back, because clearly the butler had been the last one to drive the vehicle. And then, as she put the key fob in the cup holder and hit the start button, she had a moment's pause.
Especially as the engine flared and settled into a purr.
Was she really doing this? What if...
Stopping that spiral, she flicked the right-hand toggle upward and looked to the screen on the dashboard, making sure there was nothing close behind her.
"This is going to be fine," she told herself.
She eased off the brake, and the car smoothly moved back, which was good. Unfortunately, it went in the opposite direction than she wanted and she had to wrench the wheel over.
"Shoot."
Some to'ing and fro'ing happened next, with her piloting the car into a series of stop-and-gos that eventually had the circular hood ornament pointed at the road that went down the mountain.
One last glance at the mansion and she was off at a snail's pace, descending the hill, keeping to the right as she'd been taught. All around, the landscape was blurry, thanks to the mhis, and she was ready to get rid of that. Visibility was something she was desperate for.
When she got to the main road, she went left, coordinating the turn of the wheel and the acceleration so that she pulled out with some semblance of order. And then, surprise, surprise, it was smooth sailing: The Mercedes, she believed it was called, was so steady and sure that it was nearly like sitting in a chair, and watching a movie of the landscape going by.
Of course, she was going only five miles an hour.
The dial went up to one hundred and sixty.
Silly humans and their speed. Then again, if that was the only way one could travel, she could see the value of haste.
With every mile she went, she gathered confidence. Using the dashboard screen's map to orient herself, she stayed very far from downtown and the highways, and even the suburban parts of the city. Farmland was good - lots of room to pull over and not a lot of people, although from time to time a car would come out of the night, its headlights flaring and passing on her left.
It was a while before she realized where she was going. And when she did, she told herself to turn around.
She did not.
In fact, she was surprised to discover that she knew where she was going at all: Her memory should have dimmed since the fall, the passage of the intervening days, but even more so, events, obscuring the location she was seeking. There was no such buffering. Even the awkwardness of being in a car and having to be restricted to roads didn't mitigate what she saw in her mind's eye...or where her recollections were taking her.
She found the meadow she sought many miles away from the compound.
Pulling over at the field's base, she stared up at the gradual ascent. The great maple was precisely where it had been, its stout main trunk and smaller arterial branches bare of the leaves that had once offered a colorful canopy.
Between one blink and the next, she pictured the fallen soldier who had been stretched out on the ground at its roots, recalling everything about him, from his heavy limbs to his navy blue eyes to the way he had wanted to refuse her.
Bending forward, she put her head on the steering wheel. Banged it once. Did that a second time.
It was not simply unwise to find any gallantry in that denial, but downright dangerous.
Besides, sympathizing with a traitor was a violation of every standard she'd ever had for herself.
And yet...alone in the car, with naught but her inner thoughts to contend with, she found her heart was still with a male who by all rights and morals, she should have hated with a passion.
It was a sad state of affairs, it truly was.
Chapter Seventy-seven
Trez won the lottery at around ten-thirty that night.
He and iAm had been given front-facing rooms on the third floor of the mansion, opposite the restricted-access suite that housed the First Family. The digs were super-sweet, with en suite baths and huge soft beds, and enough antiques and royalty-worthy accoutrements to give a museum a case of the oh-mans.
But what made the accommodations truly outstanding was the roof they were under.
And not because there was a quarry's worth of slate keeping the elements out overhead.
Leaning into the mirror over the sink, Trez checked his black silk shirt. Smoothed his