Chapter 1

The smell of burnt rubber and something metallic, something sweet, filled the air. It was a smell I would never forget.

I saw the flashing lights first, a chaotic dance of red and blue against the Chicago twilight. Then I saw the car, a low-slung, obscenely yellow Lamborghini, its front end crumpled like a discarded soda can.

And then I saw them.

A small, blue baseball glove lay on the asphalt, a few feet from a child-sized sneaker.

My breath caught in my throat. I pushed through the small crowd, my heart hammering against my ribs. A police officer tried to stop me, his hand on my arm.

"Ma'am, you don't want to go over there."

I didn't hear him. My world had narrowed to the scene under the harsh glare of the streetlights. My husband, Andrew, was a still, broken shape on the ground. My son, Caleb, my bright, energetic five-year-old boy, was a small, fragile form beside him.

I fell to my knees, a sound escaping my lips that wasn't human.

Leaning against the Lamborghini, a young man with a bored expression lit a cigarette. He flicked his lighter shut and glanced at me, then at the blood staining the hood of his car.

"Fucking hell," he muttered, loud enough for me to hear. "This is going to cost a fortune to clean."

He took a long drag from his cigarette, then looked directly at me.

"What are you staring at?"

My voice was a raw whisper. "Caleb? Andrew?"

I tried to crawl toward them, but the officer held me back. Paramedics were there, but they weren't rushing. They were moving with a slow, somber finality.

The man with the cigarette, Barney Hughes, pushed himself off his car. He swaggered over, pulling a thick wad of cash from his pocket. He peeled off a few bills and threw them at my feet.

"Here," he said, his voice dripping with contempt. "Buy yourself a new kid or something. Get over it."

Rage, pure and hot, burned through the shock. I tried to stand, to launch myself at him, but my legs wouldn't obey.

He just laughed, a short, ugly sound. He pulled out his phone, turned his back to me, and angled it to get the wreckage and my crumpled form in the background. The flash went off. A selfie. For his social media.

The crowd gasped. Someone yelled, "You monster!"

Barney ignored them. He was too busy typing a caption, a smirk on his face.

Then, a black sedan screeched to a halt. A team of men in sharp suits jumped out, surrounding Barney protectively. An older man, his face a mask of cold fury, emerged. Mr. Hughes. I recognized him from the news. The real estate magnate who owned half of Chicago.

He didn't look at me. He didn't look at the bodies of my husband and son. He looked at the police captain who had just arrived.

"This is a mess, Captain," Mr. Hughes said, his voice low and dangerous.

The captain, a man I knew from my community outreach work, looked pale. "Mr. Hughes, your son..."

"My son was the victim of an unfortunate accident," Mr. Hughes cut him off. His lawyers were already talking to the other officers, their voices low and insistent.

The captain's phone rang. He answered it, listened for a moment, and his face went slack. He hung up and looked at me, his eyes filled with something that looked like pity and shame.

"Mrs. Johns," he said, his voice hollow. "The initial report... it seems your husband was jaywalking. He ran into the street."

"What?" I choked out. "This is a school zone! There are signs everywhere! He was in the crosswalk!"

"All the traffic cameras in this intersection appear to be malfunctioning," the captain said, unable to meet my eyes. "The footage is gone."

Mr. Hughes nodded curtly to his men. They moved toward the bodies.

"No," I screamed, scrambling to my feet. "Don't you touch them! Don't you dare!"

Two of the suits grabbed my arms, holding me back as a private ambulance, not a city one, pulled up. They were loading my husband and my son into the back, handling them like sacks of garbage.

"What are you doing? Where are you taking them?" I cried, struggling against the men holding me.

Mr. Hughes finally turned to look at me, his eyes as dead and cold as a shark's.

"We're taking care of it," he said. "It's cleaner this way. We've arranged for a cremation. It's best for everyone to move on quickly."

He got back in his car. Barney, still smirking, gave me a little wave before sliding into the passenger seat.

The private ambulance drove away. The Lamborghini was loaded onto a flatbed. The police were packing up.

Within an hour, it was as if they had never existed. The street was empty, except for me, on my knees, and the bloodstains on the pavement that were slowly being washed away by a sudden, cold drizzle.