The car never worked right. The pistons and sparkplugs. Tires worn smooth. And the road wasn’t always kind—a glare on the windshield, another town whose name he didn’t care to remember rising in the rearview mirror.

All Kirby knew was no one walked his way out of trouble.

In the evening? When the chill settled down? The solution was to twist the key into the ignition, turn on the radio, look for sunrise.