Gus stood behind the register.
“Coffee?”
Pete raised his mug.
“Please.”
It sounded ridiculous.
Necessary.
Life returning one ordinary action at a time.
Carol found Maya in the employee hallway forty minutes later.
Agent Carver had arrived.
She was forty-three, Black hair tied back, calm voice, dark suit beneath a winter coat.
Carol recognized immediately that Carver knew how to speak to frightened people.
She never fired five questions at once.
Never asked why Maya had not run earlier.
Never said:
You're safe now.
Instead:
“You're safer here.”
“This building is controlled.”
“Frank and Roy are separated.”
“They cannot hear you.”
“We can stop anytime.”
Maya had changed into a clean sweatshirt Lisa brought from her truck.
The gray hoodie lay inside an evidence bag.
Carol hated looking at it.
Maya held a mug of hot chocolate.
When Carol entered, Carver paused.
Maya looked up.
“Carol?”
She had heard Gus say the name.
Carol sat on the bench.
“Hi.”
For a while, neither knew what to say.
Finally Maya asked:
“How did you know?”
Carol looked at her hands.
“Your hands.”
Maya frowned.
“The way you held them flat.”
“Like you were trying not to move.”
“And you didn't order.”
“Frank ordered.”
“Roy sat between you and the aisle.”
“You kept looking at the door without turning your head.”
Maya stared.
“You saw all that?”
“Not all at once.”
Carol shrugged.
“It just felt wrong.”
Maya looked down.
“Most people didn't notice.”
Carol thought about the gas stations.
Motels.
Stores.
The unknown number of people Maya must have passed.
“Maybe some did.”
Maya looked up.
“What?”
“Maybe they noticed one thing and didn't understand the rest.”
Carol swallowed.
“Dale taught us because something happened here before.”
“Rachel?”
Carol froze.
“You know her?”
“Frank mentioned her name once.”
Agent Carver looked up from the far end of the hall.
Maya continued.
“He was angry about something on the phone.”
“He said, ‘That Briggs mess made everyone paranoid.’”
Carol’s skin turned cold.
Carver moved closer.
“When did he say that?”
“Day seven.”
“Do you remember where?”
Maya closed her eyes.
Then began describing a motel.
Color.
Sign.
Nearby road.
Carver wrote.
The investigation suddenly widened.
Rachel Briggs’s case had never produced enough evidence for charges against a specific suspect.
Now there was a possible connection.
Dale learned about the statement after midnight.
He sat alone in booth one.
Everyone else had gone except Gus and Carol.
Carol approached.
“Dale.”
He looked up.
She told him.
He did not speak for almost a minute.
Finally:
“Carver heard it?”
“Yes.”
“She wrote everything.”
Dale nodded.
Then stared at the table.
Carol sat opposite him.
“Could it be them?”
“I don't know.”
“But…”
“I don't know.”
He looked at her.
“Don't turn a possibility into a fact because we want an answer.”
Carol nodded.
That was Dale.