Chapter 1 - A Taillight on Route 9
Daniel Brooks had driven the same two-lane road home to Harlan Creek, Georgia, for twenty years, and he still knew every curve of it by heart.
On the passenger seat sat a cake box from a bakery in Atlanta, a leather folder, and a small gift bag holding a silver bracelet engraved with the words "Seventy and still the boss." It was his mother's birthday, and he had promised her he would be there before the candles were lit.
Just past the old peach stand, blue lights flashed in his mirror.
Daniel signaled, pulled onto the gravel shoulder, turned off the engine and rolled down the window. He placed both hands on top of the steering wheel, the way his father had taught him when he was sixteen.
The patrol car sat behind him for almost four minutes before the door opened.
The deputy who walked up was tall and sunburned, with a toothpick in the corner of his mouth. His name tag read W. TILLMAN.
"License and registration."
"Good afternoon, deputy. They're in the glove box. I'm going to reach for them now."
Tillman didn't answer. He watched every movement as if Daniel were reaching for a weapon.
"You know why I stopped you?"
"No, sir."
"Taillight's out."
Daniel had checked every light on the car that morning before leaving Atlanta. He said so, calmly.
Tillman leaned down until his face was inches from the window. "You calling me a liar?"
"No, sir. I'm only saying I checked it this morning. If it's out, I'll get it fixed today."
The deputy straightened up and looked at the car, a dark gray sedan, clean and new, then back at Daniel. His eyes stopped on the leather folder.
"Nice car. This yours?"
"Yes, sir. The registration is in my name."
"Fulton County plates," Tillman said, reading them aloud like an accusation. "What's a man from Atlanta doing on a back road in my county?"
"Visiting my mother. She lives on Mercer Street. It's her seventieth birthday."
Tillman smiled, but there was nothing friendly in it. "Everybody's always visiting their mama."
He took the license back to his patrol car. Daniel watched in the mirror as the deputy sat there, not typing, not talking on the radio, just sitting.
Behind him, the taillight Tillman claimed was broken burned a steady, bright red.