Chapter 1 - You Still Drive Too Fast
A police officer leaned through my open window and whispered, “You still drive too fast.”
She took the driver’s license from my shaking hand.
A tiny faded blue star was scratched beside my old hometown address.
Only one person had ever drawn that star.
Emily Carter had found me.
For several seconds, I forgot how breathing worked.
She stood outside my car wearing a dark navy uniform, one hand resting against the top of my door, her brown hair pulled into a ponytail. A few loose strands moved across her cheek. Behind her, red and blue lights flashed from the cruiser parked on the shoulder.
But I barely saw any of it.
All I saw was seventeen-year-old Emily sitting beside me on the hood of my father’s truck, drawing a crooked blue star on the inside of my wrist with a ballpoint pen.
“So you remember where home is,” she had told me.
I had laughed.
She hadn’t.
Emily had always been more serious about promises than I was.
My throat tightened.
“Emily?”
Her expression changed so slightly that anyone else might have missed it.
I didn’t.
Her jaw stiffened.
Her eyes became guarded.
“License and registration,” she said.
I stared at her.
“You already have my license.”
“Registration, Daniel.”
Hearing my name in her voice after twelve years hit harder than I expected.
I reached toward the glove compartment.
My fingers were clumsy.
She noticed.
Of course she noticed.
Emily Carter used to notice everything.
She knew when I was lying before I opened my mouth. She knew when my father had been drinking because I tapped my thumb against my steering wheel. She knew when I was scared because I made jokes.
Apparently twelve years hadn’t erased that skill.
“You nervous?” she asked.
“No.”
Her eyebrow lifted.
“Still a terrible liar.”
Something almost warm passed between us.
Almost.
Then it disappeared.
I handed her the registration.
She checked it.
“Car yours?”
“Yes.”
“Where are you headed?”
“Millbrook.”
Her gaze snapped up.
Millbrook was our hometown.
A place I had avoided for more than a decade.
“To see someone?”
“My mother died.”
The words changed her.
Her shoulders lowered.
The anger disappeared from her eyes for half a second.
“Daniel…”
“It happened three weeks ago.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I wasn’t expecting you to.”
She looked down at the registration again.
“I’m sorry.”
“Thank you.”
Silence stretched between us.
The engine ticked softly.
Corn stalks moved in the field beside the road.
Emily finally said, “Forty-seven in a thirty-five.”
I almost laughed.
Not because it was funny.
Because twelve years earlier, she had been sitting beside me when Deputy Harmon gave me my first speeding ticket on this same road.
Emily had spent the entire drive home mocking me.
“You still drive too fast,” I said.
She frowned.
“That used to be your line.”
Something flickered in her eyes again.
Recognition.
Memory.
Pain.
She stepped away from the window.
“I'll be right back.”
“Emily.”
She stopped.
I shouldn’t have said anything.
I knew that.
But twelve years of unanswered questions had just walked back into my life wearing a badge.
“Are you married?”
Her head turned slowly.
“That’s what you ask me?”
“I don’t know what else to ask.”
“How about, ‘How have you been?’”
“How have you been?”
“Too late.”
She walked toward the cruiser.
I watched her through my side mirror.
Same confident stride.
Same habit of tucking her chin when she was angry.
Not the same girl.
Not anymore.
I looked down at my hands.
There had been a time when those hands knew hers better than anything else in the world.
We met freshman year because Emily had stolen my chemistry chair.
Technically she claimed it first.
I disagreed.
We argued for ten minutes.
The teacher separated us.
Two months later, we were inseparable.
By junior year, everyone assumed we would eventually get married.
Our parents joked about it.
Our teachers joked about it.
Emily didn’t.
She would simply squeeze my fingers under the table whenever someone said it.
We had plans.
College.
An apartment.
A dog she wanted to name Murphy.
I wanted Boston.
She wanted anywhere that wasn’t Millbrook.
We didn’t care where.
As long as we left together.
Then graduation happened.
Three days later, Emily stopped answering my calls.
Five days later, I received the letter.
Daniel,
Don’t come here again.
Don’t call.
Don’t ask my friends about me.
Whatever we had is over.
I finally understand that loving you was a mistake.
Please leave me alone.
Emily.
I had read it until I memorized every sentence.
Then I left Millbrook.
My scholarship started early that summer.
I packed.
I drove away.
And I never saw her again.
Until now.
Emily returned five minutes later.
She carried my license.
No ticket.
“Warning,” she said.
I accepted the license.
“That’s generous.”
“You’re here for a funeral.”
“That why?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Her gaze held mine.
“Because I don’t want paperwork keeping me here longer than necessary.”
There she was.
The anger.
Still alive after twelve years.
“Emily.”
“What?”
“I didn’t know you became a cop.”
“You didn’t know anything about me.”
“That wasn’t exactly my choice.”
She gave a short laugh.
“No?”
“No.”
“Interesting.”
She straightened.
“You can go.”
I should have.
Instead I said, “You hated me.”
Emily froze.
“What?”
“After graduation.”
Something shifted in her face.
I continued.
“You told me not to call you.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“I told you what?”
“You know exactly what you told me.”
“No, Daniel. Apparently I don’t.”
I reached for my wallet.
My hands were shaking again.
The letter wasn’t there.
Of course it wasn’t.
I had left it locked inside a box in my apartment for years before eventually bringing the box back with me.
It was sitting in my mother’s house now.
“You wrote me a letter.”
Emily stared at me.
“What letter?”
“The one you left at my house.”
“I never left you a letter.”
I felt cold despite the sunlight.
“Emily.”
“I wrote you plenty of letters.”
“What?”
“After you disappeared.”
My heart slammed.
She leaned down closer to the window.
“I wrote to your college dorm. Your grandmother’s house. That stupid apartment in Cambridge you once showed me online.”
I could barely speak.
“I never got them.”
“Of course.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means you’re doing exactly what you did twelve years ago.”
“What did I do?”
“Pretending.”
“I’m not pretending.”
Her eyes began to shine.
Emily looked away immediately.
When she faced me again, she was angry enough to hide the pain.
“You promised me something the night before graduation.”
I remembered.
We had been sitting beside Lake Mercer.
Her head had been against my shoulder.
“Never disappear on me,” she had whispered.
“I won’t.”
“Even if we fight?”
“Especially then.”
She had made me swear.
I had.
Now Emily said, “You promised you would never abandon me.”
“I didn’t.”
“You disappeared in six days.”
“Because you told me to!”
“I DIDN’T!”
The shout echoed across the empty road.
We both went silent.
Emily stepped back.
Her hand covered her mouth for a second.
I stared at her.
She stared at me.
And suddenly the last twelve years no longer made sense.
“Who gave you that letter?” she asked.
“It was on my porch.”
“When?”
“Five days after graduation.”
“Envelope?”
“Yes.”
“Handwritten?”
“Yes.”
“My handwriting?”
“I thought so.”
“You thought?”
“I was eighteen!”
Emily looked toward the fields.
I could almost see her working through memories.
Then she asked, “Did it mention Boston?”
“No.”
“My dad?”
“No.”
“The fight?”
“What fight?”
She stared at me.
“You don’t know.”
“Know what?”
Her face went pale.
“Daniel, what happened the night after graduation?”
“I went home.”
“Immediately?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t come to my house?”
“No.”
“You didn’t talk to my mother?”
I frowned.
“No.”
Emily stepped away from the car.
For the first time, she didn’t look angry.
She looked frightened.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“Emily.”
She shook her head.
“I’m on duty.”
“So?”
“So this isn’t happening here.”
“When does it happen?”
“It doesn’t.”
She turned away.
I opened the car door.
“Emily.”
Her hand went instinctively toward her belt.
“Stay inside the vehicle.”
“I’m not trying to cause trouble.”
“Then listen.”
I sat back.
She walked three steps, stopped, then returned.
“Where are you staying?”
“My mom’s house.”
“You still have it?”
“For now.”
“Maple Street?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
Then she said, “Don’t leave town tonight.”
That sounded strange enough to make me forget everything else.
“Why?”
“Just don’t.”
“Are you ordering me?”
“No.”
“Then what are you doing?”
She looked directly into my eyes.
“Giving myself time to decide whether I want answers.”
She turned toward her cruiser.
I called after her.
“Emily.”
She stopped again.
“I never stopped caring about you.”
Her shoulders went rigid.
I instantly regretted it.
Not because it wasn’t true.
Because I had no right to say it.
Emily didn’t turn around.
“You lost the right to tell me that twelve years ago.”
Then she walked away.
I drove the remaining four miles to Millbrook feeling as though the road beneath me had disappeared.
My mother’s house looked smaller than I remembered.
I parked in the driveway.
The porch swing was gone.
Her flower pots were dry.
Everything felt empty.
I unlocked the door and stepped inside.
The smell nearly broke me.
Lavender soap.
Coffee.
Old wood.
Home.
There were still sympathy cards stacked on the kitchen table.
I had returned briefly for the funeral but left immediately afterward because staying here hurt too much.
Now I had come back to deal with the estate.
At least that had been my reason that morning.
Emily had changed everything before lunch.
I went upstairs.
My childhood bedroom was almost untouched.
Baseball trophies.
College acceptance letters.
A faded photo of Emily and me was still wedged behind the mirror.
I pulled it free.
She was seventeen.
I was eighteen.
She had her arms around my neck.
We looked stupidly happy.
On the back, she had written:
No disappearing.
Promise.
E.
I sat on the bed.
Then I remembered the letter.
The box was downstairs in my mother’s study.
I found it beneath a stack of bank records.
Inside were the remains of the life I had avoided thinking about.
Photographs.
Concert tickets.
Emily’s class ring.
A blue ribbon she wore at graduation.
And the letter.
The paper was yellowed around the edges.
My stomach tightened before I unfolded it.
I read the words again.
Don’t come here again.
Don’t call.
Whatever we had is over.
Then something caught my attention.
Emily had asked who gave me the letter.
I had always assumed she wrote it.
I had never studied the envelope.
I pulled it from the box.
My name was written across the front.
Daniel Harper.
I held it beneath the desk lamp.
There was something beneath the ink.
A faint indentation.
As though the envelope had been placed on top of another page while someone wrote.
I grabbed a pencil from the drawer.
Old trick.
I shaded lightly over the indentation.
Letters appeared.
Not many.
Just fragments.
…cannot let Daniel find out…
My pulse jumped.
I shaded farther.
…Emily leaves tomorrow…
Then a name emerged near the bottom.
I stopped breathing.
The handwriting wasn’t Emily’s.
It belonged to my mother.
Before I could process that, headlights swept across the study window.
A car had stopped outside.
Three hard knocks hit the front door.
May you like
Then Emily shouted my name.
And someone inside my dead mother’s house answered her.
