Miles pass on the dark road and I'm driving much slower now. Finally, my pulse starts to come down. Nobody saw my face and whoever came out of that house couldn't have seen mylicense plate from such a distance. I'll find out whose property it was and send them a check tomorrow. Money always fixes things.
A police car comes from the opposite direction. I see it approaching and grip the wheel tighter. My whole body goes rigid.
Please don't stop. Just keep driving.It passes me, and I exhale.
Then the brake lights come on.
In my mirror I watch the patrol car slow, stop, and make a U-turn. Of course. I'm driving through the middle of nowhere at one in the morning with one headlight.
The blue and red lights come on, and the siren gives a single short whoop. My stomach drops so fast I think I might be sick. I pull over and the police car pulls up behind me, the headlights blinding in my mirrors.
A door opens. Boots on gravel. A flashlight beam sweeps across my car and the officer appears at my window. He's middle-aged with a round face and a neatly trimmed mustache. The flashlight beam moves from the damage to me.
"Evening, ma'am. Looks like you've had some trouble tonight. Are you hurt?"
"Hello, officer. I hit a pothole," I say in a shaky voice. "The road was — I hit a pothole. A big one." I touch my nose. "But I'm fine. Just a little nosebleed."
He nods, then shines the flashlight along the front of the car. "You're missing a headlight there. Can't have you driving around like that — it's not safe, and it's not legal either."
"Of course. I'll get it fixed first thing in the morning, I promise."
"I appreciate that, ma'am, but that's some serious damage for a pothole." He moves the flashlight beam back to my face. "Have you been drinking tonight?"
For one wild, desperate second, I think about saying no and smiling and hoping he'll believe me and let me go.
"I had a glass at a wedding," I lie. "Just one, earlier this evening. Hours ago."
"I see." He holds out his hand. "License and registration, please."
I dig through the glovebox, find the registration, and pass it over with my license. He carries them back to the patrol car. The wait is unbearable. When he comes back, he hands them through the window.
"Says here you have a prior DUI, Ms. Archer. I'm going to ask you to step out of the vehicle, please."
My legs are unsteady when I slide out and stand.
"I need you to take a breathalyzer test," he says, holding out the device. I look at it and I think about my high-profile parents, Tyler Ashworth, the pigs scattering into the darkness, and the figure on the porch. If only I could turn back time.
I blow.
The officer reads the number. He doesn't show it to me and he doesn't have to. I can see it on his face — the slight shift, the confirmation of what he already knew.
"Ma'am, I'm placing you under arrest for driving under the influence. You have the right to remain silent."
The rest comes in fragments. My rights. Cold metal against my wrists. The click of handcuffs. The back seat of the patrol car. My Porsche sitting on the side of the road, broken and empty.
I'm fucked. Well and truly fucked.
2
MAGGIE
I'm sitting in the back row of the courtroom because I don't want to be noticed. There are reporters near the front and I have no intention of becoming part of the Princess Pigpen news cycle. I just want to see Sloane Archer's face when the judge sentences her.
People v. Archer. Just another name on the docket. But behind that name is a woman who plowed through my fence drunk at one in the morning and left my animals to wander onto the road. She's lucky no pigs got physically hurt.
I found Dolly on the highway. That's the part that makes me most furious. Dolly, who's eleven years old and half blind and was rescued from a factory farm where she spent the first eight years of her life in a crate so small she couldn't turn around. Dolly, who took two years to trust me enough to let me touch her ears. She was standing in the middle of the road in the dark, confused and frightened, and if a truck had come around that bend, she'd be dead.
Sloane smashed through their home and drove away, and my security camera caught all of it. I handed the footage to the police and thought that was that, but then the journalists cameasking, and within days the video was everywhere. Suddenly the whole world had an opinion about the socialite who got the nickname 'Princess Pigpen,' but nobody asked whether the animals were okay.
