Chapter 8 - The Diner Window

The Main Street diner was warm, smelling of fried onions, roasted coffee, and buttered toast. I sat in a corner booth near the back, nursing a mug of lukewarm black coffee and a plate of scrambled eggs while reviewing the handwritten notes I had made in a cheap spiral notebook. Across the room, the midday lunch rush was winding down, leaving the hum of a ceiling fan and the low murmur of conversation between the cook and a lone regular at the counter.

Then the bell above the front door jingled.

A shadow fell across my table. I looked up, expecting a late lunch customer or the waitress coming by to refill my coffee. Instead, my breath caught in my throat. Through the large front plate-glass window, a sleek, dark luxury sedan—the exact make and model of the one parked at the mansion that rainy night—idled by the curb. The tinted window in the back rolled down a few inches, revealing the glint of a silver cuff link and the sharp silhouette of a man watching the storefront with cold, methodical patience.

Panic surged through my veins, hot and blinding. He hadn't given up. He wasn't relying on the police, because involving the authorities would draw public attention to a domestic fracture the estate could not afford. Instead, he was using private investigators, corporate reach, and deep pockets to sweep through every small town along the highway routes.

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I shrank back against the Naugahyde booth, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird. The waitress walked over with a coffee pot, but I waved her away without looking up, tossing a five-dollar bill onto the table. If I stayed in the front dining room, they would walk through that door within two minutes.

I stood up, grabbing my canvas bag and the small plastic shopping bag containing my clinic paperwork, and hurried toward the kitchen exit past the swinging doors. The cook didn't even look up as I slipped past the prep tables and out the heavy metal back door into the alleyway, my boots splashing through puddles as I searched for a way out of the block before the sedan could circle the corner.