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She shouldn’t talk about it. The news hadn’t spread yet, though she was certain it would be in tomorrow morning’s edition of the Salty Sentinel, the free paper Sands ran.
    “Already, huh? They keeping you busy, the big boys?”
    “Yeah.”
    “Figures. Salt?”
    “Sorry?”
    “In your sandwich.”
    Sasha thought about it, but she knew that after a heavy night, she’d do best not to overdo it. “No, thank you.”
    Sipping from her coffee, she regarded Jenny. The woman was a Salty Springs lifer, like her mother before her. Seeing how she was now, a woman whose personality was all tendon and gristle, Sasha had always harbored a curiosity as to what Jenny, the teenager, or the young woman, might have been like.
    “So what’s new besides the promotion?” the woman croaked.
    “Nothing much at all.”
    “Still got plans to travel?”
    Sasha grinned, remembering that she had once talked at length to Jenny about visiting Southeast Asia. “It’s on my to-do list.”
    “Well, you’d better get a fuckin’ move on. You’re no spring chicken, darling.”
    “Thanks, Jenny.”
    “What about a man, Sasha?” The woman leaned forward, the corners of her lips plucked upward.
    Sasha rolled her eyes. “Just because I come here all the time doesn’t mean that we have to get to know each other, Jenny.”
    “I take it that’s a no.”
    “Not yet.”
    “Optimism. I like it. But you’ll want to hurry up with that, too.”
    “Yeah,” Sasha murmured through a bite of her sandwich. “I’m no spring chicken, right?”
    Jenny leaned forward then and pinched the fat on her upper arm. “It’s only going to get harder and harder to lose it.”
    She pulled her arm away, feeling the scrape of Jenny’s calloused fingertips on her skin. “Okay, we are definitely not having this conversation anymore.”
    But Jenny continued, unphased. “Get married, and you won’t have to worry anymore.”
    Sasha laughed. “Your generation had some funny ideas about marriage, you know.”
    The woman rapped her knuckles on the counter. “Did you see that new fella?”
    “Lots of new fellas in town these days,” she replied, but her curiosity was piqued, especially in light of the circumstances. “But tell me about him.”
    “Good looking young man. Big guy. Jawline like a fuckin’ axe. Black hair. Was in here not five minutes ago. Asking about police.”
    Sasha was staring at Jenny by the time she had finished her description. “Big?”
    “Yeah. Tall, too.”
    “And black hair?”
    “That’s what I said.”
    Sasha put her sandwich back down on the plate. She turned her head and looked out of the windows. “And he was asking about the police?”
    “Yep.”
    “What did he ask?”
    “Why there were so many of you.”
    “Is that all?”
    “Well I didn’t fuckin’ write it down, dear.”
    “He was here five minutes ago?” Sasha turned and looked out the window into the street, but it was empty.
    “That’s what I said.”
    “Which way did he go?”
    “He probably has a girlfriend, you know. He was very handsome. A real looker. Either that, or he’s gay. The good ones always are.”
    “Seriously, Jenny. Which way?”
    “Toward the gas station, I think. Why?” the woman asked, and her perpetual scowl evaporated, in its place narrowed eyes of nosiness. “Something going on?”
    “No,” Sasha said. “I’ll be back for the sandwich later.” She walked out of the small restaurant, and looked down the street toward the gas station. There was nobody in sight. The road shimmered with heat waves, and the sun was severe.
    “Shit,” Sasha said to herself. She set off down the road, jogging slightly, looking up and down each cross-street, each alley in between single-story buildings. She spotted the tall figure of a man, blurred in the distance down the space between two houses, and she ran back to her car, drove around the block with the intention of cutting him off at the other side.
    Rounding the corner, she saw