Chapter 1

The first time my mother dies, my husband makes me take the blame.

His childhood sweetheart is the one who hits her.

Brooke has been drinking.

Daniel knows.

He threatens our daughter until I sign the statement he puts in front of me. Then he takes my phone, locks me in the spare room, and tells the world I killed my own mother.

Thirty days later, he opens the door.

By then, strangers are calling for my death.

I don't survive that life.

When I open my eyes again, it's the morning of the crash.

My mother is reaching for her coat.

Later that morning, my husband comes home and tells me she's dead.

He doesn't know she's upstairs.

Alive.

Listening.

"Rachel?"

Daniel stands in the doorway, waiting for me to move.

There's dirt on one knee of his trousers.

I remember that too.

In my first life, I thought he'd knelt beside my mother to help her.

Now I look at his hands.

"Where have you been?"

He closes the door.

"Brooke called."

My stomach tightens.

He already told me that on the phone.

An accident.

Someone hurt.

He asked where I was, then sounded relieved when I said home.

I waited until he hung up before I called my mother's phone upstairs.

She answered in a whisper.

I told her not to come down.

Not yet.

Daniel approaches me slowly.

The same careful steps.

The same lowered voice.

"Rachel, I'm so sorry."

He reaches for me.

I let his arms settle around my shoulders because I need him to keep talking.

"Your mother was on Mercer Road."

Above us, a floorboard creaks.

Daniel doesn't notice.

"Brooke didn't see her until it was too late."

I stare at the wall behind him.

I glance at the kitchen clock.

Earlier this morning, I woke at this table with the taste of blood in my mouth and a memory of the room where he kept me.

Mom was by the back door.

She'd already walked Sophie to the school bus.

"I'll get some eggs while I'm out," she said.

I knocked her bag out of her hand.

Then I caught her so tightly she cried out.

I didn't let her leave.

I took her upstairs, locked the bedroom door, and stood outside it shaking.

She asked whether Daniel had hurt me.

I couldn't explain fast enough.

Then his call came.

Now he pulls away to look at me.

"Did you hear what I said?"

"Yes."

"She died at the scene."

I look toward the stairs.

He follows my gaze.

"Do you want to sit down?"

"No."

He sighs as though I'm making something difficult.

"Brooke's devastated."

I hear the sentence twice.

Once now.

Once from the life I already lived.

"She's home," he continues. "I told her to lie down. She was shaking so badly she could barely hold her phone."

"You took her home?"

"She couldn't stay there."

"What about the person she hit?"

He pauses.

Then his expression softens again.

"Your mother, Rachel."

He says it gently.

Correcting me.

"You mean your mother."

My phone is in my pocket.

Before he arrived, I sent Mom a message.

Call the police. Tell them Daniel is coming home after helping someone cover up a fatal crash.

Tell them I'm afraid he'll hurt us. Stay upstairs with your phone.

She replied:

I'm calling. Stay away from him if you can.

Daniel looks toward the kitchen counter.

There's an unopened carton of milk beside the bowl Mom used for Sophie's breakfast.

"Have you eaten?"

"Did anyone call an ambulance?"

His eyes return to mine.

"It wouldn't have helped."

"That isn't what I asked."

"Rachel."

"Did you call the police?"

He releases my shoulders.

"We need to talk about that."

He reaches into his jacket.

The papers are folded into thirds.

I know the sound they make when he opens them.

In my first life, I signed with a hand that wouldn't stop shaking.

He smooths the pages against the table.

"Brooke has a lot to lose."

I look at the first line.

Statement of Events.

My name is already printed at the top.