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PROLOGUE
MEGAN
Whenthepersonsheloved wasn’t acting like himself, Megan felt pushed to do things she wouldn’t normally do.
Money had been disappearing from their rainy-day fund for months, and Megan was pretty sure she knew where it was going. That was the reason she was in her car, following a red dot that represented Joshua in the tracking application. She didn’t like that she had to resort to this, but he wouldn’t talk to her. No matter how many times she brought it up, he either changed the subject entirely, or he told her he didn’t know what she was talking about and she just miscounted.
Megan had always double checked her count before bringing it up to him. Gaslighting was something she wasn’t new to. Hell, growing up in the system was basically a training course on surviving gaslighting, narcissism, and abuse of all forms. His words and actions threw up red flags and made her inner alarm system ring out of control. It had been going off for months, but she just kept ignoring it, just like she did when she came back to him.
Those red flags, often late nights out, and the missing money lent to a possible gambling or drug addiction. Her suspicion was only deepened when he started asking to borrow her car and leaving his vehicle at their place. She finally had the opportunity and managed to work up enough nerve to act.
The previous week, she had put that tracking device on her car. It was just a little magnetic thing that she stuck in the wheel well. He’d taken her car in the last week, but she hadn’t had the nerve to check his location. It had felt wrong. Itstillfelt wrong, but he just kept pushing her away.
For months, he had built distance between them emotionally. It reminded her of that one foster home she had been in. When the mother fell into alcoholism, she became more and more distant. It felt the same to Megan.
It started with weekly poker games with his friends. Every Wednesday evening, he headed to a friend’s house and was gone until early the next morning. Then, it became Wednesday and Saturdays, and the money started disappearing, little by little. He had since added Mondays to that list. She never got an honest and clear answer out of him about where he was going or what they were doing on Mondays and Saturdays, though. He just mumbled something about women who love their men don’t question them.
As he left the house that night, Megan had a moment of clarity. Men who love their women don’t spend half the week of nights with other people. She was willing to fight to fix whatever was wrong, but she needed all the facts in order to do that, which led her to following the red dot on her phone screen.
The red dot hadn’t moved in fifteen minutes, so she suspected he had reached his destination. Taking a deep breath, she prepared herself for what she knew was going to be a rough evening. Addicts don’t like being called out on their addictions, and if she was correct, that was exactly what she was going to have to do.
Pulling up to the address the app indicated was his location, she spotted her car in the driveway to a ranch-style house near the center of the block. She parked his car in front of the house next to it and got out. Taking another deep breath, she approached the front of the house and climbed the three steps that led up to a 4x8 foot porch.
She walked up to the door and raised her hand to knock, but something in her gut stopped her. Glancing to the left, she saw a window and noticed that the curtains weren’t pulled completely closed.
If he was in there doing something that wasn’t a bad thing, she didn’t want to look like the crazy, stalker girlfriend. That was what had her carefully approaching the window and glancing inside.
Rage filled her as she watched a naked Joshua taking a woman from behind as she was bent over the arm of a couch. Tears filled her eyes as she swallowed around the lump in her throat.
She could pound on the door and shout his name. She could yell and scream, make a fool out of all of them. She could burn their relationship to the ground in a spectacular fashion and let this woman’s neighbors know she was screwing someone else’s man. But Megan didn’t know if the woman knew Joshua had a live-in girlfriend. As far as she knew, the woman could think she was Joshua’s one and only. He’d been lying to Megan for months. Who was to say he wasn’t lying to her, too?
As she stood there, every time he ever put her down or put his hands on her flashed through her mind. Every name. Every slap. Every punch. Every accusation. The love bombing after she left him. The begging and pleading to get her to come back. The promises he weaponized. The promises he broke. It all flooded her, blinding her and silencing her conscience.
Turning on her heel, Megan stormed off the porch, glad she brought her spare car key with her. She pulled it out of her front jeans pocket and made her way over to her car, but something made her stop near her trunk.
Gasoline. It was the smell of gasoline.
She had told him to stop and get gas for the lawnmower before he came home, because their yard was growing out of control and needed a cut. He must have already got it and put it in her trunk.
Using her key, she opened the trunk and spied the gas can inside. She didn’t think about what she did next. She just acted.
After retrieving the matches she kept in her winter emergency kit in her trunk, she grabbed the gas can and made her way over to his car. Megan opened all the doors and soaked his seats in the gas, while using the neckline of her shirt to cover her mouth and nose. Once the gas can was empty, she dropped it on the grass next to his car, stepped back a few feet, lit a match, and tossed it into the passenger seat of the car.
As the flames traveled through the interior of his car, she ran to hers, got in, and started it. Knowing she had limited time, she took off out of the driveway and headed home. She needed to grab some clothes and get the hell out of dodge, otherwise the last time he hit her was going to seem like foreplay.
ONE
MEGAN
Takingadeepbreath,Megan Rose Tanner stepped through the front door of the makeshift office where her interview was supposed to take place. It was a trailer, but fifty yards to the east was a building in process of being built, where she assumed the office would be moved to once it was finished.
When she moved to the small town of Manistique, Michigan to make a fresh start, it was a culture shock. Coming from Buffalo, New York, it was a whole new world. Growing up in the bustling city, she was used to traffic and city noises. She was used to convenience and expedience.
Manistique was slower, much slower. It was also miniscule in comparison, but that was what Megan wanted. She needed change, something new, a different life. Anything was better than having to watch over her shoulder at every stoplight, get takeout instead of eating in, and needing to have three deadbolts on her door.
Shaking off the thoughts of break-ins and terror, she took another deep breath and glanced over at the only desk in the space that was occupied. An older man in a fleece sweatshirt and a company baseball cap on his head held up a finger to signal that he would be right with her. While he finished a phone call, she glanced around the space. The room held a desk on each end, a conference table in the middle, and a wall of filing cabinets. There were two doors behind the unoccupied desk. She assumed they held the bathroom and probably a storage and utility room of some sort. The place was a wreck, but under the chaos of disorganization, it was a decent place. She didn’t spot any cracks in the ceiling or paint chipping from walls. The carpet wasn’t brand new, but it was clean and mostly stain-free. She had to say it was in better condition than she expected for the office of a logging company and lumberyard.
“Yeah, well, you tell them the bill will be paid, or they’re going to have an awfully hard time building the next house with toothpicks.” The man slammed the receiver down, ending the call. After a sigh, he pasted a smile on his face and stood. “You must be Ms. Tanner,” he said as he rounded the desk and approached her.
