Chapter 4

The Bramlett Travel Center sat out on the four-lane where the county ran out of town, a lit-up island of diesel pumps and a diner that never closed.

Sadie parked Deb's car at the far edge, away from the trucks, and went inside.

The woman at the fuel desk was maybe nineteen and had a name tag that said KRYSTAL. She was watching a tablet propped against the register.

"I'm looking for a driver," Sadie said. "Maroon Kenworth. White stripe. Headache rack."

Krystal didn't look up. "Half the rigs out there are maroon."

"This one was on Fannin Road Tuesday morning, right at six. He pulled in behind a traffic stop."

That got her eyes up. "You the one from the paper."

"I need his name."

Krystal chewed her lip, then turned the tablet around and tapped through a screen - a load board, drivers' names and rig numbers in little gray boxes. "Barlow Hauling runs that stretch. Maroon KW with a rack, that'd be Roarke. Denton Roarke. He's on a run to Corinth, back tonight, probably nine."

"Thank you."

"Hey." Krystal's voice dropped. "I wouldn't. He won't talk to you. None of them will."

Sadie bought fourteen dollars of gas with the last of her cash and drove back toward Marlow with the receipt in her fist.

She stopped at the Quick Stop on Route 9 because the low-fuel light had come on and she wanted to be sure she could get Tommy to school Monday.

Vance's cruiser was parked at the side of the building, nose-out, engine off.

He was inside, at the coffee machine, in uniform. Off duty and in uniform anyway, with his duty belt creaking when he turned. He saw her through the glass. He did not hurry. He finished pouring, put a lid on it, paid, and came out with the cup in his right hand and his keys in his left.

"Sadie Quinn." He said it like he was reading it off a form. "You're a long way from the square."

"I want to know what happens to my truck."

"Ledbetter's. That's between you and Ledbetter."

"And I want to know why your report says I consented."

He drank his coffee. He looked past her at the pumps, at a man filling a mower can, at the sky going orange over the treeline.

"You should get a lawyer," he said. "Instead of running around."

"I'm going to fight it."

"Everybody says that." He started toward the cruiser, then stopped, and turned his head just enough to put her in his line of sight. "How's the boy liking his aunt's house?"

Sadie didn't answer.

Vance got in the cruiser and sat there with the engine running while she walked to Deb's car. He sat there while she started it. He sat there while she pulled out onto Route 9, and in her mirror she watched his headlights come on and stay on, pointed at her back, until she turned off at the Fannin Road light and he went straight.