Page 46 of To Have and to Hold

Becca slung eggs into her mouth like a frat boy who’d had the best drunken fuck of his life the night before.

“So good,” she mumbled through the scramble with the clatter of the Brooklyn diner behind her. The place was packed with the early morning rush, single parties hunched over the bar and the rest of us in booths and vinyl tables. It was too loud for music, but it wasn’t needed. All one required in the mornings before 9 AM was voices meshing and stainless steel banging out with the sizzle of fried bacon and eggs.

An order to the line cooks rang out. “I need an Adam and Eve on a raft with cow paste!”

No clue what that meant.

“Did your stomach eat itself last night while you were sleeping?” I asked as I lifted coffee to my mouth. Food wasn’t going to pass as fuel today. “And now you have to grow a new one?”

“Stress,” she said once she swallowed. She took a big gulp of apple juice, poured in one of those sixties plastic yellow glasses. “Whenever I’m upset about something, I eat my terror.”

I scraped the pad of my index finger along the tines of my fork.

“So. What’s on the books today?” she asked. I inched my coffee away from her because she was eyeing it too closely and signaled the waitress for a refill.

“Does that mean I get you for another twenty-four hours?” I asked.

“Whether or not you want custody of me.” Becca shrugged. “Yesterday gave me a lot, but not nearly enough. We need more. We have to keep going until our legs don’t work anymore and our eyes can’t close, because my friend is out there—”

“Hey.” I put a hand on hers to stop her, and we nearly fell into the grease of her plate. “I get it.”

“So I can keep being your sidekick?”

I grunted acquiescence. I wasn’t averse to the help. No case is solved by one person, and no courtroom is commanded by a single lawyer. If I really wanted to get to the bottom of what happened to Emme, I had to accept help. Any and all. Including from a best friend with no paralegal or detecting skills other than she could probably direct me to a shelter that protected against nuclear bombs if needed.

My phone buzzed in my pocket. The ID said Unknown Caller, but that meant nothing. Telemarketers, Knox calling from somewhere strange, maybe Emme’s other friend Jade who I was trying to get a hold of…

“Hello?” I answered.

Dead silence met my greeting, and I cupped the phone to my ear, thinking the breakfast rush around me was preventing the caller from being heard.

“Hello?” I asked again, ducking out of the booth and standing.

“Spencer Rolfe?”

The voice sounded tinned, like it was coming through an electronic hindrance before reaching the phone’s receiver. I bent my head with my cell pressed to the side of my face, as if that would somehow help my ear canals get clarity.

“Yeah. Who’s calling?”

“Someone important.”

“Okay.” Now I looked around, like the caller was somewhere nearby.

“Sp-Spencer?”

The voice changed. Became female.

Became her.

I flew away from the table, spilling my coffee as the other banged against the wall.

“Jesus!” Becca said.

I said into the phone, “Emme? Emme?”

The color bled from Becca's face.

“Spence!” Emme’s voice carried through the phone, weak and shaky. “You have to—”

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