The Highway (Highway Quartet #2)

by C.J. Box

The roads were fine—no snow—but it was oppressively dark and it seemed like someone had flipped a switch and turned out all the lights. The sky was clear and it had stopped raining but the only illumination came from a thin sliver of moon and the gauzy, ghostly wash of a million stars that seemed close, as if tamped down by an unseen hand from above.

“What’s so special about her?” “Nothing,” Legerski said. “She’s got no real experience. I checked on her and she’s new to the department. She’s a diversity hire and shouldn’t even be there. Her husband was in the military and got whacked in Afghanistan so she’s a single mother and if she was smart she’d just ride things out and do her time and build her pension.”