The most terrible burden that had been put on him, aside from what he had put on himself, had been the spotlight of suspicion that had been cast on him by the public, the press, and the police. He would have gladly lain down and died for either of his daughters. To have people think otherwise had been like pouring acid on his soul.

And the police—completely impotent to deal with Roland Ballencoa—had gone after Lance with the zeal of hunters shooting fish in a barrel. Because he wanted to cooperate, he sat through hours and hours of interviews and interrogations. He took polygraph after polygraph. He had weathered every indignity and accusation leveled at him.

He had fought with his daughter in public. He was known to have a temper. There were holes in the time line of his day that day, time unaccounted for. He wouldn’t have been the first father to lose his temper with a teenage daughter.

What if he had seen her on the road that day, riding her bike home from a softball game she had been forbidden to attend? Maybe he had stopped his car and grabbed her. Maybe in his anger he had shaken her or pushed her. Maybe she had struck her head and died. Maybe he had panicked. Maybe he had panicked and killed her, and yet had the presence of mind to dispose of her body so thoroughly it was never found.

Not once, not for one heartbeat had I ever believed Lance could have hurt Leslie. Not even after the detectives had done their best to drive a wedge of doubt between us. Not even after people who should have known Lance had begun to doubt. I would sooner have stopped breathing than stop believing in his innocence.

My husband’s death was ruled an accident, just another sad statistic against drinking and driving. Half the people who had suspected him of murder believed his death was karma. The other half turned on a dime and mourned him as the poor tormented father, unable to go on without his firstborn child.

His death was ruled an accident. I knew better. Everyone knew better. It was the truth hidden in plain view. He had driven willingly to his death with a police escort, metaphorically speaking. He simply had not been able to take it any longer—the grief, the guilt, the suspicion, the not knowing, the terrible imagining of what had happened to Leslie.

I have never and will never forgive him for what he did that night on the Cold Spring Canyon bridge. I understand better than anyone why he did it. Many nights I have envied him the peace of death and cursed him for leaving the burden of life and living on me.