Chapter 3

The one piece of evidence that could prove I'd put gas in the car ended up turning me into a suspect. I never saw it coming.

The manager figured I'd sent Elmer driving loops around the station to distract the staff, so I could siphon off fuel while nobody was watching.

There was nothing I could say to make it right, and the officers walked me into the station.

They questioned Elmer, the manager, and the pump attendant one by one, then went over the full surveillance footage and the fuel-volume records.

The look they gave me got harder by the minute.

Every scrap of evidence pointed the same way: my behavior was bizarre, I was picking a fight, and over and over I'd tried to run a scam on the station.

They even pulled the surrounding cameras.

"The footage shows your car was towed in, Mr. James. And after it got here, it somehow ran several full loops without anyone paying for gas."

"You say this isn't a shakedown. Then how do you explain that?"

My head buzzed like it might split open.

It had been exactly like this in my last life.

If every piece of evidence had just vanished, fine.

But no. Some of it disappeared, and some of it stayed.

And what stayed only ever proved I was the troublemaker looking to cause a scene.

The officers noted I had a clean record, so they didn't book me. They just made me pay the station five hundred dollars in compensation.

I came out of the station with all the life drained out of me.

Autumn called to ask how I was feeling.

All I could say was that I was healing well, and it wouldn't hold up the wedding two weeks from now.

Elmer saw me looking like something the rain had beaten flat, and it got to him. He started talking me into it.

"That car's cursed, man. Why don't you just sell it?"

I'd bought that car the year Autumn and I started dating. It carried a lot of good memories.

That was the whole reason I'd chosen it as the wedding car.

"Ah..." I let out a long sigh. "Fine. Let's sell it."

However much the past mattered, it mattered less than staying alive for the future.

Old Les, the used-car dealer, heard I was selling and came racing over.

"Brother, this car's in great shape. I'll give you eighty grand, money in your account today."

Eighty grand?

I'd paid two hundred fifty for it, driven it three years, never so much as scratched it.

It stung, and I couldn't help it.

But what choice did I have.

That same day I took the money, handed over the car, and stood there watching Old Les fill the tank right up and drive off.

"Well, that's just weird." Elmer stood on his toes, peering the way Old Les had gone. "How come he drives it and nothing happens?"

Guess I'm just not a lucky man.

Seeing me sour-faced and sighing, Elmer clapped me on the shoulder to cheer me up.

"It's fine. Sure, you're out a car, but at least you're getting a wife out of it."

"That Old Les? Guy's past forty and still single."

At the mention of Autumn, my mood eased up a little.

Terrified the other wedding cars might have the same problem, I called and canceled the whole plan to escort the bride.

I even asked Autumn if we could just head straight to the hotel.

She seemed to sense something was weighing on me, and she was so understanding about it.

"Of course we can. And if it'd put your mind at ease, we could just travel for the wedding instead. Skip the ceremony altogether."

Tears welled up all at once.

A girl this good. I'd lost her in my last life, and if in this one I couldn't even give her a ceremony, I'd never forgive myself as long as I lived.

In the days that followed, I threw myself into planning the wedding.

Mom and Dad didn't understand it, but they respected what I wanted and took it on themselves to explain to the relatives.

They said young people these days couldn't be bothered with all the fuss and the old formalities, and that was why we'd dropped the escort.

My mother-in-law tried a few times to make things hard for me, and Autumn headed her off every time.

She looped her arm through mine down the aisle, put on the ring, and drank the couple's toast with me.

Somehow we made it all the way through the wedding.

Uncle Theo, good and drunk, clapped my shoulder and gave me his advice.

"You, now. Whatever else you've got, you've got luck."

I nodded and nodded, saw him respectfully out of the hotel, and let out a long breath.

This life, I'd finally dodged the fate of dying in pieces, and my own happiness had come at last.

I was still swept up in all of it when Uncle Theo's angry shout burst out from in front of the hotel.

"Huh? How's my tank empty?"

Then voice after voice went up.

"Mine too. I filled it right up when I got here this morning."

"Brand-new car, only put gas in it two days ago. How's it saying the tank's low..."