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“I’m going to check the dining room,” she said, trying to gather the shreds of her Devon-the-guy persona around herself. “The salt, pepper and ketchups need to be filled after yesterday.”
They always needed filling the morning after chicken-fried special night. Taking her caddy over to the long counter, she started with the seats there. She’d just finished filling the last salt and pepper shakers along the row when the bell went off over the front door.
A dark-haired man in a black suit and no overcoat, despite the weather, walked in and paused just inside the threshold. He brushed snow off his shoulders while looking around, dark eyes scanning the whole diner as if cataloguing every element and person in the establishment.
A shiver clawed down Dev’s back and danger alarms went off, blaring like emergency sirens in her head.
Run, run, run!
But she couldn’t. Not without being obvious.
She had to brazen her way through dealing with this stranger. Her panicked reaction to his appearance was probably nothing more than her paranoia, anyway. They didn’t get a lot of strangers in the diner, or in Daly for that matter, but people did occasionally come through since the town was expanding and a rural highway did run right through the main drag.
“Seat for one?” she asked, taking care to deepen her voice and forcing her words to remain even and unconcerned.
He gave a curt nod, his eagle-like stare zeroing in on her like a predator spotting prey.
Fuck, fuck, fuck! Run, Devon.
“Not busy today,” she said. “Grab a seat anywhere you’d like.” Preferably in Gillette—or another country. Yeah, faraway would be way better than here. “I’ll be right with you.”
“Actually,” he said, making a beeline right toward her. She forced herself to stand her ground and not step back, not run. There were other people here. Hugh Redder was at a table near the back wall, nursing his coffee. Brian and John were seated at the booth closest to the door. They’d intervene if she needed it. Nothing would happen to her. She hoped.
The stranger reached inside his suit coat, and she tensed. He pulled out a picture then thrust it toward her.
“Have you seen this girl?” He affected a concerned face she didn’t buy for a second. “This is my niece who’s gone missing. Our family is so worried and desperate to find her.”
His niece? Bullshit. The girl in the photo was her. And he most certainly wasn’t her uncle.
No, no, no. This wasn’t fair. Just when she thought she might be able to move on with her life, they’d found her.
Sucking in a slow breath, she forced herself to remain calm—or at least appear to—and shoved her shaking hands into the pockets of her jeans. Brow furrowed, she made a show of studying the snapshot, frankly shocked the guy didn’t recognize her. She really did look different from the carefree young girl in the pic, she supposed. And the man was looking for a long-haired, cherub-faced female, not a male with a faux-pompadour.
She shook her head. “Nope. Can’t say I have.”
He jabbed the picture closer. “Take a good look. Are you sure you haven’t seen her pass through here, seen her anywhere in town?”
Dev shook her head again. The photograph had been taken on her sixteenth birthday, and she actually hadn’t been carefree, had she? Her eyes looked so sad. Her mom had been in the hospital, but Walter had insisted on a party to commemorate the milestone age. She hadn’t even known most of the people he’d invited.
And her cheeks… Her entire face had a baby look to it, much fuller than it was now. Though she hadn’t been chubby, she’d weighed at least twenty-five pounds more, as well. Long waves of chestnut-brown hair had fallen around her shoulders in a silky curtain. Oh, that hair… It had been so pretty. It had always been her favorite thing about her appearance.
“Nah,” she said again. “She’s a cute kid. I think I’d remember her, but I ain’t never seen her. Brian, John, you seen this girl?”
From the corner of her eye, she say Hugh watching the stranger and he set down his mug, his chin lower. She’d never seen him look so suspicious of someone. Usually he seemed not to give a care about anyone who came in.
The stranger followed her gaze to Brian and John, though, then he walked over to show the picture to them. After taking it from him and appearing to study it, they handed it back and shook their heads. Dev tensed when the door swung between the back room and the front of the house. She glanced over at Leena in a panic that the woman might say Dev’s when she came up front from her office, where she’d gone while Dev filled condiments. However, Leena took in the scene in an instant and seemed to realize something was off.
“What’s going on?” she asked quietly as she read Dev’s expression.
“That guy over there is showing around a photo of a girl who’s missing.”
Leena went stiff and her eyes narrowed, her mama bear emerging. She chin angled, then she gave a slow nod.
“I’ll go check that out. You head into back and get more napkins, will ya? Get the Cannon-Hawk brand ones.”
“Got it, Boss.” Cautioning herself not to run, Devon wasted no time disappearing from the stranger’s presence. She pushed through the swinging door to the backroom then sagged against the wall beside it, shaking.
Her heart raced, her breathing harsh. Now that she was out of sight, she couldn’t stop trembling and tears burned her eyes and nose. Why? Why, God, why? She’d been found. They’d found her! At the very least, her stepfather and his associates had discovered where she’d been hiding all this time. And just like that, her safe haven was gone.
