Interesting, Clark thought. Luke Evers had grown and KT Staler had shrunk. Clark’s mind, conditioned by three years on the force, began to speculate on reasons for this before she quelled it with a cigarette. She turned her attention back to the field. For an hour, just an hour, she would prefer not to be a cop.

The Bison readied their line to block the second play, the tight Lycra of their pants gleaming as they bent low. T-Bay Baskin, the Bison’s defensive captain, shouted and spat into the grass. The Cougar quarterback caught the snap. For a moment Clark lost sight of the ball as the Rattichville offense pulled a sweep to the left, spotting it again in the hands of the Cougar halfback. The boy was trying to hustle the ball wide, running toward the Bison’s exposed flank and looking for all the world like he was about to make it around.

Garrett Mason, the Bison’s safety and one of the biggest players on the team by a wide margin, took the halfback down at the waist. The slap of the two players colliding set Clark’s teeth on edge. The play had been a very long, very illegal flying tackle, and as the Rattichville halfback struggled to his feet, his body shaking as he held in a retch, Clark was certain the Bison had just earned themselves a penalty.

From somewhere behind her, she heard an odd scraping noise. Heard it again: a rustle, a hush. There, in the dark, she saw a man shuffle between two trucks, his crooked left foot trailing through the gravel behind him like a dead dog on a short leash.

“Do my eyes deceive me,” Clark said softly. “Or is Mr. Ovelle back in town?”

The deputies turned. Jason Ovelle, the man in the shadows, had been a miscreant since before he’d crossed the graduation stage of Bentley High, a few steps ahead of Clark herself. Unaware he was being watched, the man tugged on a truck’s door handle.

“And he brought some burglary with him.” Browder smiled.

Clark stubbed her half-smoked cigarette on the fence rail and tucked it behind her ear. She would have to be a cop tonight after all.

Ovelle, apparently still oblivious to their attention, limped into the shadows as the officers made their way across the parking lot—a galling cheer rose from the stands the moment they turned away, of course—but as Clark drew near she spotted the man digging beneath the seat of KT Staler’s rusted Tacoma. She started to run.

Ovelle froze at the sound, turned his head slowly to face her. He made no effort to escape.

“Evening, Officer.” He smiled. “Those boys is something, ain’t they?”

“They are indeed. Why ain’t you watching the game with us, Jason?”

The last decade had not been kind to Ovelle. A milky scar ran from his brow to the crown of his buzzed scalp. He was skinny, almost frail, and he stood with a permanent stoop. According to one story, an angry con had taken a folding chair to Jason’s ankle when he was serving a dime up in Huntsville on drug charges, but there was no telling if this was the truth. Jason had the sort of reputation that attracted stories the way a wound attracts flies.