Chapter 9
The diner was empty after nine and I was wiping down the red laminate when I saw it.
The glass carafe sat in the center of the counter where I'd left it, half-full and cooling. Someone had slipped a plain white envelope underneath it, folded once, lifting the base just enough that coffee sloshed when I breathed near it. We didn't use envelopes for tips. Tips went in the chipped mug by the register or straight into my apron pocket.
I didn't touch it at first. The windows were dark and the blinds threw stripes across the floor. The pie case hummed. Outside, the highway was quiet.
"Don't," the biker said from the booth where he'd been watching the lot. He'd stayed after close like the sheriff asked him to, his vest hung over the back of the seat, his gray hair damp from the heat.
I pulled my hand back. "It wasn't here before I mopped."
He got up slow and came around the counter. He didn't lift the carafe with one hand the way I did. He steadied the bottom with his palm and slid the envelope out with two fingers, like it might be hot.
Inside was a single polaroid and a slip of paper with a plate number written in black marker.
The photo was my apartment.
Not the front. The back stairwell, the one with the busted light I kept telling my landlord about. The door to my unit was in the frame, the faded green paint, my little welcome mat that said GO AWAY. It had been taken in daylight. My car was parked below, my plate visible.
My stomach dropped so fast I had to put a hand on the counter.
The paper said: 8P-R 4197 and under it, in smaller writing: Thanks for the coffee, sweetheart.
"Rental," the biker said before I could ask. His voice went flat. "That plate. I know rental stock when I see it. The county only uses one agency now. Enterprise out by the highway interchange. And that prefix — they reserve that block for corporate accounts."
I stared at him. "How do you know that?"
"Because twenty-four years ago your dad was chasing the same block." He turned the slip over. Nothing on the back. "The founder's company kept a fleet account there. Still does. Same agency, same lot, same damn prefix. I saw it on the invoices when I pulled his trash for him."
I felt cold despite the diner heat. The carafe sweated onto the laminate. I thought about the two men by the windows and how the one in the olive jacket had looked past me, like he was memorizing where I lived, not just my face.
The biker took his phone out and photographed the polaroid and the plate, then texted it without asking me. A minute later his phone buzzed.
Sheriff Dalton walked in through the back door we'd left unlocked for him. He didn't look like a sheriff without his hat — just a tired man in a brown windbreaker, his radio turned low.
He looked at the photo, at the plate, at me.
"That confirms it," he said. "They're not drifting. They're reporting back where you sleep."
I picked up the polaroid again. My hand wasn't shaking now. It was too still. "So what do I do? I can't stay there."
"You can," Dalton said. "But you won't tonight. And you're not going to run."
The biker frowned. "She should disappear for a few days. My sister's place over in Miller County—"
"No," I said. The word came out before I thought it through. "If I disappear, they know you warned me. They'll just come back. Or they'll find my mom."
Dalton nodded once, like he'd been waiting for me to say it.
"I want to use the next shift," I said. My voice sounded smaller than I wanted it to. I cleared my throat. "Tomorrow's lunch rush. You said you needed them to talk while you were listening. Let them come back. I'll be at the counter with a fresh carafe. You'll be here."
Dalton studied me. "You'd be bait in your own diner."
"I've been bait since I was born and nobody told me," I said. "I'd rather be bait on purpose."
The biker started to object, then stopped. He looked at the carafe, at the spill ring it had left, at my white apron hanging on the hook.
Dalton pulled out a small notebook. "We do it right. I'll have two plainclothes in booths. Real customers, real food. One at the counter with a paper. You'll wear a wire if you'll let me. No — not a wire. Too obvious with that uniform. We'll put a recorder in the order pad. You do nothing different. You pour coffee, you smile. Let them start it."
"And if they don't talk?" I asked.
"They will," he said. "Men who leave a photo want credit for it."
After Dalton left, the biker locked the front door and flipped the sign. The diner felt too bright.
I went into the little bathroom and pulled my apron on over my clothes so I could feel where the pocket sat. At my apartment later, I sat at my kitchen table with a grocery receipt and a pen I stole from the diner.
I didn't know how to start. I wrote: Mom — If you're reading this it means they came back and I was right about dad. He didn't leave. He was killed 24 years ago and someone covered it. I'm at the diner tomorrow with the sheriff listening. Don't lie to me anymore. I put your name on my birth certificate back, not his. I love you — then I crossed out the last line and wrote it again anyway.
May you like
I folded it three times and slipped it into the green order pad in my apron pocket, and then I tucked the apron over the back of my kitchen chair where I'd see it first thing in the morning.
I didn't sleep much. But I didn't pack a bag either.
