Chapter 2 - County Road Zero
The gravel crunched violently beneath my tires as I tore out of the St. Andrew’s Chapel parking lot, sending loose stones pinging against the undercarriage of my sedan. I didn't turn on the radio. I didn't dare look in the rearview mirror to see if Mark or any of his groomsmen had followed me out into the blinding midday sun. My lungs felt constricted, every breath burning as the heavy synthetic lace of the wedding gown choked my torso. I reached down with one hand, ripping frantically at the tiny pearl buttons running down the back of the bodice until the fabric gave way with a sharp tearing sound.
The air conditioning in the car blasted cool, dry relief against my skin, but it did nothing to slow the frantic rhythm of my pulse. I drove blindly down the winding two-lane county road, flanked by endless rows of pale green cornfields and weathered wooden fences that blurred into a gray streak through the windshield. Every rustle of the wind against the car chassis sounded like the crunch of footsteps on gravel; every glint of oncoming headlights made my foot twitch against the brake pedal.
My phone, resting in the center console cup holder, began to buzz.
The screen lit up with an unfamiliar local exchange. Then another text notification popped up beneath it: Pull over now. We need to talk before this gets out to the press. It was from Mark’s chief of public relations, a man whose polished smile had welcomed guests at the rehearsal dinner just forty-eight hours ago.
I hit the power button on the phone, plunging the screen into darkness, and tossed the device onto the passenger seat. But silencing the phone didn't silence the panic rattling inside my head. How had Lily known? Seven-year-olds notice the smallest details—the way a person laughs, the way a hand holds a coffee cup, the specific curve of an earlobe. But Lily had been coached, or perhaps she had simply possessed a child's unfiltered clarity that pierced through the elaborate fiction I had maintained for two years. Two years of matching photographs, carefully constructed memories, forged histories, and practiced smiles.
By mid-afternoon, the county road gave way to a stretch of faded asphalt lined with franchise motels and discount gas stations. I pulled the sedan around the back of a weather-beaten motor lodge called the Pinecrest Inn, parking the car directly beneath the rusted overhang of a stairwell where the shadows were thickest.
I sat in the idling car for five long minutes, staring through the bug-spotted windshield at the faded neon sign buzzing above the office door. My veil lay in a tangled white heap on the passenger floorboard, covered in dust and dried mud from the parking lot. My hair was coming loose from its pins, strands sticking to the sweat on the back of my neck.
May you like
I killed the engine, grabbed my small leather clutch from the dashboard, and stepped out into the humid afternoon air. The front desk clerk didn't look up from his small black-and-white television set when I slid a crumpled fifty-dollar bill across the scuffed laminate counter and signed a false name in the registry. He handed over a heavy brass key stamped with the number 14 without asking questions. It was the kind of place where privacy was traded for cash, and that was the only currency I had left.
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