Liv’s thoughts meandered as she cruised the interstate. She opened both front windows, and flashed to an image of herself as a teenager, driving too fast in her father’s station wagon, the wind blasting through the cabin, her hair dancing in the tornado. She didn’t crank up the music—that was Evan and Danny’s thing. Instead she listened to the howl of the wind.
She thought about Noah. As a boy, his master plan had been to move up the ranks in local politics, become governor, then make a run for the big leagues—the Senate, or even president of the United States. He looked the part. More handsome now than when he was younger, with the perfectly symmetrical face and Clark Kent curl in his hair. The slow movements and gait of confidence. As if he’d grown into the part. He’d become mayor of Adair in his early thirties, and everyone thought he’d be on the national political scene by now. But life got in the way. Having a child, his wife’s cancer. But he’d scrapped his way through farm-belt politics to become the number two man in the state. And now he’d be governor.
The elevation had personal significance for Liv—not the nostalgia of seeing her old boyfriend achieving his dreams, but the fact that Noah would lead the pardon board. In Nebraska, the governor didn’t have the unilateral power to pardon. There was a pardon board made up of the governor, the attorney general, and the secretary of state. Governor Turner had shut down any prospect of a pardon, but Noah could make it happen. He just needed the courage to do so. Would he have it? Liv felt a pang of doubt. Noah was a born politician. He’d test the winds, see what the polling said about it. Would voters expect him to use his newfound power to correct the injustice he’d rallied against on-screen? One would hope. All she could do was try.
If Noah convinced the board to pardon Danny, maybe, just maybe, life could go back to something resembling the days from Before. It wasn’t perfect back then, of course. And even before Danny’s arrest, she and Evan had grown apart. She’d betrayed her husband. And her children. Guilt engulfed her, but she decided to shake it off.
Not today.
She took the ramp into Adair and cruised through town until she hit the familiar country road that led to her childhood home. Her mind went again to herself as a teenager. The curve leading to the property was coming up and she planned to accelerate right at the arc, as she had done since she was sixteen, when she’d come home with a shiny laminated driver’s license.
Before she reached it, she tried Evan’s cell again. She was excited to tell him the news. But it went straight to voicemail. She listened to his recorded greeting amid the sound of the wind. Evan hadn’t changed his voice message in years. He sounded upbeat, friendly. Like the man she’d fallen in love with.
After the beep she said, “Hey, it’s me. Give me a call when you get time. I have news.” She paused. “Good news.”
Good news. It had been so long since she’d had any of that. She pushed down on the accelerator, and the rental car picked up speed. The wind blew more fiercely as she hit the famous curve, her hair lashing around the car.
That was when she saw the red cherries in her rearview mirror.
CHAPTER 32
“Seriously?” Liv said aloud as she pulled the car to the shoulder. There wasn’t another vehicle on the road, probably not one for miles, yet the small-town cop had pulled her over for going a little above the speed limit. What was the cop even doing here? In her entire childhood Liv couldn’t recall a police car ever patrolling the desolate winding road.
She started digging through the glove box, looking for the rental car’s registration papers, when there was a loud tap on the glass.
Lifting her gaze, she was blinded by a flashlight beam directly in her face. It made no sense. It wasn’t even dark outside. The ray finally swung away and all she saw for a moment was the afterglow. Finally her vision cleared enough to make out the officer’s face.
Liv’s blood went cold.
It was her.
There was no mistaking it. She still had the same frizzy eighties hair with the bangs. The same tomboy demeanor. One of the stars of Danny’s interrogation video, Officer Wendy White.
“You know why I pulled you over?” the officer asked.
Liv took a deep breath. She needed to hold her anger. She’d heard enough of her husband’s talks to know that little good came from lipping off to a cop. But with this woman, this foul creature, Liv wasn’t so sure she could bite her tongue.
“I have no idea.”
“Speeding.”