Chapter 1 - MY STEPSON KNEW THE BRAKES WOULD FAIL
The brakes failed halfway down Miller’s Ridge Road.
Rain hammered the windshield while fog swallowed the Smoky Mountains around us. When I pressed the brake pedal again, my foot hit the floor.
Nothing happened.
Beside me, my seventeen-year-old stepson, Caleb, did not panic.
When I told him something was wrong, he looked at me with terrifying calm and said two words.
“I know.”
Seconds later, our Subaru smashed through a guardrail and rolled down the mountainside.
When I regained consciousness, my leg was pinned beneath the dashboard and Caleb was gone. His seat belt had been cut cleanly through.
Then he appeared outside the wreck holding a box cutter.
He told me I should have sold the mountain cabin his father had left behind. According to Caleb, his late father, Daniel, had promised half of it to Caleb’s mother, and I had stolen everything after Daniel died.
I told him that was a lie.
Caleb answered that the police would believe differently once they found “the note.”
Then he photographed me trapped inside the wreck and climbed back toward the road.
A truck driver soon stopped above the broken guardrail.
The gray-bearded stranger climbed down, checked the wreck, then quietly warned me to pretend I was dead because Caleb was still watching.
I remained motionless while the stranger fooled Caleb into believing I had died.
After Caleb finally drove away, the man introduced himself as Martin Vale.
He was not a truck driver.
He was a private investigator.
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And three years earlier, shortly before Daniel died, my husband had hired Martin for one disturbing reason.
Daniel wanted him to investigate whether I was planning to kill him.
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