Radio off, both hands on the wheel, eyes flicking to the mirror every few seconds.
The highway cut straight through the trees, no traffic in either direction.
A blue haze had settled into the low ground, softening the distance until it was hard to tell where the sky began. A big hush fell across the hollows as the sun sank toward a dark line of pines, turning the trunks into bars of gold.
She kept the Jeep just under the limit. The telephone poles ticked past, and she counted them in steady tens.
A shape appeared behind her, small at first. White roof, row of lights on top.
The patrol car closed the distance fast, held there for a moment, then the lights came on.
She glanced in the mirror.
The cruiser flashed once, then twice. She eased onto the shoulder, the Jeep tilting as the wheels left the pavement.
Inside: Mark’s bag on the passenger floor. Ghost on the back seat beneath one of Miguel’s blankets. Her eyes went back to him.
He stayed inside, maybe running the plate. She counted the seconds. When the door finally opened, she saw the reflection of his hat in the side mirror.
He walked up slow, hand brushing the trunk as he passed.
He came to the window, boots clacking against the dry pavement.
She rolled it halfway down.
“Evening, ma’am,” he said.
“Good evening, officer.”
“Everything all right?”
She nodded once. “Yes, sir.”
His gaze shifted toward the passenger seat, then back to her face. “Where is Mr. Ruiz today?”
A half-second too long before she answered. “Miguel’s a friend of mine. He lent me his Jeep while mine’s in the shop. I had an accident the other day.”
He gave a single nod, unreadable. “License, registration, proof of insurance, please.”
She passed him her license, then reached for the glove box. The latch stuck before it gave. Inside were a folded map, a tire gauge, and a pair of worn work gloves stiff with dried mud. She lifted them aside and found the registration — current.
She kept searching. No insurance card. Her hand stilled on the glovebox.
“Sorry,” she said, voice thin. “This isn’t my car. I’m not sure where Miguel would’ve put it.”
He took the license and registration from her, glancing over them once before saying, “I’ll come back for that. Just stay in the car for me.”
“Yes, sir.”
He turned away, boots crunching over the shoulder, and she watched him through the mirror until his shape disappeared back into the cruiser.
Inside the Jeep, the air went heavy. Heat gathered on her arms. She pressed her palm flat on her thigh — damp, trembling once, then still.
A minute passed. Another. The ticking of the cooling engine marked each second too loud.
When he returned, his shadow crossed her lap before his face came into view.
“Still live at Fourteen Sixty-One Weaver, Apartment Three?”
“Yes, sir.”
“You have anything illegal in the car? Drugs, knives… guns?”
Something almost a laugh caught in her throat. “No, sir.”
He studied her, chin lifted slightly. She didn’t blink.
“Mind if I take a look? Just to be sure.”
Her throat closed. She kept her face neutral and held his gaze. She drew a breath.
“Am I being detained, officer, or am I free to go?”
The words came out steady, almost polite.
His eyes held hers a moment longer than they needed to. Then he handed her papers back.
“Drive safe, Ms. Holt.”
He turned and walked away.
She watched him go until the cruiser door closed and the quiet settled again. Then she exhaled — slow, careful, through her teeth. Her eyes stayed on the mirror.
The patrol car’s engine revved. It pulled onto the highway, passing her on the left.
As it cleared her line of sight, she saw what had been behind it.
A dark sedan, pulled close to where the cruiser had been. Engine running. A figure in the driver’s seat.
His left hand rested on the steering wheel. Ring finger missing.
She stared through the windshield, stomach tight.
The sedan sat there. Idling. Waiting.
A long moment passed. Then the sedan pulled onto the highway, tires chirping slightly as it accelerated into a U-turn. Headed back the way it had come.
Gone.
She sat motionless. Her eyes lingered on the rearview. The engine idled.
Finally, she signaled. The Jeep rolled forward into the failing light.
The parking lot of Twisted Lanes sat under yellow streetlights, half-full when she arrived just after dark.
Sarah set up in the treeline across the highway, Ghost propped against a fallen log. The woods smelled of damp earth and rotting leaves, the ground soft beneath her. Through the magnifier she could see the front entrance, the rows of cars gradually thinning as customers left.
A semi truck roared past on the highway, its running lights cutting through the darkness, the diesel rumble fading into the distance. Then another, twenty minutes later. The highway carried its own rhythm — long silences broken by sudden noise.
She’d been watching for nearly three hours when she reached for the cigarettes. Her jeans had gone damp where her knees pressed into the ground, cold seeping through the denim. She shifted slightly, lit one. Let the smoke fill her lungs, steady her hands.
The ember burned down slowly. She watched patrons emerge in pairs and groups — wrong builds, wrong gaits, wrong faces through the scope. None of them Josh. Cars pulled away one by one.
The thought arrived before she could stop it. Maybe he wasn’t here. Maybe the post had been old, or he’d changed plans, or—
She let the thought go. Kept watching.
The parking lot emptied until only one vehicle remained. A pickup truck, pointed toward the highway. The neon “Open” sign flickered, then went dark.
She waited, scope steady on the front entrance.
The door opened.
A figure stepped into the light. Alone. Phone in hand.
His face angled down toward the screen, thumbs moving as he walked. The phone’s glow lit his features from below — pale light carving shadows across cheekbones, nose, the line of his jaw.
She adjusted the magnifier. Brought him into sharp focus.
Thursday night. Miguel’s porch. That same light washing up from cupped hands while Mark tried to reason with them.
Josh.
He stumbled slightly at the curb, weaving toward the pickup, still staring at the screen.
He reached the truck and pulled the door open, dropping into the seat without looking up from the screen. The door swung behind him and caught on the frame, half-latched, unnoticed. His face stayed angled down, thumbs moving.
She kept the reticle on him.
A moth batted at the streetlight above the truck. Somewhere behind her in the treeline, something small moved through the leaves and went quiet again.
She waited.
The road was dark in both directions. She watched it in her peripheral vision, scope still on Josh, reading the angle, the wind — nothing, maybe two miles per hour from the left, negligible. Her finger rested outside the trigger guard. Not yet.
Josh scrolled. Didn’t move to start the truck.
Then, far down the highway to her left, a pair of headlights appeared. Low and wide-spaced. She tracked them without moving the rifle — the rumble reached her before the shape resolved, a deep, rhythmic diesel growl building toward her.
Wait.
She brought her breathing down. In through the nose, slow count of four. The headlights grew. The rumble filled the treeline around her, the ground almost humming with it.
Wait.
Josh’s face stayed buried in the phone’s glow.
The truck drew even with the lot.
She fired.
The crack merged with the diesel roar. Through the scope: Josh jerked, the phone tumbling from his hands to the floorboard. His body sagged forward against the steering wheel.
She reset her aim. Found his head slumped against the wheel, angled left. The truck rolled past, engine still growling.
She fired again.
His head snapped back against the headrest, then fell forward.
The truck’s taillights faded down the highway.
She lowered the rifle. Her heartbeat hammered against her ribs — fast, too fast. Her hands wanted to shake. She pressed them flat against her thighs until the tremor passed.
She took one last drag from the cigarette, then stubbed it out against the sole of her boot and slipped it into her front pocket.
She waited. Counted to sixty. Watched the building’s windows, the door, the highway in both directions.
The parking lot was empty except for Josh’s truck. No headlights on the highway. No sounds but the hum of the streetlight overhead and the distant buzz of the bowling alley’s neon sign.
She slung Ghost over her back and crossed the parking lot, steps quick and deliberate, pulling work gloves from her pocket and slipping them on. The asphalt was still warm from the day’s heat. Through the glass, the shape of him against the wheel.
She pulled the door open — unlocked. The interior light came on, casting everything in yellow.
Josh’s body had slumped against the steering wheel, head tilted at an angle that looked almost peaceful if you ignored the entry wounds. The phone lay on the floorboard where it had fallen, screen still glowing. She picked it up. The text swam, resolved, swam again. She blinked hard and it held.
She scrolled quickly, thumbs moving across the screen. Messages between Josh and names she recognized from the militia page. Brett’s death mentioned — condolences, anger, vows to find “whoever did this.”
Then a thread with Dale. Recent. From this afternoon.
Laying low at the cabin for a while until shit dies down. Keep this strictly between us.
After what happened to Brett, not taking chances.
Josh’s reply: Stay safe brother. We’ll handle things here.
“There’s no way… right?”
She opened the maps app and swiped around but she didn’t have to look far.
A pin. About fifty miles east. Labeled DALE’S CABIN.
“You stupid motherfucker.”
She set the phone back on the floorboard exactly where it had fallen, screen still glowing. Closed the truck door carefully — the latch clicked shut.
She crossed back into the darkness beyond the lot, Ghost over her shoulder.
The highway stretched empty in both directions.