Page 49 of Where the Fields Don’t Reach

Hadley always avoided answering the question, and for good reason. Her mind rejected such a notion. There was no such thing as a monster lurking in the cornfields. Her fear, on the other hand, contradicted all rational thought.

She hadn’t taken over for Reed until November of last year. After the harvest. Would she have taken time to hang a talisman from her window before the season? A part of her was relieved that she hadn’t had to make such a decision, because in doing so, she would have answered the question she’d avoided her entire life.

Sarah’s stories practically echoed in Hadley’s thoughts, and she couldn’t dispel the one that captured Roland’s attention. She thought about calling Nick, but she quickly decided against it. All she had was a knot she’d tied loose after drinking coffee with an old man.

She’d walked away with a folktale and a fixation.

Nick would point out the gaps by the time she was done reciting it. Besides, it was still early enough that he was probably still getting ready for his meeting with the ATF.

The road out of the Cox property ran straight toward the Vinton land, a pale ribbon between the standing corn, and she’d meant to take the turn. She had intended to politely request permission to walk around the east fields, but she changed her mind and rotated the steering wheel to the left as she pressed on the gas pedal.

If she was on the right track at all, then Roland had already done this part.

He would have worked through the land history down to each parcel. That information was either in the mounds of paperwork back in her apartment above the station or on the missing USB drive.

Was that why he’d been killed?

If Sarah’s story held even a grain of truth, if a girl had once walked into the east field with a bag of everything a settlement owned, then the bag was still out there somewhere. And if Roland had found the location, then he’d been carrying something worth a great deal more than the history of an urban legend.

If Hadley were to seek out Earl and inquire about which of the east fields were first owned by his ancestors, he would be curious and ask questions she wasn’t ready to give. Not yet. The county records office kept the old plats and deeds, every sale and subdivision going back to the first survey, and a records clerk wouldn’t wonder at a police chief pulling land history.

The circuit clerk’s office was in the courthouse in Emberwood, unlike some of the county ones on the upper level of the sheriff’s building. They opened at eight. She’d start there, on the phone, the second they turned the lights on.

Hadley slowed at another stop sign, flipping her turn signal to take another left. She let the engine idle for a moment while reconsidering her options. Did it really matter if the story was real? The jewelry and gold would have been buried for centuries. It wasn’t the contents of the bag that she was interested in so much as their role in Reed’s death.

Nick had mentioned last night that he was going to have someone conduct another sweep of the campus lobby of Roland’s building. Maybe she should take a drive out there herself. If she were going to be away from Whistlerun for most of the day, she’d head back to the station first.

It wasn’t long before she came up on the broad open stretch of ground that hosted the Harvest Festival every year. It sat empty for the moment, but in a few weeks, tents and carnival rides would occupy the space. And even though Emanuel Telfort was dead and his son was behind bars, there were still residents who believed the Threshing Man would continue calling out to his next victim.

Hadley drove past the entrance, her focus sliding back toward the road…and a stranded vehicle off to the right side of the shoulder. The truck wasn’t just stranded on the side. Instead, it was nose-in against the trunk of an old oak tree.

Mason’s truck, to be exact.

Hadley’s foot came off the gas and onto the brake in one swift motion. She was already past the accident site, so she hastily shifted into reverse and backed up, peering over her shoulder until she could swing in behind his pickup. Her tire bit the gravel as she came to a stop, and she was out of the Equinox before it finished rocking on its springs.

“Mason!” Hadley sprinted toward the driver’s side door. “Mason.”

The cab was empty.

She rested a hand on the hood, finding the metal cold. Long cold. The windshield had a crack running corner to corner, catching the early light, but the glass had held. He hadn’t gone through it. She walked around the front end to find half of it folded against the thick trunk. One headlight had shattered, and the fender had crumpled back into the tire.

It wasn’t typically the kind of wreck a man walked away from bleeding, but Mason could have easily hit his head on the driver’s side window or the steering wheel. It didn’t take long for Hadley to do the math. An empty cab plus the front end of a truck kissing a tree in the same place where his life had fallen apart at the seams. It didn’t equal anything good.

He’d been drinking and driving.

Anger spiked through her bloodstream. She released a string of expletives as she made her way back to the Equinox. It wasn’t long before she was driving to the house she’d grown up in, scanning the roadside the entire way, half expecting to find him collapsed in a ditch. She held onto her anger for the entire mile, and it rose even more when she spotted Sam’s truck in the gravel drive.

She pulled in behind it, hard, and shoved the gear into park. Her thoughts were churning as she slid out of the driver’s seat, and by the time she ascended the porch steps, she swore her gaze was awash in a red hue.

She didn’t bother to knock.

She yanked the screen door open and all but shoved the heavy front door inward as she made her way into the house. There was Sam, coming out of the kitchen with a coffee mug in his hand, unhurried, settled, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

“Where is he?” Hadley didn’t slow her pace as she crossed the living room floor. “Where’s my brother?”

“Sleeping it off.” Sam took a slow sip of his coffee. “Upstairs.”

She turned for the staircase, and the floorboard at the base of it let out a long, low squeak under her boot. She went still instantly, her mind trying to make sense of the sound. She’d grown up with it. As a little girl, she’d learned to skip it on the nights her father came home loud, to step wide so the house wouldn’t give her away.