Abruptly, Bo noticed he was going someplace with considerably fewer jerks and stutters. They were leaving the parking lot, pulling off into the night.

After Lyn finally left, Willa opened all the silverware drawers to take stock. Everything was gleaming. There wasn’t a water stain in sight.

Willa hadn’t brought any silver into her marriage or received any as wedding presents. She’d never been wealthy enough to afford such things. It had all come after Henry’s death, over time, and only because Willa had sifted through hundreds of antique malls over fifty-plus years to procure it. Jean would accompany her on her searches for that one affordable pitcher or ashtray or spoon engraved with someone else’s initials, that she’d scoop up and add to her collection.

Willa now owned drawers full of silver. And when it was polished, it didn’t matter that it was mismatched and marked by others. It shone, and it was hers.

The only obstacle to her enjoyment of her hard-won silver collection had been Lyn’s strong dislike of cleaning it. The polish Willa insisted she use had a powerful chemical stench and gave Lyn a red, painful rash that she’d complained about from the beginning. So for Lyn to voluntarily clean Willa’s entire silver collection meant that something was fundamentally wrong. Or, rather, it meant that the thing that was fundamentally wrong had surfaced and announced itself. Willa wondered what it could all lead to as she picked up a cake knife and studied her reflection. In the glare of the overhead light, the whites of her eyes burned back at her.

Just south of Fayeville, Interstate 34 sliced through fields and hills, crisscrossing the Allehany River dozens of times. The winding backroads that had existed before the interstate still shadowed it in a twisty, incompetent way, but from the moment it was built, Interstate 34 had been faster, smoother, and straighter.

As soon as I-34 was completed, new restaurants sprang up near its Fayeville junction. This development, in combination with the grand opening of the HushMart superstore along the access road that led to the interstate, had turned Fayeville’s previously bustling Main Street into a neutered, orphaned remnant of another era. It seemed to take no time at all for McDonald’s and HushMart to become much more popular than Lucy’s Snack Spot or Kurley’s Hardware. Even residents who lived within walking distance of the Main Street stores and restaurants no longer just strolled down the block for the things they needed or desired. They were now much more likely to get in their cars and drive toward the interstate instead.

Part of the access road that connected the interstate to Fayeville wasn’t as smooth as county officials would have liked. The construction company hired to do the job had failed to adequately take into account the eroding bluff that overhung the planned junction, and as a result, the motorists navigating it were confronted with the added challenge of looking out for falling rocks. Someone from Highway Maintenance was tasked with clearing the rocks out a couple times a week; more frequently when there were storms.

Bo knew about this danger and was prepping Jiminy for the challenge of potentially having to stop and start again, after she had been so happy flying along in fourth gear, slightly too fast for a curvy road.

She was preparing to downshift into third when she was suddenly and instantly blinded.

Bo was, too.

“What the . . . !” he said.

He was exclaiming at the strength and brightness of the light burning into their corneas, but he was also aware that Jiminy wasn’t slowing down as planned. He was worried that she might have taken her hands and feet off the controls completely, retracting like a frightened turtle. He couldn’t check to ensure this wasn’t the case, because he couldn’t see anything.

“Brake!” he shouted as they nearly rammed the pickup truck that was assaulting them.

It had come quickly around the curve, safe in the boulder-free lane, with its brights on high, trained on their windshield. It swerved now to avoid them, slowed, and came to a stop.

Bo listened to the sickly crunch of abused machinery as Jiminy brought their own vehicle to an abrupt halt, diagonally across the oncoming lane.

“Reverse!” he shouted, knowing that another car could come around the curve at any moment and slam into his passenger side door. But Jiminy was too shocked to comply.

“Reverse,” he said more softly and urgently.

She looked at him for a moment, then struggled with the gear shift. But it seemed that in her startled fright, she’d regressed to square one. She stared down with a look of complete bewilderment. The gear shift might as well have been a cucumber, for all she could remember of what she was supposed to do with it to make this big chunk of metal move for her.

Bo was a calm person, but he knew when he was in real danger. He had a flash of what the pain of impact would feel like, how a life of paralysis would change his plans. He opened his door.

“Scoot over,” he commanded.

He slammed his door shut, put a hand on the hood of the truck and launched himself over the front of it, half-sliding, half-scrambling to the other side. His feet landed on the asphalt and he wrenched open the driver’s side door to see Jiminy still sitting there, confused.

“Move!” he shouted, helping her roughly along.

“You! Stop right there, boy!” a voice shouted from behind him.

But Bo had seen the glare of headlights on the trees and knew an oncoming car was moments away from their spot, probably driving as fast as they’d been. And now that he’d forced Jiminy into the seat that would receive the impact, he’d be as good as murdering her if he didn’t ignore whoever was yelling at him and act quickly.

He slid into the driver’s seat, threw the truck into reverse, and jerked them backwards just as an ’86 VW Cabriolet veered obliviously around the corner.

It was a car Bo and Jiminy both knew well. As they panted to regain their breath, they watched the Cabriolet screech to a halt to avoid hitting the truck that had caused all the trouble in the first place.

“Sweet Jesus,” Lyn exclaimed, as she looked back to make sure it was Bo and Jiminy she thought she’d seen.

It was. And here, too, was Roy Tomlins and his grandson Randy, standing outside yelling while their truck blocked up the road. Lyn couldn’t sort these various pieces into an arrangement that helped her understand the scenario she’d stumbled across.

She took a deep breath and opened her door.

“I’m warning you for the last time to get outta that car, boy!” Roy was growling.

He was as old as Lyn, filled with a timeless rage.

“What seems to be the problem?” she asked.

Get out of the car, Bo, she mentally beamed down the road. Though she wasn’t positive that this was the best psychic command. If he got out and moved toward them, he’d just be voluntarily coming into range. Perhaps it was better for him to stay in the car, next to the girl. Except for the fact that Roy Tomlins had shouted a direct order that would go unheeded at all of their peril.

“This ain’t none a yer bizness,” Roy’s grandson Randy snarled at Lyn.

Lyn addressed her words to Roy.

“That’s my great-nephew, Mr. Tomlins. And Willa Hunt’s granddaughter.”

Lyn kept her voice submissive. Roy stared hard at her. Something in her tone, or her look, or the sound of the crickets resuming their night song, made him pause in his fury. He stared another beat, then turned and walked toward Bo and Jiminy’s car. Lyn hurried after him, struggling to keep up, careful to avoid getting too close.

Inside the car, Jiminy was shaking.

“I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry,” she kept repeating.

She was mortified that she’d frozen up. She knew how close they’d come to serious injury, all because of her incompetence. And now these men were yelling at them, and Lyn was there looking worried and beaten down, and Bo had a grimness to his face that Jiminy hadn’t seen before. It scared her. He seemed resigned to some kind of disaster.