My grip tightened around the wallet.
And suddenly I wasn’t thinking about Walter anymore.
Because I knew this road.
I knew it far too well.
The lawyer spoke carefully now.
“As I understand it, the person Walter lost that day was a little girl.”
My breath stopped.
No.
No.
It couldn’t be.
Not here.
Not this road.
Not this story.
The lawyer continued.
“She was seven years old.”
The wallet slipped from my hand.
It hit the ground.
Bo flinched.
My knees nearly gave out.
Because thirty years earlier, on a scorching afternoon just like this one…
I had been seven years old.
And I had lost my father on this exact highway.
The same highway where Walter’s dog had been left waiting.
The same highway where Walter somehow expected a stranger to stop.
The same highway where fate had just placed Bo directly in front of me.
And for the first time since this began, I realized Walter Grayson might not have been a stranger at all.
