The bell over the bakery door rang again, sharp enough to make Vince flinch.
He hadn't meant to come back so soon. That bothered him. In the city, you didn't return to the same place twice unless you wanted to be seen. Here, people noticed anyway.
Mrs. Hill looked up from the counter. She smiled - automatic, practiced-then caught herself and wiped her hands on her apron.
"Back again," she said. Not a question.
"Coffee was decent," Vince replied.
She poured it without asking. Black. She'd remembered. That bothered him too.
"You're making the rounds," she said lightly. "People are saying that."
"People say a lot," Vince said.
She slid the cup across. "They do. Doesn't mean they like it."
At the far table, two men stopped talking when he sat down. Not abruptly. Just enough to be polite about it. Vince pretended not to notice, though his eyes caught everything~how one man's knee kept bouncing, how the other stared too long at the window.
Mrs. Hill leaned closer. Her voice dropped.
"You asking about the road out past the mill?"
"Yes."
A pause. Half a breath too long.
"That road's been quiet for years," she said. "Nothing out there but trees and bad cell reception."
"Then why do people still talk about it?"
She straightened. "People talk because they're bored."
That was a lie, and she knew he knew it. She moved away before he could push.
A chair scraped. Someone sat across from him.
"You Vince Stone?" the man asked.
Vince looked up. Mid-forties. County jacket. Hands with grease under the nails, scrubbed but never fully clean.
"Depends who's asking."
"Caleb Rowe," the man said. "Permits. Environmental." He gestured vaguely. "County stuff."
"Alright."
Caleb lowered his voice anyway. "Word is you're reopening things best left closed."
"I didn't know they were closed."
Caleb smiled without humor. "That's the problem."
Vince watched him. City instincts kicked in~not paranoia, just pattern. This man wasn't afraid of the truth. He was afraid of timing.
"Six or seven years ago," Vince said. "There was a cleanup."
Caleb's jaw tightened. Just a flicker.
"Tires," Caleb said. "Scrap metal. Illegal dumping. Nothing dramatic."
"You signed off?"
"Someone had to."
"Paperwork was thin."
Caleb leaned back. "Small towns run on trust."
Vince thought of the city-of a basement office filled with case files stacked like bricks, of supervisors who trusted no one and were usually right. Of a night when a witness changed her statement three times because she didn't want to be the reason a building burned.
"Trust doesn't erase responsibility," Vince said.
Caleb stood. "Just saying-people here already decided how that story ends."
After he left, the bakery felt tighter. Like the walls had shifted while no one was looking.
Later, Vince walked instead of driving. It helped him think. The houses all had their lights on by the same hour. He noticed that now. In the city, light was random. Here, it was coordinated. Comforting, if you belonged.
A memory surfaced without warning~rain slicking the pavement, neon reflected in puddles, the sound of sirens folding into each other. He remembered standing outside a tenement, knowing exactly who was guilty and exactly why it would never stick.
Greyford wasn't loud enough to drown anything out. That made it worse.
Near the edge of town, he spotted it again~a marker half-swallowed by weeds. No name. Just dates. Ending six years back.
Not a grave. Not officially.
Back at the station, Mercer glanced up.
"You stirring things," Mercer said.
"I'm listening."
Mercer sighed. "That's what worries them."
That night, Vince wrote everything down. Names. Roads. Dates. Who hesitated. Who spoke too quickly.
One line stood out more than the rest:
Silence isn't absence. It's agreement.
When he turned off the light, the house didn't settle. Neither did he.
Greyford was quiet-but it wasn't peaceful.
And somewhere in that quiet, more than one person already knew the truth.