The notice went up without announcement.
A single sheet of paper taped crookedly to the board outside the municipal office. Black ink. Ordinary font. The kind of thing people walked past every day without reading unless they already had a reason to stop.
**Road assessment. County Road Six. 6:30 p.m.**
No explanation. No urgency.
By late afternoon, it was already being talked about.
Vince heard it first at the diner. Not as a subject, exactly. More like a marker people kept circling.
"You going tonight," someone asked two booths over.
"I might."
"Thought they fixed that years ago."
"They said they did."
No one said why it mattered now. No one needed to.
By the time Vince reached the municipal building, the parking lot was fuller than it should have been. Trucks lined the edge, tires brushing the gravel. A few sedans sat between faded lines, parked carefully, as if placement mattered. People stood in loose groups, not really talking, eyes drifting toward the entrance and then away again.
Inside, the room smelled faintly of dust and paper that had been handled too many times. Folding chairs were set in uneven rows. A long table stood at the front with three empty seats behind it and a stack of folders that looked unopened.
Vince took a chair near the aisle. He noticed who was missing before he noticed who had come.
Claire stood near the back wall, arms folded loosely, watching the room instead of the door. Mrs. Hill sat two rows ahead, her purse in her lap, both hands resting on it as if it might slide away. Harold leaned against the far wall, arms crossed, his weight settled unevenly on one foot.
Marilyn Raines arrived quietly. She took a seat near the side, posture straight, eyes forward. She did not look around.
When Robert Mercer entered, conversation thinned rather than stopped. He gave a small nod that felt more habitual than polite and took the center seat at the table. Two county representatives followed him, both unfamiliar, both already looking worn down.
"This won't take long," one of them said, standing. "We're here to discuss the condition of County Road Six and whether additional work may be needed."
No one answered.
The man cleared his throat. "We've had a few reports."
The word landed wrong. Vince felt it pass through the room.
"A few," the man continued, opening a folder. "Mostly about drainage. The culvert past the tree line."
Someone near the back shifted.
"We're assessing whether it needs to be closed temporarily," the man said. "For safety reasons."
The pause that followed lasted too long.
Robert leaned forward slightly. "That area's been stable."
The man nodded. "That's been the understanding."
Understanding was not much better.
A woman in the second row raised her hand partway, then lowered it when no one noticed. She spoke anyway.
"No one's been hurt."
Heads turned. Not toward her, but toward one another.
"I'm sorry," the man said. "We're not asking about injuries."
"No one's been hurt," she repeated. "That's what this is about, right."
He hesitated. "Not exactly."
She nodded, apparently satisfied. "Good."
Silence followed. It was not agreement. It was adjustment.
The second representative leaned in and whispered something. The first nodded, then addressed the room again.
"We're trying to determine usage," he said. "Whether people are still going through there."
Robert shifted. "It's not a main route."
"But it is used," the man said.
A voice answered from the wrong side of the room.
"Not like before."
Vince turned. Harold had not moved from the wall.
The man looked relieved. "Before when."
Harold waited. He glanced toward Robert, then away. "Before it stopped being necessary."
"That's not something we can really measure," the man said.
"No," Harold said. "It isn't."
A brief laugh surfaced and vanished.
"If the culvert's compromised," the man continued, "we'll need to restrict access."
Mrs. Hill leaned forward slightly. "How."
"Barriers. Signs."
"And after that," she said.
"After that, people won't go through there."
She considered this. "People don't usually stop just because they're told to."
The man smiled thinly. "That's the hope."
Marilyn Raines shifted in her seat. It was small, easy to miss, but Vince saw it. Her hands tightened briefly in her lap before relaxing again.
"We're not accusing anyone of anything," the man said. "This is routine."
Routine felt fragile.
Robert nodded. "Greyford values routine."
The man smiled more easily. "Then this should be simple."
He moved on to timelines, inspections, forms. The room listened politely, though Vince could feel attention turning inward rather than drifting away.
Halfway through, a man Vince did not recognize raised his hand. He stood before being acknowledged.
"You said reports," he said. "Who filed them."
The representative hesitated. "We don't usually disclose that."
"So someone complained."
"No," the man said quickly. "Not exactly."
"Then why now."
The room settled into stillness.
The representative glanced at Robert. Robert remained still.
"We review infrastructure periodically," the man said.
"That's not what he asked," someone said.
The representative swallowed. "There were observations."
"Of what."
"Activity."
Marilyn Raines spoke. Her voice was even.
"Activity means different things to different people."
The man looked at her, grateful. "That's true."
She nodded once and said nothing more.
The meeting ended without decisions. No votes. No conclusions. The representatives gathered their folders and promised to follow up.
People rose slowly. Chairs scraped. Conversations restarted in pieces.
Vince watched Robert speak quietly with the county men. Robert looked relaxed, but his hands moved more than usual, straightening papers that were already straight.
As people filed out, Claire passed Vince without stopping.
"They didn't ask the right question," she said.
"What was it."
She glanced back toward the room. "Who noticed first."
Outside, dusk had settled. Parking lot lights flickered on, one after another, slightly out of sync.
Marilyn Raines stood near her car, keys in hand, looking at nothing. Vince thought about approaching her, then decided not to.
Across the lot, Harold lit a cigarette he barely smoked. He crushed it under his boot as Vince passed.
"They think it's about the road," Harold said.
"And it isn't."
Harold shook his head. "Road's just where it showed."
Vince stopped. "What did."
Harold met his eyes. "That people still know how to get there."
Vince drove home as the last cars left the lot. In his mirror, the municipal building went dark again, as if the evening had never happened.
The notice was still on the board.
Tomorrow, someone would read it more carefully.