Chapter 3 - The Drive Back
The drive from County General back to our farmhouse on the edge of town took twelve minutes. I drove my old battered Ford pickup at exactly the speed limit, my hands locked at ten and two on the steering wheel, my mind running through every tactical advantage I possessed.
My twenty years in the service hadn't just taught me how to patch up wounds or read maps. They had taught me how to dismantle an enemy stronghold without firing a single shot.
Dennis thought our home was his castle. He thought his position as the town’s golden-boy accountant made him untouchable. But he had forgotten who actually owned the land, who paid the mortgage, and whose name was on the deed long before we ever married.
The farmhouse sat back from the gravel road, surrounded by towering cottonwoods. Two cars were parked in the driveway: Dennis’s silver BMW sedan, and Serena’s red compact.
The kitchen windows glowed with warm, yellow light.
I killed the truck's engine half a mile down the road and coasted the last stretch into the tree line, cutting the lights before I stopped. The autumn air was sharp, smelling of dry corn husks and coming frost. I stepped out of the cab, pulling my old canvas field jacket tighter around my shoulders. My boots crunched softly against the gravel as I approached the back porch.
Through the kitchen window, I could see them.
Dennis sat at the oak table, leaning back in his chair with a heavy crystal tumbler of amber liquid in his hand. His sleeves were rolled up, exposing forearms that had never done a hard day's work in his life. Serena stood beside him, resting her hand familiarly on his shoulder, laughing at something he had just said.
They looked relaxed. They looked victorious.
They looked like people celebrating a minor inconvenience that had been successfully swept under the rug.
I reached down to my belt, feeling the heavy metal ring of keys, and then slipped my hand into my pocket, wrapping my fingers around my phone. I dialed a direct number—not the local sheriff, but an old military buddy who now headed the state police bureau out of Lincoln.
“Vance,” a gravelly voice answered on the second ring.
“Mark, it’s Victoria Hawthorne,” I said, keeping my eyes fixed on the kitchen window.
There was a brief pause on the line, followed by the sound of a chair scraping back. “Tori? Good God, it’s been five years. Everything alright out in the sticks?”
“My husband threw our seven-year-old daughter down a flight of stairs two hours ago to cover up an affair with my sister,” I said, every word dropping like ice into the phone. “She’s hospitalized with a broken shoulder and a concussion. They are currently sitting in my kitchen destroying evidence and drinking whiskey.”
The line went dead silent for two seconds. When Mark spoke again, all the warmth was gone, replaced instantly by the cold, hard steel of a commanding officer.
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“What do you need, Sergeant?”
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