“Good. Kids bounce back.” He adjusted the rearview mirror. “And you? You’ve been here about seven months now?”
“Yeah. Almost eight.” Ben must’ve talked to Vance about me.
“How are you finding Summit Falls?”
I shifted in my seat, angling toward him the way you did when someone was making the effort at conversation. “It’s been wonderful. William’s thriving in school. I love the community.”
“That’s good to hear.” His fingers tapped the wheel twice. The pause that followed was just a beat too long, like he was deciding which direction to take the conversation. “You been following the drug situation at all? Around town?”
“A little. I’ve seen some things on the news.”
He nodded slowly. “It’s been rough. This Drift stuff, designer fentanyl, hits the tourist population hardest. We’ve had overdose deaths. Young people.” He shook his head. “It’s the kind of thing that eats at you in law enforcement. You want to protect your town, and sometimes the town doesn’t even know it needs protecting.”
Was the drug stuff part of thesituationBen had mentioned earlier in his call?
“That must be frustrating. I know you guys must be working really hard to take the drug dealers down.”
“It is, and we very definitely are.” His eyes stayed on the road. “Has Ben talked much about it?”
Something about the question made me choose my words more carefully than the conversation warranted. Could Ben get in trouble for talking about it to me? “No, not really at all. I know the department’s been dealing with it.”
“Yeah.” He was quiet for a moment, and when he spokeagain, his tone had shifted into something almost admiring. “He’s a good man, your Ben. Dedicated. The type of guy who takes the work personally.”
Your Ben.We’d met once. I wasn’t sure how he’d gotten toyour Benfrom one encounter, but I let it pass.
I looked out the window.
The buildings were thinning. We’d passed the last of the downtown blocks a few minutes ago, and the streetlights were spacing out. The road was climbing. I could feel the grade in the way the engine worked harder, the way my body pressed back against the seat.
“Is the station on the far side of town?” I turned back to him. “I thought it was closer to Main Street.”
“Shortcut. Construction on Third has everything rerouted.”
I didn’t remember any construction on Third. But I didn’t drive through downtown much.
The road narrowed. Trees pressed in on both sides. No more streetlights. The headlights carved a tunnel through the dark, and beyond their reach, there was nothing.
Vance’s hands had shifted on the wheel. Both of them now, ten and two, firm and deliberate. His eyes moved to the mirrors. Not a glance, a check. Methodical, repeated, the way someone drove when they wanted to know what was behind them.
The small talk had stopped. The silence felt wrong somehow.
I reached into my jacket pocket for my phone. To text Ben. To check the time. To do something with my hands because my body had gone tight in a way that had nothing to do with the cold.
Vance’s right hand came off the wheel and reached between the seat and the center console. When it came back up, it was holding a gun.
He pointed it at me the way a person pointed at something on a shelf they’d like you to hand them. No urgency. No drama. The barrel was steady, aimed at my ribs, and his eyes stayed on the road.
“Hand over your phone.”
His voice hadn’t changed. Same tone he’d used to ask about William. Same warmth, same ease, same unhurried cadence. The only thing different was the weapon in his hand, and it changed everything.
Everything.
I pulled the phone the rest of the way from my pocket and held it out. My hand was steady. I didn’t know how.
He took it, powered down the window, and flicked it into the dark. I heard it hit asphalt and then nothing. The window went back up. The gun stayed where it was.
He kept driving.
