My late sister's son was our ring bearer—at the altar, he refused to hand over the rings, pointed at my fiancé and said, "Mom told me not to give them to him until you see this."

At dawn, my phone buzzed against the hardwood floor. It was Detective Miller from the county sheriff's department.

"Miss Evans," Miller said, his tone grim. "We’ve reviewed the audio file on the micro-SD card and executed an emergency search warrant on Douglas Mercer’s apartment."

I stood up, moving away from the bedroom door so Bruce wouldn't hear. "What did you find?"

"We found duplicate keys to your vehicle, your sister’s vehicle, and several sets of forged identity documents under three different names," Miller explained. "More importantly, we cross-referenced the call logs from Judy’s phone records with the cell tower pings from the afternoon of her accident. Ten minutes after that phone call ended, Douglas’s phone pinged within three hundred yards of your sister's house."

The room seemed to tilt. "He was there."

"Yes. We believe he didn't just threaten her over the phone. He was already waiting outside her residence. We located an interview from the mechanic who inspected Judy’s wrecked SUV a year ago. At the time, the state police chalked up the brake failure to corrosion and poor maintenance. But with this new audio, our forensic team re-examined the impounded undercarriage."

"And?"

"The braided steel brake hose wasn't corroded, Clara. It had been scored with an industrial pipe cutter. Just enough so that under normal pressure it would hold, but under the heavy braking required on the steep descent toward the school, the line would burst open instantly."

A strangled gasp escaped my throat. "He murdered her. He sat at our dinner table, ate the food I cooked, and he murdered my sister."

"He knows the net is closing," Miller warned, his voice hardening. "His attorney tried to claim the recording was tampered with, but the electronic metadata is pristine. We’re issuing an arrest warrant for first-degree murder within the hour. But Clara—Mercy’s GPS ankle monitor from his bail was disabled forty minutes ago. He cut it."

My blood turned to liquid nitrogen. "He’s gone?"

"We’ve put out an APB, but I need you to stay locked inside wherever you are. Tell me your location so I can dispatch two units to sit outside."

"I'm at—"

A faint sound from the gravel driveway outside cut me off. It was the soft, muffled crunch of tires rolling over crushed stone without an engine running—coasting in neutral.