Peter Whitfield. Of course. Of course the blizzard would deliver not only grace but unfinished business in a wet overcoat.
Claire felt the diner shrink around the three of them, as if the chrome had inhaled. Jack stepped aside automatically, hospitality trained into his bones deeper than suspicion. Mae's bat lowered an inch but did not return to its home. Snow blew in around Peter's polished shoes, melting into dark commas on the linoleum.
"Peter," Claire said. Her voice sounded steadier than her hands felt. "What are you doing here?"
"Bringing you home," he said, as if that were the most obvious sentence in the English language, as if home were a place he still had keys to. "Thanksgiving weekend. Your mother is beside herself. We can still salvage the family table if we leave at first light. Assuming the roads—"