I felt awful about taking her car, but I was too scared of what would happen if she tried to drive like this. She could call a cab, like she said. Or I could go back, get her later, once she’d calmed down, once the bar was getting ready to close.

Sam wouldn’t attack her, not in front of everyone.

I blinked several times, trying to focus.

I made my way through town, past the shops, the restaurants, everything closed and dark. As I curved down the road, snow kissing the windshield, blinking every other second, I wished for New York City, for Brooklyn, for cabs and car services, for tall buildings, city lights, and people in the streets. I wished so badly I were anywhere but here.

I reached the turn for the road that would lead to mine. I was only a couple of miles from home, but the road wound mercilessly and I had to be extra careful in the snow. I could get home, call McKnight, beg him to arrest Sam, to somehow protect me. I blinked again, vision swimming. I realized I was crying.

I wound along the twisting road, and my phone dinged. It was Vera.

Damn it Lucy where did you go?

I watched as she kept typing, glancing quickly back at the road, then down again.

Your coat’s here but you’re not. I’m sorry. I didn’t really mean it.

What the hell?

I shook my head, but before I could look up, I felt it. A shakiness beneath the tires, a rumbling that rocked everything.

I whipped my head up, but the road was no longer there.

I was speeding, careening, toward the woods. Toward the trees.

I slammed on the brakes, and there was an awful sound, an old man choking, and it was like time slowed down, crawling, struggling, dragging, as Vera’s car began to spin.

FORTY-THREE

A beeping, persistent, like the sound of Davis’s old alarm, the one I’d always been on him to change.

My eyes fluttered open, struggling to adjust.

The beeping continued, as my gaze locked on the ceiling. A grid, squares of drywall set apart with strips of plastic. I turned my head, and pain seared along the back of my neck, all the way down to my tailbone, as I did. The beeping was a monitor. Acid-green numbers. It took me a moment to realize it was my pulse, trudging along.

My god. What the fuck had happened?

I grabbed at my arm, where a needle was inserted, an IV drip. My pulse sped up, the beeping insistent. I twisted my neck back again, felt another rush of pain, hot and white.

The door opened, and a woman in kitten-printed scrubs walked in.

‘Good to see you awake.’

I swallowed back the pain as I twisted my head around, following her movements. ‘Where am I?’