Page 87 of Joker

I pay, walk out, and don’t bother looking back, but the knot under my ribs pulls tighter anyway. Word travels in towns like this because people are bored and curious and half their social life depends on remembering everyone else’s business. One man asking doesn’t mean danger.

It does mean Raven isn’t invisible anymore. That matters.

By noon, I’ve got a second thing to add to the pile.

A face.

Not familiar enough to place immediately, but not local either. Mid-thirties maybe. Clean cut. Button-down shirt trying too hard for this heat. He’s parked across from the diner Logan sent me to for a meeting with one of the suppliers, and he watches the storefront reflection in the window longer than anyone with a normal life should.

Not me directly. Not long enough to challenge. Just lingering in a way that raises the hair on the back of my neck.

When I head back to my truck, he pretends to be on his phone.

I get in, start the engine, pull away.

He doesn’t follow. Still goes in the file.

Then there’s the cop.

Local deputy, not county. One I’ve seen around before. Usually he clocks our cuts, gives us the standard law-abiding-citizen suspicion, and keeps moving. Today he slows while I’m parked outside the hardware store, idles long enough to study the truck, then actually gets out and circles once like maybe he’s checking tags.

Could be routine. Could be boredom. Could be nothing.

But when his gaze hits the passenger side and lingers on the stray stuffed-animal sticker still stuck to the inside of the window from where Lexi pressed one there yesterday, he goes a little too still. That one flips something hard in my gut.

Because now we’ve got a local cop paying unusual attention to a truck that’s been moving Raven and Lexi around town in small doses when the women take them out for safe errands and air. Still not enough for alarm bells. Definitely enough for escalation.

I don’t tell Raven any of it. Not yet.

Not because I’m trying to keep her ignorant. Because there’s a difference between useful awareness and lighting up every nerve in her body over things I can’t prove are connected yet. The last thing she needs is me walking into the kitchen and telling her I’ve got a bad feeling because a sedan slowed down and some idiot at a gas station noticed there’s a kid at the clubhouse.

That would only spike her fear. Wouldn’t help.

So I keep it in my own head for now while everything in me starts tightening up around the edges. By the time I get back to the clubhouse, I’m done debating whether the feeling is real enough to act on.

I find Logan in the garage with Dom, Shadow, and Blaze, all four of them pretending to work while mostly arguing over which part order got fucked up last week.

“Need eyes up,” I say without preamble.

That gets everyone’s attention.

Logan straightens from the workbench. “Why?”

I give them the list.

Sedan. Old man at the gas station asking too much. Unknown face outside the diner. Local deputy clocking the trucktoo hard. Nobody interrupts while I talk. That alone tells me my tone is enough to set the room right.

Shadow leans back against the wall, arms crossed. “You think it’s connected?”

“I think something feels off.”

Blaze opens his mouth, probably to make a joke about my charming instincts, then takes one look at my face and decides he likes breathing.

Dom pushes his glasses up and nods once. “I can pull traffic cams for the main roads if I get plate fragments.”

“I’ve got a partial on the sedan.”

“Send it to me.”