Chapter 2 - His Watch Was Still Cracked From the Fire
His thumb was warm against my cheek and I could feel everyone looking.
That was the worst part. Not his hand, not what he'd said about Lily. It was Marisol stopped halfway to the coffee machine with the pot in her hand, and old Ray in booth three pretending not to listen while his fork hung in the air. The diner felt too small. The warm lights over the counter buzzed. Outside the window the city lights blurred into red and white smears.
I didn't pull back. I couldn't. My hands were up near his wrist but not pushing. Just hovering. Shaking.
"Please," I whispered. "You're scaring me."
He let go right away. Like my voice had cut something. He stepped back half a step and lifted both hands, palms out. His suit jacket pulled tight across his shoulders.
"Sorry," he said. His voice was lower now. "I didn't mean — Emma, I'm not here to hurt you."
"You said my daughter's name." My voice cracked on it. "You don't get to say her name."
Marisol moved then. She set the pot down hard enough that coffee sloshed and came over fast, wiping her hands on her apron.
"Everything okay here, hon?" She didn't look at me. She looked at him.
"Yes," I said too fast. "Yes, he's — he's an old —"
"Customer," he finished. "I was leaving." He looked at me, not her. "My name's Daniel. Daniel Cross."
I shook my head. "I don't know you."
That was the lie. Not a full one. I didn't know his name, but I knew the weight of a man slumped against me, and the way skin smells when heat's been too close. My stomach turned because some part of me already knew.
He must have seen it, because he didn't argue. He sat down slow across from me in the booth, like he was asking permission with his body. The white cup rattled on its saucer when his knee bumped the table.
"Three weeks ago," he said quietly. "Mile marker 14 on the highway. Past the county line. Your car was behind mine when I went off."
A truck hissed by outside. My breathing sounded too loud to me.
"A lot of cars go off that road," I said.
"You stopped. You broke the passenger window with a tire iron because the driver's side was crushed. You cut my seat belt with something. It had a serrated edge."
My hands went cold. The little jackknife I kept on my keychain. The one my dad gave me for boxes at the diner.
"You don't know that," I said. "That could've been in a police report."
"It wasn't. I never told the police." He leaned forward, forearms on the light wood. His left wrist turned so the light caught his watch. Silver links. The crystal was spider-cracked across, browned at the edge like it had been kissed by smoke. "You tore my tie off. You said it was melting into my shirt. You threw it toward the ditch."
I stared at that watch. I remembered the metal hot against my forearm when I hooked my arm under his. I remembered yanking at that tie because the synthetic fabric was curling and stinking, and my fingers kept slipping.
"I told you to stay awake," he said. "Do you remember what you said back to me?"
I didn't want to answer. Marisol shifted beside me.
"I said —" My throat closed. "I said I couldn't carry you if you passed out."
Silence hung there. The coffee in the pot behind the counter kept percolating. Ray coughed into his napkin.
Daniel nodded once. He slid his sleeve down to cover the watch, like showing it had cost him something.
"It was you," he said. Not a question.
I looked at my cup. The surface trembled. That was my hand on the table, shaking it.
"Yes," I said. "That was me."
Marisol exhaled. "Jesus, Emma."
"I pulled you out and I left before the ambulance got there," I said fast. "Because my daughter was asleep in my back seat fifty feet away and I wasn't supposed to stop. I wasn't — I just wanted to go home. I don't want anything for it."
"I know." He glanced at Marisol, then back to me. "That's why I'm not asking for me. I'm asking for five minutes. After your shift. At the counter. About your daughter."
My chest tightened. "Is she — did something happen to her?"
"She's okay tonight," he said. "I need you to believe that first. She's okay tonight. But I need to tell you what was in my car that night, and why someone else might know you stopped."
I wanted to say no. Every tired part of me wanted to clear his cup, hand him the check, watch him walk out into the parking lot and never think about mile marker 14 again.
But he knew about the tire iron. He knew about the tie. No report had that.
"Five minutes," I said. "After close. You sit at the counter where Marisol can see us. And then you leave me alone."
May you like
"Deal," he said.
He stood, left a five on the table for coffee he never drank, and walked to the door. The bell rang. He didn't look back.
