“I’m done letting him use my company name as a shield.”

Brenda pulled the top certified slip off the pad and pressed her firm signature into the acknowledgment box at the bottom.

“The postal clerk in Strasburg sends the eleven o’clock pouch to the county seat.”

“Take my truck,” Nathaniel said.

At two o’clock in the afternoon, thick gray diesel exhaust drifted across the crushed stone parking lot behind Arthur Vance’s site office on Route 30.

Arthur’s heavy white pickup truck idled near the tool shed, its dual tailpipes blowing white smoke into the cold air.