“Nobody gets lost on a dead-end road, Clara,” she said. “It looks like the one that used to park near the old quarry.”
As she spoke, the sedan’s brake lights flared red in the mist, and the engine gave a low, heavy rumble. The tires spun on the wet gravel, throwing up a shower of gray stones before the car vanished behind the treeline.
“They’ve been watching you,” she whispered, looking back at my front door.
The dinner rush at the diner was over, leaving only the smell of burnt onions and the cold draft from the back alley. I wiped the laminate counter with a damp rag, moving a heavy ceramic salt shaker to get to the grease beneath.
Harold Fletcher sat at the far end of the counter, his expensive wool coat draped over the stool beside him. He was fifty-eight, but his hair was still thick and black, slicked back with something that smelled of heavy cologne.
He didn’t touch his pie, but he kept his fingers moving, brushing imaginary lint off his expensive wool lapels.
“The town is changing, Clara,” Harold said, his voice gruff and low. “A gallon of milk is four dollars and ten cents now. People can’t afford to hold onto old grudges.”
“I don’t have grudges, Harold,” I said, keeping my head down as I wiped. “Just bills.”
“Your boy is growing up fast,” he said, leaning forward. “He needs a steady life. Not a mother who spends her evenings digging up ten-year-old dirt.”
I set the rag down, my hand instinctively going to the silver ring on my finger. “Ryan left because of his own choices. Everyone in town reminds me of that.”
Harold smiled, though his eyes stayed flat. “Some things are better left in the dirt, Clara.”
He laid a ten-dollar bill on the counter and stood up, leaving the pie untouched.
