Opening extract
Lenora had ordered a grilled cheese sandwich because it was hard to turn one into a conversation. You could eat it with your hands. You could look busy with it. There was no sauce to identify, and nobody had to come over and tell you how their grandmother made it.
The woman behind the counter put down her plate.
“Hot,” she said.
“Good.”
“The plate.”
Lenora moved her wrist. They had understood each other. She liked that.
It was nearly four. Outside the Bellwether Diner, a fuel truck stood under the canopy of the gas station across the road. Beyond the rear windows, Ohio corn bent and lifted in the breeze. The diner occupied a junction well away from town, where an old state road met a newer highway. Two police vehicles were parked on the front apron. Lenora had hoped their occupants were eating somewhere else.
One of them was on the next stool but one.
“Six miles?” asked the man beside him.
“About that,” the deputy said. “But Sixteen's closed.”
“I understand the closure. I was asking about the town.”
The man wore a navy blazer and had the sort of face people trusted in an airport. He had already put his phone away, picked it up again, and looked at the waitress twice without saying what he wanted.
“Marnie,” he said now. “Could I have that coffee fresh?”
She looked at his cup. “It is fresh.”
“Freshly made, I meant.”
“So did I.”
Lenora turned the sandwich over. Both sides looked promising.
“Grant Mercer,” the man told the deputy, offering his hand. “Security consultancy. Before that, the Royal Marines. Captain.”
The deputy shook it. “Ellis Ward.”
“Good to have someone here who knows the ground, Ellis.”
Ward sat a little straighter. Mercer had made knowing where the town was sound like a service to the nation.
At a booth near the front window, a large man in a green wool cape lifted a finger. His beard spread over his chest; his leather satchel occupied most of the seat beside him.
“If we're giving credentials,” he said, “Basil Pritchard. Doctorate in comparative eschatology.”
Marnie carried the coffee pot past him. “Did you decide on food?”
“I was explaining my field.”
“You can do that with eggs.”
“The study of what different cultures believe about the end of the world. It has rather more present relevance than people tend to suppose.”
“Eggs stop at three.” She took his menu. “Burger?”
“Yes. And I have some forty thousand people following my work online.”
“Just the one burger, then.”
Lenora took a bite before she could help her out. Marnie did not need help.
End of extract
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