Chapter 4: I Saw Them Burn (Jasper)

When she came out of the library, I was already across the street.

I saw her stop. Saw her tilt her head slightly—she’d heard the truck. She was sharper than I’d given her credit for. She didn’t run, didn’t look back. She just reached into her bag, pulled out her phone, pretended to read the screen, and walked faster.

The car moved.

I crossed the street and cut her off before she turned onto Third. She jumped back half a step, hand instantly clamping her bag strap.

“Don’t make a sound.” I said.

I knew what I looked like. Six-three, soaked ranger coat, red mud on the boots, three days’ stubble. Any small-town girl stopped by a man like that on a rainy night would reach for the phone.

“Jasper Grey.” I tapped the badge on my chest. “Ranger station. That gray pickup behind you has been on your tail for two blocks.”

Her eyes moved from my face to behind me. The truck sat at the corner, not moving.

“Get in.” I said. “I’ll drive you home.”

“I don’t know you.” She said. Her voice was steady, but her knuckles were white on the bag.

“You don’t need to know me. You need to disappear from this street right now.”

She looked at me for three seconds. Then she did something that still makes my chest tighten when I think about it—she pulled those book-cutting scissors from her bag, closed the blade, put them back. Then she said: “Where’s your truck.”

I walked her to my old pickup. The gray truck, seeing us move, pulled away slowly. I memorized the first three characters of its plate.

The wipers were going crazy on the windshield. She sat in the passenger seat, knees pressed tight together, hands folded on them, as if waiting for me to speak first.

“Stop digging through those old newspapers.” I said.

“Why.”

“Because you turn one page, they burn one page. You pull one reel of film, they swap one. You think you’re looking through archives—actually, you’re telling them how far you’ve gotten.”

She was quiet a moment. “How do you know they swap film.”

My grip on the wheel tightened.

I shouldn’t have answered. I hadn’t told anyone since I was seventeen. But this woman sat beside me, a stolen bound volume under her knees—the one with three weeks cut out—her eyes bright in the rain like two lamps that hadn’t gone out.

“Because I saw them burn it.” I said.

The truck stopped at a red light. I turned to her.

“When I was seventeen, behind the town records building, I watched three police officers burn a whole box of case notes with my own eyes.”