Miller checked the radar unit; the red digital numbers were static at zero. There was no traffic, just the wind whipping across the flat, harvested fields that flanked the highway. It kicked up devils of dust that danced across the tarmac.
He rubbed his eyes, feeling the grit of a double shift. Five years ago, Miller had been a different kind of cop: optimistic and trusting. That was before the white van incident.
He had let a vehicle go with a warning for a tail light, only to find out three days later it had been carrying two abducted children from Ohio. They were found, eventually, but the guilt of that missed opportunity had calcified inside Miller.
It turned him into an interdiction officer who saw shadows in every corner and deception in every smile. He checked every load now. He looked for the twitch of a facial muscle, the pulse in a carotid artery, or the slight sag of a suspension that didn’t match the manifest.
Then he saw it. Cresting the gentle rise of the horizon to the east, a vehicle materialized out of the gray haze. It was a pickup truck pulling a flatbed trailer.
As it drew closer, the details resolved into a picture of rural normalcy. It was an older model Ford, painted a faded, oxidized blue that might have once been vibrant but was now stripped by years of sun and farm work.
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