“No, I haven’t. We literally just figured it out.”

“We’re moving, you know,” she says. “Too many bad memories here. Too many good memories as well. Everywhere we turn we’re reminded of Chloe. It’s too much. Scott went to talk to his boss today about a transfer. People will understand. They’ll think it was just too painful to stay—and that’s true. Just not for the exact reasons people think.”

Laura starts walking down the driver’s side of the Mustang, the gun in front of her. Mike and I shuffle down the passenger side, keeping the car between us.

“We won’t tell,” Mike says.

“Tell what?” she asks.

“Whatever happened,” Mike says. “Shit, I don’t even know what happened, Laura. But we won’t say anything. I promise.”

She stops directly across from us, raising the gun above the roof of the car. “A man has to protect his family. That’s what a man does. If someone threatens his family, if someone harasses his daughter, he has to do something about it. And if things go too far when he protects that family, then he has to clean up that mess, too.”

“Did you do something to Chloe?” I ask. “Were you the one driving the car that night?”

She closes her eyes. I’d charge her, but the distance is too great. When she opens them again, she says, “I wasn’t, but I might as well have been. Whatever Scott did, he did for me. And for Chloe. He was trying to protect us, but he drove too fast. His emotions got the better of him. That happens, right? He didn’t tell me the truth right away because he wanted to protect me. She’s our only child, one we tried so hard to have.”

“But it was an accident then,” Basher says. “Why not just tell the cops?”

“Scott thought it was better if I believed Chloe had disappeared or been kidnapped than to think her own…”

Her eyes glisten with tears under the overhead lights. She uses her free hand to wipe them away.