The Marked One

Dale Harker brought them to the sheriff’s office while a heavy warm rain moved across Bluestone Bay. From the car windows the lake looked like a sheet of dull steel, wrinkled now and then by the wind. The station sat next to the old firehouse, its walls lined with framed photos of three generations of deputies, each one wearing the same expression: I know more than you do. “You want to explain the prank yet?” Dale slapped a stack of printouts on the desk. “Fake school broadcast, false alarm, dead man, dock accident. Tell me why all five of you were in the radio room last night.” “Because we’re the radio club,” Jessa said. “Because we were fixing equipment,” Tobin added, quiet but steady.