Page 1 of Forever Gone

PROLOGUE

The road into eastern Harlan County narrowed until the trees seemed to lean over it. Karen Sloane drove with both hands on the wheel, following the faded center line through folds of woodland. Afternoon sunlight passed between the branches, catching the first signs of autumn among the green. Red had begun to spread along the maples, and yellow showed in the poplars. Fallen leaves stirred in the ditches when her car passed.

Somewhere beneath the hood, something juddered.

Karen eased off the accelerator.

The vibration stopped.

She pressed down again, and the steering wheel gave a faint tremor beneath her palms before settling.

“Please don’t,” she murmured.

Cars had never been her forte. She could refill the washer fluid, check the oil if someone reminded her which colored handle to pull, and recognize the low-fuel warning when it appeared. Anything beyond that belonged to a world of belts, plugs, bearings, and expensive conversations with mechanics.

That had been Gerry’s territory.

Her ex-husband could identify a failing wheel bearing from half a street away. He could spend an hour describing the difference between a rattle and a knock while Karen pretended to understand. During their marriage, he had handled the cars, the mortgage, the insurance renewals, the tax returns, and every other task he believed required a more “practical” mind than hers. In the end, it was just another way for him to control her.

The car gave another small shudder.

Karen waited for a warning light. None appeared.

A smile pulled at her mouth.

“Still moving without you.”

She lowered the window. Cool air swept into the car, carrying the scent of leaves, sun-warmed bark, and water somewhere beyond the roadside brush. For most of the drive from Loyall, her shoulders had remained tight. Now the tension began to ease.

Three months.

No Gerry. No lawyers. No friends asking whether she was coping and then watching too closely while she answered. No familiar rooms arranged around the shape of a marriage that had ended long before either of them admitted it.

Three months alone in the hills near Elmsview, that’s now what she needed. A blank screen and the novel she had talked about writing since she was twenty-two. Close to where her life had started, but secluded enough to feel separate from everything she was leaving behind.

Excitement rose in her so suddenly that she laughed.

A bend carried the road uphill. The land dropped through oak and hickory on one side and climbed into dense brush on the other. Black rail fencing appeared ahead, broken in places and silvered by years of weather.

According to the directions, the turn for the Montgomery property lay half a mile beyond the remains of an old church. She vaguely remembered it from exploring the woods with friends as a child. Karen had passed a roofless building ten minutes ago, set back among the trees behind a weed-choked pull-off, though she had not been sure whether it was the church or an old barn.

She glanced at the printed instructions on the passenger seat.

SECOND GRAVEL TURN AFTER BRIDGE.

There had not been a bridge.

Her phone showed no signal. The navigation map had frozen several miles back, leaving the blue arrow suspended in a patch of unnamed green.

The car juddered again, harder this time.

A metallic vibration traveled through the floor.

Karen slowed to twenty.

“All right,” she said. “We’ll get there first. Then you can fall apart.”

The trees thinned beyond the next rise. Sunlight opened across a wide meadow. A weathered sign stood beside a gravel track.