Page 1 of Claim

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BELL

Iturned up the collar of my jacket. A light rain was falling, and I was feeling chilled.

Scanning the street of the podunk town that lay halfway between Houston and New Orleans, I let out a sigh and crossed the road. There wasn’t much to it. There were a couple of cheap motels, some retail stores that had already closed for the day, and a gas station where the Greyhound bus stopped. The lights were on in the attached diner. It looked welcoming, and I needed a coffee.

Hitching up my backpack, I headed for the door. As a habit, I tightened my grip on the strap. The bag held all my possessions. Everything I had in the world.

When you were on the run, you couldn’t take very much with you.

And so much got left behind.

I hunched my shoulders and walked inside. A bell above the door jingled. An older blonde woman wearing a white apron and holding a coffee pot nodded at me.

“Take a seat, hon. I’ll be with you in a minute.”

With a nod, I took a seat at a table near the window. I watched a car drive past and scanned the growing shadows on the sidewalks.

There were no lurking silhouettes. No one was watching me.

Swallowing, I looked at the menu. The plastic was scarred and faded, and I ran my finger over a groove where someone had bent it once. I didn’t have a lot of money left, so I couldn’t splurge.

Loud voices echoed through the diner. Glancing sideways, I spotted three guys in their twenties at a booth, laughing and joking, as though they didn’t have a care in the world.

They probably didn’t. They probably worked, hung out, partied on the weekends. I wondered what that felt like.

An older, dark-haired guy sat a few tables away in the other direction, his head down as he read a newspaper.

The waitress appeared. “What can I get you?”

I shot her a small smile. “Coffee, please. Black. What’s today’s special?”

“Meatloaf. It’s not fancy, but the cook has a special recipe. I promise it’s hearty and filling.”

And cheap. “Meatloaf, it is.”

With a nod, the waitress—whose name tag said Karen—headed back toward the counter.

I drummed my fingers on the Formica table. I needed to decide where I was going. North? I could head to Memphis, or St. Louis. Or should I continue east? To New Orleans, or even Florida.

For a second, I wondered how my mom was doing back in Dallas. It’d been almost a year since I’d seen her.

It’s safer this way, Bell.

But that didn’t stop the pain. I missed her so much.

I’d always wanted to go to New Orleans. I tapped the table again. Then again, Florida had the beach. Who didn’t like warm weather and golden sand?

The front door opened, and a young couple entered, accompanied by a gust of cold air. The man had his arm around a slim woman with red hair. She was smiling up at him.

All of a sudden, my vision blurred.

Allison.

The image of my best friend—with her wide smile, freckles, and long, red hair—was stamped in my head. I had so many images of her.

We’d been best friends since the second grade. Since the day she’d sat down beside me in class and announced that we were going to be best friends forever. And we had been. Through elementary school, middle school, and high school. Then, we’d decided to go to college together at Baylor. I’d studied business, and Allie had wanted to be a nurse.

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