Page 100 of One Last Chance

He looked up. Stilled. The other waitress. He put her in her midtwenties, brown hair pulled back, a little hanging down and tucked behind her ears as if she’d had a trying shift. Her name badge read Sami.

“Hey, Sami. Um . . . is Tillie here?” He didn’t want to be obvious, but this was her section . . .

“Oh.” And the way she said it, the tiny sound of surprise, maybe awkwardness, had him sitting up. “Um . . . she’s not here.”

He leaned forward, raised an eyebrow. “Where is she?”

“Actually—” She glanced toward the kitchen, then back. “She . . . hasn’t been in for three days.”

Silence.

“Is she sick?”

“I don’t know. I . . . they called me to work her shifts. I don’t know if she’s fired or what, but nobody knows where she is.”

Moose just sat there. Swallowed. “Is your manager here?”

“No. She works days. But Lyle is here. He’s our night cook.”

Moose slid out of the booth and headed back to the kitchen.

“Sir—”

Moose turned, held up his hand, then pushed through to the kitchen. The place swam with grease, the griddle sizzling with a couple burgers, fries bubbling in the deep fryer. A stainless steel countertop ran the length of the wall opposite the griddle, and farther down, a scrawny teenage boy loaded dishes into the industrial dishwasher. An office with a closed door sat at one end of the kitchen, a deep freezer at the other, a back door led to the parking lot. And Lyle, the king of the kitchen, glared at Moose, his spatula raised, wearing a stained apron, his shirtsleeves rolled up, a hairnet over his prison-short hair. The guy looked fresh out of Spring Creek Correctional Center.

“No customers back here,” said Lyle.

“I’m just looking for Tillie. Do you know where she is?”

He flipped the burgers, pressed the grease out of them. “No. She took off a few days ago, right in the middle of her shift. Told our manager that she needed to take some time off.”

“No idea where she is?”

“You could try her house.”

“Where’s that?”

“Dunno.” He scooped up the hamburgers and stacked them into a bun, open on a plate. Added some lettuce, onions, and tomato, then closed it up and went over to the fries. Dumped them into a bin and salted them. Looked over at Moose. “You still here?”

“Listen . . . we’re . . . friends. And it’s weird, right? She never misses work.”

“She missed it once, last year.”

“Okay, she rarely misses work.”

The cook scooped up fries and dumped them onto the plate. Grabbed a couple pickles from a stainless steel bin and plopped them on the plate too. Set it under the lights. “Order!”

Then he grabbed a towel and wiped his hands. “Listen. I don’t know where she is. Tillie’s a tough broad—she can take care of herself, trust me. But if you’re asking me, I think she’s in some kind of trouble and doesn’t want to be found. You pickin’ up what I’m layin’ down here?”

He took a step toward Moose.

Moose held up a hand and tried very hard to breathe, keep his heart rate down. And nod. “I just want to know she’s okay.”

“Get out of my kitchen.”

Okay, he didn’t need an altercation.

“If she comes back?—”

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