Cedar Lane

The drive to Cedar Lane takes forty minutes if you obey the speed limit. I don't. The city bleeds into suburbs, then into farmland, then into the kind of dense woods that make you forget civilization exists at all. The house sits at the end of a gravel road that hasn't been graded in years, and I kill the headlights a quarter mile out, coasting onto the shoulder where the trees press close enough to hide the car.

Dawn has broken by the time I find a vantage point. Cold air seeps through the vents. I sit with my hands on the wheel and watch the house through the branches.