His euphoria dulled over his success in persuading the owner of the Dew Drop Inn to donate his old pool tables to the community center when he purchased new ones next month. It disappeared completely when he heard the location of the accident: The stretch of road in front of Sam Peckenbush’s service station. Cara. Her name slammed into his mind and robbed him of breath. He had nothing on which to base his terrible hunch of the victim’s identity besides a sick feeling in his gut. Something odd was going on with Cara, and, somehow, it involved Sam. After the way she’d confronted Sam with her suspicions that morning, it didn’t take much imagination to believe that Cara had been prowling around Sam’s station, trying to figure out whatever it was she needed to know. It wasn’t much more of a stretch to believe that a car had hurtled out of the night and ended her life. Barely cutting his speed, Gray executed a reckless U-turn across the double-yellow line of the two-lane road. He pressed down hard on the accelerator and headed for Sam Peckenbush’s place, praying all the while he was wrong about what had happened there.
