I had a scheduled check-in later that afternoon, and I was expected to travel a designated route toward the city. The weather was brutally hot. Heat shimmered above the pavement, and the fields on either side of the highway looked bleached beneath the sun.
I lowered the temperature inside the Phantom and called my father using the car's hands-free system.
He answered on the third ring.
"That fancy car still running?"
I smiled.
"Good afternoon to you too."
He chuckled.
"Just checking. You spent enough money on it to buy half my neighborhood."
"Not half."
"A third, then."
I laughed.
My father had been a mechanic before he became a business owner. He understood engines, transmissions, and the satisfaction of repairing something with your own hands. He also enjoyed pretending that every modern luxury vehicle was a personal insult to sensible engineering.
He asked whether I would arrive in time for dinner.
I told him I expected to.
"Your aunt's making peach cobbler," he said.
"Then I'll definitely be there."
"Bring your appetite."
"I always do."
There was a pause.
Then his voice softened.
"You doing all right, sweetheart?"
I looked toward the highway.
My father had always known when something weighed on me.
"Long day."
"Work?"
"Yes."
"Something you can't tell me?"
I smiled faintly.
"Something I can't tell you."
He sighed.
"Then drive carefully."
"I will."
"And Renata?"
"Yes?"
"Don't let your work make you forget there's a life waiting when you get home."
I looked toward the road stretching ahead.
"I won't, Dad."
We ended the call.
It was the last ordinary conversation I had before Deputy Garrett Gity activated his patrol lights behind me.
At first, I assumed he was responding to something ahead.
I had been traveling at the posted speed limit. My lane changes were legal. My vehicle had no mechanical problems, and I hadn't touched my phone since ending the hands-free call.
I moved toward the shoulder to let the patrol SUV pass.
It didn't.
The vehicle moved directly behind me.
The lights remained on.
I checked my mirrors.
Two deputies sat in the front.
I activated my turn signal and continued a short distance to a broad paved shoulder near a service-road entrance, where there was sufficient space to stop without blocking traffic. Then I pulled over, shifted into park, lowered the driver's window partway, and placed my hands where they could be seen.
I had conducted enough investigations to appreciate the importance of calm, predictable movements during a police encounter.
The driver of the patrol SUV emerged first.
He was a large white man in a tan sheriff's uniform, with a broad chest, a reddish mustache, and a tightly controlled walk that seemed designed to make everyone around him nervous.
The second deputy was younger.
He stepped out more slowly, looking first at the highway and then toward my license plate.