Cover

Dedication

For Danielle Holley-Walker

Epigraph

“Louise, no matter what happens, I’m glad I came with you.”

—Thelma

Prologue

From PATCH

Hopewell-Pennington, NJ

POLICE SEEK WITNESSES TO ROLLOVER CRASH

A woman was found on Tuesday night with critical injuries, not far from an overturned 1999 Toyota 4Runner. Emergency crews responded at 11:20 PM to a report of a single-car accident on East Mountain Road in the Sourland Mountain Preserve.

The survivor, described as a young woman estimated to be in her late teens or early twenties, was transported to Capital Health Medical Center, where she remains in critical condition. Law enforcement is asking any witnesses who may have information about the cause of the accident or the identity of the vehicle’s occupant to contact Hopewell Police.

1
Saturday, June 12, 6:32 p.m.
Fifteen Years Later

Hope Miller shifted her gaze from the gas nozzle to the pump. When the gallon counter hit twelve, she scolded herself for not filling up before her trip into the city. She couldn’t risk an empty tank.

The nearest customer leaned against his green Jeep, sharing her same awkward wait, watching the digital numbers tick by. She noticed him looking at her. When he noticed her noticing, he flashed a practiced grin. She didn’t smile back.

That phrase, “It takes more muscles to frown than smile”? She had googled it once. Turns out, facial descriptions are subjective. Smiles, sneers, frowns, and smirks are all in the eye of the beholder. And the so-called facial nerve controls forty-something muscles, but some people have all of them, while others are missing almost half.

But scientists did agree on one thing—that smiles are innate. Reflexive. And viewed across cultures as a sign of friendliness.

A single man smiling at a single woman alone at a gas station at night?

He could be flirting. Hope didn’t think of herself as pretty, per se, but how many times had Lindsay called her a magnet for male attention?

Or he could be suggesting that she smile back, the nonverbal version of those comments men let fly so freely around total strangers—“Smile, honey. It’s a beautiful night”—as if it’s their business how a woman holds her face.

Or, she wondered as she risked another glance in his direction, this particular man might know her. Was this simply random eye contact from a stranger, or the reflexive smile of a person who thought he recognized her from his past? She imagined him saying, Hey, aren’t you . . .

She pushed the thought away. He didn’t seem especially curious. He was simply one of those guys who smiled at strangers for no reason at all.