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work.”
    “Hold up there, son.” Tate gives me the once-over, then his jaw drops. It hangs open and shows nubby, stained teeth.
    He spits out a stream of tobacco onto the road, the sight of the yellowish gruel sickens me and threatens my balance. “Well, I’ll be damned.” He spits again. “Don’t you shine like your mama?”
    How would I know? Unless a photo of her stares back at me, I can’t picture her.
    “You’re not going anywhere, son,” he barks at Dare.
    Chia Pet taps Dare’s chest with his Billy club.
    “I pulled her out of the ditch,” Dare’s voice has risen, no longer confident but wavering.
    “What’s this about?” Nan asks, standing and planting her feet. “Tucker called in the accident.”
    “This here is Teal Covington,” Tate says, gnawing on tobacco.
    “Yeah. So?” I ask. He has no good reason to remember me.
    “Your daddy filed another restraining order against Darius Tucker. He can’t be around you.”
    Chia Pet rakes his gaze over me. “She does resemble her mama.”
    Pulling Dare’s jacket tighter around me, I instinctively draw back from his wandering eyes.
    “Dare didn’t know it was me.” Which doesn’t explain how Tate and his pet do. I haven’t seen Tate in forever, and I don’t remember the other guy. “Dare got me out of the car before it sank. I’m not pressing charges.”
    “Don’t make me file another complaint,” Nan warns. “This is bullshit, and you know it. Quit hasslin’ the Tucker boys.”
    “The law is the law,” Tate says, nodding to Chia Pet. “Jimmy?”
    He twirls Dare around by his arm and slaps on the cuffs. Slamming him hard enough against the cruiser that it would be considered unnecessary roughness.
    “That’s enough,” Nan says.
    Dare glances back at me, and pure hate whittles away at his expression.
    I don’t want him to hate me. The restraining order was Daddy’s idea, not mine. He thinks Dare molested me that day in the swamp. That’s the last time I saw Dare until now.

Chapter 4
    Inside a long room partitioned and separated by curtains, the ER doctor finishes wrapping my broken arm in a cast. It’s lime green. Do I look like a three-year-old? Not to mention the cast sticks out like a tattoo parlor sign on a dimly lit street.
    The fluorescent lights above cast a sickly yellow, and the antiseptic odor nauseates me, but distance from the swamp has suppressed the visions and terror of that day ten years ago.
    The nurse pumps me full of pain meds. I’m not supposed to have any with my condition that the shrinks haven’t figured out yet.
    The worst of this is I can no longer drive. One, because I don’t have a vehicle. Two, because I blacked out, and three, I’m not willing to die from my mental setback or kill somebody else.
    So much for being fixed. Daddy won’t want to hear that. He’ll expect another call soon. The insurance company will contact him once I file the claim and the tow truck digs the SUV out of the swamp.
    Now the only question is what do I do? How do I get home, get around, get a job, have fun, take care of Lulu, and not blackout? Half of summer is pretty much ruined because I can’t swim at the beach for six weeks. I could beg for sympathy and bum rides and have all my friends I’ve neglected for two years sign my cast.
    “You’re free to leave, Miss Covington,” a nurse says.
    “I need to clean up first,” I say, glancing at the swamp cider dripping from my bottom half. I wring out my skirt onto the floor, and the nurse gives me a dirty look.
    In the bathroom, I wipe the swamp goo from my designer bag. I slip off my sandals and put them under the sink to wash them off.
    While thinking of Dare, I clean up as best I can. Why did Tate arrest him? He can’t do that, when Dare saved my life.
    And why does Dare hate me? The renewal of the restraining order is no big deal. From the way he acted, he should be happy he can’t see me, though I need to let the sheriff know I won’t press charges, not for