side. Nice guy, so-so tipper, a little too talky and a little too flirty.
The diner phone rang. Fran made no move to get it. Dollars to donuts it was a local, wanted to know if he could get a meal in before they closed for the night. Fran opened the top of the coffee machine, put in a cleaning tablet, and pressed the brew button. She took the practically empty carafe of leaded and gave Al another hit of caffeine. After five rings, the phone stopped.
“That was probably a customer,” Al said.
Fran smiled a waitress smile. “I’m not in it for the money. I’m in it because I love filling salt shakers.”
Al chuckled. “Well, you make a damn good cup of coffee.” He twisted the end of his mustache. “And you’re easy on the eyes, too.”
Fran knew she was tired because—for the briefest instant—she imagined herself romantically involved with Al. She squinted at him, marveling at how desperate she’d become.
While Fran didn’t consider herself beautiful, she had a full head of long, curly blond hair, and pale blue eyes, and a body that still fit nicely into a size six. Her late husband had told her, often, that she looked like Melanie Griffith. Fran could see the resemblance, when her makeup was on and she wore something flattering. She certainly didn’t lack for male attention. At one point or another, Fran had been propositioned by every eligible bachelor in town, and by countless others during the busy tourist season. But she hadn’t been on a date in months.
If she were in her twenties like Jessie Lee, she would have gone out more often. These days, romance came in the form of Lifetime on cable, books on tape borrowed from the library, and late-night baths with plenty of bubbles and a detachable oscillating shower head.
She’d given up hope on men. And though she didn’t mention it in therapy, Fran knew she’d also pretty much given up hope for happiness, as well.
A car horn snapped her out of her reverie. Fran glanced out the storefront window, saw a pickup truck motor past. Then a car. Then another car. Something was going on. Perhaps some kind of sports thing. A local team had apparently won, judging by the yells accompanying the horns. Fran didn’t follow sports, and she was in no mood for the diner to fill up with fans. She eyed the cat clock on the wall, its yellow eyes synchronized to its pendulum tail. Almost midnight. Merv had left an hour ago, trusting her to cook if any business walked in. None had. And none would. It was time to get home. She walked to the front door and flipped the hanging sign over to CLOSED.
Picking up a tray, Fran did a quick tour of the floor, pulling ketchup from the tables. She took the bottles back to the counter and unscrewed the caps, soaking them in some seltzer water from the soda fountain. Then she pulled a box of ketchup from under the counter and used the spigot to top off each bottle.
“This is kind of embarrassing.” Al held the check in his hand and a pained smile stretched across his hairy face. “I only have eight dollars on me.”
Fran sighed. Al’s bill was $8.32. Some shift. She wondered if she even made enough to cover groceries; she’d planned to stop at the Circle K on her way home.
“Don’t worry about it, Al. You’ll get me the next—”
Fran’s words caught in her throat when the lights went out. The darkness came fast and complete, as if someone had cinched a black bag over Fran’s head. She immediately shoved her hands out in front of her, banging her knuckles while reaching for the counter. Her fingers gripped the edge of the counter, tight, as if there were a chance it would be pulled away from her.
Since the accident Fran didn’t do well in the dark.
The silence carried weight. Along with the lights, the perpetual whir of the pie cooler had vanished, along with the white-noise buzz of the overhead fluorescent lights and the
Something jingled—keys—and then a sliver of light came from where Al sat. He pointed the keychain’s beam in Fran’s direction. Her heart pounded so hard she could hear it.
“I … I guess we blew a fuse,” Fran managed, trying to keep the panic at bay.
“I don’t think so.”
Al directed the light away from Fran, toward the store-front window. The streetlights were out. So was the Schnell’s Hardware sign across the street.
A car honked and buzzed past, making Fran almost wet herself.
“Traffic signal’s out, too,” Al said. “Might be a power line. Might be the generator.”
Al’s light played across the stools along the counter, casting long, creepy shadows. The darkness smothered Fran. It clogged her nose and pushed into her lungs, making it hard to breathe.
“Can … I borrow that?” Fran swallowed what felt like a golf ball in her throat. “I need to find candles.”
The beam hit Fran in the eyes. She stood there, clutching the counter, afraid to move.
“Missy, you look scared out of your head. Afraid of the dark? Is—oh … I’m sorry … I forgot about …”
Fran couldn’t see Al, but she could guess at the expression of sympathy his face now wore. She tried to make her voice sound stronger.
“I just need it for a minute, Al.”
The silence stretched. Fran felt a scream kicking around in her belly, threatening to come up.
“You know what?” Al finally said. “I’ve been eating here for twenty years, never been in the kitchen. How about I go with you?”
The relief Fran felt was physical. She sighed, filled her lungs, and walked over to him in the darkness.
Josh VanCamp turned in time to see his firefighting partner and close friend, Erwin Luggs, run straight into him.
The tackle was high, off-center. Four years of high school varsity football practice instantly kicked in, muscle memory prompting Josh to roll away from the pouncing body, retaining his footing even as Erwin ate the ground.
Josh felt something warm and wet on his face, stinging his eyes, and he recognized it as blood just as he dropped his flashlight.
“Erwin, what the—”
Erwin rolled onto his back, illuminating Josh’s face with the light he still retained. This brought a burst of pain as Josh’s pupils constricted, and he held up his hands to shield the glare. Then, behind him, he heard the familiar sound of the fire truck starting. He glanced over his shoulder, saw the blue and red flashing lights pull away, down Gold Star Road.
Josh took two steps toward the truck, then stopped. He wasn’t sure he wanted to catch whoever was driving. Closer investigation of the headless men in the cockpit proved that a broken helicopter blade couldn’t have been responsible for their injuries. Josh hadn’t ever seen a decapitation, but he saw that the cuts were jagged, not clean, and the high seat backs were intact above the shoulder line. A spinning blade would have cut off the seats as well as the heads.
Someone had murdered them. And Josh had no desire to meet that someone.
He went to his flashlight and shone it at Erwin, who hadn’t yet gotten off the ground. Blood soaked his friend so completely he looked like a red monster. Josh ran over and knelt next to him, hands and eyes seeking out the spot that was bleeding.
“Deer.” Erwin stammered. “Something killed a deer.”
“You hurt? You okay?”
“I’m okay.”
Josh offered a hand, helped the larger man to his feet. Then he dug out the cell phone in his front pocket. No signal. He walked ten feet left, and ten feet back, the phone before him like a talisman. Nothing.
He stared back at the helicopter, wondering what to do next. In the bay of the chopper were four empty seats and a large gurney with thick leather straps that looked like something out of a Frankenstein movie. The distance from the neck restraint to the ankle restraint had to be near seven feet, and the chest strap was long enough to encircle a rain barrel. What could have possibly been strapped there?
“We need to call the state troopers,” Josh said.
Erwin was trying to find a clean patch on his shirt to wipe his face, but there were no clean patches and he only succeeded in smearing the blood around.
“What about Sheriff Streng?”
