"I don't want a speech," Harlon snapped.
Marcus turned toward the door. Harlon caught him by the shoulder, spun him, and drove him backward into the booth, hard enough to send a sharp line of pain beneath his collarbone. For a moment the overhead lights blurred, and the air seemed to vanish from his chest. Evan's expression changed from discomfort to outright alarm.
"Sheriff, that's enough," Evan said, louder this time.
"You want to join him, Mercer?" Harlon asked.
Evan's mouth closed. Marcus straightened and took one steadying breath, tasting the remains of sweet tea at the back of his throat. He knew a deputy had just been offered a chance to do the right thing and had refused it twice. He also knew the deputy had not stopped looking.
"Noted," Marcus said.
Outside, the Georgia afternoon was bright and warm. Pine sap carried on the wind from the stand of trees across the highway, and three vehicles waited on the gravel: Marcus's Lincoln, Harlon's Dodge Charger, and Evan's patrol cruiser. Marcus walked to the Charger as directed and placed his hands on the hood, feeling sunlight stored in the black paint.
The sheriff used his radio. "Dispatch, Oak Haven One. One male detained at Bee's Diner. Uncooperative, obstructing an identification check. Send a tow for the Lincoln and notify intake that we're coming in."
Gloria Pike, the dispatcher, answered in the flat tone she had perfected over twenty years. "Copy. Want the license plate run first?"
"Negative," Harlon replied. "I'll handle the vehicle at the station."
Marcus noticed the refusal. A plate check would create a record and might reveal inconvenient information before the sheriff had decided what story to tell. Harlon preferred to perform his investigation within the limits of his own authority and his own memory. Marcus began making a different record in his head: the location of the camera, the words used to justify the stop, the exact order of the physical contact, and the two witnesses who had tried, however weakly, to intervene.
Harlon searched him with hard, intrusive motions. He removed Marcus's wallet from an inner jacket pocket, opened it to the driver's license, and read the name with an expression of theatrical disappointment. He did not examine the other cards; he tucked the wallet into his own pocket as though Marcus's identity were now another piece of property to control.
"Marcus D. Whitmore," he said. "Well, Mr. Whitmore, maybe you can explain yourself at the station."
"On what charge?"
Harlon withdrew a folded form from his shirt pocket. The paper had been creased so many times that its edges had softened, and the Oak Haven County seal was faded where the fold crossed it. Marcus saw the header, the case number, and the date before Harlon moved a thumb over them: February 19, three weeks earlier.
"Trespass. Obstruction. Loitering with intent to conduct unlawful surveillance," Harlon said, reading from the paper. "Refusal to cooperate."
"That document was prepared before today," Marcus said. "I can see the date, Sheriff."
For the first time, Harlon's hand hesitated. He looked down at the form, and the momentary alarm in his eyes made it plain that he had not expected the stranger to pay attention to anything beyond the weapon and the handcuffs. Then his expression hardened again.
"Turn around."
"You're using a predated report to justify an arrest you have not lawfully supported."
The sheriff forced Marcus forward against the hood. The pressure drove the air from his chest, and his chin struck the warm metal with a sharp, disorienting jolt. Handcuffs closed around his wrists, too tight on the left and tighter still on the right, while his face rested against dust that had settled on the Charger that morning.