Chapter 7. Ticket 4471

Rae POV

I didn't give him the answer he wanted.

"I'm still going to coffee," I said.

Wade took that the way he seemed to take everything, straight on, without flinching. "Okay."

"But you can follow me home tonight. If you stay on the street."

Something in his shoulders came down half an inch. "I'll stay on the street."

He did. All the way down the mountain, one headlight sat fifty yards back in my mirror, never closer, never farther, steady as a fence post. When I turned onto Main, it turned. When I parked behind Pruitt Cycle Works, it rolled to a stop at the curb across the road and went dark.

I stood on the outside stairs for a second, looking at the shape of him under the streetlight.

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