I caught my mother-in-law slashing my tires at 2 a.m. to kill me in the mountains, but my cheating husband snatched my keys before I could stop him.

The silence in my driveway didn't just feel cold; it felt radioactive.

Judith collapsed to her knees onto the gray pavers, her designer handbag spilling across the damp stone. Out rolled a set of silver rosary beads, a compact mirror, and a black-handled utility knife with traces of synthetic rubber still clinging to its beveled edge.

She looked up at me, her eyes wild, hollow, and drained of the haughty arrogance she had worn like armor for seven years.

"Call him again, Clara," she choked out, her manicured fingers clawing at the hem of my coat. "Call him! Tell him to pull over! Tell him his mother is begging him!"

"I already called him three times, Judith," I said, my voice eerily calm, the kind of calm that only arrives when shock has frozen your blood solid. "He blocked my number. He thinks I'm calling to scream at him about Tessa. He has no idea he's driving a two-and-a-half-ton missile with shredded sidewalls."

"Do something!" she shrieked, slamming her fists against the asphalt. "You're an engineer! You built the safety software for those damn cars! Remotely disable it! Cut the engine!"

"That's not how consumer telemetry works and you know it," I snapped, leaning over her until she was forced to see her own reflection in my phone screen. "The app only tracks location and locks the doors. If I kill the engine remotely while he's accelerating at eighty miles an hour down Interstate 40, I'll trigger the exact rollover you paid to cause."

Her face went bone-white. The truth hung between us, naked and foul.

"I didn't pay for anything..." she whispered, though her trembling jaw gave her away.

"Get up," I ordered.

"What?"

"Get up and get in your Lexus. We're following him."

"Clara, we won't catch him! He's thirty miles ahead!"

"Then you'd better pray the North Carolina Highway Patrol intercepts him before he hits Old Fort Mountain," I said, grabbing her by the arm and yanking her to her feet with a strength I didn't know I possessed. "Because if that tire blows on the gorge curves, Judith, your son isn't going to jail for what he stole from me. He's going into a pine box. And so is that innocent little girl he put in the backseat."

As she stumbled toward her car, she sobbed, "Tessa told me it would just be a slow leak! She swore it would look like road debris! She said you'd spin out on the morning commute at twenty miles an hour!"

I paused at the passenger side, my hand gripping the cold chrome handle. I stared at the woman who had criticized my cooking, mocked my pedigree, and quietly drained my bank accounts through her son.