By late afternoon, the light in Greyford thinned into something pale and unconvincing. The kind that looked bright from a distance but offered no warmth when you stepped into it. Vince noticed it as he walked back from the records room, the sky stretched wide and empty above the town, no clouds to blame for the dullness.
Inside the station, the hum of routine pressed on. Phones rang, papers shuffled, chairs scraped gently across the floor. Nothing unusual. That, more than anything, unsettled him.
He had spent the morning doing what he always did when instinct refused to settle-rechecking details that didn't yet connect. Not digging for something new. Just confirming what already existed.
The missing log entry was still missing. No correction. No late notation. Just a blank where a mundane record should have been. The clerk who'd helped him earlier gave the same answer again, word for word.
"Must've been a quiet night."
It wasn't the words that stayed with Vince. It was the ease with which they were delivered. No hesitation. No curiosity about why a city detective cared about a gap no one else seemed to notice.
On his way out, he passed Chief Mercer in the hallway.
"Find what you needed?" Mercer asked, already half-turned toward his office.
"Enough," Vince said.
Mercer nodded, satisfied, as if that answer completed something.
Outside, Greyford moved slowly. A delivery truck eased down Main Street. Someone swept a porch with methodical patience. The bakery's windows glowed faintly, though it was hours before closing. Ordinary scenes, assembled so neatly they bordered on deliberate.
Vince walked without a plan, boots carrying him through streets that were beginning to feel mapped in his body if not yet in his mind. He stopped near the edge of town, where the houses thinned and trees pressed closer, their branches knitting together above the road.
There was a porch light on ahead.
It wasn't dark enough for it to be necessary.
He stood there longer than he meant to, watching it hum quietly, insects circling lazily as if they'd done this before. He checked his watch. Too early. No reason.
A sound drifted from somewhere behind him~ footsteps on gravel. He turned, expecting to see someone approaching.
No one was there.
The footsteps stopped.
Vince stayed still, listening. Wind in the trees. A distant engine. Then nothing. The silence returned too quickly, as if it had been waiting.
He felt it then~not fear, not yet-but a shift. The kind you felt when a room changed temperature without explanation.
Someone knew he was standing there.
Not watching from behind a curtain. Not hiding. Just *aware*. The same way people in a small town knew when a stranger took a wrong turn or stayed too long at a stop sign.
He walked back toward his place as dusk settled, the town easing into evening with practiced grace. Porch lights came on in sequence, not all at once, but close enough to feel coordinated. Conversations softened, doors closed, radios clicked on somewhere.
At his rental, Vince paused before unlocking the door. The porch light flickered once-just once~ before stabilizing.
Inside, the house smelled faintly of old wood and cleaning solution. Neutral. Temporary. He set his jacket down and opened his notebook at the small table by the window.
He reviewed the day's notes.
Nothing new.
That was the problem.
He had interviews. Names. Dates. Locations. Every answer fit. Every story aligned just enough to avoid contradiction. People remembered what mattered socially, not officially. Feelings, not records. Impressions, not facts.
He realized, slowly, that no one had outright refused him anything.
They didn't block him.
They *anticipated* him.
A knock sounded at the door.
Vince looked up, heart ticking once harder than usual. He closed the notebook before standing. When he opened the door, Mrs. Hill stood there, holding a small paper bag.
"Leftover rolls," she said, smiling. "Didn't want them to go stale."
"That's kind of you," Vince said, accepting them.
She hesitated, just a fraction. "You settling in alright?"
"Still learning the town."
Her smile held. "It grows on you."
She turned to leave, then paused. "Oh-and Detective?"
"Yes?"
"Folks around here don't mean anything by it," she said gently. "We just like things to stay… even."
He watched her walk away, the word lingering longer than it should have.
Even.
Later, lying on the narrow bed, Vince stared at the ceiling as the town quieted fully. Somewhere, a screen door closed. Somewhere else, a dog barked once and then stopped.
His mind replayed the day-not the facts, but the timing. The way people arrived where he was going. The way questions were answered before he finished asking them. The way calm wasn't a response, but a posture.
In the city, silence meant danger or neglect. Here, it meant maintenance.
He thought of the cases that had brought him here. Minor on paper. Unsettling in aggregate. Disappearances that didn't provoke panic. Break-ins without theft. Lights without movement.
He had assumed there was something beneath the surface.
Now he wondered if the surface *was* the thing.
Just before sleep took him, a final thought settled in, clear and unwelcome:
He hadn't stepped into an unsolved mystery.
He had stepped into a town that had already decided how much truth it could afford.
And he was not the first to test that limit.
Outside, the porch light remained on, steady and unbothered, illuminating nothing at all.
*End of Volume I*