Chapter 7 - The Abandoned Diner
The sign hanging above the weathered screen door of the roadside diner swung lazily in the damp morning wind, creaking on rusted hinges. Painted in faded blue letters, it read *The Timberline Grill*, though the parking lot was completely empty save for a rusted pickup truck parked near the overflowing dumpster. The man cut the engine, the van's radiator hissing softly as steam curled up from beneath the hood. We sat in silence for a long moment, listening to the drip of condensation falling from the pines onto the metal roof above us.
"Stay here," the man said, looking back at me and then toward Elena. "I'll go inside and see if the landline works or if they have Wi-Fi that isn't tied to a commercial account." He pushed open his door and stepped out into the gravel, his dark brown suit jacket pulling slightly across his broad shoulders. He walked with a measured, deliberate gait, his head turning to scan the treeline before he reached the aluminum screen door and disappeared inside the dim interior.
Elena leaned forward, resting her elbows on the dashboard. She let out a long, shuddering breath, her fingers trembling as she reached into her pocket to pull out the small metal flash drive she had retrieved from the wall safe. "If the encryption on this drive matches the protocols my firm worked on three years ago, we're looking at a multi-million-dollar asset diversion scheme," she murmured, half to herself. "Your boss didn't just embezzle from the charity foundation, Clara. He used the estate's accounts to fund dummy corporations across three different states."
"I never saw the books," I replied softly, my hands still tightly clasped around my knees. "I only cleaned the east wing and kept my head down. When you're invisible, people leave documents on desks, they talk on the phone assuming the maid is deaf or stupid." I swallowed the lump in my throat, remembering the cold, empty bed in the master suite that had started this entire nightmare. "I saw him transfer funds late at night. I saw the names on the printouts he forgot to shred."
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The screen door creaked open, and the man stepped back out into the pale morning light. He didn't look panicked, but his jaw was set in a hard line. He walked briskly back to the van, pulled open the driver's door, and slid inside, bringing a faint scent of stale coffee and damp linoleum with him. "The place is deserted," he said, turning the key in the ignition. The engine sputtered to life with a loud cough. "No Wi-Fi, but the old payphone on the back wall is operational, and the kitchen has power. More importantly, I saw a sheriff's cruiser parked three miles back down the ridge, facing this way. They're canvassing the county roads."
Elena shoved the flash drive back into her pocket, her eyes widening. "They tracked the van's GPS coordinates faster than I calculated." He shifted into gear and pulled out of the gravel lot onto the blacktop, accelerating away just as a distant siren began to wail through the valley.
