“How did he do it?” he asked calmly. “Gun to his head so that you’d be the one to find him?”

It was close enough to the truth to stun her into speechlessness. “No,” she finally whispered. “He drove his motorcycle off a cliff in California. Into the ocean.”

Diesel’s face maintained an outward calm but his dark eyes were snapping with fury. “Did he make a video and send it to you?”

She shook her head slowly, stunned even more that he’d guessed almost exactly right. “No video. He bought me a plane ticket and asked me to come out to be with him. Said he’d always wanted to see the Pacific coast, so he was driving the length of it before he died. He said that he wanted to share it with me. Said he forgave me.”

Diesel tilted his head back so that he stared at the ceiling. “He forgave you.”

It sounded wrong when he said it that way. “Yes. So I went. We talked it over. Rode up the coast and marveled at the views. I rode with him and it was like old times. Just the two of us. And then he pulled off to a scenic overlook, we got off the bike, and he kissed me. It was the first time he’d touched me like that since I’d arrived. I’d hugged him around the waist while we’d been on the bike, but that was all. He gave me a letter and told me not to open it until ‘after.’ I asked him what he meant, but he didn’t answer. He got back on his bike and drove away. I thought he’d abandoned me at first. I opened the letter, but it was only one sentence: Tell the search and recovery team to wear gloves. Then he came thundering back. He’d picked up a lot of speed.”

A muscle twitched in Diesel’s jaw. “He drove off the cliff in front of you.”

Dani nodded numbly, remembering it all in vivid, Technicolor detail. “He never even tried to stop. The drop was eighty-five feet.”

Diesel drew in a breath. “This is what you call your fault?”

He’s angry. Good. “He left another letter at the hotel where I’d left my luggage. He said that he might have tried to fight for us if I hadn’t betrayed him when he was in the hospital. That I’d killed him as sure as if I’d shot him with a gun.”