Page 108 of What We Burn

The car jerks.

Webster’s breath catches.

“No,” he says immediately. The way they all do when justice finds them. “No, you’ve got the wrong⁠—”

“Keep driving.”

He sobs openly while he does.

The bridge rises ahead in a black line against blacker sky. Old maintenance route. Narrow shoulder. Steel rail. Water and rocks below. It isn’t dramatic. It doesn’t need to be. Most of our work isn’t. Death is usually less theatrical than people hope.

The van’s headlights close in behind us.

“Pull over,” I say.

He whimpers instead of braking.

Knox leans forward, one massive hand braced on the back of Webster’s seat. “Now.”

The Volvo swerves onto the shoulder. Gravel pops under the tires. He brakes too hard. We all pitch forward a fraction. Engine idling. Headlights cutting a pale lane across the bridge.

The bridge is a county relic—decommissioned in the nineties, fenced off, condemned, the kind of place teenagers dare each other onto and the county keeps meaning to demolish. No cameras. No lights. A forty-foot drop to the riverbed. And a long history, if anyone cares to look it up, of people coming here when they’ve decided to stop existing.

Eli kills the van’s lights when he pulls up behind us. For a moment it’s just the river sound and the wind in the dry grass and Webster’s breathing, ragged, through the open car door.

Eli walks to the Volvo. Opens the driver’s door. Crouches so he’s eye-level with the man.

“Angus Webster,” he says, voice calm and quiet.

“Oh God.” Webster’s face empties as he stares at the skull over Eli’s face. “No. Please. Let me go.”

“You know why we’re here,” Eli says.

Webster starts shaking his head before Eli finishes speaking. “No. No, I don’t. I swear to God, I don’t. If this is about money⁠—”

“It’s about the boys,” I say.

That does it.

He folds, the structure going out of him, terror pouring in to fill the gaps. His mouth opens on a breath that turns into a whine.

“Please,” he says. “Please, I never—I didn’t—I would never hurt⁠—”

Knox reaches past me, kills the engine, and the night gets bigger.

“Out,” I tell him.

He clutches the wheel.

I put the gun to his cheek. “Out of the car.”

He makes a wet, animal noise and clamps down harder, fingers whitening around the leather. “No. No, please, please, I’ll do anything⁠—”

“You’ve already done too much,” Eli says.

Knox moves first. He holsters his gun and gets out of the car. Then he’s reaching in, peeling Webster’s hands off the wheel while the man starts truly screaming. Thin. High. Disbelieving.

Webster twists and kicks, catches his shoe against the door frame. It doesn’t matter. Knox drags him backward out of the seat like dead weight. I’m out the other side a second later, catching Webster under the arm as he loses his footing and collapses onto the gravel.