The file didn't say much. That was the first thing Vince noticed.
It was thin-three pages clipped together, the edges worn soft as if they'd been handled too often for something so unimportant. He'd found it where it shouldn't have been, tucked behind unrelated inspection reports in a county drawer that Caleb had left unlocked for less than a minute. Not hidden exactly. Just misplaced enough to be overlooked.
Greyford had a way of doing that.
The pages listed minor complaints-noise disturbances, unauthorized land use, environmental irregularities that never escalated into violations. Nothing alarming on its own. But when Vince read the dates, his stomach tightened.
They clustered. Not randomly. Not evenly.
Disappearance's didn't happen in those windows, not officially. But strange things did. People moved. Properties changed hands. One inspection would quietly cancel another. Follow-ups were marked "resolved" without notes.
Someone had been smoothing the edges.
Vince closed the file and slipped it back exactly where he'd found it. Whatever this was, it wasn't something to confront yet. Greyford punished haste.
Outside, the afternoon light sat low and pale, making the street look flatter than it should have. The diner windows reflected the sky in dull streaks. Mrs. Hill stood near the counter inside, arguing gently with someone Vince couldn't hear. She gestured with her hands the way people did when they were trying to sound casual while saying something serious.
He waited until she noticed him.
"You look like you've misplaced something," she said when he stepped inside.
"Just browsing," Vince replied. "Old habits."
Mrs. Hill smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "That's how it starts. Then you realize Greyford doesn't like being studied."
She poured coffee without asking. "People think secrets are buried here. They're not. They're just filed under the wrong name."
Vince met her gaze. "And no one fixes it?"
"Oh, they try," she said. "But fixing implies someone admits it was broken."
The bell over the door chimed softly. Vince didn't turn, but he felt the shift-the air tightening the way it did when something entered a room quietly and expected to be noticed anyway.
Evan Hale stood near the doorway.
He looked the same as before. That was what unsettled Vince most. No nervousness. No urgency. Just presence, calm and deliberate, like a man waiting for a tide he already understood.
Mrs. Hill stopped talking.
Evan nodded politely, ordered nothing, and leaned against the wall as if he belonged there. Vince finished his coffee slower than necessary.
"People still looking?" Evan asked, voice mild.
"For what?" Vince said.
Evan's eyes flicked briefly toward the window, the road beyond it. "For answers."
Vince stood. "Some are."
"Careful," Evan replied. "Answers tend to move."
He left without another word.
Claire was waiting outside the clinic when Vince passed later. She hadn't been watching the road, but she noticed him instantly anyway. She always did.
"You're carrying something heavy," she said.
"Nothing physical."
She hesitated, then nodded. "That's worse."
Inside, the clinic smelled clean and neutral, a controlled space in a town that preferred things undefined. Claire moved through it with practiced ease, but Vince noticed the tension in her shoulders, the way her hands lingered too long on routine tasks.
"I've been seeing patterns," she said quietly. "Not medical ones. People come in, talk around things. Symptoms that don't match stories."
"Do you write them down?"
She shook her head. "Some things don't belong on charts."
Their eyes met. Something almost crossed the space between them-an understanding, maybe more-but Vince felt it pull back before it formed. He stepped away first.
Outside again, dusk settling, Vince passed the old lot near the highway. A truck sat there, familiar. Parked the same way it always had been.
Tommy Raines' truck.
Dust on the tires. Keys not visible. No sign of disturbance.
The absence was louder than anything else.
Marilyn stood across the street, watching the building behind the lot rather than the truck itself. When she noticed Vince, she offered a polite nod. Calm. Measured. As always.
"He still hasn't come back," Vince said.
"No," Marilyn replied. "But things don't vanish just because people do."
"Did he tell you anything before?"
She considered that. "Tommy talked a lot. Most of it didn't matter. Some of it probably did."
"And you don't know which?"
A faint smile. "If I did, I wouldn't be standing here."
The streetlights flickered on. Somewhere nearby, a door closed. Vince felt the town settling again, reshaping itself around what had nearly been noticed.
He looked back once more at the parked truck, untouched, patient.
Greyford wasn't hiding its truths anymore.
It was waiting to see who would stay long enough to deserve them.