Page 62 of Where the Fields Don’t Reach

Hadley couldn’t stand in the corn and wait to learn that answer while Nora’s life was at stake.

“Listen to me, Nora.” Whitney crouched, bringing herself down to Nora’s level, the gun still raised. “We can all come out of this rich. Every one of us. We don’t have to⁠—”

“That’s what this is about?” Nora’s voice broke on something between a laugh and a sob. “Money. You murdered the man I love for money, Whitney. Do you hear how deranged you sound? You’re pointing a gun at me right now.”

“I told you this wasn’t supposed to happen.” Whitney’s head shook in denial. “It just, it all spun out of control, and I couldn’t, I didn’t⁠—”

Hadley was too far away to announce herself. From here, she couldn’t cross the open ground before Whitney got a round off, and the woman’s hand was shaking so hard that Hadley caught the tremors from where she stood.

She needed to be behind Whitney, with the woman’s back to her and Nora clear of the line. Hadley started moving, west and low, staying inside the last rows where the headlights couldn’t reach.

“I need you to make the call, Nora.”

“I won’t.”

“Yes. You will.” Whitney’s voice scraped upward, panic riding the edge of it now. “You will, Nora, because we are close. We are so close. After everything this past year, you do not get to fold on me now.”

Behind Hadley, far off down the county road, still nothing.

No engine, no gravel, no help.

Just her own breath and the dry whisper of the corn giving way around her as she worked west along the field’s edge, the headlights throwing bright bars between the stalks. Nora had started crying again, and through it she was saying the same thing over and over, dragging it up out of herself.

“Tell me.” Nora’s voice climbed until it cracked. “Tell me how he died. His last minutes. You owe me that, you owe me, tell me⁠—”

“We don’t have time for this.”

“Tell me!”

For a moment, neither woman spoke, and Hadley froze mid-step, certain the silence meant the worst. Then Whitney’s voice came again, gone more resigned than apologetic. Hadley kept moving while Whitney spoke, west and then curling north.

“Reed stopped me for speeding earlier that day.” Whitney cleared her throat, still holding tight to the notion that if she only explained herself, Nora would make some kind of phone call. “He saw the clothes in the back seat. The trench coat, the one I’d sewn corn husks into, down the sleeves and the hem. He didn’t say a word about it, just gave me a warning and let me go. But I know he saw it. I decided to drive to the pub, because I knew he was friendly with the bartender. I got hold of Sam’s phone, and I called Reed from it, two or three times, thinking I could lure him down there. Then I would have acted surprised and made up some story about a Halloween costume. Only he didn’t come.”

Sam’s phone. The three calls that never connected, the ones Sam had sworn up and down he never made. Another piece dropped into the place.

“So, I left and started down toward the station on foot, just to talk to him, feel it out. And that’s when I saw him come down the steps to his truck. I panicked, Nora. I didn’t think. I got in my car, and I made sure he saw me, and I took off speeding, because I knew he’d follow. Sure enough, he pulled me over out by the festival grounds.” Whitney’s voice thickened, and still she pressed on, rushing for the end of it, chasing the moment she seemed to believe would finally bend Nora to her will. “I told him you were in trouble. That he had to come with me. And he did, because it was you. He’d have gone anywhere for you. But you need to understand that we tried to make him a deal. We explained everything to him. Offered him a huge cut, but he wouldn’t take it. He’d gotten it into his head that we were the reason that girl went missing. That’s when it all got away from us, and he⁠—”

Whitney came to her feet all at once, pressing the heel of the firearm to her brow, the barrel jerking skyward with the motion. Then it swung back down toward Nora, who flinched from the erratic motion.

“I need you to know it wasn’t supposed to happen like that.” Whitney was crying now too, but it still didn’t stop her from working toward what she wanted. “I’m sorry. I truly am. I never wanted to hurt him. But what’s done is done, and all you have to do now is make the call⁠—”

Hadley stepped onto the access road. She set her stance, brought her weapon level, and drew the breath needed to shout a warning.

Headlights swung across the field. They bounced hard up the access road toward the ground Hadley had just stepped onto, throwing the whole cut into a lurching glare and pinning her shadow long across the dirt for one exposed second. She quickly dropped back into the corn a breath before the beams found her.

Not a cruiser.

Not the sheriff’s truck.

It was a Dodge Ram, its headlights pitching as the suspension worked over the ruts, and it crunched to a stop nose-to-tail behind Nora’s car.

The engine cut.

The driver’s door swung wide.

A dark figure moved up the length of the headlight beams and resolved into a man as he stepped into the flat white light.

Knox Hudson.