Chapter 8 - The Shadow at the Counter
Nora walked back toward Mia, forcing a calm smile onto her face. “Finish up, sweetheart. We need to buy a few supplies before we head back.”
Inside the bait shop, the smell of cured tobacco, motor oil, and pine shavings hung thick in the air. Behind the counter stood an older man with wire-rimmed glasses reading an outdated local newspaper. A small black-and-white television on a high shelf was murmuring a midday news broadcast with the volume low.
Nora gathered three cans of soup, a loaf of brown bread, a box of matches, and a small tube of antibiotic ointment for her face. She placed them on the counter, keeping her eyes cast downward, her denim jacket pulled up high around her neck.
“Just these, please,” she said softly.
The clerk scanned the items slowly, his weathered hands methodical. On the television screen above, a graphic flashed: AMBER ALERT / ENDANGERED MISSING CHILD.
A photograph of Mia appeared on the screen—a school portrait from the previous autumn, her hair neatly combed, smiling brightly. Beneath it, a blurry DMV photograph of Nora flashed with the caption: SUSPECT CONSIDERED ARMED AND UNSTABLE.
Nora’s pulse hammered against her eardrums. She reached into her pocket, pulled out a twenty-dollar bill, and laid it flat on the counter. “Keep the change.”
The clerk didn’t take the money. His gaze shifted from the counter, up to the television screen, and then down to Mia, who was standing beside Nora, clutching her mother’s sleeve. The old man’s eyes lingered on Mia’s oversized pink hospital slip-ons.
The silence in the store grew suffocating. Nora’s muscles tensed, preparing to grab Mia and sprint toward the tree line, even knowing she couldn't outrun a rifle or a police cruiser on open ground.
The clerk looked directly at Nora. He saw the purple discoloration spreading across her jaw, the defensive wounds on her knuckles, and the pure, desperate terror in her eyes. Then, he looked at Mia, whose expression was completely peaceful, holding her mother’s hand with absolute trust.
Slowly, without a word, the clerk reached out and pressed the power button on the television set. The screen went black.
He slid the brown paper bag containing the groceries across the counter, took the twenty-dollar bill, and made change down to the penny.
“The road north through the gorge is washed out near the old mill,” the old man said, his voice flat and steady, as if commenting on the weather. “Nobody goes through there on foot unless they take the ridge trail behind the limestone quarry. Less dust that way. Nobody watching the cameras at the junction either.”
Nora stared at him, her throat choking with an emotion so sudden and sharp she couldn't speak.
May you like
“Thank you,” she managed to whisper.
The old man simply gave a slight nod and turned back to his newspaper. “Go on now. Weather’s coming in. Take care of your little girl.”
