Brenda stumbled out of the parking garage into the late afternoon, and she felt hollowed out, destroyed from the inside; she had sacrificed everything, her career, her reputation, her freedom, for revenge and for the false promise of love, and now she had nothing.

She thought about running, about using the bail freedom to disappear, to flee the country, to start over somewhere no one knew her, but she had no resources, no plan, no energy; she was finished, completely and utterly ...