Page 16 of Roadrunner

“Ma’am?”

“Where did it happen?”

“10th Street, just before it crosses 8th.”

I couldn’t place it. I thought instead about how many other cars might have been out on that road at that hour.

“Was anyone else hurt?”

“No, ma’am. Single vehicle.”

I let out a breath. “That’s one good thing, I guess.”

“Yes, ma’am.” A pause. “Would you like me to send a cruiser for you?”

“No,” I said, already walking toward the garage. “I’ll drive myself.”

Then I remembered the only car left to drive was Joshua’s Mercedes, and I had no idea where he kept the keys. He never let anyone else near his cars. He hid the keys, or carried them on him. I stood there a second, half frustrated that I’d need a ride now, half frustrated that in all that swinging, I’d left one of the cars I actually had access to untouched.

“Sergeant Swift. I take that back. I’ll need a ride.”

“I’ll have someone there shortly, ma’am.” He paused. “You should prepare yourself. Your husband hit a county light pole head-on, at approximately eighty miles an hour. Our preliminary read is that he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. He went through the windshield.”

“Thank you for telling me straight,” I said. “I’ll be all right.”

“Cruiser will be there soon.”

I hung up and called Martina. She picked up on the fourth ring, her voice thick with sleep.

“Everything okay?”

“Joshua’s been in an accident.”

“A car wreck?”

“That’s what they’re calling it. They’re sending someone to drive me.”

“Is it bad?”

“I’ll explain when I see you.”

“All right. What happened?”

“He hit a pole head-on. No seatbelt.”

“Those seatbelts in that car are a disaster. I could never figure them out. You should never have bought him that thing.”

“The Porsche? He wasn’t in it.”

“The Mercedes, then. I never liked that green.”

“The Mercedes is still in the garage.”

“Then what was he driving?”

Eighty miles an hour and a windshield hadn’t moved either of us much. The answer to that question did.

“My Jeep,” I said, and my voice broke apart on it. “He was driving my fucking Jeep.”