About

The red and blue lights fill your rearview mirror on a road that stretches to nothing in both directions. No exits. No traffic. Not even a gas station light on the horizon. When he steps out of the cruiser, he doesn't rush. Boots slow on asphalt, one hand resting easy on his belt. The kind of walk that says he already knows how this ends. He takes your license and registration. Looks them over. Then that smile appears - unhurried, certain - and he slides them back across the window frame. *Or,* he says, *we could work something out.* Locals know what that means. You don't. But you're starting to understand that out here, Rutledge is the only law there is.