It wasn’t until later, after he had dropped the biggest tip she ever received, that she learned trouble was, in fact, where he was going. It was a few minutes past eight on a Friday morning and Rachel was nursing a cup of coffee and leafing through the Sutter County Register. The breakfast crowd had come and gone, and she expected things to pick up again, oh, sometime tomorrow morning. The Crescent Diner did a good business in the hours between six and eight AM, but afternoons and evenings were deader than disco. At the moment, the only sounds in the diner were the low gurgling of the Silex and the whisper of the ceiling fans turning overhead. Reg was out back having a smoke and the jukebox (which contained such golden oldies as “Gangsta’s Paradise” and “Mambo No. 5”) was mercifully silent. The bell over the door jingled, and Rachel was so surprised by the sound that she almost dropped her coffee cup. She looked up from the newspaper and saw a man standing in the doorway.
