I put my hand on her arm to stop her.

“I don’t want to know. I want to think they died in the accident.”

“Okay,” she answered and then didn’t say anything.

Her silence told me that they hadn’t died in the crash, but in the fire. I tried to stare straight ahead at the road, to concentrate on anything but the grisly detail I had learned. There had been no kindness, no hint of mercy that night. I crumpled, crying like a child in pain.

“Micky…” Cordelia started. But there was nothing to say. I heard my harsh sobbing in the stillness of the rain.

“Turn here,” I said, trying to gain control, to pay attention to where we were going instead of my anguish. But I couldn’t stop crying.

“I’m sorry,” Cordelia said. “I shouldn’t have let you know.”

“It’s okay. It’s not your fault,” I finally said. “I’ve had a nightmare confirmed. If no one knew, I would have let it rest, but since there was an autopsy that did say whether they died by fire… I would have to know. Some day.” I paused. We drove on in the rain. “Here,” I said.

“What?” she said.

“It happened here,” I explained.

“My God,” Cordelia whispered under her breath, slowing the car.

There were no traces, nothing to mark this as the spot, save for my memory.

“Do you want me to stop?” she asked.

“No, there’s nothing to see,” I replied. “You were telling a story,” I said as we passed the curves and left them behind.

“The police reports. Someone had to have shot my father. They knew you were in the truck, since the other woman…”

“Alma. Alma Beaugez.”

“Her mother said you were. That you had been there when your father stopped by to pick up Alma and her son. By process of elimination, the police figured you were the one who had fired the gun, but they were never sure. Grandpa didn’t want it investigated. Dad was…well, not interested in settling down, to use the Southern euphemism.”

“He cheated on your mother.”

Cordelia paused, then replied, “Regularly, it appeared. Granddad is…was of the old school and had some very strict ideas about family and the like. The problem wasn’t that Dad murdered the woman; you can’t really murder a prostitute, not according to…” She paused, calming herself.

“Not in the South your grandfather knew,” I supplied.

“Yes. Women were either virgins to be protected at all costs or whores to be trampled underfoot. My mother, being a proper married woman, was to be protected.”

“At all costs.”

“Yes, mother and child, a daughter, no less. God forbid that she be exposed to sex,” Cordelia commented sardonically, then she was silent for a moment, before saying quietly, “I don’t think Dad ever thought there really were consequences. There was always a way out. At least for him. Anyway, Granddad had repeatedly warned him and had finally used the only real leverage he had—money. If Dad were found in an even vaguely compromising situation, that was it. Granddad would take my mother’s side in the divorce and Dad would be out without a penny. Granddad knew that that would change Dad’s behavior. But I don’t guess he knew it would make him a murderer.”

“So it wasn’t murdering the woman, but just being seen with her,” I interjected.

“It’s insane, isn’t it? Dad had to avoid being reported in an accident in the middle of nowhere in the company of a woman not his wife. But…if the woman was in the truck…with the other accident victims…”

“And he sets a goddamn fire so that none of the people left in the truck will ever wake up and wonder how another woman ended up with them…how fucking convenient. His mistress is killed in an accident he had nothing to do with,” I finished bitterly.

“Dad wouldn’t have to face the consequences,” Cordelia said quietly. “He could just drive away from it all.”

“It almost worked. Too bad I was hanging around with a shotgun. But I wasn’t really there, was I? Not according to the version Holloway money bought,” I said acidly. Then I realized that Cordelia wasn’t the right person to hate, that she was letting me throw my anger at her simply because she knew she was the only target left for me.

“I’m sorry,” she finally said.