scandinavian accent and eyes so blue it made Nate think of canoeing on Lake Chelan with his dad as a kid.

“Hello, are you the owner?”

“Oh no.” She giggled, a cute, childish sound. “That would be my boyfriend. He isn’t here right now.”

“What’s his name?”

“Gabe. Gabe Wilson. Shall I tell him you were asking for him?”

Nate felt like the girl had punched him in the throat.

Gabe Wilson.

The same man who’d been with Emma this morning.

Nate didn’t know what the connection was, but it felt important. His Spidey sense was buzzing, and he knew never to ignore his Spidey sense. He put his elbows on the counter and leaned in closer, offering the girl his most charming smile.