Then we catch the taillight, a red blink at the far bend. The SUV threads a line of patches where the county filled last spring’s losses with new asphalt that looks like scars. He signals right for County Six and takes it. Nico does not need my next word. He settles behind a blue pickup that smells like diesel and supplies patience.
At the corner where County Six meets the spur, a gas station sells worms and coffee under a tired canopy. The SUV pulls in and takes a pump on the far side, nose angled toward the exit. The driver keeps his cap low. He fills the tank, then walks into the store.
“Do not pull in,” I tell Nico. “Go past. Park behind the bait shed. Keep the engine warm.”
We ease past the lot at a distance, using the side road that skirts the drainage ditch. The canopy light falls short of us, and the pumps blur in the mirror. The bait shed sits in that dark margin, far enough that he would need to lean across the seat to see us.
Through the windshield, I watch him speak to the man behind the counter. The clerk talks with his hands, the way locals dowhen the day has been long and the company is welcome. The driver does not meet it. He stands apart, posture easy but closed, no lean, no nod. He pays, pockets change he does not count, and walks back out with a paper cup.
Headlights sweep by, throwing a brief light on our hood. I watch in the side mirror while I talk to a boy with a bicycle, old enough to be curious, young enough to tell the truth.
“You see the black truck?” I ask.
He nods, nose red, hair too long under a wool cap. “Came in slow. Sat a bit before the pump.”
“Plate?” I ask.
“Looked new,” he reports.
“We’re looking into something,” I say with a North Country edge that sounds more like a warning than a threat. “Those men aren’t good people. Can you tell me how many are in the truck?”
I pass him a dollar. He studies it like a coin from a place he has not visited, then lifts his eyebrows in that quick flash of awe. Everyone in town knows the county detectives, and there is a private pleasure in being useful.
He nods, pedals back toward the pumps, then returns and spreads two fingers. Two.
I keep my face still. “Good work,” I say.
The SUV slides onto the spur without checking more than one mirror. Nico eases, lets a red sedan settle between us. We lose it for a stretch of road and pick it up again near the overpass. After ten minutes, it turns right and enters the lot of a motel that looks like a set built for a scene no one should shoot. Two wings, onegutted, one surviving out of habit. A pool under a plywood lid. A sign that buzzes and reads “VACANCY” as “ACY” in the cold. The office placard still says PINE CREST MOTOR LODGE.
Three doors leak yellow light. A fourth has a chair outside and a bucket with cigarettes put out on the edge. “Park by the dead soda machine,” I tell Nico. “Face out. If we leave fast, we do not turn.”
He angles us in. I step out into air that smells like old smoke and cold gasoline. The light makes a man look sick. I move like a person who belongs in any lot at any hour, hands in pockets, eyes on the ground until they are not.
I count doors and stop at a window where a faded gold curtain fails by one finger and shows a slice of room. The sash leaks cold. The draft carries voices. One belongs to the driver. The other breathes through his nose like someone who has taken too many hits. Their sentences bump and rankle.
“The phone didn’t ring while I drove,” one of them whines. That would be the driver.
“It will,” the other cuts in, sharp. “Button it and wait.”
“Wait for what?”
“Orders.”
“What kind? We’ve been driving in circles.”
“The girl and the kid,” the second replies. “We get the word, we go. No freelancing, no noise. You miss the window, you answer for it.”
A pause. The sound of a lighter, a drag, smoke, and then quiet.
“For now, Boss wants eyes on the church,” the passengersays. “Upstairs window and the bakery. The birds don’t fly the nest.” He laughs, short, pleased with himself.
“You think he’ll show?” A third voice, nasally, mutters.
“Russo’s boy?” the driver replies. “He’s already here.”
I lean back and check the wood frame. Paint peels under my nail. Old buildings tell on themselves. A door opens at the far end and closes. A shower starts. A car rides the spur and throws light across the lot, and the room curtain glows blue. I stand here long enough to risk becoming a shape, so I walk back to the van and sit. Nico keeps his eyes on the mirror and his mouth shut.
“Two inside,” I declare. “One extra body in a far room. They are waiting for a call. They called themthe girlandthe kid.”
