When the Road Went Silent novel · Chapter 14 of 24

Chapter 14: Four Years in a Notebook

Ward's POV

I left her asleep with the blanket pulled up to her chin.

I borrowed the old man's truck and left a note under her father's coffee cup.

It said: Back by morning. Lock the door.

The river road runs thin and dark past the quarry, and the bridge sits at the end of it with one dead streetlight.

Boone's bike leaned against the rail.

Boone stood beside it with his hands empty, and his gold tooth caught my headlights.

"You came alone," he said.

"You asked for me alone."

"I did." He tried to smile. "Gene always said you were the one man in the club who did what he said."

"Don't say his name."

"Everybody's saying it tonight."

I got out and left the engine running.

I had a notebook in my back pocket, a black one with a bent spine.

I had filled it over four years, one line at a time, in a hand nobody else could read.

Every night Cade skipped the dues count.

Every Friday he drove to the roadhouse in the next county.

Every month the money Boone moved through the garage books, and the dates of his meetings with a man in a Hounds vest.

I took it out and held it up.

"I know what you sold," I said. "I know when. I wrote down the plate on the truck that took it."

Boone looked at the notebook for a long time.

"Gene told you to do that," he said.

"He told me to watch."

"And you watched."

"Four years."

"Then you let Cade rot in the chair when you could have put him out."

"I couldn't. Without her vote, I had nothing."

He nodded slowly.

"Then here's the offer," he said. "The Hounds ride in Sunday. They want Lake Road and the garage and the lake shore. I can tell them it's off. I can tell them the girl is stubborn but she has a good man behind her."

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