“OK, how about I eat and you hold down the other end of the booth?”
Riley tried to smile. “Sure.”
They were silent on the drive, but Riley couldn’t stop the voices in her head. What was she planning on doing? She couldn’t run away from her parents. They had no choice: they were going to take Riley away.
Then came an inching, niggling thought: what if Tim was telling the truth?
Riley shook her head. She couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe a stranger over her own parents.
But her parents had lied to her for fourteen years.
JD clicked his blinker on right before turning onto a cracked driveway.
Riley glanced out the windshield and wrinkled her nose. “You want to eat here?”
It was a perfectly square restaurant, once painted a cheery tropical pink. The pink had faded and peeled and hung like bits of dead skin off the building, making its boring fa?ade look less neglected and more zombie-homicidal. The neon “BU” of a once functioning Burgers sign twitched underneath lacy, fresh-looking curtains.
“Are you sure?”
JD skipped the regular parking lot and zipped around toward the back of the building, stopping the car just behind a fetid dumpster. Riley grimaced.
“You really know how to woo a lady.”
JD chuckled. “Who says ‘woo’?”
“Who parks their car five feet from a dumpster?”
“Someone who doesn’t want his car spotted. The least I can do is give you a half hour of freedom.”
Riley considered that and then nodded. “Good thinking.”
JD pulled the door open and grinned. “After you.”
Despite its faded, forgotten appearance, the restaurant was clean and cute inside: mismatched chairs surrounded light blue Formica tables, each dressed with a fake flower pushed into a milk bottle. It smelled homey—like butter and pancake batter—and Riley’s stomach seemed to spring to attention, announcing that she wasn’t nauseous; she was starving.
A redheaded woman who could have been Riley’s grandmother pushed out from behind a swinging double door and grinned at them. She was big all around; she took up most of the doorway she was standing in. Her demure, faded pink uniform pulled against her chest and hung longer in the front than it did in the back. She matched the ensemble with thick white tube socks and a pair of gaudy black and purple Sketchers—the kind that was supposed to give your butt a lift. Riley smiled at the ground.
“Just the two a you?”
JD nodded and the woman opened up her arms. “I’m Rose. I’ll be your waitress. Sit wherever you like.”
Rose followed them to a corner table and laid down two enormous laminated menus then filled up two glasses with water and ice. Riley looked down at the menu, her stomach growling.
“Wow, this is a huge menu.”
“Not really,” Rose said, shifting her weight. “We’re not serving any of this right now.” She jabbed a finger, pulling it down the entire left side of the menu. “Or this. We’ve got bacon, no sausage, huevos, no rancheros.” She laughed at her own joke, her apron jumping on her chest.
“How about burgers?” Riley asked.
“Oh yeah,” Rose said. “We got those. Wouldn’t have lit the sign if we didn’t.” She pointed her pencil toward the half-illuminated BU sign.
“Cheeseburger?” Riley asked. “Fries, Coke?”
Rose wrote it down, nodding at each word. “Check, check, and check.” She turned her enormous boobs toward JD. “And for you?”
JD handed up his menu. “Same. But can you add bacon to mine?”
Rose narrowed her eyes playfully. “We got bacon. No sausage.”
Riley leaned forward, feeling more comfortable. “Oh, and do you have cheddar cheese? Or just American?”
The smile fell from Rose’s lips. “We got square cheese.”
Riley raised her eyebrows and handed off her menu. “Good enough for me.”
Rose disappeared through the double doors yelling “two cheesers!” to no one in particular while Riley pulled her tablet out of her purse.
JD’s leaned in. “What are you looking up?”
Riley rested her elbow on the table, her chin in her hand. “You said you found Tim, Jane’s brother.”
“Your brother.”
She looked up. “What did you say?”
“If you’re Jane, then…”
“Not necessarily. Didn’t you say you found some webpage? Where he was looking for…” Riley swallowed hard. “Where he posted stuff?”
“Yeah.” JD slid the tablet to him and began searching.
Rose busted back through the double doors, Coke glasses in each hand. “So, what brings you two out today?”
“Uhhh.” Riley and JD both started.
Rose tapped her finger against her lips and smiled. “Oh, I see.”
Heat shot up Riley’s spine, smacking the back of her head. “You do?”
“I’m no idiot.” Rose’s eyes cut from Riley to JD. “Young lovers, sneaking off.”
Riley’s heart pounded when Rose pointed to her.