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Sam pushed the menu towards her. “You decide…”
Holly put in an order for the meatloaf. A middle aged couple had taken the two seats at the counter between Sam and the cash register, when she returned with his dinner. They were busy still studying the menus, so Holly went back to talk to Sam.
She wanted to ask him, if she could make him a flyer for his missing wife, but hesitated as she watched him toy with his meatloaf. The front door bell chimed and Holly looked up, as someone left. As the door swung closed, Holly suddenly realized that there was something wrong. She stared at the door for a long moment before she understood what was wrong. The flyer wasn’t on the door any more. Someone had removed Jana’s missing person flyer.
Out of the corner of her eye, Holly saw the couple motioning her, signaling that they were ready to order. She didn’t make eye contact and hurried to the back room.
She found the box of flyers and brought it back out front. She put it on the counter, still avoiding eye contact with the couple, as she rummaged under the cash register until she found some clear tape.
“We’re ready to order, young lady,” the women of the couple said.
“I’ll be with you in a minute,” Holly snapped. She pulled two flyers out of the box and went out front. By the time she’d put them up she’d used all of the tape.
“There,” she said to herself, satisfied with her work.
She went back inside, prepared to apologize to the couple for being just a little bit rude. She’d explain about her friend and give them a flyer. They’d understand.
But, when Holly spotted the couple, she could see that they’d already helped themselves. The woman was folding the canary yellow page and stuffing it in her purse.
“So, what will it
be?” Holly said as she regained her spot behind the counter.
“Can’t stay,” he said nervously and tugged at the women’s arm. “Come on, Joann, let’s go.”
Holly caught a glimpse of the women’s eyes. She knew something about Jana.
“Hey, don’t go. Come back.”
But they were already out the door hurrying to their car.
Jana ripped off her apron and tore around the corner.
“Where do you think you’re going?”
By the time she got outside, the couple was in their car, on their way out of the parking lot. With a gasp, she recognized the car. Her eyes locked in on the license plate. She pulled out a memo pad and a pen and wrote it down, then walked over to the flyers on the door and updated the partial plates.
When she walked back into the diner, she was fired on the spot. She didn’t care. She took her box of flyers and drove home. Then she called Jimmy, who called his cousin who worked for the DMV in Litton and owed him a favor.
Holly was closing in on Jana’s kidnappers.
~~*~~
Joann grabbed the flat of petunias and yanked it out of the back of the utility vehicle. She walked up the road to the edge of Merrick Flynn’s house, where her husband sat as if nothing had happened. She pursed her lips as he calmly troweled holes for the flower bed. She dropped the petunias from a foot in the air, almost hitting his boots as potting soil spilled from the tray.
“Damn it, woman, what’s wrong with you?”
“You know what wrong. What’s wrong is letting people like that poor girl in the restaurant continue to be worried sick, thinking the worst about a missing friend, and you and that boss of yours not giving two shakes about other people’s feelings.”
“He’s your boss too,” Charlie retorted.
“Well, not if I can help it. I’m calling him—I’m telling him that people think she’s been kidnapped. And if he doesn’t do the right thing and call that girl on the flyer, than I swear to you, Charlie, I will.”
Joann yanked off her garden gloves and threw them at her husband, hitting him on the back.
“Joann!”
But she didn’t listen to him. She got in her car and drove back to their house. He needed to know about that flyer.
