Vince stopped carrying the notebook.
Not intentionally.
Not at first.
It stayed in the car one morning, forgotten on the passenger seat. He noticed it when he parked near the station, saw the black cover through the windshield, and didn't go back for it.
Inside, Chief Mercer was already at his desk. Papers spread wide, coffee cooling beside his elbow.
"You're in early," Mercer said.
Vince shrugged. "Couldn't sleep."
Mercer nodded like that explained everything. He waited a moment, then glanced at Vince's hands.
"No notes today?" he asked.
"Not unless I need them."
That answer landed better than it should have.
Mercer leaned back in his chair. "Good," he said. "Might do people some good to breathe."
Vince didn't ask who.
Out on the street, Greyford felt slightly misaligned. Not wrong. Just shifted. Doors stayed open longer when he passed. Conversations didn't pause the way they used to. People still watched him, but without the careful timing.
At the diner, the waitress poured his coffee and stayed standing.
"You find what you were looking for?" she asked.
"No," Vince said.
She smiled. Real this time. "That happens."
Two booths down, someone mentioned Evan Hale's name. Not loudly. Not carefully either. Just folded into a sentence about the old mill and how it never kept heat in winter.
No one looked at Vince.
He drank the coffee anyway. Let it sit too long. When he left, the cup was still half full.
Outside, a pickup idled near the curb. The driver lifted two fingers from the wheel in a casual greeting. Vince returned it. The truck pulled away without hesitation.
At Hill's Bakery, Rose Hill was rearranging loaves that didn't need rearranging. She glanced up as he entered.
"You're late," she said.
"Didn't know I had a time."
She smiled at that. "You always do."
She handed him a loaf before he asked for one.
"On the house," she said. "Too much left over today."
Vince took it. He didn't thank her.
"You heading back soon?" she asked, still watching the shelves instead of him.
"Why?"
Rose paused. Just long enough to notice. "Things don't stay stirred forever."
He nodded. Left with the bread tucked under his arm like something he'd forgotten to put down.
The school grounds were empty. Summer break had thinned the place out, left it exposed. Vince walked the perimeter once, slow. He didn't stop near the trees. Didn't look toward the west wing.
A door banged somewhere inside the building. Then another sound. Metal on metal. A lock being tested, not turned.
Vince kept walking.
By late afternoon, the sky dulled. The kind of light that flattened color and made distance hard to judge. He drove home instead of walking, passed the same stretch of road where the trees leaned in close.
The porch light was off.
He noticed that more than he should have.
Inside, the house felt smaller. The loaf went untouched on the counter. Vince sat at the table for a while, hands flat against the wood, listening to the quiet settle back into place.
Outside, a car slowed as it passed the house.
Didn't stop.
Didn't speed up.
Just adjusted.
Vince didn't go to the window this time.
Later, when the light was gone entirely, he left the notebook in the car and turned out the lamp beside the bed.
Across the street, a curtain moved.
Only once.
Then everything went still again.