Chapter 7
He picked me up at seven thirty on the county road behind my apartment. I hadn't slept much. The truck they'd been driving was gone from the lot across from the diner when I checked from my kitchen window at six, but the space it left looked wrong, like it was still holding their shape.
The biker was already waiting in his old Chevy, engine running. He didn't get out. I slid into the passenger seat and he nodded once, eyes on the rearview.
"You sure you want this paper?" he said.
I said I was. In my coat pocket my phone buzzed against the glass. I'd taken a photo of the carafe before I left the diner last night after close — half-full, black lid, sitting on the red laminate where it had spilled. It looked stupid, taking a picture of a coffee pot, but I needed something to hold. I kept my hand on my phone the whole drive.
County Road F was empty except for farm trucks. Corn still cut low on both sides, gravel dust kicking up behind us. He drove steady, both hands on the wheel, and didn't talk until we hit the edge of town where the courthouse sat — a two-story brick box with a flag out front and a parking lot that was already half full.
"Archived means basement," he said as he parked. "Don't let her tell you it's gone."
Inside, the courthouse smelled like floor wax and old paper. The clerk's window was on the first floor, a woman in her sixties with short permed hair and reading glasses on a chain. Her nameplate said M. DELLER.
I told her what I wanted — the accident report and death certificate for my father from twenty-four years ago. I gave her his name, the one my mom had finally said out loud last night after she stopped pretending she didn't remember.
She typed, frowned, typed again.
"Honey, those from '02 and earlier were moved," she said. "We had the flood in '19. Everything before 2005 went to off-site storage in Mason City. I don't have access here anymore."
"Can you request it?" I asked.
She glanced past me to the biker standing a few feet back, then back to me. "I need a signed release from the sheriff now. New policy. Anything that old, especially a fatality file, needs law enforcement sign-off. Privacy reasons. Sheriff has to authorize the pull."
My throat tightened. "How long does that take?"
"If he signs today, I can have it by Tuesday," she said. "He's in Thursdays late, though. He left early today. Thursdays he does lunch with the supervisors in Garner."
She said it too quickly. Her eyes kept flicking to the window that faced the parking lot.
The biker stepped forward. "Marge," he said quietly. "You know me."
"I do, Ray," she said. "And that's why I'm telling you straight. I can't. It's not in this building."
He didn't push. He just nodded and put a hand on my elbow, steering me back toward the doors. My phone was heavy in my pocket. The photo of the carafe felt suddenly childish.
Outside, the air was warmer. I stopped on the top step to get my sunglasses from my bag and that's when I saw him.
Across the lot, by the clerk's side entrance where staff took smoke breaks, the man in the olive jacket stood talking to another woman — not the clerk, a younger one in a county windbreaker. He wasn't looking at her. He was looking straight at me over her shoulder. His mouth was moving, calm, like he was asking directions.
The second man wasn't with him.
The biker saw him the same second I did. His hand tightened on my arm, not pulling, just holding me in place.
"He's not supposed to be here," I whispered.
"No," Ray said under his breath. "He's exactly where he'd be if he asked the same question you did."
The man in the olive jacket didn't wave. Didn't smile. He just held my stare for three long seconds, then said something to the woman in the windbreaker and she laughed, nodded, and pointed back toward the building. Toward the clerk's window.
My stomach dropped. He'd gotten there first. Or he had someone who told him when anyone came asking about that file.
"Come on," Ray said, low. "Don't look again. Walk to the truck like you forgot something."
We walked. I kept my eyes on the cracked sidewalk, on the red curb, on anything but him. I could feel him watching us cross the lot. When we reached the Chevy, Ray opened my door and stood with his back to the courthouse, blocking me from view while I got in.
From inside the truck, I looked through the windshield. The man was still there, now alone. He'd taken out his phone.
"We didn't get it," I said.
May you like
"We got told no," Ray said, starting the engine. He didn't pull out right away. He watched the man in the mirror. "And we got told who else is asking. That's not nothing."
He backed out slow. As we turned onto Main, I saw in the side mirror that the man had stepped to the edge of the lot, still on his phone, watching us leave.
