The further from Clifton they drove, the less there was to see besides trees and stretches of empty road.Eventually the radio began to lose signal, the music warbling before switching over to a preacher mid-rant—
“The day of reckonin’ is comin’, and it’s comin’ swift.The Lord ain’t sittin’ idle while folks out shillin’ poison, sellin’ sin and death by the ounce!No, sir!The devil’s got his hands in our town and some of y’all are shakin’ ’em like it’s nothin’—”
“Jesus,” Luanne muttered, twisting the dial.“Sounds like he could use a stiff drink.”
“Him and me both,” Cassie replied dryly.
Luanne continued to flip stations, eventually finding half a song, then more static, before giving up and letting the silence ride with them the last few miles into Mills.
Mills wasn’t much more than a name on a map now—a former rail stop left behind long ago.Most of the buildings they passed were dark and boarded up, others half swallowed by weeds.An ice chest sat outside the rotted shell of an old train depot, doors open; a bent newspaper stand lay on its side at the edge of the road, remnants of a curb crumbled into dust around it.
Then Cassie spotted it—a squat little building, more shed than shop, with a faded sign above the door that readFletcher's Pawn & Gun.
“Over there,” she said, pointing.
Luanne pulled in, stopping right out front.Unbuckling, Cassie climbed out and glanced up at the sky.The light was quickly disappearing, the day already on its way to the other side of the world.She thought briefly of Jordan, Marta, and the rest of the ensemble and shook her head a little.It already felt impossibly far away.
“You good?”Luanne asked, pausing beside her.
She shrugged, eyes on the shop.“I’m just hopin’ there’s something inside.”
Something she could hold, smell, or recognize without thinking.Proof they’d been real.That once upon a time, they’d been a family.Whole and…hers.
Luanne looped her arm through Cassie’s.“Well, come on, then,” she said, tugging her forward, “you ain’t gonna find anything standin’ still.”
At the door, Luanne gave the security camera half a wave, and a breath later the latch clicked open, and they stepped inside to the muted chime of a bell.
The shop was dim but neat, carrying the smell of old leather and gun oil mixed with the mustiness of things that had sat too long.Shelves were packed tight with mismatched tools.Knives lined cracked glass cases; jewelry glinted dully in velvet trays.Behind the counter, rifles stood in a locked rack, upright and orderly, and above it all, taxidermy deer heads loomed, their blank glass eyes all fixed with the same dead stare.
“Evenin’, ladies,” a deep voice called out.
An older man stood behind a nearby counter, polishing a shotgun stock with a worn rag.A Vietnam POW cap sat low over his brow, and his bare forearms were a tapestry of faded tattoos.
“Evenin’,” Luanne replied as they passed, Cassie’s gaze sliding absently over everything…until it stopped on a strikingly familiar cuckoo clock.The carved oak casing looked just as she remembered, worn smooth and darkened to the color of old tobacco.Delicate vines curled along the frame; the pine cone weights dangled from their chains, and a little bluebird sat crooked on its perch.The old, yellowed hands were frozen at 8:06.
“I see you eyein’ that cuckoo,” the man said, moving down the counter.“Real honest-to-God antique.Came outta Pennsylvania, hand carved by Mennonites far as I know—”
“That’s not where it’s from,” Cassie said, cutting him a look.
He blinked, brows lifting.“No?”
“No,” she echoed, folding her arms.“It’s from out Greenbrier way.My great-granddaddy carved it, gave it to my great-mamaw as a wedding gift.”
The man scratched the back of his neck.“Huh.Well…I’ll be.I coulda sworn—”
“I told you one day someone was gonna walk in here and call you on your horseshit, Lyle,” another voice cut in—a woman’s voice, with a smoker’s rasp and a smile.
She stepped through a back curtain, at least a decade younger than the man.Her gray-blonde hair was twisted neatly into a clip, her eyes quick.She gave Cassie and Luanne a brief once-over and flashed a smile.“So you’re sayin’ that clock’s yours?”
“My family’s,” Cassie replied, reaching into her bag and pulling out Connor’s receipts, separating the ones stamped with Fletcher’s name before handing them over.“Whatever these are for—whatever you still have, I’ll take it all.”
The woman flipped through the receipts slowly, her lips pressing together, her face pinching.
“He started out small,” she murmured, eyes lifting.“Tools and electronics and such.He was in real rough shape when he brought that clock in.”
Cassie swallowed back her flinch.“He’s gone,” she replied quickly.“Just, uh, tell me what’s still here.I’ll pay whatever you’re askin’.”
The woman hesitated, then shook her head.“You don’t have to pay, honey.If it was yours to begin with, it never should’ve ended up here.”She turned toward the back room.“I’ll go pull what we got—Lyle, you wrap up that clock real careful-like.”
