Two women. One dead man. Only one of them knows the truth.
They say my husband killed himself. They say I should have seen it coming.
But I knew Hayden better than anyone. And I know he didn’t drive into that tree on purpose.
He was a devoted dad. Everyone’s best mate. Four generations of his family in this town.
Everyone in Maldon has an answer. In a goldfields town this small, none of them is the truth.
I’m falling apart. I don’t sleep. I forget things. I catch people watching me in the supermarket.
Then Charles comes home.
Charlise Vee. My oldest friend, my son’s godmother, the girl this town never forgave for leaving. She’s glossy and composed and she won’t take off her sunglasses, and underneath them is a black eye she won’t explain. There’s a cast on her arm too.
The whole town whispers that she’s the reason my husband is dead. And the terrible thing is, I’ve started to wonder too.
Because in the weeks before he died, Hayden did things I still can't make sense of. He sent our teenage son away to stay with Charles. He drove out to a house he had no reason to visit. And he went quiet in a way I’d never seen.
My husband was trying to tell me something. I was just too broken to hear it.
Someone close to me has been lying for a very long time. Someone will do anything to keep it that way.