Chapter Three
Brian Wonder pulledhis car onto the gravel turnout and checked his GPS. The turns on this stretch of road were treacherous, and parts of the shoulder had crumbled away, exposing slippery mud.
He got out of his car and walked along the edge of a cliff, looking for the spot where the senator’s car had gone down.
The skid marks had been washed away, but the busted guardrail had not been replaced. Brian’s stomach lurched as his gaze followed the trajectory of the car, flattening bushes and ripping out saplings along the way.
It had been a single vehicle accident. The senator had been blinded by an oncoming high beam and failed to see the hairpin turn. More likely, he’d been going too fast. It only took a split second, and he’d lost control of the car.
Brian climbed over the broken guardrail and stepped down the embankment. He followed the trail of broken twigs and scraped earth to a charred area, dark, bare, and rocky. This was the place where Alana Thornton had burned to death, trapped in the car that her husband and son had escaped.
Had they tried to pull her out? Was she conscious or had she been mercifully killed by impact? What were her last minutes like?
The senator claimed it was a freak accident. One minute, he was having a conversation with his wife, and the next, they were airborne, having been forced off the road by another vehicle—one which did not stop to render aid.
Brian bent down and ran his hand over the charred rocks and tree trunks. He looked up toward the embankment to appreciate how far the car had tumbled. A golden glint caught his eye. Squinting into the waning sun, he climbed up the steep slope toward the shiny object.
A golden heart locket was tangled on a broken chain hanging on a bush. His breathing quickened as he removed the locket and opened it.
A baby boy smiled gap-toothed at the camera. It was Glen, Alana’s son—his son. Now that she was dead, Brian had lost all contact with the boy. The senator had transferred him away from the school he used to attend. All of Glen’s social network accounts had been deactivated, and Glen no longer appeared in any of the gaming worlds where they’d spent precious time playing together.
Brian had crashed the funeral, standing in the back. It had been a rainy day, and no one had noticed him in the sea of umbrellas standing at the gravesite.
The boy had been pale and stiff. Clearly shell-shocked. He’d looked right through Brian when he’d tried to catch his eye. Not that Glen knew who he was. Nope, Alana had asked him to keep it a secret, and he’d gone along with it.
The senator had a reputation to uphold, and Alana had wanted to protect his legacy from any hint of scandal. She also needed to protect herself, because Brian was still in high school when he’d gone to Mrs. Thornton’s house for class projects and parties.
Her much older husband was always out of town, and she paid him well for yardwork which led to pizza nights and movies, before moving into the bedroom.
It was supposed to be wrong, but he was sixteen and she was hot for a thirty-year-old.
A year later, after she got pregnant, she’d cut him off. Told him to stay away and never, ever mention their affair to anyone. Brian felt as if his heart had been gutted from his body and sliced into thin pieces. She had told him they were in love. But she was running scared and moved to Washington, D.C. where her husband believed he’d fathered the child.
Brian lifted the photo from the locket and blinked at the scrawled words on the back. “Glen, my little Wonder.” The ‘W’ was capitalized.
That had to mean something, right?
Brian’s heart squeezed, and a deep ache settled in his gut. Alana had loved him, but she could never ever acknowledge what she’d done. Glen had to be protected at all costs. He was a senator’s son. Case closed.
Brian snapped shut the locket and slipped it into his pocket. The light breeze whistled amongst the dried branches and scattered leaves in the bush. He felt a chill slither across the back of his shoulders, and he wondered what Alana would say to him now.
