Our gazes held. Destiny was the name pinned to her uniform shirt. She gave me a nod that read of deep understanding. Scooping up the bill and the cash, she slid them into her pocket. She picked up the man’s coffee mug, stuck it in the sink, and placed a fresh mug in front of me, filling it full.
Okay, what was that look of understanding? If she had been on the run without funds and hungry, maybe she too had slid in front of a half-finished meal and gobbled it down. Or maybe she thought that I was in trouble with the police now prowling the restaurant.
Either way, she was protecting me.
I would play the role of starving runaway. I slathered the toast with butter and jelly and gobbled it down, closing my eyes as I relished the taste, then wiping my eyes.
Destiny glanced toward the restrooms as Barb power-walked toward the cash register and the grizzled old man with a dirty apron who stood there, taking people’s money.
“Jim, I quit.” She put her apron on the counter.
Jim didn’t seem perturbed.
A cop pointed at Barb. “Hey,” he said.
Barb looked around for an escape. I turned back to the leftovers on the plate. I could watch the cops and Barb in the mirror behind the condiment shelf. I reached over next to me to gather a set of napkin-wrapped utensils.
With the napkin on my lap, I used the knife to carefully remove the parts of the food that the man had touched. He left plenty for a hungry runaway, potatoes, eggs, he’d eaten all the bacon, only a small piece of fat remained. I was going for it. This was an excellent cover story.
I peeked up to see Destiny’s reaction. Modesty… Destiny. She could have changed her name for protection. Sure enough, she’d blanched. Her hands trembled, sloshing coffee from the pot. She set the pot on the counter. Grabbing up a rag, she crouched to the floor, cleaning up the spill.
I wasn’t convinced that wasn’t done to hide from police eyes.
“I don’t want any trouble,” Barb said. “I just want to go home.”
“Can we go somewhere and talk privately?” the male officer asked.
“No.” Barb’s face was red and angry. “I’m not going anywhere with any man. No way. No.”
“Did you know the men who attacked you?”
I wondered how they knew that she was the focus of the attack. She had no physical signs of the altercation.
I pulled the elastic from my ponytail and let my hair fall across my cheeks as I bent over the plate, scooping up a forkful of potatoes.
“Did you know any of those men?” he asked.
“No. I was taking out the trash.”
Jim crossed his arms over the expanse of his chest, resting their weight on the bulge of his stomach. “Someone attacked you? That’s why you’re quitting?”
“Second time this week. On Tuesday, the man just took my tip money. This time they wanted to shove me into their car and take me for a ride.”
“Same men?” the officer asked.
“Aren’t all men the same?” She looked over at Destiny. “Make the guys take out the trash. Don’t go out back alone. Good luck to you.” Then Barb pushed past the officers and headed out the door.
I bent over my plate, pretending not to care what the heck was going on between Barb and the police.
“Anything I can get you, officers? Coffee? Doughnuts?” Jim asked.
Ding. Ding. Ding. I knew how the police figured out a waitress had been attacked—that was the message I’d sent Iniquus. They would have conveyed that to dispatch. Man, I was slow today. I needed to focus.
Spyder depended on me to do a good job here.
As the police walked back out the door, I stood up to walk over to Jim, picking up Barb’s apron. “Looks like you have a new opening for a server. I need a job.”
“You have experience?”
“Sure.”
He ran a thick index finger up and down the length of his nose while he assessed me. He pointed at his cheek in the same place where I had sustained the hit. “I don’t need no trouble like Barb had.”
“My cheek? That’s not trouble. That was just an accident going in your ladies’ room. That lady who just quit yanked open the stall door into my face. So any trouble I’m having already walked out that door.” I pointed at the front, where a couple of men walked under the tinkling bells.
“Barb did that?” Jim asked, looking for the lie.
“No. Barb didn’t do that. My face was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Barb didn’t mean to hurt me.”
He pulled out a clipboard from under the counter. “You can work Barb’s schedule. I’ll give you a trial week. At the end of the week, I’ll see. I don’t pay you nothin’. You get what you make. I don’t like doin’ no reporting to the IRS. No paperwork for you to fill out that way.”
“When’s my first shift?”
Chapter Nine
At my house, on Silver Lake, I climbed from the Lyft. “I’ve given you a tip and a good review.”
“Hey, thanks, I appreciate it,” the gal said as I closed the passenger door.
My teammate Reaper and his wife Kate were climbing the stairs to the duplex. I owned the building and rented out the left side to them.
Kate was cuddling her infant Little Guy to her chest. “Hey Lexi,” she called out softly.
I raised my hand.
Reaper backed down the step, the diaper bag slung over his shoulder. His gaze hard on my face. “What happened?”
I reached up and touched my cheekbone. Yeah, the swelling had gotten worse. “I stopped a kidnapping.” I gave him a
