Cade drummed his fingers on the steering wheel. “Want to unload the suitcases first or find a place to eat?”
“Greasy spoon?” she asked, quoting him from earlier.
“One of the best.”
“Then let’s eat first. As cold as it is tonight, I don’t want to settle into warmth and then have to go out again. When do we meet the sheriff?”
“Soon. With the search going on, I can’t say any better than that.” He pulled away from the house, rounded a block and headed in toward the center of town. The houses grew bigger and some even boasted decent-sized yards.
If you blinked, DeeJay thought, you could miss the entire center of town with its flashing red stoplight. It had the kind of charm most old small towns boasted, along with the inevitable seediness. It could have been almost anywhere in the country or anywhere in the past century.
Whatever tourism might come to Conard County from the ski resort, the town hadn’t yet given in. No cheesy T-shirt shops, no cowboy-hat shaped neon announcing Western clothing. No upscale boutiques. No touristy stuff at all. The town hadn’t yet wakened to its new status. Maybe it never would.
They parked at a place called the City Diner. “It’s empty,” she remarked before they climbed out of the car. “That’s not a good sign.”
“This place has a great rep,” Cade answered. “And remember, people are either out searching for a boy or they’re locked inside where it’s safe.”
Three boys missing and the town feared they had a killer in their midst. Not understanding the mentality of most serial killers, they wouldn’t get that anyone other than a young boy would probably be safe. And that was wise, because there had been a few who had had no particular victim type, and hadn’t cared whom they had chosen for their ritual.
“Ramirez,” Cade said, almost as if he were reading her mind. “That guy ran the gamut in his victims.”
“But as far as we know, this one doesn’t.”
“So far.”
“Maybe more like Gacy.”
“Maybe.”
Inside, the diner looked ancient, with seats patched with tape and tables that were scratched past all shine but clearly clean. The menus weren’t even sticky, but the woman who waited on them was something else. If she’d ever had a charming bone in her body, it had abandoned ship a long time ago. Crockery clattered, cups slammed, hot coffee filled them and splashed a bit, and all without any communication beyond indeterminate grunts. Mavis apparently wasn’t much for talking.
Then came the platters overflowing with steak sandwiches and enough fries for an army. The dinner salads in their tiny bowls almost disappeared beside them.
It was then they discovered that Mavis could talk.
“You them travel writers?”
“Yes,” Cade and DeeJay answered together.
“Humph. Bad time to be coming to these parts. Don’t know if I like that whole ski thing, neither. We were getting along just fine.”
“You’ll get more business,” Cade pointed out.
“Already got all the business we want, and some that we don’t.” With that, Mavis stomped away.