The road home was quiet that evening.
I had the windows cracked open about two inches. One hand rested loose on the steering wheel, and I was humming along to some old pop song on the radio that I didn’t even like. The air coming through the gap smelled like dust and cut wheat.
I’d just left a meeting on the other side of town that ran an hour and ten minutes over schedule. It was the kind of meeting where six people say the same thing in six different ways and nobody decides anything. My shoulders were up around my ears. My neck hurt.
All I wanted was my apartment, a hot shower, and silence.
That was it. That was the whole plan for my evening.
The countryside opened up around me in long gold fields on both sides of the road. It was late August, and the wheat was tall and almost ready. The sun was low, turning everything orange. There weren’t many cars on this stretch. I’d passed maybe three in the last ten minutes.
I kept to the speed limit. Ninety exactly. Not ninety-one.
I always do. Not because I’m especially careful. In my line of work, you learn to. You learn how small things turn into big things. You learn that a broken taillight or five kilometers over the limit is all some people need.
I checked my mirrors. I watched the signs. I wasn’t thinking about anything except the shower.
That was when the lights showed up behind me.
Blue and red, flashing steadily in my rearview mirror.
A patrol car was closing the distance fast. It must have been parked behind the old bus shelter I’d passed a minute before. I hadn’t even noticed it.
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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