She didn’t touch the button. She just said, close enough for the mic to catch it, “Hello, Carol. It’s Dot.” For three long seconds there was nothing but static and the hum of his engine. Then Carol’s voice came back, and it wasn’t careful anymore. It was shaking. “Dot. Oh, Dot, honey. Are you all right?”

The deputy’s grin slid right off his face. Before he could answer, a second voice cut across the channel, deep and gravelly. I knew it from the county fair every summer. It was Sheriff Brandt. “Twenty-two, this is the sheriff. Do not move. Do not write one word in that book. I am eight minutes out, and when I get there, you and I are going to have a conversation in front of Mrs. Lindqvist that you will remember for the rest of your career.”