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STARBUCKS IS A COMPANY that has grown exponentially, from a single coffee bean to the largest coffee empire in the world. There is more than one reason for its success. First, coffee is addictive. Second, Starbucks provides a place for people to get together. Whatever the reason, Starbucks all over the world are hubs for people to gather, to talk, to read, and to work on whatever it is that people do on their laptops.
Black Rock didn’t have a Starbucks. Which meant that, in this case, the place that served as a hub was the diner, and that was where I was.
I sat in the same booth as before. Hazel was my waitress. The place was busy. It was the middle of the day, and the lunch crowd was here—hell, the whole town was here. The place was filled with restaurant sounds—the clinking of plates, the tinkling of silverware, and the humming from the ovens in the kitchen.
I drank a coffee and devoured a grilled chicken sandwich.
The diner was full of fishermen in from a morning on the lake. They swapped stories of their catches and gloated over those who had caught nothing. In the corner, across from me sat a group of firemen. They wore blue T-shirts with the town of Black Rock’s crest on the front and Fire Department written in big bold letters on the top.
One of them looked somewhat old to be a fireman, but I doubted they saw much action here. I figured that the townspeople were safe for now.
At another table sat a pair of office types, and across from them, nearer to the bathrooms, there was a blind guy with a younger man and a well-behaved golden retriever, a service animal.
I took the people in the booth next to me to be city officials of some sort. They wore suits and talked about town ordinances and spoke ill of the public by making the occasional joke about some lady who had apparently filed the wrong forms.
I decided to google the Matlinds again and see what else I could find out.
I took my cell phone out of my pocket and checked the Internet. I googled both Matlind and Dr. Matlind. No results. Then I typed in Faye’s name. Nothing. I searched combinations of their names and the word “married.” Nothing.
I checked a website related to local arrests and crimes. There was nothing about Faye and nothing about Chris. There was a good bit about the missing girls but nothing new to me. The cops were baffled before, and they still were today. They suspected that the girls were targeted because they had traveled alone on lonely highways and interstates.
The only thing that caught my attention was a website that had posted pictures of the missing girls, which was good because I could memorize their faces. Most were young. Some were white. Some black. Some Hispanic. The only thing that jumped out at me about them was that they were all beautiful. Not simply attractive, but beautiful—like models in real life. They were drop-dead gorgeous.
The website also mentioned a missing teenage girl from my town—Ann Gables. There was a picture of her with an amber alert on the website. She was a minor, and she was black and stunningly beautiful. That was interesting. She was black, and Faye was also black.
Whoever was behind their disappearances had obviously picked them because they were so good-looking, but I was sure this was information the FBI and local sheriffs already had. If Deputy Gemson was any indication as to the performance of the local sheriff’s office, I wasn’t surprised they hadn’t found any of the girls yet.
I thought about Faye’s possible connection to the missing girls. Perhaps it was related, or perhaps Chris was right about the rednecks. Or maybe she had left him. It happened.
I switched my phone to standby and slipped it back into my pocket. Then I sat back and tried to pick up on any clues I might have missed.
An old guy was seated across from me at the next booth. He wore a red trucker’s hat and blue overalls. He tilted a white coffee mug all the way back until its contents were emptied. Then he stood up and thanked Hazel and left money on the table.
I watched him leave the diner and looked back at his table. He had left behind today’s newspaper. I had seen guys leave their newspapers behind before. They left them for the next reader like the change left in one of those take-a-penny cups at the gas station. They just paid it forward.
I scooted out of my booth, stood up, and reached across the aisle. I swiped up the paper—it was USA Today—and began skimming through it. It wouldn’t have local stories, but that didn’t matter. I was interested in the cover story. There was a giant photo of a Hispanic man. In large print above his picture it read: WHERE IS HE?
The article was about Oskar Tega. The DEA was having a real problem finding him. They now believed he had escaped by private jet. They thought he was in Cuba but hadn’t ruled out the possibility he was still in the US.
The article recapped how Tega had escaped capture and landed in a small town in Texas. One of his farms was located there. His men had stocked up on whatever kind of drugs he manufactured and then had burned the whole town to the ground — some kind of scorched earth policy.
That was when I noticed the four sheriff’s deputies outside. One of them was Deputy Gemson. They had rolled up to the front of the diner, light bars flashing. The Dodge Intrepids with the police package, a good deal. Finally, they were getting their money’s worth.
The other patrons stared out of the diner windows. They didn’t react. I supposed no one knew what to do. Many of them had never seen the cops use their light bars before, not in this town.
The cops jumped out of their cars and lined up behind them outside of the diner. They drew their weapons and pointed them at the front doors. Two shotguns. Mossberg 590s. Both had pistol grips, and both were deadly. Probably department issued. Not good for their target. The other two deputies, including Gemson, held Glocks.
I saw one of them get on his radio. There was some inaudible chatter, and then the guys ran for the door. They had decent moves. Probably practiced their entries at least once a week. One shotgun and one deputy with a Glock covered the front door, and Gemson and the other deputy ran around the building and out of sight. I imagined they were covering the back door.
In seventeen seconds from start to finish, they were in the diner. It took sixteen and a half seconds before I realized they were there for me.
I had spent my summers training with my mom, and I knew the routine. I knew the score. There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that these country boys were here for me. Gemson hadn’t heeded my advice. Instead of going home and sleeping it off, he had gone and rounded up his cop buddies.
I finished my coffee and stood up. Hands raised.
Gemson entered through the back with the deputy carrying a shotgun. The other two came in through the front at a nice speed, sweeping the room and scanning the other patrons, all of whom had dropped as low as they could. Hazel hid behind the counter. One guy in the kitchen stuck his head out and then pulled it right back in half the time it had taken him to stick it out in the first place.
The first deputy with the shotgun screamed at me to get down. He screamed it over and over. “Get down! Get down!”
I stayed standing. I wasn’t going to get down. No way. I had just cleaned my clothes the night before, and I wasn’t about to get them dirty on this floor. These guys could forget about that.
Gemson eyeballed me and moseyed on over. I noticed immediately that he had listened to me, partially because it was obvious he’d gone home. He’d showered and changed his clothes before grabbing the cavalry—he didn’t stink of booze anymore. Probably hadn’t wanted them to notice it. It would’ve been harder to explain to his cop buddies that he had been intoxicated on the job. It would’ve made my defense more plausible.
He moved closer. Too close. If I’d wanted to, I could have lunged for him. I could’ve grabbed his Glock and shot him in the chest before he knew it before any of them knew it was happening.
These other cops weren’t going to fire. Not in here. Too crowded. There were women and children present. Even if they did fire, I could swipe the gun and duck and roll and get enough shots off to kill the one who had run in with Gemson. He’d be dead, and I would’ve shot my way out the back, but I did nothing. I stood still with my hands up. Then I lowered them and held them out in the universal gesture for “cuff me.”
And Gemson did. He stepped up like a hero and slapped the cuffs on me—tight.
He said, “I got ya, city boy.”
I smiled for three reasons. First, he had cuffed me in the front. Rookie mistake. Second, he had gotten close enough that I could still have taken his weapon from him. The third thing, I said out loud, “I’m not a city boy. I grew up in a town smaller than this, but you probably think that I’m from the city because I can read books and speak with big words.”
He sneered and said, “Ya under arrest, boy. Silence is one of ya rights, and I suggest ya exercise it.”
Boy? he had called me. I smiled. I hadn’t been called that in a long time. Silence was something I was good at. I stayed quiet.