By the third morning, Vince stopped waiting for the quiet to break.
It didn't. If anything, it settled in deeper, like it had found its shape. He woke before the alarm again and lay there a moment, listening. The house made the usual sounds-wood ticking, something shifting in the walls-but none of it felt accidental. It felt rehearsed, the way a place does when it's been alone a long time.
He drove without much purpose. Greyford wasn't big enough to get lost in, but it had a way of looping back on itself. Streets bent where they didn't need to. A left turn turned into another left before he realized it. He passed the high school twice, the same faded banner hanging crooked near the entrance, flapping just enough to be noticed.
He pulled over near the field.
A man stood by the fence, hands threaded through the chain links, staring out at the grass like he was waiting for something to happen. He didn't turn when Vince walked up.
"Morning," Vince said.
The man glanced over. "Suppose so."
"Mind if I ask you something?"
A shrug. "You just did."
Vince let that sit. "You hear anything the other night? When folks were talking about lights?"
The man squinted toward the tree line beyond the field. "Hear? No."
"See anything?"
"People see things." He shifted his weight. "Depends what kind of night it is."
"What kind was it?"
The man hesitated. Just long enough. "Quiet."
"Your kid go to school here?" Vince asked.
The man nodded. "Used to."
"Graduated?"
"Yeah. Long time ago."
"Ever mention the woods?"
"No." Then, after a second, "Kids talk nonsense."
Vince thanked him and walked back to the car. He didn't turn around, but he could feel the man's eyes on his back until the door shut.
At the station, Mercer was on the phone. He covered the receiver when he saw Vince.
"Couple people stopped by," Mercer said. "Just checking in."
"That fast?" Vince asked.
Mercer smiled, but it didn't quite take. "Word travels."
"Anyone worried?"
"Not worried," Mercer said. "Interested."
He went back to the call. Vince waited, flipping through his notebook without reading it.
When Mercer hung up, Vince asked, "You get many calls about the service road?"
Mercer leaned back. "From time to time."
"Anything ever happen out there?"
Mercer stared at the ceiling like he was checking his memory against it. "Not that sticks."
Vince nodded. The phrasing lodged somewhere.
He stopped by Harold's garage later. The radio was off, which made the place feel larger. Harold was bent over an engine, shoulders tight.
"You again," Harold said.
"Forgot something," Vince said.
"That happens."
"You work nights much?"
"Depends."
"Six or seven years back?"
Harold straightened and wiped his hands slow. "Why that far?"
"Just trying to get a sense of things."
Harold thought about it. "Worked more then. Needed to."
"Anything unusual ever happen near the road?"
"No."
The answer came clean, but his hand tightened around the rag.
"Anyone ever suggest you let something go?" Vince asked.
Harold snorted. "Nobody tells anyone what to forget around here." He paused. "We're good at that on our own."
Driving back, Vince noticed a mailbox on Alder Street that didn't fit. New wood. Fresh paint. The house it belonged to looked tired, unchanged. The contrast felt intentional, like something had been corrected without touching the rest.
That night, he took the service road.
It barely deserved the name anymore. Gravel thinned out fast. Trees pressed in close. His headlights didn't reach far before the dark swallowed them. He stopped where the road widened slightly and shut off the engine.
The quiet out there was different. Thicker. He stood with his hands in his jacket pockets, listening, though there wasn't anything to hear.
What struck him wasn't what was there.
It was the sense that this place had once been busy~and that whatever had happened, everyone involved had decided not to keep track of it.
Back at the house, the porch light was off.
Inside, he sat at the table and went through his notes. Nothing contradicted anything else. That was the problem. Everyone knew their own piece. Nobody stepped beyond it.
In the city, those gaps filled themselves eventually.
Here, they stayed open.
Before bed, Vince wrote a line he didn't like:
No one's lying. They're just standing apart.
He closed the notebook.
Later, when he woke in the dark, there was a brief glint beyond the trees-not enough to call a light, not enough to ignore. It was gone before he could decide.
He stayed in bed.
Some things, he was learning, didn't get clearer when you looked straight at them.