Truck went past on Maple Drive. The refrigerator made its low constant sound. Daddy Mia said, "This place, I think it could be the one. " She said it carefully like she was testing the words for structural integrity. It feels different. I don't know why yet, but it feels different.
Ry looked at his daughter across the table. She looked in that moment like the particular combination she was. Half her mother's hope and half something she'd built herself out of five towns in every first day and all the unpacked and repacked boxes. Yeah, he said it does outside. The Tennessee night was full and dark and quiet.
A good kind of quiet, the kind that didn't have anything hiding in it. Not yet. But Ry knew what he knew. Somewhere in this town in a nice car with county plates, a man named Bo Hargrove was also sitting with his thoughts. And those two facts, Mia's hope and Harrove's fear, were on a collision course that Ry couldn't stop.
What he could do was make sure he was standing in the right place when it happened. He went to bed at 10:00, lay in the dark, listened to the house, then he reached to the nightstand, picked up the silver ring he always took off at night, and held it for a moment in his palm. Linda, I'm trying, he thought. I don't know if I'm doing it right, but I'm trying. He set the ring back down, closed his eyes.
Tomorrow. He had a garage to run, a town to understand, daughter to watch over without her seeing him watching, and a man from 1999 who apparently had not forgotten him and was not done deciding what to do about that. Ray Callaway went to sleep. Outside, Greystone Falls was quiet under a Tennessee sky full of stars. The kind of stars you only saw when you were far enough from city lights to remember they were actually there.
The hawk on the water tower spread its painted wings over the sleeping town and in the morning it would all continue. Second week started quietly. That was the thing about small towns. Quiet wasn't always peaceful. Sometimes it was the quiet of people who had decided together and without saying so to wait and see.
Ray felt it when he walked into the hardware store on Monday morning. The man behind the counter 50s gray work shirt name tag that said Norm looked up nodded. Went back to the inventory he was counting. Not unfriendly, not warm either. Particular neutral of a man who had heard something and was withholding judgment.
Ry bought what he needed, said thank you, left. He understood. He'd been the subject of rumors before. He knew how they traveled. Faster than news, slower than fire.
And with a staying power that neither one had, the article hadn't run yet. But the conversation had started. Dot was behind the counter when he came in at 6:30. She set his coffee down before he sat. She'd started doing that, timing it to his arrival.
It was a small thing, the kind of small thing that told you more about a person than a long conversation you hear from your friends, she asked. Ry looked at her. Ghost, he said. How do you know about ghost? I don't.
I know you've been expecting someone. She refilled the cup of one of the regulars without being asked. You check your phone differently when you're waiting for something. He looked at her for a moment. You'd have done well in a different line of work.