Twenty feet ahead an exit ramp led to a commercial strip off the highway. It had no signage to indicate the name of the town or what businesses were located there, but the view was clear. The road made a bugle just off the ramp. On the side of the road, just at the point where it straightened out again, sat a gleaming aluminum structure with distinctive red stripes. A tall sign in the parking lot read “Barkley Diner—Homemade Pies. Breakfast Served All Day.”
He swerved right and took the exit. Aroostine’s stomach growled in anticipation as he pulled into a spot next to a blue pickup truck. She tucked Isaac’s emergency twenty into her pocket and practically ran to the door. A hand-lettered signed read “Open Twenty-One Hours A Day.”
“Wonder which three they’re closed?”
“Who cares. As long as they’re open now.” Joe pushed open the door and held it for her.
Walking inside she felt as if she were a time traveler. The Barkley Diner wasn’t retro. It was the original—evidently unchanged since circa 1960. A long aluminum counter anchored the space and ran most of the length of the narrow room. Red vinyl barstools lined the counter every couple feet, evenly spaced on the black-and-white checkerboard floor. On each end of the building, two sets of vinyl booths were wedged in the corners, providing eight tables for patrons who didn’t want to sit at the counter. All of the booths were unoccupied. Two stools were taken, each with an empty stool on either side.
A young waitress with bright blond hair and cat-eye glasses raised her head at the tinkle of the bell over the door.
“Hi there, folks. Go ahead and sit where you like. I’ll be over in a minute with some menus.”
The old guy closest to the door didn’t look up from his paperback and plate of steak and eggs, but the younger man, two stools away, turned and raised his ceramic mug in silent greeting.
“You go pick a table. I want to wash up real quick,” Aroostine whispered to Joe.
“What do you want to drink?”
“Just water. Lots of water.”
She scanned the room. There was only one logical location for the restrooms, so she walked to the right, went down a short corridor, and squeezed through the doorway that separated the corner booths from the counter and the kitchen behind it. The bathroom was tiny and dimly lit but clean. She let the water run until it was as hot as she could stand, then pushed up her sleeves, and scrubbed her hands—from her fingernails to up past her wrists—as though she were prepping to perform surgery. Then she wet a coarse paper towel, wrung out the excess water, and wiped the grime from her face. She grimaced at her reflection in the warped mirror. She’d done what repairs she could—her efforts would have to suffice until she got back to the hotel. The thought of a very long, very hot shower—or better yet, a bath—was almost more appealing than food. Almost. She tossed the towel in the wastebasket and headed back to the front of the restaurant.
Joe had settled on the booth tucked into the far left corner. He stood when she neared the table.
“My turn.” He turned sideways and shimmied past her in the narrow aisle.
She hesitated. If she took the seat across from where Joe had been sitting, she’d have her back to the door—inadvisable, considering someone was trying to kill them. Sitting side by side would be cozy, she decided. She scooted across the booth and situated herself in the corner. Then she looked around. The wall to her left was one long mirror. The opposite wall was a floor-to-ceiling window that ran all the way to the diner’s door. Even worse, though, right behind her head was another floor-to-ceiling window that ran across the entire side of the building. They were eating lunch in a fishbowl.
No one’s going to kill you in broad daylight in a diner in Barkley, Oregon—mostly, because nobody knows you’re here, she told herself.
Joe returned. He raised a brow at her seating choice but slid in next to her. He raised his hips off the booth, dug Isaac’s keyring out of his front pants pocket, and tossed the keys on the table. The stainless cylinder dangling from the ring thudded against the Formica table.
“Look at you two lovebirds. You folks ever been here before?” said the waitress with a wide smile as she slapped two laminated menus down in front of them.
“Nope. We’re tourists.” Joe grinned at her.
“You’re lost then. Nothing worth touring out here,” she informed him. “But the silver lining is you wandered into the home of Elle’s fabulous homemade pies.”
“We’re going to have to try some then,” Aroostine said. “But I think I need a meal first.”
“Let me get your drink order in and you can take a look at the menu.”
Aroostine asked for a glass of water, and Joe ordered an iced tea. The waitress, whose name tag identified her as Donna, left them to consider their lunch choices.
Joe studied the menu while Aroostine stared out the window at the mostly empty parking lot. She craned her neck to look out the window behind them and then scanned the front of the lot. She felt someone watching her and looked at the counter. The younger of the two men sitting on the stools gave her a curious look.
She flashed him a forced smile then picked up her menu.
“What are you getting?” she asked Joe, turning the pages absently.
“A reuben and fries. You?”
“Scrambled eggs and toast. Want my bacon?”
“What do you think?” he asked, elbowing her in the ribs.
She smiled and absently spun the keyring in a circle. The weight of the cylinder made it turn more quickly than she anticipated. It flew sideways and skittered to a stop against the mirror.
“Oops.”
Donna returned with two pebbled plastic tumblers.
“Here you go.” She placed the drinks in front of them and flipped open her order pad. “What’ll it be?”
They ordered their meals, and she rattled them back to confirm she had them right. As she headed back to the kitchen, the younger man from the counter stood and headed their way.
The waitress turned to eyeball the guy’s back as he passed her. Aroostine’s stomach tightened. Beside her Joe stiffened. She grabbed the keys and held them in her fist with the key sticking out between her index and middle fingers, ready to jab the guy in the eyes. Under the tabletop, Joe gripped her thigh—whether in warning or to calm her she couldn’t tell.
The guy stopped about three feet away from the table and cocked his head. He was an unremarkable-looking white guy somewhere between five feet, ten inches and six feet tall, somewhere between twenty-five and thirty-five years old.
“Can I help you, buddy?” Joe asked, not rudely, but with no invitation in his voice.
“Just wondering where you got the car out front.” His tone was flat, nasal but not menacing.
“It’s a loaner. Why?”
The guy narrowed his eyes. “Looks a lot like a car a friend of mine used to drive.”
“Oh? Who’s your friend?” Aroostine asked brightly, hoping he couldn’t hear her heart pounding from where he stood.
“Nobody. Just a guy I know.”
They looked at the man, and he looked back at them for a moment in silent détente.
“Do you work at the casino up at White Springs?” she pressed.
His face closed. Gave no clues. He just turned and walked back to his stool.
“Weirdo,” Joe mumbled under his breath. He loosened his grip on her leg.
She exhaled and relaxed her hand, letting the key slip to the table.
“Yeah. Just some freak. We need to chill out.” She kept her voice calm to reassure him, but her heart was knocking against her chest.
“A hot bath and some rest will go a long way to rebalancing us,” he agreed.
A hot bath. She let herself drift into a daydream about bubbles and a nearly endless supply of water.
When Donna came back balancing their food on a round tray, Aroostine asked if she knew the guy at the counter.
Donna wheeled around and looked at the counter. “Who? Old Christian over there reading his Harlequin R
omance folded inside a military biography?”
“No, the other guy—” Aroostine pointed to where the man had been sitting but the stool was empty. He was gone—he’d slipped out without her noticing.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Joe followed the circle through the parking lot to the guest drop-off at the resort. A valet ran out from under the canopy, his collar turned up against the light misty rain that had been falling ever since they’d gotten back on the road.
“Park it for you, sir?”
Aroostine shook her head. “No. We’re going to self park. He’s just letting me out.”
She was too jumpy to let someone else have access to their vehicle—especially after their run-in with the man at the diner. She’d choked down her eggs and found she’d lost her appetite for Elle’s homemade pie. They’d eaten in a hurry, spooked by the stranger, and left the twenty on the table for Donna. When they walked out into the diner’s parking lot, she was glad she’d passed on the dessert. She almost lost her breakfast at the sight of a piece of paper stuck under the Tercel’s windshield wipers, fluttering in the wind.
Joe had taken a deep breath and plucked it with two fingers, glanced down at it, then handed it to her still folded in half. Her full name was scribbled on the front. Inside was a telephone number with a local area code. After she’d spent a good ten minutes crawling around underneath the car, they’d driven in silence to the resort—Joe split his attention between the road ahead and the rearview mirror, as if he expected to see someone chasing them; she stared down at the telephone number on the scrap of paper in her lap.
Joe cleared his throat. “Go ahead, Roo. I’ll park it and be in in a minute.”
She jolted back to the present. “Right. Sorry.”
She hopped out of the car and smiled at the valet, who seemed to have no hard feelings about the loss of the tip and was already holding the door open for her. She crossed the gleaming marble floor and stood in front of the rosewood front desk.
The willowy Asian woman clacking softly on the keys of a computer smiled up at her.
“Oh, Ms. Higgins, good afternoon. I have a package for you.”
She glided to a credenza behind the desk and scooped up a large brown envelope. She handed it to Aroostine with a graceful gesture. Her every movement was precise and beautiful, as if she were some modern-day geisha performing a complicated tea ritual.
“Thank you.” Aroostine glanced down at the package. The computer-generated label showed the Eugene Department of Justice field office as the return address. Good work, Sid.
“Certainly. Is there anything else, Ms. Higgins?” the desk clerk asked.
“Actually there is. I’m afraid I’ve lost my room key.” She smiled apologetically.
“No trouble at all,” the woman assured her. She swiped a key card through a reader in a fluid motion and handed it to Aroostine. “Will there be anything else?”
“Nope. All set. Thanks so much.”
Aroostine turned away from the desk just in time to watch Joe jog into the lobby, shaking the rain out of his hair like a dog.
“What do you have there?” He nodded toward the package in her hands.
“Care package from Sid. Come on, we’ll open it in the room.”
They made their way to the elevator bank and boarded the waiting elevator car. As the door closed, Aroostine turned to Joe. “I call the bath.”
His blue eyes darkened with desire. “I thought maybe we could share. You know, conserve resources.”
Her pulse fluttered—but for the first time all day, it wasn’t from fear.
Aroostine melted back into the pile of overstuffed pillows that covered the bed and closed her eyes, her wet hair fanned out behind her. She sighed contentedly.
“Feeling okay?” Joe asked.
She opened one eye. “Are you kidding me? ‘Okay’ doesn’t begin to do my current state justice. I’m clean, sated, and spent.”
“Then I suppose my work here is done.”
He pounded his bare chest in faux machismo and tightened the towel around his waist. She rolled her eyes and pushed herself off the bed, wrapping the sheet around her and tucking one end into the top as if she were wearing a very long sarong. She picked up the package from the Department of Justice and ripped it open. She shook out the contents onto the bed: two new passports; Pennsylvania driver’s licenses; a thick wad of rubber-banded cash, two smartphones with chargers; and a replacement credit card. She nodded her approval.
“Thanks, Uncle Sid,” Joe said behind her.
She scanned the short memo authorizing her to lead the investigation into the various recent criminal incidents on the White Springs Reservation, noted that it was signed by both Sid and the director of the Office of Tribal Affairs, and set it aside.
“Looks like we’re back in business.”
“Tell me you mean in the morning.”
“Get dressed, Tarzan,” she instructed. “I’ve got some calls to make.”
She started with the easiest one but Sid didn’t answer. She left a short message thanking him and letting him know she’d received the package. Then she waffled, trying to decide who to call next. She settled on Chief Johnson.
The dispatch operator put her through immediately.
“Lee Buckmount’s got himself a hotshot criminal defense attorney all the way from the city. He’s stinking up my station with his expensive cologne. Are you coming back tonight or what?”
“Hello to you, too, chief.”
“I’m serious, Ms. Higgins. Boom insists we can’t do anything without your say-so. So get yourself back here and say something.”
“Is Boom there?” she asked, ignoring the grumping.
“I think so. Last I saw, he was trying to con Lee’s big-city lawyer into a game of poker. Hang on.”
A loud clunk sounded in her ear. Apparently, Chief Johnson put callers on hold by dropping his phone receiver on his desk. While she waited, Aroostine cradled the phone between her ear and shoulder and rifled through her suitcase for a pair of yoga pants and her softest long-sleeved T-shirt.
“Yeah, he’s here,” Chief Johnson said, slightly out of breath. “Hang on.”
She stepped into the pants and pulled the shirt over her head before Boom got on the line. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that, despite his complaining, Joe was also getting dressed.
“Hello? Aroostine?”
“Hi. What’s Buckmount’s lawyer’s name?”
“Gordon Lane. Do you know him?”
“No. Should I?”
“He’s the go-to guy for professional athletes and rich businessmen who get themselves into trouble. Usually prostitution scandals, as far as I know. Though he did represent a member of the judiciary who tried to run over a fellow judge over a dispute about a parking space.”
“Sounds distinguished.”
“Lane or the judge?”
“Both.”
Boom chuckled. “Do you want to speak to him?”
“Nope. Let him cool his heels a while longer. I’ll be back in a couple hours. I wanted to talk to you, though.”
“You are talking to me.”
“Right.” She pushed past the awkwardness she felt at the position she was putting both of them in and said, “Listen, Washington wants me to take the lead on investigating what’s going on there. Chief Johnson seems more than happy to hand the mess off to me. But he’s focused on career preservation. I don’t know that anyone’s worried about what the tribe wants. I know you can’t speak for the entire tribe, but you’re on the cultural board—”
“Actually, Lee’s been relieved of his responsibilities as the head of the Tribal Board, pending the outcome of this . . . mess. I’ve been appointed to fill his seat in the meantime. So, I am authorized to speak for the tribe on this matter. And not only do we support your federal investigation, we’d like to ask you to handle the prosecution before the Tribal Court.”
“But—”
He anticipated her concern
and cut in. “There’s a procedure for authorizing a member of a sister tribe to fill that role. Akin to deputizing someone. We’re prepared to accept you, if you’ll take the job. We can pay you a stipend and provide you and Joe with housing, transportation, and a meal allowance for the duration.”
“Um . . . I’m flattered, but I need to talk to Joe. And my boss. I can’t take an appointment that will conflict with my duties as an assistant US attorney.” She wanted more than anything to say yes—but whether that was from a longing to belong to a tribe or from the career challenge, she wasn’t sure.
“You should talk to Joe, of course, but we’ve already received word from the Department of Justice that the Criminal Division has agreed to loan you out. You should get official approval soon.”
“Oh—okay.” If that had been the intent behind the memo from Sid and his counterpart at the Office of Tribal Affairs, the point had been obscured by the bureaucratic language. Her mind was racing.
“I’m not asking you for an answer right now, of course. Think. Talk it over. Perhaps you could sleep on it and see if your spirit guide weighs in.”
The quiet gravitas of his voice acted as a balm. Her worries about how she’d be perceived by the members of the tribe dissolved in its wake. Being asked to help the tribe felt like a great honor. It felt like something she should approach with due deliberation and consideration, but it also felt like a warm invitation.
“That sounds like a plan. I should let you get back to jawing at Mr. Lane.”
She ended the call to the sound of his laughter.
Two down, one to go.
“Why don’t you pack us an overnight bag? Let’s keep this as our base of operations but plan on sleeping at the cottage on the reservation tonight.”
“Works for me. You want anything in particular?”
“Nope.”
He started to gather toiletries and clothes in a neat pile while she pawed through the heap of dirty clothes they had discarded on the bathroom floor. She dug out the telephone number that had been under the windshield wiper. She grabbed the hotel-branded notepad and pen from the desk and tapped out the number.
Chilling Effect (An Aroostine Higgins Novel Book 2) Page 14