Page 91 of Dining for Love

Two Hours Earlier

My pillow is wet with tears when I wake up. No wonder, really, considering I cried myself to sleep and started crying every time I awoke during the night—which was a lot.

Midnight blinks sleepily from her spot on the pillow beside me. I don’t know when she got on the bed, but it’s not in me to move her off. She probably misses Reid as much as I do.

I’d like nothing better than to stay here and wallow in my self-induced misery, but I need to get to work. Who knows? Maybe today will be the day I finally tell Mom that she’s stuck with me for the foreseeable future, and to lay off me for good.

I get ready for work and feed Midnight, who I know is completely able to stay on her own. Besides, Reid hasn’t come to get her, so that’s that.

I always drive in front of the diner before parking in the back, and today’s no different. What is different, though, is the sign on the door. I slow to peer at it.Closed due to plumbing issues.

That’s odd.

I pull my foot off the brake and am about to pull around to the back when I notice a van down the street.

Maybe I’m being paranoid, but I should drive past it. It’s probably a tourist in a really bad choice of vehicle, but enough time around Reid has finally had an effect, it seems.

I drive past the van, but it’s empty. Still, I should be careful. Just in case.

Not that Reid will care.

Which, fine, that might be unfair, but you know what? A girl gets to be unfair sometimes. Sue me.

I park another block away, giving myself enough distance from the sketchy-looking van to make a run for it if things go south.

Seriously, how is no one on the street right now? I know it’s early, but usually I could count on seeing at least one or two people.

I walk to the diner, then crouch as I near the corner and sneak to the back. I feel a little silly, especially when I see it’s a plumbing van. I’m about to rise and call out through the diner’s back door, but then I freeze, barely stifling a gasp.

Because the skinny creep from the booth with Officer Thompson is here, pointing a gun at my parents and sister, while another guy, super fit and super scary, ties them up.

Fear courses through me like lightning, and my legs shake as I watch with tears streaming down my face.

“Don’t hurt them!” Dad says.

Without a word, the scary one backhands him, sending Dad jerking to the side.

Mom and Goldie scream, then Goldie sobs, “Please let us go, please let us go,” over and over.

Fear turns to rage. Actual, legitimate rage, unlike anything I have ever known. I have never wished that I was some sort of superhero badass, but right now, I’d give anything for some of that power. A third man enters my line of sight, and I go rigid.

Officer Ted fucking Thompson.

“Goldie,” he leers, “I really need you to shut your trap, sweetheart.”

“Don’t you talk to my daughter like that!” Mom yells as Dad tries to get up from where he’s been shoved onto the floor.

A gunshot goes off.

I scream, but no one hears me because Goldie and Mom scream, too. Dad’s face is white as a sheet, and I frantically scan all three from where I crouch. They all seem fine, but I can’t be sure. My hands shake as I pull my phone out and clutch it.

Thompson stalks to the creep from the diner. “I told you we weren’t killing anyone. What the hell was that?”

I’ve seen enough. I scramble away from my hiding spot and run toward the front. Part of me wants to call Reid, but what if he’s in there and I can’t see him? And if I call and his phone rings, what then?

I can’t take that chance. I call Ox.

“Willa?”

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