Chapter 21

Chapter

Twenty-One

REMY

T he diner held a half-dozen customers. A couple of farmer types holding up space at the counter. Another pair at a back table with a game of checkers in front of them. The waitress was just putting on another pot of coffee as we walked in.

Every eye in the place seemed to be on us. The man in the booth nearest us had a newspaper open in front of him and the crossword half-filled out. He studied us carefully. The only one watching without making a show of it was the bearded black man four seats back.

He had his head down, hands wrapped around his coffee cup and a book open that he wasn't reading. I couldn't quite get a read on his age, the beard offered some camouflage for his face and the lowered eyes meant I couldn't quite see the lines around his eyes.

Everyone else made no pretense of openly studying us. The door to the back opened, letting out steam and the smell of frying grease. The cook wanted to get a look at us too.

The waitress finally turned toward us. Dressed in a powder blue shirt dress uniform with a cute apron over the front that had definitely seen better days. She had salt and pepper hair, aged lines marked her face from too much time in the sun. The pinched look to her mouth wasn't remotely encouraging. The cool assessment in her eyes told me a great deal about how she was taking our weight and measure.

Giving her our back would be a mistake. Noted.

Three facts about Juniper presented themselves in the eerie tableau of the diner. The waitress was the first woman we'd seen since we got here. Not counting her, not a person in the place appeared over forty. Though her time in the sun may be hiding her age.

"You are open, right?" McQuade was asking because the waitress hadn't moved or said a word. It was like he jolted them all back to action with the statement.

"Sure are. Grab yourself a table and I'll be over in a minute."

"Thanks." McQuade swung his head briefly to meet my gaze. He didn't like this place anymore than I did. It was full of bad sight lines. He cut a glance to Locke once then back to me and I nodded.

I'd take one side, McQuade would take the other. We'd watch each other's backs and keep Locke covered. With that in mind, I followed him to a booth closer to the black man. McQuade might have continued past him, but I tapped the table once and he pivoted.

I slid in on the side that would let me look past McQuade to the man who glanced up so briefly, I nearly missed it. His eyes widened a fraction when his gaze struck mine. He hunched his shoulders a little more and frowned at his book.

Filing the behavior away, I leaned back in a stretch and identified everyone in their place. The waitress hustled over with the menus and slid them onto the table. "Breakfast is over, but I might can talk Big Bob into doing some bacon or something if you want."

"That's fine," Locke said, his voice so smooth and easy with the drawl he'd picked up off the deputy. Useful skill, but also creepy. "We heard a rumor about cherry pie and how fine it is."

The hard lines around the waitress's eyes relaxed a fraction as she smiled. It took me a moment to register it, but she was blushing. All Locke had done was say something about pie and smile.

McQuade hid a smirk with a cough. "Yeah," he added in his gruff voice. "The deputy told us not to miss out. That you made the best pie in the county."

"An endorsement like that," Locke said as he picked up the thread, "definitely must be followed."

"Well," the waitress said pulling a pen from behind her ear before she smoothed down her skirt. She wore a name tag that read "Janice." "As it happens, we baked up fresh pie today and they've had just enough time to cool."

"What are the chances we can get it with a scoop of ice cream?" Locke put his hands over his heart like he was just begging for it.

"Pretty good," she answered, then gave his shoulder a slap with her little order check book. "Flirting will get you everything."

He chuckled.

"Well, Janice," Locke said smoothly. "May we get three cups of coffee. We're all big fans of coffee and pie with a little ice cream to cut the sugar."

Bloody prick. I didn't scowl at him. I was not a fan of coffee and he damn well knew it.

"I'll get that for you right now…"

"Hey, Janice…" One of the guys in the back called.

"Wait your turn, Tony, I've got real customers here." She didn't even look in his direction. "Let me grab your coffee then I'll go get that pie for you."

"Thanks, Janice."

He wasn't even laying it on thick, it was just natural charisma. Started making sense how he waltzed in and out of places.

"Have to admit, I'm impressed, Justus." The warm compliment in Patch's words made me wish I'd been the one doing the charming. "Don't let it go to your head. The waitress is calling someone in the back. I'm trapping the line so I can trace it. Watch your backs."

And just like that, we were all back to work. The man behind McQuade stared at us again. He yanked his gaze away swiftly when I caught him. The others in the place were making a point of not staring, but not this guy.

Did he know something? I wasn't getting a bad vibe off of him. If anything, I got worried more than anything else. That concerned me more than anger or claiming territory like the deputy had been doing.

Janice was back with our cups of coffee, sugar was on the table in a huge jar. "I wasn't sure if you fellas liked cream or not, so I opened a fresh carton for you." She slid the silver pitcher onto the table. "Be right back with that pie." She gave Locke a wink.

Her pleasant expression melted as she swung away. The hard-eyed look she gave our neighbor sent a warning along my nerves.

The man was already closing his book and picking up a hat from the seat next to him. He was on his feet before she was behind the counter again. After counting out a few bills hurriedly, he left with the book tucked under his arm and the hat on his head.

I tracked his progress as he headed down the street. I tapped against the table, it was a quick morse code.

"Yes, I can," Patch added. "I've got eyes on him. As long as he's in range of the cameras. Am I looking for something specific?"

That was a harder question to answer. I tapped out a no, but just to keep watch.

"Understood."

Having her in my ear was a comfort. All the work we'd done over the past few weeks, it had been the three of us while we watched over her and let her heal. Nearly losing her on that first op had cost us.

Cost her.

But having her in the chair, even if it was a whole new chair, was the kind of reassurance I didn't even know I wanted to have. Then we got to see her when we returned. It was better than our past.

So much better.

Janice was back in no time with the pies and ice cream. She gave me a frown. "Don't like the coffee hon?"

Not reacting proved easier than I thought. Coffee was not my favorite, but I could make it tolerable. I signed a swift message that the coffee was fine, I was waiting for the pie.

Bewildered, Janice turned to Locke, but McQuade said, "It's fine, Janice. He just likes to eat something with his coffee."

It was a rough translation. I added a couple of teaspoons of sugar and some cream to the bitter brew as Janice hovered over us. The itch in the back of my shoulder blades increased.

Should we even be eating this pie in this sketchy little town?

Locke seemed to have no such objections as he took a big bite of the cherry pie with some ice cream. "Oh, this is fantastic." He practically groaned the words. I somehow doubted it was as good as sex, but Locke was convinced.

Janice gave him another blushing smile and I finally took a sip of the coffee. Disgusting crap.

"Coffee's not so bad," Patch told me. "You just need to find the way you like it."

I tapped I liked it when it came in a tea bag and had boiling water poured over it.

Her rich, warm laughter settled me. Janice was still hovering. She looked at McQuade expectantly, so he also took a bite.

"This is pretty damn good." It was a rough compliment from a rough man. Janice was all smiles, then she looked at me.

I didn't pander to her. I just took a sip of my coffee and ignored her. She stared for another minute, then her gaze slid away. Yeah, it was uncomfortable to be ignored. One of us should stay clean of the pie in case she put something in it.

"I'll be right over there if you boys need anything," she said, finally excusing herself.

"Janice Harrold, age forty-two, she's lived in Juniper her whole life. Single. Was engaged when she was nineteen, but her fiancé went in the army, married some girl back at his base, and had Janice on the side when he came home. She only found out when he told his parents he was expecting a grandchild."

Sympathy lived in Patch's voice. I could understand why. It sounded like she hooked up with a shitty guy.

"She never left Juniper. She's worked in that diner since she was fifteen. Still lives in the house she inherited from her parents and drives an old model Ford truck. It's a piece of shit, but I bet it would be a sweet ride if she could afford to fix it up. Her income and outlay are pretty standard for a small town waitress. She makes enough to cover her bills, and nothing else. She doesn't have any extravagances that I can track down. Pretty clean medical record, no significant debt there…"

"Sounds too good to be true?" Locke asked as he took another bite of the cherry pie. If it had a poison in it, it wasn't fast acting cause he wasn't dead.

"Maybe," Patch hummed, but Locke was right. She was having trouble with some part of it. "I want to keep looking into this. But she called the sheriff's office, by the way, she wanted to make sure Sheriff Nelson knew there were some new folks in town."

Did she now?

I swallowed another mouthful of coffee. The sugar couldn't do anything against the bitterness, no matter how valiant the struggle.

"What did the fine gentleman have to say to that?" McQuade hid the fact he was asking a question by covering his mouth with his cup.

"Told her he knew, and to get the hell off the phone and back out there to watch you. He wants to know where you go and what you do." She didn't like that anymore than we did. "How do you boys feel about baiting the hook?"

"Depends on what we're using for bait," McQuade said in a tone that dictated quite clearly that we would not be using her.

"Mark Reynolds is the guy you have me watching, Remy," she said, blowing right past McQuade's stern tone. "He's relatively new to Juniper, moved there about two years ago. Keeps to himself, has a place over the barber's, little apartment. He's currently sitting in there staring at our SUV in the parking lot. His angle isn't good, and he's got his curtains mostly closed, but I'd say he wants to talk."

Sounded like it to me.

"Since you boys have an audience, why don't you split up? We need more cameras and I want to know which of my three bachelors they are interested in the most."

Her three bachelors?

I smoothed away the smile before it could form. She was having fun and I would never begrudge her this, whether she was teasing us or not.

"Sounds like a plan," Locke said, finishing his pie before he eyed mine. "You gonna eat that?"

I just stared at him.

"Fine, I'll take it for the team. But if I keel over dead, just appreciate my sacrifice."

I rolled my eyes and I wasn't alone in that. Splitting up was a good idea. I tapped a quick message on the tabletop.

"Agreed," McQuade said. "We'll send you to the bathroom, then we'll head out front."

I nodded once. I wanted to go see Mark Reynolds. He was worried about something. Was he worried about us or for us?

Definitely a question worth asking.

By the time they finished their pie, I was ready to hit the toilet. They rose and I left them to head to the back where the doors were marked for cowboys and cowgirls.

How quaint.

Inside, I appreciated the fact that it was clean. I took care of business, washed my hands, and then went to the window. It was a decent sized one and opened up to face the back.

"All clear," Patch told me. "Everyone is watching Locke and McQuade out front."

I couldn't hear them, she must have switched the channels on our comms. "Make sure you loop me back in with them if they get into trouble, luv."

"Will do."

I opened the window and let myself out. Closing it behind me took no time. I used the buildings for cover and moved along the back of them toward my destination. How lucky for me there were wooden steps leading up to the apartment above the shop.

Very convenient.

"Hold," she warned me before I cleared the next to the last building. The heat was a slug in the face after the coolness in the diner. The whole place just felt wrong. It was hard to put a definition on the why.

But it reminded me of those towns back in the fifties and sixties, where Soviets trained their operatives to blend into America by immersing themselves in the culture. Rumors of their little American towns were popular spy stories and showed up in plenty of media.

I didn't think this was housing Russian spies, but they were hiding secrets.

A lot of them.

"You're clear, go straight to the stairs. They have a couple of cameras back here, but I've hijacked them and put them on a loop."

I grinned. This was what I loved about her. She was always thinking three to five steps ahead.

"Let's go see what Mark knows, yeah?"