PROLOGUE
AMANDA
“I don’t want that shit taco’s money,” I grit through my teeth, foot heavy on the gas pedal as I weave through the morning traffic on I-4.
The chuckle from my attorney is thinly veiled through an exhausted sigh. “While I appreciate the creative insult, the fact still remains that—”
“I don’t have a choice,” I finish for her, squinting through the windshield as I pass a minivan. It’s a foggy morning, like Tampa is trying to summon in October and spooky season in its own creative way. It certainly won’t be getting cold here any time soon, but the fog is a nice fall touch.
“It won’t be forever,” Myra promises, her voice echoey through my phone speaker. My Toyota is older than her pre-teen, with a stereo that plays a CD with only a few songs skipping on a good day. It doesn’t even have an auxiliary cord hookup, so my phone sits perched on the console, her voice grainy as she says, “You’re in school now, and having a degree will make it much easier to find a job and support yourself.”
“Right. In approximately four years.”
“It will pass faster than you think,” she says. “And until then, alimony will make everything a lot easier.”
I grumble my argument under my breath as the fog thickens. Everyone is slowing down, putting on flashers, acting like they’ve never driven in anything other than sunshine.
I had dreams for what my life would look like at forty-seven years old. When I was younger, I imagined a doting husband and a big house with a wraparound porch. I envisioned kids and grandkids and hosting holidays and wine nights with my girlfriends after a long week at work.
After my life took an unexpected turn at fifteen when I found out I was pregnant, I still held onto dreams, still imagined a life full of love and laughter.
Instead, I’m on the brink of a divorce from a man who abused me for years, suffering through my sophomore year of college after not having studied a damn thing since I was eighteen, and hopelessly flailing through my first attempt at dating ever.
God has a ripe sense of humor.
“I don’t want to be tied to him. I don’t want him to think he still has power over me.” My throat burns with the attempt at swallowing. “I just want it to be over with,” I confess, my chest tight with the admission. “He’s been dragging this out for almost two years now.”
“He’s trying anything he can to change your mind, trying to make it hard on you so you’ll give up.”
I grip the wheel tighter. “I’m not giving up.”
“I know. And I think he does, now, too. He’s told his representation that he’s ready to sign,” she reminds me. “We’re closer to a court date than it seems. If we can just wait—”
“We’ve been waiting,” I whine. I don’t want to whine. A mature woman should not whine. But I’m so damn frustrated with the whole situation at this point that I can’t help it.
“We’re rounding the last corner to the finish line,” she says. “Just stay focused on school and before you know it, you’ll be free.”
Free.
The word knocks my breath from my chest, and I blink, slowing a bit when I see brake lights through the fog ahead.
That word has haunted me for years, the notion that I could live a life free of the pain, the guilt, the resentment seeming too good to be true.
“Do you really think he’ll leave me alone after this?”
I don’t realize how weak my voice is, how much it sounds like a whisper until I hear the exhale of sympathy from my attorney.
“I do,” she says. “And if he doesn’t, we’ll file a restraining order against the shit taco.”
I smirk at her using my nickname for my soon-to-be ex-husband, especially because I know that petite woman with the slicked-back bun and glasses has likely cursed only a total of ten times in her adult life.
As I approach the junction where I-4 connects to 275, I’m forced to slow down, the fog thickening until I can barely see a car’s length ahead of me. One quick glance at the clock on my car’s stereo confirms I’ll likely be late for class with all this traffic.
Great.
“Okay. So, for now, I just need to… wait?”
“Wait,” Myra confirms. “Focus on school and that new grandbaby of yours. And maybe on having a little fun, if you can imagine such a ludicrous idea.”
“Funny,” I deadpan, switching lanes so I’m in the right one to head north on 275 toward the university.
“It’ll all be over soon.”
“And then you and I are going out for a drink.”
“Multiple drinks,” Myra says. “Starting with a shot of tequila.”
I smile, marveling at how an attorney I pay to spend their time on me has somehow become my closest friend. But I guess that’s what happens when you let yourself be slowly isolated from your friends and family over a few decades.
“Thank you, Myra,” I say softly. “I don’t know—OH, SHIT!”
The gasp that instinctively rips from me mixes with Myra’s worried what?! as I slam on my brakes, holding the wheel as steady as I can as more and more brake lights and crunched cars come into view through the fog. But it’s too late. I’m too close. There isn’t enough time to fully register what’s happening, let alone stop.
I slam into the side of a half-turned BMW, the impact feeling like speeding over a long line of potholes. The airbag explodes, my car filling with powder and the distinct smell of hot metal as I finally come to.
I blink, Myra’s voice screaming through the speaker now and demanding that I answer. I don’t feel pain. I don’t feel anything really, other than confusion. I blink, head as foggy as the morning as I try to gather my bearings.
Through Myra’s screams, I hear screeching tires and loud, thunderous thuds as more and more cars pile up.
My heart is slow, the beat thick and heavy in my ears as my eyes flick to the rearview mirror.
Just in time to see an old F-150 come into view through the fog.
I close my eyes and feel afraid of death for only a split second before I’m hit.
Then, I feel nothing at all.
GREG
“It’s a two-very-large-cups-of-coffee kind of morning,” my associate, Dr. Stacy Banks, says as she leans a hip against the frame of my office door. “I’m going to run down before I go over my cases for the day. You want anything?”
I smile at her from where I’m already going over my own cases, holding up my Yeti water bottle. “All good, thanks.”
“Oh, that’s right. You don’t drink coffee,” she muses with a shake of her head. “I’m not sure how you survive this profession without it.”
I just smile wider in lieu of answering, mostly because I’ve had the whole “Why don’t you drink coffee/alcohol/anything other than water?” conversation for far too many years to want to have it again this early in the morning.
“He also wakes up at four in the morning, goes for a run or spends at least an hour in the gym before he shows up here, and still manages to be the first one in,” Dr. Ray McLaughlin adds with a wry smile from the hallway behind Stacy. He checks his watch. “It’s six thirty and you look like you’ve been reviewing cases for at least a half hour.”