Kevin stood motionless for three seconds, his breath wheezing through his nose. He unclipped his shoulder mic with a sharp, violent jerk, thumbing the talk button.
"Unit two," Kevin muttered into the mesh. "She's refusing access. Claims she needs paper from the magistrate. Subject is still sitting in the booth."
The radio speaker hissed with open static, followed by the deep, deliberate voice of Sheriff Wayne Miller. Don't force it, Kevin. If the girl wants paper, she'll get paper. I'm three minutes out from the junction. I'll pick up the night clerk's stamp on my way through. Keep your eyes on the doors. Nobody leaves that lot.
"Understood," Kevin said. He clipped the radio back onto his vest, gave me a long, hateful glare that promised complete retribution, and turned on his heel. He didn't sit down. He pushed through the front doors, the cold autumn wind rushing in to swirl napkin wrappers across the linoleum, and walked directly to his cruiser. He pulled the vehicle around until it blocked the diner's only exit ramp, cut the headlamps, and left the amber parking lights burning in the dark.
The diner fell dead quiet, save for the hum of the refrigerator compressor in the back.
I set the tire iron down on the counter with trembling hands. My chest felt constricted, every breath shallow and fast. I bent down, reached past the receipt rolls, and pulled out the yellow manifest and the heavy brass key.
I walked over to Table Four and laid them both down in front of Thomas Vance.
"Wayne isn't going to the magistrate," I said, my voice shaking with sudden adrenaline. "The magistrate's office in Mercer closed four hours ago. Wayne is coming here himself with a pry bar and an empty squad car."
Thomas nodded slowly, his fingers closing around the cold brass key. He flipped the yellow slip open with his uninjured hand, smoothing the crumpled second carbon flat against the formica. In the harsh fluorescent light, the second page wasn't yellow; it was pale pink, stamped with the blue circular seal of the State Department of Environmental Protection.
Printed across the top was the hauling manifest number: DEP-2026-0884. Beneath it, in clear black typewriter ink, was the destination code for the abandoned limestone quarry at Gate Four, along with the authorized signature of the county road commissioner—and directly beneath it, as the secondary receiving witness, the bold, familiar signature of Sheriff Wayne Miller.
"This is the third load this month," Thomas whispered, his voice catching on the pain in his side. "They're burying commercial solvent waste in the open clay pits above the municipal watershed. The private chemical disposal firm paid two hundred thousand dollars to the county road improvement fund. Wayne and his brother run the contractor firm that cleared the pit floor."
I looked at the signature on the pink sheet. It was the same looping script Wayne had written on the condolence card he had handed me at my father's funeral two years ago. The realization hit me like a cold wave: Wayne hadn't spent the last two years checking on my diner out of loyalty to my father. He had parked outside every midnight because my gravel apron sat directly across from the culvert road that led to Gate Four. He was watching the approach.
"How far is the state police barracks?" Thomas asked, looking up at me. His face was pale from blood loss, his collar soaked through. "The junction outpost?"
"Six miles north," I said. "Through the state park cut. But Kevin has his cruiser parked across the only paved culvert. The minute we pull a vehicle onto route nine, he runs us into the ditch before we hit third gear."
"Then we don't take route nine," Thomas said, his hand closing tight over the manifest, crumpling the edges. "The old logging road behind your garbage dumpsters. Does it still connect to the fire break along the creek?"
I looked toward the dark kitchen, where the rear delivery door led out to the gravel alley. The logging trail had been overgrown for ten years, rutted with mud and blocked by fallen oak limbs. If I took my father's old four-wheel-drive utility truck down that wash, Kevin's heavy sedan couldn't follow. But once I drove through that rear fence, there was no coming back. My name would be on the dispatch tape, the lease on the diner would be torn to pieces by Monday morning, and Wayne Miller would use every deputy in the county to hunt us down before we reached the Mercer boundary.
"The logging road is washed out at the second creek crossing," I said, meeting Thomas's clear gray eye. "You can't make it across on foot with cracked ribs."
"Then you carry the paper," Thomas said simply. He pushed the pink carbon slip across the table toward my hands. "Leave me in the booth. Tell Wayne I hid the manifest in the kitchen grease trap. By the time they tear the back room apart looking for it, you'll be standing in the state police lobby."