Maple Street looping back toward Main, the long curve past the elementary school before cutting south again. Visibility mattered during school hours. Parents liked to see a cruiser. Administrators liked knowing someone was close.
He slowed as he turned onto Maple, eyes moving automatically. Parked cars first. Driveways. Porches. Curtains. Grace’s house.
Luke didn’t stop.
He rolled past at regulation speed, posture loose, hands steady on the wheel. Nothing to flag. No loitering. No suspicious sedan tucked too neatly against the curb.
Still, he memorized everything.
Two houses down, a blue pickup that hadn’t been there yesterday. Probably a contractor. Three doors up, a porch light still on even though the sun was fully up—habit, or someone who hadn’t slept well. He noted it anyway.
He turned the corner and let the school come back into view.
The recess was in full swing. Kids playing in uneven clusters.
Luke slowed again.
He didn’t pull over. Didn’t idle. Just let the cruiser glide through, visible without lingering.
Grace was there.
He spotted her talking to one of the kids. She was bent slightly at the waist, attention fully on the child, face soft and beautiful.
She laughed at something the kid said.
Luke felt it low and immediate—that familiar pull in his chest. He resisted it like he always did.
She looked fine.
That should have been enough.
He drove past the school and turned back onto Main.
The radio crackled. A routine call. He acknowledged it, voice steady, and followed through. Logged a note. Answered a question from dispatch. Did his job.
An hour later, he was back on Maple.
This time he clocked movement—a woman loading groceries into a trunk, a dog straining at its leash. Normal. Harmless. He scanned anyway. Side yards. The narrow space between Grace’s house and the next one over.
Nothing.
Good.
He drove on.
Luke circled again toward the school.
Lunch had started. Kids scattered across the playground, shrieking with the kind of reckless joy that made adults nervous. Grace stood near the edge of the blacktop with two other teachers, arms folded loosely, posture relaxed but alert. Watching. Counting. Protecting in her own way.
The cruiser rolled past the fence, past the chalk drawings on the pavement, past the mural the kids had painted last spring.
The rational part of him knew this was pointless. If the man came back, it wouldn’t be broad daylight with witnesses everywhere. It would be later. Quieter. When routines lulled people into thinking the danger had passed.
Luke hated that he knew that.
He checked the time. Shift change wasn’t for hours yet.
Maple Street came back into view.
