“Former?” She raises an eyebrow but doesn’t push. “What can I get you?”
“Actually, I’m looking for Gideon. Is he around?”
The smile fades. April reaches for a rag and starts wiping down the bar in front of us. “He’s not here tonight. He’s at home with Summer.”
Summer. Gideon’s kid. Seven years old, bright and fearless, with her father’s dark eyes and her mother’s stubborn chin. I’d nearly forgotten.
“Everything okay?” I ask.
“Fine. Just a family night.” She keeps wiping. “Why do you need him?”
“Town business. Nothing urgent.”
“Town business.” April sets the rag down and looks at me. “Damon. If something’s wrong, you’d tell me, right?”
“Nothing’s wrong. I just need to ask him a few questions about the quarry. Old keeper stuff.”
She relaxes slightly. “That’s a blast from the past. Nobody’s talked about keeper business in years.”
“I know. That’s kind of the problem.”
She nods slowly, then seems to make a decision. “His father’s stuff is still in the back room. Gideon never got rid of it. Boxes, files, old maps of the quarry. He keeps meaning to sort through it, but you know how that goes.”
“Can I look at it?”
“I can’t give you permission. That’s Gideon’s call. But I won’t stop you if you happen to find your way back there while I’m busy.”
“Appreciate it, April.”
She leans across the bar and lowers her voice. “Gideon’s been through a lot. His dad dying the way he did. Raising Summer on his own. The tavern barely turning a profit some months. Whatever you’re digging up, be careful with it.”
“I will.”
“One more thing.” She glances at Silas, then back to me. “Gideon loved his father. Whatever you find in those boxes, remember that. He loved him.”
I nod, and she moves away to take another order. Silas and I exchange a look.
“Did you know Victor Ash died during a flare?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
“I didn’t know how he died. Just that he was dead.”
“Car accident. On the road between the quarry and town. It was about fifteen years ago. I was young—maybe thirteen—but I remember the aftermath. My dad was sheriff then. He’s the one who responded to the call.”
I signal April for two waters. She brings them without a word.
“What happened?” Silas asks.
“It wasn’t a big flare—medium, maybe. Enough to make the lights flicker and the dogs start howling, but not the kind thatshuts the town down. Victor was out at the quarry doing his keeper rounds, same as always. Sometime around midnight, he left. Drove back toward town on the old quarry road. Halfway there, his car went off the road and into a tree.”
“And the flare caused it?”
“That was the official explanation. The flares can mess with electronics, cause disorientation. My dad wrote it up as an accident—loss of control due to magical interference. Open and shut.”
“But you don’t believe that.”
I take a drink of my water. “Victor Ash drove that road every night for twenty years. He knew it blindfolded. Knew every curve, every pothole, every spot where the gravel got loose. For him to lose control on a stretch of road he could navigate in his sleep, during a flare that barely registered on the wards? It didn’t make sense to my dad. It didn’t make sense to me.”
“What did Gideon say?”
