Page 1 of Forever Dark
PROLOGUE
The night was dead.These were the nights when Sheriff Connor Chase enjoyed driving the most.Mid-week.No local drunks stumbling out of Roy’s Bar.No neighbors arguing bitterly over property lines.No mother going on at him about how he was forty and needed to settle down.
None of that.Just the quiet creaking of trees in the night breeze.For all intents and purposes, Eagleton, Harlan County, was a quiet grave until the sun came back in the morning, bringing with it the usual petty complaints and minor fracases Connor had come to negotiate with his eyes shut.
Turning onto Maple Drive, Connor moved the rearview mirror.His deputy, Arnold, was always tinkering with the seat and the mirrors when he used the patrol car, and it drove Connor crazy.For a moment, he caught a glimpse of his eyes.He could see a few crow’s-feet at their edges, a slight blemish on his otherwise pleasing appearance.Not that he would have thought that of himself.
“Forty,” he whispered.“How the hell did that happen?”
Maple Drive was blanketed in darkness, chattering insects the only sound accompanying the quiet growl of the car engine.
The radio on the dashboard crackled like scrunched paper.
Connor picked up the handset.“Chase.”
A woman’s voice came back warm and easy, softened by the hour.“How are you doing out there, Sheriff?”
A faint smile tugged at his mouth.“Are you checking up on me again, Cheryl?”
“Maybe.Maybe I just wanted to make sure you hadn’t nodded off and ended up in a ditch somewhere.”
“Not yet.”
“Well, when you finally decide to take a break from all the excitement, I baked a cherry pie for the night shift.I’ll save you a slice.”
Connor glanced through the windshield at the road unfurling ahead of him, empty and black between the trees.“You trying to bribe the sheriff for favorable treatment?”
“Well, I am looking for a few nights off next month,” Cheryl said.“Did it work?”
A quiet laugh escaped him.“I’ll think about it.Thanks, Cheryl.I appreciate it.”
“I know you do.I make a good pie.”
“I meant checking in on me.”
“Of course you did.”
He shook his head, still smiling.Cheryl had a way of making the graveyard shift sound like a cozy kitchen conversation instead of a county job.But Connor knew he had to keep his distance.Professionalism was about the only thing he could hold onto these days.
“Night, Cheryl.”
“Night, Sheriff.”
The line clicked off, and Connor set the handset back in place.
Cheryl Tate had been on the phones long enough to know everybody’s rhythm.She knew which deputy liked to act tougher after midnight, which volunteer firefighter needed things repeated twice, which old man in the county would report suspicious activity every time raccoons got into his bins.She was divorced, sharp, steady under pressure, and she could make a room feel alive just by walking into it.
His mother loved her.
Not quietly, either.
Every time Connor mentioned Cheryl’s name, his mother got that look on her face.Hopeful.Calculating.Like she was three seconds from asking whether he’d finally come to his senses and realized there were still decent women in Harlan County.
He could hear her now in her old-fashioned ways.
She’s kind, Connor.
She’s got a job.
