t open the way

ut of her hand and slammed it flat against the side of the van, and the whole world po

ey

. He was heavy but quick, and his hand shot acro

If she had thought, she

ke shedding skin, left it hanging empty i

e road sho

nto the ground at seventy miles an hour. Her right shoulder took it, then her hip, then her cheek, and then s

ad with a sound like a plate breaking. A scream came out of h

and just when she thought it would never stop, her body slammed into the gravel at

le

r away, the s

back and look

s a metallic taste in her mouth. She tried to breathe and her ri

al

not expe

left arm lay across her chest in the broken cast, one end of it sticking out at a wrong angle. Blood

crooked across both lanes with its back door still flapping open, smoke curling

t

vomited into the gravel, mostly water, a litt

, Sera

wet dog's, her legs the consistency of old rope, and she grabbed th

hear them. Heavy boots slapping tarmac.

ope of loose stone and thorny scrub, down toward a dry riverbed forty feet below

phalt bent around a bluff

with three m

d being a woman on a road and became a small bright point somewher

c's thumb pressed against hers when he said it's only temporary, just trust me. She saw all thirty-eight divorces lined

an with the sausage roll had said

he waiters. The clerks. The women at the charity lunches who smiled at he

ed hospital sweater, hunted like an animal, while the man

in her chest, s

elf out. This was something else, quiet and cold and utterly steady,

r ag

, a whisper through broken teeth, and it

er a

Never again will I stand in a room and let somebody decide how much I'm worth. Never

pite, if nothing else. And when she was

e she

e fifty

ed him here. The sausage-roll man behind him, holding her sweater like a bad joke. And a third man she hadn't properly see

the young one called. "

aughed. Her

rdrail. Then at the s

actly what Vivian had paid for. A tidy accident. A tragic breakdown. A body in a

not hand

rail and swung

y!

nd came out of his jacket. Some

e long drop yawning under her heels, and she thought, wi

he hea

ery expensive machine clearing its throat. It came from behind the bluff, fr

too. All three

e around

slow at all. It took the bend like it owned the road, bore down on the

e roll hit the dirt. The lean one barely got out of the way

t was sliding sideways across both lanes, smoke pouring off its rubbe

idled, lo

second, not

d a pair of black leather shoes, very c

ed glass, level and unhurried, as thoug

said. "I believe

ed her Miss Fin