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She emphatically clasped her hands together. “Now, I’ve already extended your stay through Saturday. And if you decide to stay longer—and I do recommend it—we have an off-season rate and of course it includes laundry access, limited gym privileges, and half off haunted walking tours if you book two weeks or more.”

“Haunted?”

“Blackwood has layers. But only the forest is haunted. If you want a real fright within town, I highly recommend the Serial Killer Museum. Free admission on Sundays!”

Cold gripped me all at once, and the coffee mug trembled in my hands. I opened my mouth to respond.

Then closed it again.

Hattie beamed at me. “You’re gonna love it here.”

Sterling

Mack’s Garage was quiet except for the sound of a box fan fighting for its life in the corner and the rhythmic thump of a ratchet wrench.

Mack himself was hunched under the crumpled hood of Sienna’s Prius, half his body swallowed by the engine bay, his grease-streaked coveralls and work boots older than some of the town’s buildings.

The floor groaned under my boot, and he straightened with a grunt, one hand bracing against the car’s bent hood. “Well, I’ll be damned,” he said, his eyebrows rising as he squinted through his smudged glasses. “Sterling Hayes, darkening my door in broad daylight. That’s new.”

I huffed a breath. Mack never complained when I showed up late with a busted part or a car that needed dismantling in ways best left unspoken. He just nodded, rolled up his sleeves, and got to work. Maybe that was why I liked him—he understood the value of silence.

I glanced over at the car. The bumper looked like it had been chewed on by a bear. One of the headlights dangled like an eyeball in a horror movie. But the rest of it was surprisingly intact, considering it had body-slammed something as large and sturdy as Big Hank.

I didn’t bother with small talk, gesturing toward the Prius with a lift of my chin. “How bad is it?”

Mack gave a low whistle as he tightened something under the frame. “Well, considerin’ she took out two hundred pounds of molded resin and steel framework, it’s not half bad. These hybrids crumple easy. But the engine’s still breathin’. A lot of cosmetic damage. Some busted mounts. Front axle took a hit, but it’s surprisingly not terminal.”

“Can you fix it?”

“Oh sure,” he said, standing and wiping his hands on a rag that hadn’t been clean since who knew what administration. “I can have it busted up but runnin’ in a couple days. Won’t be pretty. Might shimmy a little. But she’ll get where she’s going.”

I nodded, jaw tight. “Right.”

Yeah…that wasn’t going to work.

Mack squinted at me. “She in a hurry to leave?”

“Don’t know,” I lied. “Didn’t get a chance to exchange our life stories before she passed out.”

He gave a grunt and turned toward his cluttered back office, already muttering about parts orders and a carburetor that had nothing to do with this car.

I stayed where I was, waiting.

Through the doorway came the scrape of his chair, the sigh of old wood giving up under his weight. Another fan kicked on, coughing dust into the air as its blades wheezed to life.

Only then did I walk to the car, when there was no chance that he would hear or notice.

The driver’s side door gave under my hand with a reluctant groan. The interior was cluttered in a way that felt lived-in. Half-drunk to-go coffee in the cupholder, crumbs ground into the floor mats, a faded blanket slumped across the passenger seat, and an open pack of gum spilled around the dash. It looked like a life in transit, not rooted. Like she hadn’t meant to stop here at all—this town was just another way station between one mess and the next.

But I’d seen the look in her eyes.

I’d spent enough of my life around someone who looked like that to recognize it immediately.

That storm-wrecked panic. That sassy mouth. That edge of exhaustion she’d tried to hide under sarcasm.

She wasn’t just passing through.

She was running.