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forgetting that she’s gone now, so she can’t tell me—All I want is to hear her yell at me about my lousy manners one more time.”
    He glanced over and saw her wipe her face. But if he’d expected a full meltdown, she surprised him, instead murmuring, “This isn’t real. It can’t be.”
    He grimaced, wondering how many times he’d thought the same thing, had prayed for it to be true, since Carrie’s death. Two years out, he’d come far enough to recognize her denial. And far enough to understand why others believed his theories about the bastard he thought of as “the Troll King” were denial, too.
    Lauren shook her head. “When I asked why your wife had done it, I only meant to ask, what was it he used? Which tragedy did this guy blame her for? You said that was his pattern, to guilt blondes into—you know.”
    He tried to answer, but the words knotted low in his throat.
    “Jesus, Durant,” she blurted. “Please don’t tell me she was the one who left the baby in the car. Your baby.”
    “It’s none of your damned business,” his voice rumbled through clenched jaws.
    “You said you’d tell me everything if I came with you.”
    “Everything about your sister.”
    “Whose death, you’re claiming, is related to your wife’s. So convince me.”
    She was persistent; he would give her that much. “It wasn’t the kid in the car. The rest—I can’t talk about it right now.” Or ever, if he had a damned thing to say about it.
    As they approached a speed reduction for the town ahead, she heaved a sigh. “Okay, I guess, for right now, anyway. But at least tell me the last thing he posted about Rachel, this troll on the net. Otherwise, whatever you want from me, forget it.”
    “All right,” he said, grateful to get her off the unbearable topic of his late wife. “Just last night, this guy put up a photo of Megan Rutherford from her last Mother’s Day. Gorgeous picture, taken in the sunshine. She was hugging two cute kids, the younger one with Down syndrome—”
    “That would be Luke, four years old, and his sister, Molly.”
    “—and this big, fluffy puppy.”
    Lauren nodded. “Yeah, I’ve seen that picture, with the Newfie mix named Badgers, paws like dinner plates. Huge by now, I imagine.”
    “They were all laughing at something,” Brent continued, wondering if she used such details to keep emotion at bay. “Underneath the shot, the sick bastard posted, Anybody with a single scrap of decency would blow their head off. Rot in Hell, Whore! ”
    Lauren pinched the bridge of her nose and turned her face to the glass. After collecting herself, she asked, “Did she—do you think Rachel read it? Surely, she wouldn’t have—I begged her not to look at that trash, not to pay attention to those monsters. And never, no matter what, to feed the trolls with any response.”
    “I don’t have access to her laptop, so I can’t say whether or not she ever read it. But if he’d been calling her on the phone like the others, spewing that same bullshit—”
    “Like I said, she would’ve told me.”
    “She didn’t tell you about me.”
    She waved a hand at him, as if she could somehow push him farther from her. “I need to think. It’s too much.”
    They rode in silence, the tiny towns they passed through like islands dotting the vast stretches of rangeland, much of it nearly emptied of cattle thanks to last summer’s drought and sell-off. He fiddled with the radio for a minute, searching for a decent station, but seeing Lauren’s pained look, he quickly cut it off.
    He understood her need for quiet, her inability to take in any more at this point, so he waited until they’d passed through Dallas before he spoke again. “We’re going to have to fill the car up, so we might as well grab something for ourselves while we’re at it. How ’bout you? You ready for a stop yet?”
    She shook her head. “I just want to get to Austin as fast as possible, so we can get this all