Page 54 of Where the Fields Don’t Reach

Coincidence lived in small towns. Everybody’s land touched everybody else’s out here, and every road ran past somebody’s front door. She’d have told a rookie the same in her sleep.

Something still wasn’t adding up.

If Roland Mercer had known since last summer that Donovan’s ground might be the resting place of a long-dead girl and a settlement’s worth of gold and gems, then why had he been caught trespassing on the east parcel of Vinton’s land? The section that still grew corn. The rows where the Rutledge girl swore she’d spotted a dark figure standing among the stalks.

Hadley was sure of one thing. Whatever was moving through Cane County, whoever had put Reed on that road, none of it was coincidence.

23

Hadley Dawkins

September 2026

Thursday – 3:19 pm

Colleen had pulled through as promised, and the deeds landed in Hadley’s inbox about an hour ago. She’d printed them all out and spent those sixty minutes going through the documents twice while she ate a late lunch up in her apartment. From the Vinton family to the Chesters to Donovan Huber, the chain of purchases had happened exactly as Colleen described over the phone.

Hadley now had a decision to make.

She’d remained at the station most of the day on purpose, unwilling to confront Donovan until she was confident in her theory. If she was right, the land purchases meant nothing in the grand scheme of things. If she was wrong, she’d be putting a man she’d known since childhood under a light he hadn’t earned.

It would have helped to have someone to talk through the information, but dispatch informed her that Nick was still tied up with the ATF and the FBI. Confirming a few of her suspicions on her own wouldn’t hurt anything, though. She pulled her blazer off the arm of the couch and headed downstairs to the first level of the Victorian, where it took her no time at all to collect her keys, lock up, and turn to face Main Street.

The asphalt had gone dark and slick, though there seemed to be a break in the weather.

The humidity had climbed without bringing any heat along with it. If anything, a chill had worked its way into the air, and it carried the smell of the wet stone and turned dirt. She scanned the street out of habit, searching for anything out of place, and found nothing but a typical Thursday afternoon.

Hadley descended the porch steps and glanced over her shoulder at the sky above the Victorian. The morning’s high clouds had turned into something meaner. A dark ceiling of them had rolled in off the western fields and pressed down low over the rooftops, close enough that the streetlights along Main had begun clicking on hours ahead of schedule, throwing weak amber pools onto the pavement that had no business needing them at three in the afternoon.

Away from the shelter of the house, the wind took her by surprise. It drove hard down the block in fits and starts, flattening her blazer against her spine and snapping the flag over the hardware store hard enough that the grommets rang against the pole. Somewhere down the row, a shop awning cracked and billowed against its frame.

Hadley quickened her pace. The last thing she wanted was the sky opening up on her halfway down the block, and she wasn’t keen on the lightning that had started working the clouds to the west. The thunder was arriving closer behind each flash.

Donovan didn’t seem to mind the storm in the least.

The bay door was rolled all the way up. From somewhere inside, a country song played low, an old one, half swallowed by the wind. Under it ran a steady clank of metal on metal, most likely a socket wrench working a stubborn bolt. When she stepped inside, out of the wind and into the smell of motor oil and cold concrete, she caught sight of a pair of work boots sticking out from beneath the front end of a truck raised on the lift’s lowest setting.

The wrench clanked twice more. Then the creeper rolled, and Donovan came out from under the truck on his back. The sight of a pair of legs clad in denim standing over him brought him up short.

He blinked, placed her, and sat up quickly.

“Hadley.” Donovan set the wrench down on the concrete beside him. He pulled a rag from his back pocket and worked it over his hands, one finger at a time, studying her the entire time. “Morning. Well. Afternoon, I guess it is now.”

His gaze cut past her, out the open bay to where there was no vehicle to be found. He took his time about it, checking twice for something he might have missed at the curb.

“That SUV of yours giving you trouble? Did you leave it at the station?” Donovan pushed himself off the creeper and onto his feet, working a hand against his lower back. “I can get to it in about an hour.”

“No. Nothing like that.” Hadley was glad she’d kept hold of her keys. They gave her something to do with her hands. “I just walked down from the station. I’ve got a favor to ask you, Donovan.”

Skepticism moved across his face as he crossed to the tool cart, where a mug sat beside a coffee can of loose bolts. WORLD’S OKAYEST MECHANIC was printed down the side of it, a few of the letters chipped away. He picked it up without drinking any of it.

“You want me to take a look at the cruiser?” Donovan was back on comfortable ground with that assumption, and it showed in the set of his shoulders. “That thing was barely running when Reed drove it, Hadley. I’ll be straight with you. You’d be better off junking it. Sell it for parts and put the money toward something that’ll get you up a gravel road in February.”

“It’s not about the cruiser.” Hadley noticed that it didn’t take long for the grin to fade off his face. “I was hoping you’d walk me through the night you found Reed’s truck.”

Donovan instantly dropped his gaze to his mug. He stepped past her without a word and didn’t speak again until he was on the other side of the truck.

“Need a warm-up.” Donovan was halfway across the bay when he aimed a courtesy back over his shoulder, his voice hunting for its ordinary register and very nearly finding it. “You want a cup? Pot’s fresh enough.”