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have to go to the public library or the office to check my e-mail and search for porn.
    I turned on the television and discovered it got all the local cable channels. I stopped flipping the channels when I found the Twins playing a double-header. At least I wouldn’t be totally isolated up here.
     

 
     
     
     
     
     
     
    CHAPTER THREE
     
     
    Since I hadn’t had time to go grocery shopping, and without reliable wireless service, I had to trust local word-of-mouth to find someplace for breakfast the next morning. The reed-thin, grey-haired man shuffling down Main Street walking his equally skinny dog assured me that everyone went to Stan’s 24-hour diner. It was one of those old-fashioned drive-in joints with only a few tables; most people sat around the dozen and a half stools that hugged a huge, curved countertop. A flattop grill dominated the center of the restaurant where a man, who I assumed was Stan, made your food while you watched.
    I settled down on a vacant stool situated between two older men. The man to my right had his eyes closed, and if not for the way the coarse hairs of his mustache fluttered with each exhale, I would have worried he had died in the middle of breakfast. The man on my left peeled a hardboiled egg with impressive dexterity as if he’d done it every morning of his life.
    I ordered French toast and coffee from a waitress who stared at me like she was trying to look under my skin. It was obvious that people in Embarrass knew each other. I was a stranger, and I could see the curiosity and distrust in people’s stares.
    “You’re not from around here.”
    I twisted on my stool to regard Mr. Hard-Boiled Egg. His light brown eyes squinted in contemplation.
    “No, sir. I’m not.”
    “I’m Franklyn Walker,” he said, grabbing my hand and giving it a hearty shake.
    “Cassidy Miller,” I returned. I eased my hand out of his tight grip. “I just got hired on with the police department.”
    “Police, eh?” He widened his toothy grin. “I used to be the Circuit Court judge, but now I’m one of those retirees. Last vestibule of royalty in society, I’ve always said. How many other people get called ‘Your Honor?’”
    “That’s a good point, sir.”
    Franklyn Walker was one of those people who told you his life story within the first few minutes of meeting him. “I’m too old to have secrets anymore,” he explained to me. He was small in build and easily excitable.
    His wife, Deborah, perched beside him, was quiet and quick to roll her eyes. She seemed to balance out his over-exuberance. They’d been married for fifty years, and Franklyn wore that fact like a badge of honor.
    When I asked if they had any kids, he said they did, but he claimed he didn’t know how many. “I mostly saw them in the rearview mirror on family road trips,” he told me. “That was back in the day before everyone flew everywhere. We had a station wagon with two back bench seats. I never could keep track of them all. Things have changed, but not always for the better,” he continued on. “Now you get frisked every time you wanna get on an airplane.”
    “Frank,” his wife scolded. “Leave the poor girl alone. She came here for breakfast, not to have her ear talked off.”
    “I like meeting new people,” Franklyn defended himself. “Everyone I know is either buried in the Catholic cemetery or they’ve moved to Florida.”
    The bell above the diner door rang with the entrance of a new customer. I glanced briefly in the direction of the sound, and the French toast nearly fell out of my mouth.
    It was her. The woman from the Minneapolis club.
    “Coffee to go, please.”
    God, that voice.
    Franklyn had fallen silent with the woman’s entrance. He’d greeted everyone who walked in with a boisterous good morning and a comment about the weather or how good he thought the high school football team would be that season. But he said nothing to the raven-haired woman as she waited for her