Chapter 4

### Chapter 4

No wonder the police said the traffic camera at the intersection had failed.

It was him. To protect Susan, he'd wiped out the evidence the moment it happened.

"The one thing I'll regret most for the rest of my life is ever knowing the two of you."

I screamed until my throat tore, thrashing, wanting only to get past him and rip that innocent face apart.

A flicker of pain crossed Tyler's face, and he opened his mouth to say something.

Then Susan let out a shrill, wretched cry and sobbed, "I'll pay with my life. Is that enough for you?"

Every trace of guilt drained from Tyler's face.

"Queenie, what's the point of any of this now? Stop clinging to the past. The living matter more."

He pushed at me, frantic. "Say it. Say you're letting it go!"

"Never!"

Tyler kicked the back of my knee without warning.

The pain drove me down, and I dropped to my knees.

"There, she's forgiven you! Now come back down!"

Tears spilled out again from the pain, and by then he'd already climbed over the railing, lunging to haul Susan back to safety.

Carrying her past me, he paused and looked down at me.

"Get up and go take care of that knee."

I watched him stride away, and I laughed until my eyes ran wet.

I took out my phone and dialed an old classmate.

A professional private investigator. He answered to money, not to people.

"Whatever it costs, get me the evidence on my parents' crash."

"I'm going to put Susan Henson in prison."

I hung up, wiped my eyes, and pushed myself up against the wall.

My knee buckled with pain. Step by step I dragged myself to the curb and caught a cab home.

Upstairs I dug out everything connected to Tyler, dumped all of it into the iron drum in the yard, and struck a match.

The flames leapt up and licked at all of it, burning away every mark of the ten years I'd loved him, from eighteen to twenty-eight.

Tyler walked into the yard and saw the blaze.

When he made out what was inside the drum, his pupils shrank, and he reached in, panicked, only to snatch his hand back, scalded by the heat.

He stared at everything the fire was destroying and spun around, shouting.

"These are the gifts I gave you. Didn't you say you'd treasure them your whole life?"

"But that was the Queenie who was eighteen."

The thousand paper cranes he'd fumbled through folding for me when we met at eighteen.

The ceramic vase he'd secretly made for my nineteenth birthday.

The Chanel bag, the dresses he gave me at our engagement when I was twenty-three... the expensive ones and the cheap ones, the heartfelt ones and the throwaway ones, they all burned the same.

He stared at me, blank, probably searching that face for some flicker of reluctance, some hint of regret.

But he found nothing.

He opened his mouth and started to explain.

"Queenie, what happened to your parents, Susan really didn't mean it. She cries every day. She's punishing herself too."

"And she and I really are just friends. Don't read into it. I swear, I'll throw you a grand wedding to make up for all of this."

I looked down at my empty stomach and thought of my parents' bodies at the funeral home, their heads broken and bloodied.

Laughable.

Was there any point left in that wedding?

Seeing how worn out I looked, Tyler softened his voice.

"You're tired. Rest for a while first."

He led me into the bedroom, watched me lie down with his own eyes, then changed into clean clothes and left.

"Something's come up at the company. I'll deal with it and come right back."

Was it really the company, or was he in a hurry to get back to Susan?

I tugged the corner of my mouth. It didn't matter anymore.

The moment the footsteps faded from the stairwell, I sat up and messaged my lawyer.

"Transfer all my shares in Farley Group to Morris Finch. Wire the money to my overseas account."