I’d wanted to know why he gave a shit about me. I was sure there were many people much more qualified than I was to work at Shepard Shipments. So why had Dan followed my progress across the country? Why had he said that Roland had kept me in his mind after all this time?

As much as I wanted to drift away, to forget and be forgotten, I knew that I’d never figure out what I wanted to know if I simply left Seattle, left Shepard Shipments without trying to ferret out just what they wanted with me.

And if I hated my job, it was that much better. I deserved to hate it, deserved to suffer. This could be just another stage of my penance for what I’d caused on that dark country rode that night.

I heaved a sigh and started the car again, looking longingly toward the horizon, where the sea met the sky. That’s where I really wanted to be, in the place just beyond that, in the nothing place. Maybe, once I investigated Shepard Shipments to my satisfaction, I could go there. Simply sink into that blissful nothing and forget about everything.

Just not today.

No, today I needed to find my way back to the Shepard Shipments building, get my cowed ass back upstairs, and figure out what I needed to do to avoid a train wreck like today tomorrow. I was going to have to suck it up and walk calmly past all of the people I’d run out in front of and pretend like everything was just fine and dandy.

I took a deep breath, cleaned the last of the smeared makeup off my face and went in an entrance that avoided the newspaper vendor. One challenge at a time.

“Um, Ms. Hart? Ms. Beauty Hart?” The lobby receptionist was waving me toward the desk. I approached, my feet heavy with dread. Had I been fired and banned from the building for my emotional outburst? It would serve me right, but in all fairness, Roland had been the one to burst first.

“I’m Beauty Hart,” I said, wishing—not for the first time—that I wasn’t.

“Mr. Shepard sent this down for you,” she said, handing me a manila envelope. “With instructions that you open it immediately.”

I sighed and pried up the prongs fastening the envelope shut. There was a single sheet of paper inside and fastened to it with a paper clip was a credit card. I frowned. What was this supposed to be? Severance?

“Beauty,” the letter began, the writing cramped and hard to read. Did Roland actually right this himself? It was easier to imagine him dictating to Myra. “It’s fucking unacceptable to me that one of the employees of Shepard Shipments is living out of her car. We maintain a sense of pride around here, and if you’re going to continue to work at my company, we’re going to have to work to elevate your situation. Take this card and use it to buy whatever you need. This includes additional clothes, toiletries, an apartment, food, a cellphone, a laptop, and everything else you think might make you a more successful part of this team. There is no cap on the card. It can’t be maxed out. Don’t return until you, at the very least, have a roof over your head.”

His flourishing signature ended the letter, and I took the credit card in my hand and examined it. The name it was registered under was Roland Shepard. Had he literally given me his own credit card? I wasn’t about to fucking take this. No way.

I made a move for the elevators, but the receptionist cleared her throat loudly.

“Ms. Hart?” I turned. “Mr. Shepard also said that you weren’t supposed to go back upstairs until you’d completed the tasks he’d given you.”

“Yes, of course,” I said, plastering a fake smile over my face. “But there’s a small problem that I need to address first. Just part of the instructions that weren’t clear.” That was a lie. I was going to go up there and toss this credit card in his ugly face and tell him just where he could stick it. I didn’t want his charity. I’d refuse it, a billionaire’s violent temper tantrum be damned.

“Ms. Hart, it’s just that…” She trailed off, glancing toward the door. I followed her gaze and noticed two burly security guards approaching.

“It’s just that he said if you tried to go back upstairs without completing the tasks he’d given you, he’d have you thrown out of the building.” Her throat bobbed nervously. “Physically, if need be.”

I was quite sure the security guards had received those same instructions by the way they were eyeing me.

Unwilling to give the Roland Shepard any more satisfaction than my failures had already granted him, I left by my own volition. What was stopping me from withdrawing a ton of money and using it to fund my new life in, say, Canada? That was still a viable option. I could probably live up there for quite a while without working, as long as I had this magical, limitless credit card of Roland’s.

And yet what Dan had said stuck with me—that I’d have to belong to someplace eventually. I didn’t want to belong anywhere; I didn’t deserve to. I wanted to live in my car. It sucked, but it was supposed to. I wasn’t supposed to be happy when other people were dead because of my stupid mistake.

Yet, it was so difficult to live on the road, never being quite sure what I would eat next, or if I could get the money to eat, going hungry for days on end—once, for an entire week.

I stood there, outside the building, vacillating back and forth on what to do. I wanted to be here; I wanted to figure out why Shepard Shipments wanted me so badly; and yet, I longed for the road, to be anonymous, for people to know my name but nothing else about me.

The Shepards knew too much.

The niggling fact remained that I didn’t want to have enough money to be comfortable, to have this credit card at my disposal. I’d done a horrible thing, and I didn’t deserve comfort when I’d sent four people to their graves. I didn’t deserve to be helped by anyone if I’d been so irresponsible before.

And there was the fact that Roland’s letter that accompanied the credit card had been so fucking pompous. The fact that I lived out of my car affected company pride? That was bullshit.

I took the card and topped off the tank—that was my first move—as I decided just what I’d do. The open road called me, the need to be punished at the forefront of my mind.

But I still stayed, driving the streets of this beautiful city, the sun trying to peek between the clouds ever so often, the hills, the ferries. Houston had been nothing like this—more of an urban sprawl—but something about Seattle enchanted me.

Maybe it was the thought that things could be different in Seattle. That I could let people know me. That I’d reached the end of my penance in my journey across the country…

No. There wasn’t a point you could reach in your life when you made peace with causing four people to die. There was probably even a special place in hell for people like me.

I’d pulled off to the side of the street, in a spare parking spot, to stare off into space and ponder my situation. Could I really stay in Seattle, at least for as long as it took me to figure out Shepard Shipments? I didn’t dare to try to be happy, but working as the assistant to Roland Shepard would probably ensure that would never happen.

It dawned on me…maybe Roland could be my new punishment? He was acerbic, egotistical, and downright mean. I could accept that abuse and continue to suffer for the sins of my past. Would that be enough?

I turned my head to gaze at the building I stopped in front of, and my eyes widened. A sign was just beyond my passenger’s side window that read: “Apartments for rent.” Was this some kind of gentle nod from the universe to tell me that staying in Seattle would be the right thing to do? Did the universe even still take interest in people as terrible as me?

I made a decision right then and there. No more hemming and hawing. I was going to stay in Seattle; I was going to continue to bear the brunt of Roland’s anger; and I was going to get to the bottom of my suspicions about Shepard Shipments’ interest in me. It definitely couldn’t be that I was a promising employee. I’d proved myself an idiot today, and yet, here I was, holding a company credit card, considering taking out a lease on an apartment, and surprisingly not fired—even when I back-talked the president of the company.