Page 42 of Where the Fields Don’t Reach

Guardian.

Hadley stared at the sketch a while longer, until her attention shifted to the package beside it. A four-pack, the cardboard torn open along the top, three drives still seated in their molded plastic slots. The fourth slot was empty. Roland had peeled one out and put it to use, probably for research or for the book itself. Only she hadn’t noticed any type of USB drive at his campus office. Not on his desk, not inside it, not anywhere in plain view.

Hadley pushed off the floor and made her way back to the desk. She moved her gaze gradually over every surface of it. She then eased the top drawer open with two gloved fingers. No drive. That didn’t mean he hadn’t had it on him when he fell to his death, though, and if he had, Zanes would have logged it.

Either the drive held something worth killing for, or she was allowing her imagination to run a little wild. Roland could have merely used the USB to transfer files from his laptop to his desktop and then thrown it away. The pack had been cheap enough.

Hadley started working her gloves off as she crossed to the office door. She’d get Nick’s read on her theory before she left him to his side of it. He had a murder investigation to run and a family to notify. The parents in Holloway didn’t yet know their son was gone. Her own focus needed to stay with Reed. And while Nick sat with Roland’s parents, there was someone else who should be notified of the man’s death.

18

Hadley Dawkins

September 2026

Wednesday – 9:28 pm

The hospital parking lot ran half empty under the tall sodium lamps. The pools of light didn’t quite reach one another, so the lot came in patches. Bright, then dark, then bright again. Hadley pulled her Equinox into a slot near the middle and cut the engine.

Past the last row of cars, the ground fell away to a field. Beyond the edge, the dark was complete, the kind that only came where the county gave way to open ground. A wind moved through it, carrying the dry rasp of the corn across the asphalt. Even here, in a hospital parking lot in Emberwood, the fields found a way to make themselves known.

The evening had gotten away from her by degrees.

She’d meant to drive straight from Holloway to Emberwood and catch Nora before her shift let out, but a call had come in halfway there. Warren, half a register short of frantic, reporting that some of the folding tables for the church garage sale had gone missing off the First Baptist lot. To hear him tell it, a daylight robbery had rolled through the heart of Whistlerun.

It had taken Hadley the better part of twenty minutes to work out that the tables were down by the creek, propped on cinder blocks and pressed into service as skateboard ramps by Tucker and Cody Wheeler. She’d called the boys’ parents, who’d hauled the pair to the church by their collars to apologize to Warren and the volunteers in person. The entire situation had eaten the last of the daylight.

She should have put off Nora until morning.

Hadley had nearly talked herself into it, too. But the day’s charge still hadn’t burned off. The leftover current of standing in that lobby and witnessing Roland Mercer’s body meet the tile left the sound of it running through her mind on a loop she couldn’t stop. Sleep wasn’t going to come easy either way. And Nora worked twelve-hour shifts that ended at nine, which made tonight the kind of chance that wouldn’t come around again for days.

It hadn’t helped that Hadley had come upon a fender bender at the edge of Emberwood, one car nosed into another at a four-way stop. No one had been hurt, but both drivers were a good deal louder than the damage warranted. She’d radioed it to one of Nick’s deputies and waited until he rolled up to take it off her hands. By the clock on the dash, there was a very good chance Nora had already ended her shift and gone home.

Hadley got out from behind the wheel anyway and started for the entrance. She’d check inside before she drove over to Nora’s apartment. Hadley wasn’t halfway down the walk when the automatic doors slid open, and Nora came through them, adjusting the strap of her tote with one hand, a travel mug in the other. Her auburn hair had been scraped back off her face, and she was still in her scrubs, the pale green washed grayish under the lot lights.

She caught sight of Hadley and frowned.

Then the frown gave way to something worse.

Hope.

“You found something.” Nora didn’t break stride until they’d reached one another. “Did you make an arrest?”

“Not yet.” Hadley tipped her head toward a bench set against the low brick wall by the doors, half in the light and half out of it. “Will you sit with me a minute?”

Nora walked to the bench without a word and lowered herself onto it, settling the tote beside her. She never once moved her gaze off Hadley. Out past the cars, the corn went on whispering, and a moth batted itself against the lamp overhead, throwing a small flickering shadow across the two of them.

“I’m not sure you heard, but Roland Mercer died today.” Hadley unfastened her blazer as she made herself comfortable. “His death is being ruled a homicide.”

“I heard about what happened at the college. It’s just horrible.” Nora kept her hold on the travel mug, no tension in it, no tightening of her grip around the base. “My mother left me a voice message. Roland’s related to my cousin through marriage, but Mom’s never been close with her side of the family. There was a falling out years back, before I was even born, something over my grandfather’s land and who got what when he passed. I get the Christmas card, and that’s about the size of it.”

“But you were at the wedding.” Hadley pushed a little harder, having already put Nora at the reception through a few minutes on social media. “Your cousin’s wedding. To Roland’s sister.”

“I was, though it was more for show than anything. Mom and I sat in a back pew, went to the reception, and left not long after the cake.” Nora’s voice began to get an edge to it, and it was obvious she was attempting to connect the dots. “I spoke maybe three words to Roland, and only because we ended up next to each other in the buffet line. He was odd, Hadley. Not unkind, just off. I couldn’t tell you a single real thing about him.”

Nora shook her head slowly, as if she’d finally reached a conclusion.

“Why are you asking me about Roland Mercer, Hadley? What does he have to do with Reed?”