Page 70 of Forever Dark
Selena leaned back in the seat and closed her eyes briefly.Not dramatic.Just a tired little surrender she probably wished he hadn’t seen.
“I’ll get a mechanic to swing by and have a look,” he said.
“That could take hours.”She sounded agitated.
“Probably.”
He shut the hood properly and came back to her window.
“We’re still going north to the revival,” he said.“I’ll give you a lift.”
The words hung there between them.
Selena looked at him, then past him toward the station, then back again.He knew that expression.Calculation first.Reluctance second.The understanding that refusing would be childish, accepting would be awkward, and neither option came free.It reminded him of the divorce proceedings.
“Sure,” she finally said.
Connor stepped back from the window.“Bring what you need.I’ll call the mechanic from inside.”
She nodded and reached for her bag, but not before he caught the flicker on her face.Not anger exactly.More like dread arriving ahead of the drive itself.An hour in a car with him meant space enough for talk, and space enough for silence, too.Sometimes silence did worse things.
She got out, shut the rental door, and stood beside the car with her coat pulled close against the wind moving through the lot.Connor took one more glance at the dead rental, already running through which mechanic was least likely to take all afternoon, then led the way toward his SUV.
Neither of them said much as they got in.
“I’ll just send a message to Cheryl to sort out the mechanic,” he said, holding his phone.
“She doesn’t like me,” Selena said.
“She’s just territorial,” Connor replied.
Once that was done, Connor started the engine.He patted the dashboard and said, “Good old Harlan County property never fails, just like me.”
“I hope you won’t keep up with those jokes for the whole hour.”
“No promises,” he said, still smiling.They pulled out of the parking lot and headed out, hoping to meet the revival before dark.
Selena sat in the passenger seat with her laptop closed now, a notebook on her knee, one hand resting over it as they took the county road toward the state line.Fields opened on either side.Brown grass mixed with green in places.Farmhouses set back from the road with trucks in the drive and bikes left near porches.
For the first few miles they kept to work.
“If we’re on the right track,” Selena said, looking through the windshield, “the killer could still be using the circuit without belonging to it.We should check the movement with the killings.”
“I already know,” Connor answered.“The flyer showed they were around the county, so just driving distance to each scene.”
“Could just be a regular follower, too,” Selena reminded him.“Someone who likes the atmosphere and keeps coming back.”
Connor nodded.“Which means we don’t just watch the platform.We watch the crowd.”
“And the edges of it,” she said.“Men hanging back.Men who don’t sing, don’t pray, don’t really engage.Men who are there to watch people, not worship.”
He glanced over.“You’ve done this kind of thing before?”
“Crowd predators?”She gave a small shrug.“Not exactly this version.Close enough.”
That told him plenty.
The road bent west for a stretch, then north again, taking them close enough to Selena’s mom’s old place of work.The old landmarks started showing themselves whether Connor wanted them to or not.Feed mill.Closed gas station.The turnoff toward their old school disappearing on the right.
