Chapter 3

The road was freedom.

Grayson drove his modified off-road vehicle west along Route 66, mile after mile.

He'd seen towering snow peaks, lakes the color of deep blue glass, and pronghorn running across open grassland.

Every day he slept until his body woke on its own. When he got hungry, he built a fire and cooked. When he got tired, he pulled over somewhere with a good view, brewed a pot of tea, and watched the clouds drift and pile and drift again.

Twenty-odd years of a nature crushed flat by work and family finally, in this moment, came all the way loose.

He felt alive again.

On the ninth day out, he brought the vehicle down to the edge of a nameless lake in the high country.

The water was clear to the bottom, not another soul in sight, nothing but wind and the sound of it moving over the surface.

He'd just set up his rod, ready to enjoy an afternoon of fishing, when an unknown number called in.

A pay phone.

He hesitated, then answered anyway.

On the other end came the ragged, howling sobs of his former mother-in-law, Gabriella Lawrence.

"Grayson! My good son-in-law! Come back, please, come back!"

Grayson frowned and moved to hang up on reflex.

"Wait!" Gabriella cried out, as if she'd read his mind. "It's Eleanor! Something's happened to Eleanor!"

"What about her?" His tone was flat.

"She—she had a massive stroke, out of nowhere. She's paralyzed. She can't even talk right anymore!" Gabriella was crying so hard she could barely catch her breath. "And that monster Michael, he's not even human. He took every last dollar in the house and ran, and now nobody can find him. The hospital's on us every single day about the money. We've got nowhere left to turn!"

"Grayson, I'm begging you. For the sake of twenty years of marriage with Eleanor, come back and see her. Come back and cover the hospital bills, come back and take care of her!"

Grayson listened to the wailing on the other end, and nothing in him stirred. If anything, he found it almost funny.

Marriage?

That had gone up in smoke the day they forced him to sign that debt-waiver release.

Take care of her?

On what grounds?

He let out a cold laugh and opened his mouth to refuse.

"Don't move! Police!"

"Hands where I can see them!"

Barked orders, cutting sirens, all of it erupting outside the vehicle at once.

Grayson froze. Before he could react, the door was wrenched open from outside.

Several officers in uniform, armed and loaded, closed in around him on every side.

A black gun muzzle was leveled at his head.

The phone slipped from his hand and hit the ground. On the other end, Gabriella was still crying, far away now, and not quite real.